His sleep was fitful and restless, dreams scattered, tumultuous. In them, Sora was back with his family by the sea at Summer Home. He was supervising the tykes and teaching them to swim, showing them how to hold their breath and dive for mussels along the sea's gritty floor. He was laughing with friends around a communal fire after evening meals while stealing glances at the older ones, listening as they told their own stories, regaling others about successful hunting campaigns and signs from the spirits that'd ushered with them hard-won victories.

Mostly, Sora dreamt about Roxas.

He saw the two of them sleeping, one on either side of their mother, knees curled into their stomachs, chins tucked beneath a fur blanket to preserve heat. He saw Roxas laughing at Squall's consistent identity mix-ups back when Sora's hair was still the same sun-kissed yellow as his younger brother's was now. He saw himself playing in the sandbar shallows with Kairi and Wakka and Tidus, Roxas tagging along and splashing nearby like the annoying younger sibling he sometimes engendered with such inherent effortlessness. He was feeling fresh concern while standing over his brother's bedside, Aerith nearby, as Roxas fought off sickness after increasingly severe sickness.

The dream warped the reality of their lives, twisting and tilting and reforming until Sora found himself in his brother's position, shivering and feverish in bed, Roxas hovering above him. He felt a gentle hand brush through the hair that crowned his forehead, cool like mountain stone against the unnatural heat of his ailing body.

"I don't want to die."

The words were uttered before he knew his mouth was forming them, and Sora looked up at his brother, pallid arms reaching, stretching up like the branches of a dying tree. Beseeching.

Roxas looked back at him, expression calm, eyes an unfamiliar shade of blue. They reflected the moonlight, preternatural and calculating. He offered a smile, the corners of his mouth subtly lifting, but it wasn't the natural expression Sora was accustomed to seeing from him in times when he was in good health.

"Then stop dreaming," his brother replied. "Open your eyes."

But his eyes already were open; Roxas was making no sense. Sora scanned the space, gaze darting around the small area of their temporary summer dwelling that they'd soon be dismantling and packing to take with them on their journey north.

By the time he looked down again, Roxas had vanished and the wind was increasing in strength, whipping against the loose flap of their tent's entrance. It was howling, and there was a mournful quality to its timbre, an incorporeal keening to the way it brushed against the starchy-stiff material of the dwelling's walls, then faded to almost nothing before returning again.

And through it all, the distinct sense that the sound was building, that something powerful and predatory was advancing on him.

He woke with a sharp gasp and full-bodied jerk, eyes fluttering open, then blinking rapidly to ward off the remnants of disorienting drowsiness. It took him a moment to place his surroundings, to recognize the unfamiliar lines of the stone's fissure in the dim saffron glow permeating the constricting space.

It took him only an instant longer to note the last vestiges of a fire he'd let nearly die out — and to see that he wasn't alone.

The figure was hunched at the crevice entrance, bathed in shadows cast by the remaining firelight. Grey-white hair fell over his face, obscuring identifying features, tendrils extending down below his shoulders, gently swaying, given unearthly sentience by the frenetic wind behind him.

Alarmed, Sora scrambled to his feet, hand seeking out the knife from within the pouch by his side. The obsidian blade flashed as it reflected the dim light, and the intruder seemed to flinch in response to it, shoulders rounding further, body nearly supporting itself on all fours. Sora had only a few nervy seconds to consider gaunt flesh stretched over the ridges of a jutted spine before a slender neck extended, tilted just enough upward for him to see the details of the face it supported.

He was a boy, features angular and sharp. Sora studied them, stance still tense, wariness persisting as he regarded the newcomer from chin and on upward. He took in the sloping jawline, witnessed lips twitching, not so much an intimation of a hesitant smile as they seemed posed to offer a glimpse of bared teeth. With a nose that matched prominent cheekbones, it was his eyes that gave Sora pause. They tapered in either corner, slitted but just enough open to reveal a hint of aquamarine, the same color as his beloved Summer Home sea.

For a moment, Sora stood, transfixed by them, wishing he could see more, wanting to study them closer. The boy moved, just a subtle shift of weight, and Sora remembered himself, recalled the defensive stance in which he was still currently standing.

He also caught sight of a flash of red along one side of the boy's face, an angry color that darkened the closer it got to the roots of long, silvery hair. He realized an instant later that the boy seemed to be bleeding.

The blood was dry, dark, and caked into the interloper's scalp. Mostly hidden beneath his hair, Sora noted the faint traces of red smeared across one side of the boy's face that he'd initially spotted, was able to follow the distinctive pattern to its origin across the back of one of the boy's fisted hands.

In his current inverted position, it was difficult to discern an age or even relative size of this intruder. What he could make out was the boy's rib cage. Just like his spine, the skin was stretched taut across it, and Sora recognized the signs of the same slow starvation that plagued his own long-suffering community. Nevertheless, the boy's tense posture also offered an easy view of arm and leg muscles. Lean but well-defined, they provided a stark reminder that desperation and instinct often made uneasy alliances that paid no heed to a small human obstacle possessing nothing more to defend himself with than a handheld knife and a sling that was effectively useless in such cramped quarters.

Just the same, Sora lowered his weapon a titch. He stood up straighter, legs still braced in the event of an attack, but posture otherwise relaxing.

"Peace…?"

At first, the softly spoken word seemed to have no effect on the boy in front of him, and Sora bit his lip, unsure how to proceed. Just as he'd begun mentally assembling another line of inquiry, he heard the boy sigh. It was a quiet sound, shuddered and low, and followed by the widening of guarded eyes that seemed determined not to meet his own for longer than a few moments in each go-around. The boy relaxed his shoulders, leaning back to balance more fully on his heels. He remained there for a moment, surveying the fissure's interior, eyes traveling over Sora on their way around the small space. Uncertain, but assessing.

Then, without a word, the boy finally stood.

He was taller than Sora had anticipated, shoulders much broader than they'd appeared when hunched a mere arm-length distance from the stone floor.

And naked, not a strip of clothing on him, the boy's body was completely exposed to the harsh elements just beyond his makeshift, mountainous haven.

Forgetting himself and the circumstances he'd abruptly woken up to, Sora furrowed his brows. "Aren't you cold?"

The boy glanced at him again, this time out of the corner one eye. Still, he said nothing. After a stagnant pause, however, he did seem to shrug, the action awkward, a jerky movement of shoulders rising to his ears, then lowering back into what seemed like his default preference of a slouching position. It had been such a delayed response that Sora couldn't be certain his question had been fully understood.

Tempted to speak again, Sora hesitated, trying to weigh his options. This boy was larger than him, looked stronger and older. In a fair fight, Sora held no illusions that he'd come out the victor.

Their current circumstances had nothing to do with fairness though and, as far as he could tell, the boy had no weapons on him. He was also injured, although Sora couldn't currently tell how gravely. Although completely unclothed, the boy wasn't shivering, just holding himself upright, posture a little awkward, expression impassive as he watched Sora from the fissure's entrance.

Making a quick decision he hoped he wouldn't regret later, Sora pocketed his knife, nestling it back in his pouch beside his cherished token, then began to make his way toward the entry.

The boy skirted away at his approach, a few steps closer to the opening, his frame silhouetted by moonlight, hair almost shining with even the subtlest of movements.

"It's okay." Sora held up both hands to show he was unarmed. "I just need to build up the fire so it doesn't die."

He couldn't tell if the boy understood everything he was saying, but he did remain in place, eyes still fixed on Sora's approaching movements. He watched as Sora lowered himself down, crossed his legs into a seated position, and reached toward the pile of bark and branches nearby, eyes never wavering as he observed each deliberate step in the fire-making process that Sora performed to encourage it back to its earlier, healthier blaze.

"Were you caught in quake, too?"

Sora glanced up as he spoke, brows rising in inquiry. When the boy persisted in his steadfast silence, eyes darting away again, Sora looked back toward his work on the fire, voice becoming quieter as he continued talking, more for his benefit now than the newcomer's.

"The earth opened where I was walking. It shook and broke apart and reformed. It was… alarming."

And I got separated from my community, my family. I might be the only one left.

Swallowing hard, Sora kept the final admission to himself. He'd never have admitted even what little he had now in front of Roxas. He was older, was expected to set an example of fearlessness. Just the same, it felt good to talk through it in the presence of a stranger, someone who didn't seem interested in responding back — or perhaps even incapable of doing so.

Sora look up again just in time to see the boy crouch down a few short paces away from him, forearms hovering over bent knees, hair tumbling forward across his ears and narrowing to straggly points at the crest of the upper half of his chest. Quietly pleased with the development, he turned back to the fire, reaching for his flint stick and knife, acutely aware of the eyes still fixed on him.

"That's how you got that gash on your head, right? I think I was lucky I didn't get hurt."

This time, Sora didn't turn as he spoke, too intent on striking his flint in just the right manner, in directing the sparks onto the kindling, to look elsewhere. Feeling the heat of infant flames given their first taste of oxygenated life, Sora smiled a little, proud of himself, then stood to survey the result of his efforts.

The fire was small but stronger than it had been when he'd first woken, flames licking at the edges of the kindling fuel he'd offered them as supplication. He'd fed the fire enough to last for another few hours, hopefully until dawn arrived and brought the safety of better visibility along with it.

Security now didn't mean finding his family tomorrow though, and he acknowledged there was a very real chance they might not have survived the quake. He'd seen no traces of them since diverging from their seasonal route. As much as he didn't want to consider the reality that he might be the only one left, Sora knew there was a realistic chance that even if he did manage to make the remaining few days' journey to Winter Home, he might arrive only to discover he was still all alone.

Or mostly alone, he thought, gaze flickering to his left for a quick instant before returning to the burning embers in front of him.

Satisfied that his work was sufficient to keep the fire going until morning, Sora found himself stifling a yawn. He turned toward where the boy had last been seated, intent to suggest they both get some rest — only to find that he was already standing, silent, mere inches away from him.

Sora started, making an undignified sound that Roxas never would have let him live down as he made an instinctive, stumbling retreat. The boy's stance shifted from cautious to defensive in an instant, posture transforming, upper body dipping closer to the ground, heels rising until he was balanced on the pads of his feet. In that moment, Sora could see how he'd mistaken the boy for being younger and smaller than he truly was. He had a way of bowing into himself as he crouched; this was also a position that didn't seem to effectively lend itself to carrying a weapon. Sora had learned as a tyke to brace his legs, to keep his feet planted and give himself a stronger foundation from which to move his upper body. This boy was doing just about the opposite.

"I didn't mean to scare you." He offered the words in as soothing a tone as he could manage, given the erratic fluttering of his own unfettered heartbeat. "You just startled me. You're so quiet…"

To be fair, Sora reasoned, he wouldn't have made much noise either if he weren't covered in layer after layer of late-season attire. Not only was he wearing long standard inner and outer stratum body coverings, he was also outfitted in an interim coat, something that was more suitable at their summer home when worn on its own. The impermanence of his community's seasonal settlements dictated an 'only what you can reasonably carry' ideal of property ownership. Beyond what was with him now, Sora's sole possession was a pack that held a change of clothing and a small supply of flint sticks, which he'd transferred to his mother before heading further afield with Roxas the day before.

It wasn't much, but it had always sufficed, and Sora was proud of the belongings he could call his exclusively.

This boy, on the other hand, seemed to possess nothing at all. He boasted no perceivable family or communal group, not even something as fundamental as clothing.

Despite his earlier irritation with Roxas, and despite the subsequent fear for his peoples' safety and the persistent anxiety that came with gnawing hunger, Sora felt a twinge of guilt at his own enduring health in the face of this boy's injury, and the overall wretchedness of his physical appearance. Sympathy welled up within his chest just imagining what might have happened to make the boy so wary and skittish now.

With that in mind, Sora offered one of the few things he still knew for certain in a world that seemed bent on changing so drastically by the hour of late.

"I'm Sora." He uttered his name like a tentative gift, unsure of its suitability, or relevance. "What's your name?"

Expression unchanging, the boy didn't move or respond, didn't so much as blink, eyes still fixed on the lower half of his face. Untrusting.

Where the boy was a vision of wary rigidity, Sora had always found it difficult to remain in one place or even position for very long. A bundle of lively energy, that's what his mother's hearthmate had called it, eyes smiling, expression teasing.

Once he'd tentatively determined that the boy wasn't an immediate threat, true to form, Sora had begun wringing his hands, bouncing his knees a little to rock between the arches and heels of both feet. It wasn't until he saw a subtle flinch in response to an inadvertently cracked wrist joint that Sora decided to try a different tack.

"I have food."

Although his words were barely above a whisper, silvery brows rose, bony shoulders seeming to quiver as though the statement itself had physically grazed him. Despite the dire situation and the realization that his words might imply he had enough to share when, in reality, the sole strip of jerky wouldn't suffice to fully feed even just one of them, Sora found himself starting to smile for the first time since being separated from Roxas. In times like these, food was a universal language, of sorts. This was also the first real indication that his words were being understood, he felt, even if the boy hadn't yet deigned to respond back.

"It's not a lot," he said, hanging his head slightly. When the boy's eager expression didn't dim at the admission, Sora felt emboldened enough to continue. "But we can share what I do have."

He turned, started to sidle his way back toward where he'd fallen asleep earlier that evening.

"Come on," he called. "There's more space further back, and it's a little warmer away from the wind."

Without looking at the boy, Sora angled his way toward the back of the stone shelter, opening his side pack as he walked. Although he heard nothing, he could sense the boy's presence nearby, could feel the subtle shift in the air as silent feet followed a few steps behind him.

He lowered himself to a seated position, gestured for the boy to join him, then stuck a hand into his pack, well aware of the pair of eyes following his every movement. Reaching inside, Sora took a moment to brush against his token, to seek reassurance that what he was doing in halving his only form of sustenance was an appropriate form of action on his part.

It felt right, at least, the idea of offering something to someone in need. As his hand emerged with the piece of salted meat, Sora couldn't help but feel like a big brother again, offering up what was his to bolster the health of another, even though this boy was probably older than him.

Unwrapping the thin strip of bark that kept it from soiling the other items he carried, Sora tore the meat in two, offering the larger piece to the boy crouched next to him.

The boy reached out, took it from him with both hands, held it in such a way that Sora found himself looking more closely, wondering if his new companion might be suffering some sort of physical defect.

Bent at the second knuckle, each finger curled slightly inward toward the digit beside it, some overlapping while others were positioned beneath, and both thumbs were almost obscured by the boy's palms entirely. A second inspection confirmed their existence, pressed so severely against the pads of each hand that Sora could see the detail of each bone, skin pulled bloodless white across the joint that connected each thumb to the boy's hand as a whole. From a distance, it had been easy to mistake as two hands curled into fists.

As Sora ate his own few bites of jerky, he watched the boy struggle to bring the food up to his mouth. Without the use of his thumbs, both hands worked to balance the food offering, and shoulders hunched forward to aid in the inclination of his head before he could take his first bite.

The new angle gave Sora a better view of the injury he'd seen earlier. Finishing off his last bite of food, he studied it further, eyes narrowing in the dim light in an attempt to assess its severity. Originating above his right eye, Sora followed the smear of blood across the boy's face on up, noted how the shade deepened the closer his gaze traveled to the crown of his head. There the trail coalesced, the blood thickening beneath matted grey hair. It no longer seemed to be actively bleeding, just offered an ominous view, a sizable clot of ichor black.

The crevice's interior was too dark to provide a solid view of what the injury encompassed, the boy's hair too thick of a cover where it originated to see clearly anyway. Not stopping to consider how the action might be interpreted, Sora leaned forward, reached out, then tentatively brushed away a tendril of blood-caked hair with two gentle fingers.

The boy jerked away from him in one violent movement, eyes flashing, what remained of his food abandoned on the stone floor between them.

"Sorry! I'm sorry." Sora raised his hands, palms out, tried to keep his voice level as he spoke. From his new position, back pressed against the far wall of their stone shelter, a low sound emitted from the deep recesses of the boy's throat.

Sora listened, keen to hear the boy speak, despite the circumstances that had invoked the reaction. Just as quickly, it faded, until nothing was audible beyond the sound of his quick, shallow breathing and the subsequent exhale of a disappointed sigh on Sora's part.

"I just wanted to see how badly you were hurt …if you'd let me look at it, maybe I could help."

This time, Sora wasn't surprised when his comment didn't elicit any response, verbal or otherwise.

In some odd way, this reminded him of Roxas, pushing away anyone who tried to comfort him in the throes of fevered delirium. And what, Sora asked himself, had Aerith done when Roxas wouldn't let so much as his own mother near him, when he'd all but weakly fought to keep people from touching him, arms thrashing, an incoherent string of words rasping from a throat raw with illness?

He remembered her methods all too well, had disagreed with them at the time, found them pitiless and harsh when he'd believed Roxas would have benefited from a softer tone.

Despite the empathy he'd initially felt for the boy, Sora found himself growing increasingly frustrated. He was hungry and thirsty, tired and frightened and, despite the enduring unknown associated with his community's whereabouts, to an extent also in shock and grief-stricken. It was perhaps the only reason his eyes narrowed now, that a scowl began to form and direct itself across the short distance between the two of them.

"Come here." The directive was barked, the cutting tone a surprise to even Sora himself. More importantly, it seemed to have an effect on the other boy, head quirked and regarding him with a little less defensiveness as he took a tentative step back Sora's way.

Good. Now they were getting somewhere.

Channeling as much of Aerith's no-nonsense authority as he could muster, Sora sat up straighter, allowed the light scowl on his face to remain.

"Come here," he said again. "You're not done eating, and we both need to get some sleep soon."

The boy obeyed, slowly approaching, eyes still darting around the small space as though he expected to be ambushed. Despite the lingering wariness, he lowered himself to the ground again, this time into an odd half-lying, half-seated position that, to Sora, looked anything but comfortable.

Keeping his movements slow and exaggerated so the boy had ample time to see what he was doing, Sora reached for what remained of the jerky, unable to fully suppress the longing from his own features as he handed it back over to the boy next to him. What little he'd eaten hadn't been nearly enough to stave off the hunger that'd been building since the last full meal he'd eaten, now over a full day ago.

This time, the boy held the jerky strip a little more adeptly, although he still wasn't using his thumbs to secure his grip on it. Sora watched, satisfied as the food was finished off in a few quick bites, eyes traveling first to the head injury he still couldn't get an adequate view of between the cover of silvery hair and the lingering dark. From there, he surveyed further, gaze moving down to the exposed skin of bare shoulders. Maybe it was the poor lighting within their current confines, but the boy's skin had a gray, ashy pallor to it that made him nervous. Sora found himself wanting to reach out again, to run his fingers over just a small section of it, to see if the color derived from cold or the effects of a terminal fever.

After the boy's last reaction at being touched, Sora didn't dare. Nothing about the boy's actions implied he might attack Sora; the skittish demeanor instead reminded him more of a scared animal.

He also wasn't ignorant of the fact that cornered animals were often unpredictable, that in times of acute desperation, even the most harmless of creatures could pose a threat as they lashed out in an attempt to defend themselves. This boy wasn't an animal, Sora conceded, but he also wasn't convinced at this juncture that he would be able to reason with him if he started to panic either — or properly defend himself due to their differences in size in the event that the boy lashed out at him, for any reason.

Sora therefore curbed the urge to reach out again. Instead, his hands rose to his own chest. The boy's eyes followed as he reached for the tie on his outer layer of clothing, watched as Sora pulled the thick tendon strings that held the garment together, gaze following the coat as he shrugged out of it and it slid down his back, pooling in fleecy rivulets on the ground around his crossed legs.

Quickly retrieving it, Sora held it out toward the boy with both hands. For his part, the boy leaned away but didn't move to retreat again.

"Take it."

Although his voice had leveled out, words less harsh in their current locution, Sora's expression remained unwavering, leaving no room for protestations in any form that they might come. "It's freezing outside," he continued, tone reasonable. "You won't last long without any type of covering."

Once again, the boy obeyed, movements hesitant as he took the coat Sora was offering. For a moment, he simply eyed it, spread out over one forearm while he brushed the back of his blood-smeared hand against its fur-lined exterior.

"Put it on."

This time, Sora's tone was encouraging. But the boy's expression shifted from his default cautious to outright bewilderment. He looked up from the garment, over at Sora, then down to the undercoat he was still wearing before returning to the coat Sora had just lent him. Sora watched, feeling somewhat confused himself. There was no way — no conceivable possibility — that this boy hadn't worn clothing before, no chance he wouldn't have frozen to death as a child if members of his community didn't cover themselves. Maybe there was less need for garments if he hailed from the region that encompassed the peninsula south of where his own community called Summer Home, Sora conceded. Not this far north though; it simply wasn't feasible to survive the elements without layers that preserved body heat.

Slowly, the boy managed to wriggle his hands into the coat sleeves, and next his arms. He was putting it on backward, but Sora was too tired to correct him. It would still keep him warm, he figured, and maybe the boy would even let him explain the proper way to wear it come morning, or at least allow him to secure the ties so it wouldn't fall off his shoulders.

"Good," Sora murmured, unconsciously abandoning the sharpness in his tone as he uncrossed his legs and reached for his supply pouch. "We should try to sleep now. Then we can locate water and go hunting tomorrow."

Although the boy seemed to perk up at the tail end of his sentence, Sora was too exhausted to notice. He simply unwound his pouch from its place on his pants loop, this time not even pausing to touch his token before lying down. Curling one arm up to cradle the side of his head as a makeshift pillow, his eyes closed almost immediately once he'd found an adequately comfortable position.

"We would both stay warmer if we slept side by side," he said, voice becoming softer with every successive word. "But it's fine if you'd rather not."

If the boy responded in any way, if he even moved an inch from his seated position nearby, Sora was unaware of it. Thoughts drifting in every direction, body relaxing as much as was possible in light of the rough stone crevice flooring, the last thing his consciousness offered up was an image of Roxas, expression the same controlled, unfamiliar look he'd seen in his dream earlier, eyes not so much bright sky blue as they were the cyan of his beloved Summer Home sea, an environment that reminded him of happier, safer, warmer times surrounded by those he trusted, and those who loved him as much as he did them.

o - o

He couldn't be sure how many hours had passed before he opened his eyes again, body quivering, face flushed with the heat of foreign warmth. The intensity of the sensation was unusual, disorienting, and Sora found it difficult to fully wrest himself from the last vestiges of sleep when the air was so warm around him.

It took him a moment longer to realize the steady rise and fall of breathing was coming from behind him, rather than from his own body; same for the heat radiating outward.

So-ra…

The word echoed in his mind, reverberated into his throat and down his spine. The speaker's voice had an odd cadence, not so much a different accent as an odd articulation. The tone was hoarse, the syllables of his name uttered slowly as if aiming to sever one from the other, spoken as two words, each autonomous of the other.

He felt caged between the voice and the boy behind him, at the same time engulfed by a sense of incorporeal surreality, of uncertainty that he wasn't still dreaming even now.

Sora.

This time, there was more sureness behind the word, a caressing confidence to the way it was enunciated.

"Yes," Sora whispered, allowing the tremors of each iteration to carry him further toward the drowsy insentience he'd just been roused from. "I'm called Sora. What's your name?"

The voice repeated his name just one more time, the final syllable a fading echo, a rolling, deep-throated rumble against the canal of his spine. As if obeying an order, Sora's body responded, eyes fluttering before closing entirely.

By the time the voice spoke again, Sora's breathing had steadied, his physical body becoming still once more as conscious thought dissolved, ceded to the interim realm between wakefulness and dreaming. By the time the voice returned to him, Sora was fast on his way to sleep, and one step closer come morning to wondering if he'd dreamed the entire exchange.

I am called Ri-ku.

Riku, he thought. The name sounded unusual. Exotic.

He wanted to consider it further, perhaps ask other questions about the speaker's identity. Like waves crashing against his summer home's shore, exhaustion washed over him, however. It overcame his last meager hold on consciousness, and Sora remembered nothing further.