Wandering Through the Twilight

"Haha…haha…hahahaha…"  Good thing she got rid of them before she came over…

"Heh, you laugh now, but you never know what could happen..."

Walking alongside him, Serah came to a stop as Riku began to speak, watching him hop up on top of a nearby rock, surveying the area. “It’s a little quiet and plain, but nice.” she added softly to his comments about the area.

New Bodhum was only a start to what Pulse would have to offer. The former residents of Cocoon would finally fully settle and then begin to grow, just as they did, creating much more than simple seaside villages. Not that she minded, of course. It was relaxing and she’d rather have this than the bustle and noise of a large city. 

Drifting out of thought and back to reality, Serah tilted her head a bit in question. “If I wouldn’t mind? Of course I wouldn’t mind!” her puzzled look uplifted into a small smile. “Why would I? It’d be great to have you visit again.” Serah reassured with an affirmative nod.

"Heh.  That sounds familiar," he noted with a wry grin.  Just what he'd thought of his home before things got exciting.  No doubt a nice place to live, but it could get so incredibly boring after a while.  But at least Serah wasn't trapped in the same sense he was.  If she wanted to get out and explore the rest of the world, nothing would hold her back whereas on Destiny Islands, before you could even think about the rest of the world you needed something better than a rowboat.  But his craving had been satisfied; even though traveling still wasn't exactly a cakewalk, there'd be no repeating of his mistakes.  Never again.

During times when Snow and Lightning were both gone, Serah remembered keep having to ease herself and just hope that everything would be okay – though there was nothing that would insure it, it was still a help, and with Riku being in a similar situation to what she was in, she wanted to help as much as she could. 

“Sounds like a plan!” she cheerfully added to his suggestion.

“Hey,” Serah started, her voice softening, tilting her head to look up at Riku “after you find your friend and go home and all … you will still be able to return back here and visit, right?” 

Though the two haven’t been friends for long, she had already grown attached to the silver-haired acquaintance. Serah had assumed he would be able to, but only wanted to confirm things.

“–I mean, only if you’d want to!” the pinkette quickly added, feeling a bit embarrassed that she seemed to have ‘forced’ the return of the other, without intention. 

So he put on the kindest smile he could muster and said to her, "I'm glad I could meet you here, even if I don't find Sora."  The words were a bit awkward, since he didn't normally say stuff like that, but he did mean it.  After all the mistakes he made in the past, anyone who smiled and showed compassion that he didn't fully deserve had a good heart.

He blinked at the sudden drop of her tone, and for a second, he didn't know how to respond.  They'd only been walking together, searching for someone who in all likelihood wasn't there, and she wondered if he'd come back...no, if he wanted to come back.  Granted, a number of places he'd been to had only garnered one visit from him (with few exceptions, but that's beside the point), but why wouldn't he want to come back?  Something about this place just intrigued him.  The beach encouraged a Destiny Islands feeling, but it didn't feel as confined as his home island did.

Hollow Bastion had definitely changed over the years.  When the silver-haired youth had first arrived here, the entire place was barren, the Rising Falls really the only “pretty” aspect of the eroded world.  He would have been curious to see what the place looked like before Maleficent turned it into a forgotten castle, but who knows if that was possible anymore?  Sure, Sora’s friends who used to live here were doing all they could to bring back the home they remembered, but it wouldn’t have been as easy if the place had fallen just like Destiny Islands did.  But in the end, any world that didn’t fall to the Heartless had it better than the worlds that did.

Riku had decided to come back on a whim, see what kind of progress they were making here.  Standing at the very spot he’d first seen in this world, he was a little surprised to see flowers here.  He might have doubted this was the plateau over the Rising Falls if he didn’t get the distinct feeling of deja vu right where he was.  When he and King Mickey had been here before, Hollow Bastion certainly felt different from the ruined castle, but for them to be planting flowers around was yet another step in the right direction.

His gaze fell on a young brunette tending the flowers and wondered if he should introduce himself.  Her eyes looked kind, but if this was a friend of Sora’s, she might not have been too happy to see the one who was formerly under her enemy’s wing.  Well, he just wouldn’t have to bring up that little fact and give her a chance.  He wasn’t the same boy, after all.  He cleared his throat to get her attention and tried a polite smile.  “Hi.  I’m sort of new here, this is Hollow Bastion, right?”

He glanced down at the watering can she gripped and wondered if it was her job as part of the--Restoration Committee (if his memory served him correctly) to maintain the general outlook of Hollow Bastion.  Maybe planting the flowers was her idea, but he wasn't usually one to jump to conclusions.  "I suppose I was," he shrugged.  "I was...here not too long ago, and I don't remember seeing flowers here.  So I take it that's what you do around here, or it's a hobby or something?"

“Sureeeeee.” she puffed her cheeks out in a mock-displeased manner, but it soon turned into a smile back and eliciting a few giggles.  Riku’s jesting seemed rare, but when he did, it was truly funny.

“Ah, okay.” she piped up, watching Riku head back to the bathroom before coming back with a tube of ointment.  As he peeled off her bandages, she didn’t feel much except for the tightness of the bandages loosening.

It was a cycle, cycles weren’t made to be broken. People would always have dark thoughts, no matter how small. It made her think how that story she heard, from Kairi’s grandmother was just a fairy tale, how could all the worlds be filled with light? In a way she supposed their work as Keybearers would never be done in that case. Until they could no longer lift their blades due to old age, they would always be the protectors, keeping the balance. She’d known that when she decided to walk down this path, but she probably hadn’t known that it would be this big. “Looks like we have our work cut out for us,” she jested but it was true, their battles were far from over. She’d chosen this life, Riku had in a way but he’d only been young, how could he have known how truly hard the trials ahead would be? She didn’t even know how Sora came to wield a Keyblade, it had simply just chosen him, he had little say in the matter from what she knew. “Just goes to show how delicate the balance is, one slight shift and everything falls a part, no wonder there used to be so many Keyblade wielders” their numbers now dwindled.

She listened carefully as he described this castle as best he could, it sounded strange indeed, yet it was more familiar than strange to her. When she’d left the place had been empty, though it appeared others had ended up at it’s doors.

"Yeah, suppose so," he chuckled in response to Aqua's joke.  But there was ineffable truth to that.  Granted, the things he'd seen and done were things no one would do willingly, but after an age of spending his days on a boring tropical island, fighting to protect the balance was a welcome change, not to mention an honor.  An honor he didn't truly deserve at the moment.  "There used to be more?  Kinda strange to hear that when a number of people I've come across have wielded a Keyblade."  But then again, even that number wasn't too big if you didn't count himself and Sora.  He'd only met three (he wasn't too sure of the number on account of the faint, dwindling memory of the third), and it was possible Aqua had met several more during her own journey.

“Gimme’ a break. You’re still here, aren’t you? As long as you and Kairi stay, that’s all I’ll ever need.” He’s all scrunched-up now, tucking loose limbs under the bedsheets like he’s only seven again, and retrograde childhood can’t be good for the soul or the body, but Sora’s pretty much entitled to one day to act mopey with an infection in his esophagus and introspection on the brain. There are words stuck in his throat, but whenever he attempts them, they get kinda’ clogged around his tongue, so he tries one last time, flopping over on his side and enunciating each syllable carefully, oh-so-poignantly. He’s already half-tumbled off to sleep when he finally catches what he hopes is the last word of the day.

"Right," he smiles as he watches his friend burrow into his sheets.  All that trouble of making the bed only for him to tunnel into them like a groundhog.  Heading to the kitchen to fetch the invalid a glass of water and promise his mother he only needs rest, he sets the glass by his bed and throws in one last remark as he tousles Sora's wild 'do:

"Sorry, it's a little reflex of mine," he grinned back, standing.  Even though he knew he wasn't always right, all the times hanging out with Sora had almost engrained this hobby into his personality.  But then again, Sora and Kairi were modest to the point of insanity, and his attitude helped even it out in a way.

However with people like Xehanort that wasn’t the case, they didn’t have ‘pawns’ so they could look out for each other, they were merely tools to be thrown away once their purpose was finished. She couldn’t see the two of them teaming up, fighting side by side as comrades, in that respect they did work alone. Even during their battle with Xehanort and Vanitas the two had only teamed up briefly before separating for Vanitas to finish her off and to create the χ-Blade with Ventus. Maybe if both of them had worked together she wouldn’t have been able to shatter the χ-Blade along with Ven. “That’s what troubles me, as long as there is darkness the Heartless will always be around but the worlds can’t exist without it either” to have one without the other would surely thrown everything off balance. As Keyblade Master wasn’t it her job to protect that balance? All her life growing up she’d been told that darkness was bad, even more so as she got older from her Master’s teachings who’d obviously been scorned by darkness in his past to hate it so much. Of course now she knew better.

  These people that he and Sora often came in conflict with never seemed to truly appreciate their allies.  He'd been working with Mickey for a while, and the diminutive monarch relied on him just as much as Riku found strength in his support.  But people like Xehanort's Heartless (and to an extent, Ansem the Wise) only found value in an ally if they needed backup, or the other could serve as expendable.  Just like Xehanort's Heartless found Kairi useless after opening the Keyhole and deemed her unworthy of living, Ansem the Wise had wanted Namine disposed of once Sora's memories were all in order, using an excuse he found worthless to justify it.  It was so disgusting sometimes to know that there were people in this world who thought like that.  "I'm actually worried this cycle won't ever stop, because it's not like people are about to fill their hearts with light to make sure the Heartless never come back," he shook his head.  "But, I guess that's what power struggles like this one means.  Finding and maintaining such a balance isn't easy to do."

She wasn’t so sure Xehanort used Maleficent as to not dirty his own hands, while conniving he didn’t shy away from doing dirty deeds. He was the one to actively approach Terra and persuade him his only other pawn had been Vanitas, a definite thorn in her side. She often wondered if he was truly gone, while the lack of Unversed would suggest as such it seemed these villainous types didn’t like to stay dead.  “Something like that, though I’m sure Maleficent had puppets of her own” they were all most likely tricked, promises of power and all that. She was a little unsure of the questioning tone in his voice, why he would think she wouldn’t agree she couldn’t say. “I personally wouldn’t but for some people it makes sense, if Xehanort has some grand scheme going on he’ll need extra hands” even he couldn’t do it by himself. “We should probably be used to it by now, it’s the sort of thing they do” she shrugged lightly.

She really did believe that’s what he was doing, if he had done all those horrible things and was now regretting them, then setting his own punishment by casting himself here seemed like a way for redemption. Perhaps not the best way but she didn’t know the full story of these bad things he’d done. “I suppose but…I don’t know it didn’t seem that way” she couldn’t describe it, how he spoke as if he was sorry. 

No doubt of that, he muttered silently.  He being one of them, Riku knew better than anyone Maleficent was no different from Xehanort when it came to acting through others.  But having no experience with Xehanort himself (because he couldn't be sure Xehanort's Heartless acted exactly as his former self), he could only take Aqua's word for that.  "No one can really...act alone.  At least, no one can hope to pull off stuff like that working by themselves.  Suppose there's no running away from it.  Wherever there's light, there has to be darkness to balance it.  So if we can do it, they can, too."