Kingdom Hearts fic: All Strange Wonders - Chapter 17

[mistressofmuses]

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At some point, Sora dozed off in the chair, because he jolted awake when the door slammed sharply against the wall.

Riku stumbled through the door, then turned and struggled to get it closed again.

It was the second time Sora had seen Riku drunk, both times returning from the island. Both times singing.

“This very secret,” he sang, “that you’re trying to conceal…”

He stumbled a bit closer, almost knocking into a shelf. “Is the very same one you’re dying to reveal…”

“Did you meet up with the people you meant to?” Kairi asked.

“I did!” he announced, before returning to his song: “Go tell them how you feel.” The last bit slurred a little bit, as he leaned heavily on the back of the chair Sora was seated in.

Kairi sighed. “Which ‘them’?”

“Secret heart, come out and share it…”

“You’ve done so terribly well with that,” Kairi said. “Thank you. Is miserably hung over really how you plan to spend what could be your last day?”

“I assure you, it will be no one’s problem but my own,” Riku said, standing up in a way that he probably meant to look very dramatic, but was spoiled when he lost his balance and had to catch himself.

It seemed to take some effort, but he got his gaze to focus on Sora. “I’m sorry, you know. That I didn’t fix it.”

Sora shook his head. “It wasn’t your job to. I’m sorry too.” Not that Riku would remember the apology once he sobered up.

Riku rubbed at his pale eyes, just slightly bloodshot now. “I should go to bed.”

“It’s just about morning,” Kairi said. She gestured toward the kitchen window.

She was right. The sky was taking on the hint of light that signified pre-dawn.

“Then I really should get started on that,” Riku said, only tripping once on his way to the stairs. “Perhaps I will have managed unconsciousness by the dawn of the solstice.”

Upstairs, Sora heard the slam of Riku’s bedroom door, followed by another thump, presumably him falling into bed.

Naminé sat up from her pile of blankets on the floor. She stretched and yawned. “I don’t think I’m getting back to sleep after that,” she said.

Sora wasn’t sure how much she’d heard. “Me either,” he agreed.

Turning back to Kairi, he asked, “Is he going to be okay?”

“As much as he can be. He’ll just have to be okay with a hangover,” said Kairi. “So he’s not going to be at his best for whatever the Warlock has planned, but…”

“If we’re going to treat the day like an ordinary one for now, I guess we should go out and start gathering flowers,” Naminé said. “We’ll need more than usual, for all the garlands everyone is going to be looking for.”

“Uh, yeah,” Sora said. He pushed himself out of the chair. It seemed so wrong to treat it like an ordinary day, and yet that was all he could do. “Will you be alright, Kairi?”

The flames of her face flickered into a small smile. “I think I’ll make it.”

It was earlier than Sora ever visited the gardens. The sky had grown just a little bit lighter than when he’d glanced out the window, but the sun hadn’t risen yet. A few of the brightest stars were visible in the indigo sky.

Stepping down onto the dewy moss of the pathway, it felt like it was the first time showing Naminé the gardens. Of course it wasn’t; she’d been with him every morning when he came out. He just hadn’t known it.

“It was your house that made me tell Riku I thought we should sell flowers,” he said. “And that’s why he moved one of the castle exits here.”

“He’s certainly improved these gardens,” Naminé said.

Sora just looked at her.

He must have looked surprised or skeptical, because she laughed a little. “Really. I brought him some cuttings and seeds for a few of the flowers he was hoping to grow. That was, hmm, last fall. Just after Aerith and Cloud disappeared. When the rest of the council was pulled back to the capital, the gardens started to fade. Riku told me someone had to keep it going, and it might as well be him. So he has. There are more flowers here now than there ever were before.”

“What kind of person is he?” Sora blurted. “He seems to avoid anything that could be called work, even when he’s been tasked with it specifically. Then I find out he’s been maintaining miles of amazing gardens just because. He admits to being heartless, and he’s lied to me for months, and you come here specifically to warn me away and protect me from him. But then it turns out that he was going behind my back in an attempt to help me, actually. I don’t know what to think about him, or which part of him is real.”

“Riku is… complicated. Everyone is complicated, really. He just might be a little more so than most. The answer is that he’s all of those things.”

The fear that soon Riku could be none of those things anymore choked him, more completely than his curse ever could.

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The shop was only scheduled to be open for half the day, closing at the lunch hour so that Sora could ostensibly enjoy the solstice festival for the rest of the afternoon. Not that he actually anticipated doing so.

But even in those few hours, from just after sunrise to midday, Sora saw more customers than had crowded in during their grand opening. Riku did not come to the shop to help, but Naminé put on an apron and took a place behind the counter. She’d been watching Sora for weeks from her perch; she knew how the shop was run.

They sold flowers by the armload. Long-stemmed daisies in a riot of colors, roses with thorns carefully removed, broad sunflowers big enough to be hats in their own right, fragrant peonies that put perfumes to shame, stalks of irises knit together with morning glory vines…

Every arrangement was beautiful and unique, ready to become the perfect crown or garland or other decoration for the lovers and friends and families getting ready to celebrate.

It provided enough distraction that midday snuck up entirely on Sora. But eventually the customers dwindled, as did the stock of flowers, despite how impossibly many it had felt like they’d gathered that morning.

Sora went to the front and flipped the sign to closed. He wondered if it would ever be marked as open again. At least now he could spend some time with Kairi, even if there wasn’t anything that could truly take their minds off whatever doom was lurking.

He gathered up the remaining flowers—the ones with broken stems, or bruised petals, as well as a few especially fragrant ones that he’d saved on purpose—to bring to Kairi, and headed through the shop’s back door and up the steps to what still looked like his house. Naminé followed him to the door, but didn’t come inside.

“Are you staying?” Sora asked her. “I mean, you don’t have to. You could go to the festival if you want to.”

No reason for her to stay inside on a holiday, especially when it was likely to be a gloomy one in the castle.

“I actually have an errand to run,” she said. “But I’ll be back. See you soon?”

He quirked a smile and nodded before closing the door.

Sora settled into the chair in front of Kairi. He gave her a questioning look as he handed her the first of the flowers he’d brought in. She ‘ate’ it with relish, flickering flame mimicking a tongue licking her lips.

“He hasn’t gotten up yet,” she answered his unspoken question.

Sora handed her another flower. “Should I go check on him?”

The flower burned to a fine, powdery ash. “No. If he wants to sleep, we should let him.”

Seemed like a lousy way to wait for a curse to fall, but it wasn’t Sora’s decision.

Sora gave Kairi the last of the flowers, and then just sat with her. He’d promised not to leave her alone. He was about to ask if she wanted him to read something to her, when they were interrupted by a knock on the door.

It felt like his heart stopped.

Then he was confused, because he couldn’t imagine the Warlock of the Wasteland would knock.

He glanced at Kairi.

She shifted in the way that indicated a shrug. “They’re at the mansion door, whoever they are.”

“But it isn’t the Warlock of the Wasteland?” He didn’t want to take any chances.

“It doesn’t feel magical. I don’t think it could be him.”

The knock repeated, a bit more insistently.

Sora crossed to the door, spun the dial to the cream color, and opened it.

“Oh!” The woman outside the door pulled back her hand, which had been raised to knock a third time.

It was his mother.

Sora tried to say something, but couldn’t manage anything more than a little whimpering sound in his throat.

His mother stared at him, her eyes filling with tears. Then she flung her arms around him, pulling him into a rib-crushing hug.

“There you are! I’ve been so worried. My boy!”

“M-mom?” He pushed the word out as he hugged her back, expecting the curse to punish him for it. But no—clearly she knew him, so the curse couldn’t do anything about it.

“Where have you been, are you alright, why don’t I know your name?” Her questions tumbled out in a rush.

Then Sora was crying too, clinging more than hugging.

“I’m fine,” he reassured her, wiping away his own tears. “Do you want to come in?”

She accepted the invitation, stepping through the ornate mansion door into the smaller castle room. Her eyes widened as she looked around the room, then back out the still-open door. “How…?”

“It’s kind of a funny story,” he answered, leading her by the hand to the chair by the fire. It was the only really decent seat to be had. He sat on the hearth across from her. Kairi had ducked down, looking more like an ordinary fire. Sora would introduce her in a minute.

“Or, well, maybe it’s not funny exactly. But do you remember the Heartless Sorcerer? The one who started roving through the hills last winter?”

She nodded cautiously.

“Well, this is his castle. It’s magic, so the door goes to lots of places, like the door you came to. And I’m… well, I guess I’m his assistant now.”

“Assistant!” she gasped. “To the Heartless Sorcerer? Such a terribly wicked man. Is it his fault I don’t know your name?” She stood up, fists clenched like she planned on starting—or finishing—a fight. “I’ll make him give it back.”

“No!” Sora reached out to pull her back into the seat. “He has actually been surprisingly kind to me. His name is Riku. He let me stay, he’s been trying to help me, and even to protect me. Riku and Kairi—”

His mother glanced around. “Kairi? There’s another person who lives here?”

He scooted to the side and held out a hand toward Kairi. “This is Kairi. She’s a fire demon. And she’s also been very good to me.”

“A fire demon?” It ended on a squeak. His mom’s eyes had widened again, and Sora readied himself to intervene if she started looking for water to douse Kairi with.

But she took a deep breath and then inclined her head politely. Her voice barely trembled as she added, “I’ve never met a fire demon before. How do you do, Lady, er, Demon?”

“Just Kairi, thank you. Lovely to meet you,” Kairi replied, shifting around so she was more woman-shaped again.

“Likewise.” His mom’s voice sounded a bit faint, but he deeply appreciated her willingness to be polite.

“But what about you?” he asked. “You look well.”

And she did. She looked healthy, her skin practically glowing. Her dress was new, a lovely soft sage-green silk that looked as nice as anything he remembered her wearing in the past.

“Well, I kept the shop going for a while after you disappeared,” she said. “And I’m embarrassed to say, but… well, I’m afraid I must be a terrible mother for it, but I didn’t actually realize you were gone. I’m so sorry! You really must think I’m terrible.”

He shook his head. “No one remembered me. It wasn’t your fault.” That much he could at least say, though he still didn’t know how much about the curse he’d be allowed to reveal.

“Well, I did have a vague sense that something was missing or wrong, but I didn’t know what. I kept Key and Blade going, business as usual. But then a magic-user came by, and said he wanted to meet the enchanter responsible for the wares. Of course I told him that we didn’t have one, because we didn’t sell enchanted wares. But then he picked up one of the knives and told me that it was. And that it was worth five or ten times what I had it priced as! Did you know that some of our things were enchanted?”

Sora ducked his head a bit guiltily. “Not at the time. But uh, that could be my fault.”

“Fault? It was amazing! I didn’t just take that mage’s word for it, but also had a traveling charm-seller take a look. You know the one, the woman who comes through the farms every spring, blessing the herds, casting luck charms on the first plantings? She agreed! She helped me to determine which charms were on the items in question.

“So the rest of the wares sold for more than anything else we’d ever made. I didn’t know how it had happened, and I certainly wasn’t able to make more, but it was still the best Key and Blade had ever done. I was starting to try and consider my options going forward, what I’d do once everything magical sold. But then one of the town solicitors came by. He told me I’d inherited one of those big old mansions down to the west, one of the ones not far from here! Or… well, not far from the door I knocked on, at least. Some great aunt I’d never even met left it to me, along with a tidy fortune!”

As she explained this amazing series of events, she toyed with a necklace at her throat. Sora recognized it as one he’d finished. It was silver, with smooth amethyst cabochons dangling from delicate strands of chain. He remembered working on it. And remembered when he’d said he could imagine it around the neck of a long-lost heiress. Well.

His mother continued, “So I decided that I would sell the shop. The feeling of something missing had just been growing, and I hoped maybe I could leave it behind. I told Roxas, and he asked ‘what about my brother? What does he think of that?’ And just like that, I remembered that you were supposed to be there! But neither of us knew your name or where you’d gone. I’ve missed you!”

She flung her arms around him again. Sora let her hug him, relaxing into it. He hadn’t had a proper hug in what felt like far too long.

After a moment she asked, “Are you really okay?”

“I am,” he said. “I’ve missed you. And Roxas and Xion. How did you find me?”

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” she admitted. “I got a letter telling me that someone had moved in here, and I thought I’d come see who it was, maybe invite them to join me for the solstice just to be neighborly. This old mansion was always the one you kids thought was haunted.”

She laughed a little. “What have you been doing since you left?”

He didn’t even know how to start describing what had happened. Running away because of the curse, trying to break a contract, becoming a sorcerer’s apprentice, meeting the king, failing to catch a fallen star, visiting what he was starting to suspect was another world on the other side of a magic door… How could he even hope to explain it?

He was granted a reprieve from trying by another knock on the door.

“It’s the Twilight Town door, this time,” Kairi said. “Still doesn’t feel like anyone dangerous.”

A bit relieved that it still wasn’t likely to be the Warlock delivering a curse, Sora stood up. “One second,” he told his mother.

He turned the dial to red and opened the door.

Roxas was on the other side, staring down at the sheet of paper in one hand, looking bored.

“Hey, this is my last delivery of the day. Guy paid extra, so if you could just sign—”

He looked up and the paper fell from his hand. So did the box he’d had propped against his hip.

“Stars above,” he said, the kind of unconscious exclamation that just slips out.

Then he flung his own arms around Sora’s neck, pulling him into his second hug after too damn long. Sora returned the hug until Roxas pulled away. Once he had, he glared at Sora and punched him in the arm.

“You jerk! What do you think you were doing, disappearing like that? Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been? And why the hell don’t we know your name?”

“Roxas, don’t punch your brother.” Their mom had come over as soon as she realized it was him at the door. Then after a pause: “Is that… our old courtyard?”

“Remember how I said it was a magic door? It opens onto a few different places. One of them is the old house,” Sora explained.

“Has it always done that?” She sounded nervous about the prospect.

“No. Only after you sold it. Riku bought the house, and we moved the door after that.”

She was craning her head to see outside and then back into the room.

“I’ll show you. Roxas, come inside.”

That led to an extensive demonstration of how the door worked, switching back and forth between the courtyard of the Twilight Town house and the expansive front yard of the mansion.

Then his mother noticed the kitchen window also looked out over their old house’s courtyard, despite being in a different wall entirely than the door, which led to even more questions.

In between, Sora gave the barest sketch of his time over the last few months. Wrong side of a curse, assistant to the Heartless Sorcerer (which impressed Roxas quite a bit), magic castle, fire demon (Kairi also impressed Roxas) Sora did not mention meeting the king, or the island on the other side of the door when the dial was set to black, or that the Warlock of the Wasteland might be coming for Riku at any moment.

It was almost like none of that was even real for a moment. He still felt insignificant, not someone who met royalty, or was involved with fights between mages, or visited other worlds.

Sora opened the door on red again, so his mom could look at the courtyard of the Twilight Town house one more time.

The courtyard was not empty.

Naminé raised her hand in greeting, and behind her Xion did the same.

Sora felt blindsided for the third time in a very short period. His mouth worked for a moment without producing any sound. What finally did make it out was, “Of course.”

Because of course, with his mother and brother already here, why wouldn’t his sister make a surprise appearance?

Xion let out a whoop and rushed past Naminé and up the stairs to tackle Sora into another clinging hug.

“I can’t believe you visited Naminé and didn’t even say hi to me! How could you?”

“I didn’t think…”

“No you didn’t,” she interrupted. “Just because of some silly curse. I may not know your name, but I do know you, my jerk of an oldest brother.”

“You weren’t supposed to remember me at all,” he said, unsure if it was a defense or an explanation, and half surprised he could say it at all.

Xion pulled back and stared intently into his eyes, like she was looking for something. “Is that so? I wonder why that part didn’t work?”

He just shrugged helplessly. “Do you want to come in?”

“Absolutely. For all that I saw Riku just about every day for a while, I never got to visit the castle. And Naminé tells me there’s a fire demon?”

Brief introductions were made, since while their mother had eventually learned about Xion running off to apprentice to a witch, she’d yet to actually meet Naminé.

Sora lamented that he didn’t have anything to offer in the way of refreshments, which reminded Roxas of his delivery. He’d picked the box back up after having dropped it, but it had almost immediately been forgotten.

Retrieving it, they discovered it was full of beautifully decorated cookies, from Plaza bakery. They were only slightly the worse for their tumble.

“Who sent these?” Sora asked. “An admirer of Riku’s?”

Sora had fended off several inquiries after ‘that handsome gentleman who was here when the shop opened.’

Roxas shook his head. “They were sent to ‘the shopkeeper of The Radiant Garden flower shop, or sorcerer’s assistant.’ No name for the sender. Apparently they asked for me specifically to deliver it, and paid double for me to do it after the delivery service shut down for the day. That was enough of a tip to make it worth it.”

“Weird,” said Sora. He couldn’t imagine who would send anything to him, considering that he was literally a stranger to just about everyone. But they were clearly meant for him rather than Riku, so at least he didn’t have to feel bad about offering them to his guests.

So everyone ate excellent cookies and chatted. Sora was still trying to get his head around the surprise family reunion, to say nothing of the aspects of the curse that seemed to have failed. Remembering him seemed to be confined to his family, though, as he’d seen plenty of old neighbors and acquaintances in the shop, and none of them had recognized him.

He was in the middle of introducing Kairi to Xion when there was another knock at the door, more timid than the others had been. Before he could ask Kairi which door it was at this time, there was a soft click, and the door opened.

It was Tae. He crept in and shut the door behind him, before turning and looking around the room. His eyes widened fractionally, taking in the near-crowd of people. “Oh.”

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[The song that Riku is tipsily singing this time is (a very minorly altered version of) Secret Heart by Feist.]

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