You wake up to the sound of silence.
There's an utter absence of scratching; no constant clicking of claws on pavement. A lack of screaming, or the clang of metal clashing with metal. No distant explosions booming, no battle cries or thunder of boots.
You lie in confusion for a few moments, and ultimately come to the conclusion that you must be dead. There's no other way to explain the soft sheets on top and underneath you, so unlike the grass and hard ground that you've been used to sleeping on for so many years. When was the last time you slept in a bed? When was the last time you slept alone? You can't hear the soft breathing of your comrades beside you. No sleep-heavy warbles from Donald, no faint snores from Goofy.
You must be dead.
Your hands grip at the sheets beneath you, and you feel your face scrunch up. Because that's not right. You have no business being dead. There are too many people depending on you. Too much riding on you. Your life is not yours to lose. It belongs to countless beings across countless worlds. It belongs to the mercenaries of Traverse Town. To the goodfolk of Radiant Garden. To the children of Twilight Town. To your King, and to-
"Sora?"
Your eyes fly open, and the familiarity of the voice is all that stops you from summoning your Keyblade and thrusting upwards. Too many bad wakeup calls. Too many early mornings with Shadows creeping onto your chest and Unversed clawing at your throat.
But this morning there are only ocean-blue eyes and dark-red hair tucked behind one ear. There's an oval shaped face, tanned by the sun, and unmarked by any scars except for the ones in her eyes.
"Kairi," you breathe, and yes, you can breathe. Your chest rises up, your rib cage expands, your lungs swell with air. And you can feel the rhythmic thumping, the flow of blood through your body, and the soul and spirit that is still firm within you. Your heart still beats. Both of them. You are still whole, and you are still alive.
She is still staring at you, one hand reaching out to brush a damp strand of hair off of your forehead.
"I thought that I was dead," you confess quietly, sitting up with your back against the headboard, and looking down at your body, clothed only in boxers and a big t-shirt. No armor, no munny or keychain pouch. No potion pocket. Just loose fitting summer clothes and the tan body of a teenager.
"You're not dead," she says firmly, and her hand has moved up from your forehead to lace her fingers through your hair, her entire body shifting closer so that she is kneeling in front of you. "Sora, the war is over."
Her head tilts downwards and you feel her lips on your cheek, and your eyes close, the tension in your body bleeding out of you the same way blood leaves a gutted body.
"Yeah," you say memory seeping back into your sleep-addled consciousness, "Yeah."
/
When you were ten years old, a ship pulled into the main port of your home of Destiny Islands and claimed that a war had begun.
Destiny Islands was secluded, a cluster of islands that was out of sight of any 'mainland' and self-sufficient enough to have no interest in any far off place. There were always some hot blooded young people wanting to sail off into the distance, to discover a new world, but the adults were adamant about not lending out any shipping boats to such an endeavor, and no one was quite determined enough to build their own long-distance travel ship.
As such, everyone was quite surprised to hear that you lived on a world with a military, with soldiers, with wars.
The General on the ship assured the mayor that if the war was ended early, it would never reach your islands, but in order to ensure that, he asked all young men of fighting age to sign up for training and enlistment.
Most islanders were furious, because they needed their young men to man their boats. To fish their sea. To do the hard labour necessary to keep the islands running. But adventure had always been lacking in your home, and a score of eager boys from age 14 to 23 joined the General on his ship. One of those boys was your older brother, Ventus.
You know now that the whole reason the ship came was Ventus. That there was no war on your world, but in worlds far away. That the General on the ship, Master Eraqus, had been told there was a young man capable of wielding the Keyblade on your home, with a heart full of only Light. That he had picked up all those boys in the hopes of finding the one that could save the worlds.
Sometimes you wonder what would have happened if it had been Ventus. If the meddling of Xehanort hadn't destroyed your brother. If Ansem's research hadn't fallen into his hands, and revealed that Ventus's unique power might be shared by family members, causing Xehanort to come after you and your twin brother.
But it's dumb to dwell on stuff like that now. Everything happened the way it happened. Ventus died. Roxas was kidnapped, you were rescued, Kairi and Riku came along for the ride, and you eventually took your brother's place as the saviour of the worlds.
Now you're home, back on Destiny Islands, nineteen years old and living with your two lovers in a house the three of you built close to the shore. Your brother is back on the side he was supposed to be on, and living with his lovers in Twilight Town. And the worlds are safe, Xehanort and all his iterations defeated.
The war is over.
/
You woke up alone because you have the bad fortune of living with two early risers who like to be up and about with the sun rise, or at the very least up before noon. Usually, Kairi messing about your shared bedroom before her shower wakes you up mid morning, but today you'd woken yourself up before she could. Cue freak out and doubt over aliveness.
But it's all okay now, because you're not dead. You are alive, and you are here with your two most cherished people, in the islands that you love and call home. You are where you are supposed to be, and where you want to be.
Riku is currently sitting across from you at the kitchen table, looking stupidly attractive. He's just come in from his crack-of-dawn run around the island, and his skin is still glistening with sweat and seaspray. He stinks to high heaven, but it's a Riku-smell, and you love any kind of Riku-smell because smelling it means that it's really him. That it's not a clone, or a memory, or anything other than one of your most precious people.
You smile at him softly, shoveling in piles of the eggs he made. Riku cooks pretty much all your food, because he wakes up the earliest and also because he's the only one who can. Everyone who has ever seen you in a kitchen has banned you from setting foot inside again, and Kairi, despite her best efforts, can only make fruit salads, and has been known to burn water quickly and violently.
Riku notices your soft smile, and stares back at you with his own version of one. Because Riku doesn't smile so much as he gazes intensely. Stares at you like he's trying to drink up every part of you with his eyes. Looks at you like he's afraid you'll disappear if he looks away, and that he's keeping you in place solely with the intensity of his gaze. That's his version of a loving smile.
There's a light element of concern in his eyes, and he probably notices that something's bothering you. But Riku's policy of late has been to ignore you until you 'use your words', because while he is very good at reading body language, particularly yours and Kairi's, he is not quite a mind reader, and doesn't like guessing games. If it was something that was really bothering you, he would have knocked over the table in his hurry to ask you what was wrong, but you're not really that troubled. Just a little unsettled maybe, and he doesn't pry any further when your eyes finally separate.
It's probably strange, how much waking up and thinking you were dead doesn't bother you. Maybe it's because you're not actually dead? It sucked thinking you were, but you're not, so it seems dumb to dwell on it. Like Kairi said, the war is over. Even if you did die now, it wouldn't mean the end of the world(s). The fact that your life is just yours, yours and Riku's and Kairi's, and not the life of trillions of innocents across the multiverse, is unexpectedly comforting. The weight of the world is heavy, and while your shoulders are broad and strong, it's a weight that you bore for too long, and you're glad to be rid of it. You like just being Sora, and while the title of Keyblade Master is still yours, it's a title that no longer automatically precedes your name. Here, on these islands, where the majority of the people don't believe the tale that you and Riku and Kairi recounted, you are just Sora. Sora the teenager who disappeared for six years and reappeared sans a twin brother and with an oversized key he claimed could unlock worlds.
Regardless, you're more subdued this morning than you usually are, and there's a slightly awkward silence in the kitchen until Kairi walks in, her hair still dripping from her shower and her schoolbag hanging from one hand. She's the only one out of the two of you who attempted to go back to school. Taking a high school equivalency test, and then entering the only college on the islands. She's also attempting to please her foster father by getting involved in the intricacies of his political world, though you all know she has no intentions of truly continuing her adopted family's legacy of being mayors of the Islands. She is a princess by birth, and a girl whose heart is made entirely of Light. Politics is not something she will ever truly be a part of.
"Eggs? Perfect," coos Kairi, dropping her bag on the floor and walking over to grab a plate from one of the cupboards. She flashes you a single concerned look over her shoulder, but you already assured her that you're fine, back in the bedroom when you first woke up, so she doesn't pester you about it. That's a new thing between the three of you. You don't nag each other over things nearly as much as you used to, because you all trust each other to tell the truth. You and Kairi trust Riku to tell you when the shadows in his mind are getting fierce, when the memories of past deeds begin to eat away at him, or when his soul gets restless, and he has a burning need to feel Way to Dawn singing through the air. Kairi trusts you and Riku to take her seriously, to believe that she's strong enough to handle her training, and that you will always tell her when something is wrong, and not attempt to protect or coddle her. And you and Riku trust her to tell you when the training does get too much, and not push herself past her limits. As for you, Riku and Kairi trust you to say when something is bothering you, and not brush off your concerns and worries, or put their troubles before your own.
You don't think this counts as 'brushing off your concerns and worries' though, because for once there really isn't anything wrong. You are notdead. You are not separated from the two people you love most in the world. You are your own person, free to follow your own hopes and dreams, and free to live your life however you choose, without the responsibility of a million different worlds on your shoulders.
The war is over.
And you are home.
/
The sound of ocean waves, crashing against the shoreline, surrounds you, and you lean back on your hands, eyes closed as you let yourself drown in the sounds and scents of the world around you. The salty sea breeze, the smell of damp vegetation and fruit trees, the whooshing sound of the large leaves in the wind, and the feel of the sand beneath your fingers.
Your mind wanders, and the phantom smells of smoke and fire, of blood and Darkness, of sweat in a hot sun, sickness in a frozen tundra, and pixie dust on the wind surround you. The sand beneath your fingers feels like snow for an instant, then like hard cobblestone, then like nothing. Like empty space.
You shiver and open your eyes.
As happy as you are, it's times like these that you think of all that was lost. Everyone that perished, all the worlds that couldn't be saved, and all the people who will never be able to sit back and enjoy a beautiful day again. Your older brother is the first one that comes to mind. Destroyed by Xehanort before he ever had a chance to become the hero he could have been. The warrior you never met, Terra, your brother's best friend, is the second. The man who Riku reminded so many people of, but who fell to the Darkness and was lost, unlike your lover.
There are others, people who fell with you in battle, instead of before your time. Zack and Aeris. Auron. Countless numbers of King Mickey's soldiers. The people of the Organization, who you know now weren't evil, but manipulated and used by Xemnas. And all the innocent lives lost in the crossfire.
It still hurts sometimes, thinking about all the people you couldn't save, but you try really, really hard not to dwell on it. Because there are millions, billions, trillions of lives that you did save. People you helped. Worlds you restored. Friends that are still living happily somewhere. People who no longer need to live in fear of the Darkness rising up to consume them.
You think of Roxas, your twin brother who almost became a dark, twisted puppet of Xemnas, but was able to rescue himself, and rescue others in the process. Axel, Namine, Xion. All of them are alive and living the lives that were previously denied to them. Kairi's long-lost younger sister, Namine, no longer forced to hurt people with her powers, but living as she always should have. In Radiant Garden as a member of the royal family. Axel once the most feared assassin in Xemnas's army, and now (in Roxas's words) a permanently singed teddy bear, enjoying the peace of Twilight Town with your brother. And with Xion. The girl who was only supposed to live as a lab experiment. Created to replicate the phenomena that was found in you and your brothers, as well as in Kairi; the ability to wield a keyblade, and a heart filled with only Light.
All of them found their happily ever after. All of them emerged from the Darkness.
You smile a little, ignoring the slight pang in your chest as you think of your brother. The worlds are locked once more, and in all honesty, you'll probably never see him again. You kinda wish he had come back with you (because it really sucks that your mom doesn't believe you when you say Roxas isn't dead), but you know that he's happier where he is. He never really felt at home on the islands, especially in the face of the great friendship you, Riku, and Kairi shared. A friendship that he just couldn't fit into, no matter how much he tried. It's actually kind of hilarious that it took a near-apocalypse for your brother to find the people and place he belonged to, and you can imagine him rolling his eyes and elbowing you for the comment.
You continue to sit, reminiscing in pleasant memories, and enjoying the serenity of your island. Usually, you spend your days building boats, which is the unofficial occupation that you and Riku have decided on. You're both good with your hands, and you've been fascinated by ships ever since commanding the Gummi Ship for the first time. It helps explain why the three of you are able to live comfortably on your own, without revealing that your true source of income is a limitless amount of munny, converted from all the treasures and currency that you collected on your joint travels.
Riku also helps out at the boatyards, which is where he is now. He likes work that can keep him busy, not allow him to stray too far into his own thoughts. And the other workers aren't likely to ask him prying questions, or just generally be giant dicks towards him, like some islanders tend to be. Disappearing for six years and coming back with some hokey story about magical keys and talking mice didn't really cast any of you in the best light to the other islanders.
As for you, you also help out at the daycare sometimes. You're not great with kids, not really. They're too small and fragile for you to feel comfortable around, and you're the first to admit that you're less than responsible when it comes to stopping them from putting things in their mouths. But they all love to hear you tell stories, and on days that are rainy, or too hot, or too cold, you love to head down and talk about your adventures for the one crowd that won't look at you with suspicion and disbelief.
But today, you're taking a break from that. Because, okay, maybe this morning bothered you a little bit more than you let on. Maybe you are just a teensy bit unsettled. Maybe you need to sit in the sun, dig your fingers into the sand, fill your lungs with salty air, and remind yourself that you survived. And that you won.
The wind ruffles your hair and you exhale heavily, scooting down the beach until you can dip your bare feet into the ocean. The water in the shallow area is warm from the sun, and feels nice on your skin. It reminds you a bit of Atlantica, but more of Neverland, and the Mermaid Lagoon. The memories bring a fond smile to your face for a moment, but it dissipates with a wince as you remember the fierce battles you fought there. The screams of the Lost Boys caught in the crossfire, and the smell of an untouched world of youth and laughter being set ablaze.
You're lost in the memories, a pained expression on your face, and it takes you a moment to notice the sound of footsteps coming towards you.
It's Riku and Kairi, you can tell without even looking up, and that's weird, because Riku has work and Kairi has school.
You look towards them, still leaning back on your hands, and push aside all your unpleasant, painful thoughts, offering them a wide grin. Only to falter because yikes, Riku's expression is a little scary, and Kairi looks like she's going to give you a tongue-lashing. Uh-oh.
And you know why, without them even saying it. Because of course they could tell. Of course they knew that you were being a butt and breaking the rules and not telling them when something was bothering you. Keeping things to yourself. Pretending like you were fine.
Riku's face is a storm as he sits down beside you, and Kairi sighs heavily as she plops down on your other side. The comfortable warmth that settles within you at being beside them once more is unsettled by the guilt sitting in your stomach.
"I'm sorry," you say with wince, before either of them can say anything, "I thought I was okay. I thought it didn't bother me that much."
"That's dumb," replies Kairi quietly, her mouth in a thin line, "Of course something like that would bother you. I was really hoping you'd come to us yourself, Sora, or call us."
She gives you a light scowl, but she looks more hurt than anything, and you wince again.
Then Riku's arm is around your waist, holding you in a tight, almost painful embrace. You turn towards him just as he leans his head down towards your ear, his eyes still looking like a storm.
"Don't break our rules, Sora," he whispers gruffly, "If you need us here with you, than say so."
"You don't need to be strong anymore," adds Kairi, taking your hand and leaning her chin on your shoulder, "It's okay to be weak. It's okay to hurt. We'll help you carry your pain, Sora, so please, don't hide it from us."
The feeling of being pressed against your two lovers, feeling the beat of their hearts, and hearing the love, support, and reassurance in their words, is enough to get the waterworks going. You try not to be embarrassed by how easy it is to reduce you to tears, but jeez it's embarrassing, and you wipe them away quickly.
"I know, I'm sorry," you sniff, leaning into Riku's chest and gripping Kairi's hand tightly, "Yeah, I just- yeah. Sorry. Waking up like that just reminded me of everything we went through. Everything we almost lost and everything we did lose. I, yeah. I'm just, I just needed a moment to think of the happy stuff. That's all. I'm sorry."
A silence falls upon the three of you, and you sit and try to stifle your stupid lame tears as Kairi wraps her arms around your chest and Riku presses his lips to your temple, his hand rubbing your back soothingly.
"The sun is warm and the sky is bright," she whispers, her head resting overtop of your heart, "The ocean is beautiful and calm, and listen- the birds are singing. The birds don't sing in times of trouble, they never do. The worlds are at peace, and they will remain that way for a long, long time."
"The war is over," you whisper at the same time she does, before sighing heavily wiping away the last of your tears.
And we are alive.
/
Beginning to realize that Homestuck is really the only one of my fandoms with a huge presence on A03. So I'll start shuffling over some of the stuff I've posted over there onto here.
There's an accompanying piece to this from Roxas's POV. I shall post it eventually.