warnings for injury description and maleficent/ canon rewrite/ send help this is not who I want to be

"Come with me," Riku said, arm extended and palm up. The ocean behind him rose, slowly, horribly, into a wave. The sort of wave Sora saw only in his nightmares and in nature documentaries. There were sirens all around the island that were tested monthly, and he could not tell if the wailing in his ears was his own terror or those same sirens in the distance. The wave rumbled as it rose, speeding towards them and growing ever-taller as the waters around the pier retreated, leaving it standing on only sand. The darkness grew thicker around them, swimming around Riku's feet, tugging at Sora's ankles, and Riku said again, "Come with me."

"I'm trying!" Sora shouted, struggling against the tendrils that wrapped around his ankles and speaking over the ever-growing rumble of the ocean. His eyes darted between Riku, his hand, and the wave behind them. Fourty feet. Fifty. Sixty. "Riku, please, we have to go! Where's Kairi? Riku—!"

Riku stood still, watching Sora with his arm extended but not making any move to come closer to help Sora reach him. He didn't even seem aware of the wave or that Kairi wasn't present, something which struck even more cold terror into Sora's chest. "Don't fear the darkness, Sora."

"What are you talking about?" Sora managed to take one struggling step closer to Riku, gasping for breath at the exertion the simple feat took him. The shadows dug nails into his shins and he cried out. "Riku, we need to run! Where's Kairi? Is she safe?"

"If you don't come, then—" Riku began, but—

"—I'm trying, you asshole!" Sora shouted, louder than before, rage and terror overcoming him as the shadows crawled up his legs and the wave reached a hundred feet, about to break! "I'm not leaving either of you, so help me!"

Riku blinked. And took Sora's hand.

000

Sora hadn't ever really wanted to leave the island. Not permanently. Not like Riku had.

Riku wanted to go to a mainland university and get a degree in aeronautics, but sometimes that seemed like more of a pipe dream than even going to other worlds on a homemade raft.

What Kairi wanted, he wasn't sure exactly, but he knew the place it began was curiosity about her first home, about her biological family. It was a curiosity he was sure a bunch of adopted kids shared, regardless of how much they loved their adopted family. A little curiosity didn't negate love, but it was hard to satisfy that curiosity without at least a little investigation. That's the impression he'd gotten, anyway.

Sora personally thought of other worlds the same way he would think of a vacation spot: places to visit, but not to stay. Places to admire, but not call his own. He liked to think he would walk through other worlds with the courtesy tourists rarely showed on their islands, one of the many reasons their families had pitched in to make a play-island that was off-limits to non-locals. Somewhere their children could go without fear of being photographed or followed by strangers.

One day, he would outgrow the play island. He would buy a bigger boat, and he would be a fisherman like his parents, and have children in the same house he had grown up in, and watch his own children go off to the play island, any maybe by the time they outgrew the play island the main island would be a better place than it had been while Sora grew up.

He was okay with that. It would be okay if he only saw other places just once. Met new people on his own terms. See what else was out there. Then, he would be content with what was simply his. But he did want to see. He did want to know. He could be content, but he did want to have that chance—

He did not think that his journey to other worlds would begin with slamming down face-first on a stone walkway, the snap of ribs breaking, his and Riku's hands clenched tightly around each other's wrists.

"Augh!" Sora started, crying out in shock, before it turned into a wail of misery and pain, his free hand clutching at his side and growing more frantic when he touched something wet and hot.

Riku didn't let go of his wrist, and Sora gripped back even tighter than before as Riku scrambled to crouch beside him, eyes wide and making quiet sounds Sora couldn't even hear over his own agony.

Through the haze of pain and oncoming tears, Sora realized that Riku was unharmed. Even after that landing, he seemed fine, without claw marks up his legs or ripping open his stomach. That's as much observation as he got in before Riku finally raised his voice loud enough to be heard and shouted,"Hey! Is there anyone out there? We need a hospital!"

He let go of Sora's hand—before any protest could be made, the hand was placed over the gash on Sora's side, pressing it closed with both palms while Sora's hand clung stubbornly to his friend's wrist.

Sora didn't think there was anyone else around, but Riku kept calling, anyway. His face was pressed against the ground, so despite the rush of blood through his ears, he assumed he would be able to hear anyone approaching. He couldn't hear anything beside his beating hearts and Riku's shouts, until suddenly, he did.

[Oh my.]

He opened his eyes, squinting, trying to make out the figure in front of him, but all he could see was darkness. Riku stopped shouting.

[What have we here? Two guests instead of one?]

"Hey, lady!" Riku's voice cut through again. "He needs a doctor, or something. Are you gonna get help or just—?"

His voice broke off far too quickly and with a flash of green. Sora groaned and closed his eyes again, unable to handle the light. The afterimage was already burnt into his eyelids.

[Patience, child. He will be well. I have something far better than any physician.]

Riku croaked something. It was hard to make out, but sounded like a 'what?'. His hand found its place again around Sora's wrist just as something cold and slimy slid under Sora's shirt and settled against the wound on his stomach. He jerked and let out a small cry, though the sensation wasn't painful. It tingled. It tingled so much that the pain faded beneath the new sensation, and then, there wasn't any pain at all.

Slowly, Sora opened his eyes, finally clear from any tears. He looked around with some semblance of clarity for the first time, but what he saw made him question if he truly was seeing anything properly.

They were on a stone platform, surrounded by blue, floating chunks of rock. Gravity seemed to have gotten confused about this place. The stone platform was in a depression, one surrounded by waterfalls which flowed upwards instead of down. The sky was an overcast gray, and the air was bitter cold.

Riku knelt beside him, blanched and wide-eyed, but unharmed. Looking down at his own stomach, a new scar had appeared on him. A much larger, uglier scar than any he'd ever gotten scraping himself on the pier or getting bitten by animals. Pink and fleshy, as if freshly healed, tracing out three long claw marks over the top of his stomach. Though he could still feel the cold, slimy sensation, nothing visible was there, but the blood that had been moments before pouring out of him.

He swallowed the lump in his throat, and turned to look with Riku at the person who had saved him.

They were tall and gaunt, with green skin, the same sort of color their school had painted the person chosen to play the witch in last year's play.

Jagged, curling horns grew out of their head. A jade scepter was clasped tightly in one hand, and the other was wrapped in shadows and something glimmering faintly. Their robe was black and purple, and seemed to fade into the stone platform more than lay on it.

"Uh," Sora said, momentarily speechless in the face of—everything. "Uh, thank you, I, um. What. What was that?"

The person smiled, looking over both Sora and Riku as they shuffled back onto their feet, Sora leaning heavily on his older friend.

[Why, dear child,] the person said, [it was magic.]