Thank you so much for the reviews you guys have left on the previous chapter! I am over the moon and I love you all so, so much.
Ok so basically I'm realising that this fic is WAY too plot heavy so I'll probably cut on a few scenes I had planned and jump straight to the fixing (and the very interesting SoRiku stuff we're all waiting for) in a couple of chapters or so.
I want to thank once more my lovely and extraordinary pineapple-loving beta animeXalchemist for her hard work on this chapter and for the late night wasted on helping me making sense of this hell of a plot 3 Kyo, you are the best, even though your culinary preferences are highly questionable.
Bonne lecture!
III - Silver Rings
It was exactly as he remembered it, although there was no ignoring the amount of dust that had settled on top of the furniture. It had been years, after all, and according to Leon's recap of the past restorations made by the committee, no one had set foot in this place ever since Riku had succumbed to the embrace of the darkness.
He could not shake the feeling that he felt at home in his old room, though.
And that, probably, was the most upsetting thing about it all - not the ungodly amount of foul memories that came with this place. Countless tears had been shed on his pillow, indents could still be found on the walls he had tried to bring down with his fists, he had paced countless times on that mouldy rug when he could not shake the feeling time had stopped - slow, it was too slow, everything had been too slow - half a dozen dusty books were still unfinished in a way too empty library.
He crossed his arms in an attempt to ignore it and walked towards the dirty window. The canyon could be seen facing west and as the sun was slowly setting over the mountains, its light shone over the faraway tracing of the city of Radiant Garden. He remembered looking at these old constructions and wondering what life had been like before the fall of this world — before turning his attention on something else, because nothing truly mattered back then if not the pain.
Riku closed his eyes and shut the blinds — this room was better left in the dark, forgotten in a lonely place at the back of his mind. Yes, it was for the better. There was no use in dwelling in the mistakes of his past.
Why, then, was it so difficult to leave?
He turned back and looked at the desk, at his abandoned scribbles on the blank notebooks Maleficent had bestowed him with. "Magic should be reflected upon," she had told him on that day she had come h—no, Riku thought, shaking his head in admonition — back to the castle. "Write your impressions, your ideas and understanding of it, whenever you can. You never really acquire magic — you strivefor it your entire life." He had done as she had said, and even now, his understanding of his own magic ran deeper than he could ever have thought — that was probably the reason he could handle dark magic so easily without fearing, anymore, that it could take over his being once more.
It didn't feel like he was playing with fire.
Sora, he read on the corner of a torn up page. He hesitated for a few seconds, then moved it around so as to see what else had been written on the torn up page.
Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora S ora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora Sora
Riku's eyes widened — utter horror filled his entire being as he swiped away the treacherous paper with a blast of dark fire. Blue flames consumed the page by stretching their tiny tendrils towards its edges and Riku could almost feel the imprint left by his frantic scribbling of his best friend's name on the very wood of the desk. His chest was constricting and something seemed to catch in his throat — no, was it panic? Again?
"I remember this room," he heard someone say behind his back and he quickly swallowed back the tears before turning to see Terra standing at the entrance of his old chambers.
"Were you there before?" he asked with a wavering voice, hiding his shaking hands in his pockets.
"No," Terra replied, slowly walking towards him while his eyes scanned the entirety of the dark room. "But you were."
"How— oh, I see." Terra had been that dark figure hovering over Ansem, mouth closed shut for decades and compelled to do the treacherous bidding of his master.
"I am sorry I could not—" Terra started, before averting his eyes. "That I could not be of help. Back then."
"Terra," Riku said, reaching out for his arm and squeezing it comfortingly. "I know. I've been there — I know what it's like. To watch the days go by and being unable to do anything about it."
"Still. I am sorry. You deserved better — a proper childhood."
"Oh, I had that."
"You are still so young."
"Even though it might have been short, I had my fun. Sora — Sora made sure every single day was an adventure." Riku smiled at that. Aqua had been right: the sadness didn't leave. And now— now he had a reason to believe in his return.
"You know, my friends are the only reason I am here today," Terra said, clasping Riku's hand in his and smiling at him tenderly. "Once in a while, I'd get a glimpse of them. Of Aqua. Not much, not for long. It might have happened a couple of times, I don't remember it very well. It all felt like a dream, like something whatever was left of me might have imagined. It — it felt like sleeping, most of the time. But then, Aqua's light would bring me back to my sense of self. She was my anchor. And I am glad, truly. I came back to her. To them."
"I think," Riku said, biting on his lower lip as flashes were brought back to his memory — writing down Sora's name over and over and over again as he desperately tried to hold on to the light of his memory, because he knew, he could feelhimself losing to the darkness and losing his own sense of identity. "—I think my hate is what helped me hold on to my sense of self for so long. I hated him so much, back then."
Terra snorted, and Riku looked up at him, startled. "Hate, right," Terra added, and Riku blushed furiously, before averting his eyes until his lips curled into a sheepish smile.
"Yeah."
Terra let out another laugh, then reached for Riku's hair and ruffled it affectionately. "That thing you're doing? Moving heaven and earth so as to bring your friend back to your side? I admire it. We all do. It's the right thing to do."
Riku sighed — he was nowhere near to finding him. All he had were crumbs Sora had inadvertently left behind before vanishing without a trace. "I'll find him, even if it's the last thing I have to do. I'll give up anything if it means Sora can see the light of day one more time."
Terra nodded. "I know he will."
This place might be unsettling, strange and magical and devoid of sensations, but Sora could not help but think that the whole never-getting-tired thing was a real perk of being dead.
He had been busy - after all, there was nothing left to do but trying to pass the time with projects and building and coming up with new ideas. He'd built things. A lot of them. If he could imagine it, then the place provided him with it. There were limits to it— he could not conjure thoughts, mainly. Books would come to him empty, because thoughts had to be applied to them. So Sora had tried writing a book, for a while. He'd quickly given up; he couldn't write to save his life. The place couldn't give him music, but instruments could be imagined. So Sora had tried to learn the piano. It had been a disaster.
He'd finally figured that what he was good at was creating things out of nothing — both figuratively and literally. He'd conjure materials and start working. Wood, paper, rulers, pencils and saws had become a part of his routine.
What even is this place?
Sora had mostly built awkward looking sheds. A whole bunch of them — almost enough to make a village. He lived in one of them — if living was even the correct expression to represent what being in this place was like. He'd managed to transform the void into a somewhat normal looking area. He'd conjured trees and rocks and tried to shape the ground into the landscape of his home world — and then some other worlds. He'd loved the forest surrounding the kingdom of Corona, so he'd tried to recreate it as faithfully as possible somewhere East of the centre of his little dominion. He'd grown snowy mountains in the North in which he liked to go snowboarding sometimes, although snow in this place was strange and uncooperative, and he'd been stuck in avalanches more times than he'd like to admit. He'd built a castle — then another, and some more, all of them stranger than the next, all made out of spikes and bumps and unnecessary adornments, stairs and bridges that led absolutely nowhere and were just there for the fun of it.
Sometimes, it felt like Sora had always been there — that his existence and sense of self had been delimited by this strange and timeless place, and sometimes, he almost forgot where he came from. Time messed with his head at times.
You're just avoiding the truth.
The Western part of his kingdom was filled with sea and play islands, all made out of mischievous structures in which Sora trained his parkour skills. He didn't really have to — his skills were already impeccable. There were no more bodily constraints to his physical abilities. He could do everything, now. Fly, jump, summersault and even explode.
That had not been very fun.
You're a coward.
And now - as much as nowcould be considered, here - he'd been hammering for what seemed to be an eternity. Maybe that was true rather than an exageration. His seventh shed was finally taking form — its walls stood up right and did not seem to waver too much. Sora was humming contentedly under his breath, nails sticking out of his mouth.
Stop ignoring us.
Thunder could be heard from afar, and Sora looked up towards the northern mountain to see lightning striking its peak. Behind him, shed number two quivered.
Stop ignoring me.
Sora hammered louder, hoping that the noise would cover the rumbling of the thunder and the whispers escaping the dreaded shed. It had been a mistake, that's all. Of course, as time went by - or did it? - Sora had missed his friends. Not too much — just the occasional joke Goofy had once made, or that one time Donald had screamed in fear at his own reflection, or when Kairi'd taught him how divisions were made, or even that one time he, Yuffie, Cid and Aerith had managed to break Leon's façade and he'd cracked a smile.
One at a time, they'd showed up, appearing out of thin air and smiling at him like they used to. Sora did not fall for the trap. He knewwhere he was, what he was, from now on. Or rather, what he wasn't.
Alive.
Please come back to me.
It would have been okay if they'd just smiled. But they didn't. This place could not conjure human imagination, could not give them life — therefore, Sora did. Sora's doubts and fears and doubts had begun to manifest through their voices, and it was a strange experience to have Mickey bully him over his sawing abilities and Aerith deadpanning a list of his most intimate and embarrassing flaws with her sweet, motherly voice.
Therefore, Sora had locked them in shed number two.
It had not been that difficult, really; it was enough for Sora to wish them not to be here, and all the implications that came with that idea. The thought of them being really, actually here almost brought tears to his eyes. Which it did, very often. Sora had never cried more than in the eternity he'd spent in this place. His mood was as unpredictable as the sudden avalanches that would come down the mountains. He could be beaming at his work one second and sobbing on the floor the next — but that was not important.
Sora was always careful not to dwell too much on his thoughts when the crying happened. It was dangerous, because then he'd acknowledge that —
No.
Sora please, please!
He knew the voices to be a manifestation of what he was the most ashamed of. But he couldn't allow himself to let that onethoughttake form, to even spell it out in the depths of his mind. Because the place would pick it up, and Sora just had to keep ignoring it. He had to.
Look at me.
"Go away," he groaned through clenched teeth as he forced himself to beam at his repetitive work. Hammering the nails. Getting another nail. Endless supplies of nails and wooden planks and Sora hadto remain a busy little bee.
Lookat me.
He'd been crying for years, by now. Probably. What even was time. His body started shaking against his own will and he tried to focus his distracted mind on the work at hand. bang bang bang bang did the hammer.
"WILL YOU FUCKINGLOOK AT ME?"
So Sora did, turned back on his heels, eyes blinded by a torrent of tears he'd long given up on holding in, and punched the face of the half-formed thought, sending his Riku - no, NO! -- to stagger back to the ground and Sora stood there, panting, despair flooding all understanding he'd managed to make of this dreadful, hateful place.
Riku woke up with a start, searing pain flaming through his jaw. He brought a shaking hand to his face, trying to cup and rub the pain away, all the while slowly coming back to his own, real senses.
He'd dreamed again.
His mouth tasted like ash and iron and he slowly wrapped his arm around his middle, trying to somehow calm his body from the oneiric assault and the deafening pain that had found its way back to his heart. Sora, his Sora, he'd seen him, he'd been crying and been so stubbornit had driven his dream-self crazy —
He was crying too, he realised, and brought his fingers to his cheeks to find them drenched in tears. Of course he was. The extent of Sora's nightmare was more than anything his dream-eater powers could possibly handle.
But I was there, he suddenly realised, and his heart jumped in his chest. Nausea got the better of him and he managed to reach down to the side of his bed in time to let go of whatever he'd managed to eat the night before.
He sat in his own puddle of sweat and fear for a long time, until he managed to gather his wits and get down off of his bed. He cleaned his mess up with shaky hands — his dream and the ensuing sickness had made him weak and he knew he had to get down for breakfast as soon as possible if he did not want to end up fainting in the midst of a battle.
Leon had given them a key to his and Tifa's flat, given that none of them really slept in there during the week. Riku had expected it to be a one bedroom studio in which the couple could plan for a future but the place had turned out to be a two storey, five-bedroomed duplex which allowed each and every member of their little group some form of privacy. Mickey had taken the largest room, facetiously arguing that a mouse of his stature deserved the best there was to offer. Riku had let out an incredulous chuckle at that — throughout their solemn adventures, there had been little time to engage in anything other than pragmatic and straight-forward discussions as the world seemed to come to an end. Now that the ever present sense of urgency had finally given way to a time of relative peace, he'd been discovering an entirely new side of his friend. King Mickey was carefree, silly, and mischievous. Riku liked it very much, and hadn't been able to help but laugh at the startled looks Aqua, Ventus and Terra had thrown at the King.
Riku had taken one of the smallest rooms and Ventus had picked the other; Terra and Aqua had pretended to pick the two remaining ones but no one could be fooled anymore by their awkward subterfuge at keeping their relationship discreet; Aqua's bag had joined Terra's by the bed they very obviously intended on sharing, and Ventus had exaggeratedly rolled his eyes at Riku when Terra had pretended to mistake it for his own.
Ventus was the only one awake when Riku joined the large kitchen. His eyes were set on the cereal box placed before him, munching on his empty spoon distractedly. Riku got himself a mug, pressed the button on the coffee machine and went to rest his weight on the counter, eyebrows raised at Ventus' apparent fascination for whatever advertisement was scribbled on the box.
"What's so fascinating?" he asked once his cup was full of steaming coffee, hand reaching for the sugar and pouring in a ridiculous amount of it.
"It's a game," Ventus said, looking up at him and smiling sheepishly. "A spot the differences game. Can't find the sixth."
Riku hummed, swirling his spoon and sitting next to Ventus to take a look at the two almost identical pictures of a dog attacking his own tail.
"I've got the barrel, the roof thingie, the tail, the ear, and the door. Can't find the last one."
"It's the window."
"No I've— oh right!Thanks Riku!"
"Welcome," Riku replied, his heart constricting a little at Ventus' all too familiar smile.
Although there were no similarities between the two boys, the decade spent living in Sora's heart had irremediably left its marks on the other boy's identity, and some of Ven's mannerisms were unmistakably also Sora's.
It hurt, sometimes.
"Riku, are you okay? You look— you look sick. Like, reallysick."
"Oh, yeah," Riku replied, dismissively waving his hand in the air. "Woke up a bit shaken up. I'm all right, though. Nothing breakfast can't fix."
Ventus' expression betrayed deep concern. "What happened?"
Riku averted his eyes and blinked away the treacherous emotions menacing to take control of him once more. "Another dream."
"Did you- did you see him? Sora? Was he okay?"
"No. Not really."
Riku lowered his mug and kept his eyes fixed on the beverage, as if he could somehow find answers to his questions there. "He—he seemed off. But also, the dream in itself was strange. I was self-aware this time, almost like lucid dreaming. I could talk and move, but it was as if my feet were stuck and my limbs were so heavy it was no use to try."
"Did he know you were there?"
Riku shook his head, biting his lip absentmindedly as he tried to untangle his confused memory of the dream. "No-yes, I think. I don't know? He definitely punched me in the face, though. That still hurts."
Ventus blinked at that. "He punchedyou?"
Riku nodded.
"And you could feelit?"
Riku nodded again.
"Riku, that's not— that's not how—"
He was interrupted by the arrival of the couple, both sporting a weird, yet enticing combination of lovesick radiance and morning grogginess. They were holding hands and softly giggling at each other, and Ventus groaned at that, letting out a very convincing retch-like sound.
"It's sickening," he said to Riku, rolling his eyes once more to emphasise his point. "So, as I was saying—"
"No," Riku interrupted him, unwilling to cast a shadow on the happiness of the two morning lovebirds. "Not now."
Ventus raised his eyebrow at that, surprised, before coming to an understanding of Riku's reluctance to approach the subject. The smile he gave him almost took Riku's breath away — it was too much like Sora's.
"Well hello there," Aqua said, bowl already in hand all the while snatching the cereal box from Ventus' grasp. "King Mickey isn't up yet?"
Riku shook his head. "He likes to sleep in."
Terra let out a depreciative noise. "It's always the ones you wouldn't expect." He'd dived straight towards the fruit bowl and was carefully peeling a banana.
Aqua pouted at her companion. "That's too bad — should we wake him up?"
"Why? Why is that too bad?" Ventus asked.
Aqua blushed, then looked once more at Terra, and a silent discussion took place between the two of them, made out of frowns and pouts and shrugs. Ventus was frowning, his attention switching between them both as he tried to somehow translate whatever was going on between the two.
"What," he added, voice turned low and suspicious, "is going on?"
Terra shushed him, and Ventus' cheeks turned red in indignation. Riku let out a soft laugh and got up so as to walk up the stairs, realising that whatever bomb the couple intended to drop on them required the presence of a very sleepy and cranky mouse.
He could hear them laughing at Ven's impatience from downstairs and a soft pang of envy melted his smile as he recalled another time, another entire life, where it had only been the three of them, and feelings had not yet gotten involved and two of the group would team up against the one left in solitude and the teasing and joking would last until unholy hours of the night.
And his thoughts went back to the memory of his and Kairi's argument, and his heart constricted.
Those days were long gone.
Riku waited five long minutes for Mickey to deign coming out of his room, his round eyes squished shut as daylight flooded his darkened room. All Riku had to tell him was "Aqua and Terra have something to tell us," for the king to suddenly come back to his usual joyful self. Both came down to see Ventus held in Terra's grasp, hair being skilfully ruffled by the taller one.
"The king is here," Riku said, picking up an apple and sitting on his own by the edge of the dining table, watching as Ventus finally managed to escape Terra's hold and growled curses and damnation at his two older friends.
"Can you pleasetell me now what is going on?" Ventus pleaded one last time, quite dramatically — he even punctuated his plea with a very mature stomp, crossing his arms all the while glaring at the couple who had joined each other behind the counter and were looking at the lot of them with dumb, happy smiles on their lips.
"We'd like to tell you something," Aqua said, trying very much to contain her smile but definitely unable to help it. "And we wanted you guys to be the very firsts to know."
Oh, Riku thought, his lips already curling in anticipation.
"What," Ventus said again.
Mickey had already guessed where the conversation was going and he hid his excited gasp behind his paws.
"We're engaged," Terra said, holding out his and Aqua's hands, and oh, how could Riku not have noticed it before? Both of them wore a silver band on their ring finger, and Riku's heart filled with unexpected warmth at the sight of it.
He was surprised at how selflessly happyhe was for them.
Riku couldn't help it — he ran over the couple in unison with a very emotional (and happy-sobbing) Mickey and hugged them with all the strength he could gather, not even caring that he might accidentally break a few of their ribs by doing so.
They almost fell over when Ventus joined them at full speed, and for long minutes, all they were was a big entanglement of limbs, giggling, tears, snot and sobs, until finally Aqua gave up and started gasping for air, half screaming and half laughing, and Riku and Mickey managed to get off of them. Ventus remained glued to his best friends, seemingly unable to stop his crying while Terra patted him gently on the back and Aqua murmured appeasing words in his hair.
This, Riku thought, is what I want. For all of us.
Mickey looked at him with a gleam of understanding in his eyes and slowly nodded while swiping away at a loose tear, as if confirming that time would come soon enough.
"Look, a raven," Terra said, pointing his finger at the windows behind Riku.
As he turned, dread settling in his stomach, he could feel his pocket buzzing insistently — he didn't need to check the name on the screen of the gummiphone to know who was contacting him. The bird was indeed standing on the verge of the small balcony overlooking the canyon, his yellow eyes peering into Riku's very soul.
"That's not a raven," Riku said, calmly — although he didn't feel calm. At all. "That's Diablo."
"Who?"
"Maleficent's pet."
And Aqua let out a long, frustrated sight. "Well, that's perfect timing. Really. Couldn't have hoped for a better way to conclude our announcement."
Terra laughed, caught her in a tender embrace, and pressed a soft kiss against the top of her hair. "Really? Because that's exactly what I thought it would be like."
And all Riku could do was smile apologetically at them.
Comments are of course highly appreciated, and I'd be very interested in reading whatever your guesses are as to what is coming next :p
Thank you so so much for reading, and I'll see you next time!