She stared at the boy dozing happily in the chair, completely oblivious to the doctor trying to patch up his various wounds. There was a light smile on his lips, and he was mumbling barely audible gibberish in his sleep. Every now and again he would wince and stir from the prodding to his injuries, but his pleasant dreams eventually took over and he would hum back into slumber with a contented sigh.

Kairielis couldn't keep her eyes off of him. And no, it wasn't because the doctors had removed his shirt. Absolutely not.

But it had also occurred to her that she had never really watched anyone else sleep before. It was a little funny; sleep was such a common ordinary thing but she ogling it on display like something mythical. And while she had been given the clear to go back to sleep herself, now that the danger had passed, she was far too anxious to even entertain the idea.

Her eyes once more traced their way across the boy in the chair, lingering a little longer in the places normally covered by his tunic, and she tried to suppress the ever growing pounding of her heart. What was this feeling? Surely now that everyone was safe she should be able to calm down? It filled her with such heat and chills at the same time. It was like her whole body was pulsing, pulling her towards him with magnetic force. She dug her toes into the carpet to try and keep herself grounded.

Sora sighed happily again and she began chewing on her lower lip, eagerly watching, floating over even more intense waves of whatever that feeling was.

"He's been through worse, I wouldn't worry."

She nearly jumped at Riku's voice, and immediately began to fidget with the blanket on her lap, picking at a patch of loose fibers from when Doc Berlioz had gotten his claws in it. Gods, he had seen her staring, hadn't he?

"I...I see..." He had caught her and she knew it. "I just feel so guilty. Everyone fought with such conviction to save me, and I couldn't really help at all."

While true, it wasn't the whole truth. She hoped he couldn't see through her.

The truth was, she was completely and utterly under the spell of a boy so carefree he could nap less than an hour after trying to battle a sorceress. A boy she wanted to cuddle so close she could erase all of his pain away completely. The brightest, most determined boy she had ever met.

"You shouldn't feel that way." Riku's judging expression never changed. "With all due respect, of course."

Was it really just a statement, or was he giving her masked advice, too?

She wilted a little under his gaze. "I know it's supposed to be wrong for me to care..."

"We have always been determined to keep your light burning strong. It's our duty to do so, and nothing should come between that." Riku paused, his eyes finally softening slightly. "But...for what it's worth? I'm glad he's safe, too."

Words of that nature certainly were worth a lot, she knew that much.

Kairielis cast a hesitant glance over at the doctor, but she was concentrating dutifully on her work and wasn't paying much attention to the conversation. At least as far as Kairielis could tell.

Everything was going to be okay now. Breathe. She shifted in the chair, trying to snuggle down and get comfortable; a hopeless maneuver. The seats in the medical room weren't exactly made for lounging. But she had so steadfastly refused to head back to her room and leave Sora alone that she felt determined to stick it out no matter how stiff the chair was.

Riku, as observant as ever, gently lobbed another pillow in her direction. "Will this help?"

She caught it gratefully, but shook her head. "Probably not. Even if I had a thousand pillows I couldn't fall asleep right now..."

"Understandable. I feel the same way." Riku folded his arms over his chest and leaned up against the wall, looking just as uneasily unsettled.

Kairielis followed his lead, leaning into the stiff wooden back of the chair, tilting her head upwards as the thoughts rattled inside like bees in a nest. The patterns in the ceiling offered no answers, and very little comfort.

"Her name was Maleficent...and she seemed to know everyone. Me, my mother, grandmother...both you and Sora, too..." The question burned on her lips, but Riku knew what she wanted to ask without her having to do so.

"I'm fairly certain I would recall meeting a character like her before. She doesn't exactly fade into the background. I'm certain you would remember someone like her as well."

Exactly. That's what was so strange.

"You have no idea at all who she might be?"

The knight shrugged, tapping his fingers on the side of his arm. "All I know is what she told us. Her name is Maleficent, she's a sorceress, has some ability to manipulate shadows and likes the shape of ravens in particular, judging by those goons of hers."

Kairielis had heard about the strange army that had stormed the courtyard. Each one of the attackers had apparently resembled a stout winged demon mixed with a crow. They seemed unable to speak, only muttering spluttering squawks as they bumbled about, more acting as a distraction than anything else.

She was also glad to know, at least, that despite that woman's bragging, none of the knights who had come into contact with the witch herself had any lasting injuries. All the big talk about cutting through swaths of them had just been an attempt to either scare Sora off or bait him into a fight. Instead, most of them had been running about trying to figure out why an army of absurd creatures had decided to appear, and why their swords passed through them like shadows. As they soon discovered, it was because they were shadows. It made sense, then, why Riku had been so delayed in reaching them if he had to deal with that mess first.

"It actually ended up being convenient she spawned those things on us. It made figuring out her weakness to light that much easier. Lots of fodder to test on. Luckily that bird of hers operated the same way."

"...Luckily?"

Riku smirked, ever so lightly. "It was actually just a guess at the time. I had no idea the light would actually dissipate that thing so easily."

Wait...did that mean Riku had really been putting on an act during that dramatic entrance of his? He didn't actually know shining light on the raven would work!? Kairielis tried not to let her jaw hang open. He had sounded so confident, though…

She screwed her face up at him in slight frustration. "And just moments ago you were chastising Sora over there for being too reckless! A little hypocritical, don't you think?"

Despite any excuses he might give to the contrary, she decided he was actually quite rash himself when it came to his friend. Surely the moment he saw Sora lying there hurt he stormed in to help, plan or no plan.

For some reason he seemed to find her complaint idly amusing. "I can't say you're wrong. But I was acting on the best information I had, and bluffing is half the game sometimes."

Ugh, he was so infuriatingly right all the time. Yet any energy she had towards a witty retort had long been siphoned out of her.

His plan did work, so she couldn't really complain too much about it. Besides, the more important thing to worry about were those ominous warnings thrown at her, lingering like the smell of rotting compost.

"Unless you free your trapped memories, and return what you have stolen, there is no hope for you and your kingdom will fall."

Stolen? What was stolen? When? And who could it even have been stolen from? And the darkness that she warned was coming...could it also slip through the light barrier? Was her ritual even working?

"Riku...how did she get past the barrier? Do you think it was because I didn't-"

"No."

She was startled by his hard answer, and clutched the pillow he had tossed her. "If it wasn't me, then how?"

"Rumors that I've been hearing say it might be because of the drought. Your blessing can only cover where there is water in the earth. Some places have gotten quite dry, and the barrier might be weakened."

"That's horrible!" She yelled so loudly that Sora stirred with a moan. Clamping her hands over her mouth she waited, frozen, until he settled back down. It was difficult to keep her trembling voice low. "T-then if the water runs out..."

Riku didn't answer. He didn't have to.

Thinking about this wasn't going to help her insomnia one bit. She groaned and buried her head in her lap.

"It's only a rumor. In my opinion I think even just a drop of your light is strong enough, and we aren't at that dire of crisis yet."

If every last drop of water was gone, they certainly would have more than darkness to worry about. She tipped her morose face to the side so she could speak without having her words get caught up in the fluff of the blanket.

"Then, in your opinion, how did she get in?"

"Maybe she always was in. She wouldn't have to come through the barrier if she was already inside."

"Don't say things like that!" That was almost even more scary.

He didn't respond again, but in her mind she could almost hear him retorting with a sharp yet simple 'well, you asked.'

"Riku...can I ask you for a favor?"

"What is it?"

"I want to think about something else. Can you tell me a story? About anything. Even if its all made up. Just nothing about witches, darkness, or of knights and royalty."

He hesitated, more like he was struggling to think of what to say, rather than trying to phrase a refusal. "I'm...not the best storyteller."

As if that mattered right now. She sat up and widened her eyes and let them beseech him again a second time for her, wordlessly. He didn't seem any more motivated, or appreciative of this and she pursed her lips. Sora would have fallen for that look for sure.

"No need to pout."

Her doe-eyed begging face crumbled and she haughtily cleared her throat in an attempt to save face. "You agreed to do me a favor. If either of us is pouting about it, it's you."

He tutted slightly and shifted against the stone wall. "Glad to see tonight's ordeal hasn't dampened your spirits. But if the princess recalls, I never actually agreed to anything."

Ugh, dang him and his snark again.

"Watch yourself, mister."

He shrugged lazily, trying to seem like he didn't care. But she could see him smiling. "I'll do my best. Maybe if it's boring enough it'll put you to sleep."

Was that meant to be some sort of challenge? "We'll see. But you'd better put effort into it! I'll know if you don't."

"Once upon a time there was a knight-"

The princess immediately cut him off with a hiss. "I said no knights!"

"Fine, give me a moment to think."

He cleared his throat and began again.

"Once upon a time there was a shoemaker, who prided himself on his tidy, even stitches. He claimed to be able to patch any leaking boot, re-lace any worn sandal, and breathe life into the oldest leather.

But the shoemaker had a deep shame. No matter how many patches he tried to stitch on, no matter how much sweat and tears he devoted to it, there was one thing in his life he had yet to fix: his conceited son. The shoemaker wanted him to become a good man some day, but work was far too demanding and the time he could spend with him far too short. His son was still young, but was prone to jealous outbursts and as the years went on was growing all the more narcissistic. It didn't help that his mother coddled him so. The boy valued family, but for all the wrong reasons. He wore his father's work proudly on his feet, willingly treading on the backs of those he considered inferior.

'My father made all those people wonderful shoes to keep out the muck and the rain, so they owe us!' he would haughtily exclaim, never once understanding any lessons of humility the shoemaker tried to instill in him. To his son, the value of family was in its pedigree, and reputation. The value of birthright was what set them apart from the rest. His son would also regularly get into scraps with punks from the neighborhood whenever they would 'affront his honor', and paraded around his victories like it wasn't something shameful.

The shoemaker thought it all hopeless. And it might have been, had he not run into an unexpected treasure that changed everything...

He was on his way to deliver a pair of loafers to a very persnickety customer who demanded punctuality. Already running tight on time, he was rushing along the street when, from down in the gutters he could hear a faint mewing. A creature was hiding, shivering just inside the darkness of the sewer. A creature that maybe at one point in its life would have resembled a kitten more than the matted ball of half dried mud did now. It looked up at him with hungry eyes, and the shoemaker was torn. But despite his rush, the goodness of his heart refused to let him pass the stray animal by without trying to help. Digging into his satchel pocket, he fished out his lunch and offered a bite of it over. The kitten lapped it up eagerly, waiting for a second helping.

Once the young cat had eaten its fill, the shoemaker reached into the tight gap and tried to scoop the animal up into his arms, but it fled further into the darkness out of reach.

It was at that moment he made a very smart decision, that not many would have chosen.

He set his precious delivery to the side, and shimmied himself into the small gap after the lost kitten. There was no light in that place, so all he could do was strain his ears to try and make out the faint patter of the kitten's paws to know which direction to walk. He scraped along the narrow path, trying to ignore the stench and dampness he could feel leaking into his clothes.

When the path finally widened into a chamber of sorts, it was thankfully lit by a few rays of sun streaming down from some cracks above. The kitten sat down here, mewing again, pawing through the bars of a twisted metal cage at a small trinket lying forgotten on the cold floor inside. It looked like something one might see discarded in the alchemists' workshop. There they had been fiddling with new technology, designing these odd circular metal rings that would catch one another as they spun, moving other smaller parts alongside them in an even rhythm. Their goal was to one day make it spin with just the right canter it could be used to know how far along the sun had moved across the sky without using shadows, but the simple shoemaker wasn't quite sure anything like that was possible.

The object being tossed around by the cat looked like a rudimentary form of such an alchemist's device. It was rusted over, and many of the metal disks looked like they had almost been set upon by the sewer rats, gnawed around the edges. It was popped open, none of the rings properly touching, and it had various glass lenses stuffed out at all sorts of angles like an afterthought, twisted and bent out of shape.

There was no doubt it was broken. The small kitten mewed a bit and pawed the device again, looking straight at him. Did the cat want him to retrieve this trinket from the cage? Was it supposed to be a thank you gift? He reached in to try and pull it between the bars, but it was just a bit too wide and was stuck tight. Being a shoemaker, however, he had a few spare needles with him, and did his best to pick the rusted lock on the door.

After considerable time and effort, the door swung open with a shrill screech, finally giving him access to the twisted metal object within. He bent down to more closely examine it, but once his scrutiny was over and he looked up, he realized the cat had now disappeared. Perhaps it had been a messenger from the Gods, guiding him to this...device. And he didn't want to doubt the Gods, but he couldn't yet see why he had been gifted something so broken and pointless.

The shoemaker stuffed the object into his pocket and returned to the surface to finally deliver his tardy parcel. For weeks after, he studied the strange trinket but had yet to understand what to do with it. It was such a lonely, sad thing. Unwanted by whoever had made it. Who knew how long ago it had been discarded? It had sat alone in that sewer being munched upon by disease-ridden vermin, its only friends the stray cats that may have wandered inside.

For no real reason, he gave it a home in a spare corner of his house. It hung from the rafters near the window on a spare string, the sunlight passing through its various lenses to reflect rainbows across the walls. If the window was open, it also shifted in the light breeze, its rings clanging against each other to make an unusual yet hauntingly beautiful hum.

The shoemaker's son was entirely unimpressed by it, upset that his father had brought such low class junk into the house. And that the family had been severely reprimanded for the tardy delivery that had resulted in him straying off to retrieve it.

'How was this broken, useless thing worth our family reputation!?' His son complained. Every day he threw fits, and tried his best to shatter the strange little curiosity even further, but it still hung around in the corner, brightly reflecting every known hue throughout their home.

For a moment, the shoemaker considered getting rid of it, not sure if it was worth the trouble. But it seemed far too innocent to punish, and so it remained in their home. His wife was particularly taken by it, bringing out even more jealousy from his son. 'It may be broken, but such lovely songs it sings,' she would say 'when the breeze moves it just so!'

One day it disappeared, and his son came home later than usual, splattered with both guilt and mud in equal measure. But nothing was said between them. As the days passed, there was still no sign of the lovely trinket, and the shoemaker decided perhaps it had been lost for good. He was glad, at least, that his son seemed to be bearing far fewer bruises than before, picking fewer fights on the street almost like he was avoiding trouble altogether. But while his son seemed initially joyful at the sudden silence in the house, within a day or two he was now bearing heavy melancholy.

After the guilt ate him up enough, his son confessed.

'I dragged the trinket out to the woods. The scariest one, filled with the long crooked trees with branches like claws. But it never lost its shine, no matter how long we wandered into the darkest places. I hung it up on a high tree, pretending it was all a game. Saying I would come back for it, even though I knew the whole time I was going to leave it behind. It was like it knew, but it waited there all the same. Before I could flee, I ran into the Lorrel Street gang. They all wanted a piece of me, so I pointed to the charm as a distraction and fled.'

The son also confessed he had thought it was a great way to be rid of the thing and was quite proud of himself at the time, but now regretted everything. And no matter how hard he had scoured the forest since, it was gone.

'Before I realized it, I must have gotten accustomed to its comforting song every morning, and the lights that once brightened the walls of our home are now missing. Our home has never felt so empty.'

The shoemaker morosely agreed, and his son bore the punishment for his selfish act well. But it didn't change the reality that they all missed the silly broken trinket that had added a little color to their lives. Then, one afternoon, his son disappeared again and could not be found anywhere. The shoemakers wife, distraught, called several neighbors to help them search but he had disappeared like smoke on the wind.

He came hobbling back in the dead of night, beaten and bruised, but holding the long lost chime up high. The shoemaker never knew how hard the son had fought to reclaim it from those punks that had tried to keep it as their own. He never knew how the chime had simply glowed when it saw the son coming back to reclaim it from its forced servitude, its jingling notes almost calling out to him in gratitude.

Yet that was when the son understood all those lessons his father had been trying to tell him. It was considered by most at first to be a useless, broken thing with no point to its existence, abandoned for a reason. But that only just made it all the more preciously unique.

'It's part of our family, this silly thing. It doesn't matter where it came from, or what it can or can't do. Because family isn't about what we can do, or how rich and mighty we are—its about what connects us together, it's about helping each other. That's why you make such wonderful shoes for everyone, isn't it? Not so that they owe you, but because we are all a family and need to help each other.'

Somehow a broken, discarded object that most would consider trash had granted the shoemakers' most fervent wish. It had taught his son the real meaning of family.

Some time after, an old friend, a woman who had been widowed far before her time, came to visit. She saw the object happily dangling from the rafters, heard its beautiful song, and smiled for the first time in years. With tears in her eyes, she begged to be allowed to come visit more, just to hear the lovely chimes in the wind. It's sound, reminded her of the songs her husband had once sung, it's shimmering color the same hue as her lovers' eyes. It was then that the shoemaker understood. He gifted her the object straightaway. And when it seemed to happily twinkle in her hands, he knew he had made the right choice.

For even though it had been something with no clear purpose, that had appeared to have been broken beyond repair, it somehow was able to catch the rays of light just so. And no matter who saw it was able to see the hidden joy.

The shoemaker hoped that anyone who came across that curious little thing in the future would learn to find joy and love in turn. His son continued to visit the chimes in its new home nearly every day, never forgetting the lessons he had learned.

The shoemaker hoped his son would now grow into a good man. He still got into fights time and time again, but not everyone is perfect, after all."

Riku checked on the sleeping beauty of a princess, snuggled comfortably down in her chair, her breath heavy and even. There also appeared to be a certain grumpy cat curled up on her lap dozing with her.

"I told you my story would be boring."

He wasn't quite sure when she had drifted off, but was glad at least she would be able to get a bit of rest before dawn. And while he was sure there were still many fears plaguing her mind, she seemed at least a bit at peace now.

Sora gave another mumbling laugh and shifted a bit, still in his own dreamland. The only part of his gibberish that was intelligible was a brief sigh of the name of a certain girl resting just across from him. The doctor had long since left, leaving the three of them alone in that quiet hour just before the sky lightened with the first rays of sun. And in that silence, Riku gave his friend the hardest flick in the forehead he could muster without waking him.

"All my warnings didn't amount to a thing, did they? You little troublemaker. Consider yourself lucky that tonight and tonight only, I'm sparing you that cold splash of lake water I promised."

Casting a sympathetic look back at the princess, Riku couldn't help but feel sorrow over the whole twisted situation.

"...Throughout the whole kingdom, no matter who came across that curious little trinket was able to find happiness. While normally light seems white, neutral or pale, that treasure could always find a way to display all the color and joy that was hidden just beyond our sight. And when it was free in the wind, carelessly spinning about, those chimes could echo the very sound of cheer from the highest peak."

Riku gave his friend's forehead another flick, more gently this time, then took a spot on the floor with his back to the wall, trying to get comfortable, his eyes gazing out the window at the stars which were slowly but surely fading with the night. He wondered for a moment if his life really would have ended up the same if his father had been a shoemaker instead of a castle knight.

Probably. Some destinies were impossible to run away from.

He chanced a glance back at the slumbering girl, and let his story continue to be mumbled aimlessly into the night. Neither of them could hear it, and maybe that was for the best.

"...Even the princess wasn't immune to charm of that odd little trinket. But no one could really blame her. Like the others, from the moment she met him...she fell in love. There was simply no way to stop it."

He closed his eyes and breathed in the still air.

"No way at all."

It really was uncanny. How had she never thought of it before?

Maybe because she hadn't had that dream in years. And dreams themselves are floaty things unable to be captured. Remembering them was like trying to scoop up fog with a bug net. She could still feel faint remnants of her dream drifting like dust around in the back of her mind, and she struggled to gather it up in her hands.

It was a dream about the so-called Rat Children. A horrendous term that she preferred not to use herself. Long before her father had started the program to round them up in actual orphanages, children without parents would often wander the streets alone, and, inevitably form small groups to keep each other safe from danger. Like small, improvised families they often lived in the winding underground tunnels of the gutters and sewers, darting up above ground for food and other resources now and again. Shopkeepers would see them and exclaim in horror that the 'rats have returned!', and would chase them away from the food stalls with whatever was on hand. It was too cruel. But no one knew what to do with them. Some kind souls would leave them little care packages here and there, in hopes that they would be found before the contents rotted or spoiled under the sun.

She had seen these poor children in her sleep now and again, the same dream repeating over and over, but their faces were blurry and dark. But for some reason, this time, one of the little orphans in her dream had very, very distinctive blue eyes. Something that she had either never noticed before in all the past iterations of it, or her brain had just decided to suddenly insert them there for no real reason.

The events always played out the same. A small band of orphans, running pell-mell through the damp sewers, not caring about the slime and gunk as they tripped and staggered towards their goal. She was among them. She couldn't see her body, but somehow knew she was also a child. She was one of them. There was the distinct feeling that something or someone was chasing them, but no matter how many times she glanced over her shoulder she could see nothing. One of the small girls next to her tripped, and she stopped to help her up. The dirtied young girl with a blurry face and grimy fingers clasped her own clean hand tightly, leaving smudges along the back.

And the girl called her sister. They continued to run together, fear gripping them all, their little feet pattering through the damp pathways. They ran through narrow passages, over slimy bridges over darkened chasms of gushing water until they reached a grate, within which was set a small barred door. One of the children, with trembling hands, unlocked it with a very rusty key that threatened to crumble into nothing but dust. One at a time the children slipped through the tiny door, save for one. The one with the bright blue eyes.

He said he had a plan. He knew how to save them. From what? She had no idea.

It was here the dream began to fall apart. She could hear words but couldn't understand them. Everything became muddled until all the sound itself melted away to nothing.

She was underwater.

Sharp pain.

And then she would wake up, baffled and disturbed by what she had seen. For she had never ventured out into the streets alone at a young age, let alone gone into the sewers. She had never met any of those orphans, only heard of them when being taught social issues at her lessons. And she definitely did not have a sister, nor anyone her age who would have been allowed to hold her hand like that. It was all some fake dream world.

But Sora looked so...similar to that boy she couldn't help but feel oddly suspicious. Surely there was some reason for it.

Maybe it really was just her brain inserting him into that place because it was scary, and she wanted him there. That would make sense, especially considering what he had just done to protect her in a display of utter devotion.

A tell-tale reverberating thump from her heart rippled through her body. Warm, cold shivers traveled up her back. She couldn't look away from him, sitting across from her. It took everything she had to hold back all the words she desperately wished to declare out in the open, to confess to all the silly little fantasies she had been daydreaming of.

Sora, however, was starting to look noticeably uncomfortable at how closely she was observing him in silence, but she couldn't figure out what to say that wasn't embarrassingly incriminating. Thankfully, he broke the strange tension for her.

"...Everything okay? Something on my face?"

"Y-yes! I mean no! I mean yes and no..." She pinched herself in the leg, trying very hard not to notice Riku smirking at her. "I just had a peculiar dream. Your face is fine, I promise."

She flushed, knowing his face was definitely more than fine.

"Weird dream, huh? I've had my share of those now and again. Wanna talk about it?"

It was a temping offer, but she wasn't really sure how to even begin to explain the images in her head. But since he offered, there was a question nagging at her still.

"Sora...um...this is a bit of a strange question, but you did say you have a mom, right?"

He blinked up at her. "Uh...yeah? She runs an accessory shop with all sorts of jewelry and-"

"So you aren't an orphan?"

Even more baffled, he gave Riku a hesitant side glance. "Uh...did I miss something while I was asleep? Why are you asking about-"

Flustered at herself for even bringing up such a thing, she cut him off with a wave of her hand. "Forget it, I shouldn't be hounding you about such personal things so early in the morning..."

Or ever. She mumbled inwardly.

He shrugged it off with a laugh, like usual. "No problem!"

Sora fidgeted a little in the over sized chair, trying to refasten some of the buckles and straps on his tunic. She didn't want to admit it, but she was a little regretful he was dressed now. She felt a pang of guilt, though, every time she saw him struggling to adjust his clothing over the bandaged areas.

"I'm...glad you're doing better. Does it still hurt at all?"

He brushed his fingers slightly over his shoulder and tried his best to hide his wince. "Not...much."

That meant yes.

"Saying thank you feels like it's not quite enough, but...thank you, again..."

"I'm happy every time you thank me, and uh...well, I can tell you really mean it, but maybe you don't need to...or just one time is..." He seemed to be struggling with how to phrase his thoughts, allowing Riku to interject his own guess in the silence.

"I think what he's trying to say, is that you don't need to keep thanking him repetitively. He can tell you are sincere enough the first time."

Sora confirmed his friends' guess to be correct, and sat back in the over-sized chair as carefree and relaxed as ever, forgetting all the rules, of course, that were supposed to forbid him from doing just that.

"I see. Well, if either of you ever feel like you need more rest or need to see the doctor again please let me know, okay? Let's try to take it easy today."

He cheered lightly, much to Riku's chagrin. "I can agree with that!"

It was undeniable, the way his eyes lit up. Sora had been in her dreams. As a child in the sewer. But why? Well, it's not like it mattered so maybe she should just let it go. Inserting him into that dream must have been a manifestation of the special connection she felt forming between them. It was still unsaid, unconfirmed, but she was sure he cared about her too. She refused to believe otherwise, that he was just acting out of duty.

A knock at the door turned all their heads.

Ienzo shuffled in with a slight bow, looking rather haggard as if he had just stayed up the whole night pouring over tomes of rules and statutes.

"Your Highness, your father requests your presence in the Fawn Chamber once your ritual is complete this morning. A decision has been reached."

She was questioning just about everything about that sentence, but narrowed it down to one. "A decision? About what?"

Nothing irritated her more than when people were discussing things that involved her without, well, involving her.

Ienzo blinked heavily a few times, and after tidily clearing his throat, said something that made her blood run cold.

"In regards to your upcoming Light Bonding."

"M-my...my what."

He didn't even give her a chance to process her own thoughts.

"I know barely half a season has passed since your birthday, and you still have a few more to pass before you officially come of age, but considering the events of last night...the King made his opinions on the matter quite clear. I suggest you listen to what he has to say."

Sora, who had hastily jumped up from the chair earlier when the door swung open was now nursing a bruise he had irritated in doing so. He prodded Riku lightly in the side and tried to keep his voice low, but Kairielis could still hear him.

"What's a light bonding?"

Riku glanced over towards her, his face blanched with an emotion that she couldn't quite place. Sorrow? Concern? Resignation? Whatever it was, it seemed painful. He knew the answer, but was dreading telling Sora what it was. Finally, resignedly, he tipped his head down towards his friend and whispered something in his ear.

This time, Sora didn't even bother suppressing his voice, his shocked yelp bouncing off the walls.

"S-she's getting married!?"

Kairielis stomped her foot angrily on the carpet. The sound was not nearly as satisfying as on the stone tiles. "I most certainly am not. At least not yet, if I have anything to say about it."

If disapproving looks could kill, Sora would be in a lot of trouble. Ienzo contemplated him with contempt.

"It is only establishing a subject for the betrothal, not the actual marriage." He then turned his cold eyes towards her once more. "We will await your arrival, princess."

All her protests were immediately silenced as Ienzo gave a stiff bow and turned on his heel to leave.

"Wait! Tell my father I don't agree to this! I won't-"

The door shut behind him with an echoing clang.

From one emotional trial to the other, she just couldn't have one day without disaster. At least she knew who the antagonist was this time. Kairielis was going to march into that room, and give her father and whoever else thought this up a piece of her mind!

...Hopefully.

Her throat felt scratchy and dry again, and she tried to swallow through it. It hurt. She begged her eyes not to look across the room at those two. Especially not...

Her eyes didn't listen.

And his face was painted with just the expression she feared she would see. The same desperate sadness as a caged bird that she had seen only once before on his face. It was obvious he wanted to scream something out, but was forced to hold it back in, the words painful as they churned inside him like a storm.

She saw it plainly that no one in the room agreed with this ludicrous notion. Even Berlioz was raking his claws though the carpet testily.

She didn't want to be married, engaged or any such thing! She didn't even want to think about it! Not yet. Obviously she knew marriage was something necessary for her to do one day, but part of her always believed she would find someone on her own, when she was ready.

Someone who would make her heart turn into butterflies, who could help her smile through the dark times, fill her with hope for the future. Someone she loved.

Not someone assigned to her like she was a lamb being auctioned off to the highest bidder.

This was something she wasn't about to roll over and accept. In all her life she had never been able to stand up to her father, but this time wasn't like all the others. She wasn't alone.

And she was angry.

Woe to anyone who underestimated a stormy sea.

A/N: It is Obon now, so I will be going on a brief vacation of sorts. So the next chapter will be slightly delayed, sorry! I hope everyone stays safe, and is able to spend some quality time with their families. I'll be back soon after!

-A. Moth