-o- CHAPTER SIXTEEN -o-

just around the riverbend

Returning to camp, I felt alive. I felt daring and powerful, maybe for the first time in my life. But my excitement quickly dissipated when I met Riku's eyes.

"Mulan's... getting worse. Nothing's working and I just don't..." He sighed. "I don't know what to do."

"I might know a healer that could help her," said Axel.

"Does she make house calls?" Riku snorted.

"I'm sure you know that in the Organization we never fussed with things like vessels. A portal could take us through the Corridor of Darkness and across the worlds, wherever we need to go, soon enough to save Mulan."

"Not exactly a high-risk activity for beings with no hearts. But the rest of us... we'd never survive the Darkness." He gave an extra shudder, remembering all too well how Darkness closed in on a heart.

"I could shield you," Axel said with a shrug. "I could shield your hearts on the passage."

Riku was still skeptical. "Why didn't you bring this up before?"

"One, we'd have to leave the ship behind... leave behind our only way to get in touch with the rest of the squad. And two, the big one, I can't do it by myself."

He did not have to turn toward me for me to know who he needed. Together, we could shield their hearts, just like we did as the gummi ship was crashing. I still didn't completely understand how, but I knew it was true. I just had to scrounge up the courage to admit it.

I felt tiny sweat drops on my forehead. I cleared my throat. "Um... Axel. Could I... borrow you for just a tiny sec?"

I felt the curious eyes of every other team member on me, not the least of which were Axel's. I distinctly saw him trying to suppress a grin. He stepped toward me and followed me as I led us out of earshot from the team, toward the jungle's edge.

I wrapped my arms around myself, staring into the vast curtain of vegetation. I was silent for a moment, trying to form thoughts, until finally I turned my head toward him. He stood parallel to me, arms folded in mimicry of mine, eyes burning intently into mine. He waited patiently, the stifled smile still lurking on his face.

"We can't do this," I said at last. His eyes were as green as the canopy above us. Too green. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. "It's too dangerous."

His smile burst free and he laughed at me. "Um, hello, war? Literally everything we've done since we left the Coliseum has been dangerous."

"I know, but I can't..." I choked on the words. "I'm scared, Axel."

I expected him to be callous, to laugh or to scold, but he seemed unmoved. He shrugged. "Of course you are. Darkness is scary. You'll get over it."

"I'm not scared of the Darkness." It occurred to me that more often than I had been afraid of Darkness, I had been drawn to it. Two years ago, it pulled me out of my bed in the middle of the night to open the Door in the Secret Place. One year ago, it had found me on the beach when I first met Axel. Darkness enchanted me, excited me, but never truly scared me.

I squeezed my arms tighter around myself. "If it were you and me alone, I wouldn't care. I'd go into the Darkness myself any day. You've seen me do it. But don't you remember what happened on the gummi ship? I got distracted... I... I let down the shield. I can't be responsible for everyone else's hearts. What if I screw it up?"

Visibly, dramatically, Axel rolled his perfect green eyes. "Typical woman."

"Excuse me?"

"You're perfectly willing to be a martyr, or distressed damsel or whatever, but you won't step up when it's time to be a real leader."

"Women can be just as good leaders as-!"

"Of course they can! But that's never the way the story goes, is it? The dames are always waiting for a hero, cleaning someone else's floors, or babysitting seven adult men with stupid names. Always willing to suffer for someone else's convenience, but never willing to inconvenience anyone in order to accomplish their own goals. Screw that noise. I mean, did you even see you today? You healed the damn heart of the world! Are you going to be the princess who waits on the hero, or are you that fucking hero?"

He reached out and put his leather-gloved hand on my chest. "I know it's new, but you do have the gift, okay? Believe me. It's in here." He pressed his hand hard against my sternum and I shuddered. "Do you think Naminé's powers came from nothing? She was born from your heart. You have this kind of magic in you, and you are the one the team needs right now. They need you to be brave, and you need them to risk their lives because it's a risk worth taking. You are a leader worth following."

I watched his face carefully, looking for an indicator of his signature sarcasm, but his eyes were set. Maybe it was because he was a Nobody that his vote of confidence was so easy to accept. He had no feelings, no empathy or social obligations to give me lip service. I believed him. I sighed and nodded.

"Let's go be the fucking heroes, I guess."

-o-o-o-o-

Axel and I stood parallel, palm-to-palm, fingers laced. Around us, everyone stood awkwardly close. Every single teammate had one hand on me, one hand on Axel. I closed my eyes and took careful, metered breaths. I pretended that Naminé was nearby- which, I guess, she always was.

I felt the liquid power creep out of my heart and slowly form a blanket around those that touched me. Feel their hearts, Axel had taught me. Keep them close. Protect them. Unlike combat and swordsmanship, worrying about someone's heart came pretty naturally to me.

Axel's fingers squeezed mine tighter and although my eyes were still shut, I could feel as he tore through the universe and ripped open a gaping portal into the Darkness. The portal grew larger and larger until it swallowed all eight of us. The pressure of the Darkness around us felt like ocean winds a hundred miles per hour strong. I could hear my comrades screaming as it pressed hard on their insides, twisted their psyches, but for me it was just a familiar rush. Like taking your feet off the pedals and letting your bicycle roll down a hill.

Around me, I sensed panic, but in my heart I felt calm, and there was something truly empowering about that moment. It gave me the strength to hold tight, to guard the hearts through the Darkness. Axel navigated those mysterious pathways like a rudder and I held strong and steady as a keel.

At last the Darkness disappeared and I felt cool, real-world air against my face. The surreal floating sensation abruptly vanished, and I felt the weight of my body falling through the air. I hit a surface of cold water with a scream and a splash.

Regathering my senses, I instinctively swam to the surface. Around me, other heads emerged out of the rushing water, gasping for breath. I rubbed my eyes and soaked in our surroundings as I bobbed in the water. We were near the bank of a babbling river, in the middle of a forest. The air was crisper and the temperature cooler than the sweltering heat of Mesoamerica. Stoic sycamores towered around us.

I saw Aladdin cradling the frail body of Mulan and immediately swam to them, helping him ease her to the muddy river banks. A few feet behind me I heard Launchpad chuckle lightheartedly.

"My kind of landing," he remarked.

We assembled ourselves, dripping wet, on the riverbank. Riku stood point and peered through the dense forest, listening and watching.

"So where are we?" he asked Axel.

Axel shrugged. "Strangers call it the New World," he said dryly. "But it's an old world to anyone who really calls it home."

Riku sighed. "Well, that's sufficiently unhelpful. What are we looking for exactly?"

"A tree." Axel paused, looking back and forth at the vast forest around us. "Okay, well, a talking tree. Look, we're gonna need a boat."

There was a pause as everyone looked around, exasperated. Mulan was basically dying, and we were supposed to find a specific tree in an environment where there was pretty much nothing but trees.

"Alright then," Riku said, nodding in a way that was both condescending and encouraging at the same time. He unsheathed his Keyblade and pointed it toward the nearest sycamore. "I guess we'll build a boat then. How's that guy look? That's not the tree that's going to fix everything, right?"

-o-o-o-o-

There was a distinct but calming quiet as we felled the tree, carved its innards, and gradually formed the piece of wood into a design Axel insisted was called a "canoe." It was sort of therapeutic. It reminded me of the gentle projects of my island youth, building rafts and stringing shell necklaces. I also found that, missing an entire night's sleep, I now felt pleasantly delirious. I found myself humming "Row, Row, Your Boat," and thinking that maybe real life was just a dream.

It might have taken hours, were we not aided by magic and Keyblades. Within the hour we'd built two suitable canoes, but even an hour seemed too long for Mulan's weakening figure to wait. I sat in one canoe with Mulan lying across my lap. I shuddered as I held her cold face in my warm hands. I whispered a steady stream of healing spells around her, straining from the focus, though it was just enough to keep her health up. Riku and Aladdin rowed our canoe, while Axel and Launchpad rowed the canoe that carried Simba and Lulu.

We navigated the gentle waters of the river until we found ourselves in a shallow, marshy area. Our paddles could soon touch the ground, and willows sprouted out of the water around us.

"She's close," Axel said, as the trees around us became so thick that the light was dimming. Riku and I exchanged a look, wondering what "she" would possibly be doing out here in the middle of the marsh. We were even more surprised when he raised his hand a few moments later, signaling our paddles to stop. He pointed at a small outcropping of soil that rose above the marsh, the center of which was dominated by an enormous willow. Its ancient, gnarled roots wove in and out of the waterlogged soil and its branches reached high into the air, creating a giant tent of green, weeping leaves.

Axel climbed out of the canoe and waded to the small piece of shore. He knelt before the willow and waited.

I audibly gasped when the bark of the tree trunk cracked open to reveal a carved wooden face. Black hollow openings ringed in tree bark squinted like eyes at Axel, and the chiseled mouth beneath them curled into a half-smile.

"The Heart Stealer," spoke the tree, in the gentle rasp of an elderly woman. "You return to my forest? And with no heart of your own yet, I see... stolen so many and still you are without." The tree woman chuckled. "There's a lesson in that I see, yes."

"Grandmother Willow," he responded. His tone of reverence seemed uncharacteristic. "I came looking for the Powhatans. I have a friend who is badly injured, and I hoped that Kekata would know how to heal her."

The tree face frowned. "Kekata? He died many moons ago, as did Chief Powhatan. Our own Pocahontas has sailed away across the ocean. Many of the Algonquians have moved on, or died of sickness or in battle. The white men claim the forest as their own. Most of the children of the Great Spirit have been driven away. We, the forest, weep for them."

Axel scoffed. "I would've thought the white men would be scared off, after what the Organization did in Roanoke..."

"More and more of them come all the time, Heart Stealer. They rape the earth, overtaking and overfarming giant stretches of fertile land with the brown tobacco that feeds no one. They let their own people starve and die of exhaustion, but still more come from across the ocean, and still more they take. Their greed has driven the Great Spirit's children into hiding."

"So there's no one left?" It was hard to tell without seeing his face, but Axel sounded genuinely sad.

Grandmother Willow paused for a long moment, as if she were contemplating. "Kekata had a son, Achak, to whom he passed down his knowledge of healing. Achak and the remaining tribesmen live deep in the marsh. They live on undesirable land, land that the white man cannot yet tame and so he has not yet taken it from them. I could send you to them, but can you be trusted?"

"I desire nothing for myself," Axel answered honestly. "But I still wouldn't ask you to trust me. Trust them, though. They have pure hearts, and they just want to save their friend."

He gestured towards us, watching from the canoes. Mulan's ragged breathing and the lapping water were the only sound. The willow relaxed her wooden brow and smiled, and I felt her black eyes looking right into me.

"Very well, Heart Stealer. I will tell you how to find Achak. Come closer."

Axel bent beside the willow as she whispered the directions and swiftly, our canoes had pushed off once again, heading deeper into the marsh. The light grew even dimmer as the trees thickened and the water grew shallow. Soon we had to dock. Riku and Aladdin carried Mulan, while I summoned a mild Gravity spell to cushion her frail body, and Axel led us deep into the swampy wood. I could feel the magic emanating from me diminishing rapidly as I ran out of strength. Mulan's body began to sink. She grew heavy. I grew dizzy. We're not going to make it, I thought, and I meant it for both of us.

At last we came upon a small collection of mud and thatch huts. There were no people around, as far as I could see, yet I got the strange sensation that we were being watched.

"There," Riku whispered. Or maybe he wasn't whispering; maybe I was just growing so weak from casting spells that his voice sounded far away. "They're in the trees. They're armed."

"Achak!" Axel called boldly, lifting his arms in a gesture of vulnerability. "My name is Axel, I knew your father. We've come to you to ask a favor. Our friend is dying and she needs your help."

Hurry, hurry, hurry, was all I could think. I twisted my fingers through Mulan's hair, sweating as I filled her heart with what little Healing I could muster. But then it happened, very quickly. My knees buckled under me and I fell to the ground, losing consciousness just as the weight of Mulan's body crumbled on top of mine.