-o- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN -o-

a calling

I was deep in my dreams. So deep I almost had no memory of who or where I really was; it felt as though I had always lived in my dreams. Gran was chasing me, and so I hid from her in every place I could think of. I hid in the Darkness, in the Betwixt and Between, in Twilight Town, in the frightening bowels of Hollow Bastion. I hid in every memory I had, afraid of returning to memories of my childhood. Leon was right. I had repressed them for a reason. There was a reason I wanted to forget my grandmother trying to burn me alive.

In dreamworld, a portal opened, and a familiar gloved hand reached out. I didn't want to take his hand. I was as afraid of him in dreams as I had been the day he appeared on my beach. But Gran was edging closer, hissing like a witch from a fairy tale, "Solare, solaaaaaree..."

I grabbed Axel's hand and went into his portal. I had expected pure Darkness, but instead found myself surrounded by color. We stood together on an enchanted glass mosaic, glittering in its multicolor glory.

"The Station of Calling," he explained, still holding my hand. "She can't get you here. Although, I don't know why you're so afraid of a little old lady. She could tell you everything you want to know about your life as little baby Princess Kairi. That's what you want, isn't it?"

I eyed him skeptically. For some reason I clutched his hand tighter. "I'm not so sure anymore." I moved into him and laid my head against his chest. He was warm, and his chest rose and fell with his breathing, but there was no heartbeat. I buried my face in his black robes. "I don't know what I want any more..."

I felt Axel pull me deeper into his embrace, and a shiver of pleasure ran through me. He ran his fingers through my hair and we stood wrapped together in this iridescent place, and I felt at peace, like I had found something I didn't know I was looking for.

I came to the next instant, lying on the ground, staring up at the ceiling of a thatch hut. Reality felt strange and jarring. Lulu was dabbing my forehead with a wet cloth while Riku stood over me, finishing off a Cure spell.

I stirred and sat up. "How long have I been out?" I asked.

Lulu chuckled. "About twenty minutes," she said with a click of her tongue. "Don't worry, you haven't missed anything."

Twenty minutes? It felt like I'd been dreaming forever... and then I blushed, remembering the unexpected direction in which my dream had ended. "Well... but... where's Mulan?" I looked around in a panic.

Riku put a comforting hand on my shoulder. "She's with Achak and Axel. We don't know anything yet, but..."

"Where are they? I could help!" I tried standing, but even without Riku pressing me down, my legs didn't quite have the strength.

"Help?" Lulu queried with a hitched eyebrow. "You just knocked yourself out with a common Cura spell."

I felt my body shake in Riku's arms, not just from weakness but from anger. "I got us here, didn't I?" I spat, looking into Lulu's stoic eyes. Her holier-than-thou attitude had worn away at my last nerve. "I got us through the Darkness and brought us here, and if that wasn't enough to help Mulan..." I choked and heaved for a moment, disoriented and emotional. I laid back down on the ground, and rolled onto my side, away from Lulu's eyes. Why was I so defensive?

Riku pushed his fingers through my sweaty hair, and I closed my eyes as he spoke. "Hey, calm down, Kiks, calm down. Axel and Achak are doing everything they can for Mulan. And you did everything you could, too. Don't get worked up. When's the last time you slept longer than twenty minutes, eh? Maybe you should just get some rest."

I nodded, eyes still shut, but I knew that sleep was impossible. Instead I just laid there, steadying my breathing, feigning sleep, so that at the very least I could be alone with my thoughts.

"You really could be nicer," I heard Riku say to Lulu. He clearly thought I was sleeping. "Can't you see she's trying?"

"I don't mean to be cruel," Lulu responded simply. "I'm sure she's a wonderful girl. But I won't sugarcoat things for her. It's not going to help her in the end. She shouldn't even be here. This kind of mission is too dangerous for someone as inexperienced as her."

I heard Riku's lungs tighten as he spoke. "We were all inexperienced once. Look what Sora's turned out to be."

"I suppose power can come in strange places..."

I wanted to hear more, but their voices faded as they exited the hut. I was left alone, seething. It's an awful thing to suspect that you aren't good enough, and that no one believed in you. It was even worse to hear it out loud.

As I lay with my hands against the gritty earth, I tried to understand why my strength had failed me. How was I so strong with Axel guiding me, yet so weak on my own? Eyes still shut, face still on the ground, I began razing my fingers in the dirt beside my pallet. I let the texture soothe my finger tips. I will not lie down, I decided.

I concentrated on my weak legs, my tired lungs. I called forth the warm feeling inside me that I had come to know as magic. I felt a green energy rise from the dirt through my hands, and pump through my veins. Not a common Cura, but Curaga, was bursting from my fingertips, reviving me.

I sat up, suddenly more awake than I'd ever been, even though in the back of my mind I kept a solemn count of the mere hours of sleep I'd scavenged over the past several days. I brushed the dirt from my pink skirt and marched out of the hut, looking around and taking in my surroundings.

The huts were all made of mud and blended in easily with the swampy surroundings. It was obvious these people's survival depended on stealth; on hiding from these "white men" that Grandmother Willow warned of.

I walked as if I knew the layout of the village, directly to the hut where I knew I would find Axel. It occurred to me that that was a kind of magic as well; peering through the layers of reality, as Axel had explained, to know things you didn't already know. Even without a heart to trace, the magic led me to Axel.

In the healer's hut, he and Achak stood over a stone and thatch-covered bed. Mulan was sleeping. I opened my mouth to say something, but before I could utter a word, Axel had moved toward me and wrapped his arms around me. I was suddenly living the strange dream from which I had just woken. So intimate, as if he were a real person, as if we were real friends.

I pulled away from him quickly, blushing. His face remained unfazed, but I could see in his eyes he regretted hugging me. It was too human.

"She'll live," he said simply, casual as ever. He avoided my eyes. "You did it."

I shifted my weight from foot to foot, uncomfortably. "We did it," I corrected. And then, I looked into the warm brown eyes of the tall man that stood beside Axel. "You did it, I mean. We can't thank you enough."

Achak nodded warmly at me, placing his tender healer's hand on my shoulder. "This woman is a great warrior," he stated plainly. "The Great Spirit smiles on those with brave hearts."

Instinctively, I bowed slightly toward him, and then stepped forward to be closer to Mulan. The color had returned to her face. I placed my hand on her cheek.

"She needs to sleep," Axel said. I quickly retreated my hand. "And we need to eat. Achak says we can join the tribe for dinner tonight."

"Thank you," I said to Achak, and to my surprise, I realized Axel had extended his hand to me, in an eerie recreation of our first encounter. An echo of my dream. I saw flashes of sand and ocean as the familiar gesture resonated deep within me.

"Come on," he said, hand still outstretched. "We should leave Mulan to rest. Achak will care for her."

It was the most unnatural action I could fathom, but I found myself nodding as I placed my hand in his, and he led me away from the hut.

-o-o-o-o-o-

We ate a warm and satisfying meal with Achak and his small tribe. Mulan was awake and sitting with everyone, though she ate slowly and spoke little. After the food there was even some singing, and slowly everyone made their way to their beds. Achak explained that they always kept men on watch for intruders, and Axel readily volunteered to take first watch for the evening.

I joined him by the fire without saying a word.

"You're not even going to try to sleep tonight?" he asked without looking at me.

"I couldn't even if I wanted to," I said flatly, watching the flames in front of us. "I can't even keep my eyes closed for more than a few seconds. I'm just... I dunno. My mind is too full to sleep."

Axel shrugged. "Well let's see if we can empty it then, shall we? Tell me all about it."

I scrunched my face. "Um, I'm sorry, why do you suddenly care? What's happening here anyway?" I gestured between us. "Are we friends now?"

Axel smiled, and it lifted my weariness somehow. "Can't be friends with Nobody," he observed. Then shrugged. "But I mean, you can't NOT be friends with Nobody. And we've established I have literally nothing to do at night, so why not lay it on me? Pretend I'm one of your dollies from when you were a little girl. I give the same amount of fucks, but I'm probably a little prettier."

I laughed, and then I paused, because I was so surprised that he could make me laugh. I watched his face carefully. "Axel, who were you before you were a Nobody?"

"Stand-up comedian slash supermodel, obviously."

"Uh-huh." I grabbed a stick from the ground and stoked the embers. I let the quiet lay thick on top of us. Despite my racing thoughts, I couldn't think of where to begin. I didn't know what was keeping me from sleeping. As I considered, a strong wind blew over us, and I shivered.

"A bit colder here than Mesoamerica," I mused, wrapping my arms around myself. "At least at night."

Axel rolled his eyes and surprised me by removing his signature black cloak. He held it out to me, and it took an entire half a minute before I realized he was offering it. I nodded a meek thank you before I wrapped it around myself. It smelled like cedar and smoke.

"I had this dream," I began telling him, with a long exhale. "Only it's not really a dream, because I wasn't sleeping the first time it happened. A vision, I guess. I think it's a memory. I'm a little girl again, and my Grandma takes me into the woods and tries to make me walk into a fire."

Axel nodded, untouched by this disturbing image. "You're a magical being; visions are common for people like you. You aren't limited to the linear reality of non-witches." He cleared his throat and added, a little more empathetically, "I guess I can see how that might keep someone awake."

So he knows, I realized. He knew before I did that I was a witch.

I tried not to dwell on it. I continued, "But even before then, I'd been having trouble sleeping. It started just before we got the King's letter... just before all of this began. It's like my heart knew something was coming."

Axel considered this for a moment. He crossed his legs as he leaned back, weight resting on his forearms. "When the next man comes to take over watch, I may have a solution for you and this vision of yours."

"Should I be scared?"

"Nah, just trust me."

"Trust you? Remember that time you told me you wanted to be friends, and then tied me up in a treehouse?"

"Right, that was a bad time to trust me. This will be different."

"Uh-huh."