The armistice was signed a few days later, in Ingary's royal palace and without ceremony, for neither side had actually expected Prince Stephen to appear, much less stride up to the bridge of Strangia's flagship and demand his father and councilors write one out then and there. Every single statesman in attendance looked faintly embarrassed at the whole thing and wouldn't look either the Prince or Howl in the face. Riku and Sora had been thoroughly scrubbed down and done up in very expensive suits to attend as well, and took the opportunity to scold (as politely as possible) the attending national leaders for their flagrant disregard for human life in pursuit of petty vanity. The story of Radiant Garden's fall was told and retold again, and although Madame Suliman was conspicuous in her absence, her subordinates, as well as both kings and especially Prince Stephen, seemed to take their words to heart.
Following the signing, and much to Howl's gratification and the surprise of all the deeply mortified court wizards, the curse of silence concerning Ingary's experiments with the Heartless in Greyslake was mysteriously lifted. Howl related every detail he knew once the Strangian contigent excused themselves, and Sora and Riku were both pleased to discover his Majesty was appropriately horrified by every word. The King, it seemed, really had been ignorant of the whole affair, and when he summoned his chief sorceress to explain herself she was nowhere to be found. Investigatory committees were formed, chairmen appointed, and all charges against Howl immediately dropped.
After all the speeches were delivered, the awards bestowed, the testimony given, and the affidavits signed, Sora and Riku were ever-so-graciously prodded off the stage. They gratefully sank out of the stuffiness of palace to Kairi's spacious sickroom, which had become the de facto retreat from the stench of politics. Politicians were among the very few classes of people Sora didn't really care to talk to, since they never meant what they said nor said what they meant. Riku, justly believing he had done his part in unraveling the whole mess, was content to be ignored by the palace dignitaries and mistaken for Sophie's brother, since her hair still stubbornly refused to warm to the chocolate brown she claimed it ought to be. Sophie didn't have a speck of useful information to add to the investigations either, so she had claimed the role of nurse for Kairi and turned out to be quite good at it.
Kairi still tired too easily to do much of anything but lie in bed and talk, so that was precisely what the two girls did. Sophie considered her life until she met Howl too dull to share, so many of their conversations instead revolved around courageous young men with dangerously exploitable self-esteem issues. She listened very carefully to Kairi's expertise in this area. Howl seemed to be thriving in the glow of adoration at the palace, but despair penetrating enough to turn a man's heart to Darkness did not simply evaporate overnight. Kairi didn't delve too deeply into the grisly personal details out of respect for Riku's privacy, but made sure her new friend understood how much work it took to pull out enough of the insidious thorns for Riku to have something approaching a mentally balanced outlook on life. Sophie didn't balk at accepting the challenge.
-ooo-
At the end of the week Aerith and Leon arrived with a party from Radiant Garden to take over the tedious process of negotiating a ban on the experiments in Darkness, reparations to Ingary, and other deadly boring, as opposed to just deadly, matters of importance in the continuing peace of the Multiverse. The negotiations were in recess, and the two of them had returned to Kairi's room to report on their progress (and lack of) to the three Keyblades masters, who had declined the invitations to attend.
Aerith had taken the opportunity of an interplanetary diplomatic mission to bully Leon into a long-overdue haircut. He was wearing a very elegant black uniform with gold trim and blindingly shiny boots none of them had ever seen before in their lives. He looked very competent, commanding, and almost stately, although the effect was ruined when he immediately unzipped his jacket and assumed his characteristic arms-crossed slouch against the dressing table. "I hate dress uniforms," he announced, annoyance dripping from every syllable. "And diplomatic conferences. Especially diplomatic conferences about disarmament treaties."
Aerith arranged herself on the divan in the corner, with her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle in front of her. She paused the lazy back-and-forth motion of her hand fan to answer. "Try a corset and high heels, Leon, if you really want to understand suffering," she said tartly, since she was currently wearing both, in her concession to Ingary's formal dress code for ladies of refinement.
Kairi slapped a hand against her mouth, but the giggle escaped through her nose in a sort of stifled snort. Riku and Sora squashed down the discomforting mental image with identical winces. "It's going that bad, huh?" Sora asked.
"Um-hm," Aerith answered, and closed the fan with a snap. "Both sides are dead tired of fighting over nothing, but Ingary doesn't want to stop their use of Heartless in the military until Strangia agrees to dismantle most of their air force bases on the southern border, which they don't want to do because Ingary uses Heartless in their military, and blah, blah, blah, etc., etc. here we go again."
"That sounds like a merry-go-round of fun," Riku said, now more grateful than ever nobody really seemed to want two slightly scruffy, unmannered teenagers at the disarmament talks, no matter how pivotal their role had been in bringing them about.
"Right," Leon said, shaking his head in exasperation. "You know why Radiant Garden's government works as well as it does? Because the people running it aren't politicians. These people…their mouths move, sound comes out, and nobody actually says anything for hours at a stretch. Some days I almost wish—"
"Well I don't," Aerith interrupted him, looking slightly brittle. "I like going to bed at night knowing with reasonable certainty my friends are still going to be alive when I wake up. That is worth any number of pig-faced, blowhard Defense Ministers the Multiverse can throw at us. Complaints aside, our time doing the fighting is over."
"I'm not that old! I only turned thirty last month!" Leon objected.
"I didn't say you were old. You said you were old," Aerith commented with a smirk. "And what I meant was that we can't drop our responsibilities to the people who depend on us to go Heartless-slaying on a whim. We have a planet to run. Those three don't," she said, and gestured with her fan at the three Keyblade masters sprawled in an untidy pile on the large bed.
"Speaking of responsibility…what happened to Madame Suliman? Isn't there going to be a trial? Or something?" Kairi asked.
"According to Howl she's mysteriously disappeared, along with a handful of other high-ranking sorcerers and military officials he assumes were intimately involved in the Greyslake massacre," Leon said. "Most everyone left is busy denying knowledge of her activities 'til they're blue in the face."
"That's disgusting," Kairi added.
"That's politics," Leon answered. "Although she was considerate enough to seal her personal laboratories before skipping town." He pulled a square of paper from an inner pocket of his jacket and held it out to Sora. "Addressed to you and Kairi. She melted the keys to slag. Seems she didn't want anyone inside but a Keyblade master and anyone they could personally vouch for. Howl asked us to take anything we or the King might find useful and burn the rest."
"We'll get on that," Sora assured him. "I can't wait to drop a match on that pile of—"
There was a brisk knock on the door, and it opened a crack to admit the voice of one of the ubiquitous pageboys. "The session is reconvening shortly, Sir and Madam Ambassadors," he said, and withdrew when his message was testily acknowledged by Leon.
Aerith smoothed out her dress and blinked pointedly at Leon until his shirt had been retucked and his jacket rezipped all the way up to the collar. "Well…shall we dance?"
"Have I got a choice?" he asked, but opened the door for her anyway.
When they left, Sora broke the unadorned blob of wax sealing the scrap of paper and unfolded it. It read:
I've wronged you, and Howl, and this kingdom and the world. I am sorry. Sorcerers live their lives in fear, and I let it overtake my reason. There is no excuse for what I've done.
If he hasn't done so already, advise His Majesty to clear Howl of all charges, and offer him a permanent post in the Court, though I doubt he'll take it. He was always my most promising student, and now it seems he has finally grown wiser than his master.
He passed the note to Kairi, who skimmed through it with Riku looking over her shoulder. "I knew it," she said, but didn't sound triumphant her opinion of Madame Suliman had been vindicated.
"We should start clearing out the lab pretty soon," Riku said. "Before anybody starts getting ideas."
Kairi shook her head and exhaled luxuriously into the goosedown pillows. "The stuff isn't going anywhere, and from the looks of things the negotiations are going to drag on for a while. Besides, I'm not supposed to get out of bed yet. Doctor's orders, on account of my delicate female constitution."
"You flash-fried a dozen Heartless after being stabbed in the belly and falling off a roof," Riku pointed out.
Kairi shrugged. "It's still a perfectly good excuse. We have some time to breathe for a while. Just enjoy it—I'm going to. Pass the bonbons, would you, Sora?"
Sora got up to grab the box off the table and deposited it on Kairi's lap. Each piece was a work of art, and several were even dusted with gold. Kairi had made pretty decent inroads into the box already. Sora took one with a cherry drawn on it in a thin ribbon of chocolate and popped it in his mouth. It was a startlingly good distraction from the unpleasantness of the past two weeks, and coincidentally the closest thing to an orgasm one could have by stimulating the tastebuds alone. "Dude," Sora said, sucking chocolate off his teeth, "you have got to try these." He riffled around in the box for another one, and chose a long thin one dipped in crushed hazelnuts. Inspiration struck. He snuggled closer against Kairi on the bed and made kissy noises at her around the stick of chocolate. She quickly got the hint and nibbled off her half, which ended in a deliciously chocolately kiss.
"Ow, my teeth," Riku said, completely deadpan. "Does the Disney Castle health plan offer dental?"
"It's okay, Riku," Sora said comfortingly, reaching over Kairi to pat his leg. "We know you only act like a jerkwad because you care. There's another one. Want a kiss?"
For a second he was going to refuse, since he was one of the very few people in the Multiverse that found most chocolate to be inedibly sweet, and unlike Sora and Kairi preferred something with more bite behind it. Then he saw one lone, dark, slightly symbolic square stuck in the corner. He plucked it from the box, tucked it between Sora's lips, and kissed away his half with pleasure.
Sora wrinkled his nose when he pulled away—not because of the kiss, of course, but Riku's taste in candy. "That's so bitter!" he said, quickly selecting another one to balance out the taste. "How can you eat those?"
"Cause I'm not a chocolate wuss," Riku said, leaning back on one of the many pillows with his hands tucked behind his head. "Where did those come from, anyway, Kairi?"
"Prince Stephen," Kairi answered. "He vowed to keep me supplied in chocolate 'til we left. After asking for my hand in marriage. I—don't look at me like that, Riku! Now swallow, breathe…right. Good. Of course I said no, are you kidding?"
Riku sat up and cleared his throat, since Kairi's offhanded comment had nearly forced the last of the chocolate down completely the wrong tube. "You're sure popular around here."
"She is pretty hot, Riku," Sora pointed out. "Hey Kairi, have I ever told you you're hot?"
Kairi paused to consider this, and grinned. "Not that I remember. And don't worry about Prince Stephen, really. I think he did it out of politeness more than anything else. Since I broke his curse, and he's a prince, and I'm a princess—the whole fairytale deal, you know—I think he felt sort of obligated. Worked for Belle, but come on. He seemed downright relieved when I turned him down."
"Lucky us," Riku said.
"We really are," Sora said. Somehow it came out in a more contemplative tone than he'd intended.
"Amazingly, staggeringly, impossibly lucky," Riku agreed. "In more ways than one."
"See? I told you saving the world was—" Sora began, but rest of his sentence was buried under a sudden faceful of down and silk pillowcase, courtesy of Riku.
Kairi tossed the pillow back in Riku's direction. "So…one down, a whole skyful left to go?" Kairi asked.
"Would you have it any other way?" Riku asked.