Darkness over Earthfall

Chapter 0

Stella's shoes slapped against the wooden planks of the dock, her dark brown hair rimmed in the fire orange glow of twilight. A few stray strands were caught and held by the breeze as she sat down, facing the blaze of the sun as it sank below the horizon, turning the golden sands into fiery crystals. Her eyes stared into the distance, unfocused even as she threw her sneakers and socks into the little wooden row boat she had taken out to the islet.

Her mind was back on Thallasa, the main island in the Destiny Archipelago, where her mother must sit at her desk, hunched over her keyboard as she e-mailed every relative and friend to inquire as to her teenaged daughter's whereabouts. She wouldn't find her. Stella had fled here knowing that this was the once place that her mother would never look; this place where her father was born, the place where she herself had spent the first few years of her life.

"You look lost."

The voice was deep, adult, and it startled Stella, who had assumed she was alone on the small islet. Adults weren't known to come here; even she knew that, and she hadn't been here since she was eight years old.

Turning her head, she found herself staring into a pair of eyes the same color as the ocean, that seamless blue-green, belonging to a man whose face was just starting to show the first signs of age. He was crouched beside her, his pale hair dyed cream sickle, a knowing expression on his full lips and in the lines of his face.

"I - I know where I am," she protested, backing away from him.

He drew away, his eyes frisking the ocean vista, "that may be so, but that doesn't mean that you're not lost. I've known my exact physical location plenty of times in my life and have had absolutely no idea where I am."

"Who are you?" she asked, feeling her brows furrow further as she crossed her arms over her chest in discomfort. "I didn't think any adults came here."

"You must not live on the island," he said, and she saw he was holding a saw in his right hand; had he been working on something here? "All the local kids know who I am, and I haven't seen you here before." He jumped off the wooden planks and onto the sand below, placing his equipment in a boat she hadn't noticed before, hidden in the shadow of the dock. "I'm Mr. Stuart, and I've taken it upon myself to look after this place. Who are you?"

"Uh, Stella Craft," she replied, seeing for the first time his longish hair, surprised by it; didn't old men have short hair (not that he was that old)? "I came here from Thallasa."

"Hm," he pulled himself back up onto the dock and stood behind her, staring at her with an intense expression on his face. "Why did you come all the way out here from Thallasa? I didn't think big city kids would want to come out to the middle of nowhere. There's nothing out here worth mentioning, not when you have those big public beaches and cell phone reception."

"I don't know," she admitted, not sure why she was answering him. "I guess I just wanted to get away from my mother, but I'm beginning to wonder if this is far enough away. I wish I could just fly out beyond that horizon and never return. This place is so small, and no matter how far I run, I'll always see the beaches and the palm trees. I want bigger things. I want adventure. I want escape."

"Your life is really that bad?"

She looked at him, "my mother tries to control me! She thinks I'm a little princess that she can just manipulate, and its gotten worse and worse since my father died when I was nine. She dictates who I can see and when I can see them, what I wear, what I eat, and what I do for fun," she clenched her fists together, choking back tears. "But that's not me! I'm not a prissy girl, I'm a tomboy." She was so lost in her speech now that she didn't notice when he sat down beside her. "So I took all the money I've been saving since I was ten, cut my hair, bought boys clothes, and took a plane and two ferries all the way out here." She took a deep breath, "but it's still not enough. No matter what I do, I can't escape her shadow. She's called my cell seventy times since I left two days ago. I've been ignoring her calls. As far as I figure, I'll only escape her if I go to a place where she never existed at all. It must exist, right? Somewhere, up there in the stars?" She finally fell silent, hardly believing that she had bared her soul to a stranger, but she did feel better, even though she still wanted to leave.

He was quiet as he stared at her, his eyes filled with a quiet emotion that she thought might be understanding.

"Come with me," he said at last, standing and jumping from the dock, striding across the beach toward a small shack.

Confused, but feeling like she could trust this Mr. Stuart, she scrambled from the bridge and rushed after him, passing through the darkness of the shack and emerging onto a small cliff. They crossed a bridge where several trees grew, one of them a tree Stella had only heard stories about, it's pale trunk curved nearly horizontally, yellow star shaped fruit growing in between its lush fronds.

"Is this a Paopu tree?" she asked in disbelief as he pulled himself onto it, patting the trunk beside him. "Paopu fruit is so expensive. I can't believe it just grows in the open like this!"

"It's been here since before I was born, and will probably be here for years to come," he told her, smiling fondly, as if the tree held all of his most precious memories.

Sighing, he leaned back, staring at the sky. "You need a story."

"A story? How is that going to help me?" she had not joined him, her arms crossed over her chest as stared up at him. "I'm not a baby."

"This isn't a fairy tale, young lady" he told her, glancing at her from the corner of his eye, "even though it has a hero and a princess in it."

"Then what is it?" She felt her curiosity flare against her will.

"I'm not sure it really fits any decent stereotype," he admitted, "because it has a bit of everything. Monsters, epic battles, temptation, possession … even anthropomorphic animals."

"Talking animals? It sure sounds like a fairy tale…" she muttered.

He smirked, "yeah, I guess it kind of does."

"So, once upon a time…" she prompted, humoring him only because he had listened to her rant; she felt like she owed him something.

"Slow down there," he said, chuckling. "You don't need the hero's story. There's nothing you can learn from him. After all, he was a typical hero. Naïve, but with a brilliant sense of justice, who saved everyone and got the girl besides. No, you need to hear about his best friend."

"The hero's best friend?" she asked, sitting down at the base of the trunk and staring up at him. "Why, what's so special about him?"

"Well, he was a lot like you. His parents were in the midst of a particularly nasty divorce and his sister had turned into a delinquent and had landed herself in juvi. He felt stifled in his small world, this very island, and had ever since he was a small boy. He would have done anything to get out."

"He lived here?" she asked, feeling herself get caught up in the moment.

"Yes, on the smallest island, and he came out here to play with his two best friends everyday. He didn't know that he actually had the power to leave until it was too late, and even then he didn't care. He didn't mind that he'd left until he'd lost everything he'd ever loved, and then it was almost too late," he was staring back out at the ocean now, his hands folded in his lap.

When she didn't respond, he took a breath, "Once upon a time, in a place called the Destiny Islands, there lived a boy called Riku L'Belle…"

S-2011-S

A/n: Welcome to 'Darkness over Earthfall,' the Riku p.o.v. Kingdom Hearts. I'm sure there must be more than one of these in a fandom this large, but I aim to write something fresh and unique, in case you can't tell from the prologue.

I'm one of those 'long chapter, slow update' authors, even though this story wouldn't suggest it thus far. I'm not expecting a flood of reviews, but if you find this even slightly interesting, I would appreciate your feedback.