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“ Isa, ” Lea whispers, his heart seized somewhere between horror and despair. There’s no response from Saix, just the shift of his coat as he bears down with the claymore. Lea grits his teeth, resisting the urge to fold just to reach out and make him say something, or startle the blank expression off his face, and then deflects, planting his foot on the back of the stupidly-high chair and flipping himself off of it, careful not to whack Sora’s head against anything, but--
Pain explodes in his ribs as he’s swatted out of the air like a fly, the both of them crashing to the ground, Sora in a heap and Lea on (luckily?) the opposite side of his new doubtlessly huge claymore-shaped bruise. Lea whirls, one arm still hovering over Sora, only in time to block another downward strike with the tines of his chakram. Saix flips the strike into an upswing, another clang! echoing through the chamber as Lea’s shoulder is wrenched back from the force of the deflected hit and a loud thunk as the strike whirlwinds around and rams into Lea’s chest, throwing him back.
Still as blank as a doll, Saix lunges between them and kicks Sora out of Lea’s reach, slamming his weapon down on Lea’s outstretched chakram. He can hear Riku make a noise so angry it chokes him, and can hear the King let off some kind of spell, and he propels himself up with his free hand and roundhouses Saix in the face. It frees him up enough to send a crackling burst of fire at whatever Xehanort is holding Riku, who resummons his keyblade and swings it viciously at now-empty air, scrambling to his feet. The empty space shimmers, though, and slams Riku back into the ground by his throat, black coat drifting lazily in the stale air. Lea takes one step and is yanked back, they were close that time though, and he ducks through Saix’s grab and snaps back into a fighting stance, eyes flicking between Isa’s nothing-gaze and Sora’s.
Light, Xehanort is saying something again, if he could shut up, now is not the time. Lea has to get to -- he ducks, the claymore catching loose strands of hair -- has to get to Sora. He would rather lose his heart again and never get it back than let Roxas --
“ Now then,” his calm, gravelly voice seems to carry far louder than it should, reasonably, “if you are finished trying to change what cannot be altered.”
Lea startles, which is another stupid mistake, because just as he sees the light gathering in Xehanort’s outstretched hand and lunges towards Sora’s sleeping body a strike from behind knocks the wind out of him and drops him directly into the floor, Saix’s heel grinding into the back of his head. But, wrestling himself upwards, he can still watch a sharp gold-red sphere plunge itself into Sora’s exposed chest.
Riku screams, an almost feral sound too-dark with fear and anger, and catches the black coat in his hands and hurls Ansem off of him and whips around and slashes through again- empty air with his keyblade and runs to Sora’s side. Lea shouts in a full-on panic, suddenly free to pick himself up off the ground, and he makes the same beeline to Sora, backing into place and guarding against now uncaring figures. Riku’s saying nothing, nothing that constitutes a word in any case, Lea can feel the both of them shaking against him.
A smug voice from somewhere above them calls, “Next time, chief!” and salutes, and Riku’s eyes snap up to it before Xigbar fades into shadows. The rest of the hooded figures dissolve quickly, leaving Master Xehanort with his head on his hand, legs crossed, smiling . Riku leaps up and vanishes in a surge of darkness before Lea can stop him, reappearing and slashing his keyblade in a flash of light straight through Master Xehanort’s half-transparent form.
Xehanort regards him. Something glitters from where the King was, and Lea gathers Sora in his arms, none of them taking their eyes off of the tallest chair.
“Time is up,” Xehanort says smoothly, fading at the edges into ash-like flecks. “And I’m afraid you have already lost.”
The room goes starry-white and vanishes.
The study is suddenly and clamorously full of noise.
Mickey bounces into the ground and rolls, the star shard chiming as it clicks across the floor. Riku lands in a run, closing the distance between him and Lea’s bundle of an unconscious (not moving,) Sora in an instant. He skids to the ground on his knees, already calling for Sora by the time Lea gets his voice back, grasping at his hands and edging closer and to the right and half-left and can’t stop saying his name. The hand Master Yen Sid tightens around his shoulder doesn’t register to him, and neither do the frantically confused sounds of the rest of Sora’s party.
“Riku-- hey bud--” Lea starts, trying to put a cautionary distance between them, but failing. He does, however, succeed in getting Riku to look at him, rather than at Sora, and he takes what he can. “You gotta clear your head about alla this, okay? I know, but get your cool back.”
Riku takes a deep breath, and another one, and sits back on his ankles, but doesn’t let go or get any further away. Lea’s right, of course, he can’t afford to be--
Sora’s fingers move.
Riku snaps back to attention and he pulls slightly, off of Lea and towards himself. He opens his mouth as if to say something, and then can’t, and pulls further.
Sora’s head tilts to the side, too languid to be fully conscious, and he lets out a long breath, his shoulders shaking imperceptibly. Riku searches his expression, and abruptly his blood turns to ice when he realizes Sora’s laughing. Voiceless and ever so quiet but loud enough to hurt Riku’s ears because that is not Sora’s laugh. Sora is loud and giggly and bright and he does not sound like a hiss twined to amusement. Slowly, teasingly, he slides one eye open, and it is a
piercing gold
and the room itself drops twenty degrees.
“ Well, ” he drawls, the word drawn out to twice its length, in no hurry in the captive silence that has seized the room. Riku finds himself unable to breathe in, his body stock-still as (who--) Sora’s eyes wander the room and finally come to rest somewhere slightly off his own.
The Master is the first one to say something. Probably. Riku hears him, as if through water, say “Xehanort.” with that flat anger, and when he does the cold in the room lodges in Riku’s throat.
“Give him back!” someone else says.
Sora hums, like he does, when he’s thinking. One time, when they were younger, Sora started humming like that on different notes for twenty straight minutes, even after they found a gecko under the mailbox, and Riku got annoyed at him, and asked him what on Earth he was thinking so hard about, and he told him he was trying to figure out if bugs got sad because people were always scared of them, and Riku had laughed at him, but--
Auburn hair brushes his arm.
“If you want him so badly,” Sora not-Sora says, the words not quite lining up with his lips. He leans forwards, into Riku’s face, bright gold finally focusing with a sharpness that doesn’t belong in them, “come and get him.”
Sora’s eyes unfocus and he slumps into Riku’s arms.
Riku shoves him back into Lea -- he’s being too rough and too rash, somewhere in the back of his mind he knows this but he doesn’t care it’s rapidly fuzzing red anyways -- and draws Way to Dawn and levels it at Sora’s chest, his lips twisting into a snarl.
“Riku, wait--” Mickey cries, but a portal like a marble filled with stormclouds flashes to life and Riku is gone before he can finish.
It is pitch-black and scattered bits of memory appear on the path to Sora’s heart and Riku doesn’t see them. The second he can feel his dream eater companions phase to life next to him he pulls them into himself, taking a deep breath around the sudden spike in power as leathery wings rip themselves from his back and he dives.
Ones heart station is not supposed to be a flurry of activity, but Sora’s is — a tall shadow gathers the darkness around it and lashes out with its tendrils at a bright flash of movement, and then another and another, glitters of stained glass desperately peeking through the flood of dark oil bubbling from the shadow itself. As Riku gets closer, he can see that the bright flashes are actually twofold-- one of them the glitter of armor, and the other occasionally flickering out of its twinned pure light form into two familiar hooded figures. All three of them are seething with furious energy, the heady tang of darkness intercut by sharp burning ozone.
Riku lands like a comet, arcing just before he hits the darkness oozing over (Sora’s heart) the platform and slamming full-force into the dark figure. The thing barely reacts, not even stumbling and only letting Riku use it as a springboard to skid into a fighting stance in front of it, light scattering like sparks from his feet. The armor ignores him, screeching its metallic fury on the deflections of the figure’s keyblade, but the twin suns swoop across the water towards him and split off, flanking him and flashing back to their more humanoid forms.
Ah, good. You made it. I was hoping you’d come.
Xehanort’s voice doesn’t hit his ears so much as it echoes from inside his head, almost loud enough to hurt. Riku can feel it in the rising water below him and the darkness in his veins, and it sets his hackles up. The figure, slowly looking more and more like the old man, raises its arms in welcome.
Foolish, of course, to risk your lights, but you have spares, do you not? No one is irreplaceable, hm? But here, boy, here you may witness the destruction of the only four lights that stand a chance against us.
The girl on Riku’s left shifts her stance, and Roxas tightens his grip on his keyblade. Riku only shares a glance with him, words to be said overlooked in favor of a shared goal: protect Sora.
The armor ricochets against Xehanort’s keyblade again, and Riku charges.
[Information: Stop Xehanort from taking Sora’s heart!]
It’s… dark.
It’s very, very dark, and the only things Sora can see are the barest fuzzy edges that could be something, could be someone, could be nothing. And even then, he’s not really seeing them. Just… he knows they’re there.
Something hurts. Something in his chest aches. It’s hard to figure out what, because it’s not staying in his chest at all.
Is he moving? It doesn’t feel like it.
Sora tries to concentrate on the edges. They’re moving. They’re not dark. But he doesn’t get much farther down that line of thought before he drowns into nothing again.
It’s dark in here.
He’s really tired. Is he asleep?
…
Oh,
…
There’s light. There’s light here, it’s warm, and bright, and it grows brighter and he can see the edges now, glitters of glass and flashing metal, and they move.
He knows, he knows this light, he’s known it all his life, this is the light that chases the darkness, he knows its name. Of course. Though he doesn’t remember why he’s here, or why he wants him here. It’s nice, anyways, it lets him think.
He thinks he’s relieved.
Xehanort flares with power, and the air explodes in a shockwave that sends them flying.
Riku lands hard, sending the dark water spraying up behind him in electric flashes of light, and Roxas lands harder, his coat so soaked that the black bleeds into the pool and drags him down further. The girl crashes into the suit of armor on the way down, breaking her fall but cutting short the armor’s single-minded attack. She rolls, darting in front of Riku in time to deflect a burst of purple fire.
Riku pushes himself up and resummons his keyblade, and the girl nods at him before rushing over in a burst of white to help Roxas. Riku shakes, flicking the water off his wings (bright droplets scatter the dark at his feet, they shimmer before dimming, the bare stained glass that’s only under him humming like it’s gasping for breath). A growl bubbles in his throat -- this Xehanort is weakened in Sora’s heart, it shouldn’t be this infuriating -- he sees the armored figure wind up again and jumps into the shadows and attacks.
His keyblade definitely finds purchase, but the old Master clearly isn’t as corporeal here as he should be — Riku slices through thick liquid instead of an arm, almost like glue, stringing out from itself — and he’s not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. He quickly snaps a Thundaga into the air and darts backwards before he can retaliate, the electricity frying the strands of darkness that still trail from the metal. Xehanort finally scowls at him, yanking his shoulder back into place, and Riku feels a curl of satisfaction.
Which quickly dissipates, faster than it came, because Xehanort’s face smooths back into that self-assured grin, and he slams his keyblade into the platform and Riku feels, more than hears, and he hears it very well, a deafening
CRACK .
Someone, maybe multiple someones, scream. Light pours from the spiderweb-fissure in the stained glass, souring as immediately as it bleeds, and the darkness rushes in to take hold. The armor shudders and collapses, and Riku doubles over holding his chest because that isn’t his heart but it may as well be—
The darkness bubbles from the crack, and lunges, barely missing Riku’s shoulder but covering Roxas’ chest in an instant, and the girl cries out in something between surprise and anger. She lights her keyblade ablaze and sends a spiral of bright white pillars slicing through the oil towards him, and manages to scatter some of the darkness covering him before a great living tower of black crashes into her from behind. She barely, barely misses grabbing Roxas’ hand, and she disappears into the depths. He snarls, and tears through the space between him and Xehanort in an instant, only to be caught by the throat and shoved back under the darkness by the armor, now a near-invisible iridescent black and shuddering as it moves as if by puppet string, straining.
Riku can’t think but he can focus, and he leaps forward to try to free Roxas before he disappears too, and pivots in the air to dodge a clawlike wave of darkness that blocks his path. He swerves, the darkness reaching for him as he flies, and he can’t see Roxas anymore, not sure which way in the rippling black is down so he ends up moving as away as possible as the steel thread wound around his heart tightens and burns like tar.
He gets far enough to be dangerous when the thread snaps, and Riku chokes and wrenches his body in on itself. He falls, sideways (ah- that’s down), tries to turn to land correctly but slams into the platform on his side, a piece of glass stabbing through his shoulder and humming weakly in sorrow.
Something is very wrong, in him but in response to the nightmare landscape around him— and really just before he can connect the two concepts a deafening static fog rips most coherent thought away.
Give up, boy.
Riku curls inward, again, breathing against the layer of thick darkness, his nails grating against the glass, shuddering. He has to remember why he’s here. Protect Sora. Consume the nightmares, make it stop, make the noise go down, why is it
Give your heart to darkness
darkness that surrounds him, his darkness, darkness he uses, that he wrenches into a shape
where it belongs.
that’s softer, lighter, dangerous, graceful. This is familiar, new but he can control it, the instructions are the same.
His spine prickles, the thin leather of his wings tearing and folding too far.
Riku lets himself go.
But here’s the thing- just as he was Sora’s dream eater, he is Sora’s Nightmare. Nightmare is just a noun, as is darkness, as is light, as is emotion, the word to pay attention to is the possessive . He can become Sora’s Nightmare, for him, a wild and reckless thing as it is, and because that possessive does not change, he knows his alignment won’t either.
It’s too strong, the bond, to break. The one thing you care about, more than anything else.
And he needs me.
Riku rears back and flexes his torn wings and roars, defiantly, the writhing shadows on his hands stilling and sharpening into spiked claws, the symbol on his jacket inverting, flashing. A dangerously spiked tail whips furiously behind him, tipped with twin red curls like a scorpion heart. He opens his eyes and the haze of red and black clears, revealing a Xehanort whose smug expression quickly sours as he lands back into a fighting stance against him.
You have never known when to quit.
Words have left him, but the snarling hiss he gives in response is pretty close to what he was going to say anyways.
Xehanort doesn’t say anything more, just raises his hand and gestures forcefully, the armored figure snapping to attention. It spins its keyblade behind it and crouches, taunting.
[Information: Defeat Xehanort and his puppet.]
Riku throws himself forward to meet the armor midair, digging his claws into its helmet and refusing to let go as it spins furiously to dislodge him. It crouches, darkness rippling beneath its feet, before clawlike things sprout out of the ground and force Riku to back off. He only does for a second, and then launches himself at it again, throwing it hard across the platform. The armor rolls, summoning tendrils of darkness again, and dives, disappearing.
The darkness draws itself up completely out of the ground and flings itself at Riku wildly, who gives up deflecting after two failed tries and snarls, ducking out of the way. One of the spinning fragments redirects itself and flies towards Xehanort, who deflects it with a frown. As if realizing he’s still standing there, Riku’s eyes snap to his keyblade’s blue flash, and the darkness sinks back into the ground, obscuring him. The armor blocks his line of sight, swinging and catching Riku’s stomach with the keyblade, sending him to the ground. He doesn’t think to use magic, though he wouldn’t have been able to anyways, instead sweeping with his leg and tail in an arc and knocking the armor over with him. Darkness sprouts around it again, but instead of lashing at him, two of the tendrils pin the armor to itself as it writhes, and the others shudder in between targets.
Riku flips himself upright, taking no time to deliberate what exactly is happening, and dashes between them, his claws meeting Xehanort’s keyblade and coiling against them, getting in one good slash with his hooked tail before being thrown off. Riku springboards right off the ground, sending splashes of darkness curving and snaking behind him, and slashes wildly at the old Master. He’s still not a solid being, instead only about half of one, made of a heart but no body but the darkness around him, so the blows that do hit send splatters of viscous oil across Riku’s arms. The living darkness around them can’t decide who to hit, settling for both of them, lashing across Riku’s wings and tearing them further though he can’t bring himself to care.
Persistent boy , Xehanort rumbles, and Riku has a split second to react before the armored figure smashes into him from behind. The darkness, shuddering again, drags him to the ground like tar, and the armor flips and lands on top of him, metal grating in protest.
Never the wisest.
Bonds, connections of that nature, characteristic of hearts of light, they have always given strength where there was none. But they also serve a detriment, you see, for those bonds can lead one, then two, then four into the same abyss the first strayed into. Much like lemmings, holding each others’ tails, hmm?
Riku thrashes, ripping at the darkness entangling him. Glass whines below the strain.
Even now, the weight is too much for your grip.
Wrong, Riku wants to hiss. You’re wrong.
The glass beneath him pulses in response, though weak, four hearts against one. Xehanort leers over him, just barely out of range. Riku stills, pressing his hands into the glass, feeling the darkness swirl around him.
They’re more than that. They’re what give you the strength to pull them back to safety.
And with that, Riku summons his keyblade and lets a vicious cast of Aeroga explode around him.
The armor goes flying and jerks awkwardly against the glass fissure in the platform, visible through the ink against the billowing winds, right up until a lash of darkness coils around its middle and yanks it down with an almost human hiss, under the glass surface in a roiling wave of black. Where the darkness touches Riku’s spell, however, flecks of light streak through it, and only some disappear.
Hah! Xehanort barks, the closest to indignant fury Riku has seen him. He wastes no time, and slams Way to Dawn against the tines of Xehanort’s keyblade again and again, driving him backwards. It almost sings a melody.
There you are.
Riku swipes his keyblade upwards to feint an opening, and as Xehanort’s keyblade flashes towards him he shoves his other hand forwards and plunges it straight into the shadowy Master’s chest.
“Now who’s lost,” Riku grates out.
Xehanort regards him, coldly. Interesting, he says. I commend your efforts.
Light crackles through his form like a hammer striking hot metal, and the melody strains itself on a single, high note. He falls, off of Riku’s arm in a cascade and shoved upwards and out of sight at once, and the darkness starts to pull in thick cords up from the sides of the glass, a gash in reverse.
The Master is gone.
And Riku can feel the darkness covering him get pulled away as well, gently coaxing him to his knees so it slips off of his body like a coat. He blinks rapidly, his vision going back to normal from what he didn’t even realize was almost fluorescent contrast of colors. The tail is gone, and so are the claws — he rubs at his face and shakes himself.
Riku draws himself upward so he can survey the damage done to Sora’s heart.
It’s no relief to look at -- spiderweb cracks litter the edges and finer details, and a huge fissure runs straight down the middle, throwing shards of crystal into the air where the etched image of Sora is, messily slicing through his chest. It makes him sick to think about, as he sees the remaining rivulets of darkness leak through the holes and off of the station.
“I can-“ Riku swallows. “I will fix this.”
He places a shaking hand on the fissure, which glows weakly in response. A chime plays from somewhere, and Riku closes his eyes and rests his other hand on his own heart. “I’ll fix this,” he repeats.
Pushing off, Riku turns in the air and summons his keyblade, aiming very carefully for just off-center, avoiding broken glass. The tip glows, and a pattern of light weaves its way from the two points.
The glow envelops him.
Riku takes a while to open his eyes. There’s no sound, no smell, but he is somewhere different. It feels warmer, lines of worry running underneath, but it also feels like…
He lets out a breath and slowly takes in the world around him. He’s standing on a dock — a wooden dock, that he knows every whorl and scratch of, because it ends covered in sand on a beach. It’s not Destiny Islands, though, not yet, at least, because there’s no anything . More than sound, there’s no color, muted tones blurring the distance between the trees.
Sora…
Riku takes a few steps towards the island proper, and then turns to glance at the monochrome sunset. The clouds aren’t moving either. He turns back, disconcerted, and then nearly jumps out of his skin, because someone’s standing not ten feet away from him.
He deflates, after a second, hand on his chest. Roxas doesn’t smirk at his expense, just takes a hand out of his pocket and lets it drop. He’s not in his coat anymore. Riku lets himself wonder if Roxas preferred this outfit, seeing as it’s the reflection his heart chose when it was safe.
“Roxas?” Riku asks. It was meant to come out more of a statement, but his confusion changed the word.
“You were scared. Even then,” Roxas says, ignoring his question.
Riku stiffens, slightly. It’s not directed at his startle. “Yes.”
“You still are.”
“...yeah.”
Roxas gazes at him, considering. His eyebrows furrow ever so slightly, and he tilts his head (really is so much like him) and leans in. “What are you so afraid of?” he says, quietly.
Riku nearly deflects, but his voice catches in his throat.
“...Losing him. Losing them, losing the things that are important to me. I just…” he clears his throat. “I just got them.”
Roxas blinks. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah. I don’t forgive you, but, that’s okay.” Roxas straightens, as if he hadn’t just thrown Riku for another dizzyingly slow loop. “Take care of him,” he says, and Riku has to close his eyes against the blinding swell of light that envelops them. When he chances a look through the spaces between his fingers again, Roxas is gone, but from where he stood bleeds color, real color, back into the sand and the water and the trees until it’s almost a bright photograph of Destiny Islands.
Riku breathes out, slowly. Has Roxas been in a place like this the whole time? Is Sora’s heart trying to lead him somewhere, and using their memories to show him? Whatever he’s doing, just going with it seems to be helping, so Riku steps back and looks around. There’s nothing here, just the scenery, but he knows things are missing. So he keeps walking, down the dock and then across the beach, back towards the bridge he’s most familiar with.
Riku starts again, as he nears it. Someone else is standing directly beneath the bridge, revealed as he rounds the corner away from the brush, watching him with that same gently determined expression. “Roxas?” He asks, again, and immediately feels that’s wrong.
“No, wait. You’re...”
Not-Roxas shakes his head. Riku opens his mouth to ask, but the boy steps forward instead and takes his hands. “I want to know. How did you do it?”
“Do… what, exactly?”
“Take the darkness,” he says, his eyes suddenly sad. “Return it to light.”
“I… more questions? I mean, sorry. I guess, I just kept thinking about it. I did it to myself, but I didn’t… it wouldn’t have worked, without my friends. Without Sora.”
The boy exhales, softly, within himself. Then he nods, and looks up at Riku with a small smile. “Thank you, Riku.”
“No… no problem. Oh-“
The boy fades into light and disappears, his hands leaving warm scatters on Riku’s. The air hums, and Riku can feel a gentle breeze run through his hair. The wind is back, as is the muted sound of waves on the rocks. It feels like the moments between moving from the couch to the bed, far too late at night. He’s closer. Riku keeps walking.
He doesn’t walk for long before a figure appears in the distance. Sitting on a tree, their hair blowing in the wind, with…
“Sora?” Riku whispers, and runs.
He nearly skids straight into them before he realizes it’s not Sora, not at all — it’s the girl he fought with. Riku slows, rewriting the question in his mind and scuffing his feet a little louder. At no acknowledgement, he asks it anyways.
“I, meant to ask. Who are you?”
The girl doesn’t respond, she just gives him a smile that could be tearful if it weren’t so fond.
“Riku,” she says, instead. “What are you doing here?”
“Huh?”
“You have to have wanted something, really badly, to be here. You can’t just walk in, or out.” She turns to him, leaning on the tree trunk, and kicks her legs. “I’ve seen that look before. So, Riku, what do you want?”
“Oh. Well…”
Riku dips his head into his hand. It’s more of a deliberation over how to say it, than what to say.
“I don’t know how I did it, but I’m here. I’m here to recover something important, and I think that’s all it took. Ha,” Riku laughs, quietly. “That really sounds like him, huh? No real plan, just diving in because your heart said so. I’ve let him rub off on me.”
“Important?”
“More than important,” Riku admits, bringing a hand to the back of his head. “We’ve gone through so much together, that… Sora is a very precious person to me. And when I thought he could be gone, I was ready to give anything to get him back. That’s all that happened. I came to find Sora. And I’ll leave with him. I could never lose my way in his heart. You- ah,” he drops his hands. “You know?”
She hums, and for a moment, looks solemn. But then the girl smiles, a real one this time, and as the gentle salty-sweet smell of the ocean comes back to him her smile gets wider and she almost giggles. “This is new to Sora, I take it.”
Riku suddenly flushes and backpedals. “Wh- he can hear us? Can he see me? Is he-“
“No, not really. Not words. He can feel this, though,” she says, placing one hand on her heart and one on Riku’s. “And I’m sure you can feel his here, too.”
Riku realizes, slowly, and then all of a sudden, that he can. And he has been, it’s just- he hasn’t noticed, because Sora’s heart harmonizes with his own, one melody, two singers. It sparkles, with honey-bright warmth and fluttering amusement at his own expense, just now. He just hasn’t noticed it — and he nearly collapses, in that moment, from a realization that knocks the wind out of him — he just hasn’t noticed it because it’s been there all along.
“Good, then,” he breathes. “Because I meant every feeling.”
The wind ruffles his hair, bringing with it a warm breeze and the smell of vanilla and salt and the sensation-sound of light bells and even a flower petal or two from somewhere else on the island, and —
The girl actually does laugh this time. “Good. Great! Now, go on.” Her edges start to dissolve into flecks of golden light. “You've spent enough time in here.”
Riku nods.
She disappears, leaving golden embers on the flowers at his feet, and Riku lets out a long breath.
The flowers blur, slightly, tossing the flecks of light gently down to the shore. The waves beckon him with gentle white noise, and Riku follows, right up until his foot kicks a tiny glass bottle out of the sand. It glints at him in the setting sun, and he reaches down to pluck it out of its cove.
“Is this for me?”
Sora’s heart doesn’t answer him. Instead, a myriad of sensations outside of himself respond like this, in light and sun and seashells and a memory of falling asleep and a cold string of numbers and a subtle compliment. Pulling a friend into a hug, medicine on a particularly bad day, ripping through layers of wrapping paper, a thank you.
“That’s sort of a yes…?”
Plucking a flower out of its bush, setting it behind Sora’s ear. Long distance calls.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says, slipping the bottle into his front pocket. “Thank you.”
Morning sun, waking up.
Riku closes his eyes and feels the world fade.
And re-form.
Riku’s feet barely touch Sora’s heart station, but they don’t need to. The gossamer remains of the shattered glass glow and hum under him, and melt back into each other in fantastically gentle waves of color that caress at his hands and hair and cheeks, like they want to pull him back down, just for a second. The stained glass practically radiates light and comfort and love, of all things, in a fantastically beautiful display, and Riku stops in midair long enough to wrap his arms around himself and watch the light - his light - help make Sora whole again.
“I love you too,” he murmurs, the tips of his fingers brushing the glass, and the glittering heart sings his song back to him.