Part Nine: An Unbirthday Tea
Sora got off the ship feeling a bit disoriented, a feeling multiplied by his current slow fall through a tunnel of clocks of all the strange things. Upon the arrival to this new world, Brother and the rest of the crew had unceremoniously dumped him at the entrance of the world, and one of them, not Brother, had said in a broken form of Sora's language that they would pick up the refugees by his landing spot.
The tumble was long enough for Sora to wonder how he and the refugees would ever get back up and then ponder a solution or two before he hit the tiles floor with a hard thud. He groaned as he got to his feet and hardly walked two steps from his landing spot when he found himself floating back up again.
Hey! Hey! Let me down!" Sora protested this sudden failure of gravity, and gravity rewarded him by dumping Sora, backside first, to the floor. He moved from that spot immediately and squinted at it, trying to see if anything distinguished the anti-gravity point from the rest of the floor. The translucent blades of air almost escaped detection, but when Sora focused on them, he could see the circle they formed, faint but perfectly clear. If he ever needed to leave the world, and when the others needed to leave the world, he could just use this spot.
That solved that first dilemma, but Sora had a feeling that was only the easy part. For a moment, he stood still as he plotted what he would need to do. Find the residents of this world for one, and search for Riku and Kairi. They had been near him when their world disappeared, so it made sense that they would be on a world close to the one he landed on. What would they think of this Sora, one who fought and saved people. Kairi would think it neat, while Riku would pretend to be unimpressed, but inside, he'd think it was pretty cool as well.
Sora allowed himself the indulgence of thinking about his reunion with his friends when a white rabbit, drawing a watch from its waistcoat pocket rushed by him in a panic.
"Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late!" the white rabbit said as it rushed past Sora. Out of curiosity as much as duty, Sora followed, wondering what business a white rabbit wearing a waistcoat and carrying a pocket watch could have that needed such urgent attention. Vaguely it occurred to Sora that the rabbit could lead him to the residents of this world, and as an afterthought he wondered if it were somehow related to the two talking, clothes-wearing animals that he'd met in Traverse Town.
A series of doors each smaller than the last, opened for the white rabbit and it rushed past the last threshold into whatever area lie beyond. Sora followed, although the size of the last door forced him to scrunch through on his hands and knees. The room opened up into a small, though comfortably-sized room, and the white rabbit was nowhere to be found. Sora looked around for an exit, and while he found another door leading out of the room, it puzzled him further, for the door was slightly more than a foot high.
"How'd he get so small" he idly wondered. Neither on his world nor in Traverse Town had anyone actually shrunk, and even if this world were home to white rabbits with social engagements or business meetings or whatever else someone could be late for, the laws of physics were required to stay the same. Living things didn't just shrink. That was just the way things were: Sora always beat Riku in racing, Kairi always found hi-potions in the strangest places, and living things never closed in on themselves like a telescope.
The response to his question, from the tiny door itself shattered that Sora's illusion of an orderly world. "No, you're just too big. Now if you'll excuse me..." The doorknob trailed off as it yawned and blinked its eyelids droopily.
"Wait... you mean I can get smaller?" Sora asked the doorknob while jostling it a bit. "How?"
If Sora had not been sensible enough to know otherwise, he would have sworn that the doorknob was glaring at him. "Try the bottle. On the table." It gestured behind Sora, and when he turned around to see the table that the doorknob was indicating, he almost jumped back in surprise to find that a table had popped out of the floor where Sora had known no table had been just a moment before. And sure enough, two bottles lay on the table top, each with a different colored label. That was the only thing distinguishing them, unfortunately.
He examined both of the bottles, hoping to find something on the label that would help explain which one he should drink and what it would do. The only words printed on the labels were 'Drink Me.' So Sora did. He tried the orange bottle first, taking a tiny sip and hoping that the contents weren't poisonous. They weren't, although the curious feeling of something inside him fizzing outward that followed made him wonder. Quickly the small and cozy room became awfully cramped, and soon he was scrunched up in the corner, and the previously normal-sized furniture looked like it belonged in Kairi's old doll house.
Fighting back the urge to make a corny joke to himself about growth spurts, Sora maneuvered the hand closest to the tiny table to take the blue bottle. If the orange one had made him grow, then chances were that the blue one would make him shrink. It seemed perfectly logical to Sora, even within the warped laws of this world. One sip of the blue liquid and Sora felt a fizzing inward sensation, similar but completely opposite to what he had felt before.
He stopped shrinking at his usual size, and he considered taking another sip in order to get down to the appropriate height to go through the door, when he considered that the door, being in its sleepy, irritable mood, much like he was when his mom tried to wake him for school, would probably not open for him. So, if he were to drink and go down to floor level, he needed another way out.
He examined the room for any little cracks and crevices that someone less than a foot high might be able to exploit. There were none. From under a bed in the corner, however, a draft hit his ankles, signifying a possible exit, and a push from Sora to put the bed back into the wall– another feat of weird physics that Sora didn't want to wrap his brain around trying to explain– revealed an open hole into the wall.
Satisfied that he wouldn't be trapped in this room, Sora took another swig of the blue bottle drink and promptly he shrank to no more than three-inches high, small enough to go through the little hole in the wall. He felt like a mouse, and suddenly he hoped that there wasn't anything large around waiting to prey on him. Just in case, he held his sword ready.
Sora had the chance to take maybe two steps towards his goal, when the first wave of Heartless attacked. In addition to the typical shadows that were there, three bell shaped creatures, dressed in red surrounded Sora as well, floating and bobbing in the air.
The shadows were disposed of quickly enough, but the red bells dodged his attacks, often rising above his reach. He half considered, leaving them be and continuing on, when the first of the new type of Heartless stilled and appeared to be concentrating. From the top of it's head, a small fire formed. Sora took advantage of this stillness and struck. Two meager blows and the Red Bell Heartless disappeared in a puff of dark smoke. He grinned and patted this hilt of his sword fondly.
A barrage of heat from behind reminded Sora that this battle wasn't done yet. He turned to confront the other two creatures and began the futile battle dance. Sora pushed forward with his sword while the Heartless rose and dipped and swayed from side to side. Some lucky strikes of Sora's landed on one of the Heartless, causing it to dissipate and leaving Sora with one more left.
The last fire caster disappeared from Sora's line of sight, and while Sora spun around searching for it, a rapid succession of fireballs splashed against his face. Smoke from the exploding flames blinded Sora, but still he lunged forward, determined to exterminate this last threat before it exterminated him. His actions were risky but well-rewarded when the sword caught against the underside of the bell and clumsily tore it in half.
Sora assessed his condition after the skirmish drew to the end. For all that he'd been burned, he didn't feel nearly as bad as he had expected. The spots where the fireballs had hit felt like a bad sunburn, and when he rubbed his hands on his face to clear his vision, his palms were dirtied by the soot, but he felt nothing that would indicate a severe injury or permanent deformity.
The Heartless had infiltrated the world. That made his job of navigating through this strange place a little more challenging, but it told him absolutely nothing about the amount of time he had to get himself and the hearted residents of this world onto the Gummi ship and out of danger. On one hand, Sora remembered someone remarking that Traverse Town was still holding out even after a few years of Heartless attacks, but his own world had disappeared just after the first waves of Shadows had invaded. However, he doubted that he had years to complete his current mission, so Sora wiped the rest of the soot from his face and continued on his way.
A few minor incidents later, Sora reached the goal of the hole in the wall, and to commemorate this accomplishment, he dipped into the stash of potions that Brant had given to him, and chugged one down. Feeling replenished, Sora wiped his mouth and continued into the world beyond the room.
The bizarre forest seemed familiar to Sora in its form although something about the way he saw it made it more frightening and exiting. The trees, which reached higher than the ones Sora climbed back on his islands, had trunks and branches that were entirely green, and the canopies of the trees, the parts that were supposed to be green, were in every bright color other than green. Upon puzzling over the matter a bit further, Sora realized that the trees here looked like flowers and he suddenly remembered that he was only about three-inches tall, and therefore the flowers actually looked like trees from his perspective.
Had he been back on any world other than this one, and the had threat of destruction and Heartless not loomed over him, Sora would have spent some time playing in these surroundings, despite being sixteen and too old for children's games. Instead, he spent a quiet moment appreciating the giant flowers and promised himself that he'd climb around the first legitimate chance he got.
For the moment, Sora decided to walk around some more. He had a mission, and he kept reminding himself of that every time the temptation to climb a mushroom or flower struck. When the flower forest closed in on him, Sora finally gave in and hopped from mushroom, to mushroom and then on top of a lotus leaf. From there, he jumped to the a stalk of a tall flower and shimmied up another foot. Just below the ball-shaped cluster of blossoms blowing a cloying sweet scent in his face, Sora clung to the stem with one hand and used the other one to shade his eyes and take a look around.
Three paths wound their way through the garden, although Sora couldn't see their exits. At least one of them would lead to people, of that Sora was sure. "Which one should I take?" He idly wondered out loud.
"Depends on where you want to go." A slightly mad voice answered him.
Sora swung around on the stem looking for the source of the voice. The flower dipped and bobbed, until Sora was clinging to dear life to the gently bending stem. Right below him, a toothy, crescent-moon grin jeered in the shadows. When the rest of the face faded into sight, Sora was a bit puzzled although not at all surprised to discover that it belonged to a purple-striped cat.
"I just need to find people. Other than that, it doesn't really matter."
The cat disappeared and reappeared right above Sora. "Then it doesn't matter which one you take." The cat faded out of Sora's line of sight, slowly this time, its body unraveling like tightly wound ribbons while its head disappeared one feature at a time, leaving that spooky grin for last.
Sora glowered a bit at the cat's evasion of his question and he slid down the stem of the flower and followed his path of leaves and mushrooms back to the forest floor. He stared around at the various paths and prepared to randomly choose one path. Before he could start walking, though, the odd feline reappeared.
"If you really want to know, the White Rabbit, he went that-a-way." It informed Sora, standing on its head and pointing his left paw towards the right.
"Okay. Thanks." Sora nodded and walked off in the direction indicated. A few steps later, he stopped. "Hey!" he called out to the looming garden around him, "What kind of cat are you anyway?"
Materializing with lazy ease, the cat appeared in front of Sora. "Why," he paused here with an arrogant ease, "I'm a Cheshire Cat of course. What other kind is there?"
How could he know? Cats were cats except when they grinned like lunatics and vanished like mirages. Sora started thinking on his feet. "There are Caterpillars, Meerkats, Catapults, Cats-o'-nine-tails, Ducats and... lots of cats really."
The Cheshire Cat strutted around Sora's legs, lazily waving its tail. When it spoke, it sounded snobby, as if Sora had just compared him to creatures of a lower class. "I am not a pillared cat, nor a paulted cat, nor a nine-tailed cat. And while some could call me a do-cat, I am certainly not just a mere cat."
The cat vanished for a final time, letting each part of him disappear slowly from the tail on up, leaving the grin for last. "One more thing," the catless grin said, "if you're thirsty, do stop by the tea party."
Left in peace, Sora went in the direction indicated by the Cheshire Cat. If the animals of this world were like this, the actual people inhabiting this world must be certifiably insane. What could he do about it? He had to save them from the Heartless, who seemed to be in the early stages of invading this world.
Continuing down the path and taking care of the stray Heartless nuisances that showed up, Sora eventually made his way to a little house with a picturesque garden. Two figures dressed in gentlemen's garb sat at a long table, pouring tea and passing around biscuits. The Cheshire cat had mentioned a tea party, and, after completing his long journey and then dealing with the laws of physics gone wild, Sora felt a little peckish.
"Hey." Sora nodded to the gentlemen, who nodded back with acknowledgment. The man with a giant purple hat that obscured his face offered Sora a seat and immediately poured him a cup of tea. The other gentleman, a black hare with a toupee set between his ears, offered a biscuit. Neither of them spoke.
"Umm... thank you." Sora said, feeling awkward as he accepted the refreshments from his silent hosts. Together they ate and drank in silent dignity. The whole setting felt uneasy, enough so that Sora almost left after his first cup of tea.
The man with the hat –Sora decided to call him Hatter– took out a card and scribbled something down with a glove-covered hand. Solemnly, he bowed and passed the note to Sora. "A very merry unbirthday to you," it said.
"Thanks." Sora mumbled, impressed at Hatter's remembering of his unbirthday. Hatter leaned forward expectantly. "Is- is it your birthday too?" Sora asked the others at the table. The black hare– whom Sora decided to simply call Hare– just stared at Sora in a spooky-blank way. The Hatter nodded frantically. "A very merry unbirthday to you then." he said to Hatter, "And you too, if it's your unbirthday. If not, then happy birthday." he added to Hare.
Even though Sora couldn't see Hatter's face, he had the sense that the little fellow was beaming as Sora 'remembered' his unbirthday. Hare just looked down, appearing sad despite the blank expression. The unbirthday greetings led into another cup of tea and another helping of biscuits, and Sora accepted. Silence reigned at the head of the table and provoked Sora's misgivings to rise to the surface. A chill breeze blew through the garden in warning, and not able to take it anymore, Sora got up from his chair in a start, spilling his mostly-full cup of tea in the process.
His fellow celebrants jumped back at that, skittering around madly and as his senses suddenly grew alert after being dulled from his bizarre surroundings. Hatter's hat flew off, revealing a black Shadow's face and antennae. Hare, too, was a Heartless, though he must have been a rabbit previously. When Sora unsheathed his sword, and prepared to preemptively defend himself from them, neither Heartless moved to attack. Quite the contrary, Hatter retrieved his hat and both ducked under the table, chattering nervously with each other.
Why weren't they fighting? Sora asked himself while debating whether he should leave them be or pursue them. After their generous tea party, Sora hesitated to off his hosts as that action was not an appropriate way to express his gratitude.
"I'm sorry!' He called to the little guys, still hiding under the table. "I thought you were- I mean, I guess that I assumed that you would steal my heart or something. I'm not going to hurt you!"
The tablecloth rustled a little, which Sora interpreted as an encouraging sign. "Thank you for the tea." he continued in a conversational tone. "It was very good."
The two friendly Heartless re-emerged looking proud of themselves at their hospitality. Hatter stepped forward and handed Sora a medicine vial of blue-green liquid; the same color as Riku's eyes, he mused. Hare followed closely behind, his gift a small bag of blue and gold pebbles and a box of unidentifiable black goo. In unison, they bowed to Sora and fled towards the house.
Thinking to rest up a bit at the empty table before moving on, Sora plopped down in the most comfortable looking chair at the table. A cake laid itself in front of him, and spitting in the face of his better instincts, he took a knife and cut into it.
The cake promptly exploded, knocking back all the chairs around the table and sending Sora tumbling into a hedge. In the back of his mind, he heard the door to the house open, but a near-army of Heartless in the foreground quickly demanded his full attention.
Several Solider Heartless made up the forefront of the assault, followed by Fire Mage Heartless in the middle ranks. At the rear, an unknown pot-bellied Heartless dressed in a purple and blue outfit that threatened to burst waddled it's way forward.
The first wave of Soldiers leaped towards Sora, who had already drawn his sword and was ready to counter their attacks with his own. Though the crowd made it difficult for Sora to fight with the range of motion he usually preferred, it also made hitting his targets much easier. He mowed down several Soldiers and even a few of the more agile Red Bells before they reciprocated with attacks of their own.
In a distant reality, Sora knew he was outnumbered and that he was getting hit several times in succession. He knew it, but he couldn't feel it. In the face of this frenzied battle, Sora had no choice but to shut out the outside world and concentrate on eliminating the Heartless.
Still, all his effort wasn't enough as another wave of Heartless pushed him back towards the hedges. The pot-bellied Heartless that he'd ignored earlier because it moved so slowly was now within both Sora's and its attacking range, and even while the smaller Heartless continued pummeling Sora and Sora continued pummeling the smaller Heartless, Pot Belly lunged forward and shoved Sora against the hedges with his big stomach. Trapped between two seemingly immovable objects, Sora couldn't maneuver his sword in such a small area, leaving him defenseless. Two big fist pounded into the sides of his head, jolting his head about and almost – Sora swore– causing his brain to rattle in his skull.
Sora grimaced at his situation: beaten up by the Heartless equivalent of a big dumb bully. What would his friends think if they could see this. They'd laugh at him, or worse, they'd feel sorry for him. He dropped his sword for a moment and pushed against the large Heartless' gut with both hands. It wouldn't budge.
A sword punctured the Pot Belly, and the very point of the tip threatened to slice into Sora before the sword's wielder withdrew it and the Pot Belly dissolved into sparkling shards that scattered through the air. Sora slumped to the ground, his eyes half closed and clouded with red and his hands reaching for his sword.
"Don't." Sora's rescuer commanded him. "Leave them to me. In that condition, you'd just get in the way."
Glad to not have to fight for the moment, Sora nodded and let his head droop down. He didn't exactly see the sparks of power emanating from his rescuer, as much as he saw flashes of light against his eyelids and felt bolts of lightning making the hair on his arms stand up almost as much as the spiky hair on his head. A battle cry rang out, startling Sora enough for him to open his eyes a bit and observe the person who had saved them dashing in every direction and spearing Heartless after Heartless on his big sword. The chaos continued for almost a minute as the crowds of Heartless fell, and only when the garden was deserted of all beings except for himself and Sora, did the berserk warrior finally stop and take his breath.
"Are you okay?" the warrior asked, and in the calm after the storm, Sora had his first blurry look at the person who had rescued him. His blond hair was bigger than Sora's and his sword, which he carried with one hand now that he wasn't using it was at least as long as Sora was tall. No wonder it had almost stabbed Sora when he took out the pot-bellied creature.
Sora placed a hand on his head and looked down at the grass to steady himself. "I'm fine," he said, although his head was still felt a little light from all those punches he suffered. He blinked a bit, noticing a blur of purple on the blur of green that was the grass. When Sora's vision cleared, he realized that it was a hat. Sadness, regret, and a touch of outrage washed over him as he realized what had most likely happened.
"You killed them, didn't you?"
Authors Notes: OMG an update. Meh. No excuses or anything. I have one more part finished that I can get posted and then I don't know whether I'm continuing or whether this is going to be put on hold for Life, other projects, or FFXI. However, I seem to be getting more into writing these days, which is a good thing, and when my boyfriend comes up, oh yes, there will be much Kingdom Hearts pwnage going on.
Please note that this story was planned before CoM and all of the known information about Kingdom Hearts 2 came out, therefore this story will be inaccurate with anything past the original KH storyline. Forgive me.
Thank you all for your patience.