Kingdom Hearts fic: All Strange Wonders - Chapter 16

[mistressofmuses]

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Sora followed Naminé out the door to the lawn in front of the mansion. As soon as they were outside, he jerked his hand away. He had several feelings at the moment, and none of them wanted to be led around by the hand.

Sora stomped down the gravel drive that led away from the doors. He kicked a rock and watched it go sailing into the overgrown yard. That felt satisfying, so he did it again.

Turning back toward the mansion, he glared up at the now inaccessible windows of the second floor. He noticed the dirty glass and peeling paint, moss and stains running down where water had dripped from the roof. It looked sad and shabby.

“Could have at least fixed the paint up,” he grumbled. “I refuse to believe that’s beyond a sorcerer’s power.”

Naminé walked up beside him, and shielded her eyes to look up at the building. “Probably hasn’t been repaired or redone since I lived here.”

“What.” It came out sounding flat, not like a question at all.

“When I was very young, so a pretty long time ago. We left when I was still a child, and as soon as I had the choice to move out on my own, I went out to the country. Not that the forest down here isn’t nice, but I think I prefer the openness near my house.”

Sora agreed, but didn’t feel like saying so. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“That I lived here?”

Sora kicked another rock. “No.”

She nodded, the attempt at lighthearted small talk abandoned. “I wasn’t trying to mislead you. I really did tell you the truth; Xion was worried about you, and asked me to keep an eye on you.”

“But I’ve met you before! I just thought you were a- a magic bird, not a witch. I confided in you.”

She had enough grace to wince a bit. “But that’s exactly why I didn’t want to say anything!” she said. “You needed someone to talk to, and if I’d told you who I was, you wouldn’t have treated me the same way.”

Sora ran his hands through his hair, not caring how badly he messed it up. “Why did you say you were here to help me?”

“I was!”

“Why?”

“I told you, Xion was worried about you.”

His throat grew tight, and he couldn’t tell if it was the tears threatening to return or a warning from the curse. He scrubbed at his eyes. “Why would Xion be worried about me? I didn’t even see her that day. She doesn’t know me.”

“Do you really think that’s true? Just because she doesn’t know your name?”

Sora spun back toward her so quickly it nearly hurt.

Naminé continued. “When Riku came to visit me, back in the spring, he said he had a strange problem. He’d taken an assistant, but his assistant was clearly under some sort of curse or enchantment, and didn’t seem to have a name.”

Sora’s mouth moved as if to say something, but he honestly had no idea what.

“He described you. Messy, spiky hair, the bluest eyes, a bad liar who seemed too friendly for his own good. And Xion said ‘that’s my brother!’ with no hesitation. Poor girl almost made herself sick trying to remember your name after that.”

“Xion… I didn’t think… She wasn’t supposed to remember.”

“That’s what the curse said?”

The Warlock of the Wasteland had said no one would. Sora just nodded, his breath coming harder and faster.

“Interesting,” Naminé said. “She remembers you, just not your name. Riku spent ages with her, coming back almost every day for a while. He wanted to find out more, I think.”

She giggled. “Could almost be enough to make a lady jealous.” Then she sobered. “That’s why he brought you to me, even. Since it all seemed tied up in people remembering you. Memory is one of the things I specialize in. But I couldn’t break your curse, I’m sorry.”

He remembered rosemary in the cookies and tea, and how the field guide said it was good for memory.

The tears were really threatening now. Xion remembers me? Was my running away for nothing? The thoughts spun and spiraled wildly, twisting in on each other. And mixed in: Riku knew I was cursed. And the impossibly unlikely: Riku was visiting Xion because of me?

“I did pass on your concern regarding Riku’s intentions with Xion. But I told you the truth then, too: there was nothing to worry about. Even if Riku had been courting my partner, I trust her.”

And now Xion was apparently courting?—being courted by?—the witch she’d moved in with. That was nice, actually. He thought they suited each other well. He leaned forward and braced himself on his knees. “That’s good,” he said faintly. That was about the only part he could focus on right now.

“I’m sorry, maybe she would rather have told you.” Naminé ducked her head a little, and looked sheepish.

“No, that’s good. If she’s happy, I’m happy for her.”

“Kind-hearted but protective brother,” Naminé said. Then she seemed to refocus. “But the fact that you were worried made her worry. That if Riku was really that charming and had such an easy time metaphorically stealing hearts, she was terribly afraid that you were the one in danger.”

“Me?” Ridiculous.

“And I think maybe Xion was right to be worried.”

Sora stormed back down the driveway, the crushed stone crunching under his feet. He found another rock to kick, and it bounced satisfyingly off the cast iron gate at the end of the drive. He’d probably do better to find something else to take out his frustration on, but he’d worry about that later.

“That’s ridiculous!” he finally shouted. “Why would I have anything to worry about from Riku? I’m not interesting, or powerful, or beautiful, or any of the things he’d want to court. I’m just his assistant. I am literally a no-name shopkeeper. If I have any magic at all, it’s barely there compared to his. And I’m not some fancy smart academic with a book collection.”

Naminé followed him. “I’m just sorry that I got here too late.”

Sora scrubbed his hands through his hair one more time, before turning to go back to the mansion. This had been… a lot. More information than he knew what to do with. But Naminé was wrong. There was no reason for Xion to have worried, at least not about Riku, because there was no way Riku would ever be after Sora’s heart.

As he started to stomp his way back up the driveway, he saw the façade of the mansion had changed. The cream-colored paint was fresh and clean, with deep burgundy accents at the windows and the door. The water stains and mossy slime were gone, and gargoyles, worn in only the most artful ways, now perched at the corners of the roof. The upper window that had been cracked was repaired, and the dusty, moth-eaten curtains had been replaced with fresh, clean ones.

Sora started to walk a bit faster. Next to the porch, there was one ground-level window that had been left open. The curtain inside it waved invitingly in the gentle breeze. The window was tall, the base only about knee-high off the ground, and high enough he wouldn’t even have had to duck to fit through.

He remembered something Riku had said, when they’d come to prepare the mansion for the move: “It is a bit of a shame that this whole mansion will just be a place for a door to let out. The mansion will still be here, of course… I suppose you could sneak in through a window.”

It was so transparently an invitation for him to climb through to explore the place. And he wanted to. He’d always wondered what the inside of the mansion looked like, and here was a chance to find out. But that, plus the sudden renovation of the exterior itself, just upset him more.

He slammed the door of the mansion open, hard enough that it bounced off the castle wall.

Riku looked up guiltily from where he sat at the hearth, leaning over something set up between him and Kairi. He started to frantically push bits of it behind him, while handing flammable bits of parchment to her to burn.

“You were listening?” Sora demanded. Because of course he had been; why else would he have suddenly fixed up the outside of the mansion? Apparently it had struck a nerve to hear Sora complain about it.

“Well, uh…” Riku stumbled over a few starts to a sentence. “I really didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I was just understandably concerned about my assistant going off with another magic-user, considering everything that’s going on. Not that I don’t trust Naminé, but…”

“You were absolutely eavesdropping!” Sora snapped. If he could just stay angry about it, he wouldn’t have to be embarrassed about what Riku might have heard him say. “And now I find out, from Naminé, that you knew? You knew I was under a curse?”

And if there’d been any doubt, the fact that nothing closed around his throat confirmed it: everyone present knew about it. Sora turned his glare toward Kairi. “You said you couldn’t tell him!”

She raised her own ‘hands’ in a placating gesture. “I couldn’t! I didn’t say anything until he’d discovered it on his own. I didn’t want to betray your trust, but I couldn’t lie to him when he asked. I hoped I was helping.”

“It wasn’t Kairi,” Riku said. He stepped forward, like he was protecting her. “When you wouldn’t give me a name, I got suspicious. But you didn’t seem to have ulterior motives, and when I realized that you weren’t dangerous, I started to see the shape of the curse around you. Just like she said, she only confirmed it after I asked. And then Naminé and Xion—”

“So everyone knew? Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?” Sora scrubbed at his face again. The tears were hot enough to burn, but he didn’t want to cry. He wanted to be angry.

He’d been alone. He thought that no one knew, that he couldn’t tell anyone, and it seemed like everyone around him had known more than they let on.

Riku took another half step forward. He reached out before seeming to think better of it, and dropping his hand to his side. “I didn’t want to say anything until I’d figured out how to fix it,” said Riku. “And I have been trying.”

Sora made an indistinct sound that he hoped came across as skeptical as he felt. “You’ve been trying.”

“Yes, I have! Finally, I just decided you must love anonymity too much to give it up.”

“What?”

“You’ve certainly been tying the damn curse tighter and tighter around yourself.”

That was ridiculous, like so many other things he’d been told in the last twenty minutes.

He elbowed his way past Riku and over to his cot in the alcove under the stairs. He climbed into bed, facing the wall. It was the closest he had to a place of his own to retreat to, and he didn’t want to speak to any of them right now.

There were a few hushed whispers for a while, and then the castle went quiet. He assumed that Riku and Naminé must have gone somewhere, and Kairi didn’t try to speak to him. Despite their willingness to leave him alone, his mood did not cool.

By the time the light started to dim in the castle, Sora was half ready to just leave and not look back. Just like he’d intended to in the first place: he could leave and start over, where no one would have known him anyway. He could make up a new name to go by, and maybe eventually he’d forget that he’d ever been cursed.

He could forget that he’d failed to break Riku’s curse, or end Kairi’s contract.

Of course, now he knew that at least Xion remembered him. And even if they hadn’t known him before, Riku and Kairi had grown to know him now. Could he really just walk away from them?

But why should he care whether the Warlock’s curse fell on Riku tomorrow or not? Riku had lied to him, never saying anything about recognizing that Sora was under a curse. Had dragged him around, bringing him to people without telling him why. Had let Sora believe he was courting Xion.

Riku was all the things Sora had thought: selfish, and flakey, unwilling to commit to anything, incapable of taking responsibility…

“There was another poem in that book,” said Riku. “One I’ve been thinking about.”

He must have been sitting in the chair. He’d been so quiet Sora had assumed he’d left. Sora curled up into a slightly tighter ball. That probably gave away that he’d heard Riku, but he still didn’t want to say anything.

“I wonder almost if it was the real curse, in some way. It certainly seems to be the one trying to rub my face in it.”

Sora heard the creak of the leather as Riku shifted.

“The starry midnight whispers,
As I muse before the fire.
On the ashes of ambition,
And the embers of desire.
‘Life has no other logic,
And time no other creed,
Than: ‘I for joy will follow
Where thou for love dost lead.’’”

An abrupt sound from Kairi.

Riku had a wonderful voice. Sora still noticed that, even upset. Even when Riku sounded so quiet and subdued.

Then: “And here I am by the fire, musing. Ambition now ashes, regardless of desire. Unable to do much of anything, it seems, for joy or love or anything else.”

“Riku,” Kairi whispered.

“It won’t matter much longer, if the Warlock of the Wasteland has his way. Tomorrow, it all comes due.” He stood up. “I’m going to Destiny Islands. I have some people to say goodbye to, even if they aren’t going to realize that’s what it is.”

Sora wanted to think something bitter about Tae, but knew that wouldn’t be fair. He’d reached the uncomfortable point of any sulk where, no matter how righteous the initial anger, it started to feel a bit silly.

How could he have been so annoyed by Riku throwing a silly tantrum when he was doing the same thing?

He sighed and rolled over, just in time to see and hear the door click shut.

Riku had already gone. Naminé was asleep on a mattress Riku must have set up for her on the far side of the hearth.

Feeling a little embarrassed, Sora got up and slumped into the chair.

“He really did mean to help,” Kairi said.

“He should have told me. You should have told me.”

“You know Riku,” she said. “Despite everything pointing to the contrary, he wants so badly to be a hero. He wanted to lift the curse, and until he could do that, he didn’t want you to even know he was trying.”

She paused. “Maybe so you wouldn’t know he was failing.”

When she said it like that, it made Sora feel guilty for lashing out that way. He slouched down in the chair. “I still don’t know how to break your contract,” he admitted. “And now I’m out of time.”

She sighed. “I know. I guess none of us are as good at breaking contracts and lifting curses as we thought.”

“Will it really kill you? Or Riku? Whatever the Warlock’s curse winds up being?”

She shifted a little uncomfortably, the wood around her settling. “I don’t know. I hope not.”

“What else can I do? I don’t want to just wait for something bad to happen.”

“I don’t think there’s anything that can head it off at this point. But I’d like it if you stayed. In case it is my last day, and all.”

That was sobering. Sora had dragged his feet on really trying to figure out the contract because he was so afraid that breaking it would wind up killing her or Riku or both. But now the same thing was quite possibly going to happen anyway.

“Of course I’ll stay,” he promised. “I won’t even go to the shop if you don’t want me to.”

“But the solstice festival is tomorrow. As I understand it, that means everyone will be clamoring for your amazing flowers. I think Riku would be disappointed if you left everyone hanging.”

“Not that it will matter, after tomorrow.”

“Maybe he hopes it will.”

There wasn’t much Sora could say to that. He drew his knees up and hugged them. He wished he could hug Kairi, though he didn’t actually want to set himself on fire. He even wished he could hug Riku. It seemed like either of them could use one. Or maybe it was Sora who wanted one.

Part of him wanted to go tearing through the books on the shelves, to scramble for the key to the contract, to find a magical eleventh-hour fix for everything. But he’d been through them all already, and there were no solutions there. There was nothing more he could do.

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[The poem that Riku quotes is "The Starry Midnight Whispers" by Bliss Carman.]

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