-o- CHAPTER NINETEEN-o-

he is not me

I pointed an accusing finger at Axel.

"HE came to rescue me? HE'S supposed to be my knight in shining armor?" I growled incredulously at Grandmother Willow. She simply smiled, as all the rest of the answers became painfully and suddenly clear. I turned my growls toward him. "The little boy Scrooge was talking about was you. That's who you really were before you lost your heart. That's how you know so much about solare and magic and Namine's past. You were Cale. You grew up with me. You know... you know everything about me that I don't even know, that I've been wanting to know, and you've just been... ugh... You bring me to this tree for answers, like you're doing me some big favor, when you have all the answers already! Is this entertaining for you or something? You still really like messing with me, don't you? I knew it, I knew from the first time I saw you that you were a total creep. I can't believe I trusted you."

I found myself pacing as a litany of enraged realizations poured out of my mouth. I was yelling, I realized, into the vast dark night. Grandmother Willow watched with subdued eyes. Axel stood stone-faced with his arms folded, taking all of my screams in stride.

He just shrugged. "I told you I was a friend."

Everything, every exhausted feeling in my heart, came hurtling down on me. Weakly, I fell to my knees, and I just screamed. I shrieked until my throat was raw. My screams echoed in the endless starry sky. I raked my fingers through the wet dirt, frustrated and confused and tired.

The Grandmother tree and Axel said nothing. They let me scream. I don't know when I stopped, but I know that eventually I realized it was quiet again, and Axel's cloak had somehow been draped over me again. There was a purple haze gathering around us as the sun steadily rose.

I looked up finally and found Axel's calm eyes waiting for mine. "Let's go back to the village," he said. "Let's get you something to eat, and we can really get into this thing, if you want to."

There was part of me that wanted to sling something sassy and indignant at him, but my throat was raw and my mind was blank. I muttered some sort of goodbye to Grandmother Willow and half-listened to her response. Axel ushered me into the canoe and we rowed back to the village, arriving just as the sun had risen and the rest of our troupe was assembled around the remains of last night's fire.

Riku gave me a less than subtle look as Axel and I returned, but I ignored him. Axel and I stepped into their circle as if we'd been expecting this gathering. As if we'd slept all night and were prepared for a new day, like all the others.

They were discussing our next move.

"We could go back to Mesoamerica," suggested Launchpad. "Maybe give repairing the ship another shot."

"Too risky," Riku decided. "Even with the Keyhole sealed, that place is crawling with Heartless. I say we return to the Coliseum. Mulan can recover there and we can get in touch with the King through Phil. He may have made contact with the others."

"All of this is assuming, of course, that we can leave this World the same way we came to it," Lulu cautioned, glancing at me with her dark eyes. Sleepily, I glared at her. I was tired of being doubted.

"That won't be a problem," Axel interjected. I could feel him shift his body slightly, forming a subtle barrier between Lulu and I. "I can create a portal to wherever you want to go. Kairi can help me build the shield to see everyone through. No problem."

Lulu's eyes squinted at me. "I just think it's a little risky. Kairi, you're not well, anyone can see that. Perhaps Axel should go alone, to find the King, and rendezvous back with us."

"Not well?" I seethed. I was furious and insulted, even though I knew she had to be right. I hadn't slept properly in days. Less than twenty minutes ago, I had been kneeling and screaming in the dirt. But I felt indignant all the same. "That's it. I've had it. What is your problem with me, anyway? You've done nothing but sneer at me from the moment you laid eyes on me, and I'm sick of it. Who gives you the right to judge me?"

"Hey, princess, cool it," Axel began, before I turned my anger on him.

"And YOU are the last person I need trying to defend me, okay? Everyone just, just back the hell off! I can do this, I can..." I paused a moment to breathe. "I can do this."

Lulu spoke softly. "Perhaps you can. But not in this state you can't."

Whatever came over me next could only be described as blind, sleep-deprived delirium. I leapt right at Lulu, fists swinging. I felt my knuckles make contact with her face. My hand throbbed but I kept swinging, until I felt powerful arms yank me away from her. I was carried, still kicking and spitting, several hundred feet away. Deep into the woods. The voices of the others grew distant.

It was Axel carrying me, I eventually realized, once we were well away from the others. I didn't find that comforting. Under cover of the sycamore canopy, we came upon a still, shimmering pond.

"Let GO of me," I barked, and Axel surprisingly obeyed. He lifted me high into the air, and tossed me into the water.

I felt a bizarre mix of shock and calm as my body submerged into the cold pond. There was a pleasant kind of silence that filled my ears. Underwater, everything felt a million miles away. I could almost pretend I was a child again, swimming in the ocean of my calm islands.

I gasped for air as my head sprung to the surface. My feet found the bottom of the pond as I regained control of myself. My chest heaved up and down with grateful breaths. I turned to Axel, who had waded casually into the water to meet me. His gloves had been removed, and he placed his bare wet hands on my shoulders.

"Better?" he asked, looking into my eyes.

"Shut up," I spat, looking away.

"You need to sleep, Kairi. You're not yourself."

"I really doubt that you would know."

"I would. I'm not proud or happy to say it, but I would. I can't help who I am, but I do know you."

We stared into each other's eyes. My panting slowed, until finally I felt my anger dissolve with a sigh. I looked deeply at him, wondering how many secrets of mine he kept. "You should have told me," I whispered. "Who can hide something so massive?" I found my fingers grazing his cheek, touching the stubble and wet flesh stretched over his jaw. Underwater, the weight of my body drifted towards his. Like somehow proximity would unlock the things inside him.

He moved his hands from my shoulders to my face, cupping them around my head. "I'm going to help you sleep, whether you like it or not."

Before I could say anything, I could feel something happening to me. Despite the chill of the water there was a warmth that started in my cheeks and trickled all the way down to my toes. Despite the quiet of the wilderness, I could hear the softest music in the back of my mind. Like someone singing. The Lullaby of Souls.

The world around me disappeared and I could see only a well-groomed, beautiful garden. An old woman strummed a mandolin, singing words in another language. A gentle stream passed through the garden. Amidst the trees and flowers, a man and a woman walked, holding hands with a little girl between them. They lifted her up off the ground and she giggled, kicking her feet and squealing with delight. It was the most peaceful thing I could ever remember feeling.

"That's you," I heard Axel's distant voice saying. "That's your home. Got it memorized?"

The warmth inside me tingled, and as the old woman's song continued, I found myself drifting at long last into a deep, tranquil sleep.

-o-o-o-o-o-

I awoke on a warm pallet, and the ceiling above me told me I was in one of the Powhatan's huts. Axel stood in the corner, arms folded, waiting.

"Feels good, right?" he said.

I sat up, pulling the blankets tight to my chin. I blinked groggily. "How long was I out?" I asked.

He smiled. "All day. We'll be spending another night here, looks like."

I bit my lip. Remembering everything, from Grandmother Willow's story to my violent attack on Lulu, was painful and surreal. I felt much calmer, much clearer, after I had properly slept. What was confusion before was now only clear and burning curiosity.

"Tell me everything," I said quietly. "Tell me everything you know about who I am."

Axel nodded. He took a seat on the ground beside my pallet, sitting cross-legged. He ran an ungloved hand through his red mane as he chose his words. "You have to understand that I'm not him. Despite your know-it-all sass, I don't know how much you really understand about Nobodies. We are born from the shells of those whose hearts are stolen, those who become Heartless. Years ago in Radiant Gardens, there was a boy named Cale. I- He was a few years older than you. His father was a knight in the Holy Order, and when you were born he was five."

He held up his hand, as if he had read my mind.

"I know, princess, I know. I promise the story gets to you eventually. I'm telling you all this to make sure you understand that all I know about you is from Cale's memories. I carry them with me as if they were mine, but... they're not. There's a kind of distance, you see. Because he is definitely not me. But anyway, you were born and a match was made. Cale was chosen to marry the heir to the Radiant Gardens throne. Because of this, his family lived at court and stayed in the castle so that the two of you would be friends from a very young age. That's why I could show you that memory of you with your parents, when you were a toddler. He was there."

"How?" I asked quickly. "How could you show me the memory?" I felt a whimper creep up in my voice. "Why didn't you show me sooner?"

"I'm magical," he answered bluntly. "Our people, well, your people are born with very strong magical abilities. You should have realized this when you met Naminé. It's why we called her the little witch. Her power was so strong that she could erase all memories of an entire person. She has those powers because she was born from you, and I have my powers because I was born from Cale. The people in Radiant Garden who had these abilities were not exactly the majority of the population, and so people came to call these special people witches."

I had suspected, but now I knew for sure. I was one of the witches Scrooge had told me about. The downfall of the witches was the downfall of my family, my life.

Axel went on. "So you were a witch, and you were groomed from a young age to be queen. Your grandmother was a powerful woman in the Circle of Witches and she was your mentor. She tried teaching you the basics of magic, but you were, unsurprisingly, a little stubborn. Cale was older, and far more disciplined, so he spent a lot of lessons with you to help you out. But eventually, people started turning into Heartless, and that's when the witch hunt began.

"You have to understand that, politically, Xehanort was an incredibly influential person. He took Ansem's name and confused everyone's memories to solidify his position. So while his experiments were going horribly wrong and he was losing his own heart, he was able to spread these rumors that it was the witches causing all these problems. Your family, the royal family, was forced into hiding. Your parents left you and your grandmother to live with Cid, a local handyman. Cale was sent there, too, for safekeeping while his parents continued to advocate for the witches at court. Gran stayed loyal to her ways, and continued teaching you and Cale the practice of magic. She took care of you, but things in Radiant Garden just kept deteriorating. Ansem was enveloped completely by the Darkness, and once he was a Heartless he no longer cared about the charade of blaming witches. The name of the witches was cleared, and they were able to mount an official retaliation on Ansem. Gran called upon an ancient and dangerous magic to send you to another world, to keep you safe. Cale was only twelve, but he stayed to fight with the other witches."

Axel spoke with the detached tone of a recording. An encyclopedia, spouting off the facts as they were, more or less. I should have expected as much, if Axel really was what they said he was. He was not human. He could not know or articulate the human sorrow that weighed his story down. And yet, his eyes said something different. In their green twinkle I saw the man beneath it all; I saw Cale, a twelve year old boy, staying and fighting for his entire adolescence and being forever shaped by the ravages of war. I had seen war, and I was able to feel its weight. Whatever Axel was, he knew Cale's memories. He knew what that poor boy had been through, had fought for.

"Is this why Naminé saved you?" I asked quietly. "Because she knew what you knew about me?"

Axel sighed and closed his eyes. "Naminé was so different from the rest of us. She couldn't remember who she came from. I think that's what made her so capable of empathy. Of hopefulness. She wasn't haunted by the memories of someone she wasn't, she only had a blank slate with which to imagine who she might want to be. But as we got to know each other, she realized I was connected to you. I was the only thing she had to help reveal you to her. She made me promise a long time ago that I would give you back your memories. That I would help bring you home."

My heart and brain palpated with a strange sensation. You were never home, I heard him say, so long ago now. My voice trembled. "So that's what this is? That's why you're here? To take me home?" Images of Leon in the garden, asking me to be queen, pressed sharply in my mind.

Axel shrugged. "I made Naminé a promise. I'm doing what I can to keep it. I'm not trying to pretend like I know where all of this is going. I just know I have to help you where I can. I can teach you how to do the things you were born to do."

I nodded thoughtfully, and let my mind drift away for a moment. Months of emptiness in my heart were suddenly filled. For the first time in forever, I had an idea of who I was, and it wasn't the goody-goody all star mayor's daughter of Destiny Islands. I felt the weight of obligation, to find out who I really was, to live up to the name my parents had died for. I looked at Axel.

"Okay," I said. My throat was still sore from screaming at Grandmother Willow's. "Okay. I mean, it's a lot to soak in, really, but okay. We have to move forward, and you and I... for whatever reason, you and I have the abilities to get everyone out of here and get back with the rest of the King's Thirteen."

"You're ready?" Axel asked.

I nodded, and I was a few seconds' movement away from realizing that underneath the blanket, I was only wearing underwear. My cheeks flushed pink with embarrassment. "Um, I am ready, except... where are my clothes?"

Axel smirked. "Well, you were all wet, so we had to take your clothes off." My eyes squinted with rage and he laughed. "I mean, some of the Powhatan women took your clothes off. It was utterly modest and dignified, I promise."

"Ugh," I groaned. "Well as soon as I find my clothes... then, I am definitely ready to save the day. Promise."