inlucescit [it grows light, is daylight].
Act II, Scene One: Inlucescit
Thump…thump…
Is that my heart?
It's beating so slowly…
Who's there? Who said that?
Said? I didn't say anything… I'm only thinking…
Are you me?
No, I'm me…
Where are you?
Don't you mean 'where are we?'
I don't know… Are we lost?
It's so bright… I can't see anything, but I can feel how bright and warm it is.
Are your eyes closed?
My…eyes? I don't know…
Are you really there, or am I alone?
I was always alone…
Whirr… The wheels begin to turn.
'Daddy!'
The man turns toward me, his coarse black hair shading a good part of his face. His eyes are hardly visible. He's so tall, so high above me…
'What is it?'
I recoil. He's so nasty to me now. I can't see his eyes but I know he's glaring at me. I'm scared…
'What is it?' Now he's mad. He's frowning and coming at me. 'What is it?' This time he is yelling.
I start to cry. 'Daddy, don't get mad at me.'
He mutters something and walks away. I don't want him to leave me all alone, but I don't want him to get madder. He walks to the door and stops. I know he wants to go fight the Heartless that killed Mommy. I want to tell him to go so he'll be happy, but I'm too scared to talk now.
My heart hurts so much. I wonder if I'm dying. I want to stop crying but the tears come so fast and never stop. Without Daddy, I won't have anyone to keep me safe. But Daddy hates me.
Daddy goes to the kitchen and starts to drink out of the nasty-smelling bottle. I go to my room and close the door. I sit on the bed and hope Daddy will forget I exist. I pick up my picture of Mommy. It's old and its edges are torn and the colors are faded.
The door opens and Daddy comes in and sees me looking at the picture.
Daddy grabs the picture from me and it rips straight in half.
'No!'
'Your mother is gone,' he says. He tears his piece of the picture into dozens of pieces. I fight him, but he takes my half and rips it all up too. I see the pieces of Mommy's smiling face falling on the dirty ground and I scream even louder.
I know now that I'll forget what Mommy looked like. I know now I'll forget what a real smile looks like…
Through my tears, the colors of the world blur into one and I feel dizzy…The wheels shifted direction and turned again.
I'm racing, running as fast as I can along the bridge to the island where the paopu fruit grow. There's lightning over the sea. I hear the thunder and I think back to the storm that took away my Mom and Dad. I try not to remember…
I know that it's coming. I could sense the energy from the Secret Place. The storm is drawing nearer and nearer. I know it won't be long until everyone wakes up on the other side of the island.
It's finally happening; I'm going to the other worlds. I'm going to get off this stupid island. There'll be much more to do than run races and play fight and dream of imaginary adventures. It's my time to see what no one else has seen and do what no one else has done.
Fate is on my side.
I hear someone. It's Sora. I'm ecstatic— but he's upset. He doesn't understand at all what is about to happen. He doesn't realize how great it is.
'I'm not afraid of the darkness,' I tell him. The only way to get to the other worlds is to harness the dark powers. The man had told me so…
He wants to know what's going on. He wants to know where Kairi is. I always knew he cared about her more than me. So much for a best friend.
Suddenly I worry if he'll be all right, but I don't show it. I can't let him or anyone else stop me from realizing my dreams… He's angry now. His image blurs before my eyes and the world starts to spin around me.
Sora…I reach out for his hand.
He doesn't take it.
Riku?
Ava? Avarielle—is that you?
What is this? I'm remembering things that never happened to me. Wasn't that Sora guy your friend?
Was that your father I saw?
So it's you…we're together.
Where are we?
I don't know.
We went through the Door.
It's light, Riku. It's so light here.
But that didn't look at all like the Door at Kingdom Hearts.
We're not in Caelestis anymore! That's all I care about!
Maybe it's a dream…
I can't feel anything. It doesn't feel like I have legs or arms or anything.
But I hear it…
What?
The thumping…the gentle thumping…
Our hearts?
I only hear one…
We're connected?
Maybe, between us, we only have one heart. I'd lost most of mine… I let in the darkness. I felt myself growing darker every day. Maybe we joined through the Keys and—together—we had enough for one heart. Enough to go through the Door.
Then where are we going?Avarielle's eyes finally opened up. Her body was again taking on solid form. The Keystaff was cold and stiff in her hand. And…
She was falling.
She wanted to scream, and tried, but sound didn't seem to carry in this place. Her hair and skirt were flying upward as her body sped faster and faster downward. The wind created between her body and the air was cool, not cold, and yet incredibly strong. Around her was featureless space, colored green and blue.
Her Keystaff threatened to go off by itself as her newly recreated palm grew sweaty. She grabbed it was the other hand so she was holding it in front of (above?) her.
And then she was slowing down.
Avarielle seemed to be traveling in slow motion. She righted herself and her booted feet came to rest on firm ground.
The woman set the bottom of the Keystaff down with one hand and used the other to wipe hair from her eyes and then clench her chest, breathing heavily. She had only a faint notion that her physical form had not existed for some period, and just reformed in the sky only a moment earlier.
But she did remember seeing Riku's memories, and hearing his thoughts are clearly as though they were her own.
"Riku!"
Her ears perked up at the sound of heavy groaning in the vicinity. There. On the ground a few steps away was his collapsed form, twisted over itself.
Apparently, he had not had such a graceful landing as she had.
Ava rushed to his side. The Keyblade glimmered nearby, but she ignored it.
Riku turned over on his own power, but he seemed in awful shape. Dirt and bruises littered what skin was visible, while one of his arms seemed to be twisting in the wrong direction.
Avarielle's brown eyes were wide. "Is your arm broken?"
Riku's affirmation was a loud cry as he tried to move the aforementioned appendage. "Damn," the man muttered through clenched teeth.
"I'll take care of it," she said, placing three fingers lightly on his elbow. She closed her eyes. Green-white energy flowed from the tip of the Keystaff to Riku, surrounding him in a swirl of warm light.
He blinked, and moved his arm without difficulty.
"You healed it."
Avarielle nodded. "Somehow I knew," she said, rubbing the arm with a mother's affection. "I knew how to cure it."
Riku sat up and smiled at her. His head felt a little funny, but he attributed it to falling a few miles through space. "It's amazing that you could learn magic without a teacher."
"I've only figured out how to do two or three spells. I think I would need someone to teach me for anything more complicated." She readjusted her hold on the rod. "This thing has sure done a lot to me."
Riku stretched out his upper body, raising each shoulder and then flexing his arms and fingers. He let his head fall back until his neck gave a satisfying 'click'. "What a wild ride that was."
It was only then, then when she knew Riku was safe and sound and close by, that Avarielle cared to notice where they were.
They were situated at the edge some sort of forest, beneath a dense canopy of green trees. Fallen leaves and twigs as well as small bushes and grass littered the ground. A meadow stretched beyond to their right while the forest continued in all other directions.
The time of day was before dawn. The sky was only now changing over from blue to a light purple. The air was soft and smelled of dew-covered grass.
Ava stood, shook out her skirt, and paused for a deep breath. The air did not smell of garbage, blood, alcohol, or the soaked homeless: this was different. This was the first fresh air that she could remember breathing, and it felt clean and good.
Riku soon came to his feet as well. He ignored the sudden wave of dizziness and took Ava's hand and led her from under the trees. "I think the sun's about to come up."
This excited Avarielle beyond belief and she ran ahead of him to the middle of the small clearing, heart racing and eyes wide with expectation. She acted much more like a little girl than anything else, and Riku was happy just watching her.
It was several minutes before the sun finally got itself up above the treetops, but it was well worth the wait. The sky turned a misty light blue and the sun itself a penetrating white-yellow. A few clouds drifted here and there, white, fluffy, and inviting.
Ava whipped her head downward and shielded her eyes.
"What? Are you okay?"
"Oh, no," she chuckled nervously. "I just was staring right at the sun. I had forgotten how bright it was."
When she took her hand down, Riku saw that she was no longer laughing but crying.
"I'm not sad," she assured his worried face. "It's just that… It must have been fifteen or sixteen years since I last saw a bright day. I…I don't even remember…" Her words blurred together, coherent speech replaced by a mixture of choked sobs and light, relieved laughter.
"I understand how you feel," he said. He looked upward and glimpsed a white bird flying overhead. "It's going to be okay now."
"I would die happy at this moment," Avarielle said, but then her glance fell on the Keystaff. Her chocolate eyes narrowed. "But I'm still worried about the Heartless."
Riku's eyes darted about him.
"Don't worry; your Keyblade is back where we landed."
The man ran for it and returned, holding the weapon tightly.
Ava touched her Key to his. "These are what connected us when we went through the Door."
Riku nodded. "I heard your thoughts."
"I saw your memories."
A silence fell over them. It was an almost violating thing to know that someone else was in your heart and looked back on all of your must vivid memories—the bulk of them painful. To think a word and have it heard by another…
"I'm sorry," Avarielle told Riku. "I didn't mean to look back on your past."
"Same here," he said stiffly. He had no idea what she had seen, but what he had…
"I'll try not to think about what I saw. Your memories and your thoughts are your own business. I only want to know what you want to tell me."
Riku knew she was being sincere. He promised her the same, even though he was conscious of how difficult it would be for the both of them. He…
"Are you all right?"
He could vaguely make out Ava's silhouette above him.
With a groan, he got out, "What happened?"
"You said you felt dizzy and rather promptly fell over," she said.
Riku realized that they were sitting in the meadow, cool grass beneath them and blue sky and bright sun above. His head was resting gently in Ava's lap.
Avarielle touched his forehead before running her fingers back through his slick silver hair. "Riku…"
She gasped.
"What? What is it?"
"Riku…" She leaned back so light fell on his face. "Your eyes are getting all clouded up!"
"What? What is this?"
He could hardly see a thing.