Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This collection is mine. This prompt took forever for my muse rabbit to nibble on, but it was strangely entertaining to write. This also takes place after my story As the Sun Sets on Mushroom Clouds. If you haven't read it, it will still make sense. There are just a few references that may seem odd (e.g. Rinoa).
..:-X-:..
009 – Birds of a Feather
(For The Sacred and Profane; Prompt: 'Tifa and Donald swap bodies and the pair have to deal with acting like each other until they can find a way to switch back')
One minute, Donald Duck had been waging war on the Heartless with Goofy and King Mickey on The World That Never Was, and the next, he was lying on his back on wooden floor and Rinoa Heartilly was looking down at him with wide eyed concern. For those first three seconds, Donald felt normal. Confused as to why he was here and not there, but normal.
But as his faculties returned, however, something began to feel…off.
"Hey. Heyheyhey. Are you okay?" Rinoa was asking, tapping his cheek.
His cheek…
"Bah!" He sat up abruptly.
Several things occurred to him simultaneously. His voice was different. His feathers were gone. He had skin. He had elbows. The act of sitting up put his eyesight roughly at where he would be when standing at full height.
"What happened?" He asked, and then immediately grabbed his throat, looking down at himself.
That wasn't his body!
Rinoa looked worried and…guilty.
"I…think I messed up." She murmured.
..:-X-:..
"Holy shit!" Tifa screamed.
Or, rather, that's what she would have screamed, if her voice had been working properly. As it was, her curse came out sounding like: 'hahluy zeet!'
She staggered, tripping on her suddenly unwieldy feet, and pitched forward to the concrete street. She would have grit her teeth against the impact, but found that part of her face irresponsive and…beak-like. To top it off, her muscle memory didn't appear to be kicking in: as she tried to roll with the momentum of her fall and bounce back up on her feet…and ended up just flopping onto her side.
Winded from the tumble, she pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, or whatever limbs seemed to respond to that brain message, and looked down. A number of thoughts crashed through her as she did so. Why did she have a beak? Why was she covered in feathers? Where was she? Why wasn't she wearing pants?
"Donald! Are ya all right?" Goofy was lumbering toward her, shield held in front of him.
"Wha—" Tifa got to her feet and it clicked.
Somehow, she had ended up in Donald Duck's body.
"C'mon, fellas!" King Mickey announced, swinging his Keyblade into Heartless several meters away. "These guys are still comin'!"
..:-X-:..
"Whaddaya mean, messed up?" Donald squawked, his bitter tone cutting across clearly in Tifa's voice.
Rinoa grimaced, indicating the open spellbook on the coffee table. "I…I decided to try my hand at complex magic…Something harmless!" She held up what looked like a sleeveless shirt of hers, with a sizeable rip on the side of it. "I tried a mending spell that would make my shirt stitch itself up—I'm terrible at sewing—but…" She rambled. "Th-the pages stuck together and I guess I…accidentally conjured a body-swap spell."
"Accidentally!" Donald snatched the spellbook away from her and assessed the encantation himself. "You idiot, how did you manage to mess this up?"
Rinoa flinched, and Donald pursed his—or rather Tifa's—lips. Goofy and the King were well aware that Donald swore and badmouthed those who irritated him or when he was angry, and while they disapproved, his sputtering and impeded speech made his ranting relatively harmless. Now, with Tifa's crystal clear speech, he would have to keep a closer eye on it.
"Fine, fine, whatever." He waved off her hurt look. "Let's just fix this, a'right? Where's Merlin?" He looked around, realizing that they were in Merlin's house in Radiant Garden.
Rinoa swallowed. "Twilight Town…having a meeting with Yen Sid."
Donald's eye twitched. Merlin was the magic specialist in Radiant Garden. Sure, the old wizard had an entire department of magical trainees, but he wasn't about to put his mind and body in the hands of those noob palookas. The front door of the house opened and both he and Rinoa looked over quickly.
Leon had just walked in, eyebrow lifted at 'Tifa' on the floor with Rinoa kneeling beside 'her'. "What's…going on?"
..:-X-:..
Tifa hastily picked up—gah, stupid duck fingers!—Donald's fallen magic staff and awkwardly got to her—webbed—feet. Oh this was freakin' ridiculous! She had no idea what had happened or why she was in this predicament.
Backburner, she mentally noted. Heartless now, body-swap weirdness later.
As the Heartless continued to converge on the trio, another problem presented itself. Tifa was a martial artist specialized in hand-to-hand combat. She had spent her life training her body to become a weapon. Donald Duck was a magician. Aside from basic incantations and attack spells, she was out of her comfort zone—in more ways than one.
"Furr—" She stammered, finding her mouth not coordinating with what she wanted to say. Shaking her head, she enunciated more deliberately. "Fira!"
Fire launched out of the staff in her hand, blasting through the Heartless near her. Goofy moved to cover her back.
"Gawrsh, where do they keep coming from?" He asked.
"Ack-dun-gno!" She garbled, getting frustrated at her inability to communicate. "Whath-oot!" She tried to warn Mickey, who slashed through two more Heartless.
..:-X-:..
"Er…" Rinoa sweat-dropped. "There was a—"
"I was just showing her how to block an attacker from behind!" Donald interrupted, trying to save this embarrassing situation.
There was no love lost between himself and Leon. In fact, only a grudging respect existed between them. The thought of explaining this to the man made Donald's lip curl. Oh, wait, it was actually curling right now. He flattened his lips consciously.
Leon's eyebrow quirked, though he wasn't scowling like he usually was when Donald saw him. Rinoa was looking at Donald with big eyes.
"Ye—ah." She went with it, looking to Leon. "I mean…I've never had any formal training…and…who better to teach me?"
Leon didn't look entirely convinced as Rinoa scrambled to her feet, but he didn't appear suspicious enough to question further as he crossed the room and offered Donald a hand up. The action bewildered Donald for a moment, but then he remembered that he was in Tifa's body—someone significantly closer to Leon than Donald.
He awkwardly took the offered hand, and Leon pulled him to his feet.
"I thought your policy was to never go easy on an opponent?" Leon smirked at 'Tifa'.
Unnerved by this side of Leon, Donald just stared at him uncomfortably. "Er…is it?"
Leon frowned lightly. "Are you okay?"
"Squall!" Rinoa interrupted, "Um, Leon," She corrected. "Hypothetical question. Who would one go to if a magic spell went horribly wrong, and Merlin was…unavailable?"
..:-X-:..
"Well, that looks like all of 'em!" Mickey said triumphantly as the final remains of the Heartless faded away into purple smoke.
Goofy wiped sweat from his brow, but Tifa nearly collapsed from exertion. She was used to muscle exhaustion and body soreness, but to battle using only spells had absolutely drained her with regard to magic and ether energy. How did Donald and Merlin do this?
"I think that's it for the day, yer Majesty." Goofy chirped. "Donald looks like he's had enough." He chuckled apprehensively, as though waiting for Donald's reprimand.
Tifa was too exhausted to supply that, however, and merely straightened, waving him off. "Yeah, yeah. Look, cad-we stobbye Radiant Garden?" She inwardly cursed at her messy speech.
Mickey walked back over to them. "What's wrong?"
I have been turned into a DUCK! Tifa mentally barked, but stopped herself, speaking carefully. "It's just been a while since we've been there…I'd like to see how things are going."
Mickey shrugged, "Sure. Let's go."
As they walked to the Gummi, Tifa was glad the feathers on her face didn't betray how red she was. If she could just get back to Radiant Garden and fix this without revealing the whole dilemma to everybody, maybe she could save herself some embarrassment.
..:-X-:..
Now Leon looked suspicious. "That depends…Is it life threatening?"
"To some people." Donald murmured, shooting Rinoa a dark look.
The woman clasped her hands in front of her. "No…Just…horribly wrong."
Leon shrugged, "If it's not life threatening, then…hypothetically…one would just wait for Merlin to get back." He narrowed one eye. "What did you do?"
Rinoa waved her hands in front of her. "Nothing! Nothing! Hypothetical remember?"
"Whatever." Leon remained deadpan and looked to 'Tifa'. "Just to warn you, Aerith is looking for you…something Cloud-related."
What was the correct response for that?
Donald laughed loudly and smacked Leon on the shoulder. "I'll watch out then!"
Both Leon and Rinoa looked at him like he was insane. Leon side stepped away and moved toward the door again.
"Okay then." He looked wrong footed. "See you later tonight." He winked.
"Later!" Rinoa chirped with a wave.
Donald just gave him a thumb up.
As soon as Leon left and the door closed after that, Rinoa rounded on Donald. "Way to be subtle! Tifa is his wife, not his…whatever that little act was! Get it together!"
Donald grumbled, feeling grossed out by the whole exchange. "Shut up and give me that spellbook. I should be able to reverse this."
Preferably before finding out what 'later tonight' with a wink meant.
..:-X-:..
With Mickey's Gummi Ship docked in the hangar, Tifa practically bee-lined toward Merlin's house, praying to all that was holy that the sorcerer was home.
"Gee, Donald. What's your hurry?" Goofy asked, keeping up easily with his longer legs.
"I need to find Don—Tifa." She sputtered.
Maybe if she was stuck in his body, then Donald had ended up in her body. It was all the logic that she could make out of this at the moment. Besides, he was a magician in his own right. Surely he would be able to fix…however this had happened!
"What for?" Goofy queried.
There was a flash of light near the Borough, and Tifa felt a jolt move through her from the bottom of her webbed feet to the feathers on the top of her head. She wasn't sure whether to feel relief or anxiety about it.
"Just come on." She barreled ahead.
That flash had looked like magic, and it looked like it had come from Merlin's house. She nearly tripped over her awkward feet as she tried to run toward the Borough from the hangar.
..:-X-:..
It happened in a jumbled mess. After the spell's initial burst of energy at mixing the components, Donald had nearly blinded Tifa's eyes with the magic. He had gestured for Rinoa to step back, and the woman had upturned the table across the room and ducked behind it, as though he was going to explode.
Fairly confident that that wouldn't happen, he had finished the spell just as the front door of Merlin's house burst open. He barely saw a flash of white feathers come through the door before his incantation took hold and blinded him again.
When he next opened his eyes, he was standing in the doorway of Merlin's house, back to his normal height and balance, and was staring at Tifa Lockhart, who was standing in the middle of the room with a wand and a bewildered look on her face.
Rinoa's head popped out from behind the upturned table. "Did it work?"
Donald stepped inside and realized that his comrade Goofy was behind him.
"Did what work?" Goofy asked.
Tifa looked to the wand in her hand and dropped it like a hot coal. It clattered to the floor and Rinoa ducked behind the table again at the noise.
Donald waved off his friend's concern. "They were just practicing magic, right?" He looked pointedly at Rinoa, who had stood again and was smoothing her shorts.
"Er—right. Right, Tifa? That's all we were doing." She said carefully.
Tifa blinked and then frowned. "I hate magic."
Donald rubbed his hands together. "Well, I'm ready to go home."
Goofy looked puzzled. "But you said—"
"I don't care what I've said for the past hour. Let's go home." And with that, they left.
..:-X-:..
"A mending spell." Tifa asked flatly after Rinoa had explained everything.
Rinoa was beet red and playing with one lock of hair, staring at her knees. "I know. It was stupid. I should have checked the spell more closely."
"A mending spell." Tifa repeated, eye twitching.
Rinoa swallowed and stood. "I…I think I should just go."
"A. Mending. Spell." Tifa iterated once more.
Rinoa bolted out the door. Alone now, Tifa slumped into the couch and let her head loll back against the backrest, utterly spent by the afternoon's bizarre events. At least it had been easily remedied…Though after all that, she just wanted to go home, take a hot shower, and never speak of it ever again.
Just then, Merlin walked through the front door, looking jet lagged and adjusting his spectacles.
"Good afternoon, Tifa." He greeted jovially. "Did I miss anything while I was away?"
..:-X-:..
A/N: The wonderful ridiculous-ness of this prompt nearly killed me. Props to The Sacred and Profane, this request almost stumped me. I hope the result was satisfactory XD
A few notes about this one. My interpretation of a few scenes in the Kingdom Hearts games leads me to believe that Donald doesn't like Leon very much. He doesn't outright dislike him; they just aren't fond of each other. I also theorize that, considering his temper, Donald probably has a filthy mouth. It's just that no one can understand him, so it gets covered up.
Also, some time has passed between the end of As the Sun Sets on Mushroom Clouds and this ditty, so Rinoa has more or less accepted Leon and Tifa being together and is moving on at this point. Don't worry; I plan on tackling that whole snafu in a later fic (cough-T Minus One Year-cough). I'm also still dawdling with Rinoa's Alliance-verse characterization; so if she was a little off in this…that's why.
Thanks for reading!
