The day they left for the Mark of Mastery Exam, it rained endlessly.
The clouds inflated in enormous cotton puffs, defying gravity as they swelled to a sunken gray, and overflowed in outpours. Palm trees sank beneath the weight of heavy raindrops, pavement and sand alike splotched with moisture, and even all their arms swinging together in tandem weren't enough to completely dissipate the apprehension – or the chill. They stood out on the pier, one umbrella to three raincoats (two of which had to be forced on by a very tenacious Princess), as close as three wayward souls could be. Riku took up the whole stoically crass act, muted and somber, but even the eagerness was evident on his face, however impatiently skewed.
"Kairi," Sora had chimed into her ear, all sunshiny rays of enthusiasm and double-pressed gusto, "We'll come home soon. You'll see. Me and Riku'll both be Masters!"
Her fingers barely graze her kneecaps. She smiles without disdain. "I'm counting on it. Keep my lucky charm safe." They leave her the umbrella; and in that sloshing rain, they both step away from her to the awaiting gummi ship, ducking their heads against the drizzle. In another minute, they've departed into the misting fog and the worlds beyond.
When they disappear, she throws off the umbrella. Kairi stands on her tiptoes with her arms stretched out in front of her, preparing for the plunge. Her hair turns into seaweed, clings to her scalp, and the water runs rivers into her closed eyelids. She leans forward in descending expectancy, inhaling the humidity and rocking on the heels of her feet.
She is the ocean before the tide, and yet she doesn't fall.
These days, all they ever seem to do is leave her behind.
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.
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One week after the Mark of Mastery Exam ends, he's waiting for her out on the boondocks, leaning against a post not consumed by algae on the wharf with folded arms, shoes scuffing the edge of the pier. He glances back at her in that half-bemused way when she approaches, inert to alive in a matter of five seconds. More prone to snap to attention when Kairi's around to keep him in check, she assumes.
She doesn't speak up, at first. There's a lot to notice, even if he hasn't outwardly changed that much since he left. His eyes are brighter this time around, not so shielded by his hair and his sadness, more in his own skin than he's been in a long, long while. And – he isn't afraid anymore; not in that guarded way he held on his departure, like the darkness was still surging beneath his flesh, an infection that he'd taken upon himself to control with blindfolds and mistrust and doppelganger mentality. He's cured.
Riku rolls his eyes when the girl bounds forward to clap a hand against his grimacing frown, immediately staring off into the horizon like some full-fledged romanticist into the bleeding horizon. She can't tell if he still collects sand dollars, if he's started dreaming in color again. "Are you sure you're ready?"
Kairi smiles, gently. "I have to try."
Riku's hand drags over his face. "You always do."
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.
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The gummi ship reeks of ginseng green tea and the heady tang of iron; she inhales and detects a tinge of burning ozone around the corner, and she treads more cautiously. Paper cups are strewn haphazardly over one table, a pile of floppy dog-eared comic books and manuals stacked at every corner, spines touching like old lovers. Every so often, the vessel tips to the left or right, but Riku refuses to answer any inquiries, holing himself up in the cockpit and curses beneath his breath when he forgets there's an actual lady around to hear him, because all be damned if he attempts to relinquish some semblance of control here.
Some things don't change. So while the ship teeters from side to side in a drunken saunter through the galaxies, she scrunches into the seat adjacent to Donald and asks the obvious. "Why tea?"
"Riku," The magician rolls the name beneath his tongue flippantly, "requested it. Said it helped him concentrate, but look where that's got us! We're never gonna' make it there in time!"
"Now, now, Donald." Goofy murmurs good-naturedly. He's always smiling in that patiently lukewarm way, swiftly depositing the entirety of the cups in a heavy-duty trash bag. "He's still learning." Leaning his forearm on one table counter, the dog rubs at the nape of his neck. "Gee, Kairi, you sure you don't want anythin' to eat?'
"Well, I wouldn't mind a sandwich…"
Twenty minutes and two cold-cut sandwiches later, Donald's head is lolling on her shoulder, wizard hat bouncing on her shin with every swerve and jittery start. Goofy placidly downs another cup, humming off-tune. The time stretches to just short of unbearable.
"Who passed?" Breaking the silence at last, Kairi tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, fiddling with her bracelets. "The test, I mean."
The Captain of the King's Knights exhales. "You already know, don't 'cha? I thought both of them were more than ready, but we can't question Master Yen Sid's judgment. He was King Mickey's mentor at one time as well."
"Mm," Kairi mulls over it, smoothing out her dress. "Does Sora know about me .. you know?"
He flusters. "I don't think so. He would've came too if he did, but he's been busy lately with some other –"
Her expression is so painfully crestfallen that Goofy veers off that track completely. "But he misses you a lot, for sure! He's always talking about goin' home and checking up on his friends the minute he gets back."
Kairi sighs into the crook of her elbow, the tang of sea salt in her mouth. "How do you think they'll all react?
Goofy appears sheepish by this point, staring at the ceiling with painted stars outlined in gold. "Gawrsh. You kinda' took us all by surprise, but I don't think it'll be a problem with anyone."
She chews the inside of her cheek. "You sure?"
"Of course!"
"Really?"
"Really really." He ruffles her hair in a doting way, one side of his mouth quirking up. "Golly, you think I'd have the gall to lie to a Princess of Heart? You'll be fine."
I'll come back to you, too. I promise. She flicks her bangs back, sitting upright. "Thanks, Goofy."
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The Mysterious Tower is even more enormous from the inside, a winding staircase echoing with memories that shimmer in stained glass. The conversation with Yen Sid is a hard pill to swallow, in direct juxtaposition with the world; time travel and sleeping worlds and the apocalypse that would invariably ensue upon failure just ahead, seven hearts of light to defend and thirteen vessels of darkness to defeat.
She's determined to see Sora now, not only for the sake of reassurance alone, but only Axel - no, Lea is waiting for her outside the vestibule, acid-green eyes with no teardrops, chakrams gone, expression almost a little rueful as he steps close.
She feels sick to her stomach, because he still smells like ashes and smoke and betrayal after all, thick and cloying –
"Look, Kairi –" he begins.
In response, she stomps over his foot, hard, continuing down the stairs as if he hadn't spoken. Kairi's halfway scaled the steps when he speaks up again, inflections scratchier with strain. "Princess, you're still holding a grudge?"
She doesn't look back.
Riku's standing at the threshold of the stairs, eying her in that same snarky manner he takes on whenever he beats Sora in a race. "Didn't try to hold back?" He rests spider-leg fingers on her shoulder.
"Oh, I've got no problem with Lea, all right." she says simply. "Just getting rid of bad blood."
He snorts.
.
.
.
"On your mark."
"Right!" Kairi steadies Destiny's Embrace around the hilt, appearing as confident as a girl can be while swinging around a key half-transfigured into flowers. She's determined that even if she doesn't look particularly intimidating, she's sturdy enough to roll with the punches. She is.
"Jeez, Kairi. You're too stiff. Just relax." Riku summons his weapon easily enough, assumes a fighting stance. He moves like the foam in the ocean, deliberate and calm in the tempest of a storm. "Your move."
She plunges forward.
Their blades connect in a flash of splintering steel, adrenaline blooming in the pads of her fingers, and her pulse ricochets into her throat as soon as he pulls back, darts out again, and she dodges.
Kairi deflects the shot, keyblade sparking to land a critical hit and gain the upper hand. She is the crab against the impervious boulder. His defense is strong enough to be virtually impenetrable, but if she could find a way to shock him out of his wits long enough to drop his guard, she'd spool in a victory, or at least a hard-won stalemate.
"Fira!" She clumsily aims the magic incantation to shoot above his head, but his keyblade knocks her forward, and the trajectory dips downward as she's pinned in an easy defeat. Kairi's past worrying about all that, though, considering the tendrils of smoke rising from the top of her best friend's head. "Riku, your hair –"
Approximately one gallon of water dumps over their heads before she can process the situation long enough to get Riku to stop, drop, and roll. Lea hoists the bucket up, grinning shrewdly. "Man, oh man, where would you guys be without me?" He laughs, handing the pail back to the enchanted broom tapping its straws impatiently, sauntering back to the duo splayed across the ground. "Do your best to set me on fire, sweetheart. I'm already blazin'."
".. So you say he always talks like this?" Riku isn't even fazed about the singed hair, although there's that neutrality he always snaps on in situations like these to hide any loss in outward restraint; he's either the living example of a sentient catharsis or a liar; and at this point, it might just be a little bit of both.
She stands up slowly, yanking the Keyblade Master up with pouting lips as her hip cants to the side. "Unfortunately."
"Great."
The ashes of burnt grass swirl and sweep together into the atmosphere, smudging black into her fingers, grit in her nails. "What do you want, Lea?"
He shrugs, sneer fading as he sobers up. "A round or five. We're gonna' be training together from now on." Lea saunters towards her, tipping her chin upwards. "I know we have a lot of bad history between us, but I'm willing to change. Putting the past behind us and moving forward. That's what the good guys do, right?"
He's so close, her back feels warm. When she thinks about it, he had always been that close. She sucks in a shallow breath, sharply jerking away. Riku's at her side by now, but she shrugs him off, matching level gaze-for-gaze with Lea.
"Are you scared?"
"Petrified." she snaps, but it's not angry, just hesitant. "Have you ever even heard of personal space before?"
A pause, then he regards her with speculative, sea glass eyes. His expression twists in a way that is all too familiar, and that just isn't fair. "Trust's a two-way street. You gotta' meet me halfway, Princess."
Kairi smiles with her teeth. "Guess I've got no other choice. Just like the old days, huh?"
Lea's gaze diminishes in its intensity, morphing from a tropical hurricane into a feverish gale. "When you put it like that, it almost makes me sound like a bad guy. I'm more of an anti-hero, to be honest."
She realizes then that she laughs all the time, even when the jokes aren't funny. And maybe, just maybe, there's some sentiment in irony after all.
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.
It's three more days before Kairi actually sees Sora in the flesh again.
She interrogates them all to an extent, of course; but they can't seem to tell her anything more than that he'll come back soon. A journey he took of his own volition with no return timestamp. Kairi waits out on the weathered stone steps every single night, propped elbows and a scrunched-frame, a cocoon of anxiety and jittery strain.
The first day, it's Donald, and Goofy accompanying her, with stories of their adventures, enemies defeated by magic and wit, meeting people as individually luminescent as the constellations glittering above. Yen Sid even manages to drop by for a bit of his own stargazing. The second day, there's Riku and Lea carrying three cups of hot cocoa topped with a generous dose of whipped cream and cinnamon sprinkles, and they drink until there's no more animosity between them (like there ever was, honestly). Her best friend sits at her left, her best rival sits at her right, angled sides to sides, and they hypothesize a way to postpone the day of reckoning to never.
The third day, she's alone.
Kairi feels the mortality surge through her veins that night, chilling her thoughts into snail-pace stupefaction. She re-ties her laces about five times, swallows, squeezes her eyes shut to the thoughts that haunt her. There's a difference between who she was before and who she is now. She's not a damsel-in-distress trapped in a castle of flooding sand anymore.
She doesn't need to be saved by anyone.
Kairi's eyes open, fingers curling inward to the heart of her palms, and decides to head inside. It's only a matter of circumnavigating her way through barely highlighted steps down the corridor, stumbling blindly into her room to rummage around for the bed and kick off her shoes. She promptly rolls herself into the duvet, ensconced under a quilted blanket and attempting to drown her insecurities through fabric.
She is so full of her emotions, not quite like herself like she is part of everyone else that it threatens to spill over and out between her ribs, suffocating her lungs into asphyxiation. She has so much to say, but no one to say it to; and she wants someone to understand her when she can't even understand herself anymore.
Her heart pulses in her eardrums. Kairi sinks into her pillow, auburn hair splaying out in mermaid strands and leaf fronds painted scarlet again, and she is exactly as she is before, poised before the unavoidable drop. Fantasy or reality, the answer is always the same.
She is the enamel of thalassa shells and limpets washed out by the bay, and she doesn't fall.
.
.
.
Kairi awakens to the sight of the moon consuming her skin. Or, more adequately, the stream of exposed light bending through the chinks in the curtains to dye everything in monochrome, bleaching her body pale and her tresses a dark, dark shade. The shadows lengthen over the floorboards, and she steps carefully across the cracks, geometric lines rippling outward in neat columns.
She's so focused on staying silent that when she trips over the body slumped across the floor, her foot catches and she pitches forward into the gloom, a tiny squeak escaping her lips.
"W-when did you get here?!" The girl squeaks out, wide-eyed like a deer caught in headlights, and immediately backs off into the baseboard, brimming with a strange, radiating elation. Kairi glances up to observe him imbued wholeheartedly in his sleep, flat out on his stomach with forearms tucked beneath his chin. She hedges closer on skinned knees, tentatively peeks out to check for signs of life.
Sora snags her elbow and pulls her toward him, quick as lightning with none of the thunder. "Sorry," The boy mumbles drowsily into her ear, "I didn't know this was your room, Kairi."
"But why in the world are you sleeping on the floor?"
He yawns. "I only came an hour ago. Everyone was .. already in bed. Your door was open, so." He shakes off the lethargic dullness out of his expression, only to close his eyelids again. Her eyes were always too vibrantly blue.
Kairi tugs one arm out of his grip, working on removing the other. Questions ricochet in her skull, of where he's been that whole time or why he won't stare her straight in the eyes, but she coaxes her tone into ghosting placidity just the same. "We can't stay here. C'mon. We'll share the bed, alright? Do you want the left or the right side?"
Sora won't budge, won't even respond to her inquiries, as if he's fallen asleep already. But she can hear his ragged breathing, the way his grasp tenses slightly when she attempts to extricate herself from his clasp. She twists away harder this time, only to roll with him and end up sprawled on the floor, staring right up at the planes of his face, the shadows that collect in the arch of his eyebrows.
"You're really fighting alongside us this time, huh?" Sora doesn't get serious often, but the solemnity in his eyes stilts into something depthless and piercing, opaque in their declaration. His words swivel around her head with a tinge of tiredness, sinking into his breath like quicksand. He already knows the answer.
"Yes." Kairi bites her lip, expecting the worst without being prompted. He's intently observing her movements for a probable eternity like she'll disappear soon enough, like she'll become intangible and fade between his fingers.
(like she'll —)
"It'll be dangerous." Sora says flatly, lips trembling. A desperate inflection to his voice, like he can't get out what he needs to tell her fast enough before it won't matter. "There's always gonna' be that risk that you won't come back — and I — I don't ever want to be too late –"
(— leave him behind.)
"I've gotten stronger since you left. There's no reason for me to stay behind, now — I'm going with you."
She almost regrets telling him her intentions so bluntly, but he doesn't look quite so sad anymore then, just a little resigned and maybe even taken aback. A faltering pause hangs between them, a catalyst for change and she stares at the curve of his shoulders, her heart taking up an impatiently restless beat. The air is way, way too heavy now; it weighs down solidly on her chest, prickling like only sea urchins can. Her lips tingle, and she's curving into his touch, fingers lacing together, their faces breaths apart when –
Sora ducks away, smushing his nose into his elbow to sneeze. He erupts in token snickering soon afterward, chuckles that reverberate in his throat while she processes, well, that he just blew his nose. The left side of her mouth quirks upward, then the right, and then she's giggling right alongside him from sheer, unadulterated embarrassment.
When the moment passes, she reels him in by his shirt collar and kisses him, shy and fast and red-eared. She smashes her smile right into his laugh. Kairi doesn't care that the floorboards are downright uncomfortable, that her feet are freezing up while her face is so hot, that she's locking lips with a guy who just sneezed. She doesn't care.
She's flushed.
Kairi doesn't know when it's the right time to draw away, but they pull apart eventually, breathing fast and uncertain like they've got hummingbirds instead of lungs thrumming inside of them. He rolls off with a dorky grin and a flustering round of chuckles still, standing and hauling her up so that they're rocking against each other for balance, her head nestling into the junction of his collarbone.
She can hear him swallow, her cheek pressed to the hollow of his neck, as they sway from side to side, arms wrapped her like that time in The World That Never Was, anticipation in knotting nerves and live-wire exhilaration.
They don't speak about the kiss. They don't attempt to pick apart its slow burn and transient nature, because they both know what it meant, in every single way that mattered. And maybe they've always known, right from the beginning; but in that second, they are completely at ease, entirely complacent. There is no battle ahead, no forthwith apocalypse, no star-crossed lovers with a cursed destiny (how cliché) for them. They are two kindred souls who share a single promise, no more, no less.
"You didn't change," she finally points out, loftily sweet as she gestures to his outfit, mismatched belts and pockets and zippers all in various stages of rumpled disarray.
He chortles, his breath fanning out at her temple, tone indignantly protesting. "I was tired, remember? And if I recall correctly, you didn't, either." Sora sashays her in a slow circle, face blistering red in chagrin. They spin right up the window, blazing in the low light. The dawn won't break for a long while.
"Do you love me?" Kairi asks suddenly, pressing her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
They abruptly stumble to a stop. Like starfish, they disentangle slowly from the coral of their arms, connected by the width of centimeters alone. He slows the pace three times over, expression softer than she's ever seen it, his palm against her cheek.
"Yeah. More than anything."
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.
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She is the crest of a wave, the whisper of a conch when he's beside her, and she inevitably falls for him.