wrfmlogsarchive | When destiny calls you, you must be strong

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When destiny calls you, you must be strong

Who: Sora and whoever wants to cheer him up
What: You can only be cheerful for so long, and Sora may be reaching the end of his rope.
Where: The Maw. Everything happens in the Maw. :\
When: Friday morning

It was starting to get warmer outside, but it was still early enough in the year for him to be wearing a coat. It was also really windy - he had pulled up the hood to his coat and sat on a boulder nearly twice his size, swinging his legs back and forth. In his hands, he held the Oathkeeper keychain, quietly running his thumb along the smooth petals that made up Kairi's charm.

He took the others' words to heart - he knew that he couldn't focus too much on the stuff that was going wrong, but instead on getting Kairi back. But...

He sighed, falling back on the rock and tucking his hands behind his head to act as a pillow. He stared up at the bright blue sky, and couldn't help but feel that he really had messed up somehow.

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Maybe it was the weather, the strange almost-warm but not yet pleasent feeling in the air that was setting Riku so off balance. Maybe it was a lack of sleep, or an unfortunate side effect of spending almost every waking hour researching and training.

Or maybe it was the fact that Sora, of all people, had been genuinely sulking for the past week.

It wasn't that Riku was surprised - they really weren't overflowing with things to be cheery about, and he wasn't exactly in the best of moods either. But...it wasn't like Sora to have so much trouble hiding it. They had known each other their entire lives, and even then it was sometimes difficult to catch on to his moods, to know when he was having more doubts or worries then he was willing to admit to. Now it was obvious to everyone that Sora wasn't keeping it together.

Incidents where it had been up to Riku to keep his friend's morale up were occurring more and more frequently. That sort of task had never been his strong suit - Probably why he hasn't improved at all. he thought. That sure as hell wasn't going to stop him from trying, though; Sora had done the same for him, for all of them, countless times. Riku owed it to him to at least try to help.

"Hey." he said, approaching the rock where Sora was resting. "Thought I might find you out here."

Sora sat up immediately, nearly losing his balance and falling off the boulder when Riku called out. He hadn't even heard his friend approaching, which wasn't surprising. Riku had always been able to sneak up on him when they were little, and Sora had yet to actually appreciate it. He remembered trying to mimic his friend's stealthy moves, and always failing. Kairi said that he was too much of a klutz to be sneaky.

Kairi...

He rubbed his palms against his shorts and glanced down at Riku before jumping off the boulder to greet his friend with a bright smile. But the smile didn't stay like it usually did, fading quickly and quietly as he said, "Yeah. I just came out here to think."

And there was so much to think about. So much wrong, and he didn't know where to begin.

Sora wasn't the only one with a lot on his mind. Roxas had his share and here he was also heading down to the Maw to think... and maybe to vent a little frustration on any monsters or Heartless hanging around. He stopped short when he saw Sora and Riku. Of course. The Maw was popular for both thinking and venting.

Thinking it might be better if he left them alone and uncertain of whether or not either of them even wanted to talk to him, Roxas turned to leave. Granted, he wanted to talk to Sora, but this was probably not a good time.

His friend's surprise was normal, at least, but Riku didn't miss the fading smile. He also didn't miss Roxas, whose footsteps he heard but didn't acknowledge. A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed who it was. He probably needed to talk to Sora also, Riku realized, though weather he wanted to do it alone or not he hadn't a clue. Riku wasn't going to call him out if Roxas just wanted to leave, and he wouldn't argue if he wanted to stay.

"We've had plenty of reason to do that lately, huh?" he said. There was no need to ask him what he was thinking about, after all. He knew that well enough. He walked to the boulder and leaned back, making himself comfortable. After all, he figured, they were probably going to be there for awhile.

Sora had his back slightly turned to Roxas as he approached the Maw, but, even after all of this time, there was still a connection of their hearts that Sora would always sense when his "brother" was around. It hadn't grown any weaker since the end of the War of Hearts a year and a half ago. He tilted his head back slightly, meeting Roxas's eyes for a moment. He knew they needed to talk, about a lot of stuff actually, but...

He wanted to be happy, he really did. If his friends were happy then he should be happy, and maybe, under any other circumstance, it would have felt right. But this was Kairi, someone he had known for over ten years, someone he had grown up with, someone who he had teased and who had teased him back, someone who had gotten into trouble with him and Riku when they tried to sneak cookies out of his mom's cookie jar, someone he had "rescued" when she got lost on their island that first year, someone who he cared about so much that the mere idea of her being in danger made his heart hurt.

He sat down on the ground next to Riku, sitting back just slightly and looking up at the sky. He wasn't the fourteen-year-old who had unknowingly gone traipsing about the universe to save it anymore - at seventeen, he knew more, had experienced more, had become more than even he had realized.

...and all this thinking was giving him a headache.

He gave Roxas a small wave, unsure of where to begin with either of them. So he just quietly answered Riku's question. "Yeah, I guess." He pulled out the keychain that he had magically received so many months ago from an unknown source, the silver and gold sparkling in the morning sunlight. He had never even used it - there had never seemed a reason to (besides, he sort of preferred the pizza roll keychain King Mickey had given him on Christmas).

"I don't know where to start. I think the universe got bigger without me knowing it." There was a decided pout in his voice.

Ah, they'd both noticed him. He supposed he probably should have expected it. Riku was generally that alert and he should have expected his connection to Sora to tip him off.

Roxas waved back, unsure. He supposed he could still leave, but... honestly, if he put it off again who could tell when the next time was that they'd have a chance to talk? Granted, there might be travel time on the ship or something like that. With a small sigh, he approached the two, but remained silent. At the moment, he had nothing to add to the conversation.

At first, Riku didn't know how to respond. He stared out at the empty expanse of the Maw in silence, a pause long enough for Roxas to approach.

"I'm not so sure that it got bigger." he finally replied. "But the puzzles seem to have gotten more complicated." Funny, he never thought he'd be saying that after everything that's happened. But if there was one thing he could say about the years after the Islands were destroyed (The first time. he thought, suppressing a cringe) - and he now considered it a redeeming quality, though not by much - was that he had never found himself at a total standstill. He understood where Sora was coming from; how were they supposed to push forward if there was no place for them to push towards?

Still, he had to remember why he was here - he needed to make Sora feel better, not worse. "But if there's a puzzle, there has to be an answer."

Sora watched Roxas approach out of the corner of his eyes, while listening to Riku. He didn't know what to think about complicated puzzles or anything. He just didn't know if he was strong enough to save all of the worlds again. He thought they had done the right thing before, that the worlds were at peace, safe.

He bent on knee, resting his arm across it as he sighed. "Yeah, but I'm no good at puzzles. Too hard, you know?" He fell silent for a moment or two before adding, "I know we don't have a prophecy or anything. And I guess it would be kinda selfish to want one. I just don't know what to do anymore."

He laughed quietly. "Guess I'm a pretty lousy keybearer, if I can't even find the road to the right answer."

Roxas wasn't going to tell them he'd heard most of their conversation so far, not so much because he hadn't intended to eavesdrop but because he wasn't entirely comfortable with the fact that he could hear them from as far away as he had. It was a leftover from the Star Market curse and while it was somewhat useful, he still wasn't used to it. Well, at least he hadn't been saddled with an irresistible craving for fish or milk. That would just suck.

Not that he needed to hear part of their conversation to know Sora was troubled. He could feel it. That last remark especially bothered him. To the point where he had to break his silence.

"You're not," he said softly, "Just because the answer isn't coming easily doesn't mean you're a bad Keybearer."

Though he didn't look up when Roxas approached, Riku nodded once to the boy's response, turning to look at Sora directly.

"He's right. You aren't a lousy keybearer. That is..." he said, again staring out at the Maw, "Unless you plan on giving up." His words weren't harsh - rather they were a challenge, almost the tone he used to taunt his friend back when they were kids on the Islands, playing games. There was less enthusiasm, however, replaced with a few shades of seriousness and importance.

Maybe it wasn't the best way to comfort him, he realized, but it was the best way Riku knew how. Simply telling Sora that he was anything but a bad Keybearer wouldn't be enough. His friend needed a shove in the right direction. They didn't need a prophecy, or a guide. They just needed to keep going.

Sora frowned, rubbing the back of his neck. He knew that technically, he wasn't doing anything wrong. He was still fighting, still looking, still hoping. But he had done that the first time too, had thought that everything was going to be okay after Xemnas had been defeated.

"I'm not gonna give up," Sora replied almost immediately, looking down at the ground and wrinkling his nose. "That'd be stupid. I just want everyone to be safe."

Roxas wasn't really the best choice for cheering someone up. Honestly, that was Sora's job. Which made things very awkward when Sora was the one who needed cheering up. It also didn't help that the two of them still had things they needed to discuss. Still, maybe improving Sora's mood first was a good idea.

Unfortunately, he didn't really know what else to say. Anything he could think of sounded either unnecessarily sappy or unnecessarily callous. Then again, Sora was a sap. Maybe sappy was the way to go.

"Hey, it'll be okay. It might seem a little... bad... right now. But I'm sure it'll turn out okay." Why did it feel like he was sticking his foot in his mouth?

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When destiny calls you, you must be strong

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