Thanks for the reviews on chapter 3 KHKairiNamineFanatic, soraloveskairi159, and Rinny87.
sorry this chapters a lot later than the others ones, i couldn't think of what to write in this section.
Chapter 4- The Country of Radiance
It was the strangest breakfast that Kairi had even been at. The Exiles ate more food than was humanly possible. She had been introduced to both Xigbar and Luxord, and was quiet relieved to see that Luxord was not fried and on a stick. Although, now she knew to be wary around Xigbar (whom she nicknamed 'Mr. Eye patch' in her mind).
They also had long conversations, and it wasn't long before all of the conversations were turned towards her.
"So Kairi, where did you come from?" the man that she now took for Demyx asked.
"You idiot!" Axel shouted. "We already told you! She's Princess Kairi from Destiny!"
"Just wanted to make sure," Demyx whined.
"So um…how do you become an Exile?" Kairi asked quietly.
"We become an Exile if we're banished or we leave our countries," Vexen answered the question this time. "I think only Xigbar was banished from the country of Destiny. The rest of us left voluntarily."
"Why was he…uh…"
"Banished?" Zexion asked. He didn't give her time to respond but continued on in a dull manner. "He was banished because he kept shooting innocent civilians." Kairi had a shocked look on her face.
"Xigbar, Lexaeus, Demyx, and Luxord all came from Destiny. Vexen, and Zexion came from Twilight. And I came from Radiance," Axel explained.
"Radiance? The Forbidden City?" Kairi asked suddenly.
She had only heard about the country in stories. From what her parents had told her, the princess of the country had vanished and had been missing for several years. The country had fallen into disarray, finally falling and the line of Radiance was extinguished.
"That very one. Luckily I left that city before it actually crumbled. I would have been in that mess," Axel ran his fingers through his spiky red hair.
"Selfish bastard," Vexen grumbled. Roxas caught Kairi's eye and rolled his eyes.
"Did you meet Sora?" he asked changing the subject.
"I don't think so," Kairi responded quickly. "At least, I don't remember…"
"What do you mean, you don't remember?" Roxas asked. "It's not hard to remember that you met the Prince, right?"
"Probably not," Kairi was embarrassed. "I'm only a maid, I wouldn't have the chance to grace His Highness."
"Well, you're gracing His Highness," Axel spoke up. He had been listening in on their conversation. "Roxas is Sora's twin brother. He's been living here because of some crazy sorceress that wants to take over the world didn't like him."
"You know, Axel. That 'crazy sorceress that wants to take over the world' is Roxas's sister, Larxene," Xigbar remarked. It took a few minutes for that comment to actually register into Axel's mind before he let out a shriek.
"ROXAS! YOUR OWN SISTER WANTS YOU?!" he hollered.
"Shut up, Axel! You know why she's after me! I told you when that potion wore off!" Roxas roared.
"True," he said, quieting down.
"Potion?" Kairi asked. Luxord turned towards her. Of all of the Exiles, he seemed to be the most normal out of them all, apart from the fact that he seemed to be obsessed about games with cards, dice, or time limits.
"You see, the Princess Larxene likes to brew potions. Not very nice ones mind you. I would think that one of the most common potions around has to be her memory-altering potion. Very nasty piece of work that she had right there; drink it and all your memories will be wiped, depending on what she wants. Roxas ended up with a potion that wiped his entire memory. Luckily the effects went away after a few weeks," Luxord explained.
"Well, if your memory is back, then why don't you return back to your home?" Kairi asked.
"Hey Princess? Hence the name: Exiles. Why do you think we're named that?" Xigbar tapped his chest.
"But Roxas is important!" Kairi cried out. "He's the Prince of Destiny. He should return!"
"He's not first-in-line," Zexion stated, drinking tea from a mug with the symbol of Twilight on it. "Sora is first-in-line if he marries by his 21st birthday. Destiny works that way."
"But Prince Sora's birthday is in 5 days, he has to be married by then!" Kairi cried out.
"4 days. Prince Sora's birthday is in 4 days," Lexaeus spoke up for the first time.
"Well, he is engaged to a girl. But she kind of disappeared yesterday, so they don't know where she went. But there are several WANTED posters around," Roxas waved his hands. "But if Sora doesn't marry in 4 days, then the throne goes to Larxene, and it's bye-bye to me!"
"She already knows you're alive, she had all of the chances in the world to kill you, what's the use of wasting time after she becomes ruler?" Vexen rolled his eyes. "That doesn't make any sense of why she would waste energy to get you out of her way."
"That lecture you just gave us didn't make any sense anyway," Demyx helped himself to another piece of sausage and managed to dump another load of eggs onto Kairi's plate.
"Wait! I can't eat all of this—"
Demyx giggled madly, "It's only a little bit." Kairi turned red and looked down at her plate once again.
"You know Kairi, you do look like the Princess that Sora's going to marry. You know that right?" Axel asked.
"No—I—I can't be! She's a whole different class!" Kairi turned another shade of red and started eating quickly, not wishing to speak again.
"I heard that the Princess goes around telling people that she's a maid, not a Princess. But she has the upbringing like a true ruler," Axel leaned over to Roxas and 'whispered' this information.
"I'm not a Princess!" she cried out standing up angrily. Her face was red. "I've never met the Prince. And I won't marry him if I never saw him!"
"Whatever, let's just get off this 'Royalty' stuff, it's starting to give me a headache," Xigbar rolled his eye and helped himself to another cup of orange juice.
"Just because you were banished from your Kingdom doesn't mean that you shouldn't pay attention to the news!" Vexen snapped.
"Well, he is the only one to get banished by the Kingdoms. The rest of us just ran for it," Demyx pointed out. He himself had became too 'excited' during Queen Tifa's funeral and had started a humongous downpour of water and had ran for it when King Xemnas had turned to him. Since he hadn't returned after a month, he became an 'exile' in everyone's mind.
"Axel, why did you get banished from Radiance?" Roxas asked. "You never told us."
"Well, let's just say that the Princess' bodyguard didn't really like me from the beginning. He just needed a reason to kick me out. And I guess burning his robes just went over the line and I found myself staring at the gates of Radiance," Axel placed his feet on the table and didn't remove them, even when Vexen tried to stab him with a fork.
"How unlucky," Kairi said coldly. Personally, she didn't understand why these men had even tried to do what they did in the first place. Why would they set someone on fire for the fun of it? Why would they drown all of the guests at a very important funeral? And why would they shoot innocent civilians to cure boredom?
Kairi was beginning to think that the Pence the rabbit had been right, the Exiles were people you did not want to mess with…
OoOoOoOo
Back to the Palace of Destiny…"WHAT?!" a scream of rage penetrated the peaceful silence of the palace. Many of the doves that were roosting in the garden flew up in sudden fright. The servants stopped what they were doing for a few minutes as they tried to figure out where the sound had come from.
Larxene was pacing her bedroom. Marluxia was standing at the door quietly, he had just told her what had happened in the forest.
"You mean to tell me that the wretched girl is alive?" Larxene hissed. Thankfully her voice had lowered quite a few octaves down. Marluxia didn't have the need to cover his ears anymore.
"I'm sorry, Your Highness. But when I tried to kill her, I was blocked by a powerful spell. I left her on the forest floor, but when I came back an hour later, she had vanished.
"Do you think she could have woken up?" she asked in a deadly whisper.
"No. Your Majesty's potions are extremely powerful. They would have stronger effects on the weak minded. Princess Kairi shouldn't have woken up. If she did, she didn't get too far before she fell down again and I walked far looking for her."
"Someone moved her," Larxene scowled. "Someone followed you into the forest, Marluxia!"
"I didn't hear anyone. Trust me Your Majesty, with the element Flower, I could listen to all of the plants and trees. They told me that no one followed me into the forest except for Princess Kairi, nothing else. But they did tell me that an abnormal amount of wind blasted through the forest during my 'walk'."
"Wind…hm…a girl who doesn't believe she's a princess…hm…" Larxene sat down on her chair and started thinking.
"Your Highness?" Marluxia asked blankly. "I don't follow…"
"Of course you don't. Only the ones who know about the Forbidden City will understand. Hm…the witness did say that the Princess went missing…a strange wind…it matches the exact description of the Princess's bodyguard's power," she counted on her fingers.
"So you're saying that Princess Kairi might be the heir to the Forbidden City?" he asked.
"No, I'm saying that she's the heir to the Kingdom of Radiance," Larxene shot back. "Honestly, you Assassins should be more knowledgeable about the stories surrounding the three Kingdoms."
"Your Highness, I'm afraid that I'm only hired help," Marluxia stated quietly. "I only learn the techniques that Assassins need to do their job."
"Well, then at least you should know about the three Kingdoms," Larxene snapped as she stood up and walked into her bathroom. The door slammed shut, and Marluxia let out a long sigh of relief.
He hadn't been punished yet.
OoOoOoOoOo
Kairi stumbled around the forest unhappily. The Exiles had been no help at all. Once they had turned the conversation onto her, they had bombarded her with questions that she couldn't answer.
She was sure that she wasn't a Princess. She had been born to a low wage family that died of a plague quite recently. There was no way that she could have been a Princess.
"Kairi?" a soft quiet voice called out to her from behind the bushes.
"Who is it?" Kairi hesitated and put up a fighting stance, the only way that she knew how to protect herself.
"It's me," a small deer walked into the clearing. "Olette."
"Oh, hello," she bent down to the deer's height and smiled.
"You're not happy?" the deer laid down on the grass. Kairi sighed and lowered herself onto the soft greenery.
"All of the Exiles keep saying that I'm a Princess. But I can't be, can I?" she turned towards Olette hopefully.
The deer didn't answer. Instead, she turned her head towards the rustling in the bushes behind her. Kairi gasped and jumped in alarm when a cloaked man stepped out into the clearing behind Olette.
"Be silent, Kairi!" Olette warned. "He won't hurt you. It would be against orders."
"Orders?" Kairi sat up and looked at the man. His black braids were tied up in a messy ponytail, and he had messy sideburns to add to the description. In all, he just looked dangerous. Like a serial killer on the loose.
"This is Xaldin, the Head of the Royal Guard in Radiance. He is also the sole bodyguard of the Princess of Radiance—You."
"Me?" she pointed at herself and looked at Olette and then back at Xaldin. "Wait. WHAT?!"
"Princess?" Xaldin sweatdropped as he watched Kairi run around squealing.
"Uh-uh, no way, N-O!" she waved her hands in front of her. "I am not a Princess!"
"That didn't fool the King of Destiny," he remarked dully.
"Then there's something wrong with all of the people that said I'm a Princess!" Kairi was now pulling out her hair. "I—AM—NOT—A—PRINCESS!"
"Well, that red hair of yours is uncommon isn't it?" Xaldin pointed at her hair.
"So what? Axel had red hair!" she shouted. There was a long pause after this comment.
"You mean your 'uncle'?" he asked blankly.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"
OoOoOoOoOo
"What was that?" Sora asked looking in the direction of the forest.
"No idea, sir," Riku was holding Sora's giant Destiny Keyblade (Kingdom Key). "It's probably that stupid raven that likes to hear itself talk."
"You mean the one that belongs to the evil sorceress that my father locked in a mirror and gave to Larxene?" Sora asked. "What was her name again?"
"I forgot. Something really stupid though…" Riku rolled his eyes. "My Lord, you need to go practice with your sister today."
"Aw man! She'll kill me for sure now! I heard her servants complaining about the noise that she makes when she sharpens her kunai knives!"
"You feel my sorrow," Riku patted Sora on the back sympathetically.
OoOoOoOo
"Mirror, Mirror, oh Stupid Mirror, on the stupid and useless wall, who is the most evilest one of all?" Larxene glared at the mirror that her father had handed to her for her 12th birthday. He had seemed quite glad to be rid of it too.
"It is I, Maleficent, the Witch of Darkness, the Queen of Disaster, the Rebel against Light, the—"
"Whatever," Larxene rolled her eyes. "Tell me if my potion is working!"
"Potions? You use Potions?!" the witch cackled with laughter. "HAH! I WOULD USE MY DARK MAGIC!! THE MOST POWERFULEST MAGIC IN THE WORLD! HA HA HA!! ALL OF MY HENCHMEN WILL BOW DOWN TO ME WHEN I FINALLY DEFEAT THE KING OF DESTINY! I'LL MAKE HIM SORRY THAT HE EVER SEALED ME! HA HA HA!!"
"Uh…okay…can you just answer my question?!" Larxene was at a boiling point, she clutched her kunai knives tightly, her eyes narrowed in anger, smoking pouring from her ears.
"I'LL TAKE AWAY HIS THRONE AND MAKE HIM BEG FOR FORGIVNESS ON HIS KNEES!!! NO, ON HIS KNESS WITHOUT HIS CROWN OR THRONE!! HA HA HA!! SOON EVERYONE WILL BE SINGING MY NAME!!"
"That's it!" Larxene threw a whole handful of her kunai knives at the mirror. They all bounced off harmlessly. Finally she walked forward and yanked the mirror off of the wall and tossed it out the window as far as she could.
"I'LL PUT UP MY NAME IN GOLD LETTERING!! BEAT THAT, YOU STUPID, ARROGANT—WAIT, WHAT ARE YOU DOING-?!!" she screamed as the mirror went flying.
Larxene watched the mirror flying into blue sky and disappear in a small twinkle in the sky. She wore a smug look on her face and stayed at the window for a long time.
That's the end of chapter 4! Hope everyone liked that! Sorry that there wasn't much information on Sora and Kairi's relationship. But there is some Maleficent bashing in this chapter, which is good enough for me (no offense, Maleficent fans).
Please Review!!
edited 08/17/08