Shadows of Beginnings
Chapter Eleven - Friends
When Aqua learned that Sora was going to be alright, she was ecstatic, because that meant that Ventus would be in a much better mood and stop sulking. And while Ventus was all smiles as his brother started to get better at a phenomenal rate, he wasn't up playing with the small boy like he usually would. Instead, he always felt tired and was always nodding off to sleep, no matter where he was.
When she or Terra would ask him about it, he would just smile and say that his adrenaline had finally run out and now he was crashing cause of it. He would wave off their worry and say that nothing was wrong, but Aqua knew he was lying. She had seen the way he worriedly would stare off into the distance, and she knew something was wrong with him.
Still, he was happy, because Sora could even get up and move around. And if he was happy, for the moment, that's all that mattered. Aqua wished that Mickey Mouse hadn't randomly vanished after saying he needed to check on something. He was a wise mouse for his young age (at least, she assumed he was young), and she knew that he might have some answers for what happened to Ventus.
A giggle distracted Aqua from her dark thoughts. She turned around and saw a smiling Kairi and Naminé drag Sora into the room with them. Terra followed them in with a bemused look and took a seat beside her while folding his arms. "Poor Sora. He gets better and then he's tortured."
"I dunno," Aqua replied while watching them. "Sora looks like he's having fun." That was sort of true. Sora enjoyed coloring and talking to the two little girls, and one time when he suggested playing with fake swords they had been ecstatic, but Mrs. Keimei, his permanent doctor/shadow, said that he wasn't well enough for that yet because he still had a broken arm. Still, the little girls wanted to play pirates so they promised that they would when Sora got better.
"It's too bad that we'll have to take him back to Destiny Islands eventually," Terra said.
"Once he's really up to traveling…well, once he and Ven are."
Terra nodded but said nothing else.
"Sowa," Kairi said, causing him to turn away from what Naminé was drawing to look at her. He tilted his head curiously and she burst into giggles and hugged him tightly.
Aqua couldn't help but let out an 'awww' at the sight. She stifled her laughter and Terra let out a small snort of amusement. It was painfully obvious that the tiny girl was completely taken with the little boy. It made some sort of sense though, because Kairi never really interacted with boys her age before, and Sora was just too cute not to like. She had taken to hugging him a lot, giggling, and following him around.
Ventus, on more than once occasion, had teased his brother mercilessly about having a girlfriend already. Sora was too young to understand what this really meant, all he knew was that Kairi was a girl and she was his friend, but so was Naminé and no one said that she was his girlfriend. He had even asked once if that made Riku his boyfriend. Ventus had gone pale for a moment before laughing and saying that no, Riku was not. Riku was just a friend. He also advised Sora to never say that again, and if Venny said not to say it, then Sora was not going to say it.
"Venny!"
Aqua and Terra looked around as the blond boy entered the room. He smiled at his brother before asking, "You being good for Kairi and Naminé?"
Both the girls giggled and the three of them turned back to the lego that Kairi had yanked out.
Ventus sat on the armrest of the couch Aqua and Terra was sitting on. He yawned and rubbed his eyes, wincing as he felt a headache flash through him.
"You okay?"
He looked at Aqua and smiled at her before nodding. "Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry."
"Aqua," Naminé said as she came over, holding some lego in one hand and her sketchbook in the other. She held out the book and Aqua automatically understood.
"You want me to keep this so it doesn't get ripped?"
She nodded her head happily.
"You got it," Aqua said as she ruffled Naminé's hair and took the book from her. She grinned as she watched the small blonde girl retreat to help build a castle with her two friends.
Aqua looked down at the book and flipped through a few of the pages. She got to one and laughed. "Look Ven, I think it's supposed to be Sora and Kairi."
Ventus looked down at it with a grin. They were stick people except for their faces, which were just circles with smiles and large dots for eyes, as well as scribbles for hair. Sure enough, there were two stick figures, one with blue dots and brown scribbles, the other with purple dots and red scribbles.
"You know, according to Kairi, she and Sora are pretty much as married as four-year-olds can be."
Terra and Ventus both laughed at this and Terra said, "You're younger brother moves faster than you Ven. Look, he's got two girls hanging off of him."
"Shut up," Ventus replied with a smirk as he watched Aqua flip the pages of the book backwards. Shock rushed through him as he sat up a little straighter. She was about to flip the page again when Ventus stopped her. "Do you know when she drew that?"
Aqua's face scrunched up with thought until she said, "Before I got grabbed by the Endless. Why?"
Ventus stared at the picked with an intense look. In the middle of the picture was what he could only assume to be Sora. Well, it was Sora, because it was labeled as such. Sure, Naminé's r's were backwards, and her s had an extra squiggle in it, but you could still tell what it said. To the left of the picture was a stick-figure with silver 'hair' and green dots for eyes with the word 'Riku' above it, again, with both the R and the K backwards.
"Are those people?"
"Yup," Sora said happily as he pointed to the faces he had made. "That's me and the one with grey is Riku."
Beside Riku was a figure with black hair and brown eyes with the name 'Midi' over it. Well, it looks like 'Mibi', but that wasn't the point.
"She's suppose' to have black hair n' brown eyes, but I don't have those colors. Well I had brown, but I needed it for me. She's Mi—Midi. Yeah, Midi."
Then, to the right of stick-figure-Sora was a stick-figure of Kairi, and beside her was a stick-figure with blonde hair and purple eyes with the word 'me' over it.
"This one is Nami. Right now she has brown eyes but they'll be purple someday." He put that one down too. "She's Kairi."
Ventus raised an eyebrow at the tiny blush on his brother's face and he asked, "Who's Kairi?"
"She not my friend yet, but she will be,"
Then, finally, beside the drawing that Ventus could only assume was Naminé, was a stick-figure with blonde hair that was made up of scribbles sticking everywhere (like the one of Sora) and blue dots for eyes. Again, with a backwards R and a funny looking s, the name of the figure was written out clearly for all to see.
"Who is it?" Ventus asked after a moment of waiting.
"I dunno," Sora said, his eyes studying it. "Me?"
"But you're here."
"But that's me too."
"When you get older?"
Sora seemed to contemplate this before shaking his head. "No, that's the other me that lives inside of me. I'm going to call him Roxas."
Roxas. That was what was written over that stick figure.
"Ven? Are you okay?" Aqua asked as she snapped her fingers in front of his face.
"How could she have known about Sora back then? Or Riku? Or…well…" Ventus groaned with confusion and frustration. "Sora, at about the same time as this picture was probably made, if you're right about when Naminé drew it, made play-doh figures. He named them, and they were the exact same as these."
So two little children who had never met before in their lives had made the same people. One of which was already dead.
"I want to play house," Kairi proclaimed suddenly, distracting them from their thoughts. Naminé and Sora both sighed at this.
"I wanna draw," Naminé said as she dropped the lego and walked back over to Aqua while holding her hands out expectantly.
Kairi pouted and said, "Fine then, Sowa and I will play then.
"But I don't wanna."
Kairi turned and glared at him, causing him to shrink back.
Sora turned around and stared at Ventus with pleading eyes. His older brother just laughed as Sora slumped in defeat and was dragged out of the room by Kairi, who was saying something about finding Mittens first.
"Why would she want mittens?" Terra asked with amusement.
"Mittens is Kairi's kitty," Naminé answered as she finished drawing something. "See, this is Mittens."
All three of them had to laugh at the brown and gray ball with menacing green eyes on the page.
"That's beautiful Naminé," Aqua said as she calmed down, not wanting to insult the four-year-old.
"Mittens is icky."
Ventus snorted and said, "Well, I better keep tabs on them so Kairi doesn't order someone to keep my brother locked somewhere in the castle." He winced as pain shot through his head again, but he didn't let that stop him.
When he finally relocated his brother and Kairi (man could little demons…er…kids move fast). Kairi was trying to dress a rather ugly cat in frilly pink baby clothes.
"Sowa, I'm gonna be the mommy and you can be the daddy. Mittens is gonna be the bebe."
"Why?"
"Cause I said so."
Ventus laughed as Sora shot him another helpless look. Ventus shrugged and said, "That's life Sora." He moved to go over to sit on one of the chairs that was in the room, but let out a weak groan and ended up tumbling to the floor.
VVVVVVVVV
Terra sat inside the room Ventus was put into after he collapsed. He had his arms crossed and a grim look on his face. Over the years he had become best friends with Ventus, and if he had spent more time around him recently Terra might have realized that something was really wrong with him. But he only spent a minimal amount of time around Ventus these days, and thought that he just had a cold or something.
"Someone kill Donald."
That snapped Terra out of his thoughts as he turned and faced the bed, only to find Ventus squinting at the ceiling.
"Why?" he asked, perplexed that those would be the first words his friend said after waking up from a fainting spell.
"Because the way I'm feeling right now tells me that he ran over me with a gummi ship." From the few times that they had seen Donald Duck, it was apparent that he could barely fly a gummi ship, let alone land one. That duck would never hold the right to critique someone's flying without being a hypocrite. Ever.
Terra didn't laugh at Ventus's words though. Instead he frowned and said, "You're an ass. You know that?"
"For asking you to kill Donald?"
"No!" Terra snapped. "For not telling us that something was wrong. You know how we found out that something was wrong with you? Sora was absolutely hysterical, and because he was, Kairi was. Do you know how terrifying it was to hear them screaming like they were being murdered?"
Guilt washed over Ventus's face as he forced himself to sit up in the bed. He glanced at his hands before looking at Terra again and asked, "How is he now?"
"Asleep," Terra said. "Mrs. Keimei thought that she would have to give him some kind of sedative to calm him down, he was that terrified. Luckily, he fell asleep on his own. But lets not talk about him now Ventus. What's wrong with you?"
Ventus was silent for a moment as he stared up at the ceiling and asked, "What would you do to save the people you care about? What would you give up for them?"
"Well," Terra glanced out the window in thought. "I guess the people I care about the most would be Aqua and you, and I'd give my life for you guys. Why?"
Ventus nodded and said, "I would too."
Terra had a sinking feeling in his stomach at those words, but he wasn't quite sure why. He glanced down at the floor before looking over at the window again.
Why do I have the feeling that Ventus did something both incredibly brave and incredibly stupid? Terra thought to himself with a sigh.
VVVVVVVVV
"You wake?"
"Yeah."
"Me too."
Sora looked up as Kairi climbed up onto the bed he was in, having just slipped away from her own room. It was a wonder that any of the knights that were assigned to protect her hadn't been fired, since she constantly got away from them.
"You okay?" Kairi asked while tilting her head.
Sora sniffled a bit before wiping his tears away and said, "I'm scared."
"Me too," she agreed as she moved under the covers and curled up next to him. They were too young to know about those dreaded things called cooties yet (not that it ever would bug them), so the closeness didn't bother them. It was just like having a big teddy bear that could talk.
"Is you bwo-bwo—umm—Venny okay?"
Sora blinked at her and said, "My brother?"
"Yeah, bwothew."
Sora laughed and said, "No, no, no. You're doing it wrong. It's B-ER-OTH-ER."
"Bwoth...ER?"
"Brother."
"Bwother."
"No, brrrrother."
Kairi was silent for a moment before hesitantly and slowly saying, "Brother?"
"Yeah! You did it! How bout Sora?"
"Sow—rrrra."
"Sowrrrra?"
Kairi giggled at him and hugged him tight. "Sow—Sora…when we get olda we'll get mawied, wight?"
"Umm…"
"And Woxas and Nami too. And Wiku and…Midi?"
Sora thought about this for a moment before nodding his head. "Okay. Under the monkey bars at my home."
"Okay," Kairi agreed. She giggled a bit and as quickly as lightly she gave him a tiny peck on the lips before moving away and facing away from him, still giggling shrilly.
Little Sora stared at her with wide, stunned eyes. A tiny blush appeared on his face before he rolled over and faced the wall.
"Why'd you do that?" he asked after a moment.
He heard her yawn and said, "Maw—marw—marr-rrried people do that."
"Why?"
"Don't you see your mommy and daddy do that?"
Kairi heard Sora let out a small sniffle, as if he was trying to hold back tears as he said, "My daddy's dead."
"Oh. Well, my mommy says that's how peoples know that other peoples belong to each other."
"So I belong to you?" This was a particularly amusing thought to him.
"Yup," Kairi muttered as she fell asleep. "Fowev—ER."
VVVVVVVVV
Author's Note
So, Sora taught Kairi how to pronounce her Rs, but she'll need some work on it. And Donald is officially labeled a hypocrite since he'll be the one to judge Sora's flying later on. When writing this I could just picture a little Kairi kissing Sora and running away while laughing. I've seen little kids do that before. It's adorable.
Shire Folk – You'd like to think so, wouldn't you? But technically, in my timeline, Sora did die in front of her. We all knew Ven had to go somehow, and this way, he's going to be a lot weaker when fighting Xehanort, my explanation for why it seemed like Terra was doing most of the fighting in the preview.
Trainalf – I am cruel when writing, but I swear I'm not actually like that. I like puppies and Disney and stuffed animals! Fan Girls and As Beautiful As You are not spin offs of this. They're just random oneshots I wrote.
DAN88 – Aladdin is amusing. This shows where Sora got the whole 'kill yourself to save others' thing from.
Shazi-Chan –Wow, I know mine doesn't have the longest of chapters, but you still read them all in one go? Cookie to you.
Iaveina – I couldn't NOT put any Sora and Kairi interaction. It was driving me crazy not writing any in so I decided 'meh, might as well put some kiddy fluff. Sora, you're going to Radiant Garden'. Maleficent would have kicked herself for offering the deal, if she remembered it.
Chasingfireflies – Holy crap! It's a you-ish review! You win for longest review for this story so far. I may be as twisted as you, but I'm older and I'm pretty sure more cynical. Maybe not as sarcastic, but definitely more cynical. I started learning about the comedy-tragedy thing when I was 14. I dunno, if I knew magic I'm pretty sure I could do it. Okay, if I one day manage to Accio you, you can see Madina Lake first. Warner Brother's thought of the US (and Canada by default) first. Dunno why, they just do. How cold is it in your winter? Wow, you're going to fail at life and become a hobo on the streets with nothing but a computer and a wireless connection so that you can stay online, all because of this Steve person. I have friends where I could go crash at their house for a while without them caring. At McDonald's I gave someone 6.66 for change and they told me to keep 6 cents of it. I dunno if you're expected to finish the chapter. Probably not. I read Dragonball was a terrible movie. I really hate the nickname Kaykay. Really really hate.
Thank you all for reviewing!
Krystal Lily Potter
