The Tale of the Lost

PandaShadow

Teaching and Learning

A/N: A roll I still am on. Unfortunately, I am not Yoda. Anyway, it's nice to see you all again. Even though I can't see you. You know what I mean. If anyone read the old version of this story, you should recognize some bits of this here and there. Unless, you know, you don't remember it because you read it six years ago. I would understand that too.

I do feel bad about not updating. Really.

I hope I can make up for it with my improved descriptions and grammar and… everything. Even though I am not entirely sure where the plot is going at the moment. I'll figure it out. Eventually.

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts. I make no profit from writing this story. Meera is mine, as is my plot. Don't steal it. I would be livid.

Enjoy!

Meera crossed her arms and clenched her eyes closed, leaning back in the slightly uncomfortable seat she was perched in. Never before had she been in any kind of machinery that left solid ground except for the lifts in the castle, and never before had she felt quite as nauseated as she did on this gummi ship. After about five minutes of discomfort, she felt a hand on her arm.

"Meera," Kairi began, "are you okay?"

The red-head merely groaned and shook her head. When Kairi asked what was wrong, Meera pointed to her own stomach, still refusing to open her eyes.

"You have motion sickness?" she asked. Meera nodded; it made sense that it was called motion sickness since the motions of the gummi ship were making her sick. She finally opened her eyes and turned her head to face Kairi.

"How do I make it stop?" she asked, feeling particularly miserable.

"Well, sometimes I would get sea sick when I went on a boat back at Destiny Islands," the burgundy-haired girl explained. "If I distracted myself, sometimes I would feel better. It helps not to think about it, I guess." Kairi suddenly got an idea and a smile lit her face. She closed her eyes, held out her hand, and, after a bright flash of light, was holding her flower-covered Keyblade.

"Is that your Keyblade?" Meera asked when Kairi opened her eyes. She nodded in response. "It's pretty. But it's also really feminine. Does it actually get rid of Heartless and Nobodies?"

"Yep," Kairi responded with a chuckle. With another flash of light, she dismissed the Keyblade. "Generally, no matter how they look, they all get the job done," she explained. Turning to the silver-haired boy in the back corner of the ship, she called out, "hey Riku! You should show Meera your Keyblade."

Riku had been relaxing comfortably in the corner, vaguely paying attention to the conversation of the two females. He opened one eye to see Meera glaring and muttering angrily at Kairi before Kairi responded, just as quietly, and Meera relaxed. Their attention was back on him and he opened his other eye. "Why?" he asked.

Kairi looked slightly stunned and turned to Meera, leaving the floor open for whatever she wanted to say. "Uh, I'm just curious, I guess," she started. "I just want to see how it looks?"

Riku sat up straight and continued to stare at the two girls. Meera's expression was almost forcibly concerned, and Kairi's was hopeful. Her big eyes and slight nod urged him to just do what they asked, and he let out a sigh.

"Hold out your arm," he instructed the red-head. She furrowed her brow and crossed her arms, staring back at him skeptically.

"Why?" she asked, clearly not trusting him.

"Just do it," he commanded, a bit more sharply. He noticed her flinch but chose to ignore it as she hesitantly stuck her right arm out in front of her, her left arm dropping to her side. He closed his eyes and concentrated on an image in his mind: Meera holding his Keyblade. His success was proven with a bright flash of light and a thunking sound.

Meera's eyes widened as she realized that he had summoned his Keyblade into her hand, but it was too heavy for her to hold up and, as such, the tip dropped to the floor with a metallic clank. Using her other hand to help lift it up, she held the Keyblade in her lap, examining it. 'He didn't have a Keyblade,' she thought to herself, running a pale hand over the white wing at the tip.

Though Kairi didn't know it, her attempt at distracting Meera from her motion sickness was even more successful than she could have hoped. Though it wasn't much, every single difference Meera could find between Riku and him made her more at ease around the silver-haired boy. After examining the Keyblade thoroughly, the inquisitive side of herself intrigued, she made a decision for Kairi's sake.

Meera stood, both hands holding the large, heavy key, and made her way over to where Riku was seated, plopping down beside him. Taking a deep breath, she looked up at the boy, trying her hardest to separate the boy in front of her from him. Blinking twice to compose herself, she used all of her strength to hand his Keyblade back to him. He took it and dismissed it just as Kairi had with hers.

"Why's it so heavy for me, but not for you?" she asked, making a valiant effort to be friendly. Riku looked surprised for a brief moment before a small smile came across his lips.

"I imagine that would be because you aren't someone the Keyblade chose to wield it," he explained, not wanting to test his luck with her civility. The girl nodded and leaned back in the seat, not looking at him anymore.

"It's pretty cool," she started. "You know, that you can summon a Keyblade." She looked down at her knees before taking another deep breath and looking up at him again. "Mickey said you could teach me some magic. I think I'd be willing to learn right now. I mean, it's not like we've got anything better to do."

Riku nodded and stood up, Meera doing the same. The red-head noticed that Kairi had gone up into the front, talking to Sora about something with a smile on her face. Riku cleared his throat to get her attention again.

"The first spell I learned was Fire," he explained once he had the girl's full attention. "Basically what will happen is you say the command, focus your energy in your hands, aim where you want the spell to go, and then push the energy out in that direction."

Meera blinked a few times, taking in his words. She didn't know how she felt about learning Fire. Fire was the element that scarred her shoulder. Fire was the spell he was the most comfortable with. And, in that instant, a portion of the wall that got knocked down from seeing Riku's Keyblade was built back up with the similarity.

On the other hand, Meera knew she would need to know the spell eventually so, even though she emotionally shut herself back down, she was still physically present and prepared to learn to defend herself.

"Okay," she finally responded. Refusing to look over at the silver-haired boy, she lifted both of her arms in front of her and attempted to do as he explained: she imagined hot energy in her hands and aimed at a part of the wall that looked particularly sturdy. "Fire!" she commanded as she imagined the energy spewing forward.

Nothing happened.

Meera dropped her arms to her sides and finally looked over at Riku. "It didn't work," she pointed out. Riku bit back a sarcastic comment and tried to think of a way to explain to her how to push out the energy to form the spell.

"It isn't just visualizing the energy or the spell," he began. "You have to actually feel it – actually move the energy from your core, through your arms, and out of your hands." His brow furrowed in concentration. "I guess Sora and I learned so quickly because we can channel it through our Keyblade," he mused to himself.

"Yeah, well, I don't have a Keyblade," she responded, some of her bite slipping back into her tone. Her goal of being kind to Riku was getting more and more difficult by the minute, from seeing a similarity with him to generally getting frustrated at not being able to do the spell.

"You'll be able to get it," he assured her. "Just keep trying."

So Meera listened. She tried once more, lifting her arms and trying to feel her energy move through her body. She clenched her eyes shut and concentrated on trying to find her core to pull the energy from - probably somewhere in her torso. She got so caught up in it that she jumped a few inches into the air when she felt a warm hand on her back and another mirroring its position on her stomach.

"Here," Riku explained, "is where the energy should come from."

Meera opened her eyes and turned her head to the side, relaxing her arms a little at the soft expression in his turquoise eyes. 'His hands are warm,' she thought; a few bricks fell down off of her emotional wall. She had fully expected his hands to feel icy, not warm. Suddenly noticing how close his face was, she turned her head back in front of her and straightened her arms again, focusing on finding the energy underneath where Riku's hands gently sat.

Feeling rather accomplished, she found the energy and could feel it move up through her torso and through her arms. "Fire!" she tried again, pushing the energy out through her hands.

It wasn't quite what she expected. There was a tiny spark of fire that went about a foot in front of her before fizzling into nothing. "That was good," Riku commented, removing his hands from her torso. "Much better than nothing."

"That was crap," Meera contradicted, dropping her arms again. "I wouldn't be able to fend off a cat with that, much less a Heartless or Nobody."

"That isn't the point," Riku insisted, fully facing the stubborn girl. "The point is that you went from nothing coming out to a little bit of fire, even if it wasn't quite as much as you would need in a real situation."

"Maybe I'm just useless. I'm probably not meant to do magic anyway."

"You aren't useless."

"That's bull. I have some stupid powers that no one knows how to teach me to use, and I can't even produce an adequate flame to defend myself. If that isn't useless, nothing is."

"You have to learn. You only tried twice. Did you really expect to be able to do magic without any effort?"

"No, but I don't see how I can put all of that effort into shooting out stupid fire if something is attacking me!"

"It gets more natural the more you practice!"

"I can't practice it if I can't do it!"

Kairi's attention was drawn back to the arguing pair when they started shouting at each other. She turned around in her seat to see Riku and Meera about a foot apart, shouting about whether or not Meera could do magic. It wasn't so much the fighting that got on Kairi's nerves, but the subject matter. In Riku's effort to be supportive, he had somehow managed to insult the red-head.

"I still don't like you!" Meera yelled, turning and walking back to her original seat, crossing her arms and glaring at the wall to her left. Riku, an exasperated expression on his face, moved to sit down in his original seat, leaning back in the corner and staring at the ceiling.

Kairi turned back to Sora who luckily missed out on the argument due to his focus on flying.

"They are going to be the death of us," Kairi told him, quiet enough to keep the other two teens from hearing. Sora chuckled and kept looking straight ahead.

"Maybe they just need to get out some kind of problem they have before they become the best of friends," he joked. "I mean, they were almost getting along for a while they, weren't they?"

"Well, yeah," Kairi replied, feeling the contagiousness of Sora's endless optimism. "I guess so."

Before they could continue the conversation, a familiar world came into Sora's view. "Twilight Town? I guess we can stop there. Maybe Hayner, Pence, or Olette will know something."

As he made his way to the world in an attempt to land gracefully, Kairi stood and went into the back to tell Riku and Meera of their destination. She sat down beside Meera and poked her on the arm. "We're going to Twilight Town," she said, "so you should get ready to go. Still feeling motion sickness?"

Meera relaxed and turned to look at her burgundy-haired friend. "No," she replied. "I guess you were right about being distracted. Thanks. I mean, even though now I'm all-" She was interrupted when the whole ship jerked forward, almost knocking her to the floor. Sora turned around and smiled at his three startled companions.

"Sorry about that," he apologized. "It's been a while since I've landed one of these. But anyway, welcome to Twilight Town Meera!"

A/N: Again, shorter than I would have liked, but the end of the chapter is the end of the chapter. I had fun with this. Riku and Meera entertain me so very much. Anyway, I hope to hear from you, and I hope you enjoyed this installment of The Tale of the Lost!

Next time:

The four companions return to a world that we all know and love, and come face to face with someone they all thought was gone.

See you then!

C. E. Taylor