Mistress: Hi everyone. I am Mistress of Serenity but you can just call me "Mistress". This is my first KH fic (most of my stories are Digimon fics) so please……spare me the flames if you find this fic not much of KH material. Anyways, I've babbled enough. Enjoy the story and Merry Christmas!
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts. Square Enix and Disney do. If I did own KH then Axel, Demyx and Roxas would still be alive.
PROLOGUE
A lavender haired boy sat with his butt against the lukewarm ginger sands of Destiny Island. His aqua hued eyes stared languorously out into the vigorous waters of the deep blue ocean. With the breeze blowing briskly against his lavender locks, the young boy exhaled a tiresome breath.
'It's been so long since I've actually watched these waters," Riku thought, 'I've forgotten in the time I've been awayhow magically…beautiful they were,'
Riku smiled. He leant his back against the surface of a log which had been washed up onto the shore by the tide. He continued to beam at the deep-sea, looking on intently as the afternoon sun slowly changed into a fiery evening sunset.
Riku brought his knees up to his chest and leisurely……he closed his eyes……allowing the cool wind to brush up against his pale yet soft skin. But in his moment of serenity, Riku was soon disturbed by a loud voice from behind his back.
"Riku!" the voice called.
Reluctantly Riku opened his eyes and glimpsed behind his back. The voice belonged to his best friend Kairi: a red-haired girl of 15 years who has been Riku's loyal companion for as long as he can remember. Kairi was running toward Riku, waving her hand at him as she approached his seated form. Riku grinned and lazily he returned the wave to Kairi.
"Hey Riku," Kairi greeted wholesomely.
"Hey," Riku answered.
"What's the matter with you?" Kairi asked. She took a seat next to Riku and joined him in staring at the sunset.
"Nothing's wrong," Riku replied, "I just needed sometime to think so I came here,"
"You needed to think," Kairi repeated before giggling. "You sound just like Sora," she said softly.
"Speaking of Sora, where is he anyway? I haven't seen him all afternoon," Riku said, remembering his other friend: a spiky-haired brunette by the name of Sora.
Kairi shrugged her shoulders. "I dunno," she answered, "the last time I saw Sora was this morning. He told me that he needed to go somewhere special to clear his thoughts. The ironic thing is he won't tell me where the special place is,"
"What a bummer!" Kairi said pouting as she kicked up some sand beneath her pink sneakers.
Now it was Riku's turn to laugh. "Typical Sora," he muttered under his breath.
"This place hasn't changed one bit," a voice spoke, "everything is still as it is,"
Sora walked through the caverns of the secret hideout. This was a very special place in the young boys' memories. He remembered when he was younger………he, Riku and Kairi (and maybe a few other friends) would always come here.
The cave was like their special, unique drawing book. Each day the group would come to this special cave….armed with their chalks. Together they would draw on the walls of the cavern and create their own unique masterpieces.
The walls of the cave were covered with chalk drawings drawn by Sora and his friends. Sora passed a hand against the walls of the cave, his fingers tracing the chalky outlines of each drawing. Sora continued his stroll through the cave until his feet brought him to a familiar drawing.
Sora knelt before the sketch. He passed his hand against the chalk and his mouth formed a contented smile. Sora remembered this drawing. It was one that he and Kairi did together. The chalk drawing had Kairi and Sora together and they both had stars in their hands, each giving their star to the other. They both appeared happy. The smile plastered on Sora's face widened and his cheeks flushed slightly.
Sora stood to his feet. 'Things were so much easier when I was a kid growing up on the island,' Sora thought, 'when I was younger I didn't have to worry about things like the Heartless……Keyblades……….or almost losing my friends and myself,'
Sora shook off the horrid thought that was creeping up in his mind. 'As I was thinking. All there were to my childhood memories was having huge amounts of fun with my friends,' Sora smiled. "It sure would be nice for me to actually remember some of those good childhood memories," Sora spoke softly.
The smile on Sora's face disappeared and was replaced with a sad smile. The brunette boy stuffed his hands in the pockets of his baggy black pants. He glanced at the sketch he and Kairi drew.
"So many memories," Sora spoke. He turned his back to leave when he noticed something.
It was another chalk drawing on the far side of the cavern.
"That's funny," Sora said, "I don't remember drawing this,"
Sora touched the chalk outline of the sketch with his finger. It was a sketched drawing of six heads. One head represented Sora's face and the other heads represented the faces of each of his friends. One was Riku, another was Kairi and then there were the remaining three.
Two heads looked like the faces of two boys: one with spiky hair (like Sora's) that was coloured in yellow chalk and the other with orange-chalk coloured hair that appeared to be tied in a bandana coloured in dark-blue chalk.
However the head that truly caught Sora's eye was the chalk-coloured sketch of a girl. This girl had an unusual hairstyle which was coloured in brown-chalk and unlike the other sketches, the girl in the sketch had a curled smiled……sort of like a cat's.
Sora peered closely at this particular sketch with his hand on his chin.
"Where have I seen that hair before?" he asked himself. He pointed at the second girl's odd hairstyle. Then it finally hit Sora. "Of course," Sora snapped his fingers and smiled, "Selphie!" The other girl in the sketch was Selphie which meant that the other two boys were……Tidus and Wakka.
Sora grinned. Tidus, Wakka and Selphie, like Kairi and Riku, were his best friends on the island. Sora looked back at the sketch.
The sketch was seemingly a chalk-drawn image of the heads of him and his best friends but……there was something else in the drawing. Beneath the heads was an arrow coloured in bright red chalk. The arrow was pointing at something buried in the ground.
Sora stared from the arrow to the ground. Without the slightest hesitation, Sora knelt on his knees and started digging……digging up whatever there was beneath the dirt.
Gravel splattered everywhere as Sora dug his hand in to coarse earth. It was strange. In all his days of visiting the secret hideout, Sora never truly noticed this sketch before. How ironic?
Sora continued digging into the ground until……his hands touched something. Something hard and……heavy.
Sora peered at what he had found and his jaw hung open.
"No way!"
"Hey, shouldn't we go look for Sora now?" Kairi questioned looking to Riku.
The older boy nodded. "We should. It is getting late," Riku said, "I wonder where Sora could b-------
"Riku! Kairi!"
Kairi and Riku peered behind their backs and noticed a familiar brunette running their way.
"Sora!" they both yelled.
Sora stopped at his two friends' feet, panting. He took a moment to catch his breath for he was dragging something quite heavy behind his back.
"Hey Sora, where have you been all day?" Riku asked.
Sora glanced up at Riku. "I……was……in the……secret hideout," Sora panted breathlessly. When he finally caught his breath, Sora looked at Riku and Kairi with one of his trademark grins.
"But that is beside the point," Sora said, "while I was in the cave, guess what I found?"
"What?" Kairi asked.
"This," Sora reached behind him and dragged out a heavy chest. He dropped the weighty thing infront of his friends. Both Riku and Kairi stared at the chest blankly.
"Ummm…Sora, this is a chest," Riku said, "what's so exciting about an old chest,"
"It's not just any chest Riku," Sora said, his goofy grin was still plastered on his face, "this is our chest. Our Chest of Memories,"
"Chest of what?" Riku said.
"Chest of Memories," Sora repeated, "don't you guys remember? When we were little we found this dusty old chest in the cave and placed all of our childhood stuff inside it so we wouldn't forget about them, remember?"
"Ooh! That Chest of Memories," Riku said.
"I can't believe it's still here. I thought it was lost," Kairi said.
"So did I but I guess we were wrong," Sora said.
"Well what are we waiting for? Let's open it," Riku said.
Unlatching the lock, Sora opened up the huge chest. Kairi and Riku both peered inside the chest. On the interior of the wooden chest were millions of old stuffed animals and other toys mixed in with a bunch of old books and ancient photographs.
Sora took a seat beside Kairi and looked inside the chest.
"Wow I never realized how much stuff we all had when we were kids," Sora said.
Kairi rummaged through the variety of old stuffed animals before squealing. "Oh my gosh! Mr. Hugglekins!" Kairi squealed. She pulled out a tattered-looking pink teddy-bear with a blue bow. Kairi squeezed the stuffed animal tightly. "Oh my gosh. I haven't seen this teddy-bear in ages," Kairi said.
"I'm surprised you still remember his name," Sora laughed.
"Wow. It's all here. Toys. Books. Photos. All of our baby-stuff is here, all of it," Riku said delving into the chest pushing past every stuffed teddy-bear or action figure and looking through the old books that were there.
While Riku looked at the books and Kairi continued to hug her old stuffed teddy-bear, Sora reached a hand into the chest and pulled out a tiny photo. Sora looked at photo closely and a grin cracked across his face.
"Hey Riku, remember this?" Sora asked. He handed Riku the photo. Riku looked at the small photograph. In the photo were two little boys standing side by side.
One boy had blue-eyes and very untidy spiky brown hair. He wore a plain white T-shirt with a single yellow stripe at the end and a pair of brown short pants. On the boy's feet was a pair of yellow and green sandals.
The other boy looked around the same age as the first boy. This boy had lavender hair and bright aqua eyes. He wore a sleeve-less purple jacket which was zipped up to his neck. He also wore a pair of white short pants which matched with his white and purple shoes. White and purple wristbands adorn the wrists of this boy's hands.
The two boys had their arms on each other's shoulders and both were grinning toothily. Riku smiled as he looked at the photo. Kairi peered over Riku's shoulder at the small photograph.
"Hey isn't that you and Sora, Riku?" Kairi asked pointing at the boys in the photo.
Riku's smile widened. "Yep, that's us," he replied.
"Aww……you too look so adorable," Kairi said grinning.
"But Riku……what happened to your front tooth?" Kairi asked pointing at the younger Riku in the photo. Though the boy was smiling, one of his two front teeth was missing.
Sora laughed. Riku, on the other hand, flushed. "Oh……that," he said.
"Yeah, what happened to your tooth?" Kairi asked.
"It's a long story," Riku answered.
"Ha! At least he's actually smiling in this picture," Sora said, "you don't know how many antics I had to do just to make this one open his mouth," Sora pointed at Riku, "When I first met Riku he didn't want to smile at all, you know……with his front tooth missing and all," Sora added.
"You know, I've always wondered how the two of you first met each other," Kairi said pointing between Sora and Riku.
"Oh! Let me tell the story. It's very funny," Sora said grinning.
"No I will tell the story since it's mostly about me," Riku said. Sora nodded. Riku turned to Kairi and began telling the story.
"This whole tooth thing started on my first day at Destiny Island Pre-school," Riku explained, "the day when I first met Sora………"