Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts.
Worlds Destroyed.
The first thing Riku could recognize when he finally regained consciousness was a thick, sour liquid oozing down his throat. Involuntarily, he swallowed the liquid and realized that by doing so his body felt incredibly better. Another spoonful of the same liquid was shoved into his mouth, this time he coughed, but resolved to swallow the liquid again. He breathed heavily and heard voices around him; "Look he's coming back," he heard, then a harsher voice said "Coming back? He wasn't dead, you moron!" And the voices around him began arguing so Riku decided to ignore them.
Riku opened his eyes, but had to close his aquamarine pools as a green light blinded him. He lifted his hand to his face and realized his arm was very stiff. The silver head caressed his temple to lessen the strong headache that troubled his very soul. He opened his eyes, sat up, and watched as the occupants of the room looked at him with a strange mixture of surprise and relief.
"Oh, what did you think you were doing passing out on us?" The brunette asked him accusingly, "You're too much trouble."
"Jarvia leave him alone, will ya?" Teddy told the girl. "Good thing I had just bought an elixir!" Said Teddy quite happily, "But now I regret not buying more than one," he said with a pout.
"You should have let him die in the first place, everyone knows elixirs are too expensive to waste just like that," mocked Jarvia.
Riku had to frown.
He realized he was back in his bedroom, laying on his bed, with Teddy and Jarvia sitting on the foot of the bed, bickering all the while. He looked at his body and saw blood stains all around his clothes, but he knew he wasn't bleeding anymore, mostly because of the elixir he had consumed. Riku remembered the previous fight, and he, very reluctantly, concluded that he was not yet ready to defend himself. He figured that after fainting he was just a bother for the younger kids. A burning feeling within him wished he were stronger, stronger so he could understand everything that was happening around him and so he would be able to defend himself against everything that tried to harm him—from angry Jarvias to murderous monsters.
After a while he could tell the children got bored of being with him. "Come one Teddy, let's leave Her Favorite to himself." Jarvia said with sarcasm. Teddy giggled—amused at the nickname she had given Riku—and followed the brunette outside.
Riku glared at the door after they left, and laid back down in the bed. He felt tired so he decided to rest before going to see Maleficent about all the troublesome thoughts and questions that bothered him every second. It took a while before sleep embraced him in its blissful clutches. But once it did Riku settled into a fitful night; tossing and turning every now and then, accompanied with a troublesome dream about floating islands, a pub filled with many Teddys and Jarvias, and the silent cries of a beautiful red head.
The early bird instinct within him brought him back to consciousness just before dawn. Riku rubbed his sleepy eyes and gazed at the darkness of the room. He suddenly felt dirty—having slept with his bloodied garments—so he jumped out of the bed and readied himself to take a long shower. After he stepped out of the shower he dressed in one of the many leather clothes Maleficent provided for him. Once finished he left his room and headed to the dining hall, where he knew that the other occupants of the castle would be waiting for him to begin with breakfast.
The silver head was surprised to see only Teddy in the table (he was very concentrated on trying to balance a fork on the tip of his index finger so he ignored Riku's presence). Riku sat in the same place as he always did—across from Jarvia's seat and three chairs away from Teddy's—and asked "Where are Maleficent and Jarvia?"
Teddy shrugged and responded "Jarvia was crying about some blood between her pants and Maleficent had to go calm her down."
Riku laughed in genuine amusement. He knew Jarvia wasn't the sensitive type of person so he decided that freaking out would very much suit her when experiencing the first changes of puberty. He decided to not wait for them and began eating his breakfast.
The door to his right was opened and Riku almost choked when he saw Jarvia sniffling and holding back a few tears (such display of emotion was rare in the girl). Besides her walked Maleficent, her lips were pursed together in annoyance. "Hurry, food's getting cold!" Teddy exclaimed; he, too, had begun eating his breakfast without waiting for the other two.
Maleficent and Jarvia sat on their regular places and began eating without a word. When the food was finished Maleficent cleared her throat and began talking once all attention was on her. "Care to explain what happened in the market? I thought I told you not to draw attention to yourselves."
"A heartless attacked the village!" Teddy answered with an unnecessary amount of energy.
"If he hadn't fainted then we wouldn't have drawn so much attention." Jarvia said spitefully, Riku knew she was referring to him.
"Jarvia we've already talked about this. I don't want any conflicts between you," Maleficent told the girl coldly, the hint of a threat escaped her eyes and Jarvia leaned back in the chair, scared. Riku momentarily wondered what had happened between them. "A Heartless? I see, it seems I'll have to take certain measures to keep those from the village," but something told the silver head that her motives weren't just for "protection of the village."
Silence settled in the room and Riku decided this could be his opportunity to talk to Maleficent. "Maleficent, what happened to my hometown?"
The witch gave him an amused, sharp look. "I thought you knew," she finally said.
"I don't know what happened," Riku replied with a cold impassiveness.
"Reasonable. You were brought here just before the disaster happened."
Riku almost choked with his orange juice. "Disaster?" He breathed faintly.
"Yes, follow me." She stood up and told the children to clean the table—receiving complaints and wails in response—and left the dining room with Riku trailing close behind her. They walked to a dark room and he watched as she used her magic to bring a faint, green glow to the engraved center of the room.
"That place where you come from, Destiny Islands, was destroyed after you were swallowed by the darkness," she told him calmly. "You should thank the darkness for saving you from that death hole."
The news welcomed him like icy water. His hands curled into fists until they grew disturbingly pale for the pressure he was issuing into them. Everything had disappeared! His family, friends, that gentle paradise that could always calm him down, everything! And why, oh why did the darkness choose to save him? Out of all people! He looked at her with empty eyes. He didn't deserve to be here, he should have disappeared like the rest of them. And why didn't Maleficent tell him sooner? Was she planning to let him live in obliviousness? With the fake reassurance that he had fulfilled his dream and that life went on in Destiny Islands?
"Oh but don't fret," She told him as she raised his chin with her abnormally long fingers, "You aren't the only one that survived." The witch succeeded in gaining his attention, so she continued "That boy named Sora survived, too, and he's out playing hero around the worlds, now that he's the keyblade master."
"Sora's OK?" He asked incredulously.
"And Kairi, too. But it may be hard to find her; I'm currently working on that." Maleficent said and the green glow in the center of the room intensified. A blurry image of a boy with dark, spiky hair appeared; he seemed to be focused on a conversation with two creatures in royal attires. One looked liked a dog and the other one liked a lot like a duck.
"Sora," Riku murmured and walked closer to the boy's image.
"I can help you find them, if that's what you want," she said with a devilish smirk, "But you'll have to help me find what I'm looking for."
"Fine, I'll do whatever it takes."
"Splendid! First off I want you to find Jarvia and tell her to train you; you'll have to become stronger if you want to find your friends, after all."
Riku nodded; he agreed with her. The silver head loathed the weak state he felt he was in. if he wanted to find Sora and Kairi he needed to be strong enough to protect himself, then he would begin his search for them, and protect them from whatever harm may come in their way, after all he was like a big brother to them; he was not going to let them down.
The teen quickly left to look for Jarvia, intent on making her train him. He decided to just deal with her homicidal temper, if that was what it would take to find his childhood friends then he would just have to deal with is, no turning back now.
---
When Jarvia found out that Riku needed her help, she had taken her time to explain how much she disliked him and how she was not going to teach her precious knowledge of warfare to the likes of him. Simply because "You have no rights to become Maleficent's favorite," she had said and Riku was extremely exasperated at her when she ignored his attempts to explain that he was not interested in becoming Maleficent's "favorite." But it had taken an intervention from the witch to make Jarvia understand that they weren't fooling around; that Riku did need someone to teach him how to successfully fend off any harm.
It was chilly in the training grounds, Riku and Jarvia—who had just finished sparing—were sitting next to each other, and sweating heavily after the exhausting fight. Jarvia was much less exhausted and flushed compared to Riku, but neither of them showed any interest in wanting to stand up and continue sparing; at least not for today.
"Was your world destroyed, too?" Riku asked between heavy pants.
Jarvia looked at him, her eyes dark with sadness and exhaustion. She nodded, but decided not to talk more of the subject by looking away. She held out their first aid kit while saying "Care for your wounds, we will begin again tomorrow at sunrise. I will be extra hard on you if you arrive late."
The silver haired teen did just as she told him, and was surprised when she began talking again. "Teddy and I come from a wealthy land. Had my world not disappeared I would have held the rank of Duchess of Venetia. Teddy was the son of a neighboring Baron, though I never talked to him before coming here." Riku smirked to himself, that's why she was so bossy and impatient; she was used to having everything she desired.
"When the darkness swallowed my world I was sent to a town called Traverse and Teddy ended up here. Teddy and Maleficent found me when they were visiting the town, and the moment Teddy realized we were from the same world he did everything possible to make me join them. I love it here because it reminds me of my old manor."
Riku gazed at the two moons—Fher and Mystic Moon—that lit the darkness of Hollow Bastion, and his eyes trailed to Jarvia's hand, which was pointing up at the same lavender and mahogany moons. "We had two satellites, too. One was named Aqua because it was covered in water, and the other was called Demeter, since the moon greatly influenced harvest season." Then she added quite sourly, "But I never cared, just let the stupid peasants worry about their silly crops." She stud up and, without a second look, strolled back to the castle.
The teen raised an eyebrow at her retreating form and decide he wasn't even going to try to understand her. He shrugged and almost jumped in surprise when a chilly wind circulated around his body. He quickly finished cleaning his mess up and limped his way to the castle, driven to arrive to his bedroom so he could finally call it a day.
Where friendship is, there is one's homeland. - Voltaire
To be continued...
The Making of Retener et Liberare
Part 3 - Jarvia and Teddy: When I was thinking of my plot I realized that the story would be very boring if Maleficent and Riku were the only active characters, so I decided to add other characters. I gave a lot of thought to Jarvia's and Teddy's personalities; Teddy is supposed to be supportive and at the same time be that little boy that requires action and attention--he was inspired by Wrath from Full Metal Alchemist, and I wanted Jarvia to be Teddy's oposite, to be bossy, mean, and short tempered (and I was reminded of Azula from Avatar and myself). Their personalities will be exposed more as chapters pass, and you may realize they are more humane than they appear.