Kingdom Hearts fic: Connections of the Heart - Chapter 4

[mistressofmuses]

In chapter 4: Faced with a new requirement for the alliance to go through, Kairi, Riku, and Sora have to decide what to do.

---

Sora was listening to Riku’s description of the nature preserve they’d spent the morning at. It sounded beautiful—apparently there were very dramatic waterfalls—but they’d been forced to return early due to an inopportune rainstorm.

Kairi probably wouldn’t be back for another hour or so, since she was having a private lunch with Queen Lyshen. Hopefully that meant that everything was getting closer to an ultimate resolution. It was hard to tell for sure, with how Eclenna balanced their political dealings, but it seemed like it had to be either a very good or a very bad sign to have the two rulers-slash-future-rulers spending time alone. And Sora was going to absolutely believe it was good, because everything so far had been.

The click of the door closing and locking was barely audible over the conversation.

Sora turned toward the sound, already ready to greet his fiancée, back sooner than expected, and tell her that she should hear all about the place Riku had seen.

The words evaporated as soon as he saw the blank look on Kairi’s face. She looked calm, but utterly blank in a way that was far worse than if she’d been in tears.

Suddenly he was afraid that maybe it hadn’t been such a good thing that the queen had invited Kairi to meet in private.

Riku was on his feet less than a half pace behind Sora as they both crossed the room to Kairi.

She didn’t even seem to see them, just heading straight for the loveseat they’d vacated, and collapsing down onto it.

The seat was small for three, but Sora and Riku both squished in to either side of her. Sora wrapped an arm around the small of her back, and Riku wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

“What happened?” Riku asked.

Sora was halfway through readying the question—only half-joking—of whether they needed to plan to flee the country, when she let out a shuddering breath.

She leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Eclenna is willing to ally with Radiant Garden, if one more condition is met."

That should have been good news, but something was clearly wrong.

“Okay?” Sora prompted.

Kairi swallowed heavily. “They want to host my wedding before the agreement is signed. My wedding to Riku.”

“And you said no,” Riku said.

Sora frowned. Riku sounded utterly certain, and so brittle that it almost short-circuited Sora’s concern about the bigger issue at hand.

Kairi didn’t reply immediately.

“You didn’t say no,” Sora guessed.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t.” That was when the tears started.

Sora pulled her into a tighter hug against him, and she curled into his chest.

Before Riku could do something stupid like pull away, or try to retreat, Sora yanked him into the hug as well. There was a moment of resistance, and then Riku surrendered into it, awkwardly sandwiching Kairi between them as she sobbed.

“I didn’t know what to do!” she forced out in hitching breaths. “I should have said no, or maybe I should have told her the truth, but I didn’t. I can’t even remember what I did say, just something about having to talk to Riku about it. But whatever I said exactly, I think I agreed to it. I don’t know what to do now.”

“You-” Riku started.

Sora poked him in the ribs. He knew what Riku was going to say: that Kairi should have said no, and if he said that, then she was probably going to listen to him, and then she would tell Lyshen no, and then the alliance wouldn’t happen, and… All the horrible things that it would lead to spun out around him. He met Riku’s eyes over Kairi’s shoulder and hoped he understood.

Or could at least wait.

Kairi had never been much of a crier, so it was only another minute or two before her breathing steadied, and her words stopped tangling over each other.

Once the tears had stopped completely, Sora leaned back enough that Kairi had room to look up at him. As soon as she made eye contact, he said, “You did the right thing,” putting every bit of conviction he could behind the words.

Never mind that his chest felt hollow.

His fiancée had just agreed, tacitly, to marry someone else instead.

He wouldn’t say that was devastating, or anything quite so dramatic. If she married anyone else it would be Riku, obviously. Probably should have been him from the start.

But still. It didn’t feel good.

That didn’t change the fact it had been the right choice for her to make. The alliance, and what it would mean for Radiant Garden, to say nothing of what it would mean for her, had to be the priority.

He tried to grin, and it mostly felt real. “We all agreed to commit, right?”

“Sora—” Riku said, already sounding exasperated.

“No, Riku,” Sora interrupted. “We agreed.”

Riku scrambled up from the couch. “Not to this. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“What should we do, then?” Kairi asked.

Sora recognized the tight control her voice was under, though he’d only ever heard it when she was speaking to the council. When she didn’t want them to know how she felt. How upset she was.

“We leave.” Riku started pacing. “We pack up, right now. We fake an emergency back home. Or maybe just don’t say anything; just get across the border as fast as we can.”

“Seriously?” Sora asked. “You think we should—Kairi should—give up on everything?”

“It went too far. It was a bad idea that we never should have tried, and now it went too far.”

“And we’re stuck with it!” Sora snapped. “What do you think is going to happen if we run away?”

Riku stopped pacing, biting his lip so hard Sora was surprised he didn’t see blood.

“Kairi did the right thing,” Sora repeated. He tightened his arm around her. “This is more important than just the three of us. You know that, right? This could be about all of Radiant Garden.”

Riku took a deep, shaky breath.

“I’m sorry,” Kairi said. “I’m the one who put you in this position. Both of you. I’m the heir, the maybe-future queen. It shouldn’t be your responsibility to worry about all of Radiant Garden.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Sora said. “Of course it’s our responsibility. I agreed to that when we decided to get married.”

He winced. Maybe that had been the wrong thing to say at just that moment. He pushed on. “And even ignoring that, Riku and I are your best friends, aren’t we? So of course we worry about the things that matter to you.”

Riku nodded, reaching out to rest his hand on Kairi’s shoulder again. “Sora’s right. It’s not your fault we’ve been pulled into things. We would always have been here to do anything we could to help you.”

She reached up to rest her fingers on Riku’s, holding them tight to her shoulder. Her voice still had that uncomfortably detached tone when she spoke. “But I can’t volunteer you for anything. I can’t make you do something you don’t want to do, and that’s what I did by agreeing to Lyshen’s—Eclenna’s—condition.”

“It’s not… I can’t be the thing that hurts two people I l- I care about,” Riku said. “I can’t be responsible for breaking your engagement to each other.”

Kairi didn’t say anything, but didn’t drop her hand away from Riku’s. She didn’t pull away from Sora, either.

“You aren’t coming between us,” Sora said. Riku seemed practically obsessed with the idea, had been this whole time. Or some fear that he was doing something wrong, something he’d be blamed for.

“Pretty sure me marrying your fiancée in your place would count,” he said stiffly.

Sora took a deep breath and held it. Inanely, he remembered his mother telling him he looked like a pufferfish when he did that, and he breathed out slowly. “I know you aren’t trying to come between us,” he amended. “That’s not what this is.”

“It doesn’t matter if I’m trying to, because that’s exactly what it is,” Riku argued.

“Nothing has happened yet.” Kairi’s voice was soft, but it broke through the beginnings of the argument.

“Nothing is going to happen until we all agree,” she continued. “So let’s look at the choices we do have.”

They spent the next half hour with all three of them crammed on the loveseat, trying to dissect the situation from every possible angle. Other than the stakes at hand, the process was a familiar one.

The three of them had spent many late nights and long afternoons holed up together to debate something, or to make a plan. From when they were kids and teenagers dealing with school projects, to the last several years spent helping Kairi to refine arguments she wanted to put before the council.

If it hadn’t been for the fact this could so easily determine the future for the three of them, Sora would almost have found it relaxing.

Even doing their best to be unemotional about the options, no shining, perfect solutions manifested during their examination. Ultimately, whatever choices they had, they boiled down to only three potential paths they could take.

They could come clean with the Eclennans. They could reveal the ruse, explain that Sora was actually Kairi’s fiancé, and that he’d been afraid of the diplomacy aspects. They could hope the Eclennans would be understanding and forgiving. But if they weren’t…

That wouldn’t go terribly well.

Choice two was to keep up the ruse. Riku and Kairi could plan their wedding, hybridizing Eclennan and Radiant Garden traditions. Best case scenario, this would lead to the alliance being formalized. While they would have no small amount of explaining to do back home, it would meet the council’s requirement for Kairi to ascend as queen.

The most dramatic downside, at least on the personal front, was that it would likely be years before Riku and Kairi could end their marriage without it potentially destabilizing—if not dissolving—the alliance. That was if they were ever able to do so. While it was unlikely that the alliance failing would be enough to damage her queenship over Radiant Garden, it would tarnish her Great Work, as well as put Radiant Garden back into a much more precarious political situation. That meant it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that Kairi and Riku would have to prepare for the marriage to be permanent.

And Sora would just have to make peace with that. And so would Riku and Kairi.

The last option was to go with Riku’s initial reaction: flee for the border. Either literally, or with a maybe-shoddy excuse about having to immediately return home to Radiant Garden. An illness or a death in one of their families, perhaps. Maybe they could invent some custom that would forbid a wedding before an appropriate mourning period. Of course, that would be piling new lies on top of old, and of a kind that could be too easily disproven if Eclenna really looked into it.

Best case scenario for that solution would be that maybe they could try for an alliance again sometime in the future, without the ruse that had gotten them into trouble. It would be more difficult; they’d have to fight against the perception that Kairi’s “original” engagement had been called off in favor of someone else, and she’d have to get permission from the council again to even pursue a second attempt. And who knew if the council would grant it, much less allow it as the required Great Work on a second try.

The likelihood of that best-case for scenario three felt pretty thin. The council was far from generous toward Kairi, as they knew unfortunately well. And the invitation from Eclenna had been so unprecedented, it seemed like a big assumption to think they’d be open to it again, especially if they had some reason to believe Kairi was somehow fickle.

Sora had to grit his teeth against even the thought that people would believe that of her. Kairi was one of the least fickle people he’d ever met.

Kairi let out a heavy sigh. “So now what?”

“Thr-” Riku started.

“Option two,” Sora said, before Riku could get the word out.

He knew Riku would vote for option three. Maybe there was something to be said for the stubbornness inherent in both of them, that in all the talking, they were still both attached to their first inclinations.

Before Riku could say anything, Sora pushed on. “In order for three to have a good outcome, there’s too much left up to other people. Too much of it depends on the council or on Eclenna.”

“I think Sora is right,” Kairi said. “Number three and number one have that in common: it’s up to other people how it turns out. Two gives us the most control.”

“But requires the longest-term… pretending.” Riku’s voice was choked.

Kairi was leaning forward, elbows on her knees. She turned her focus toward Riku. “Could you do that?”

“Could you?” he countered.

There was less than a second of hesitation before she nodded. “Yes. But not if I have to force you to do something that will keep you miserable.”

Even though he’d already thrown his vote behind the same option, Sora still knew he probably should be upset or hurt that his fiancée was ready to accept a future being married to someone else. But the pang didn’t come.

“I wouldn’t be miserable,” Riku said, looking completely miserable. “Unless you were. Or Sora was. And I can’t imagine that you two wouldn’t be.”

“It’s not perfect, but it’s the best we have,” Sora said. “Knowing that we made the choice that best protects Radiant Garden? That part doesn’t—and won’t—make me miserable.”

Kairi nodded. She reached out and took both Riku’s and Sora’s hands. “I love Sora. I will always love Sora. But I love you too, Riku. You’ve both been my best friends forever, and will be forever. But I also love Radiant Garden. I have to do what’s best for the country I’m hoping to lead. And securing an alliance with Eclenna does that. It’s not like it’s some horrible hardship to think that I’ll be doing that with you by my side.”

Riku looked down and to the side, though he gripped her hand back just as tightly. He didn’t look away quite fast enough to hide the tears.

“But,” she said, “I know that it’s asking for what could be a big sacrifice from you, too. And I won’t bully you into that, all right? If you can’t do it, if it’s too much for me to ask… then we can leave.”

“It’s not too much to ask.” His voice was quiet, but Sora could still hear it. “I meant it when I said we’d be here, doing everything we can to help you. If this is what’s going to help, then of course I’ll do it.”

Kairi hauled her arms around them both and pulled them into what was a terribly bittersweet hug.

“What are the rules?” Riku asked. “Same as they’ve been?”

“If that’s what you want,” Kairi said.

“Displays of affection in public only. Commit to it. No pretending in private,” Riku recited.

“We can do this,” Sora said.

They would have to.

---

Kairi desperately wanted to call one of the palace staff and claim a headache to get out of dinner for the evening. Unfortunately that would hardly be in keeping with the attitude of an excited future queen who’d just been granted everything she ostensibly hoped for in one tidy package. Not that headaches cared about happiness, but it could still leave a poor impression.

At least this was a much smaller, calmer dinner, rather than a capital-E Event like the ball, or a bigger celebration.

It still passed in a haze. She had accepted the offer when Lyshen made it, though a bit vaguely, before she’d stumbled back to their suite. Now she was able to give a much more coherent and enthusiastic answer.

Riku, of course, played the perfect, charming, supportive, doting fiancé that he’d been playing the whole time. Even Kairi didn’t feel any hesitancy from him, and she knew it had to be there.

Even so, it was still a relief when they were able to return to their rooms at the end of the evening.

Riku hugged her, arms warm and strong. I was the kind of hug that made her feel like things really would be okay. Then he pressed a kiss to her forehead and immediately retreated to his smaller room in the suite. She’d hoped that he would stay and talk with her and Sora some more, but she couldn’t fault him for needing time to himself.

He had just agreed to something that could be a sacrifice he’d continue making for the rest of his life.

Sora was already in their bedroom, on top of the covers on his side, paging idly through a book he’d obviously taken from the sitting room. Even before he looked up, she knew he hadn’t really been reading it.

“Hey.” He shot her a crooked smile, then glanced down, like he wasn’t sure what to say.

She didn’t care about changing out of her dress, instead practically flinging herself onto the bed next to him. By the time she’d shifted toward him, his arms were already open to hold her.

She let him pull her into his chest, and just lay there for several moments. He exhaled against her hair, and hugged her tight.

It wasn’t surprising that Sora was the one to break the silence, even if it was only to ask, “Are you okay?”

She replied with a sharp breath of laughter and wrapped her arms around him even more tightly. How, with everything he was doing for her, everything he’d agreed—even volunteered—to give up, because it would help her and Radiant Garden… How could he still be asking if she was all right?

“I love you,” she said instead of answering. “You know that, right?”

“I know.” No hesitation.

“Are you okay?”

She felt him shrug more than saw it. She leaned back to look at his face. He looked… thoughtful, maybe. Usually she’d tease him about that not being a common look for him, but now definitely wasn’t the time.

As usual, he didn’t let the silence last too long. “I know that this is the best choice we have. I told Riku that, and I meant it; knowing that we’re all making the choice that’s best for Radiant Garden is a good feeling. That doesn’t mean I’m completely happy about everything.”

She nodded.

If she hadn’t been leaning against his chest, she might not have heard when he added, “I was going to marry you.”

That was enough to tear the threatening sob out of her chest. She’d been holding it in for too long, ever since she’d stopped crying back in the living room hours ago.

Sora’s arms tightened again fractionally. More loudly he said, “And I still would. But if I can’t, I’m so glad it’s Riku.”

She nodded, burying her face farther against his chest. The wet spot she’d already left on his shirt pressed against her cheek. “I want to marry you. That hasn’t changed.”

“This would be a really elaborate way to try and call the engagement off,” he said. The tone was a little flat, but she appreciated the attempt at lightening the mood.

This time her sob was at least half-mixed with a laugh.

Sora ran his hands up her back to her shoulders, pulling her back just enough so that she would look at him. “I’m not upset,” he said. “I’m sad. I can’t say I’m not. But I love you. I love Riku. That’s not changing. This is the best thing we can do.”

She kissed him. Just a press of her lips to his. It was gentle and sweet, and she hoped he felt every bit of how much she loved him. When they pulled back, just a fraction of an inch, she said against his lips, “When we’re alone, we don’t have to pretend.”

Kairi was clinging to that like a lifeline. Even if it couldn’t be public, even if no one could know that she and Sora were still together, they would know.

She didn’t know how they’d make that work, make that be enough, forever. But they would if they had to. Plenty of monarchs had mistresses or lovers other than their spouse, after a marriage made for something other than love. It wasn’t something she’d go so far as to say was encouraged, or even really accepted… but there was a kind of resigned expectation that such a thing could happen. You could marry for all kinds of reasons, so sometimes you found love elsewhere.

Of course, she did love Riku, so that wasn’t quite the situation for them, but all three of them understood it. If Riku wanted to pursue a relationship someday, she certainly couldn’t begrudge him that. The thought of him doing so hurt, but as soon as the thought occurred, she knew with absolute certainty that he wouldn’t.

Why she was so sure, and what exactly that meant, was something she’d have to unpack later.

Sora kissed her again, and this time it wasn’t quite as soft. Still sweet, but more insistent. She was glad to reciprocate.

His fingers found the fastening of her dress between her shoulder blades, and easily unhooked it, tugging the zipper down her spine to the small of her back.

Dress tossed to the side, she was perfectly happy to spend some time not thinking about everything ahead of her. Ahead of all of them.

Whatever else they had to deal with, she knew she had the best possible people facing it with her. And despite everything, that made her feel like one of the luckiest people in the world.

---

“You’ll absolutely have access to all of the libraries and the museum if you think it will be helpful. Amara and I would be happy to point you toward some of our favorite sections, if you’d like a place to start,” Lyshen said.

“I’m sure that would be very helpful for both of us,” Kairi said, smiling up at Riku.

He pulled her a little closer, just a squeeze of an arm around her shoulder, before letting go again. The kind of almost-shy affection of a loving partner trying not to be too forward in front of someone else.

He played this role well enough to break her heart again.

“Well, we can head to the library now, if you’d like,” Amara offered. “I remember how long Lyshen and I spent selecting our references; it usually takes a while.”

“We’d love that,” Kairi said.

“Should get started, it sounds like,” Riku added, giving her a look that seemed both indulgent and conspiratorial.

Apparently one of the most important aspects of the Eclennan wedding ceremony—one they would be incorporating—was the finding of “references”. These were stories and quotations and such relating to figures from folklore and history, selected by the soon-to-be-spouses for the emotional resonances they felt with them. They would find inspiration in these figures from the past, connecting them to their relationship now.

It was a sweet custom, and one that Kairi would ordinarily have been extremely enthusiastic about. She was trying to summon that enthusiasm. Or, well, maybe that was a lie. She actually was looking forward to the process, looking for things in Radiant Garden’s history as well as Eclenna’s, heroes out of stories… She knew there would be countless people and loves that reminded her of Riku. Of Sora.

Maybe she thought she should feel less enthusiastic, given the situation. That she shouldn’t be excited about any of this. Finding joy in any part of it felt like a betrayal. Yet at the same time, she had to convince everyone else that she was a happy bride-to-be, so she should seem like she was enjoying it all.

Convince other people that you’re deliriously happy, while making sure you’re actually the appropriate level of miserable, because genuinely enjoying it would be wrong of you.

The library in the palace was certainly extensive, reminding Kairi strongly—and with one of the first real pangs of homesickness she’d had—of the one in Radiant Garden. It had always been one of her favorite rooms, a retreat from the rest of the palace when she needed it.

Amara slid away down one of the aisles, reaching up to pull down heavy-looking volumes that she knew exactly where to find.

Lyshen showed them to a table, set up with more of the magical, glowing lights that provide most of the indoor illumination in the palace.

“How many of these references are we supposed to find?” Riku asked.

A good question. One Kairi should have thought to ask.

“No particular number. Most partners find two or three stories that truly speak to them, and sometimes one they share. Each will be summed up in just a line or two during the ceremony. It might be nicely symbolic if you each found at least one reference from Radiant Garden, and one from Eclenna.”

Kairi nodded along.

“Of course, only if that works for you. If you prefer to stick to figures from Radiant Garden, that would be fine. I know your introduction to our history has been very recent.”

“No, I think that would be nice. To have both, I mean.”

“We’ll work on the timing for things within the ceremony itself,” Lyshen continued. “We want to be sure to blend the most important aspects of the Eclennan ceremony with the Radiant Garden traditions you have. Nothing weighed too heavily to one side or another.”

“Absolutely,” Kairi agreed. “I think I’d mentioned the paopu sharing as a tradition I’d like to incorporate.”

Sharing a paopu fruit was more of a regional tradition than one for Radiant Garden as a whole. But out on the coast it was a beloved part of any marriage ceremony. The fruit that tied anyone who shared it together, ensuring their destinies would remain entwined forever. It was something Kairi had always known she would do. She’d almost shared one with Sora and Riku years and years ago, back when they were barely teens. Would things be different now, if they had? Or was that fanciful thinking at best?

She shook the thoughts off so that she wouldn’t miss what Lyshen was saying.

“We will definitely make sure to get the appropriate fruit for you. That’s not a custom I’d ever heard of, but I have a feeling it might catch on as something of a trend after this! On the Eclennan side, the sharing of references as part of the vows is probably the most important thing. And the Sacred Star.”

“Sacred Star?” Kairi asked. She’d heard plenty of celestial terms mentioned, but couldn’t remember that one in particular.

“An old spell. Mythology holds that the original incarnation was a captive star, brought down to Eclenna by the founders of the nation. Connections between hearts are things that we treat very seriously, as you know. The Sacred Star judges the honesty of the participants in a marriage, ensuring their love is genuine. If the connection between them is not genuine, then the Star will dim. That would be… fairly disastrous, I suppose, since that means the ceremony can’t be completed. But of course that will be no problem for the two of you!”

“Of course,” Kairi laughed.

This could be a problem.

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