'I saw you dancing out the
ocean,
Running fast along the sand,
A spirit born of earth and
water,
Fire flying from your hands.'
"Ow... ow... ow..."
The day is fading fast on the islands. Clouds gather on the horizon - golden walls that part before an orange sphere of warmth and beauty. Already the tip of the orb is touching the water and, from that slight brush, a roadway of gold stretches towards the shore.
Towards the boy.
"Ow... ow... ow..."
He sits where the lush vegetation of the island, their private island, meets the sand of the beach. The beauty of his surroundings isn't quite lost on him but, as with all children, beauty and magic seem almost common place. On top of that there are more significant things on his mind.
Legs splayed out in front of him, baggy shorts flapping in the slight breeze, he holds one arm under critical eyes and pokes at the purple/yellow colouring just beyond his elbow. In spite of what his mother might have told him, he is poking his bruise. Otherwise how is he to know when it is healed?
The reason for the bruise is embedded in the sand a couple of feet from him. A slender wooden sword carved as a weapon in sparring; a new game only just introduced to him.
He has watched Riku practising with his own sword a couple of times; more than a couple, to be honest. The others had all eventually bored of watching the eldest make his odd hacking movements in the air, as though attacking invisible pirates. Sora himself had stuck with it.. and he honestly is not sure why, sitting here, poking his bruise.
The reward had been Riku carving him his own sword - which had been cool - and then sparring with him - which had been less cool. In fact it hadn't been cool at all. The first couple of hits had been embarrassing but the last, the bruise-maker, had brought tears to his eyes which he had hastily brushed away.
And Riku had given him that look. The kind of look normally reserved for parents.
Sora has always known that Riku is older - all it had ever meant before was that he was slightly taller, slightly quicker - but recently it's becoming more and more obvious. Riku is changing. Getting odd.
Sora doesn't find the whole growing up thing terribly attractive.
He gives the bruise one last, half-hearted poke, then lies back against a cushion of grass and closes his eyes to the golden sunlight. Feeling the breeze brush through his long, unruly hair. Feeling the rays break against his cheeks. Feeling the world shift under his back. Feeling content.
Then the sound of giggling intrudes on the idyllic moment.
Sora sits up sharply and glances down the beach, spotting a figure running, giggling, through the spray of the water. Even as he blinks, eyes focussing as they readjust to the sun, she begins to sprint. The water draws back, leaving her a path of pristine brown sand, then rushes forwards.
Deep, perfect footprints wash away. Water rises up around her legs.
The sun, still dropping, has turned the ocean red. A brilliant burning red that blends perfectly into her fiery hair, as though the ocean trails behind her, a part of her, even as she tries to outrun the approaching night. The flying water sparkles around her form, tiny rainbows glimmering in her wake. The water recedes to show her path invisible.
As though she is an angel dropped straight into this one gorgeous moment.
Mouth open to call to her, Sora finds he doesn't have the words inside of him.
Eventually her steam runs out, she stumbles to a halt and leans forwards, panting for new life, hands planted on her legs for support. She turns back to see her unseeable path, laughs, and begins to jog home.
Then she is gone. Part of Soras' childhood taken with her.
He lies back against the grass and finds that the breeze, the sun, the connection cannot be retrieved. The peace has been shattered, ripped away from his small form. Instead he finds, as he closes his eyes now and forever, the running girl.
Kairi.
No more peace.
No more content.
"Ow," says Sora, but he smiles as he says it.