Hey all! Thank God the document editor decided not to screw up; that's all I can say. XD FFN doesn't like my Macbook Pro, it seems... Anyway, I'm going to make this A/N quick, because my geography class is starting in like 2 minutes. Not much to say about this chapter, except don't expect much of it because I'm writing updates for this fic for NaNo. Which, as we all should know, means word vomit first and editing later.
Also, the last part of this chapter is a special treat for those of you who have been saying we need a scene with Donald/Goofy's POV. I think I did all right with that, but who knows? ;)
Enjoy!
Disclaimer- I own nothing.
As Sora and the others dashed out of the castle to the courtyard beyond, the Keybearer spotted the black-clad figure they had been looking for. He narrowed his eyes, already preparing himself to summon his newfound rose Keyblade to his hand; it had done a fairly good job of beating back the Heartless and dragon-like Nobodies Xaldin had summoned to fight them in the castle entrance, so he figured it would be enough to defeat their master as well.
At least, he hoped it would be enough.
"Get out of my castle, now!" Beast snarled, flexing his claws.
Xaldin hummed almost dismissively, hefting the glass container holding the rose. In his other arm, Belle struggled valiantly, but to no avail; he had an iron grip around her already. Beast flinched at the sight of both, but to his credit managed to keep a relatively strong hold on his anger.
"And let Belle and the rose go!" Donald added, fury in his hoarse squawk.
Goofy gave a fervent nod of agreement, brows drawn over his eyes in as close to an angry look as he could get.
"With pleasure," Xaldin said, "but in all honesty, I'd like to make an equal exchange. Which will it be, Beast?" A smile full of relish curved over his lips as he spoke. "Belle? Or the rose?"
"If you really want to travel light, why don't you give us both?" Sora demanded.
Xaldin's violet-blue eyes landed on him, and Sora fought back a shudder at how deeply that gaze probed over him. "Ah, Number XIII," the Nobody purred after a moment of scrutiny. If possible, his smile widened even further, and he perfunctorily tightened his hold on Belle, who had fallen limp for a moment before lashing out anew. "Xigbar was right about that look you used to give him."
"Xigbar?" Sora blinked; the name sounded familiar, though whether that was from Char's story of her fellow apprentices or Roxas, he wasn't sure. The effect of Xaldin's stare on him sent dozens of prickling barbs into the Keybearer's skin, and he could only growl under his breath, wanting so badly to dispel the reminder of Roxas, but knowing only a glare could embody his disgust right now. Yes, now he could remember: Roxas, stalking by a long-haired man with an eye patch and giving said man a baleful stare.
He snapped out of his trance as quickly as possible, as Donald and Goofy were giving him worried looks – and he didn't dare think of ice blue's absence among those concerned eyes. "Trying to psych me out isn't going to work!" he shouted. A near-blinding light flashed, announcing the rose Keyblade's appearance in his grasp, and he blinked against the sudden influx of light; his eyes had grown used to both the darker half-light of the castle and the way the clouds currently eclipsed the sun.
Fleetingly, he wondered how much time had passed today, since he had near fallen to his knees at seeing the last remnant of darkness swallow up Char in the Land of Dragons. The sun had remained somewhat high in the sky in Mulan's world, and Donald and Goofy had all but forced a sandwich down his throat on the way here. So noontime had just passed. The more time he spent dawdling here exchanging blows with this Nobody, the farther away Char could get; and the more time Kairi and Riku spent in darkness.
Kairi. Riku. To his shame, his mind choked on the last name and he couldn't continue, even in his thoughts. He nearly opened his mouth to ask about them, before remembering only Axel seemed to know anything about Kairi. And Riku and Char…
For all he knew, Riku and Char were already together.
I just hope they're safe. All of them.
Xaldin scoffed daintily. "I'm not going to bother with trying to bring out Roxas. As far as I'm concerned, he is long gone." He flexed his fingers. "However, if you insist on being difficult –"
Suddenly Belle lashed out again, driving her elbow with all her strength into her captor's ribs. A grunt cut off whatever belligerent words might have followed, and Xaldin recoiled, loosening his grip on the rose and allowing Belle to leap up and seize it from his hand. Her trembling fingers slipped a bit on the glass container, but soon she found purchase, gripping it tighter even as she dashed off toward the safety of the castle.
"Good one, Belle!" Goofy called. Sora caught a glimpse of her triumphant smile as she charged past.
Beast let out a murmur of relief that both his most prized treasures were safe, only for his expression to turn thunderous again as he swiveled his head back to Xaldin. Crouching low in a way that made his muscles bunch, he sprang forward, paws thudding against the ground as he raced toward the Nobody. However, Xaldin straightened, apparently having had enough time to recover from Belle's unexpected attack, and jumped backward, out of range of those deadly claws. As a result, Beast nearly toppled forward from the force of his momentum, only managing to catch himself before falling. He glowered upward as Xaldin floated back down again, seemingly weightless, black robes and dreadlocks fluttering, eyes narrowed with a rage that someone with no heart should not be capable of. For some reason, Sora was reminded of the shadows that had consumed Char, and suddenly he wanted to tear this Nobody apart twice as hard.
For her, if nothing else.
As Xaldin touched down, he lifted his arms to the sky. In response to some unspoken command, swirling amalgamations of cloud and lightning coalesced around him, surrounding his form in opaque spirals. The wind kicked up then, and, letting out a surprised cry, Sora drew his arm over his eyes, even as behind him, Beast dug his claws into the ground. Donald eventually lost his balance and was thrown backward, but Goofy extended his shield to halt his path. The duck hissed out of both indignation and pain at the impact with the turtle shell-like weapon.
After a few moments, the dust cleared, and Sora lowered his arm to see the pillars of cloud had vanished, to reveal six long, pale-bladed weapons. With one swift movement, Xaldin gathered up the lances to hover at his side. The near-unbalancing gale had vanished from the air, Sora suddenly realized. He trailed his gaze up to the now-vibrating air around the Nobody. Of course, the Roxas part of him whispered, Xaldin's powers involve wind.
A smirk overcame Xaldin's face then, as though he had heard Sora's thoughts and wanted to confirm them. However, he sighed and twirled his lances around. "Where's the fun in this?" he queried, and his lips curled up in an even more impossibly sardonic manner as he added, "If Charisa's not with you, it's almost not worth the bother."
His mentioning the redhead's name broke Sora out of whatever nostalgia-induced trance might have followed. Hefting the rose Keyblade in his hands, the brunette charged forward, with Beast hot on his heels. "Where is she?" Sora demanded, even as he leaped and lashed out with his blade. "Where –"
But then an invisible force was thrusting him back, tiny invisible blades scissoring into his form and nearly throwing him into Beast. Sora landed on his feet and, upon feeling multiple twinges of pain in his Keyblade-wielding arm, glanced down. What he saw shocked him: even though Xaldin had made no move with his lances, multiple cuts had appeared on his arm.
"What…?" Beast trailed off, shaking his head with a snarl. He charged again, only for much the same result to occur; behind them, Donald cast a lightning spell, only for said lightning to harmlessly absorb into the wind surrounding Xaldin. Even Goofy's shield bounced uselessly off the Nobody, and the dog caught it just before it could make contact with his face.
"We can't hit him?" Goofy gaped, his shield beginning to shake in his grip.
Sora shook his head. "I'm sure there's a way, we just –" He cut himself off, instead choosing to concentrate on the multiple lance points abruptly slicing toward him. Like Demyx before him, Xaldin chose to refrain from taunting them, only watching with a detached air that made sickeningly enough sense in light of their inability to hit him.
"This isn't good," the Keybearer muttered under his breath, his mental rendition of Char echoing the words. She might know what to do – maybe this was one of the Organization members she had lived and worked with; she might know how to counteract his fighting style – but she wasn't here. And, Sora realized with a surge of desperate dread, he would have to figure this out himself.
You'll be fine, he thought in an attempt to encourage himself, you fought just fine without her, remember? But the fact also remained that he had grown used to having the extra help; to hearing sardonic quips and vulgar pejoratives thrown at his enemies; to taking heart from her solid presence.
Now he didn't even have that.
However, Sora knew now was not the time to focus on her absence and the yawning chasm filled with fear and loneliness that said absence had ripped open in his heart. Especially since Xaldin had withdrawn his lances, only to thrust them forward again, very nearly impaling Beast and Goofy in the process.
Recoiling, Donald instinctively tossed two Potions to the prince and the dog; the latter caught it and spared a couple of seconds to trot far enough away from the fray to gulp the elixir down, but Beast swatted his away with one paw. "I don't have time to focus on this," he growled, glare fixed unwaveringly on the whirling eddies of air surrounding Xaldin. "I need to make him pay for what he's done!"
Without waiting for a response, he leaped forward again, but the result was the same as before: the wind guarding Xaldin sliced into Beast and he fell back, letting out a guttural snarl of pain and frustration. Sora noticed the blood welling up from beneath his companion's fur and fought back a wince.
He tried not to panic, a process that was made even more difficult by Xaldin suddenly deciding to take the offense again. Facilitated by the currents of air surrounding him, the Nobody became little more than a whirlwind of wind and lances, slashing viciously through the air and effectively scattering the four of them. Sora himself barely drew back in time, though the lance points caught against his skin and ripped more than once. Donald squawked as he lost his balance, but Goofy pulled him out of the way just in time, dragging the duck back with him.
After what seemed like ages of frantically dodging Xaldin's attacks, the Nobody finally settled into his prior position, not looking dizzy in the slightest. Multiple drops of blood spattered the ground beneath Beast's feet as he stood, wavering only slightly. "I don't understand," he growled, almost incoherent with anger. "How are we supposed to hit him?"
Sora shrugged helplessly, holding back a wince as the cool air of the royal courtyard seeped into his open wounds. A moment passed, and he realized he was waiting for a female voice to remark I guess we don't.
Not unless we find his weak point first.
His weak point. Even absent, Char caused the gears in Sora's mind to turn.
Determination flooded into his heart anew, effectively sweeping away most of his worry, and the Keybearer faced Xaldin again. "He's got to have some sort of weak spot," the brunette called to the others. Donald and Goofy, who could also already barely stand, exchanged a glance and startled murmurs. "A place where the wind doesn't cover him up."
"Right," Goofy said slowly, eyes widening. "And then when we find that, we can finally hit him!"
Xaldin snorted, speaking for the first time since the battle had begun and he had mentioned Char so casually. Thinking of that, Sora clenched his fists, tightening his grip around his Keyblade; the Rumbling Rose as a name suddenly came to mind, for both Beast's righteous fury and the object that was once his only hope for salvation until Belle came along and showed him light.
"The last horses finally cross the finish line," the still-floating Nobody drawled. His heavy eyebrows drew down over his eyes in a dark smirk. "But you only have so much time to defeat me. You're looking a little tired, Beast."
"Don't listen to him!" Donald screeched at the prince, who had straightened with a look of ire at Xaldin's taunts addressing him. "He's just trying to make you mad enough to get tired!"
You're one to talk, duck boy, Char snorted in the back of Sora's mind, and suddenly he had to force back tears pricking at his eyes. Not now, the time for missing her was not now. The sooner he sent this Nobody back to the darkness he had emerged from, the sooner he could find Char and Riku and Kairi again.
For the most part, the aura around their battle took on a very subtle shift. Except for Beast, who prowled around glaring at Xaldin, obviously hating that he couldn't just jump up and claw the Nobody to ribbons, the group began fighting more defensively. Donald expended his magic only to heal, which he did immediately after Sora's revelation, giving them all new energy to retaliate again. Goofy and Sora watched Xaldin's strikes more closely, only using their weapons to guard themselves whenever one of those deadly lances deviated from its position floating around their master.
By the time Sora found a way to return the injuries Xaldin had inflicted on them in kind, his muscles were screaming for rest and he was wishing for Char's presence more than ever. Strange ways of giving them morale aside, his mentioning her told Sora loud and clear that in a past life, Xaldin had lived and worked alongside Char as one of her fellow apprentices. If she were here, maybe she could have given them some hints about his fighting style. Yeah, Sora found himself thinking, and if she were here –
If she were –
Not the time, not the time, his mind chanted, and he surfaced from the proverbial dark waters just in time to catch a glimpse of still air just above Xaldin's head, stark amidst all the globules of wind surging around him.
Hastily, Sora parried the two lances that had converged on him and would have sliced him, scissor-like, in two, had he not brought up the Rumbling Rose to guard. Good, the Roxas part of him suddenly whispered, now jump and give it all you've got. He knows his weakness, so do it fast before he can see what you're doing.
Guiltily grateful for his Nobody's presence in his heart, Sora found himself obeying. He slipped around those lances, which had withdrawn briefly only to lash out again, and leaped, assisted by all the training he had done with the Valor Form.
At the last possible moment, though, Xaldin glanced up. With a thrill of horror, Sora realized he couldn't slow himself down enough to just vault sideways in midair.
"Good try, Sora," the dreadlocked Nobody said, voice little more than a mockingly praising rumble. Rather than raise his lances up and impale Sora, though, Xaldin chose to just move out of the way, leaving the brunette to hastily right himself before he could break a bone landing on his side.
"Close, but just not enough." The last part turned into an eerie echo as Xaldin suddenly, strangely, began to glow with a pale green fire.
Donald had just enough time to get out a confused "wak?" before Xaldin suddenly became little more than a blur of green and wind and lances.
The next few minutes became desperate attempts to escape those deadly blades. Everything in Sora's mind shrank down to just the primal need to survive, sending only the signals required to evade the foe before him to his body. Even then, that wasn't enough; Donald and Goofy got caught in the whirlwind, and Sora felt something distinctively warm splash across his face. No time to think about that; just run, just get away as quickly as possible –
Just as abruptly as the chartreuse blaze in his periphery had appeared, though, it vanished. Sora dared turn around; a movement out of the corner of his eye nearly made him whirl around, Keyblade brandished, but then it hit him that it was just something dark rolling down his temple.
Blinking the blood out of his eyes, the Keybearer turned to search for the others. Much to his confusion, Xaldin had vanished. "Everyone all right?" he called, a little cautiously.
"I've been better," Donald muttered, staggering to his feet only with Beast's support. Crimson wounds mottled all three creatures' bodies, and it looked like Goofy's scars from the Demyx battle had opened up again. Sora fought back a groan, restraining his tremble for their sake. If Xaldin came back…
Xaldin!
"Sora!" a raspy voice roared from above, making them all glance over with a mix of weariness and dread. To their shock, the voice had not come from a dark-clad figure, as they would have assumed, but a dragon-like shape floating in the sky, appraising them from just beyond the walls of the castle courtyard.
"You think Nobodies can transform, too?" Goofy gulped.
"I don't think so," Sora replied slowly. Before he could mention any theories on that little matter – theories; Char was getting to him – Xaldin spoke again.
"You'll wear the face of despair!"
This can't be good.
Of course, an instant later, the talons on the dragon's three arms slid open, and a globe of white coalesced within. Sora's eyes widened. I hate it when I'm right, phantom Char said.
The white light changed shape then, turning into a laser-like beam that swept over the area. Sora heard his comrades let out murmurs of confusion and fear, and couldn't say he blamed them. Panic had taken hold of his mind, throttling his ability to react to this new crisis. Normally he would have just thrown up his Keyblade and blocked, but from the way the beam of light tore through statues in the courtyard, it looked like that would only end up with his weapon torn apart.
He didn't know how else he could counter this, though, and that sent more terror pumping through his body than a destroyed Keyblade ever could.
The phantom of Char in his mind was telling him to calm down, but he found himself unable to heed her. In the span of only a few seconds, the light emanating from the dragon's mouth was moving ever closer, and now that he could get a better glimpse of it, he saw it spiraling about in midair, creating the illusion of a horizontal tornado. If he were to lash out and slice into it with the Rumbling Rose, which remained heavy and unforgotten in his grip, more than likely it would just bounce off, since the amount of air tumbling within the vortex created a shield…
Sora's eyes widened as a long-buried memory came back into his mind: in Agrabah, how only the use of a new, unfamiliar kind of magic – one that had tunneled its way up from a part of him he didn't even know he possessed – had saved him, Donald, Goofy, and Char from being barbecued by a fire-breathing Heartless.
It was a last-ditch effort, and he didn't even know how much mana remained to him after the exhaustion of fighting Xaldin, but he knew it was worth a shot.
"Guys, get behind me!" he shouted above the howling gale sweeping toward them.
"Are you crazy?" Donald screamed.
Sora shook his head frantically, explanations clawing their way at the back of his throat but remaining there due to the lack of time to voice them. "Just do it! I've got an idea. And hurry!" he added, heartbeat quickening as he spoke.
Goofy was already nodding and racing to stand behind Sora, but Donald and Beast stared a bit more skeptically before following suit. Feeling the trembling bodies of his friends at his back – even that of the Beast, who until moments before had been filled with so much rage – Sora took a deep breath, knowing he had to wait until the light engulfed his vision entirely to throw up the shield. He could feel his Keyblade shaking in his grip and tried to focus on that instead of the possibility of timing his defense wrong.
If I know you, Key-boy, Char remarked, you'll be just fine. You just can't die.
It was the strangest thing, but her voice, even in his thoughts, sent confidence streaming through him and blotting out the fear like the light before them.
Just like thinking of Kairi's voice had done on his last journey.
With that, he concentrated, and let every last drop of remaining mana flow forth to protect his friends.
Once Riku, Char, and Copperhead had finished their meals, the eldest stood, taking one final swig of his drink as he did so. "I've got some stuff to take care of around town," he announced.
Char narrowed her eyes, somehow doubting his words. "Such as?" she couldn't help asking, despite the very large part of her that told her she shouldn't even give the semblance of caring.
Copperhead just shrugged evasively. "Work for the mayor. You know – stuff like that."
Char blinked, not knowing what to say; rather than having her skepticism proven groundless, said skepticism only magnified even more within her. She found it a bit difficult to believe that someone like this – a man who seemed so careless, for lack of a better word, and who moreover the main defender of this world distrusted more than anything – could obtain work with the most important figure in this town.
Then again, she had also once denounced Sora, the one chosen by the Keyblade, as little more than a naïve dork. She'd been wrong before.
She fought back a sigh, one that was born both of longing and irritability. Longing, toward the boy Riku had so abruptly torn her away from just when she was gaining some genuine feelings for him; and irritability, for caring this much about basically a complete stranger.
The saloon doors swinging closed brought her back to reality. Just like that, the situation came back into focus: the sounds of the customers deep in conversation; the raised voices of the waiters and waitresses as they called out to one another; the boy at her side that was most assuredly not Sora.
Riku turned to her, pushing his now-empty plate aside. "Well," he said, "we might as well start for the town, too. Try to find where the Organization hid the machine."
His words reminded her of their real purpose here: not to sit around and chat with scythe-wielding, dark-haired Keybearer-obsessed blondes, but to find the product of Ansem's hard work and desire for revenge on the Organization. Budding distrust toward her master aside, Char knew the faster she and Riku found what they were looking for, the sooner they could leave.
She glanced toward the blind-covered windows, from which weak sunlight still streamed forth. When they had walked in, noontime had pushed the sun toward its zenith in the sky; now that they had spent an hour or so on their lunch, the light eking through the blinds seemed a bit weaker. For perhaps the thousandth time in that hour, she found herself wondering what Sora and the others were doing now; if they had managed to beat back the dragon Heartless Xigbar had created.
Of course, she figured the latter's answer was obvious. Sora just couldn't die.
"How do you think Sora's doing?" she heard herself ask, and immediately wanted to clap a hand over her mouth for exposing her insecurities so easily. Especially toward Riku, toward whom she had experienced nothing but impatience and irritation since he had pinned her to the wall in the Land of Dragons and told her just what he was doing.
Riku had been looking toward the door, clearly itching to move on; when she spoke, though, he turned his head back to her, startled. The surprise would almost be comical on Xehanort's face, had she not known exactly who currently wore it. Those fine gray eyebrows arched over amber hues before relaxing, and Riku sighed, running his fingers through his hair. "He's definitely moved on from the Land of Dragons. Where did you guys end up going after that place the last time you visited?"
Char thought a moment. Pale blue eyes set off by dark brown fur, ivory fangs, and a vicious temper came to mind, along with the inanimate objects that served the owner of those things. "Beast's Castle, I think."
Then her mind caught up to her instinctive response of answering his question and berated her, saying that Riku couldn't have known they had gone through those worlds already. She frowned, leaning forward on the elbow placed against the tabletop, a bit of distrust seeping up from within her heart. "How did you know we visited the Land of Dragons already?"
Riku flinched, knowing he was caught. An instant later, though, his composure slid back into place. "Let's just say I've been watching you guys a little more closely than you'd think," he muttered, head angling down to the ground.
Char narrowed her eyes, about to chide him; but a voice whose timbre was disturbingly reminiscent of Sora's piped up in the back of her mind, saying to just let him be. A sigh tunneled up from deep within her, and she pushed her bangs out of her eyes with the hand attached to the elbow on the counter. "I can understand that," she commented. "He's your best friend, after all." And even in spite of everything Sora and Riku had gone through, fights and all, she meant every word.
He glanced back up then, surprise etched onto his features again. However, unlike before, the shadows of questions left unasked lingered among that shock, making hesitation mark his movements. Before Char could do much more than register what all he wanted to ask her – about her relationship with Sora, or at the very least how she could believe so much in him – he shook his head, effectively shedding those shadows. "At any rate," he said, "we should go."
Char sighed, inwardly telling herself to be less obvious when it came to Sora. "Right." After she had failed to respond to Riku's jibe about her feelings toward him, more than likely the dark boy had to be feeling suspicious enough already.
And yet…
Would it really be so bad, to admit to someone other than yourself and Sora that you love him?
The terminology about her emotions toward him would have bothered her, were she the Char of a month ago, the Char who shied away from directly admitting her turmoil and hidden from everything that struck sorrow into her.
Now, she just wanted to get this over with and see him again.
If these thoughts showed on her face and in the sudden brightening of her eyes – stupid tears, Char thought fiercely, go away, dammit – Riku said nothing about it. He just turned away, dark cloak swishing as he did so.
Silently, they walked out the door.
With one final blow, the Rumbling Rose slashed into Xaldin's shoulders. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Sora fought back a shudder at the distinct lack of blood on his blade. Just went to reinforce exactly who – and what – these enemies were. Roxas notwithstanding, now the Keybearer knew for sure he had to take the Organization down.
For what they were doing to his friends, if nothing else.
The Nobody let out a choked cry of agony. Agony, and shock, and so many things that a being with heart should have been unable to muster. "Is this the end?" he managed, just before falling to his knees. The lances spread out from where they had once floated around his body, which was also now bereft of the winds that had once surrounded it, and fell, embedding themselves in the ground around him. White light surrounded them as they, too, vanished.
Xaldin lifted his hands to the sky and let out a roar filled with so much primordial anguish that even Donald winced. An instant later, darkness wreathed his form and swallowed him up.
Sora was surprised at the lack of contrition and guilt, the emotions that had come with watching Demyx die – no, not die, that wasn't the right word; vanish fit Nobodies' ends better – and plagued him afterward. Maybe because Roxas had cared more for Demyx than for Xaldin.
Either way, even as Belle raced out from the castle with the rose in hand to check if the Beast was okay, the Keybearer figured he and his friends should move on.
"Good thing he was caught off guard so you could finish him after that spell you did," Goofy commented.
"Yeah," Sora murmured absently.
Donald eyed him oddly, but spoke nonetheless. "And I guess you got a stronger reflect spell out of it, too."
"It just bothers me," the brunette confessed, after a moment of silence.
The dog tilted his head to the side. "What's botherin' you, Sora?"
Sora shrugged, keeping his eyes on the ground. "Nothing, really. It's just –"
"Thank goodness you're all right!" Belle cried. She set down the rose gently, only to recover her urgency and rush to the Beast's side. "You're bleeding terribly," she gasped, grazing one of his less onerous wounds with one finger.
Beast shook his head, wincing at the contact; however, Sora noticed he did not shy away. "It's fine," he muttered gruffly.
Belle drew back a little, not looking the least bit convinced. In the end, she just sighed and gestured at the rose, still glowing in its glass cage. "Here. It's yours again."
All four of the others followed her gaze. Even as they watched, one petal freed itself from its fellows and drifted to the ground. Remembering what Mrs. Potts had told him – that if the last petal fell before the Beast found love, he would maintain his form forever – Sora glanced up, opened his mouth to say something. But the prince beat him to it.
"I… I don't want you to leave the castle, Belle," he blurted out.
Donald's eyes widened. "At least we didn't have to make him say it himself," he commented under his breath. Goofy just shushed him, and, significantly chastised, Donald turned back to the two world natives with a grumble.
"I…" Beast hesitated. Almost helplessly, he gave Sora and his friends a pleading look.
"Whatever you have to say, you can say it," Sora encouraged him. "Belle will listen."
Beast turned back to Belle, nervousness in the way he clenched his claws and unclenched them again. "Will you?"
She just smiled.
"Don't be bashful, now!" Goofy grinned.
That earned him a hard stare, a silent command for them to let him be. Sora couldn't help it; his lips quirked upward as well.
The Beast's annoyance died down immediately when his gaze landed on Belle, on his last hope for salvation. Watching, Sora felt his adrenaline kick up again, this time not due to battle, but desperate hope. This was Beast's last chance; they could only pray he didn't botch it.
"I want you to stay," the former prince managed at last. A beat, then, "With me. Please?" he added for good measure.
Almost before he had finished speaking, Belle was moving forward and took his hand in hers. The furry brown paw easily swallowed her smaller hand in its grip, but she did not waver in the slightest, even when Beast stiffened in surprise. "As long as you need me to," she said quietly.
Beast's eyes widened, and Sora, Donald, and Goofy watched as wordlessly, naturally, the two fell into a dance, right there in the blood-spattered courtyard. The mage and the knight sighed in relief; Sora could only look on, the smile on his face faltering just slightly.
Because selfish as it was, he couldn't help imagining himself and Char dancing like that.
Goofy spotted the Keybearer's newfound melancholia, and his expression softened. "Think it's about time we move on?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
The couple before them halted in their movements, with Beast's own large paw encircled around Belle's waist. "You need to find Char, right?" Belle asked.
Sora's eyes roving steadily down to the ground served as more than enough of a reply.
"We understand," the Beast said, giving them a smile that revealed none of his fangs. A smile that could only ever come out around Belle. He hesitated a moment longer before adding, "Everything will be all right for a little while."
Everything will be all right.
Riku and Char spent the remainder of the sun's cycle in the sky wandering around town, asking the marketers and civilians if they had seen anything strange over the last few days or so. For the most part, none of the Shadowed Desert natives gave the two of them any response beyond blankness and curiosity, which Riku had to hastily rebuff before causing panic among them.
Char could understand his desire to keep the situation relatively beneath the public eye; after all, for all intents and purposes, telling these people the real reason an odd, tall boy in a black cloak and a sullen redhead trailing after him were asking about something as seemingly random as this was like telling them the worlds were in danger. And while the real extent of how much the Shadowed Desert natives knew about the worlds beyond this one remained a secret to her, Char figured revealing Xemnas' existence wouldn't do much in the way of maintaining the town's calm.
She glanced up at the sky, immediately having to shield her eyes from the near-blinding rays of the sun, low in its path as it was. How much time have we spent, wasting time chasing people who don't know anything? she wondered, a jagged bolt of desperation slashing across her heart as the question went through her mind. Fast on the sparks of said desperation flickered annoyance, at the fact that if Riku had bothered to get more information before dragging her into this, they wouldn't have had to waste this whole afternoon.
Before her frustration could spill forth into reality, she forced herself to rein her emotions in. Moaning about the day slipping between her fingers, so much like the grains of sand on Sora and Riku's island, wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't change the fact that she still had no idea on which world Sora currently stood, if he was helping the Beast redeem himself or glaring at Hades or asking Simba how his reign as king was going.
Thankfully, her hand already hovered just above her eyes, so crooking her wrist slightly downward to halt the path of any forthcoming liquidated anger at this whole situation.
Inwardly, though, she had to congratulate herself a little at coming to terms so quickly with this. It's just till we find that machine, she tried to soothe her tantrum-throwing pride, I just need to bear with it until then.
At this rate, though…
The spring breeze picked up then, ruffling the surface of the river underneath the bridge where they stood. Char turned away, away from where the horizon was currently beginning its dinner of the omnipresent disc of the sun. Just beyond the line of trees, where, she knew, marked the spot she had first arrived here, a somewhat vague silhouette protruded in the distance, one that reminded her disturbingly of Maleficent's castle viewed from Hollow Bastion's bailey. Despite her prior vow to only care about finding Ansem's work – or perhaps because of it – Char cocked her head to the side, pondering the identity of that castle-like shape in the distance.
Well, she thought, at least if she knew what that was, she could go explore it and search for the machine there. The possibility of that remained as well.
Behind her, the buzz of Riku's voice gained a peremptory timbre, suggesting he was wrapping up the conversation he had begun with a citizen just before Char had wandered off. The redhead tried not to stiffen, but couldn't help flinching a bit when she heard footsteps drawing closer. "I don't think we're going to find anything else today," the dark boy announced, disappointment dripping from every word as he halted at her side. Without looking down at her, he folded his arms, just staring out at the sunset-clad sky.
Char just uttered a noncommittal "mm," which apparently served as more than enough of a response for Riku. Surprise engulfed her as it hit her that the silence now enveloping them had an almost comfortable aura; briefly, she considered trying to hold up her previous anger toward him, but a sense of exhaustion from the day – kidnapping, still-stinging injuries from battles, Copperhead and all – descended on her like a Heartless' claw and told her to just drop her anger. He had said more than once today that he didn't want to bring her into this, after all.
She found a bit of grudging gratefulness eking into her soul, if only for that much.
If she had been the Char of a month before, she might have felt the urge to reach out and graze his fingertips with hers: felt it, but not acted on it. Now, though, the very knowledge that would have precluded her from acting on that impulse – his love for another girl – kept Char from both experiencing and acting on any desire to just feel that much contact.
Unbidden, Falcon popped into Char's mind, as well as the dark-haired girl's own heart pining for Riku. Surely the female Keybearer knew of Kairi's existence: Riku had made it seem as though he had spent a fair amount of time talking with Falcon, enough so that he had to have told her some stories of the old days. Once Riku and Char had lowered their verbal weapons from each other's throats long enough to talk about the past, Char had felt a tiny, stabbing needle in her heart at hearing the softness that overlaid Riku's voice when he mentioned Kairi.
Then again, Char had never bothered mentioning her past to him; those were the days when she had shied away from the mere shadow of how her fellow apprentices died.
In that regard, past Char and current Falcon weren't so different after all. And even though Char had vowed to care about nothing but leaving this world as soon as humanly possible, sympathy filled her at knowing that.
She leveled her gaze back to the castle-like shape in the distance, slitting her eyes against the setting sun. Beside her, Riku let out a small sigh, almost making her turn and ask him why before it hit her. Probably thinking it looks like home, she thought with a sigh. What would it be like, to regard her home with anything more than bitter nostalgia of what she had lost?
"What are you looking at?" Riku asked suddenly, so suddenly that it startled her.
Steadying herself, Char looked at him, bemused. "Well, that was random."
He rolled his eyes. "Just curious, is all." He gestured to the general horizon. "You're concentrating pretty hard on it, so I was just wondering what it was."
Char blinked. "Oh." Mildly irritated at her monosyllabic response, she turned back to the horizon. "Just that thing that kind of looks like a castle." She pointed at the silhouette.
Squinting, Riku followed her finger with his eyes. As he took it in, he frowned; Char could hear the downward quirk of his lips in the confused sound he made and didn't dare glance up, knowing she would see the contemplative expression Xehanort always got when he was thinking particularly hard on something. "Falcon's never taken me that far," he admitted, sounding slightly irritated at his lack of knowledge on this. "Every time we get that deep into the forest, she just makes us turn back."
Char's brows drew down over her eyes in a bemused mien of her own. "Odd," she said slowly. "What would the Keybearer of this world have to fear on her own turf?"
Riku shrugged with a sigh. "I didn't want to bug her about it," he said, even though every trace of annoyance in his voice suggested that he most certainly did. "I just assumed it was a little like the Secret Place, back on the island." When Char eyed him with even more confusion, he rolled his eyes again. "Something you're not supposed to get too far into."
Do you really still believe that? Char wanted to ask. After everything you've been through, is that place still something untouchable?
"Anyway," he went on, not taking his eyes off the silhouette in the distance, "all I know is that the townspeople call it the citadel."
He glanced back down at her, only to blink at finding a lack of aggravation on her face: just that researcher's curiosity, and the light of realization dawning on her. "That's what that is?" she gasped. When he only nodded, her eyes widened in acknowledgment. "I guess that would be where the Keybearers who died here got buried," she mused.
Riku raised an eyebrow. Clearly, her anger toward him had died down just a tad, if her daring to let even this much contemplation shine through was any indication. In spite of himself, he felt a wave of relief wash over him, both out of knowing he hadn't completely lost her as a friend and the fact that they could work together now.
He took a mental step back, though. Just because she wasn't showing her frustration anymore did not mean she had dropped it entirely. That, and the possibility of her having feelings for Sora hung in the back of his mind, as deceptively calm as a poisonous fog.
But then Char was turning on her heel and asking him a question, and Riku shook any hopeful thoughts of Sora reciprocating Char's feelings that might have tread along the coattails of his previous thoughts. "Hm?"
Char rolled her eyes. "I said, where are we supposed to sleep tonight?"
His mind drew a blank; much to his embarrassment, he hadn't thought that far ahead. Looking away, he found himself intensely grateful that the dark gray hair of this form could hide his shame. "Good question," he muttered under his breath.
Even though he didn't dare meet her gaze, he could feel her eyes searing into him with all their incredulity. "After going to the trouble of dragging me here, you must have known this would take more than a day." Gods willing, it would have only taken a day, and the only problem would have been bouncing from world to world, chasing Sora around to find him.
"I never sleep here, okay?" Riku snapped, glaring at her. "Usually I just stop here to see Falcon and vent stress killing Heartless. I'm gone by this point in the day."
"So where the hell are we supposed to sleep?" Char demanded. "The ground?"
Riku bristled. There went all the sympathy he may have felt toward her in the last few minutes. "Look –"
The sound of a conversation resonating behind them drew both teens' attention, rimmed with belligerence as both respective pairs of ice blue and amber still were. Said belligerence faded, if only a little, as the sight of a slender, dark-clad girl greeted their vision. Falcon stood in front of a robust, middle-aged woman whose back was to the bridge edge, touching the wall that separated them from the river beyond. The fading sunlight caught off something passing from the older woman's pudgy fingers to Falcon's own, and Char realized it must be munny.
"…just wanted to thank you for destroying that awful Heartless," the woman was saying.
Falcon shrugged, not looking up at the other in favor of counting out the coins in her hand. "It wasn't a big deal, really it wasn't." She blinked and glanced back up. "Are you sure you really want to give me this much for such a tiny bounty?"
"Nonsense, dear!" The woman waved a hand dismissively. "It's the least I can do, for the amount of havoc the dreadful creature was causing in my shop."
"Well, all right," the female Keybearer said. Although her next words were clearly spoken around a smile, somehow Char found it difficult to hear that smile in her voice. "Thank you very much, ma'am."
As the woman tittered for a moment longer before turning and shuffling off back to the town square, Falcon shoved the munny into her pocket. From this distance, the way her longer locks of dark hair slid over her shoulder as she stared out at the river was visible, and Char swore she caught the tiniest hint of a sigh.
Then Falcon turned and saw the two foreigners to this world standing there, watching her. At once, any hint of melancholia that might have touched her countenance sluiced away, so flawlessly that its presence before proved doubtful, and she approached them, footsteps clacking across the stone surface of the bridge. Although the smile that had replaced her despondency gleamed brightly enough for both of them, Char had enough sense to know Falcon's expression was directed toward Riku alone.
"Didn't know you were still out here," the dark-haired girl greeted.
Riku shrugged. "We spent the whole day wandering around, trying to find leads."
"And?" Falcon pressed.
He just let out a sound that seemed caught between a growl and a snort and turned away, arms folded across his chest.
"Quite basically," Char spoke up, making Falcon pivot to face her, "we didn't get anything worth checking out. But there's always tomorrow, right?"
Riku gave her a shocked look. "Didn't ever think you'd be the voice of optimism."
His words grated on Char more than she would have expected, and she returned his glare in kind.
Falcon's lips twitched in a smile at Riku's quip, but she just nodded fairly briskly, making Char narrow her eyes a little. She told herself she was probably the only one who had put together her old self's similarity to the dark-haired girl – secret-keeping, tendency to be brusque around anybody beside Riku and all – but it didn't stop her from feeling annoyed at Falcon's terse reaction. Is this how Sora felt, those first few days I was with him?
If so, she had to give Key-boy a bit of her sympathy. Only the days spent in such close proximity had allowed her to push her pride aside, however grudgingly, and accept his friendship rather than just his help in battle.
"About tomorrow," Riku cut in suddenly. "Where are we supposed to stay the night?"
Falcon tilted her head to the side, processing his query. "Well," she mused, "we don't exactly have a local hotel around here…" She stared at the ground in thought, rubbing her arm with the hand of the opposite one.
Much as Char hated to admit it, the dilemma proved difficult for her to solve as well. She folded her arms, thinking; but Riku beat her to it.
"We can't just stay at your house, Falcon?" he asked.
The response came almost instantaneously: the dark-haired girl jolted, arms falling limp at her side, and stared at him in surprise. Surprise, and something like nervousness that showed all too obviously on her face and in her emerald gaze. Char glanced from one to the other, inwardly wondering why that hadn't occurred to her.
Because Falcon doesn't know how she feels about having her crush so close, that's why. Char could relate to that. Hell, the first night after that day in the Pride Lands when she had come to a proper conclusion about what she felt for Sora, Char hadn't been able to stem the flood of thoughts concerning what would happen at having the boy she loved right there. She knew that, had she had more than a few days to ruminate on her emotions – a few days that Riku had soundly interrupted – she would have experienced the same nervousness eventually.
And yet the mild discomfort clear in Riku's jaw tightening suggested that bringing up staying at Falcon's house had been a last resort for him. Maybe that was when Char realized he couldn't have turned a complete blind eye to Falcon's feelings.
Returning them, though; that was a different matter entirely.
"A-are you sure?" Falcon stuttered out at last. Char distinguished the crimson dusting the other girl's cheeks from the light of the setting sun and risked a glance at Riku again. To his credit, he was watching the lovelorn Keybearer fairly steadily, only faltering once to give Char a hard stare. Grumbling, the redhead looked away. "I mean, I haven't had anyone stay at my house in a while. It's kind of messy."
Char turned back and tried to muster up a smile. "We can handle messy," she said. It was only half a lie. After all, she had grown up not only as a researcher, a profession where the fruits of her knowledge often ended up scattered across the building where she and the others lived, but alongside six men. In retrospect, maybe her constant desire to have her room at the Gummi ship clean had originated from that.
Her room at the Gummi ship. The breath caught in Char's throat at the thought of Sora, Donald, and Goofy boarding their vessel, trudging along without her at their side. In particular, Sora, having to walk past her empty room every night now.
"You all right?" Riku queried, concerned.
She quickly rubbed away the tears beginning to form at the thought of Sora alone, without her. "Yeah," she answered. "Just tired." She punctuated the last part by looking straight into his eyes, praying she had rid herself of the last liquid remnants of her thoughts.
Riku raised one eyebrow, not believing her in the slightest; in the end, he just sighed and turned back to Falcon. "Anyway, she's right." Even though she had kept her room in Twilight Town's mansion clean as well; but maybe he was just trying to steer the conversation back to the point instead of mocking her. He really must be tired. "I spent a lot of time in Sora's room back home," he added dryly. "It's not exactly the tidiest place out there."
Char thought of his permanently persisting in not making his bed, the various world costumes scattered all over the floor, and fought back a smile. "Accurate," she muttered.
Amber eyes flickered briefly in her direction to acknowledge her comment, but the amusement that danced briefly across his face faded when he met Falcon's eyes again. "Anyway, if that's the only problem, then I don't understand why we couldn't just… stay for a few days." The part about their time here was marked with a bit of hesitation, as if he didn't even know how long this would take.
Fighting back a flood of frustration, Char just nodded.
Falcon's eyes darted from one to the other, as though hoping to find excuses in her companions' faces. When neither of them yielded to her desperate, unspoken plea, however, she just deflated visibly with a dry puff of a sigh. "There's only one guest room, you know," she said, heavily, as though so many memories were associated with that one room.
"Then I'll sleep on the couch," Riku said firmly. "C'mon, Falcon. We need a place to stay."
She just let out a reluctant murmur and stared down at the ground again. As Char watched her hand come up to rub the opposite arm again, she tried to push aside the irritation that filled her at Falcon's demeanor; tried to keep her fingers from tapping impatiently.
But the desire to please her friend proved too much for her, and Falcon finally raised her head in defeat. "All right, fine," she agreed. "But only for a few days, right?"
Riku nodded, relief unclenching his jaw. "Gods willing, that'll be how long it takes. Thanks, Fal," he added, the nickname slipping out before he could stop it. "I… well, we really appreciate it."
Char rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Thanks for including me at the last minute, dark emo boy." Like him, she couldn't halt the old moniker before it tumbled out of her.
Riku smiled down at her – actually smiled, genuinely, without a trace of sarcasm, just out of nostalgia for their days spent in Twilight Town. Char reflected that only a month ago, seeing that expression would have put her off at first, due to Xehanort's face still covering Riku's own, but then made warmth pool in her belly, due to Riku's intentions shining through. Now, though, knowing only Sora had that effect on her now just made her smile in return.
They looked back out at Falcon again, to see the older girl sigh and rub her temple. "Don't call me that," she muttered. "Brings back bad memories."
Before either of them could ask, she turned on her heel and began to walk back to the town square. "Follow me," she called without meeting their eyes. "I'll show you where it is."
"Why is Fal a bad nickname for her?" Char murmured to Riku, all the while holding back a wince. Trying to keep up with him while standing on tiptoe to whisper into his ear was more difficult than it seemed.
"Apparently Copperhead used to call her that, when they were still friends," Riku explained in a low voice. "And you saw how things ended badly."
Remembering the acid that Falcon had all but spat at Copperhead earlier, Char knew he had a point.
The only question remained as to what exactly Copperhead had done to merit that hatred.
"Here we are," Falcon announced, opening the door and stepping inside.
Riku and Char followed closely after her, the former nearly bumping his head on the top of the doorframe and glaring viciously at it as he passed over the threshold. Smirking a little at his misfortune, Char felt the remnants of her amusement melt away as she looked around. Despite Falcon's continuously denouncing her house as too messy to expose to them, really, compared to the storm that was Sora's room, it paled significantly. Then again, Char had only seen the living room so far.
Glancing to the right, she quickly remedied that prior thought. The kitchen adjoined the living room, carpeted floor quickly changing to tile. Both rooms were fairly small in size; the former contained little more than a stove and cupboards that were, likely, filled with cooking materials and utensils, while the latter only had a glass-top table on which to eat the meals made with said materials and utensils. A marble countertop wall stood to divide the two rooms, albeit smaller, to be able to see in both directions.
Of course, multiple items were strewn across the floor in both areas. Char found herself glancing down to make sure she didn't tread on anything important and barely managed to avoid stepping on a pack of gauze pads. She blinked, wondering why Falcon kept healing items besides Potions around; then again, maybe she either didn't know the Cura chain of spells, or spent time treating her injuries whenever she got home from a day of fighting in the forest. This explained Falcon's lack of obvious wounds today, at any rate. Probably went back here after talking to us and cleaned that injury on her side, the redhead thought, eyes drawn to the way Falcon kept her hand off her lacerated flank as she moved away.
As if thinking about battling those Nobodies had summoned it, pain rushed back into Char's healing injuries, injecting soreness into her bones and making exhaustion weigh on her as deeply as if the moon had risen higher in the sky. Nonetheless, she pushed that pain aside and watched Falcon dart about the kitchen and living room, shoving things into her grasp and setting them down on the counter. "I told you it was messy," the older girl muttered, embarrassment obvious in her voice even though the speed at which she moved covered her face. "I'm not home much, so I don't really get a chance to clean up."
"I told you," Riku said a little testily, "it doesn't matter how messy it is." Sighing, he ran fingers through his hair. "At any rate, we're just pretty tired."
Char whipped her head to stare at him indignantly. "Who are you calling 'we?'" she queried acidly.
"Well, are you?" he retorted. When she just opened her mouth to snap back, only to close it as she realized he had a point, he smirked slightly and turned back to Falcon, who now stood in front of them waiting for Riku to continue. "That answers that. Where are we sleeping?"
"Oh, um…" The glimmer in her eyes died down slightly as she spoke. "Well, you said you wanted to take the couch, right? It's right there, as you can see," she explained, gesturing to the dark blue couch in front of the glass-covered table. Riku's eyes followed her hand before his pupils shifted back to her and he nodded in understanding.
"And me?" Char couldn't help asking. For some reason, she felt like if she didn't mention herself, Falcon would completely forget she still stood here.
Sure enough, the disappointment beginning to eclipse Falcon's happiness at having Riku here faded into mild disinterest when she looked at Char. The redhead held back a growl of frustration; she seemed to have completely forgotten about her initial reluctance to have them here. "The guest room's upstairs. First room on the left once you get up there." She pointed down the hall leading away from where they stood, and dimly lit as it was, Char still picked out the stairwell spiraling off into invisibility.
"My room's up there too," Falcon went on, "but I'm going to eat a snack or something before going to bed." However, as she spoke, a yawn engulfed half her words, and she stretched her arms high above her head before letting them drop back down to her side. "Killing Heartless all day takes a lot out of you," she added.
Although her words sounded innocent enough, Char struggled not to pick out an accusatory undertone to them. If only she knew what I've been doing for the last month, she thought.
Had fatigue not so suddenly hit her, she might have expended some mental energy on longing for Sora and wondering if he, too, was mentally readying himself to sleep as best he could with her gone. At the moment, though, all she could think about was bed.
Riku nodded, already moving toward the couch and pulling the hood up over his head. "Well, try not to eat too loudly, okay?" he told Falcon over his shoulder. "Looking for leads all day takes a lot out of you." The last part was spoken playfully, with a hint of a smile that looked odd on both Xehanort's and Riku's countenances.
While Falcon smiled, Char couldn't help rolling her eyes a little. Turning on her heel, she trotted off to the hallway Falcon had pointed out, wondering inwardly if this was what it felt like to watch one's two friends act like a couple and look on awkwardly, not knowing what to say. If this is what it's like to be the third wheel, I don't want any part of it.
Of course, she applied the term friend rather loosely when it came to Falcon, due to the older girl's unwarranted hostility toward her. Char vowed to find a chance to tell Falcon tomorrow that it wasn't her stealing Riku's heart that the female brunette should be worried about.
That, and… Despite her anger at Riku for doing this to her – for taking her away from the boy she had come to love and genuinely respect – any sentient being following her down the hall would detect a notable softening of her eyes and hear the quiet sigh emitted from her direction. Riku had spent his entire life playing the awkward friend role: looking on as Sora and Kairi laughed and played and fell in love, while he could only stew in his own desire for freedom and let that call the darkness to Destiny Island.
Then again, when I came along, that changed, didn't it? While Char had very decidedly taken Kairi's place in Sora's heart, it didn't stop her from wondering what would happen if or when she accompanied Sora back to his island. Somehow, she couldn't picture Kairi as the onlooker alone.
Halfway up the stairs, Char had to stop and blink as her mind caught up to itself and chided her for contemplating going back to Sora's home with him. Hadn't she been so hesitant about the idea only this morning – regarding it with a sense of tentative desire, but not daring to lay much more than an iota of her hopes on it?
Gods. She was tired.
Shaking her head, she resumed her journey up the spiraling staircase. Darkness enveloped the dim light emanating from downstairs as she reached the top, but she could still discern major details, which made her walk all the more carefully down the hall.
Until she walked into something whose contours and edge digging into her hip felt disturbingly like a small table.
Hissing, Char drew back. Only now that she had a new source of bruising did it hit her that maybe she should have asked Falcon if she could use one of the gauze pads her shoe had nearly ruined. Too late now, the redhead told herself firmly, and glanced around. Falcon had said she would find the room on her left right after climbing the stairs…
Sure enough, an instant later, Char spotted what faintly resembled a doorframe upon searching her left. This time, she kept a careful eye on where her feet trod as she passed into the room. Had the alertness that had recently left her allowed her to get a better grasp on the room's details, she might have absorbed what the guest room looked like. But, as it was, not only did darkness blanket the area, her energy level had significantly depleted from when she had seen the living room. At least she didn't trip over anything Falcon might have left lying around, like she had in the living room.
As it was, Char's mind only allowed her to make out the outline of a bed sitting against the far wall. She trudged over to it and allowed her eyes to slip closed as her head hit the pillow.
Sleep effectively enveloped all the stress of the day: coming to an ultimatum about what to do about her and Sora's kiss the night before; discovering Xigbar's presence, and purpose, in the Land of Dragons; Riku taking her here and forcing her to shatter the very promise she had made to him not six weeks ago; having to fight both the Sorcerers and Avengers, knowing what their presence signified; dealing with Copperhead and nosy townspeople; wondering about Falcon and why she reminded Char of her old self; how she was already longing for Sora, Donald, and Goofy's voices emanating from outside the door instead of Falcon and Riku's coming from downstairs.
Before Char knew it, though, her mind, assisted by the presence of a sleeping surface beneath her, yielded to the fog of tiredness that had tugged at her senses for the past few minutes and allowed it to pull her under.
Sora spent an unnaturally long amount of time quietly sitting at the table, picking at the rice Goofy had cooked with a kind of weary obligation the dog had never seen in the boy before. Perhaps because of that obligation, Sora chewed – actually chewed – with his mouth closed before swallowing. Goofy remembered how Char would always chide Sora for failing to gulp his food down before speaking and felt a pang of sympathy for his leader.
When Sora had trudged over that snowy hill toward him, Donald, and Mulan and told them just what had happened to Char, shock had kept the knight from doing much more than clasping Sora's shoulder in concern. Donald had been verbose enough for the both of them: first demanding if Sora was sure, then cursing the Organization for what they had done – which Goofy thought weird, since the duck and the redhead had never exactly gotten along; maybe just Donald's roundabout way of showing he did care – and then scratching his head in frustrated bewilderment when Sora informed him in a panicked tone just what stance his opponent had fallen into.
And yet Goofy couldn't believe Riku had done it. For one thing, he didn't understand what Riku would want with Char; and for another, why would Riku be working with the Organization and wearing their garb? The whole thing was enough to give the knight a migraine normally reserved for the more arduous workouts at the castle.
Thinking of Disney Castle – of home – made Goofy wonder if the king had succeeded in following Xemnas to the dark realm, or wherever the Organization called their lair. Mickey had made it, for sure; the dog just prayed fervently that the monarch could survive in the Nobodies' domain until he and his comrades got there.
Shaking the heavy thoughts away, Goofy busied himself with cleaning up the dishes that had already piled up next to the sink. Donald and Sora sure ate fast, he thought, casting a glance over his shoulder at them and trying not to wince at the conspicuous lack of female among them.
Donald spoke to break the silence, clearly uncomfortable at the way Sora was staring despondently at his lap, unspoken thoughts flickering like minnows in the sapphire of his eyes. What's he thinkin' about, I wonder? "Where should we go tomorrow, guys?"
Sora shrugged, and Goofy gave Donald a stare that told him to be a little less blunt about it. The mage slouched down in his chair in a way that made him bounce slightly, folding his arms and grumbling something under his breath. Goofy thought he caught something like "sorry for being curious" and immediately felt a bit guilty.
"W-what Donald's tryin' to ask is, what's the next world on the map?" he gently prodded Sora.
The brunette lifted his head; the pathetic attempt at a smile that seized his lips loosened the already-precarious floodgates of Goofy's sympathy even more. Sora never had been good at putting on a brave front. Especially not when he was clearly hurting as much as now. "I'll go check," he decided, tossing the words over his shoulder as he got up – almost too hastily, as if trying to distract himself with moving around – and walked over to the control panel to look at the screen.
While Sora scanned the screen, Donald hopped down off his chair and trotted over to Goofy. One tug on the knight's apron made him lean down so Donald could properly whisper to him. "He's not doing so well," his longtime friend muttered.
Goofy nodded, casting what he hoped was a furtive glance at Sora. He still seemed deep in concentration, his hands placed on either side of the map as he leaned down to watch it, but one never knew with the Keybearer. Maybe that was why such a powerful weapon had chosen him in the first place.
Ironic, then, that something as simple as the girl he loved getting torn from him had frayed his resolve this badly.
"Yeah," Goofy said. "I just wish I knew what could get him back to normal, a-hyuck."
Donald folded his arms, leaning back slightly. "I know what will," he murmured. Goofy nodded, making a noise of rueful acknowledgment. Kairi and Riku and Char.
"But, uh, we still need to find a way to the Organization before we can get that far. Like Char told us to do," he reminded Donald.
"That's why I asked where we should go next!" Donald hissed, desolation turning to annoyance at once. "Geez, you big palooka, try to understand, why don't ya?"
Of course; that much had been obvious. Goofy flinched and let a sigh fade out of him. Only after it had escaped him did he realize the breath had sounded more loudly than he would have liked. "Sorry, Donald," he whispered. "Just tryin' to be helpful."
Dark eyes glared at him a moment longer; then Donald deflated visibly, like a feathery white balloon having all the hot air let out of it. An accurate comparison, in Goofy's opinion: with all the anger laid out in the open, with his temper exhausted and sizzling out, the duck looked his size all the more. "I didn't mean it," he grumbled. "Just worried, is all."
"Guys?" Sora's voice made them glance up from their conversation. The boy stood there with a fairly neutral expression, but the tentative clenching of one fist told Goofy that he heard at least a tiny bit of their conversation. If Sora had detected Goofy's overly loud sigh or Donald's furious attempt at making Goofy comprehend his words, though, he said nothing about it. Instead, he addressed the matter at hand much more levelly than someone as broken as he should have been able to. Char would have been proud. "The Olympus Coliseum is next. Do you want to head there tomorrow?" he queried, casting his eyes over each animal in turn.
Oh yeah, Goofy thought, we went to the Coliseum third last time, too. When he voiced this, though, he instantly wanted to snatch the words back again as memories and sad nostalgia clouded Sora's features and made his mouth twitch first in a grin and then in sorrow. Char had flown the Gummi ship and ended up landing them in the Underworld; that memory was particularly vivid, and Goofy put one hand instinctively to his belly at remembering the way his stomach had dropped and rolled inside him at her driving skills, or lack thereof. Severe lack thereof.
Then they had met Meg, and Auron, and gotten the stone that was the key to their vitality in the Underworld from that Organization member – the one that, come to think of it, the group had taken down in Hollow Bastion. And then they had had to fight the hydra that Hades had sent…
Hades…
Right then and there, Goofy understood the source of Sora's mental tug-of-war between redolence and melancholia. Char had pushed Sora out of the way of Hades' fireball and almost lost the use of her leg due to his carelessness; gratefulness and guilt for the incident had quite obviously plagued Sora ever since. Goofy had always caught the times Sora's eyes wandered down to her burned leg, to the scar that lay beneath the fabric of her clothes. Every time Char so much as stumbled on that leg.
Now, having to return to the scene of the incident, Sora clearly didn't know how to feel.
Spurred on by commiseration, Goofy reached out and rested his hand on his leader's shoulder. The brown-haired boy tensed at the sudden touch – almost as Char would have – before relaxing. "We're gonna find her, Sora," the knight promised lowly, suddenly seized with the desire to make sure every word rang true.
"Yeah, and the King and Riku and Kairi too," Donald added, determination all the more awkwardly loud in comparison to Goofy's quietness.
Mentioning their other missing friends proved a mistake, for Sora's brown spikes swayed as he lowered his head to gaze at the ground. Giving Donald a look, Goofy lowered his hand from Sora's shoulder and crouched to meet the Keybearer's gaze. To his surprise, those sapphire irises had a much brighter sheen to them than usual.
"I just miss them, you guys," he confessed, so quietly that even Donald strained to hear.
Maybe that was the moment Goofy truly understood the reason why Char's absence had dealt a particularly hard blow to Sora's confidence. Her getting kidnapped had served as the final burden on top of an already-towering pile of fears on Sora's shoulders. The straw that done broke the camel's back, the dog thought. When he considered things that way, Sora's emotional compass possibly changing direction from Kairi to Char notwithstanding, their unspoken leader's behavior made all too much sense.
"Sora…" Donald breathed.
Said brunette swung his head from one companion to the other. "Don't you guys miss your king?" he asked, desperately. Every ounce of his need to hear his feelings weren't totally unfounded shone on his face.
The duck opened his mouth, only to close it again, as if reluctant even to share this much of what he had kept well-buried since that very first night in the Gummi ship. Since they had joined hands, one on top of the other, and vowed fiercely to look after each other no matter what. All for one and one for all.
If that was really how they still felt, Goofy couldn't help wondering, didn't this apply, too?
"Of course we miss him, Sora," he said, softly. Even as he spoke, multiple memories imprinted themselves along the back of his eyes, so that even though his surroundings remained the same, he could see everything he had gone through with his king and Donald by his side. Mickey dubbing him his head knight and guardian; listening to Minnie tell stories; laughing as his son, Max, cringed at something embarrassing his father had said or done.
Donald had kept silent on answering Sora's question, but when Goofy nudged him, he sighed and relented. "Yeah," he muttered. "Every single day."
"We know how you feel, Sora," Goofy said, his hand returning to the boy's shoulder. Sora's pupils darted down to his friend's grasp before meeting those worried eyes again. "But, y'know what? All we kin do is keep going. For them. Right?"
He meant every word he said: not just to buoy Sora's spirits back up again and return him to the leader they knew, but to encourage himself as well. Because remembering the good times he had spent in the castle, long stifled and pushed to a corner of his mind by these journeys, had reopened an ache in his heart he thought he had forgotten.
No time for that now, he told himself firmly, we just gotta keep going.
But his determination couldn't last on a tired mind, so after Sora gave a nod of agreement – a silent vow to heed his comrade's words and fight twice as hard – the knight excused himself and headed off to bed with his thoughts echoing in his mind.
Like I said: editing later.
Please review saying more than "so good" or "I loved it, update soon!"