The small cottage is a mess. The table has been smashed to pieces during the fight, the bed cracked in the middle, and at some point the book shelves came tumbling down, spilling their contents all over the floor. Riku eyes the chaos regretfully. What a waste. Such wanton destruction, and all for nothing.
"What a waste," Pete wheezes, making the boy scowl, "so much effort, and all for nothing."
He kicks at one of the bookshelves, stepping onto colorful tomes on the floor with disdain.
"'Great power', huh?" he snorts, "Fairy tales, is what it is. The boss lady will be real angry."
"She'll be far angrier if she hears you calling her 'boss lady' again," Riku muses, walking up to where an old man had breathed his last not minutes ago.
A wizard, according to Maleficient. A fearsome one. There's something glinting beneath the long, dark robes he left behind, body long gone; devoured by the heartless. Pete snatches it up before Riku can get a closer look.
"Lady Maleficient," the great cat intones carefully, dangling his prize from big paws. "You're not gonna go snitch on me, are you, Riku?"
"Why would I? It's not like I care whether you get into trouble or not."
It's a pendant, glinting softly in the fading daylight. At first glance it appears unremarkable like a clear glass stone, but there are faint silvery cracks curling through its insides like veins. Riku remembers the old wizard clutching it in his hand, eyes closed and waiting for the end. Pete sniffs the pendant and makes a face.
"Useless. If we don't bring at least something for Lady Maleficient, she's gonna take it out on my hide."
He makes as if to throw the glass stone out of the window, but Riku's eyes are still glued to it, transfixed by the way it catches the light.
"Stop that. Give it to me."
The great cat clutches the stone to his chest like a prized possession – as if he didn't just try to throw it away. Typical, Riku thinks disdainfully. He doesn't want it, but he doesn't want anyone else having it either.
"Think of it as a payment," he says wryly, "for putting up with your stupidity. Or I could tell Lady Maleficient that you've been giving her cutsy nicknames again."
Pete scowls, but throws the stone at him without a fight. Riku catches it, letting it dangle from his hand by its leather strap. When he holds it up against the broken window, the silver cracks light up like little rainbows. He considers the stone for a moment, before sliding it into his pocket. There might be no magic in it, but it looks like something Kairi would like.
He lets Pete lug back a bag full of the wizard's books. They're mostly fairy tales, that much is true. But he knows the old witch would want them anyway. Who knows what sort of secrets that man hid in those innocuous looking books; there's surely a reason why he had so many of them.
Maleficient is indeed displeased. She sends Riku to his room like a misbehaving child. But while that might chafe his ego, he prefers it to the punishment that's sure to await Pete.
His room is dark and spartan. He has no personal belongings – all of them disappeared with his home – and the stained glass window up high only allows a muted blue-ish glow inside. There's a bed in which he rarely sleeps and a table with a simple wooden chair in which he never sits. He hates his room. But there's very little Riku doesn't hate nowadays.
He takes the old man's pendant out of his pocket and lays it out on his bed. With no light to catch, the stone looks like an ordinary piece of glass. But it's still smooth and oddly calming to touch. A meditative stone, maybe? The leather strap is attached through a small silvery loop on top of the stone. If he wanted, he could take it off and replace it with something nicer. A small silver chain, maybe. Slim and elegant. No; Kairi would prefer the leather band.
Kairi's body is still sealed away. 'For her protection,' Maleficient assured him, but that also means he'll have to keep it safe for her until she wakes up.
He'll have to apologize to Kairi when she does. She won't like him fighting with Sora.
There's still white hot betrayal curling in his belly whenever he thinks of his best friend. Sora is a child; naïve. He always would be. Of course he'd think fixing Kairi is just a matter of beating up the bad guys – that's how you save princesses, after all. He doesn't understand that the real world doesn't work that way.
That sometimes you have to get your hands dirty to do things the proper way.
That not everyone is always going to have a happy ending. And if you want yours, sometimes you have to take it from others.
It still hurts that Sora so easily discarded him. Not only his friendship, but also his help. 'Kairi wouldn't want that,' he said when he choose a puppet over the both of them. His two best friends – easily passed over in favor for something that shouldn't be alive in the first place. But he was right about one thing, of course. Kairi would have hated it. Being alive at the expense of someone something else. Because Kairi, too, is too good for this world, Riku thinks bitterly. That's why you two always had me.
Had.
He rubs his forehead with the back of his hand. It's all gone now; he'll have to make peace with that. Whatever the three of them had, it's gone. Kairi is somewhere beyond his reach, and Sora would rather believe him the villain than trust his judgment. In a way they are both lost to him.
No. No, he can still fix this. And if he has to beat Sora into submission. The boy would realize one day that it was necessary. When all this is over, he'd apologize to Kairi for being a reckless idiot, and then he'll make things right with Sora. By then the vicious anger in him will have burnt to nothingness.
He stuffs the pendant under his pillow and goes to see Kairi.
It's disconcerting, seeing Kairi's lifeless body sealed away like a corpse in a casket. It wasn't so long ago that he saw her jumping around in excitement. How long has it been? – a few weeks, four months maybe. If he looks very closely, he can still see the sand under her nails and the salt crusted into her hair. He himself has long since washed off all traces of his home world. Without the salt and the sand he feels like a stranger in his own skin.
But that's ok. Everyone is a stranger now. Even Sora.
"I'm sorry," he tells her. "For … everything."
Kairi stays predictably silent. Sometimes he likes to fool himself into thinking that she's only asleep. That any moment now, she'll wake up and scold him for watching her like a creep. But the illusion never lasts long. Kairi is a restless sleeper, kicking and mumbling and making stupid faces. The way she looks now is too still. She looks dead, not asleep. 'It's your birthday soon,' he wants to say. 'I have a present for you.'
'Please forgive me.'
He turns away and leaves.
Wandering Hollow Bastion offers him no peace. It's not a nice place, not something that can make him forget his troubles.
It's a sad place, most of all. On the days Maleficient is too busy for him he likes to roam the empty halls, imagining what it must have looked like once. He doesn't need much imagination. Even in its ruins, the old castle is still glorious. Empty and cold and dark, but beautiful.
There's halls still filled with expensive but empty vases; rooms with overturned tables and broken chairs; faded tapestries and lush, if dusty, curtains. He wonders what sort of king used to live here.
Only the library still retains some of its former warmth. Some of the bookshelves have been plundered, courtesy of the old witch, but many more books remain. Riku can't bring himself to read them, but he enjoys spending time curled up on the big armchair under the stairs. Pete doesn't hold with libraries and Maleficient rarely bothers with the room, now that its most valuable tomes have made it into her personal library. Not even the heartless go there. Maybe it's because it is the brightest room in the castle. Or maybe he's reading too much into it.
So when a shadow wrenches into being behind his chair, Riku knows something important must be up.
"What is it now?"
It motions towards the door, eagerly nudging his legs like a puppy. He watches the creature in disdain. There's no doubt in his mind that it would descend on him like an animal the moment he lost Maleficient's favor. It is too stupid, too primal for treachery, but in the light of bleak reality its affections seem too dishonest to be appreciated. Riku gives it a shove.
"I'm on my way. Get lost."
Maleficient's 'study' is one of the tower rooms. She has a flare for dramatics, Riku has long since come to realize. He is by now more than used to the greenish glow of the witch's cauldron and the dramatic scenes depicted on the stained glass window. Riku only has a moment to contemplate the heroic figure of a knight being eaten by a dragon, before his Master comes sweeping into the room.
"They are all useless," she hisses, not even bothering with formalities anymore. "I spent hours poring over those books, but there's nothing of substance in it. Stories of spirits and fairies…"
Maleficient snorts derisively. With a start she turns to Riku, as if only just remembering that he's there.
"You truly found nothing? No hidden rooms, no potions – nothing of import?"
He shakes his head, a little bewildered by her vehemence.
"Nothing. It was a small house and we searched every corner. What exactly were you looking for?"
She waves dismissively, even while pacing agitatedly back and forth.
"Nothing you have to worry about. Elric was an old acquaintance – one with whom I still had a bone to pick. And he was always fond of tricky magic; I merely thought he might have something worth my attention."
She's far too upset for this to be true, he thinks. There was something particular she wanted. But it's really of no concern to him. After all, Riku has been collecting princesses for Maleficient left and right; whatever plan of hers went wrong, it isn't the one he's invested in.
When he goes to bed that night, his hand finds Kairi's pendant under his pillow.
Tricky magic, he thinks. Maybe it's this she's been looking for?
He curls his fingers around the stone, comforted by the weight of it in his palm. Even if it is, he doubts that there is anything left in this stone. Maybe it expired together with its Master. Once more he remembers the old man clutching the stone, eyes closed. Maybe in concentration, not in resignation. To burn out the last of its powers, just so that Maleficient wouldn't get her hands on it. Riku snorts into the dark. Yes, that could definitely be it. Those magic folks sure begrudged each other every scrap.
No, he'd keep this one. He slips the leather strap around his neck and pushes the stone down his shirt. Better safe than sorry. The stone is luke warm against his skin, and after a while he forgets it's even there. He drifts off, strangely content for once.
Most of Maleficient's orders are no hardship. He likes trawling the worlds, hunting down things and people. He likes being the curious stranger for a while, reading up on history and speaking to the natives.
'Have you seen this man?'
'I am looking for this book.'
It's satisfying work, and he suspects if he didn't have Sora and Kairi to worry about, he might actively enjoy it. Someday, he thinks. Someday he'll go back to these places, when all of this is over. But while a new job can keep his brain whirring for days on end with excitement, his body is not as willing as his mind. Traveling worlds is exhausting. Manipulating dark matter is exhausting. Dangerous, too.
When he returns to Hollow Bastion for the night, he can't afford to close his eyes in the Corridors of Darkness; any sign of weakness will have the heartless on him. In there, Maleficient's influence is nothing. He is nothing but the strength he exudes to subjugate the darkness. The constant weariness isn't something he thinks of fondly, not like the burn in his muscles after a good fight, so it takes him a while to notice its absence.
Even as Maleficient keeps him up and running for a week straight, even as he's assigned to lead Pete through another nonsensical job by the hand, even as the witch's training for him turns harsher with her impatience. He's exhausted, yes. But it's the good kind that he long since forgot existed. The one that lets him fall face first into bed and sleep without dreaming. He doesn't miss the nightmares, filled with darkness and guilt and loneliness.
The first time confused dream-thoughts filter through again he's bemused.
They're only impressions, left behind like a strange aftertaste in the morning. He's dreamt something nice, but he can't remember what it was. Something warm; the faint memory of a voice. His mother?
For a moment something squeezes painfully in his chest. He hasn't thought about his mother for far too long – has actively avoided it. Sora's disapproval stings; the thought of Kairi's hurts; but the knowledge that his mother would be disappointed in him makes him feel empty and sick inside. He banishes the memory of her to the back of his mind. What's one more person that he's got to apologize to, after all?
He turns onto his stomach and buries his face in his pillow. For a long moment he tries to recall more, but the images slip through his fingers like sand.
It'll stay that way for a while.
A voice whispers into his ear, high and whispy. He's not sure what they are saying, but he can feel his lips quirk up in agreeable amusement. A hand is touching his hair. For a moment everything is ok.
He wakes up, still feeling comfortably warm and amused. His hand is wrapped around the stone under his shirt; it's strangely warm against his palm. He'd all but forgotten about Kairi's pendant at that point. He's never taken it off since that first day, worried that someone might find it at first, then because it simply never occurs to him anymore. Confused, he pulls it out, but the stone is still clear and smooth. Nothing changed, except for the rapidly dissipating heat.
His own body heat, he thinks. Stop being ridiculous.
Feeling silly he tucks it back into his shirt before sitting up. He has things to do today.
His encounters with Sora keep gnawing at him. Most of the time the other boy is not even aware that Riku is watching him. His new companions and his travelling absorb all of his attention.
Riku wants to make things right. The acidic thing in his belly disagrees vehemently. Do what you need to first; your happiness is not more important than Kairi's life. His only solace is falling into bed at night, where his worries simply cease to exist.
Waves crash against rock. A warm, calloused hand touches his and he smiles.
He stopped visiting Kairi. Maleficient moved her somewhere more secure; Sora's constant foiling of all her plans has made her snappish and paranoid.
But even before that he found it hard to keep up his regular visits. Whereas he used to find comfort in the presence of his friend, he now only feels cold dread at the sight of her empty shell.
"I'm sorry," he says, voice echoing off the bare walls of his bedroom. "But if that keeps you safer it'll be worth it."
He clutches the pendant through his shirt.
With Kairi out of his reach Riku finds himself following Sora. It's not a conscious effort; he simply keeps winding up in the same place. Watching his best friend laughing and joking with strangers calms him as much as it hurts him. Everything is changing, but at least Sora is still the same.
Sometimes he thinks the stupid Duck knows he's there. A few times, when the darkness doesn't quite conceal him, he can see Donald's eyes wandering in his direction. They always pass over him, but there's still a vague sort of acknowledgement; a sense of 'I know you're there'. He never says a word to Sora but it makes Riku keep his distance, no matter how tempted he is sometimes to just go and pick a fight. I could take them, he thinks sometimes. The duck and the dog. If I catch them off guard I can just … can just what? He doesn't even know. He's not so far gone as to want to kill them – not if it'll ruin things irreparably. He just wants Sora to look at him. Just one more time, because he feels as if he's disappearing.
It's not your fault. Silly child.
He curls up on the warm sand, dazed and the sort of content he used to associate with a good meal. Birds chirp. Silly child. Silly child. Someone tugs playfully at his hair. Tinkling laughter.
While his nights are peaceful, his days are getting more restless. Maybe he simply caught Maleficient's paranoia like a disease, but he can't stay anywhere for long anymore. He feels watched. Every time he turns around the room is empty behind him; even the heartless have taken to avoiding him. The feeling is so intense that he has abandoned his favorite chair in the library. Instead he takes to sitting on the floor, his back flush against the wall.
Don't be stupid, he thinks. Who should be watching him? Who would dare come into Maleficient's castle and hunt her student like a rabbit? But his fear will not bow to logic and reasoning.
"You're having cabin fever," his master croons, grabbing his chin in her hand and smiling down at him coldly. "My poor boy. I have a job for you, that'll keep you distracted for a while."
There's a dark edge to his dreams now.
He feels cold hands grabbing at him as often as he feels warm hands comforting him. The sky has turned black as night and the birds have fallen silent. He sleeps uneasy, trying to cling to images of dark hair and the sound of laughter.
Maleficient sends him for another book. It's meaningless to him; something about history, the old world. People are eager to help him. It doesn't take him long.
There's a comforting weight around his shoulders. The sound of someone breathing and the scent of rain. A small, slim finger strokes his cheek. Wake up. Wake up. Why? It's nice here, isn't it? Wake up, silly child.
A finger touches his cheek. It's claw-tipped and cuts a deep groove into his skin. Riku … Riku … Let me borrow you, will you? He screams.
The pendant is searing hot against his chest. Confused and panicked he shoots up from his bed. He slips to the floor, legs tangled in the blanket.
Riku … Riku …
He runs for the light switch, throwing himself against the wall in his haste to escape the voice. The room is empty; whatever magic was trying to take hold of him is gone. Riku sinks to the floor, shaking and out of breath. Someone is still watching him. "I don't know what to do," he confesses into empty air, voice hoarse as if he'd really screamed. "Please, someone tell me what to do."
The pendant has left a burn mark on his chest. Perfectly oval and tender to the touch it sits right on his sternum. It's not the angry red he expected but rather a silvery white, like an old scar. Touching it makes him feel strangely nostalgic. Silly child. Silly child. Whoever this person is, it's not his mother. His mother is blonde like him; Riku isn't entirely sure if it's even a woman at all. He remembers big hands on his, a voice turning from low to high, deep rumbling laughter and a giggle like silver bells.
Riku leaves Maleficient's book in the inn where he's staying. The old witch can wait for a while. As he tears through the Dark Corridor no Heartless tries to stop him.
The mark on his chest burns as he reaches his destination. Old man Elric's hut still looks the same as it did weeks ago. The door is still open even, so Riku steps right inside without hesitation. Elric's cloak lies undisturbed on the ground. Riku steps around it. For a moment he's not sure what to do. Why is he here? The old man is dead; there's nothing for him here. Only a book on the table where Pete had discarded it.
Trash, he'd said. Fairy tales.
Riku runs his fingers over the old leather cover. It's well maintained but has obviously been loved to pieces nevertheless; when he opens it a few pages fall out. A big part of the book has turned yellow with age. The pages feel stiff and brittle in his hands. He leaves through it, strangely transfixed by the stories they tell. Some of them he knows to be true – witches and the powers of a pure heart. Others seem entirely outlandish – talking birds and cats in boots. Again others are even familiar.
I saw her, Selphie's voice echoes in his head, I swear a saw a mermaid! Just like the ones papa told me about. Saw her tail vanishing at the Great Rock like a big fish!
Some of the pages stick together. Water damage, he thinks. They crinkle terribly; prying them apart is oddly satisfying. Flowers curl all over the next page, blooming along the ornate script. A two-faced deity smiles up at him. It stands on goat feet, holding a spear and an apple.
Palesis, it says below. God of Harvest and the Hunt. His fingers trace the page absentmindedly. There are more pictures. A young woman with dark hair and eyes, naked and sitting astride on a boar. A young man with the same face cradling a basket of ears.
He closes the book with a snap, suddenly feeling cold and breathless.
"Is that it?" he wonders. "Is that what I took from you, old man?"
He takes the book and turns to go home.
Riku … Riku … give me your hand, why don't you? ICAnHelpYOU.
The dark dreams are getting more frequent, even though he has taken to leaving the light on at night. All the pendant does anymore is wake him up before it gets too bad. The burn mark has become fiercer now; when he touches it there is a noticeable indention in his flesh, as if it were trying to burn its way inside his chest. He cradles the stone in his hand, trying to find comfort in the burn of it against his palm.
"What do I do?" he asks it, not for the first time. "What is happening to me?"
Fingers card through his. Pitiful child. So alone. Something is pressed into his hand. He curls around it, sleepy and confused. Open your eyes. Look at it. Look at it. He feels around the object, thumb slipping into something cold and wet. It's a bowl. Milk is spilling over his hand and slowly turning pink around his finger. The coppery smell of his blood is not as disconcerting as it should be.
Riku … won't you rather give that to ME? A hand wraps around his ankle and pulls.
His heart is beating fast. There's light streaming through the clouds, brilliant and comforting, on one of the terraces. It's one of the few places he still feels truly alone. Nobody is watching him here. There's no shadow to hide in.
There is a bowl sitting in front of Riku, made of delicate china. It's cracked at the edges and the gold paint has peeled off in places. Items like this are easy to procure in Hollow Bastion, with its rooms full of forgotten things. Milk on the other hand was harder to come by. He carried it all the way through a Dark Corridor, dodging restless Heartless.
Riku takes the pendant from around his neck. He feels naked and cold, as if its pitiful magic had lost its grip on him and taken all of its comfort with it. He rubs the burn mark; his heart squeezes painfully, as if there were a direct connection between the two. For a moment he watches the light break in the clear stone, but it doesn't bring the same sense of awe anymore. Instead he'd rather have it back around his neck. Riku lets the pendant sink into the bowl of milk. It occurs to him that he should be feeling ridiculous, but he's too wound up and far beyond embarrassment by now. Instead he slides his thumb against the cracked edges of the bowl, pressing, pressing until he can feel the skin break. It runs into the bowl, coloring the milk.
There's … no flash of light, no pulse of magic in the air. Nothing. For a moment he's frustrated and frightened. What is he supposed to do now? How can he handle these dreams on his own?
"Come on," he whispers, "come on, you promised."
When he lifts the stone out of the bowl it has turned cloudy. The cracks are red with his blood. He wipes the milk away and smiles.
"In Hoodoo bodily fluids have long since been used as main ingredients for magic. Blood, milk, semen, and chamber lye fuel powerful love spells and good luck charms."