Embracing Destiny

Chapter 3

Frozen Water

Disclaimer: I don't own KH.

Riku's doing that thing again, I decide at breakfast attempting to ignore Cloud and his new lover's slurping noises in the vicinity to my left.

And I don't think the noises are from them drinking/eating their porridge.

Mother and Father are in a meeting with the other four rulers of Kingdom Hearts so that leaves Me, Riku, the indistinguishable form of Cloud and whoever he is and the two princesses. I have to wonder if Riku would stare quite so obviously if his parents were at the table.

Kairi giggles at something Yuffie said and my attention is drawn towards the two. Yuffie's tickling her so thoroughly that I fear the blind girl may just slide right out of her chair and continue their tickle war on the floor.

And of course that is exactly what happens.

Cloud and the brunette at his side have now untangled themselves from each other and are talking quietly to Riku. The boy is smirking at the brunette who is glaring at him.

Him and Cloud are bickering for some reason or another but I have no energy to move myself closer to the three.

The next thing I know I'm being smacked in the face by a glob of spiced porridge. And everyone freezes. I suppose something worse could have happened, but at the time I was much too tired and annoyed to realize this.

The three on my left are gawking openly at me, Cloud clutching a dripping spoon in one hand and a handful of Riku's hair in the other.

I have to wonder how the hell that porridge got from the spoon from to my face. The brunette's snickering slightly so I turn to glare at him. Reaching down into my bowl of porridge with my bare hands I grab a handful and throw it at him as hard as I possibly can.

Unfortunately I have never had very good aim when it comes to throwing things, and the blob of flying gook decides that it wants to hit a different target.

Riku stares at me through the porridge dripping from his hair. He seems too shocked to do much and doesn't seem to see Cloud toss his drink. Now Riku is dripping with both Paopu juice AND porridge.

The liquid seems to clear his mind and he stares at Cloud and me for a moment before letting a VERY frightening smirk cross his face. And his jammed toast is suddenly on top of Cloud's head.

By now Kairi and Yuffie seem to have noticed our argument and are sitting straight up, Kairi looking at the windows, her ears straining to hear us and Yuffie is staring wide eyed at us. Yuffie recovers first, leaping to her feet, grabbing her oatmeal and with a loud cry of "FOOD FIGHT" her oatmeal makes itself home in Cloud's brunettes hair.

And within the span of six seconds, food is flying everywhere. Riku and Cloud have teamed up against Leon and Kairi whom are taking refuge behind two overturned chairs, flinging toast and porridge and oatmeal and eggs at each other. Yuffie drags me to the ground as a large jelly donut goes whizzing by me.

She's giggling and doesn't seem to notice or care that her dress has ridden up so high that her panties are showing. She looks at me with mischeivious brown eyes and reaches for a bowl of applesauce nearby, scooping it's contents into pale hands and flinging it in Kairi's direction. Instead of actually hitting her it hits her companion and drizzles down his neck. From behind me I can feel something suspiciously slimy make its way down the neck of my robes. I turn and glare at Riku who gives a cheery wave in return.

He ducks down beside us to avoid a flying pastry.

"This your idea of fun, darling?" he asks, managing a mischeivious grin before flinging a bit of scrambled egg at Cloud who seems to realize that Riku had switched sides.

"Traitor!" rings through the air playfully and Riku is knocked upside the head with a syrupy hotcake. Yuffie giggles, grabbing the hotcake from his cheek before flinging it right back.

Of course, nobody notices my mother and Yuffie's mother standing in the doorway with amused yet horrified expressions painted across their faces until its too late.

For the second time within the span of thirty minutes everybody freezes, staring in horror at the two women.

Skye Everheart did not go running out the door screaming to her husband to get ahold of her son nor did she narrow her eyes in anger and demand them to clean this up this second. No, Skye did not work that way. Instead she picked up a glass of apple juice and tossed the glasses contents at her son, which in the process of thoroughly soaking her son also drenched the two people next to him.

Thus, Skye Everheart and Emilee Uzumaki joined the food war.

O

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It was not until later that afternoon that both the dining hall and its occupants were clean. Riku's father had been furious when walking in the dining hall to find his son as well as all the other future rulers (And current rulers!) throwing food about the room. He had apparently decided that this mess was ALL Riku's fault for he was flat out howling at his son.

I winced at the use of profanity being used and mother squeezed my shoulder, seemingly telling me not to get involved. But when the lord of the castle raised his hand and delivered a painful sounding slap across the silver haired boys face and turned to leave I frowned and ran after him.

"Hey! HEY!"

When the lord turned, his yellow eyes glittering in malice I clenched my jaw and did the worst thing that I could have done in our current situation. I spoke back against our worst enemy.

"It's not his fault Lord Ansem, Riku didn't start the fight. I did."

I heard an intake of breath from somewhere behind me before I continued.

"Riku didn't throw the first bowl, I did. Me. So he deserves none of your abuse, Sir." I said, frowning, somehow making the word "Sir" seem like a curse.

He scowled at me before approaching slowly, silver hair swishing against his waist as he leaned very close to me so that his nose was merely centimeters away from my own.

I stifled a shudder at the amount of pure malice in those yellow eyes and felt a shiver brush past my spine as his breath ghosted past my cheek.

"I'll have you know that this is my castle that I am so generously allowing you to roam free in, and I will not have a guest of my own house back talk me and question my discipline motives. Now, you little Brat prince(1), I will assume that this will never happen again.

I sneered at him.

"Only if you do nothing I object to." I responded, my lips curling into a scowl.

He glared at me for a moment before straightening and leaving the hall.

I felt a gentle hand close around my wrist and turned to find Riku inspecting my hand with interest. A light blush painted his cheeks and he looked extremely flustered.

"I'll have you know that that was not the best idea," he whispered raising rather shy green eyes to meet mine.

Before I could speak though, he continued, in what almost seemed a cautious voice.

"My father is not the best person to anger unless you have a death wish. You may think that all people have a certain amount of good in them, but I'll tell you now that my father is not one of those people."

Everything about Riku was different just then. His usual mischievous perversion had all but vanished and a look of concern and fear was painted across his features. I frowned up at him before glancing at his wrist.

Though after our little escapade in the snow I'd been a little occupied I had not forgotten about what had started our little excursion. I had inspected his hand thoroughly before pulling him to mother and asking her to look at it. He had been hell to drag to her, saying that he was fine and that nothing was wrong.

My mother had looked at his hand before 'tsk'ing quietly and applying salve to the bruising appendage. She had said that it was not serious, that it was bruised badly and the muscles had been pulled, that it would be sore for several days and had told him to apply salve to the bruised skin for several days until it felt better. Then she had handed him the salve and promptly shooed us out of her and fathers bedroom.

Even now you could see the hand shaped bruise coloring it and I tore my gaze away from it and glared up at him.

Mother and the others took my glare as a que to leave apparently for they all seemed to find excuses to leave at once.

"He hurt you didn't he?" I hissed, glaring in the direction that the man had gone in. I looked back at Riku to find him looking at me oddly, his green eyes hazy, as if he was in deep thought and lost to the rest of the world. Which he probably was. Shaking my head at him, I turned and left the room following after my mother and father.

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Riku

It had been nearly two days since I had last spoken to Sora and the Reunion was drawing to a close. Kairi truly was a nice girl, I decided as I leaned into her comforting hand that was running through my hair. My body was wracked with sobs, shaking so hard that I felt like my teeth were rattling.

I didn't really know why I was crying. I just happened to be crying. One minute we were talking civilly about her home kingdom and the next I was balling my eyes out. Maybe I was born a girl and someone gave me a sex change without telling me… and today I'm on my menstrual cycle. Yeah, that could be it…

So now, I'm clinging to Kairi in a desperate hug and sobbing like my life depended on how many tears I shed. Nice Riku, real manly there.

It feels nice to have her run her hands through my hair the way she is, and the way her perfume smells. Its like having a mother to cling to, the mother that laughs at the chocolate coated fingers of a toddler or the mother that kisses her child's wound to make it all better or even the mother that consoles her child after a fight with a beloved friend.

But Kairi's no mother.

And with one final sniff I draw away from the blind girl's embrace and regard her with a fond expression that she herself cannot see. And she smiles up at me with her petite doll-like lips and laughs. I find myself laughing as well and then she's laughing and pulling me in one direction or another and is saying something, but I can't hear her words because I'm laughing so hard at the irony of the world.

O

I honestly don't know how I was dragged into this, I really don't. I don't even know how Kairi, Yuffie, and Sora found out about this place. It was probably Leon. That bastard, telling people about my love for ice-skating.

I roll my eyes as Sora stares wide-eyed at the frozen water and pokes it as if its going to jump up and bite him. He looks at his finger and stares at it for a moment before Kairi falls a short distance away and slides the rest of the way over to us. She giggles before getting to her feet and groping for Sora's hands. When she finds them she pulls him onto the surface of the frozen lake and attempts to get him to skate.

They end up in a laughing tangle of arms and legs.

Yuffie is by my side smirking down at them and when we look at each other we both raise our eyebrows simultaneously and burst out laughing.

Sora playfully glares at us and helps Kairi to her feet before falling over again. I chuckle for a moment before gliding over to him and pulling him to his feet again. Taking his hand I begin skating backwards smiling at the trembling of his cloth covered legs. When I pick up speed and he's being dragged along behind me, actually sliding across the ice without falling he laughs.

We make a snow man too. All four of us help make him. He's a funny thing. All lop sided and idiotic looking, but its nice because, despite how stupid looking he is you can tell who made him.

Yup. He's a transvestite snowman. He has boobs. Its amusing really.

The sledding is fun too. Especially when Sora screams as our sled tips over and we slide the rest of the way down the hill on our backs.

But I can't help but fear what's to come. Because I know something is going to, something bad.

And something bad does happen, I just didn't know that it would be this horrible.

1) Brat Prince. Some may make the connection with the Vampire Lestat. I derived the word Brat Prince from Anne Rice.

A/N: I would include a preview. I really would. But I enjoy watching you all squirm. Because cliffhangers are so fun to play with. Sorry for the length and the long wait. Seriously I am, I'll attempt to make next chapter longer, and get it out faster than this one. But since the plot picks up the pace next chapter I shouldn't get this severe of writers block on this that much. Though I'm probably gonna be working on my other KH fic, "Corruption of Angels" a lot more than this one. Just because Corruption deals with the whole light and dark, angels and demons, heaven and hell thing. And those sort of things pique my interest so, if you want to, you should go read Corruption and review it. Hint Hint. Anyway, review, complain, bitch, moan, whatever you want, just drop a review. Cause seriously, if you mention ideas it makes me write faster. It really does!

A/N2: Ya. See all that up there? That has been written, edited and ready to post for more than two months. Now before killing me for the unnecessary wait, which I'm sure is what you're about to do take my petty excuses into consideration. Because that's all they are. Excuses. I wanted to wait to post this until I was completely finished with Chapter 4 and had the plot worked out a bit. However… I never did either of those two things. I have had severe writer's block on both this story and Corruption lately.

Yes. The one-shots are shoving the main things out of the way to get they're fair share of glory. And they weep because the do not get as much attention as these. So I take pity on them and write them. And I find I quite like them. Anyway, if any of you are fans of Yuffie/Kairi (Kinda hoping you are because that is a pairing in THIS fic) I posted a Yuffie/Kairi thing. I like it and actually want to continue it but sadly enough. I have one review. Please read this story and then review it and tell me whether or not its bad or people just don't like this pairing. Please and thank you, and good day.