Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts.
Chapter Twenty-One
Before returning to the path they had been on before Sora's near-death experience, they went back to the Land of Dragons. Sora had another dream, and Kairi, remembering his last dream, knew they wouldn't find anything good. They opened up into the area the world should have been – and were met with familiar empty space where Land of the Dragons had been months before. She glanced quickly to her left where Sora sat, to find his hands clenched around the arms of his chair, palms slowly turning white from the grip he had. She turned her face away, tilting her head until a curtain of red separated her from her boys.
She had bought the lucky chain there – the brother and sister who owned the shop had been nice enough. And Shang and Mulan, and the villagers – she swallowed thickly as she realized the ship wasn't moving. "Riku, take us out of here."
The next few weeks were spent visiting their friends on every planet Sora hadn't locked up and one of them locking the world. It wasn't a permanent solution, but it bought them more time so that the Heartless had more trouble getting in – they needed someone of the dark to call them there and then were only produced by the hearts of the people on the world when they killed them. It was better – and, to their relief, they found they could still visit them after they were locked up. It was just harder for anyone else to.
She hoped the rest of the journey didn't take too long. She wanted them home and peaceful for Riku's birthday. Between the journey, the training after Sora's brush with death and locking all the worlds they knew off, they had eaten up a lot of time, and were past the halfway point between her birthday and Riku's.
Her thoughts scattered as they came up on a new world. Instead of pushing on past Alice's world, they had taken the other path from Atlantica and had come upon another world. She saw Sora brighten visibly – and then sigh and lean back. "It looked like Deep Jungle for a second."
Nodding in understand, Kairi took a closer look. It did look like a jungle – but there were some parts that obviously had humans, though in smaller amounts. The animals seemed to have more sway on this world than the humans – so which would they be this time?
"There could be Nobodies down there. Stay alert," Riku snapped, and Kairi stiffened, but he wasn't talking to her and that made her angrier than ever. The boys had been going back and forth between snapping at each other to being too soft, as if they were struggling to be normal and also sensitive to the other's moods. But locking the worlds and seeing the devastation the Heartless were causing had unsettled them all.
Sora didn't even object to Riku snapping at him, and Kairi hesitated as she climbed to her feet, waiting. She realized Riku was waiting too, his hand posed on the transporter controls, not believing that he really wasn't getting Sora's strangely frightening glare at him or the cute scowl that looked more like a pout. Sora didn't do any of those – he just stood up and went to the transporter circle to wait.
She bit her lip, watching Riku stiffen from the corner of her eye, watching his hands clench into fists. Her eyes widened in realization. He had been deliberately baiting Sora. It seemed so clear now. Whenever they were fighting Heartless it just seemed like Sora was... going on automatic. Ever since they found Land of the Dragons. He wasn't depressed; either of them would have taken him in hand for that. He was just distant. He barely even used two Keyblades in a fight unless he had to.
"Right. Let's go then," Riku muttered, hands moving towards the controls. Kairi was surprised to see her own hand pulling him away.
"Wait," she said, and found that Riku looked relieved at her interference. She turned toward Sora. "Come here."
He blinked, startled, and she smiled because he looked like his old self, more animated. But he came, and she pulled both boys close to her and each other. "What's wrong?"
If it had been Riku, a blunt statement wouldn't have worked. As it was Sora, he squirmed in place a moment, ducking his head before looking at her earnestly. "I just don't know if it's ever going to be over. And it's so stupid! We defeat Xehanort's Heartless, and then the Organization crops up. We defeat them and now this Lost Company is messing with everything. And – and every time I have a dream I can never do anything to change it. What if a new enemy pops up every time we defeat one? We'll never be able to relax!"
She was surprised – out of everything it could have been, he was worried if they would ever have time to relax. She had to smile a little - because it never occurred to him they could choose not to do it. She could see Riku with the same faint disbelieving smile. They would sometimes consider it – but Sora never saw any choice but to go forth at full throttle and save people.
It was Riku who finally answered him. "Then we won't be able to relax. We'll just keep fighting. It will be hard, and we might want to quit at times – those of us that have common sense anyway," he smirked pointedly at Sora, who bristled appropriately and scowled. "But we'll keep fighting, and it will be okay. You know it will as long as..."
She could actually see Riku swallowing his disgust at the cloying sugary sweet sentence that was coming out of his mouth. "...Because we have each other. All three of us will always be here."
But despite how much Riku looked like he wanted to gag, it did the trick with Sora, who brightened, his eyes soft. The small smile on his face, so unlike the grins and larger happy smiles, spoke of being content and loving being there, loving them. Her cursed girlish heart skipped a beat and Sora pulled them both into a hug. "Thanks guys."
"Yeah, yeah," Riku muttered, scowling despite the fact he was holding them both as tightly as they were holding him.
Kairi giggled and decided to spare her friend any more embarrassment. "So let's go see this new world."
"Sure," Sora said cheerfully, his smile turning mischievous as Riku set the controls. "We all wouldn't want to turn into saps like Riku."
Her resigned sigh was the last thing uttered on the gummi ship as Riku snarled and pounced on his boyfriend – and came down on the world trying to strangle a cat. Not a small cat either, a big cat though smaller than a lion and it took a moment to separate which species, having to remember that leopards had smaller spots than the jaguars. Jaguars more had patches than spots – rosettes. Sora was a jaguar. An oddly colored one, slightly darker than normal. And he was missing his spiky hair. She found this unfair.
While Riku and Sora stared at each other in puzzlement, she took stock of herself, surprised at what she found. She was a wolf. A very reddish wolf, but a wolf none the less. And Riku was still human. Cue confusion on her parts, annoyance and anger on Riku's, and enthusiasm on Sora's.
'He takes to being a cat very well,' Naminé offered, and Kairi stopped contemplating the puzzling differences to watch Sora dart around, his cat body swift and able to leap from branch to branch easily and without a care. She looked up at him enviously.
"I bet we can shoot him down," Riku muttered, too low for her usually to hear. But by the sly, sideways glance he knew she could hear him. She grinned and focused, not knowing how the magic would find its escape in this form. And the Light Flares formed at the tip of her muzzle. She risked a glance at Riku to see Dark Auras in his two hands. He grinned and she bared her teeth in the equivalent. Then the dark and light streaked for the brown jaguar – and he disappeared.
She yelped as something landed on her back, the weight pushing her down, and there was a soft laughing growl in her ear. "Nice try, you two. But all I had to do was fall off the branch and then jump for you."
"Your body has better reactions than ours," she accused, but he just laughed and she felt her muzzle open into something akin to a grin. Hearing him laugh was always good and there had been little of it in the past few weeks. The last time he had really laughed with his eyes that bright – it had been on Wonderland, when she had been trying to enjoy being with them, while trying not to show the guilt she felt.
'It's better this way. They don't need to know Kamxis is alive. He left and he won't come back. I think that was obvious by the fact Alcexan attacked alone. Kamxis might as well be dead.' Naminé's quite voice had been a constant reminder that she shouldn't feel guilty – but sometimes she still was.
Sora bounding off into the trees again broke her out of her reverie. "Come on, let's see where we are!"
"Sora!" She called at the same time as Riku called, "Wait!"
"He's going to get himself killed one of these days," Riku grumbled, and she echoed the very real concern beneath the gruff tone of his voice. The memories of Alcexan's claws in Sora and the blood and the potions doing nothing were too fresh. She had nightmares about it sometimes. She bet she always would.
The area was a jungle – which was nice in it's own way. It felt a little like home. Not quite the same, there was no beach for one, but some of the plants had the same feel. She wondered if Sora's body would somehow manage to have two Keyblades if he called two at the same time, and how that would work.
She wasn't even sure why she was a wolf this time – and why Riku was normal. Sora's clothes automatically changed him sometimes, or so he said. She would suspect it was the world itself and its natural magic changing them, and out of the three of them, she was the best to guess at what the world wanted. But it was either all three of them were animals, or all three were humans. And usually they had been the same animals. This wasn't making sense to her. Donald and Goofy had been different than Sora on Atlantica and when he became a lion, they were different then. So maybe being different animals wasn't important – but Riku still being a human was just... strange.
Her thoughts were lost as Sora bounced back to them, jumping down quietly from among the trees. "Come on you two, you're so slow!"
As Riku launched himself at the jaguar-boy, in an attempt to show him who was slow, and Kairi laughed before jumping into the fray. She could figure it out later.
Two days later, the novelty of her new body and the strange situation had worn off. For her at least. She loved the stamina this body had, but she would have rather been human. Sora thought the same – but he wasn't going to admit that to Riku yet. She had to admit she was almost glad Sora wasn't human, since she had walked in on her boys too many times and as nice as it was to see them like that, it was also embarrassing and with only the three of them, she doubted they would contain themselves for long. They were boys, after all. In particular, they were her boys, and neither was known for self-restraint.
She watched them, having woken up first for once, and smiled. Riku, like usual, slept in between them, and even with Sora's new body the older boy had curled into the soft furry body, while she stretched out beside him. She wondered if they had slept like that the night before – Riku curled up inside the curve of Sora's long body, and Sora naturally curling around him, tail lying against the boy's legs, head on his paws and nearly nuzzling the other boy's hair. It was adorable, and she hated to wake them, but something was moving, and it wasn't Heartless. Those had attacked them plenty in the last few days, and she knew the different.
"Sora," She called, her voice pitched low. Normally, he wouldn't have heard her – but his new body was equipped with higher senses, and blue eyes jerked open, the sleep fading from his eyes quickly, his muscles tensed and ready to leap up. She was sure the only reason he didn't was because he didn't want to wake Riku for a false alarm.
She waited, and saw him nod, hearing the distant noise as well. She carefully stood and cocked her head, trying to indicate she would check it out. He looked confused – and then shook his head, seeming to be almost angry. Then he woke Riku with a small nudge to a silver head and she sighed, waiting.
"What's going on? I don't hear anything," Riku muttered as he got up and they began to move, Sora disappearing into the trees. She stayed by Riku's side to explain.
"Our hearing is better than yours. We don't know what, exactly, is going on. Just that it's noisy." Just as she stopped speaking there was a yowl and then some snarling from two voices, one of which she recognized as Sora. As a roar of another animal sounded, they looked at each other in resignation.
She leapt forward ahead of Riku, grinning briefly as her friend cursed her. But then her focus was on running toward the noise, the ground under her feet soft from the morning rain, but warm, giving easily to her paws as she jumped over longs and under fallen trees. She caught a flash of brown and in mid pace switched direction, haunches skidding in one direction as her front legs shoved her toward Sora.
There was hissing and growling, but she didn't see a glimpse of a Keyblade, so she guessed there hadn't been fighting yet. She leapt through bushes, landing neatly next to Sora with a deep, threatening growl.
It took her a moment to understand what was going on. There was a bear, gray and larger than any bear she had seen, and a panther. Apparently, they were working together. She didn't think that was normal – but she saw a boy behind them, probably not even a teenager yet. She would guess he was between ten and twelve years of age – and he was holding a stick, as if he was going to help defend his friends.
She almost laughed at the absurdity of it all, but instead shook herself and straightened from her threatening crouch. "Sora, stop that. Are you two planning to attack us?"
"Hey, we should be asking you that. He's the one who dropped in on us," The bear said with an accusing claw pointed toward her friend. She looked at Sora, who had a familiar embarrassed expression on her face.
"I didn't think about it," Sora confessed. "I saw the the kid over there and I was curious so I..."
"Leapt in without a thought of the consequences. That never happens," Riku said with a snort as he ambled in past the bushes and trees. She wondered just who he thought he was fooling – she could see the evidence of his own dead run to them, a few scratches where plants had nicked him, and his breathing just the slightest bit faster than usual. Then again, she wondered if anyone else could even tell other than her and Sora. The strangers didn't know him like they did.
"You're a Man!" There was both a hint of fear and awe in all three voices and Kairi tilted her head, curiously eyeing the boy who seemed just as surprised as the bear and the panther.
"Well, yeah. What else would he be?" Sora scoffed and Kairi nearly giggled. She actually did when Riku glared at his boyfriend and smacked his head.
Ignoring the surprised looks the other three were giving her she quickly made up an explanation. "We're from far away. Is there no, um, man place around here?"
"There is a man-village. We're trying to take Mowgli there," the panther explained, and she noticed the boy's angry look.
"I'm not going to any man-village," Mowgli declared, and eyed all of them but especially Riku suspiciously. Riku sneered in return, obviously about to say something that would probably have all on each other's throats again. She moved to do something about it, but Sora was there already, the boy in a jaguar's body casually stretching and managing to land a back paw on their friend's foot. She met his eyes and she could see an echo of her own amusement at Riku's bitten off yelp.
"Why not?" she questioned. The information would be useful – and she was curious to find out why a young boy wasn't with his own kind. Mowgli only seemed to grow angrier, swiping at the bushes with the stick he had picked up with an extraordinary lack of grace. Absently she noted he would probably be Sora's type of fighter if he ever took up a sword.
She was surprised at the details she notice – not just the scents and sounds her new temporary body gave her, but the things she was picking up more now that she hadn't before. The last few months had been hard on them all – but they came with good results. Her eyes swung to her boys as Mowgli continued to swipe at the bushes, not saying a thing until he finally got her attention again by muttering, "I'm not telling you. I don't trust you."
"That's fine with us," Riku said, obviously ready to move on, bored with the angry preteen. She wondered, slightly amused, if he didn't see the similarities, a bit of himself in the boy. He probably didn't, but she could easily see a younger Riku stubbornly attacking bushes in a fit of pique and keeping information just for the sake of annoying the rest of them. This often happened when Sora wasn't there to spar with or she wasn't there to judge their competitions when they were younger. And now – here was another trio. But she had to admit, while she would see Riku in Mowgli, the other two were more like guardians.
It was why when Riku turned to stalk off, she was reluctant to leave. The kid was all alone in his own way – he had no one even near his age. Her eyes caught Sora's as she turned to follow Riku and he winked slowly. His cheery voice rang through the air as he said, "Yeah, that's fine with us. We wouldn't want to be bored to death after all. Just a kid's whining because he doesn't get what he wants."
She was surprised at the comment. Riku had always been the harsh one – but he did it because he could, to push buttons and get a fight going. She could see in Sora's lazy body language, in the way he looked behind him as he turned, that it was a challenge – but not for a fight. She nearly licked him for the joy of it. Sora could be clever when he wanted to.
"Whining? I'm not whining! I want to stay here, in the jungle. This is where I live, where all of my friends are – like Baloo and Bagheera! Father and Mother and all of my friends are here!" He didn't sound like he was whining – Kairi had to admit it was a good complaint. No one wanted to be away from the few friends they had ever known. Even Riku, when he had wanted to leave the island, had wanted them along.
"It's not safe for him here," the panther, apparently known as Bagheera explained. "The tiger Shere Khan is after him. You must have heard of him."
She knew her face had gone blank with incomprehension, and she could see Sora shrug his shoulders out of the corner of her eye. It looked odd on a jaguar. Riku was the one who answered, "Never heard of him."
"Huh. Wish I came from as far away as you. Where'd you come from anyway?" Baloo asked. She lowered her head, feeling a pang of regret for not thinking of her home in so long. But she did so miss Destiny Islands.
Sora shifted closer, his shoulder bumping hers, and Riku was the one who quietly explained, "Our home is gone. Destroyed completely. As far as we know, we're the only ones left."
Now they had their attention. Attention they hadn't really needed. Kairi almost wished they had left – but something was telling her this was important. It was like the tingle of energy she now had when she called Radiant Spirit. There was just something that told her not to leave them. She wasn't surprised to hear the boy ask, both curious and grudgingly sympathetic, "How'd it happen?"
"Heartless and Nobodies. Black shadows and these gray creatures. You seen any of them?" Sora's question was met with three gaping mouths and then there was suspicion again. Surprised, she exchanged quick glances with her friends as the other three slipped into more defensive positions.
It was Bagheera who finally answered. "We've seen them. They attacked us only a short while ago."
"Yeah, right before we ran into you three. You bringing trouble to our home?" The bear was glaring at her and she found herself sizing him up and knew she could take him. She barely had to think about it. It almost scared her, how far above a normal level she was now.
"We're following them. We're not allied with them," Sora stated, and she could see the guilt in his frame, and hear it a bit in his voice. She didn't blame them for continuing to look at them suspiciously – and she dropped her head again to hide her own guilt. They were following them – but their three hearts together called the Heartless like a Siren called ships. The tastiest treat they could find, that's all they were to the Heartless.
Mowgli was eyeing them with bright-eyed curiosity now and she wondered if every boy in all the worlds had the same brand of reckless curiosity in exchange for common sense. Not that Sora and Riku didn't have common sense... There just wasn't a lot of it. And most of it had been beaten into their heads from Heartless and Nobodies attacking. Naminé giggled in her mind. 'And jumping into a portal is common sense? You had no idea where it went.'
'Between a strange creepy man who had surrounded me with monsters and a friendly dog having me follow him, I'll pick the dog. Besides... the whistle sounded familiar,' Kairi defended herself with an air of hurt. She wouldn't say she was the most careful of girls, but she wouldn't compare herself to her boys' brand of recklessness. Naminé didn't voice her disagreement, but Kairi could feel it, along with the accompanying amusement.
"What will you do when you find them?" Mowgli asked, his eager expression a sure sign of what he thought they would do.
Riku didn't disappoint. "We'll destroy as many as we can. They destroyed our home."
"And we'll make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else," Sora added fiercely, his blue eyes bright with rage that she hoped only she and Riku could see. As much as he had hated to see Destiny Islands destroyed, it was almost as if losing the worlds of his friends was even more difficult. It had been easier to take when they were targets. When it was everyone... She knew she at least felt a little helpless. They couldn't protect everyone all the time. It just wasn't possible.
Despite the fire in his eyes, it was Sora's statement more than Riku's or anything she had said that relaxed the bear and the boy. The panther still looked suspicious – but she would be too if she had a boy under her care who needed protection.
Trying to turn the conversation away from thoughts of her home, she asked with forced cheer, "Mowgli, why don't you try the village out? Surely no one would be able to keep you there if you decided you wanted to return."
"When he goes to the village, he must stay there," Bagheera proclaimed. She smiled, as best as a smile would form with her muzzle, and shook her head.
"Telling a stubborn boy what he must do is the best way I know to make sure it doesn't ever happen. But this isn't any of our business. Come on you two. Let's leave them to their arguing." She stood now, and turned, much the same way Riku had earlier. But this time when she exchanged sly grins with Sora, it was Riku who looked disgruntled.
They had taken no more than a few steps away when Mowgli cried, "Wait up!"
Days after they had landed found them with a lazy bear, a suspicious panther, and a troublesome boy. Mowgli wasn't troublesome on purpose – he just had the long upstanding tradition of any child to get into as much trouble as possible before he grew up. Most of it was accidents, but Kairi knew it didn't matter. Mowgli would continue to get into more scrapes – the jungle was a dangerous place. Bagheera was right – but saying it to Mowgli would only make trouble. Riku had found that out, and she glanced over at her scowling friend, who was unusually quiet, possibly from losing an argument with the boy.
The Heartless had been around, as had the Nobodies, but it was nothing important, mostly small groups, easily taken care of, as they had been for a while. Kairi was oddly disappointed – she wanted to show off her new techniques, and wanted to se more of what the boys had learned. She had a feeling there was a bigger battle to come – there was darkness lurking, and she could feel it in her soul. Since Radiant Spirit had become truly hers and hers alone, she could feel the planet's heart – and darkness was warping this one's. They were getting closer to the main source.
She mentioned this in a quiet whisper to Riku while they walked, and then to Sora. Riku had nodded shortly, but stayed calm. Sora had bristled and made as if to go off and find it – but a quick bite to his ear kept him in line.
"Something's coming," Riku said, and she listened hard – but not with her heart. It was easier for her to feel Nobodies by their lack of heart – the Heartless were harder, and she knew it had to be Heartless since she couldn't get a grasp on the numbers.
"What's coming?" Mowgli asked eagerly, no fear shining in his eyes. She wished there wasn't a reason for him to be, but there was, and she positioned herself on his front while Baloo took his back and Riku stepped closer to them. Sora and Bagheera were both spreading out, circling around them widely, listening for the first physical sign of a threat.
Bagheera wasn't used to Heartless – she knew because he wasn't looking into the ground, and caught a claw on his shoulder when a Neoshadow erupted from the ground. Kairi was closest and left her position by Mowgli to leap to the panther's aid. Radiant Spirit came to existence in her muzzle and she leapt, swinging it with swift, strong slashes and whirling to the next one when all it left behind were a few munny and an almost useless Potion.
It was the larger attack they had been expecting. It wasn't the main source, but there were enough Heartless suddenly around them that for a moment she forgot it was late afternoon and wondered if it had turned to night.
"There's too many!" Bagheera cried from somewhere behind and to her left. She was whirling amidst deadly darkness, unable to even see her boys or the other three for a time. But she could hear them, Riku's breaths, as he killed, almost silently except for grunts of pain or exertion. Sora was louder, more animalistic than either of them when he was fighting with his new body. Snarls and growls came from all around, and when Mowgli cried out, Sora's cry of rage was a yowl and an explosion of action. She knew because there was a sudden decrease of Heartless behind her and flashes of lightning spread around them – and then water came an instant later.
She knew then that Sora had been practicing. What had once been a small wave when he first used the spell now curled around the Heartless and send them crashing stunned into trees and the ground. She leapt upon the closest ones, Light Flares and Radiant Spirit killing them as quickly and efficiently as possible. She called a few Light Circles, and considered using a newer spell – but she reconsidered it and decided to save her energy when another Thundaga tore through the area.
In moments, all of them were panting to some degree, and Sora was trying to pick a Potion bottle up from the ground with his teeth. When Riku picked it up for him, she followed Sora's gaze and Riku's steps to where Mowgli lay against a tree, groaning. There was blood all down one leg and she trotted closer to stare at the gash in one leg. "It's longer than it is deep. I think it looks worse than it is."
"It feels horrible," Mowgli said, and she looked up, surprised that he wasn't crying. Much to her chagrin, he caught her look and added, "I've been injured before. I live in the jungle."
"Of course," She said softly, her eyes dimmed with pity. He was so young – and so very alone. He didn't even understand how alone he was. The animals were his friends, but he didn't have their advantages. He had his own, but he hadn't been taught how to use them. Without the panther looking out for him, he would have been dead long ago – she was surprised an infection hadn't killed him by now.
She had to wonder if his parents were still alive, and why he wasn't with them, or at the village in the first place. But her attempts to be subtle and Sora's blunt questions provided no answers – Bagheera didn't know. Baloo didn't know and didn't want to talk of Mowgli going back to the man village.
"I'm going to look ahead to find a place to rest," She announced suddenly. In reality, she was a little hungry, and this would kill two birds with one stone. When both Sora and Riku jerked their heads up, Sora's ears flattening to his head, she added, "I'll howl if I see even a hint of Nobodies or Heartless."
She leapt away, out of sight within moments thanks to the thick foliage of the jungle. She settled into a ground-eating lope, her nose flaring as every scent of the jungle was sorted and catalogued. Her sense of smell was the best now, really. She still tended to depend on her eyes too much, but the smells were nearly overpowering. It made her that much happier that Alcexan was gone and wouldn't be altering any scents anymore.
Her stomach growled, and she altered course slightly. Her nose said "Rodent" and she followed it, dropping off into a slow crawl as it became overpowering. She was salivating just at the smell, imagining the raw meat on her tongue, blood in her mouth, the quick, short snap that would kill it. Everything that usually would have managed to make her shudder as a human almost excited her as a wolf. They were meant to hunt as packs... But she kept to hunting small things instead. She didn't want Sora and Riku to see how she let the instincts take over. She knew that Sora did the same thing, but knowing he did, and having him see her do it were so far about they might as well have been in a different language. Of course, languages held no barriers to them with the Keyblades, but the concept was similar.
Her eyes caught the small movement, her ears hearing paws scratch against soft earth, digging up food. It was all she needed to see. Without making a sound she leapt. It tried to run but she was too close, and it didn't manage more than a few paces before she had snapped it's neck and sat down to enjoy her meal. Her boys wouldn't get too worried – and Bagheera and Baloo would be focused on Mowgli. She had some time.
Despite the way she tried to soothe her mind, she still gobbled down the rodent, the brown fur disappearing quickly along with all of its inside. She wanted to feel guilty about enjoying it, but she just couldn't. Naminé murmured softly, 'Why should you? In this form, it is natural. It is what you have to do to survive. There is no reason to be ashamed.'
'You are much wiser than I,' Kairi returned ruefully. She was surprised at the laughter that Naminé responded with.
'I know both of us very well – and of us, you have the wisdom. You just don't see it the same way I do.' Naminé's words echoed in her mind as the Nobody faded into the background, as she was likely to do when saying such remarks, and Kairi thought about her words as she trotted off, keeping an eye on her surroundings so she would know where she had been and could go back to the others once she found a spot to sleep in. She had spotted the perfect place – but there was an odd looking creature there that formed into a strangely colored snake.
With black scales that faded into dark brown and gray eyes, she was almost sure it wasn't normal. Feeling the lack of hearts cinched it. She crouched and growled in a low warning tone as it began to uncoil, the tongue flicking into the air. Those eyes looked at her, partly amused, and the snake fell from the fallen tree trunk it had been sunning itself on and began to slither around her.
"Who are you?" She growled, and the Nobody paused a moment, tilting its head before flicking it's tail and continuing the large circle.
"It doesn't matter, really. I won't fight with you. It is pointless, lacking in tact and strategy. I simply wanted to observe you three, who had killed so many. I certainly didn't expect to be caught napping. I'm so... careless." The way he said it, his voice too light and the word emphasized, she had to think he wasn't careless at all.
"Come on now, Princess. Don't glare at me so. It's not becoming of your rank." He was circling closer and she snapped as the head came too close. He backed off, gray eyes unblinking but wholly amused. "But, you don't even remember it all, do you? Pretty little Princess, playing in the castle."
Anger and confusion warred and he laughed. "I wasn't there. But I've met others who were, who came to your world as adventurous teenagers and found a tiny little princess, with only her family to play with."
She wasn't going to let him say more. She didn't need to know. It simply wasn't her place anymore. She lunged for him – and faster than she had expected his lunged right back, coiling around her tight and squeezing until she could barely breath, her struggles faint with lack of air. And he was laughing, still laughing as if it was so amusing that he could kill her in a second. "I should just keep squeezing and eat you right up. Your friends would never even realize what happened – and you aren't necessary. You're a curiosity, but in the end, superfluous. Only Sora is necessary. Riku wouldn't do it. You haven't got the strength to make the choice. No, only him – but it would be too easy to kill you, and I like to see my games play out. Even if this game is controlled by another."
She gasped in air, kicking at him weakly, trying to get enough pressure behind her back legs to push him off. His head slithered around until his eyes were looking into hers. "What would your old family think now? What would your good old Uncle think? Well, nothing now. He died trying to harness hearts into data, now didn't he?"
She couldn't comprehend what he was saying, not with the air being pressed from her lungs and she could feel her ribs cracking one by one. As soon as black spots took over her vision, she felt the coils release and the Nobody slithered away. She saw nothing, but could hear him laughing from far away – and it chilled her that despite how far away he was, there was a brush of fingers through her fur, ruffling it in mock affection. His voice still came from far away as he said, "Goodbye, Princess!"
Then it all disappeared and she lay there, feeling ashamed at her lack of ability. Why hadn't she used magic on him? There wasn't an answer, not even from Naminé, and she cast Cure quickly. Once she was up, she cast a glance around, seeing nothing to even prove he was there. Despite that, she knew the first thing she would do once she could get her boys alone was tell them what had happened – even the part she was sure had to be a lie.
End Chapter.
Sorry about the long wait - and I do have a beta now, but wasn't able to get a hold of them to look over this yet. We haven't seemed to be on AIM at the same time the past few days, but hopefully soon. Also, if anyone has insanejournal, I'm over there now after the recent Livejournal mess. I'm under the name natala on insanejournal. I once in awhile post things about Vagabonds there outside of the chapters, and post about other stories I might someday do. In other new, fall semester starts in a couple of weeks, and I'm trying to get better grades so expect that updates might start taking awhile, sorry.