appetentia -ae f. [desire , longing].
Act I, Scene Four: Appententia: The dangers in doubting.
Avarielle's slim, dark fingers ran over the shimmering Staff that was now hers.
"Please tell me what this all means, Riku," she begged, spinning to face him. They were several stories up, being situated on the roof of her apartment building, overlooking a good portion of the city.
From his blatant lack of response, Riku might not have even heard her words. He was leaning over the iron railing, looking down at the people going to and fro between the brightly lit buildings. The night was as cool and misty as a Caelestis night ever was. Up here, there were almost scraping the bottoms of blue-gray clouds hanging over the city like a blanket.
"Riku." She put up the Keystaff so it blocked his view, the glowing violet crystal so near to his eyes he went momentarily blind.
"Ugh." He made the surprised sound and stepped back, gloved hand over face. His fingers came slowly down. To Ava's surprise, he looked…irritated.
Ava snatched back her weapon. "Er, sorry. Are you feeling all right?"
It was a silly question to ask. How could anything be all right in this place?
"I'm…I'm fine," he said, trying to control his frustrations. After all, he had nothing to be mad at Ava about, did he?
Avarielle backed up against the railing, her eyes resting on the dim sky. "What are we going to do about the Heartless?"
"We have to do something," was his answer.
"Do you think they could open that Door we saw?"
Riku paused. "The Door looked like it was still forming…still in the process of taking on a solid shape. But after it does, who knows?"
"And what about the Keyblades?" she mused, hefting the Keystaff once more. Then, all in a rush, it began to disappear, leaving in its place a cloud of sparkles, which flowed rather pointedly toward the woman's chest.
Riku watched these proceedings with narrowed eyes until all the fuss stopped. He bent down to look at Avarielle's chest, where a violet gem pendant was dangling off of a silver chain.
Ava picked it up to run her palm across it. "I think it's that same crystal that was in the Keystaff." She was right.
"Maybe…maybe the Key has returned to your heart."
Avarielle nodded slowly, as though she didn't completely understand…
Riku took up his Keyblade and swung it around so swiftly it cut the air with a shrill whoosh sound, eventually placing it as though it had a sheath on his back. It melted out of sight. Two large chains materialized over his coat, crisscrossing his chest and back.
The woman peered around his back. "Oh, you should see this! There's a big metal lock back here…I don't know quite how to describe it. It's beautiful, though—somehow."
Why is this happening? Riku thought, staring down in amazement at the chains. Whenever Sora had put his Keyblade away, it had just vanished into his heart. Why these physical manifestations for him and Ava?
There was yelling down below, but, upon Riku's investigation, he discovered it was only some men and women enjoying themselves too much on the street far below.
"Do you think it's the Door out of here?" Ava's voice was light and airy, as though she were partially submerged in a dream.
"It could also just lead deeper into the Darkness."
He was squashing her hopes. "Don't be so negative."
Avarielle strolled over to the moody man in front of her, letting her slender arms slip underneath his. "Riku, don't be so cross with me." She was smiling at him very sweetly as she pulled him for a tighter embrace.
Riku stood, body stiff and face emotionless. He felt her warm touch, but…
"Oh, what's that?" Something shiny on the ground had caught Ava's eye, and she knelt down to inspect it. As she did, round munny dropped from her pockets and spilled with various light metal clangs.
Riku looked down at her crouched form, some unpleasant thoughts surfacing. "Is that the munny you got last night?"
"Yes," Ava answered without hesitation or suspicion. She began to scoop up the coins and put them back into the small pouch on her belt.
"Your customer…?"
"Yes," Avarielle said, as though she didn't much care about what he was getting at. She scooted over to gather some more of the coins, which seemed to be very paticular about rolling away.
Riku looked at her. She was so beautiful, and she was his friend now. She looked at him like she wouldn't mind something more.
"How many customers do you have?"
A single munny was headed all the way for the edge of the roof. Avarielle straightened her legs out and ran for it, but the thing slipped through her fingers and felt to crash in a dumpster on the street below.
It was getting foggier, and she was a little ways away from him. He couldn't see her so well anymore, so there was no way to read her face.
"Oh, I don't know." She was only half in the conversation.
"How often?"
He saw Ava's silhouette stand and straighten the small, slim body out, brushing the newly acquired dirt from the long, sweater-like coat. "How often do I have customers, you ask? Only when I need to eat or pay the rent." She was certainly in the conversation now.
Riku looked to one side, doing his best to seem disinterested.
"What? What is it?" Now her voice was demanding. "If you have something to say about me, say it to my face."
This was almost humorous; her face was shrouded in mist.
"I guess it's how you earn a living—"
"How else would you have me do it, Riku? The only ways to get munny in this place is to steal it off dead bodies, or rob people in the streets. So I sell my body. At least I'm giving men what they want. I'm not hurting anyone this way."
"What about you?" Riku had been tripping over his thoughts, but now the words had come out all on their own.
"Practically every woman in this city is a prostitute, Riku. You're judging me along with the rest of them. I'm sure you've had your nights—"
"I must certainly have not!"
"All right, sorry," she said, recoiling at his sudden burst of anger. "You're the only guy from Caelestis who can say that, I guess."
"I'm not from Caelestis," he said, and his rotten mood was seeping more and more into his words. He felt like a train gaining so much speed so quickly it might crash… "I'm not from this place. I don't belong here!"
"I'm not from here either, Riku. But you think you're the only one who doesn't belong? Do you know how long I've lived here? How long I've lived on my own?" She was gripping one hand into a fist so tight her nails punctured the dark skin. As blood dripped onto the ground, she began to speak again, her usual pleasantly high and light voice now angry and dark.
"Fine. I sell my body—I give men whatever they want. How can you judge me, Riku? It's harder to be a woman than a man in this place. To be with drunks who own you for the night, who use you for taking out all their frustrations…" Her voice choked, but she concealed it by coughing as the tears came raining down.
Riku couldn't see her at all. The mist was building, and the night grew ever colder. The wind had picked up and was whipping around his body, whistling as it passed over his ears. But he couldn't stop thinking…
"You so easily put your arms around me—how hard is it to be affectionate with me when you do it any night for the highest bidder?" He had now said it, but he'd only meant to think it.
But now it was there, drifting around in the open, the sudden quiet the statement itself had created. It was there, freezing time as easily as any spell.
The words were there, building themselves into a brick wall between Avarielle and himself. A wall that would prove hard to tear down.
"I-I… I didn't know you felt that way, Riku." Her voice was pure confusion, a voice wavering between anger and defense, a voice still trying to overcome surprise. "You, too, will treat me differently because of what I do."
He groped for a hammer, but none came. He could no longer see her soft eyes pleading for his comfort. He saw merely a blank wall of his own creation. His train had crashed here.
"It's cold, Riku. I'm going inside."
Riku had a hard time getting comfortable. The couch seemed hard and unfriendly this time. Even Ava's shuffling around in the kitchen had an edge to it.
He was physically exhausted; the stress of fighting for the first time in years had taken a greater toll than he would outwardly admit. His back, neck, arms, and legs were all sore, and he thought many unmentionable thoughts about them.
The musty smell of the furnace air coming through vents on the ceiling seemed to be his only comfort. In some strange way, it reminded him of the Secret Place back on Destiny Islands. For a while, Riku was bathed in pleasant memories of the endless summer days of his childhood.
But he remembered that those days had all had there sunsets. He was now trapped in a land where the sun never rose. And he had perhaps ruined his chance at a real friend, a companion whose soul had so thoroughly understood his.
Riku wandered why he always had to fantastically destroy everything that could ever be something in his life.
Avarielle entered the darkened room and crossed quickly to her private chamber. Riku lay still with his face pointed toward the back of the couch.
He was a man now, but never before had he felt like such a foolish child.
I am in Caelestis because of what I've done. I let the darkness into my heart. I let my world—oh, that perfect world I had! That perfect childhood I shred so quickly in order to be bored and impatient with the greatest pleasures in life. I let my world be consumed by darkness. Then, like now, the doubts I had about myself were so overwhelming I blamed those closest to me. I was undeserving of Avarielle's trust.
He pulled the single blanket over his shoulders as he turned to be flat on his back. His muscles complained.
Riku tensed in physical and emotional pain.
I'm not strong enough. I never was. I was strong enough to beat Sora with a wooden sword, but he ultimately won the battle of the Keyblades. Why now does one come to me? Is it Sora's or the King's? Is it my own, or maybe the one Ansem used? The one Sora used to unlock Kairi's heart? Why now do I have a Key, and why now, when there are more Heartless than I could ever hope to defeat—even with Ava's help?
He placed the back of one hand to his forehead. He was getting a headache on top of everything else. Maybe it was all the thinking.
I thought I was finally getting close. I thought with the Keyblades, and the Heartless, and the Door that I might be on to something this time. This was my chance and I blew it. The combined light I had with Avarielle is quickly turning to nothing but dust…
Ava was gone when Riku woke up and there was no indication as to where she was. Her bed was made and a small breakfast was left on the table in the kitchen.
Riku wondered how he had finally drifted off after hours of disturbing thoughts. It was the first time in the three days since their argument that he'd been capable of any rest. Physically, he felt alert and awake. Most of his aches had dissipated as well.
He ate his meal before getting washed in the small bathroom just off of Ava's bedroom. He didn't know when she would get back, but he guessed the woman would want to stay away for a while. He wandered around the apartment, loose-fitting blue slacks his only clothing.
For the first time, he spotted a small bookshelf between the end of the couch and the wall. It was a short thing about a foot tall, and it was stuffed with maybe a dozen well-read pieces of literature. Riku knelt down and ran his fingers along the row of worn-out spines.
It'd be so long since he'd read anything other than a newspaper or flashing neon sign. His hands eagerly grabbed the first thing off the shelf, which turned out to be a tattered copy of…something. The cover was missing.
Riku's fingers slowly but steadily flipped through faded, yellowed pages. The book seemed half turned to dust. He respected the thing for surviving so long in a city where he figured books had been forbidden to exist.
He reached a mostly readable passage.
"…before the worlds were separated, there was one world of infinity. There were no separate universes or planets, but simply one world on which everything living thing originated. This place of infinity was called Caelestis, the city born of Heaven. Here, plants, animals, and people were first created. Into each living thing was breathed equal parts of light and darkness…"
Riku squinted blue eyes, re-reading the paragraph a few times. What was this book talking about? Caelestis the beginning of it all? The rest of the page was good for naught; it seemed something had been spilled and it was not until several pages later that the words appeared somewhat clearly on the page.
"…fighting ended and only neglected… In the end, it was the children, now starved of their parents' love, who were left… Rebuilding of worlds…inexperienced…both failures and triumphs were common…"
The book was handwritten and the script itself was ornate and difficult to read. The curls and decorations had faded with time less than the words, so Riku was left to study an illustration on the facing page. It featured a small boy with a jagged key facing a large bear of some sort…
The man's fingers flipped eagerly to the next page, and then the next. Here, there were the remains of detailed illustrations of various weapons and other items. There were bows and staffs and swords of all kinds. All of which held something familiar. It took him several minutes of pouring over the drawings, but he realized that all of them were Keyblades.
"There have been several Keyblade masters, but very few have succeeded in accomplishing their goals, especially in recent times…end. Darkness…powerful…will…triumph… Buried within the depths of people's hearts…"
"I've already read all those books before," Avarielle announced as she came up behind him. "I guess I couldn't understand what any of it meant until now."
Startled, Riku let the book fall from his hands in a cloud of dust.
Ava coughed. "I read them all years ago," she was saying, plucking up the book and pushing it back into place. "What I could read of them, anyway. They're probably hundreds of years old, and have been through many owners."
"How did you get them? Whose were they before?"
She paused, her eyes on the shelf. "My father's. He researched the darkness—I told you, didn't I?"
She always had a certain look in her eyes when she talked about her father.
Riku stood. Doing so, he put himself a foot and a half over her. They were standing very close together—seemingly only a breath apart but, in reality, at least a mile.
His eyes focused. There was a new bruise sprouting on her cheek, right below the left eye. It was large and purple and rather angry looking.
Avarielle spun so that her injured cheek was away from him. "Did you sleep well? You must have been out for ten hours."
"Ava…"
He reached for her hand but she moved away, not even looking at him.
"Avarielle, tell me who did that to you and I'll go make them regret it."
The woman spun around, her large, wide skirts whooshing through the air, her raven waves of silk being upset before slowly settling back into their former style. Her eyelids and lips were of light blue today, as was her long, wide dress.
"The situation wouldn't interest you," she snapped. "And this is no time for you to be drawn into vengeance."
This time, he pursued her and grabbed her wrist. "Where did you go to have someone hit you?"
Her chocolate irises wavered for but a moment. "Where do you think? I went to buy some more food."
"You get beat up grocery shopping?"
She rolled her eyes. "Of course not. I just get bled dry with inflated prices. The person who hit me was an old customer who ran across me on the street."
"Did he just walk up and hit you?"
"No. He asked me to spend some time with him and I refused. It's common practice to take out your anger physically, isn't it?" This last bit she added with some hint of accusation, deliberately looking up at him.
Riku tried to chew his words before they came out, but whatever he did he had to get the rotten taste from his mouth. "Tell me who this jerk is and I'll get him."
Now it was Ava that was grabbing his wrist as he jolted towards the door.
Riku felt his anger strongly, in the form of pulsing hot blood pumping through his veins. He couldn't hold this in. "I'm going to take care of any guy who hurts you, Avarielle. You might have been alone for a long time, but you aren't anymore."
"Riku…" She gripped his wrist tightly. Something washed over her, something like relief but not quite. The wall was still there. It had only teetered slightly.
"Riku, we can't focus on petty things like this. We have the Keys, and we saw the Heartless and the Door, didn't we? Don't we have a mission now?"
She was right, and Riku knew it.
Her eyes ran over his half-naked body. "Hey, what happened to your chains?"
Riku looked down at his bare chest. He realized then that he didn't remember having the chains since last night.
"They must of…disappeared?"
Maybe the Keyblade had gone into his Heart.
"But…" She said pointedly as she held up the pendant, which was still sitting safely about her neck.
"I never took them off," he mumbled, returning to the couch. He hastily sorted through the tangled blankets and clothes and found nothing that resembled whatsoever heavy silver chains with a giant lock.
"Then it did disappear. Is your Key gone, you think?" Avarielle watched on nervously from the sidelines as he fought the knot of fabric.
Riku grabbed his coat and slipped it on. He'd made his decision.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm going to find my Key."
"You think it's out there?"
"Avarielle, I think it's time for us to return to that Door."