The Nonessential Princess

When they were still children, young and unburdened, before the darkness and the losses and the heartbreak, they used to play together every day. There was one game they played all the time, almost religiously. It wasn't a particularly fun game, Kairi recalls, but they played it just the same.

There had to be a princess. The princess was essential. Heck, she didn't do much – sat around in captivity, screamed once in a while – but she was important.

At least, that's what the boys said.

Kairi always ended up the princess, because she was the only girl. She would lay on her stomach on the trunk of the paopu tree, held captive by some evil sorcerer or knight or wizard. It didn't matter what he was, but he was always evil. Sometimes she got tired of being the princess, and once suggested a substitute – "How about we let Selphie be the princess this time, and you guys let me be the hero?" ­– but that idea was quickly crushed when the boys protested that Selphie talked too much to be the princess. So, Kairi was always stuck on the tree.

However, it wasn't the princess that was the sought-after part. The main arguments were over who got to be the hero. The debate always raged between Riku and Sora, because both wanted to be the one to save Kairi, and both had equally convincing reasons as to why he should. (Kairi stayed out of those arguments. She didn't want to have to pick sides.)

It usually came down to whining. Sora was an expert at whining. Since Riku was too cool to do something that undignified, Sora usually got what he wanted. Riku tended to end up the evil whatever-they-had-decided-was-the-villain-that-day. It was sad, now that Kairi stopped to think about it, and really unfair to poor Riku. Maybe that's why one game was more prominent in her memory than the rest.

Sora and Riku had decided that this time Kairi wouldn't be a captive princess. She would just be a princess, while they were both heroes, competing for her hand in marriage in a series of challenges set up by her father, the king, who thought that his precious daughter was too wonderful to be married to just any lowly man. In her opinion, it was one of the best games they ever played, and she'd enjoyed sitting around being fought over because she was too good for any old guy. Maybe it would have been even more fun if she'd actually gotten up and started sparring with them, but it's no use crying over spilled milk.

But now, here she is, the princess stuck in the paopu tree, while the heroes are off fighting. Whether they're fighting each other over her, she isn't sure, and at the moment, she really doesn't care, but she knows they're off dueling with the bad guys while she sits around, and she knows she's bored. She's sick and tired of being the princess.

So she looks defiantly at the red-haired man in the black coat, then at the dark portal in the sand, and decides that for once, she won't be the princess. Who cares about the princess? She's so dull, and useless, and she's a pushover, to be honest. Kairi's not going to sit around and be a dull pushover.

She's going to be a hero, too.