tenebrae -arum f. pl. [darkness; night; blindness; obscurity].
Act II, Scene Three: Tenebrae: The pursuit
"Let go of me, Avarielle. I have to fight."
She was gripping both his arms, struggling to stay in front of him as she used her body as a blockade. "Like it or not, Riku, you are blind. This isn't the time to test your limits—the Heartless are attacking right now!"
"You're saying I'd only get in the way, right?" He could hear the sounds of battle roar into existence not too far away.
Avarielle sighed, searching his clouded white eyes for some beacon of hope, some sign of the sapphire jewels that had once given her such confidence…
"I'm going. I have the Keyblade. We'll go and fight alongside the others." He picked up his weapon.
He started and Ava gulped. "What? What's going on?"
"I…I see a shape in front of me…" His hand reached out and grabbed her shoulder firmly. "Like a stream of purple light."
"You see me?" Hope began to pour into her heart.
"Not exactly…"
"Oh." It started to trickle back out.
"But I can tell where you are," he said, proving this by tracing a rough outline of her head and shoulders in the air. "Maybe I can do this. Let's go!"
He was already pushing past her for the door. He sees the door, too?
Riku reached forward and touched the wall, then felt along it until his hand lurched forth in the space of the doorway. "Come on, Ava," he said. "You…you have to help me get back to the meadow." He felt like these pleading words might choke him.
Ava picked up her Keystaff. "Stay close to me, Riku. We can do this if we stick together."
Riku felt like he was flying as he raced along the path. The idea of battle had infused his pulse with new energy and branded into him a new form of confidence. The Keyblade was his. He was chosen to carry it. He wasn't going to let Fate or Avarielle or anyone else down. Not this time.
He tripped several times, but Ava always stopped and helped him and resumed their race without saying a word. It was humiliating for his ego, but he let his mind focus on the emergency at hand.
He knew they were at the meadow even before Ava spoke. He heard some sort of growling, and nearby he saw a shimmering crimson light close by to a black-gray one. What sort of Heartless sounded like such a beast?
To his right side, there was a pink light accompanied by a gigantic blue one.
"Shiva! It's time for your overdrive!" screamed Yuna's voice.
The entire field began to pulse with magic energy, and all those sensitive to it froze momentarily. An artic wind swept through. With a snap of someone's great fingers, the silence exploded into a roar of thousands of icicles shattering at once.
"Amazing!" uttered Avarielle, still immediately behind him.
There was little time to be impressed. Riku swung himself around to glimpse a small black hole far in front of him. From it seeped black globs of various sizes.
He knew exactly what they were.
"Heartless," Riku growled under his breath, marching across the field with carefully placed steps on the broken stems of grass. He took up the Keyblade and had a few test swings before crouching down into a battle ready position.
"Riku!"
He ignored the sound of his name emerging from Yuna's, Ava's, and Quistis's surprised mouths.
He had a score to settle.
Riku's fine mouth curved into a cocky grin. Battle. He could do this. It was in him. Fighting was a part of him.
And now he was finally on the right side.
He began to swing in broad arcs, trying to pinpoint his first opponent. The edge of the Keyblade connected with something (something that also gave a dissatisfied snort), and the man bolted forward to bring his weapon through its middle before the thing had a chance of going away.
He smelled the smoke that meant victory.
Encouraged by his first triumph, Riku began to jog for the next target. He was able to take down half a dozen surprised Heartless in the same manner as the first. The others were fighting their own fights around him.
But then something many times bigger came out of the hole, and soon the creature was flying over him.
It was headed for the purple stream of light.
"Ava—!" screamed Riku, spinning on a dime and running forth. His foot immediately chose to snag on something and he crashed down to inhale bitter-tasting dirt.
Avarielle cried out in surprise. Apparently she was currently engaged with one of the smaller shadows, and only now had turned to see the massive entity hovering above her.
Damn it! echoed inside Riku's brain. The Keyblade had fallen for parts unknown, and he had nothing to pull himself up with.
He heard the sounds of a beast—it was that bright red light again, a growl and animal smell to go along with it. The thing sprinted in front of Riku on its presumed claws.
The gray light soon fizzled and went out.
"Oh, oh, thank you," Ava was saying somewhere near the red light. Riku saw that her previously dimmed purple light was returning to normal. He scrambled to his feet.
"Are they gone?" Quistis's voice wanted to know.
"For now," Vincent said gruffly.
Riku couldn't smell that animal scent anymore…
"Are you all right?" Yuna asked Avarielle. "Good. Heal," she said more quietly.
"Thanks," Ava breathed.
"Yuna, are you okay with guarding this area?" Vincent's voice was growing farther away as the red light drifted back towards the village.
"Of course!" the young lady called after him. "My summons will protect us!"
Quistis set her attention on Riku and Ava. "You two come back to the village with me. Vincent and I will establish some patrols. I…" She sounded uncertain. "I guess things really changed for now."
"It's peaceful again," Ava said quietly as she let her arm hang over the side of the boat, the lake's clear water swirling around it.
"Maybe," Riku replied doubtfully, oblivious to her actions.
"Come on, now," she urged. "Put your Keyblade away. You've had it out since we left Caelestis." Her pendant dangled around her neck as it had since they had first left the dock.
He swung it back and pushed it into its invisible sheath on his back. "Okay. I suppose no Heartless will reach us on water—"
"What? What is it? Oh my—your eyes!"
The white clouds were fading to reveal dulled sapphire irises and wide pupils that were almost black.
"I can see…"
"You can? Oh, Riku, I see your eyes again!"
"Just a little…" It was true. He had about half as good as vision as he'd had before this whole fiasco. Everything was very blurry. He felt the weight of the chains return to pull a little at his shoulders.
"Ohhh!" she screamed with delight, leaping to throw her arms around his neck.
The small boat rocked and threatened to tip over.
"Um…Ava…"
But he was as happy as she was. He had a little of his vision back. Just a little. When the Keyblade returned to his heart, some of his sacrifice had too.
"Right," she laughed embarrassedly, carefully crawling back to her bench. "I got a little excited there."
"I don't know what this means," he told her. "But I'm happy I get a few minutes at least." Knowing this might be a rare chance, he swept the entire horizon with wide, grateful eyes. He took in the lake, the beach, the huts clustered in a valley below a forest.
The water was vibrantly blue, and Ava's smile was shiny and white.
He didn't want to blink and have it all go away. But his eyes dried and he had to remoisten them. Thankfully, her beaming face was there when the eyelids lifted again.
Riku reached out his hand for Ava's and gripped it. "This isn't a dream."
"I hope not," she laughed nervously.
"This place is really beautiful," he said, deciding to look it over again. What a treasured freedom!
"Yes…" She let her fingers slip down and placed both of her small, dark-skinned hands in the lap of the white skirt. The woman switched subjects, but not without discomfort. "I've been thinking, Riku. Quistis told us the Heartless wouldn't come here…but they did. Riku, I think they…"
"…came after us," he finished for her, although the act of speaking the words was superfluous. "I know the Heartless are drawn to the Keyblades—the same thing happened to Sora. Then I used it to my own advantage. But I can see what a hassle it could turn out to be."
"Your friend Sora…I would like to meet him. He sounds almost as nice as you." She cocked her head and smiled sweetly.
Riku tried to memorize that face. After everything that she had been through, she retained that childhood innocence behind her stern maturity. Maybe, on the inside, Ava was striving to make up for the years she had lost…
"No, Sora's much nicer. And much purer of heart. He always kept hope alive. He had a goal in mind and never strayed from it." Sora had the biggest heart of anyone. He was just an overgrown kid. His biggest problem back on the islands was what to do about his crush on Kairi. And I…
"You did not ruin everything," Avarielle said.
"What?"
"You didn't. Don't say things like that," she told him.
Riku guessed her had voiced some unpleasant thoughts accidentally. "Nevermind."
"If all that wouldn't have happened," she said, turning more wistful, "then you wouldn't have come to Caelestis, and we wouldn't be on this journey together in the first place."
"That's true."
"You…you can't change the past, you know?"
"That's also true."
"Riku, I'm worried."
"Don't. It'll be all right."
She stared at the man in all seriousness. "Those Heartless wouldn't have come here without us. They're tracking us. More will come if we don't leave."
He nodded.
"We have to leave." She sighed. "Somehow."
He nodded again.
"But they'll come to wherever we go…"
"Then we'll just have to beat them, won't we?"
She looked back into his eyes to make sure the color still lingered. "Yeah."
Riku and Ava strolled hand in hand from the dock back up to the building on the hill. What Riku had thought to be an old man's home turned out to be more of a city hall. It was a square brick structure with the word "Compitum" emblazoned over the front door.
Immediately inside was a small lobby area with cedar floors and two dusty old armchairs, along with a desk situated at the far end. A woman with dirty blond hair drawn up until a professional bun was sitting there, face in hands and elbows on the desk.
"Miss Quistis?" said Avarielle politely.
The woman looked up. She was wearing glasses and was dressed in a three-piece suit dominated by the color blue. Riku couldn't make out any more details, but he thought she might be something like twenty-five.
"Hello," Riku said cautiously.
Quistis abandoned some papers at the desk and approached them. "Your eyes," she commented simply.
"I can see a little since I put my Keyblade away."
"Isn't it wonderful?" Ava said, clinging to Riku a bit more tightly.
Quistis offered them half of a smile, her thoughts apparently drifting elsewhere. "That's good. You should talk to the others about it."
"How is everyone?" Ava asked. They hadn't spoken since last night, the evening after the Heartless attack. Ava and Riku had made a show of getting out of the way, since Vincent seemed easily frustrated with the man's handicap.
"A whole day and nothing's happened. I can only pray," the blonde replied. "And I do." She paced to the opened front door and gazed out at the setting sun. "Vincent and Yuna will be returning shortly for dinner. You two go on to the dining hall, won't you?"
Ava nodded and pointed Riku in the direction of a small brown door. She began to tug him along until…
"Ava, I can see for now. You don't have to help me."
The woman shirked away. "That's right. I-I just forgot."
"It's all right," he said. He hadn't meant to snap; it was just he had felt so belittled as of late. Riku had no words to express himself with. Besides, an admittance of his injured pride would be unthinkable.
They proceeded, walking a good three feet away from one another, to the room with the brown door. Inside was a small round table with mismatching stools around it. A small stone fireplace lay dormant in the corner.
Ava sat down and promptly began to rearrange her hair, doing nothing as Riku stumbled into a seat of his own. He couldn't help when outlines of objects blurred together.
Several minutes passed until a young woman entered. She set down a jar of water and some ceramic goblets. She had shining brown hair that reached for her shoulders. She was wearing a sleeveless, backless kimono. The top was white and the skirt deep purple and beautiful. Tied across her slender middle was a beautifully decorated obi. If Riku could have seen any better, he would have noticed that she had both a green and a blue eye.
She seemed young, maybe sixteen or so. Riku thought that she was probably the same age as the younger kids back on the island, Tidus and Wakka.
"Do you need any help?" Avarielle asked.
"Sure," said Yuna's voice in its usual friendly tone. Riku put two and two together while Ava promptly stood and followed the summoner out the door.
The greatest surprise of all was the man in the red cloak. Beneath it were tight black clothes. Red bands over the forehead served to hang back a few feet of long black hair, while closer inspection revealed that his left arm was not there at all: in fact, the thing was replaced by metal. His face was sober and cool, but he was definitely not an old and graying man at all.
"Vincent?"
"What?" responded the man, slipping down onto a chair across from Riku.
Vincent's eyes narrowed into a glare. "Oh, right. Quistis told me."
"What do you think about it?"
"To tell the truth, I think you're very lucky. As you keep fighting, I'm sure even this sight will go."
Even as Vincent broke the news—or, rather, his opinion, which seemed as valid as fact—Riku noticed the picture before him blurring slowly but steadily. "Could you not tell Ava?"
"Whatever," the dark man said as way of agreement.
"Something else, too…" Riku began.
Vincent sat there, theoretically expectant.
"Our Keys drew the Heartless here, right? So that means Ava and I will have to leave."
"I'm glad you brought that up, because I was just going to request that you did just that," Quistis said as she came inside, a salad bowl clutched in her arms.
"Quistis…" Vincent's voice was mild and emotionless.
"It's not that I want you two to go. I just want Compitum to be safe again."
"I understand," Riku said, and he honestly did.
"I'm sorry," the woman told him. "I am just worried about the children."
"I told you I understood," Riku reiterated with a slight decrease in patience. "The problem isn't the why, it's the how."
"We might know about that," Yuna said as she entered with dinner and Ava. She easily slid between the folds of the conversation. "The only way out is the way you came in."