The Tale of the Lost

PandaShadow

Persuasion

A/N: Wow. I am updating a story. For the first time in a very long time. To people who read this story before, I combined chapters three and four to improve the flow of the story, so it won't let you review this chapter if you reviewed my old chapter four. I would greatly like to know what you think, so leaving an anonymous review would work if you so desire.

That is, if there are any of my old readers willing to continue to read this after the longest hiatus ever. I apologize. Luckily I am in college now and majoring in Creative Writing, so I might actually be able to find time to finish this story.

Also a note for old readers, I didn't change anything drastically in the first three chapters, but they are much nicer now and a few things are different. It isn't necessary, but it would be a good idea to go back and read them again.

To new readers, welcome to the newest chapter (at the moment)! I hope you enjoyed the old chapters, and I promise I will make a solid effort to update this story as much as I can until it is done. Thank you for reading this far!

To all of my readers: the writing style from this chapter onward might seem very different than the first three. I am older. I have matured. And so has my writing-style. There's not much I can do about it, and I hope it doesn't disrupt the flow of the story too much.

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts. I make no profit from writing this story. I do own Meera and my plot. Don't steal it. I will be angry.

Enjoy!

Meera stared at her ceiling, thinking about the events of the day. After she had left Riku's room, she successfully avoided everyone for the entirety of the day. She managed to distract herself with various activities, from helping out with laundry to helping in the kitchens, to keep herself distracted from the problems that were on her mind. Unfortunately, night time meant sleeping, and sleeping meant trying to clear her mind. It wasn't working out very well.

She didn't like to think about the events that took place in her life two years prior. She was betrayed by someone she thought she could trust, and her entire life was sent spiraling out of her control. She had spent the past year attempting to avoid it, but now some royal mouse walked in and brought all of her problems straight to the surface.

She let out a frustrated sigh and sat up in her bed, understanding that she wouldn't be getting any sleep that night. She swung her legs off the side and stood up, grabbing a royal purple silk robe off of her dresser and slipping it on. She was going to go and do something that, honestly, wasn't particularly smart.

She knew the castle well, so she didn't need any sort of light to silently make her way down to the second floor and find a door that she had seen earlier in the day from the other side. Her gray eyes stared at it and the patterns carved into it. Sneaking into someone's room in the middle of the night was something she was aware was unethical, but she was considering doing it anyway. After all, if she could make the decision to kill herself on multiple occasions, she could certainly make the decision to sneak into someone's room.

Even if she didn't like them.

Letting out a breath she didn't realize she was holding in, she grabbed the doorknob and turned, first peeking her head inside to make sure the occupant was asleep. Hearing steady, deep breaths, she decided it was safe to enter and closed the door behind her. She padded over to the bed and knelt down right in front of his face.

She wrinkled her nose in distaste as she took in the features before her. His skin wasn't even close to the color she thought it would be; he was tanner, like he was frequently out in the sun. His hair was longer and the shade of silver seemed to have life in it, where his hair had been dull and shoulder length. Her face relaxed as she continued to take in the differences between Riku and him. Even his eyes were different; they were the exact same color of turquoise, but Riku's held life and seemed to glint in the darkness where his had been as dull as his hair.

And then she realized that, in order to compare their eyes, Riku's eyes had to be open.

"What on earth are you doing?" he asked, his voice thick from sleep. Meera's gray eyes widened and she stood up, brushing imaginary dust off of her thighs. She glanced back at the silver-haired boy's face and blinked a few times.

"I was just, uh, checking. I was checking to make sure," she paused, "that, um, you weren't seriously injured from chasing me earlier," she sped up at the end. She brushed a bit of hair behind her ear and looked away from his skeptical face, staring instead at the black crow she could see through the glass door leading to his balcony.

"As touched as I am by your concern," Riku began, sitting up in his bed, "wouldn't it have made more sense to check if I was okay, I don't know, back when I was trying to apologize?" Meera snapped her head back in his direction and saw the disbelieving expression that was settled on his face.

"I am a very proud person, Riku," she began, formulating a lie as quickly as possible, "and I didn't want anyone to know that I, you know, was a tiny, little, miniscule bit concerned for your well-being after I freaked out so much." She was proud of that explanation; it sounded legitimate and there was no way he could argue with it.

"Okay," he muttered, though it still seemed that he didn't believe her. "Which is why you felt the need to sneak in my room in the middle of the night and stare at my face." Meera stared at him for a moment before nodding. "Right. Well, are you satisfied that I'm fine now?" he asked, the blanket covering his chest slipping down. "See, no injuries," he continued sarcastically.

Meera tried to peel her eyes away from his bare chest. She realized that it made sense that he slept shirtless, but she wasn't necessarily prepared for a full view. Training her eyes on his face instead, she realized there was no way to convince him fully of her false intentions of sneaking into his room.

"Yes, quite satisfied," she replied. "Now if you could do me and my massive pride a huge favor and never speak of this again, I might forgive you for giving me a heart attack earlier today," she finished. Riku stared at her blankly and went back down in his bed.

"Yeah, sure," he muttered. "I'm going back to sleep now." The red-head blinked a few times before quickly making her way out of his room and back into her own bed, finally finding enough peace to surrender to sleep for the rest of the night.

"Meera, you really need to wake up now," demanded a familiar voice while someone shook her shoulders. She muttered something unintelligible and rolled over, shoving a spare pillow over the back of her head. The other inhabitant of the room chuckled, momentarily pleased with her success in waking the red-head up. "Meera, King Mickey wants to talk to you. Haven't you slept long enough?"

Meera removed the pillow from her head and stared at the burgundy-haired intruder in her bedroom, eyes squinting from the light shining in her window. "What does he want to talk to me for?" she asked. "I said yesterday I didn't want anything to do with it." Kairi raised an eyebrow, placing her hands on her hips.

"You mean when you said you couldn't deal with it and ran out of Merlin's house before listening to his explanation?" she asked. Meera furrowed her brows and sat up, pulling the robe she was still wearing, thankfully, tighter around herself. She didn't want Kairi seeing her scar and asking questions.

"I meant it," she responded. "This Zopyris or whoever is someone I am sure the three of you can handle on your own. Don't you all have Keyblades? I don't see how I could be any more useful than a Keyblade." It was Kairi's turn to furrow her brows at the girl's response.

"Aren't you jumping to that conclusion a bit quickly?" she asked. "You should at least hear him out. Maybe he knows something else, something really important that you aren't aware of."

Meera shoved her blankets off of her lap and stood from the bed, not responding to Kairi's comments. The room was silent but tense as she dug through her dresser for something practical to wear: a pair of shorts and a plain black shirt. "I'm changing," she told the burgundy-haired girl, breaking the silence. "So I'll talk to you in a minute. But can you, uh, leave for now?" Kairi nodded slowly before going out the door and waiting patiently for the red-head that seemed so much like someone she felt like she knew, but at the same time a complete stranger.

Mickey was sitting in a big chair in Sora's room, talking to the two males of the group, when Kairi walked through the propped-open door, Meera in tow. "Excellent," he said. "Meera, I didn't mean to upset you. Will you agree to at least hear what I have to say?" The red-head glanced around the room, her eyes lingering on Riku, before nodding and sitting down on the empty bed. Kairi sat on the floor, leaning up against the bed-rail.

"As I've already told three of you, there is a Nobody going by the name of Zopyris that is disrupting the balance of the worlds. He isn't directly associated with Organization XIII, which automatically means he must be powerful to be able to withstand their attempts at recruiting any sentient Nobody they could," the mouse began. "Our first records of his existence are from three years ago, but he didn't take any action that required direct involvement until a year later.

"It was brought to my attention that he had been caring for a girl, around the same age as you were at the time, until something happened and he cast her out. I don't know what she did to cause such anger, or if he had been planning to do so all along, but the girl was then put under the protection of a woman I have only heard vague stories about. Unfortunately, Zopyris killed the woman, leaving the girl unprotected again.

"I don't know where the girl is, but I imagine that Zopyris wants to kill her. However, I can't see that being his motivation for wreaking havoc on some of the worlds I've heard from. Something else is going on, and I need you four to figure out what it is and stop him," Mickey finished, looking around at the teenagers before him.

"And you told me yesterday to start by asking around with the people we know to see if they know anything, right?" Sora asked for clarification. The mouse nodded and directed his attention to Meera.

"I know you don't think you would be any help, but with the proper training I think your powers could be what makes this journey a success," he told her, a serious expression on his face. "Will you help them?"

Meera pulled her knees up to her chest and looked at the hopeful faces of the four people, besides herself, in the room. Sora was smiling encouragingly, Mickey staring at her seriously, Kairi looking up at her with a small smile, and Riku staring at her inquisitively. Her eyes locked with his curious turquoise ones before she clenched them shut and buried her head between her knees and chest.

"Meera? Are you okay?" Kairi asked standing up. Sora's smile fell and was replaced by a look of concern. The red-head shook her head and let out a shuddering sigh. She looked up at the other female in the room and gave her answer.

"I can't," she asserted, though her voice was quiet. "I really can't. This is too much. I just… I need to go. I'll talk to you later. I'm sorry," she finished, lightly shoving her way past Kairi and out of the room full of people who wanted something more from her than she could give.

King Mickey was at a loss. He dismissed the other three teens and made his way to the kitchen, hoping to grab some food to help him think of what to do about the problem he faced. He wasn't sure what it was about the red-head, but something told him that she needed to go on this journey. There were certain times in his life where his gut had told him something needed to happen, and it was always important that he listen to it.

But the question was how to convince her that she needed to participate. He wasn't entirely sure why she was so against it, unless she still didn't believe him about her powers. No, that couldn't be it. And he knew he wasn't wrong; it was one of the fairies who had told him of her powers. It wasn't like he misinterpreted Hikari, the light fairy's, words.

He reached the kitchen and was grabbing for a fresh roll up on the counter when another person entered the room. "King Mickey," he was addressed. "Did you finally get them all together to talk to them?" The mouse held the warm roll in his hand as he turned to speak to the blonde man before him.

"Yes," he answered, "but Meera still refused. I don't know why, but something is telling me that she needs to go on this journey. Is there any way you could talk to her, Cloud? Maybe at least see why she is so against it?" The blonde's eyes lowered as though he already knew, but he nodded.

"I can do that," he responded. "I'll let you know if she changes her mind, alright?" The mouse nodded and began eating his roll as Cloud made his way up to the fifth floor, in hopes that the red-haired girl would be in her room.

As luck would have it, her door opened up shortly after he knocked. The girl stared up at him, clearly relieved, and opened her door further to let him inside.

"I can't go with them, Cloud," she confided in him. The blonde moved to sit in the chair he had placed her in two nights ago. "You know why I can't. They'll be safer if I'm not with them. Whether or not they know it, they would be in complete danger of him fulfilling his stupid promise to me. I'm not going to have more blood on my hands. I just can't."

Cloud stared at her. She began pacing in the middle of her explanation but dropped on her bed, clearly exhausted, when she finished. "Maybe you should give this opportunity a chance," he suggested. It had taken a lot for him to overcome his own personal demons, and he wanted her to be able to do the same. "With Shamira, she was only one person. Even I am only one person. But Sora, Kairi, and Riku are three people, and the strength of the light in each of their hearts is a force to be reckoned with."

Meera looked into her surrogate-brother's eyes and saw nothing but pure honesty. Going on some reckless adventure that would probably end up with three people dead was not something she wanted to do. She didn't want to learn about weird powers connected to Keyblades, and she didn't want to leave the safety of Radiant Garden. She didn't want to be around Riku because, as different as he was from him, he still managed to remind her of the pain she went through every time she looked at his face or heard him speak.

But if the one person she could fully trust, the one person who had been through hell and was managing to go on with his life perfectly fine, was telling her that it was something she should do, there was a chance she could give in to his argument.

"What if they get killed?" she asked, determined to flesh out all of the possibilities.

"What if they don't?" the blonde responded. Meera's mouth opened and closed like a fish before she broke eye contact and stared at the floor.

"What if they decide they hate me?"

"What if they decide they love you?"

"What if," she began, her resolve wavering, "what if they are helping him?"

"I'm not even going to play devil's advocate for that question," he responded. "I've known Sora for a long time, and I know that isn't something he would do. And he trusts Kairi and Riku completely, so I do too." The red-head looked back into his blue eyes. She furrowed her brow before slowly nodding.

"Okay," she whispered. "I guess I'll go. But I'm not happy about it. And I'm only doing it because you say it's okay, and I really don't like Riku so spending time around him is going to be awful, and Kairi and Sora are just going to make lovey-dovey faces at each other all the time, and-"

"Thank you, Meera," Cloud interrupted. "I'm glad you're going," he continued, standing up before pulling the seventeen-year-old up from her bed too. "I don't want you to be stuck in a rut like I was. And I hope this journey gets you out of yours."

A/N: A bit shorter than I would have liked, but passable. That was fun. Man it has been a long time since I wrote fan fiction. Anyway, any and all reviews are appreciated. I may, one day, take the chapter down and put it up again to fix any grammar or wording issues, but I am overall happy with it at the moment.

And I updated.

The world must be about to end.

Are pigs flying?

Anyway, I'll see you all again in chapter five!

C. E. Taylor