Glass

The moonlight darkled on the midnight sea.

Riku stood on the empty shoreline and looked out to the horizon. There was nothing out there, beyond the rough outcrops of rock. There was nothing to mar that sleek nothingness, that metallic violet-black of the ocean's edge. After months spent in both the realms of darkness and light, it was almost a relief to find some balance between the two. A sanctuary.

His friends had no knowledge of his coming here. They knew that he wandered, but not how far. Even though he had relinquished control of the corridors of darkness, he could still navigate between the worlds. Some of his methods were simple, like the brightly coloured ships; some were… questionable, even to his own mind.

There are many worlds, but all of them have the same sky…

The letter from Kairi was what had triggered the idea to return to this forsaken nothingness. When he had come here with Sora, both of them exhausted after the battle with Xemnas, it was that letter that had opened a door to the light. What Riku had realised, so much later, was that a door could be opened both ways.

And so he had swum out, one cool silvery dawn, to where he and Sora had fallen back into the ocean. He had taken a lungful of air and sunk beneath the surface, and waited until the black flowers of asphyxiation bloomed behind his eyes – and he had found himself here, in this world that was neither light nor dark, but some mix between.

Was he drowning, even now?

Was he dead?

Was this all an illusion?

He took a deep breath –

The same sky

- and saw, for a moment, the impossible outline of a hooded figure against the moon.

And then there was salt water in his mouth and lungs, and he was spluttering against the tide, and his arms and legs were weak and numb with fatigue, and someone was calling his name. A flash of spiky brown hair, of eyes bluer than the sky, and Riku collapsed into Sora's arms.

For a moment he saw another face, another world, another sea –

It was midday on Destiny Islands, and the summer sun shone high in the azure sky.

Author's Note:

This is my first fanfiction in a while. I hope you enjoyed it. There'll be more to come sooner or later.

Wishing you all a happy new year~