a/n: i'm (re)uploading some of my kh oneshots that i either never posted in the first place or took down after switching fandoms. i'm going through all of my fics on my thumbdrive and found this piece that i don't think i ever shared, which is a shame since i actually really like how it came out. as with the rest of my kh fics, this is a oneshot and i highly doubt i'll ever add on to it or edit it in any way except to change typos or spelling mistakes. i do still love kh with all of my heart and i'm still active in the fandom on tumblr but writing for the square enix fandoms takes way too much out of me.

Light filtered through the leaves in green rays, fresh and inviting, a wonderful complement to the squishy earth underneath Kairi's toes. She walked this path as often as she could, but in the last year there had simply been too much to do and her regular stroll became weekly, then biweekly, until eventually it was every few months. It was now the first time since summer that she'd walked the trail, but she would have been able to do it with her eyes shut if she tried. The smell of the clean, summer air flooded her senses and, for a moment, she paused and smiled at the canopy above her.

Her soft leather shoes bounced against her thighs rhythmically, one in each hand as she made her way deeper into the wood. The birds above her chirped in harmony as the frogs in the pond to her right croaked.

When she reached the long-abandoned hut of her childhood, the scent hit her nose and she immediately dropped to a crouch. Inhaling the smoke, she quickly determined its origins near the shore and made her way toward the lakeside, ever mindful of the twigs and branches in the ground, the pads of her feet never making a sound. She laid her shoes on the ground and held her arms defensively, creeping ever closer towards the scent.

She slowly let herself relax when she eased toward the riverside and when she made it to the edge of the trees and peered through, she wasn't expecting what she saw: a boy, near manhood by the size of him, wearing pants made of patchwork animal skins, his hair soaked as he attempted to scrub caked dirt from his scalp, and his skin brown but not leathery, looking as smooth and boyish as any child in her tribe at his age.

Kairi lingered behind the leaves, still and silent as a tree herself. She watched the boy cautiously. Next to him he'd created a fire and was heating a large, flat stone – on some leaves beside the fire was a pile of still-wriggling fish. She listened carefully, noting the boy's grunts, groans, and whines as he scrubbed his head and picked twigs out from the monstrous locks.

When he turned back around, evidently having given up on his hair, Kairi quickly ducked behind the tree trunk beside her. Still, she studied this stranger. He was moving his hands quickly and successively, but the movements made no sense even to her. She saw more than heard the faint murmuring that came from his lips, his voice raspy and rough as though from disuse.

And then, despite the sunny and cloudless sky, a crack of thunder sounded like a whip in the silence and Kairi gasped, stepping back and losing her position as she snapped a twig under her foot. Her eyes were immediately caught by the intense blue of the boy's, wide and terrified.

Kairi gulped and stepped forward from the shelter of the trees. The boy stood and eyed her cautiously, his hands parallel with his waist and tense.

"You just performed magic," she stated, struggling to keep her voice even.

The boy shook his head fervently. "No, I didn't," he insisted.

Kairi stared into his scared blue eyes with interest. "You did."

He brought a hand up to his matted hair. "Okay – maybe I did, but it wasn't dark magic, okay? It wasn't."

"You're a mage?" Kairi asked, cobalt eyes shining.

The boy shook his head again. "No, I swear I'm not – all I know is the basic stuff, you know, spells to help you survive if you're left on your own, how to start fires, how to zap some food, water to bathe, air to coax out the fire," he rattled off.

"But your movements –" she began, "they weren't anything I recognized."

The boy stared at Kairi uncomprehendingly before she sat on the ground and she began moving her own hands in a range of movements, but this time slow and gentle, not like the boy's harsh and unrelenting ones. In her mind she thought of her song, the one she learned bent water to her will. She watched the boy's reaction as best she could through her own concentration as she created bubbles of water and bounced them between herself and the boy.

"I won't tell if you don't," she told him, dismissing the water and lowering her hands.

The boy's eyes kept her gaze and a smile steadily unfurled on his lips. "I have a friend – he's been teaching me defensive spells. How to stop time for a safe escape and magnet spells to push enemies away, and even spells to move location in the blink of an eye. Come with me," he urged. "He can teach you, too."