Hearts of Gold
**I DO NOT OWN KINGDOM HEARTS OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS. I ONLY OWN KENIERA, AND I ATTEMPT TO OWN HOLT**
Chapter 1
Keniera swung her Keyblade in wide, sweeping arc, catching the Heartless by the shoulder and dissolving it in a blast of dark mist and ichor. A few quick glances around her training area showed that was the last one, at least for this session. As always, she held her position for a few seconds, counting her breaths and calming her frantic heart, bringing it down from its frenzied crescendo. She always got a little... wild… during Battle Practice, especially after Holt said she had been improving. She was desperate to impress him, to finally reach his level. Holt... She thought for a moment and glanced up, still holding her position. Hadn't he just been here? Where has he gone now? She wondered, a tad bit irritably. Exasperated, Keniera blew a stray piece of brunette hair from her face as she straightened up and searched the clearing she had been practicing in for her unaccounted tutor. "Holt? Ho-olt!" When he didn't answer, she absentmindedly started twisting the hem of her skirt, anxiously looking about the clearing. It was one of her favorite spots in all of Radiant Gardens; not only to train in, but to relax in and hang out and just be… normal. It was really just a small meadow with an old hickory stump in the middle, surrounded by tall, young trees and wildflowers, with a steep overhang above the river, appropriately dubbed the Ledge by the locals. Nothing special physically, but it held many memories... Keniera shook her head to clear her thoughts, her hair once again floating down from her now-messy bun. She distractedly wiped a drop of sweat from her temple and continued her search for her mentor.
She had arrived in Radiant Gardens just two years ago, in this very clearing; battered, broken, and unresponsive. Holt had been mentoring some younger trainees when a dark corridor had opened up in the middle of the clearing and a strange man dropped her body near the Ledge, paying absolutely no attention to the shocked children and mentor just a few feet away. He had carelessly dropped her body, wrapped in a white sheet, at his feet and pulled it open just enough for her face to show. Her eyes had been open but unseeing and her mouth formed incoherent words, just barely audible. An aura of darkness had surrounded her, tingeing the air around her with a sick, grey glow. He had kneeled next to her, whispering something to her while pulling a black ring from her right pinkie finger.
The man had straightened up, summoned another dark portal, and disappeared without another word. After he had left, everyone had stayed rooted to the spot where they stood, none too sure on how to react. Eventually Keniera had whimpered in her stupor and alerted Holt, who had temporarily forgotten her presence. He had scooped her up and taken her to the hospital with his curious students trailing dazedly behind him. Afterwards, no one could remember exactly what the man looked like; the only feature anyone could really remember were his eyes, glowing gold like a coin. As they neared the hospital, however, their interest was focused less on the man from the clearing and more on the young woman he had brought. She had lain in a hospital bed for a month after that, hooked up to every machine imaginable, the townsfolk fearing she would never wake up.
Days past; the cuts and scrapes and bruises healed and faded, but her eyes remained lifeless, her breath shallow and her heart feeble. No amount of medication or therapy derived any response from the seemingly comatose girl. The magicians and wizards in the town claimed it was a curse, one only time could heal; the healers and physicians never pinpointed the source of her coma. With every theory ending in mystery, superstition rose steadily in their minds. After hours and hours making fruitless conjectures and diagnostics, they simply stopped testing and sat back to see if she would wake up on her own, twenty-nine days into her stay. A nurse the next morning, coming to check the girl's heartbeat and vitals, was surprised to find her sitting up and looking around the room in a haze with no recollection of her former life, other than waking up in the hospital. She was physically fine; all her injuries had healed in their own time. Her eyes had changed, just slightly enough to confound the doctors. Instead of remaining the same sky-blue, they had developed a strange ring of brownish-gold around the irises. They quickly dismissed the anomaly and focused more on her memory. The only thing the girl seemed to know was her name, Keniera, and the name of another; Vanitas.
Keniera, lost in her thoughts, was anxiously twisting the fabric of her shirt, worrying the fabric. It was one of her many, many habits, and the shirt was one of her favorites, light and flowy with a small pocket near her heart which was usually filled up with all kinds of trinkets by the end of the day: a blue jay feather, a heart-shaped rock, a porcelain bead or even a stray coin. It seemed to her that she was pretty good at finding lost things, another of her habits; one of the few things she considered to be windows to her past. As she stared off into space, she was alerted by the sound of a branch snapping just behind her. Dropping the hem of her shirt, she swung around, her arm extended and summoning her Keyblade in one quick move, ready for the attack.
Just as her blade was about to connect, a slightly tanned hand wrapped around her forearm and brought her poorly coordinated attack to a screeching halt. The look of panic on her face was quickly replaced with one of irritation as she took in the face of her mentor, an amused smile spread across his face. "What," he asked innocently, "did I scare you? Were you scared?" He laughed as she pushed him away playfully.
"Nothing scares me, you know that!"
"Except spiders!" he pointed out.
Keniera shuddered. "That's different," she argued, turning her back on him to get her water bottle from her knapsack. "You can't see them coming! One minute everything's fine, the next minute, WHAM! There's a huge, hairy, th-thing on your hand! It's horrible!" She shuddered again. "Yeah, I guess you're right. That does sound absolutely dreadful!" His voice went high, poorly imitating her clear soprano voice. "I can't imagine anything worse!" He laughed again and she chucked an extra water bottle at him, catching him squarely on the temple. "Ow! Take a joke, Keniera!" He rubbed his head, a goofy smile still taking residence on his face. "I do take jokes," she replied, sticking her nose into the air. "but only funny ones." Holt groaned and placed a hand over his heart. "You kill me, Keniera, you really do." He slumped over, feigning death, his eyes closed and his tongue hanging theatrically out of his mouth. Keniera rolled her eyes and sat down on the old stump, resting her bag in her lap. Holt was still 'dead' on the ground in front of her, determined to get a reaction. She knew he wouldn't move until she gave in, so she leaned back and decided to just enjoy the silence while she could.
Holt hadn't moved an inch in five minutes, and Keniera knew his patience was wearing thin. Of all the things Holt was known for; his cheerfulness, his loyalty, his ambition, his patience was DEFINITELY not on that list. His temper was about as short as an inch, even shorter in a competition. Regardless, she decided he could suffer a little longer. She glanced down at his 'lifeless' figure. His fiery red hair had dirt in it from his overly-dramatic demise, and she could see his eyes move from beneath their lids. His eyes were as deep a brown as the earth in his hair; she could picture them perfectly in her mind. His blue sleeveless vest was unzipped, and she could see his frame beneath the fabric of his white tee shirt. Holt was muscular, but not overly so; just enough to be impressive. She raised a hand to her mouth to keep her giggles inside. He was pretty attractive, but if he had even an ounce of the 'manliness' he claimed he did, he would have all the village girls in the palm of his hand. Keniera tried to picture Holt the Radiant Gardens Casanova. Unable to contain the laughter bubbling up in her chest, she tried to disguise the giggles as a cough into her hand. With an exaggerated gasp, Holt sat up and stretched his arms out to either side. "It's okay, Keniera! I… have… RETURNED! Mourn no more! Ow!" He wrapped his arms around his head before Keniera could reach for a third water bottle, who was seriously considering complying.
Peeking up over his arms, Holt assumed the coast was, for the moment, clear. He stretched his arms wide, and Keniera could hear his joints cracking; something Keniera had, somehow, never managed to accomplish. After stretching, Holt let out a sigh and got to his feet, heading towards the Ledge. After a moments hesitation, Keniera stowed her water bottle back in her knapsack and left it on the ground to join him. She sat near the edge and removed her shoes, stretching her toes over the river a little ways below them. Keniera felt her face heat up when she noticed her toenails were still vivid, neon pink from painting them with Kairi last night. Just the thought of their 'sleepover' almost put Keniera in a giggling fit. Kairi's grandma was visiting a sick relative, and had asked her to babysit Kairi for the night. Keniera happily agreed. After a dozen movies and at least a truckload of popcorn, Kairi (in her cute, four-year-old fashion) suggested they do each others' hair and nails. Keniera was hopeless to resist, and soon they were coated in hairspray and a rainbow of nail colors. Kairi had settled on blue ("Like the ocean!" she'd said. Not like she'd actually seen the ocean before), while Keniera had felt a little adventurous with pink. ("Like a pig!" Kairi had squealed happily, which of course ensured pig noises and snorts the rest of the evening until the laughter had become too unbearable). Holt, meanwhile, had noticed her blindingly pink toes and was making a horrible face. "Pink?" he inquired skeptically. "It looks like they're pigs sitting on your toes." Coming from a four-year-old little girl it sounded cute. Coming from Holt… "You're lucky I left my water bottle back there, or you'd have it coming!" She laughed and playfully pushed him over onto his side. He just laid there on his side and laughed back, looking out over the young forest before them.
Keniera sighed as the sun started to set over the tops of the trees, brilliant shades of orange and gold stretching out to touch the sky from the dying sun. "Is the sun setting on the other worlds right now," she mused aloud, "or is it rising?" Holt glanced over at her, staring at the way her skin glowed in the light of the sunset. The blue in her eyes seemed to fade a bit, while the gold ring seemed to emit a source of light all its own. The breeze blew strands of her hair around her face; some red, some brown, some bronze. He wished she would grow it out, he liked it when she had first arrived in Radiant Gardens and her hair was long, reaching down just to the small of her back. She had quickly gotten it cut her first few days out of the hospital, seeing that the other girls and women preferred shoulder-length, neat cuts. "I don't know." But it's more beautiful with you here, that's for sure. He forced his eyes away from her face; with his rotten luck she'd catch him staring and summon up another water bottle with a direct aim at his head. Instead, he looked out and managed to catch the last rays of sun as it disappeared beneath the trees.
PLEASE READ AND REVIEW! :3
Holt: You guys better do it, she gets panicky if she waits!
Keniera:*hits Holt with a water bottle* That's mean, Holt! And I'm running out of water bottles!
KpCw: *facedesk* please review! Please?
Holt: Yeah! DOOOOOO ITTTT! OW! KENIERA!
Keniera: It was my last one! Couldn't waste it! ;)
KpCw: Oh, Kingdom Hearts help me..