Kingdom Hearts fic: All Strange Wonders - Chapter 13

[mistressofmuses]

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“There’s a bird in the castle,” Riku said flatly when he returned that evening.

“Er, yes there is,” said Sora. He wasn’t exactly sure what else he should say about the bird. Riku had to be able to see she was magical. Then again, he hadn’t noticed Sora’s curse in the months he’d been here, so perhaps Riku’s powers of observation weren’t that keen. “She seems quite tame.”

Riku stared up at her, perched now on one of the rafters, long tail feathers hanging down just far enough to brush someone’s head if they walked by. “Keep her fed, and I don’t want to see stray feathers all over everything.”

As if Riku had ever noticed a bit of mess or clutter. But Sora nodded his agreement.

---

The next morning, Riku announced that it was time for them to complete the commission for the palace. Indeed, he turned his attention fairly single-mindedly toward churning out the last seventy-odd packets of the speed spell.

If the thrill of participating in producing magical spells had faded during the previous rounds, that was nothing compared to doing this many at one time. It was exhausting.

“Do you think this means he’s going to take the Royal Wizard position seriously, after all?” Sora asked, after Riku left to deliver the completed spells.

Kairi just fixed him with the flattest look he could imagine a fire giving. “What do you think?”

Sora collapsed into the chair next to her. “You’re right.”

He got his confirmation when Riku returned, smugly jingling a very full coin purse. “And with any luck, that’s the last of them that I will need to see for a very long while.”

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Over the next several days, Sora barely saw Riku.

Riku claimed to be out on an endless list of errands, all focused on preparing the places the castle was going to move to.

He had gone back into Twilight Town and purchased the shop that had once been Key and Blade, at least in part using the funds from the commission. Knowing that gave Sora a strange, hollow feeling in his chest, but he tried to ignore it.

And of course, Riku disappeared frequently through the door to Destiny Islands, often after a long time spent getting ready. Sora was starting to hate the lovely orange blossom scent that accompanied him after he got ready in the morning. Objectively, it was very nice, and it smelled even better on Riku, but it also always meant that he would disappear for hours courting Tae.

They were setting into a pleasant breakfast of fluffy pancakes and honey, when Kairi flared up on the hearth. “Hold onto something!” she shouted.

Sora did as he’d been told, gripping the edge of his bed. Riku dropped his plate, which cracked in half when it hit the floor, in order to grip the chair.

Seconds later, the entire castle shuddered. Not like when Riku had been exaggerating his sneezes. More like the entire thing had been picked up and dropped from a foot above the ground.

“He’s found us!” said Kairi, her flames flickering and swirling around her. “He’s just outside!”

Sora didn’t need to ask who she was talking about.

Riku was up and out the door into Traverse Town in seconds, and Kairi’s attention all seemed to turn inward, as she hunched over and focused on something. There was a sort of pent-up energy around her that Sora could feel.

The bird let out one frantic chirp and ruffled her feathers before coming down to land on Sora’s shoulder.

“Will you be okay?” he asked Kairi.

“As long as Riku is,” she said grimly, before her attention was clearly no longer on Sora.

Sora rushed out the door after Riku. He’d never been through the door into Traverse Town before, despite having lived in the castle for more than a month now. From the other side, the entrance looked like a small house, with a signboard hung over the door, advertising “Destiny’s Gifts: Charms, Spells, and More.”

He raced across an open, cobblestone square. He couldn’t see where Riku had gone, but from a few frantic cries ahead of him, he could guess a direction to aim for.

The bird’s claws dug into his shoulder as he ran, until she couldn’t quite hold on. Then she took off, soaring next to and above him as he tried to follow Riku.

They passed an overturned table outside a restaurant, and shop fronts with tables of wares that had been knocked askew. People pressed themselves to the sides of the street, trying belatedly to clear a path, and Sora knew he had to be getting closer. Above them, people crowded onto balconies overhanging the street, craning to look at something up ahead.

The bird flew down in front of him, before conspicuously turning to fly down a narrow alleyway between a pair of buildings. Sora followed her.

Her shortcut led them to another district, paved in smooth grey stone, and built on two levels. The main level that the alley let them out onto was ringed with larger shops and administrative offices. Stairs led down to a lower level, where an open square seemed to serve as a common area. Like Twilight Town’s common square, a clock tower rose above it.

Right now, it was the site of a battle.

People huddled in some of the doorways, while other offices had clearly been closed. A few people rushed past, running away from the two magic-users clashing in the square below.

Sora ran the opposite direction, toward the danger, leaning over the hip-high wall that prevented someone falling from the upper level into the square.

The Warlock was below, surrounded by an apparent army of small, inky shadows. They crouched and pounced, rushing at Riku, only a few yards away.

He was calling down elemental spells: flickers of fire, blasts of ice, and bolts of electricity to counter the creatures. A hit or two would dissolve one of the little figures, but more would rush to take its place.

Riku shut his eyes, as if to concentrate on a particularly difficult spell. His hands were raised, and his lips were moving, though it was of course too far away for Sora to hear anything. The Warlock took full advantage of his focus, lunging across the distance between them, faster than Sora would have thought possible.

Sora cried out, reaching forward over the wall, nearly toppling himself over it.

But just after the Warlock of the Wasteland reached him, Riku disappeared.

The Warlock looked angry at having been denied his prey, and looked frantically around. Sora ducked down, not wanting to draw any more of the Warlock’s attention than he’d already received, but it wasn’t necessary.

The Warlock spotted Riku, now almost all the way across the square, at the base of the clock tower. He took off, still unnaturally fast, toward Riku.

Riku summoned a spell that swirled the air beneath him, lifting him higher off the ground, until he was rising toward the clock face.

The Warlock of the Wasteland began to warp and twist, his body growing longer, and losing any human appearance. His skin began to crack and steam, like parched earth with something molten lurking underneath. He more than doubled, then quadrupled in size, reaching high enough to grab at Riku where he floated on his captive wind.

Riku dodged to the side, just managing to grab for the top of the clock tower before his air spell dissipated. The monster raked one sharply clawed hand toward him, and Sora watched as it narrowly missed. Sora stifled another cry. Even the bird next to him flapped her wings in agitation.

Riku pulled himself up to the top of the tower, ducking inside a passage leading behind the clock face.

The monster snarled, an echoing, tearing sound that must have been heard everywhere in Traverse Town. It began to bash at the clock tower with its hands and the tower rang with it. The bell that marked the hours gave dissonant clangs as the creature attacked it. The Warlock’s form seemed to grow even more monstrous, the space between the cracks of his skin beginning to glow with internal heat. Sora could feel it, like a furnace.

And then Riku appeared on the ground of the square, not in the clock tower at all. Sora was reminded of the time he’d watched Riku leave the castle, and reappear in his room.

Riku raised his hands again and shouted something. A clap of thunder obscured the words, but between one breath and the next, the sky had clouded over, and torrents of rain began to come down on the creature. As soon as the rainwater hit it, it evaporated in huge gouts of hissing steam. The monster cried out as if pained, and the clouds of foul-smelling steam obscured everything from view.

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The bird helped Sora back through the alleyway and to the shop front that served as the castle entrance. His eyes and lungs were burning from the acrid steam that had come from the monster. The air had cleared once they were out of that district, though he pitied the people who had stores or homes nearby.

Now finally able to breathe again, and his eyes finally clearing, he hesitated with his hand on the door.

He hoped the monster’s scream of pain had signified Riku winning their fight, but he didn’t know for sure. If Riku was still there, still fighting…

“Go inside,” the bird said, having returned to her perch on his shoulder. “You can check on Kairi. Riku will come back when he can.”

Sora hoped she was right. He tapped on the door, just to be polite, but didn’t wait for Kairi to do anything before letting himself in.

Inside the castle, everything seemed just a little too dim. There was plenty of light coming in from the Traverse Town window, but the rest of the room seemed dark.

Kairi was lying in the hearth, barely moving. Her flames were dim, their flickering slow and low.

“Kairi?” Sora asked, crossing the room in as few strides as possible. “Kairi!”

One purplish flame in her face flickered up, like her opening an eye. “‘ll be a’right,” she slurred.

He’d never seen her like this. She barely even felt like a fire, her warmth barely there. Sora almost thought he could reach out and touch her without burning himself. What did you do for a fire that looked in danger of going out?

Sora dug around until he found a few bits of paper in one of the piles of spell materials. He sat on the edge of the hearth and ‘fed’ her the little strips of paper one by one, trying to get her some easy fuel, something to keep her going. Each little scrap took longer than it should have to burn, but she reduced each one to ashes.

He almost didn’t hear it when the door clicked open again, and then softly shut. The footsteps across the living room were slow and heavy. Sora did look back at that.

Riku didn’t look any better than Kairi. He was pale, with dark shadows under his eyes like bruises. He moved like every step hurt.

“Riku?” Sora asked.

Riku just crossed into the kitchen, achingly reaching for one of the cabinets, and pulling out a bottle of brandy and a shot glass. These in hand, he staggered back toward Kairi. He more fell into the chair than sat down. With a shaking hand, he poured himself a shot of liquor, and tossed it back in one gulp. He poured a second, but instead of drinking it as Sora had expected, he reached forward and dripped it over Kairi.

It burned and hissed where it hit her, but caused her flames to flare up. She pushed herself up on one ‘arm.’

“I think he almost did us in there,” Riku said. His voice was uncharacteristically soft.

“He almost did,” she agreed. Her voice sounded like the rasp of dry leaves, or the singe of something that wouldn’t quite catch fire.

Riku poured a third shot, which he sipped at slowly.

“Did you win?” Sora asked.

Riku drained the rest of the glass. “I don’t know. Not sure we could really say that.”

“But we put up a fight,” said Kairi.

“We did put up a fight,” Riku agreed. “And the Warlock of the Wasteland knows it.”

“The connection between him and his fire demon is old,” she said. “They’ve been connected for so long, it’s almost not like fighting two of them at all.”

Riku slowly nodded. “They’re extremely in-tune with each other.”

“But so are you two,” said Sora.

Riku glanced over at him, then leaned back in the chair and shut his eyes. “Not like that. Maybe in a few more decades we could know each other that well.”

If Sora succeeded, they wouldn’t have decades to find out.

“Are you going to be okay?” Sora asked.

“Me, or Kairi?” Riku didn’t open his eyes.

“The same thing, really,” she said.

“We’ll be fine,” Riku said, not waiting for Sora to clarify. “Just need some rest.”

“I wish I could help,” Sora ventured.

Riku let out a single humorless laugh. “Wishing. Plenty of trouble to come from wishing.”

Everything was quiet, even the usual sound of Kairi’s fire muted.

He continued, “I did find that poem, you know. The one I was looking for. Untitled, but usually referred to as ‘Do you still remember.’ Ironic.”

He sighed.

“Do you still remember: falling stars,
How they leapt slantwise through the sky
Like horses over suddenly held-out hurdles
Of our wishes.”

He leaned forward toward Kairi, but looked over at Sora.

“—Did we have so many?—
For stars, innumerable, leapt everywhere;
Almost every gaze upward became
Wedded to the swift hazard of their play…”

Sora could imagine it. Not like the night where he’d struggled to find and catch that single star, but one of the nights where there were showers of them, falling all around. A star for every wish.

“And our heart felt like a single thing
Beneath that vast disintegration of their brilliance—
And was whole, as if it would survive them.”

The silence felt even deeper once he was done reciting it.

“It’s nice,” Sora said. He didn’t know much about poetry, but he could see what it had been describing. Stars falling everywhere, maybe more stars than even he had wishes, watching it with someone he loved…

“Our heart, a single thing,” repeated Kairi. “Very poetic.”

“Maybe I’m secretly a romantic,” said Riku. There was a slightly bitter twist to his words.

Sora would almost have laughed: the heartless sorcerer, unable to love, but actually a romantic. But it didn’t feel like a joke.

Riku stood up. “I need to sleep.”

It was barely afternoon, but Sora wasn’t surprised. He felt tired, and with how exhausted and worn both Riku and Kairi looked, he couldn’t imagine how draining that fight had been.

“Kairi needs to rest. The fact that the Warlock of the Wasteland found us here means we can’t stay. We have to move the Traverse Town entrance, too.”

“Move me?”

If she hadn’t already been flickering so weakly, she probably would have paled further.

“If he found us here, it isn’t safe. It’s more dangerous to stay. Get as much rest as you can, and we’ll figure it out in the morning.”

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[The poem that Riku recites is "Untitled (Do you still remember: falling stars)", by Rainer Maria Rilke. The translation is by Edward Snow.]

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