musefic | Kingdom Hearts fic: Finding Pages

Day 2 of AU-gust. Today's AU prompt was "Writer".

This is perhaps not a terribly traditional incarnation of what's meant by a "writer AU", but here we are. :) It's an AU and someone writes!
This also turned out way longer than I meant for it to! I definitely can't keep up a fic a day at this length, lol.

It's been centuries since immortals Riku, Sora, and Kairi were forced to flee their island home. It's been at least a hundred years since they were all together. Sora and Kairi both have gotten close to finding Riku, only to find the writing he's left behind.

The docks weren’t Kairi’s favorite place that she’d ever spent a day, but they were also far from the least ideal.

Haltingly, she asked after the “warrior-scholar” with “hair of moonlight” that she’d been chasing rumors of. Her command of the language wasn’t perfect, but she’d mostly been getting by. She didn’t think she’d accidentally said anything horrifically embarrassing at least. Probably just the worst accent they’d heard in a while.

“Not this warehouse,” the dockman said. “Farther down.” He waved in the direction he meant.

“Thank you.”

She was fairly certain this was where Riku’s trail ended, at least for now. If he’d been to the docks, it was probably because he’d left from them. Still, she couldn’t have forgiven herself if he’d been here and she hadn’t even looked.

The warehouses were an eclectic mix. Many served as storage for merchant vessels going in or out, places intended for storage. There’d been nothing like this on the islands, but the sound of the sea in the background was still comforting. Of all the things she still remembered, weighed against the things she was certain she’d forgotten, the sound of the sea was always a comfort.

She made it to a new block of warehouses, larger and in slightly better repair than the ones she’d initially inquired at. Each building had the company’s name, a complex character that Kairi couldn’t hope to pronounce correctly, painted on the walls and above the doors. She hoped that was a promising sign; it projected a sense of success, while not being too ostentatious. Perhaps it was the kind of company that could occasionally offer passage, if that had been what Riku was seeking.

The company had an office nestled in between two of the larger buildings. The woman seated at a desk reinforced Kairi’s guess as to the prosperity of the company. She was dressed in high quality silk, her black hair tied up but only lightly adorned.

Kairi repeated her request after the “warrior-scholar” she’d been following.

The woman sighed, and did not put down the fine brush she’d been using to write in a ledger. She did look up, but her voice was sharp when she answered, “He is gone. On a trade ship, heading west.”

Kairi had been expecting it, but she was sure her face still betrayed her disappointment. It had been so long, and to have been so close…

The woman’s severe expression softened incrementally. She put the brush down with a click. “He was here. This way,” she commanded.

Kairi followed.

The woman locked the office behind her, and led Kairi to a different building, which she unlocked with another key from the same ring. She crossed the room to a shelf, where she pulled a cylindrical leather case from a shelf. This she handed to Kairi, gesturing for her to open it.

Inside was a thin roll of paper.

On it, in ink, were careful words. Not in the same language as the country they were in, but written in the first language the three of them had learned once they left the islands. It recounted a small snippet of the island’s history, recited as something mythical.

An island, isolated from the rest of the world, protected by its distance. Protected by three gods, born of the islands, but also of the sea, the sky, and the land…

A few ornamentations had been added along the edges, filling the blank space not taken up by the words. Kairi recognized the style as being common in the region; twisting wisps of cloud, rippling water, and delicate flowers. The flowers Riku had chosen to depict were island flowers, not ones found anywhere nearby.

“He wrote this?” Kairi already knew the answer, but couldn’t help the words.

The woman nodded. “All he left behind. I planned to sell it as a curiosity. You can read it?”

Kairi nodded, and gave what was probably a very poor translation as she read it again.

In the end, the woman parted with the page for only a few coins of the locally-favored currency. Kairi had several kept on a length of cord passed through the holes in the center of the coins. The woman might have been willing to let it go for nothing, but she was a merchant, and Kairi would willingly have paid much more.

After she left, Kairi read the passage over and over. It wasn’t as good as having actually found him would have been, but at least it felt like a connection.

The library was hidden far out in the desert, far from any of the surrounding cities, and located near no major travel routes.

Sora couldn’t help but think that was horribly inconvenient.

Evidently the librarians liked it that way. It was intended to be a place of quiet research and contemplation, and having it too accessible would mean the scholars who came there wouldn’t have proven themselves sufficiently devoted to it. Or so it was claimed.

Sora wasn’t sure what he’d come here looking for. It had been a long time since he’d really had much of an aim, and he hoped that a place like this could provide a direction. Of course he still believed in the three’s mutual quest to do what they could to help the world, protect people who needed protecting. That didn’t always make it easier to figure out where to go, what to do.

If the library was a repository for accumulated knowledge from all over the world, then hopefully it would help him figure out the best path forward.

He wandered the shelves, set up in spokes around central areas for patrons to read or write or study. The works were extremely varied in topic and presentation. Some works were sheaves of paper, bound together between harder covers. Others were rolls of thick paper made of wood pulp. Some were written on stiff, tight-woven silk. Some were written on parchment, or finer calfskin.

Writing had been a wonderful thing to see so many people begin to do. He remembered when everything could be shared only as stories passed from teller to listener. Some listeners remembered things better than others, should they decide to become tellers in turn, while others added their own details or digressions. He’d heard the same stories told by dozens of people over time and distance, and every version could be different. Sometimes that was its own beauty, but sometimes important details had been forgotten or lost. How wonderful then, for there to be an exact record, a way for everyone who read something to come away with the same base telling?

The library truly was an amazing collection of things from all over the world. He recognized languages from across the continent, and even volumes of translations placed alongside originals.

He couldn’t resist looking through the works devoted to foreign exploration. He wondered if anyone would ever return to the island they’d left so long before. Centuries ago, now. Once he’d promised himself that he’d never forget the way back, but he had. As years and generations and lifetimes passed, he’d lost the specifics. He knew the rough direction, what part of the continent they’d washed up on the shore of, which way they’d come from… but that didn’t tell him where the island itself was. He’d never seen it on any map.

There was a page curled up on its own section of shelf, in between much larger sections packed with more materials. He picked the lone fragment up.

It was a piece of vellum, words inked in precise lettering, telling the story of their islands.

Three islanders, become as gods of the island, watching over the people they loved for lives upon lives. The peace seemed like it would be unending, until the invasion from across the sea destroyed it.

Sora could barely feel it in his hand as he read it again and again.

There was a second, smaller page that had been underneath it. This one was on thick paper, written in a still neat but less precise hand. This was left behind by one of our patrons, who wrote it within the library. He insisted it was a truthful historical account, but it should perhaps be taken as allegory, or as a fictional recounting.

“Riku?” Sora hadn’t meant to even whisper the name, but it had to have been him. Or Kairi, but everything about it looked more like something Riku would have written.

He asked the librarians for supplies to make a copy of the text. They seemed surprised that he’d be interested in that work of all choices, but didn’t pry beyond that.

If he was unable to give up the hint of connection to Riku, if he couldn’t bear to leave behind something Riku himself had made, and if he left behind his copy (made to the best of his ability, though still imperfect), well. The librarians didn’t notice.

Kairi adjusted the borrowed coat a little tighter. She’d never adjust to colder temperatures like the ones on the northern steppe. The cold couldn’t truly harm her, not in a lasting way, but that didn’t mean she found it pleasant. Fortunately, the nomadic group she was traveling with were willing to provide her with supplies that helped make it slightly less unpleasant than it would otherwise have been. Even if they did laugh at her for being more sensitive than even some of their youngest children.

They’d been riding long distances every day for the last several weeks. She was traveling with them as they moved from their summer grounds to the more protected valleys they sought out in winter. She understood they’d be meeting up with a second group soon.

After that, she could head back south, back to a region that didn’t lose half of its daylight with the changing seasons, where the wind didn’t feel like an attack…

She’d accomplished the mission she’d set for herself this time. There were bandits that had been attacking the group along their typical routes, and they’d lost too many of their people, their horses, the eagles they trained to hunt…

It wasn’t that Kairi was a magical singular force that could turn the tide of battle, but not being able to die certainly helped in some circumstances. Her number of “miraculous escapes” while preventing someone else from being hurt had probably contributed to their willingness to give her a really warm coat. And a friendly pony to ride.

Even so, she definitely felt a sense of relief when a scout rode back along the line, telling them that he’d seen the group they were trying to meet with.

The groups meeting up certainly made for a festive atmosphere when they made camp for the night. There were friends and family members who hadn’t seen each other in a couple of seasons, and so much news for everyone to begin catching each other up on.

One of the women clapped Kairi on the shoulder, announcing how much help she’d been against the bandits that would have tried to prevent them from all reaching the meeting place.

Kairi tried to demur, but then someone from the other group was chiming in about how they’d had a stranger who helped them arrive safely as well. In fact, he’d single-handedly disarmed a trap that could have killed a quarter of the group, yet somehow survived.

“What was his name?” Kairi asked. “Was it Sora? Or Riku, maybe?”

The man who’d been telling the story looked a bit startled, but then laughed. “So you know him? Do you make a habit of going about helping travelers too, then?”

“Something like that,” she said. “Is he here?” She couldn’t help but try to look around, see if she caught a glimpse of silver hair, or of impossibly blue eyes…

“He said his name was Riku. But no, we parted ways about a week back. How did you meet him?”

“We met… a very long time ago. Grew up together, really.” She realized her voice sounded a bit faint. She’d come so close again.

“Ah, then maybe this is a story you know…”

The man who’d been speaking with them retreated back to his personal tent, and returned with a folded piece of parchment. He handed it to Kairi.

Unfolding it, she recognized it immediately. The lettering had improved slightly from the one she’d purchased from the warehouse, but it was recognizably his. The motifs around the edges had changed, now more geometric representations of water and clouds, the lines just a little sharper than the looser ink drawings from before.

The three gods were forced to abandon their homeland, taking their remaining people on a dangerous journey across the sea, into the unknown…

She felt her eyes burning with tears as she read on.

The man’s voice, so loud and enthusiastic before, was more subdued as he watched her reaction. “It is a story you know?”

She nodded. “Yes. Yes it is.”

He nodded with her. “Then clearly you must keep it. He understood how we were so eager to find our family, to meet up with each other once more. He spoke of loved ones he has not seen in a very long time, and continually misses. I think you may have been one of them, yes?”

Swallowing was difficult, but she managed to do so, and then forced out an answer. “I might be. I miss him.”

“Then it is a good thing that you will certainly find each other again.”

Sora could hardly believe it when he caught a glimpse of red hair across the room.

The tavern was set up as a little way station, a place to provide a little relief and respite for travelers heading into a city. A chance for a bit of shade and a cool drink attracted a lot of business.

He reined in his expectations. Just because red hair wasn’t common in this part of the world didn’t mean it was her. Still, it was like he knew it had to be.

“Kairi!” he called, grabbing his mug of cool wine and rushing through the crowd. Some of the other patrons moved out of his way, but others just glared as he tried to squeeze past them.

“Kairi!” he called again, louder this time. He drew some additional glares, but then she turned around.

“Sora?” Her eyes were wide, like she couldn’t believe it was him either, and then she was rushing through the crowd, much less politely than he had, not caring as she shoved people out of her way.

“Sora!”

She crashed into him, spilling the rest of his wine, but he didn’t care. He hauled her into as tight a hug as he could.

Some minutes later, they’d replaced their respective drinks and retreated to an area outside under a fabric shade strung up in part of the courtyard. It was nicer than the space inside, and offered them at least the illusion of privacy, more so than within the indoor crowd.

They sat with their arms and legs pressed against each other. He didn’t want to not be touching her, and he suspected she felt the same.

“How long has it been?” she finally asked.

He pushed his shoulder into hers a little harder. “I don’t know. Forty years? Fifty?”

“Too long,” she said.

“Have you seen Riku?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No. Got close a few years ago, but every time it’s like he’s always just gone.”

“Me too!” Sora said, thinking of a piece of fine vellum in a library, and a thicker page purchased from a merchant. “Always just too late! But… I found another page.”

They’d each shared one with each other, the previous time they’d found each other. Sora’s from the library, Kairi’s from a trading port.

He started digging through his pack, seeking the smooth, flat wooded box he’d commissioned to keep the pages safe. The second page was new, purchased from a merchant just weeks ago.

He pulled the page out and carefully passed it to Kairi.

“The lettering is absolutely beautiful,” Kairi said. “And the painting!”

Sora watched her delicately shift the page back and forth, admiring the lines of the waves painted in vibrant blue at the bottom, and how they reflected and contrasted with the cloud motif at the top. The letters were more ornate than the previous one, written along even more perfectly straight lines. Sora has already memorized the text.

Three gods, who failed once to protect their people, forced to part ways to stay with the remnants of the island’s inhabitants…

“Do you think it’s an original?” Sora asked. “Another one he wrote, personally?”

It had become something of a trend for writings to be copied by scribes and scholars, so that works could proliferate for people to study or to enjoy. A useful development, but it made it more difficult to determine who had created a specific copy.

Kairi peered even closer. Cautiously she nodded. “I think so. I can hardly imagine anyone else going to the effort to replicate it, as lovely as it is. It’s a bit… esoteric.” She sighed. “Or maybe I just really hope so. But either way, it’s obviously his creation.”

Sora traced a finger along the edge of the parchment. He didn’t want to damage the painting, but he couldn’t resist the temptation for the ghost of indirect contact.

“I found another one, too. He’d given it to a group of nomads he traveled with for a while.”

It took a moment, but she found it in her pack as well, tucked into a cylindrical leather case. Not the same one as the original page she’d found had been stored in, but very similar.

Sora took it as she passed it to him, and looked it over. The geometric decorations to the page were very different from the ones on the page he’d recently acquired, but they were also clearly depicting the same thing. The sea and the sky…

“I think he really does make these for us,” Sora said. He’d wondered about it for a long time, about how many pages there might be, whether Riku created them with Sora and Kairi in mind, or just hoped for some audience to find them. But with the sea and the sky on every page…

“I like to think you’re right. That he wants us to have some connection to him, even if we haven’t found him.”

Kairi looked at the new page again. “He’s gotten better. More skilled.”

“Well, he does have all the time in the world to practice.” Sora quirked an ironic smile.

“I wish we’d run into him as often as we find these.”

“Four times in… however many years. A hundred? More?”

Kairi shrugged. “It would be four more times than we have.”

That was a sobering thought, but Sora couldn’t argue with it. “It would be,” he agreed.

“So that just means we’re overdue! Surely we have to find him soon, right?”

“The merchant I bought this one from said that the artist he purchased it from was heading south. Do you have any plans for which direction you’re going?”

Kairi smiled at him. “I hope that now I do.”