10. anniversary

Years ago he had barged in, an oversized crow in white, and suddenly the little house of her grandmother's was open to the storm. The windows jerked where they were contained in their grills like in some trashy Gothic novel – and it really was something like that, after all. It was nighttime when he plunged those vials and bottles into her bewildered arms and left as brazenly as he had come; she was left locked into her own home on the hill screaming him down into the roar of the wind. Still, as always, the repressed, disempowered heroine with only a few rushed, cryptic statements and apology to cling on to while she waited. And waited.

But now, finally, he was back: "I said those were reserved for emergencies, didn't I?" – wryly.

She shrugged, holding the remnant bottle up to the dipping light, where the glass glinted and danced in her eye – she winced.

"One night I couldn't sleep at all. I… felt something. Thought something might have happened to either of you." She pursed her lips. "I thought of the stories he told, him and Donald and Goofy, and how he said it worked. The three of them, one in mind and heart and spirit. I kept that in mind and I downed it all. The Mega-Potion. For the three of us."

"Despite the distance?"

"Despite the distance."

They were seated in their usual spot, three minus one, studying the vermilion horizon that had given so many miracles before – why wouldn't it grant just one more? Riku's gaze was still averted as he gestured briefly at the empty bottle she continued to clutch, "And the Elixir?"

"I grew an ixora plant. I had nothing to do." There was some bitterness in her tone and how could he blame her? "It began drooping and never came back up. So I dumped the Elixir over it." She gave a small chuckle. "Oh, go on, laugh at me. I should have realized…"

"Realized what?"

"You couldn't use it on dead things."

There was a chill in the air; the waves seemed suddenly noiseless and the leaves hanging over them thick, black, pasted, immovable.

"Sora's not dead."

She turned to him, her gaze clear and direct, her voice steady. "No, he's not. He's still out there somewhere."

"Yes."

"Saving the world again, probably."

"…Yes."

"Without us."

"Kairi, I'm -…"

She checked him with an index finger held an inch from his lips before sliding roughly off the bulbous tree branch. "For the millionth time, Riku," she said, her slippers kicking up sand as she landed. She did not bother to finish her remonstrance. When he returned, he was as empty-handed as he was on his departure, and the very first thing he filled the silence with was his apology. There were two parts to this uncalled-for statement and the first had been forgiven, forgotten, with an ardent blow to his jaw for her abandonment. The second was one that she had no reason to blame him for.

She paused at the edge of the coast, the princess whose reign in fairy tales limited her to such a fixed set of options – sit, wait, cry. She had done all those – rewind, repeat, reset – and, squaring her jaw, Kairi lifted her arm and threw.

The empty Elixir bottle sailed, skimmed, over furious gleams of orange, and disappeared, without a message this time, under the waves that mirrored illusorily the glory of a sunset.
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Note: Challenge prompt - Drink Me.