Chapter 14: Binding Destiny
Skye ran down to the docks. She couldn't see Riku's boat anywhere. She looked around. It wasn't at the Island… where would he be? With a flick of her wrist, she lit a fire next to her and stepped through it, appearing out of a matching flame at the cove, thinking that maybe he'd come around to the back of the Island and beached his boat there. No such luck. She let out an angered sigh and looked around. Her memories of her first day on the Islands overflowed in her: playing on the air mattress with Kairi, chasing it with Riku, finding the Oasis… she smiled to herself. I suppose that's when I first discovered how I felt about Riku. Even if I'd only known him for about 4 hours at the time…Then the thought smacked her across the face. The Oasis! He said no one ever went there, and so it would be the perfect place to escape! But… what would she say when she found him? She faltered. Her presence now would probably only make him angrier, but she couldn't leave with this fight hanging over their heads. A moment later, it was as if a light bulb lit over her head, and indeed, a small candle flame did waver a few inches above the crown over her head. She giggled and put it out, and smile passed across her lips. Oh, I'm brilliant! She decided with a smug smirk before turning on her heel and heading back towards the beach house.
Riku beached his boat on the Oasis and disappeared through the trees. He reemerged a moment later inside the ring of trees and sat on the log next to the Oasis, looking up at the stars. It was a stupid idea to run away. He'd probably go back and find her gone while she had the chance. He sighed loudly. There was a loud crack, followed by several sharp snaps. He twisted around to see what it was. An enormous fire had appeared a few feet behind him, and Skye stepped out of it. She was clutching something in her hands, but he turned around, stood up and started to walk away before even looking to see what it was.
"Riku. Wait." She said. She tried to sound commanding, but her voice broke halfway through. He remained silent and kept walking. She frowned at him. "Riku! Please, I need to talk to you."
"No." He answered simply. He didn't want to hear her voice. Everything about her hurt him, because he knew that it would be the last time he'd ever experience those things for a long, long time if she went back alone. She caught his wrist.
"Riku…"
"No!" He said, more forcefully this time, tugging away from her.
"Riku! Listen to me!"
"I can't. You don't get it!" He shouted, his anger boiling up again. She grabbed his arm and he pulled away. A wall of flame burst up in front of him. He spun around and glared at her. He could see the fear all over her face. She was bluffing. It was cold fire, he was willing to bet his life on it. His gaze hardened and he stepped through it, barely faltering. He'd been right. The fire was just an illusion. She wouldn't hurt him. He faltered. She wouldn't hurt him because she cared about him…but still, he couldn't take her presence for the time being and he started to walk away again.
"RIKU!" She cried, her frustration obvious. He didn't answer and leaned forward, prepared for her to grab and pull again. No attack came for a long moment. Riku was almost at his boat but he stayed braced for an assault. Instead of the pulling he had expected, a large weight collided with his back as Skye tackled him. Leaning forward, and so off balance already, he stumbled for only a moment before he tripped and both went tumbling into the water. She sat up, pushing her now soaked hair out of her face and kneeling. She was kneeling about chest deep in the water. Riku sat up, between her and the shoreline, so it was a bit shallower. He glared at her, but she caught his gaze and held it. He tried to look away, but couldn't. A moment later, her gaze flicked down to her hands and his followed. He froze. Skye was holding a paopu fruit out to him. She looked so helpless, soaking wet in the water with the pleading look on her face. He was torn between his anger and his love. Her voice broke the deafening silence.
"I want to be with you forever. This way…"
"This way our fates will be one. We'll win this thing or we'll die trying. Together. Both of us." He answered, reaching out and placing his hands over hers. A small smile passed over her lips.
"This way he can't use you against me again. That's what I was so afraid of." She admitted.
"We'll do this together." He answered, pulling her towards him and hugging her close. She sighed into his shirt, locking her arms around his chest, momentarily forgetting the paopu fruit and dropping it into the water. When they finally pulled apart, Skye picked up the forgotten fruit and tried to break it in half. With a slurping sound, it fell apart in her hands, soggy and waterlogged. She made a face, looking down at her hands and the yellow juice that gathered in her palms, mixing with the salt water. Grinning mischievously, Riku grabbed her right wrist and licked what was left of the pulp and the juice off her hand. She let out a shrieking giggle.
"That tickles!" She cried, pulling her hand out of his grasp. Then she paused, running her tongue up her left palm before rinsing the rest of the fruit juice off in the water. Riku's mouth quirked into a smile.
"Sea salt and paopu fruit. Sweet and salty. The unexpected but perfect couple." He noted with a grin. She pushed a lock of hair out of his face.
"So, does that count as sharing a paopu fruit?" She asked uncertainly. He shrugged.
"I dunno, but there's no harm in making sure." He answered slowly. She nodded, standing up and, with a flick of her wrist, forming a fire portal which they stepped through together.
…………………………………………………………
Sora was roused slowly from his sleep by the sound of voices. He rolled over in his bed, burying his face into his pillow and trying to ignore them. His window was open, and two people were having an argument on the street. He ignored them dutifully, paying no attention whatsoever to the words. The voices were vaguely recognizable, but he knew the vast majority of the people on the Island he lived on anyways, so that wasn't anything unusual. He pulled his pillow over his head and clamped it over his ears. The voices were even more muffled and he started to drift off, bits and pieces of the argument still discernable through the pillow.
"…get hurt any more because of me!"
"…couldn't, but I want to help!"
"Riku! Don't make this any harder than it has to be!"
The last comment, made Sora stir. His brain was still slowed from the fog of sleep. Riku. Why is it weird that someone is arguing with Riku…? He wondered dumbly. Then, suddenly, he remembered that both Riku and Skye were missing. At that thought, he threw himself out of bed, staring out the window. Skye and Riku were standing a little ways down the road, in front of Grandma Rose's house. They were a few feet apart, Skye with her hands on her hips and Riku with his hands clenched at his sides, and both were yelling at each other. Sora reached the window on time to hear Skye shouting.
"This isn't your fight!"
"Yes it is!"
"He took me prisoner, he tried to sacrifice me, he was after me! This is my fight!"
"He took me prisoner too! He tortured me to try to get me to tell him where you were!" At Riku's last comment, Sora's eyes went wide as saucers and he turned on his heel to race outside, tripping over the corner of his bed and ending up sprawled on the floor as a result. After the resounding crash, and as he tried to right himself, Sora heard Riku's voice, angrier than he's ever heard his older friend before.
"Fine! I get it. Go back to your real family. This is why you didn't want to remember, but there's nothing we can do about that now. Maybe in time you'll forget me and then you can go back to normal. Hell, you even have Ace to replace me!" The voice came rolling through the window, dripping with resentment towards whoever this Ace person was. Sora sat up, shocked into silence, and was, from his vantage point, able to see the top of Riku's head as he stormed off towards the docks. Sora got to his feet, pulled a shirt on over his head (as all he was wearing at the time was pajama bottoms) and raced down the stairs. He skidded to a stop at the door, searching blindly in the darkness for his shoes for a few moments before he had the sense to turn the lights on. When he did, he found his shoes without much trouble and was about to run out the door when his groggy mother came down the stairs.
"Sora?" She asked, yawning and stretching. "What are you doing?"
"Gotta go! Riku's back! But he just left, tell you about it later!" The words tumbled out of his mouth nearly incoherently as he ran out the door. He could see Skye standing at the docks at the far end of the street and started towards her, stopping to gape when a massive fire appeared, floating a few inches off the ground next to her, and she stepped into it before both she and the flame disappeared without a trace. He continued to gape for a long moment before he turned around and spotted Grandma Rose standing on the street.
"Sora!" She called, waving to him. He ran over.
"What happened? I saw Riku, and I think Skye, but…"
"I'm not sure yet. I heard arguing and came outside to see what was going on, but when I got here, Riku was already gone, and then Skye ran off to try to find him." She replied. Normally, Rose wouldn't have bothered about people in the street so late at night, but after being broken into, which was followed by the kidnapping of Skye and Riku's disappearance, she became much more cautious. Sora thought about her explanation for a long while.
"Okay, I'll go get Kairi and the others, and then we can split up and look for them." He said tentatively, looking at Grandma Rose for approval. She nodded and he hurried down the street to Kairi's house. Deciding it was best to not wake up the whole house, he ran to the side of the house and scrambled up the morning glory trellis just below Kairi's bedroom window. He pulled himself up onto the window sill and slipped into her room. She woke with a start.
"What the…!" Kairi shouted, rolling out of bed and struggling to her feet, barely taking the time to rub the sleep out of her eyes. When she saw it was Sora, she relaxed. "Oh. I thought I told you to knock when you wanted in!" She said, quieting her voice.
"Kairi! Riku and Skye are back! I saw them!" He answered in a hurried whisper. Her jaw dropped.
"What? They're back? Where are they?"
"I don't know! I saw Riku leave from out my window and Skye walked through a fire!" He said, knowing full well how crazy he sounded.
"Oh Sora… you much have been dreaming. I know where all worried…"
"I'm not dreaming! I swear! Grandma Rose saw them too! Come on!" He said, his voice rising a little in his frustration.
"Okay okay, give me a minute!" She answered, proceeding to rummage through her closet for some proper clothes. She donned them quickly and the pair ran out of the house as fast as they could.
"Right, you go find Selphie and Wakka, I'll get Lulu and Irvine. We have to go looking for Riku and Skye." He answered. Kairi nodded and hurried down towards the docks, turning a corner and disappearing from view. Selphie and Wakka lived relatively close to one another, as did Lulu and Irvine. Sora ran off in the other direction, intent on finding his friends.
It took only about 20 minutes for the six of them to regather in front of Grandma Rose's house.
"So, they're not anywhere around here…" Selphie noted with a yawn. Sora nodded.
"Riku was heading towards the docks, and that's where Skye was before she disappeared, so I think it's pretty safe to assume that at least Riku took his boat. Me and Kairi can search the Island. Wakka and Lulu, do you guys want to go look in the shopping district? Selphie and Irvine, you guys check out around the school. Okay?" The others nodded in agreement with Sora's plan. Kairi smiled.
"Let's go! Meet back here in an hour!" At that, they all headed down to the docks, and, from there, scattered. Kairi and Sora took Sora's boat to the Island. They searched everywhere, from the deck in the trees where Tidus used to train, to the star tree that Sora and Riku used to use as the marker for their races. Disheartened, Sora and Kairi started to make their way back to the beach.
"Don't worry. One of the others probably found them." Sora said hopefully, just as much for his own benefit as for Kairi's. Stepping out of the beach house, they paused, hearing a quiet laugh. They each looked at each other, to make sure that they hadn't imagined it and that the other had heard it as well, when another laugh sounded, this time matched with a lower, more masculine laugh at the same time. They looked out to Paopu Island, and saw two figures on the tree, silhouetted by the moon, which was now low in the sky. Curious, and not wanting to get their hopes up, they crossed the bridge towards the Island. One, the silver haired one, was shirtless, his damp t-shirt laid hanging to dry from one of the other, smaller branches. Thick, fresh scars formed a patchwork diamond in the middle of his back, just below his shoulder blades, with the scars splaying upwards from the diamond shape across his shoulder blades up to his shoulders and occasionally running across the backs of his upper arms. His companion was much smaller than himself. She wore a long flowing red robe embroidered with flames, and jeans, damp like his clothes. Her long black curls fell freely about her shoulders. Both of them held half of a paopu fruit, and each piece had small bites out of them. Skye paused.
"I could dry your shirt you know." She commented, taking another bite out of the fruit.
"Without burning it to a crisp?" Riku asked, interested.
"What fun is fire if you can't burn things?" She asked, sounding amused. She hopped down off the tree, leaving her piece of paopu balanced on the trunk, and fire enveloped her for a moment. Sora and Kairi froze, horrified. Then, she reappeared from amid the flames, her clothing completely dry. The flames disappeared when she snapped her fingers and Riku was mildly impressed.
"Okay, go for it." He said, nodding.
"…"
"…well?" He asked, confused.
"…you have to be wearing it." She answered with a small smile, reaching for her piece of the paopu fruit and eating more. Riku popped what was left of his into his mouth and reached for his shirt, pulling it on. Then, he sat and waited. She still didn't do anything. He crossed his arms.
"Okay, what else am I doing wrong?" He asked, amused. Her smile widened.
"You have to get off the tree. Or I'll end up burning it to a crisp."
"Oh." With that, he hopped off and stood next to her. She swallowed the last of her paopu fruit and Riku leaned down to kiss her. She smiled sweetly at him and, with a lazy motion of her hand, he disappeared in a tongue of flame. Kairi let out an involuntary cry upon seeing this. Skye twisted around, alarmed, at the same time closing her fist and making the fire disappear, leaving Riku dry and unharmed. He heard it too and stepped around the tree.
"Sora! Kairi!" He greeted them, grinning from ear to ear. Skye stumbled out from behind the tree after him, surprised.
"Hey! What are you guys doing up at this time of night?" She asked, running up to them and tackling both in a big hug.
"Looking for you." Kairi answered, sticking out her tongue. "What happened to you guys?" She asked excitedly. Riku and Skye told them just about everything that happened, from Skye's promise to follow Dax's orders to let Riku go, to the disguise and running way, to saving Skye from being sacrificed, to the tidal wave and Skye remembering, and then to going to the Rebel City.
"…and then we came here to look for you." Skye finished. Sora looked from one to the other.
"What were you arguing about?" He asked. Skye bowed her head sheepishly.
"Oh. You heard that."
"Duh. You were yelling at each other in the middle of the street." He answered, crossing his arms. Kairi blinked at them in surprise.
"You were?" She asked, more curious than anything. Riku nodded.
"After everything that happened, Skye didn't want me to go back to Dawn's Oceans with her. She said that it wasn't my fight and I shouldn't put myself in danger like that when I didn't have to. I said that I did have to, because she was going to be fighting, and I wanted to help her. It sort of escalated from there." He answered. Sora nodded his understanding, and then gasped.
"Wait! You're going back? But Skye hasn't even told us about what she remembers yet! And everyone's been so worried about you!" He said. Skye shrugged.
"So then tell them we'll be fine and we'll be back soon, alright?"
"No way! You can't go yet!" Kairi cried. Skye shook her head, refusing to budge on her decision.
"We have to go. They all need us back. We'll come back here soon, once Dax is gone." She insisted. Sora looked helpless.
"Then, then let us help!"
"No way." Riku answered flatly. "I know what lengths you went to, to keep this place safe. To keep Kairi safe. I never really understood why you'd go so far to save a planet before, but I get it now. You risked everything for this place. You can't leave it." He continued.
"But, I did all that for you and Kairi." Sora answered, crestfallen. "Please, come back with us to at least see everybody else."
"We have to get back." Skye said gently. They ignored her and started across the bridge, thinking that they were leading Skye and Riku back with them. There was a short crackling sound and Sora turned around. Both Skye and Riku were gone. Kairi stopped and noticed that they were gone.
"What do we do?" She asked quietly. Sora thought for a long time, weighing the options in his head. After a long silence, he spoke.
"Riku said they were on a planet called Dawn's Oceans, right?"
Mkay! So what did everybody think of this one? I'm proud of myself for writing this one so fast -dances around- And the paopu fruit mixed with salt water is kind of like a shoutout to the brilliance of sea salt ice cream a la KH2. Just kind of threw it in 'cause i'm cool like that. Right? Okay! Review pleeeeeeease!