Kingdom Hearts fic: All Strange Wonders - Chapter 18

[mistressofmuses]

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Tae’s fingers twitched as if he wanted to fidget with something. His eyes flicked around the room again. “Is Riku here?” He crept along the wall, back toward the bookshelves.

“He’s asleep,” Sora said. He stepped a little closer, blocking Kairi from view. It probably wasn’t necessary, and the idea that he would be protecting her from someone like Tae was frankly a little ridiculous. That didn’t get rid of the urge to keep Tae from seeing her.

“I see.” Tae sounded almost shy when he said it.

Sora couldn’t claim to know the man well enough to say, but it seemed uncharacteristically subdued for him.

“I’d thought maybe I could wait for him, but, well…” Tae trailed off, looking around the room full of people now all staring at him. “Perhaps I should go.”

Sora felt a twinge of guilt at how he’d all but chased Tae out the day before. As if he had any place being jealous! It wasn’t his choice who Riku decided to court, whether it made Sora happy or not. What if this was Riku’s chance at true love? What if after today he had no chance at all? Sora couldn’t be the one to take that possibility away from him.

Sora shook his head, more to clear out his own thoughts than as a reply. “You don’t have to. If you want to wait you can.” Despite his good intentions, it felt like chewing glass to extend the invitation.

“Oh. All right.” Tae stood awkwardly, pressed up near the bookshelf. He sounded about as pleased about the offer as Sora felt to make it.

“Was Riku expecting you?” Sora asked, trying to find anything to cut the awkwardness.

“No. Well, maybe. I thought it would be nice to spend the solstice together.”

“Didn’t he just see you last night?” Sora couldn’t stop himself from asking. Riku had gone through the black door anyway, supposedly to say his goodbyes. And then came home stumbling drunk, singing about hearts.

Tae just looked at him blankly.

Of course, Sora thought, most couples probably do want to see each other every day.

“Maybe I should just go,” Tae said, as the silence stretched uncomfortably again. “I’m sure Riku will have time to stop by later.”

Sora did not want to be to blame for Riku maybe never getting to see his possible-true-love again. “No, uh…”

He racked his brain for something Tae could do while waiting. Sora couldn’t very well send him into Twilight Town, or even the grounds of the mansion. What if he wandered off and got lost? There were the gardens… no one would walk into the Wasteland, and if Kairi kept the castle still, he would be able to come back whenever he wanted. And the flowers there were enough to keep anyone’s attention.

“Do you like gardens?” he blurted.

“I guess?” Tae answered, seemingly confused by the non sequitur.

“Great! There’s a lovely garden right outside, and I’m sure you’d love to explore it.” He started to herd Tae back toward the door.

“I’ve seen it—” Tae protested.

“This is a different one,” Sora interrupted. Sending him through a magic door probably wasn’t entirely in keeping with the norms of Destiny Islands, but, well, small compromises.

“If we could just stop a moment!” Sora called, trusting Kairi to understand.

Tae was now looking at him as if he’d gone entirely mad. “Stop what?”

“Nothing!” Sora chirped, aware that his mother and siblings were all staring at him. “Right through here…”

He fumbled for the dial to turn it to purple, but it was already set. Sora flung the door open, grateful that Kairi had understood his request to stop.

Tae looked out at the lush flowers and then back at the castle room. “I… seem to have gotten turned around…” he said faintly.

“Happens all the time,” Sora replied cheerfully. “The house looks a bit different from this side too, but nothing to worry about! Just take a look around, and when Riku gets up, I’ll let him know you’re here.”

“All right.” Tae’s reluctance seemed to vanish in the face of a bush covered in flowers the size of dinner plates.

Sora closed the door and sighed with relief.

“And who was that?” Roxas asked, breaking the weird silence that had continued while Sora hustled Tae out the door.

“Friend of Riku’s,” Sora said.

He ignored the look Naminé was giving him.

Sora returned to the hearth, where he’d been talking to Kairi and Xion. They were giving him almost identical looks to the one Naminé had. He ignored them too, before hissing to Kairi, “What? I was polite this time.”

“Too polite,” she said. “I don’t like him either. He feels weird.”

Sora wished she’d told him that sooner. Or maybe she should have told Riku; he seemed willing to use her as a judge of character, so maybe if he realized she didn’t care for Tae…

She sighed, sending out a shower of sparks. “Maybe I’m just not used to people from the other side of the black door, and that’s why he feels strange. Or maybe I just don’t like him as much as I like you.”

“Riku should have better taste,” Xion said. She was still looking at him.

“Don’t start,” Sora groaned. Though considering that she’d sent Naminé in disguise, solely to protect him from getting his heart broken, she’d ‘started’ quite some time ago.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she sniffed. She turned back toward Kairi. “How do you control the movement of the castle when you can’t see where it’s going? Is it an additional sense that helps guide it?”

Sora let his mind wander a bit. Hearing Xion and Kairi discussing the finer points of Kairi’s magic, while Roxas and his mom chatted with Naminé in the kitchen felt… nice. He could almost ignore the fact that everything was supposed to go wrong fairly imminently. But maybe the curse wasn’t coming due with the solstice after all.

As if that thought had been enough to jinx it, Kairi suddenly flared up in the hearth, forcing Xion to stumble backward to avoid being burned.

“Riku! The Warlock of the Wasteland is on Destiny Islands! He’s found your family!”

The thud from upstairs was enough to shake the castle room, and Riku came tearing down the stairs almost as if he had a speed spell. He was still dressed in the clothing he’d arrived home in the previous night, badly rumpled and creased, and his hair was a tangle around his shoulders. The door’s dial spun itself to black and the door flung open ahead of him, as he hit it at a dead run. It slammed shut as soon as he was through.

Inanely, an old conversation with Kairi popped into Sora’s head: how she would believe his love was genuine if he were willing to go out without caring for his appearance.

Despite how awful they were to him, Riku clearly loved his family. Or someone on Destiny Islands.

Sora wouldn’t be anything but in the way if he rushed out the door after Riku, but he needed to know what was happening. He ignored his family’s stunned looks, and raced up the stairs. Riku’s bedroom door was open, and Sora ran through it.

The window across from Riku’s bed looked out at a disorienting angle over the garden path up to Riku’s parents’ house. His mother and a man Sora assumed must be Riku’s father were standing at the top of the path, slowly walking toward the Warlock of the Wasteland.

No, walking probably wasn’t the word for it. They were staggering in sharp, painful-looking steps, every muscle rigid, as if they were trying desperately not to move, and were being compelled to anyway. Sora couldn’t see much of the Warlock’s expression, but he could picture a kind of cruel glee as he forced Riku’s family to come to him.

Riku was standing just a few paces past the door. He was yelling something, though no sound came through the window.

A ball of fire erupted inches from the Warlock, as Riku made an abrupt gesture. The Warlock pivoted away from Riku’s parents, and they collapsed as whatever spell they’d been under released them.

Instead of rushing at Riku, the Warlock set off at an impossibly fast run, toward the rest of the city where it stretched along the coast. Riku gave chase, and both were out of sight almost dismayingly quickly.

“So that’s a fight between sorcerers,” said Roxas.

Sora jumped. He hadn’t heard his brother come in.

“I saw them fight once,” Sora answered. “In Traverse Town. It was impressive, but frightening.”

“Didn’t look like much,” Roxas said.

Sora wasn’t sure if he should try to defend Riku or not. Or whether that was something that needed or wanted a defense. “I think they’ve barely started,” he finally said.

Roxas considered him for a moment. “Well, we can’t see them now. Worrying at the window isn’t a good look for you. Come back downstairs.”

Sora followed, only a little embarrassed that his younger brother had seen through him so easily. Though as soon as he was down the stairs, he rushed to the hearth and to Kairi.

“Are you all right? Can I help?” He remembered the toll the previous fight with the Warlock of the Wasteland had taken on her.

“I’m concentrating. The place they are right now is… very far away.”

Sora bit his lip. He hated just having to wait.

“Is everything all right?” his mother asked. “Or is this just an ordinary day for a magic-user?”

That at least chased a very small laugh out, even if it didn’t hold much humor. “Not what I’d call an ordinary day,” he answered. “But I wouldn’t know where to start explaining it.”

His mother laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure it will be fine in the end.”

Wishful thinking was all it took to make everything worse.

The Warlock of the Wasteland’s voice boomed through the castle room, as if coming from the walls themselves.

“The sorcerer of the moving castle, Riku, has fallen for my decoy, as I knew he would. His dear, beloved friend Tae is now my captive in my fortress in the Wasteland. If Riku wants to see Tae alive, he will have to come and claim him.”

The Warlock of the Wasteland’s words echoed in the small space.

Sora’s blood seemed to turn to ice. This is my fault. The thought was painful, but he knew it was true.

Numbly, he turned toward the kitchen. He didn’t even hear his family or Naminé or Kairi clamoring for his attention.

If he hadn’t been so quick to rush Tae out the door, if he’d just stopped to think for a minute, maybe he wouldn’t have delivered the perfect hostage to the Warlock’s doorstep. Now Riku would be forced to go to the Warlock of his own volition, and it would be Sora’s own fault. How could he manage to make so many things so much worse? He was nothing. And yet he could ruin things without even trying.

The only thing he could try to do now was fix it. Obviously. Riku couldn’t go into the Wasteland, so Sora would.

He barely took conscious note as he pulled out the mortar and pestle and the bottles of ingredients. He mixed the powdered wind and the displacement oil exactly the way Riku had directed, ignoring Roxas tugging at his arm in a bid for his attention.

Sora had never been the one to draw the glyph that bound the spell together, but he’d watched Riku do it literally a hundred times, and clearly Sora did have some magical power of his own. Even if it did seem to work the best when he didn’t know he was using it.

The glyph flared brightly on the little paper packet he’d folded, and Naminé gasped behind him, probably in surprise that it had worked. It was almost a surprise to him.

Sora spun, holding the speed spell to his chest like a lifeline. It might as well have been; this was the only way he knew to even start to make things right.

He crossed the room and knelt in front of Kairi. Bits of flame and crackling sparks danced around her.

“What are—” she started, but Sora interrupted.

“Kairi. Keep Riku here, okay? I’m going to fix this, so make sure he waits here. He can’t fulfill the curse. Don’t let him go to the Wasteland, all right?”

“You can’t go!” she insisted, flaring higher in agitation. “Riku must be nearly back. I know he heard what the Warlock said; it was spelled to reach him. We’ll think of something, come up with some plan, but please don’t go!”

If Riku was nearly back, all the more reason to hurry.

“Don’t worry.” He tried to give her a reassuring smile. He wished, far from the first time, that he could give her a hug. “The Warlock doesn’t want me. It’s my fault he has the bait to lure Riku in, so I have to save him. It’ll be fine.”

He really wasn’t sure he believed that, but he hoped Kairi would. And by extension, Riku.

Everyone else was still talking.

“Was that really the Warlock of the Wasteland?” Xion was asking.

Sora pulled her into a hug. “Yes. But I can’t let him lure Riku in. Take care of everyone here.”

He pulled Roxas into the hug, too. His brother didn’t even make a token effort to pull away, so he must have been shaken.

“Are you doing something stupid?” Roxas asked.

“Probably,” Sora answered. “But only to fix something else stupid I already did.”

“Because that always works,” Roxas said. “Can I help?”

Sora shook his head and let go. “Just keep everyone here, okay?”

A quicker hug to Naminé. “Thank you for your help. Even when you were pretending to be a bird.”

“Sorry it didn’t work,” she said ruefully.

Finally, he got to his mother. “I’m glad I got to see you.”

Her eyes filled with tears as she hugged him close.

“I am planning to come back,” he said. He didn’t want her to cry.

He wasn’t lying. He did plan to be back. He planned to rescue Tae, return to the castle, and avert Riku’s curse. He just didn’t know for sure if it would work out that way.

This was the trouble with people remembering you—they’d miss you if you didn’t come back. This would have been easier when he didn’t need to worry about that, if no one had remembered him at all. Not that he’d trade that back for anything.

There was nothing else he could say, and it already felt like he’d wasted far too much time.

He spun the dial back from black to purple, and stepped into the garden at the edge of the Waste. He made sure his knife was at his hip, then tore open the speed spell he’d just made. He sprinkled the powder on his shoes, took a deep breath, and stepped toward the Wasteland.

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