Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts belongs to somebody else. However, the legend in this story is a hundred percent mine.

This story, people, shall be GOOD. And horribly long too, unfortunately for me. A giant thanks to suika's wind of the celestial for reading through the drafts.

Warnings: In future chapters, coarse language may appear, shōnen-ai/BL, Malay words (I really don't know why I should call the 'orb', the Mutiara), a pretty complicated plotline and a very different Sora.

Hope you like it. Enjoy.

Long ago, when the world was full of wonderful and mysterious things, there was a belief that whosoever claims a Mutiara Naga – a dragon's orb – is given the privilege to wield the power of Heaven. And because of this, people have sought after and hunted dragons for this prize. Many have failed but there are a few who have managed to claim it and pass this newfound power to their children.

Our story starts here in a small village where winter days never seemed to end even after the New Year was born. The people there woke up in their cold beds and gazed at their frozen gardens before they raised their eyes to the winter sky and prayed for the snow to melt, for the ice to crack, for the golden warmth to be spread across the land.

In a wood near the village, a dragon with scales gleaming silver like pure water, appeared out of nowhere, fleeing from a pair of hunters hot on its trail, their purposes being to take away its Mutiara Naga. It hid itself in the bucket of an old well where it was then discovered by a local village boy who was on his way home. Sensing the dragon's fear, the boy comforted it and once the creature was pacified, he asked:

"Where have you come from?"

"A Lake very far away from here," replied the dragon.

"Why are you hiding?"

"There are some people out there, hunters, trying to catch me."

The boy looked at the dragon, thought for a while, before speaking again, "I will help you get back home."

"But how?" said the dragon. "People will notice me because of my silver scales. I also hold a Mutiara Naga – the most precious thing I have that those hunters desire."

At this explanation, the boy had an idea. He reached into his thick robe and pulled out a blue sash.

"Wear this," he said as he tied the sash around the dragon's neck. "An old man gave this to me and said that this sash would make the wearer unnoticeable to others' eyes. So, you're free to wander anywhere and people will not take any notice of you!"

The dragon, surprised by this unexpected gift, looked at the boy before finally shutting its eyes in agreement.

With their problem resolved, the boy and the dragon left the village and journeyed across the snow to find this lake. Soon, they came across a town that was holding a Winter Festival. Both the boy and the dragon slipped into the Festival to take a look – but alas, they were exposed to the entire village by the two hunters who have been following them all along!

Fortunately, the boy and the dragon escaped just in time and managed to reach the Lake that the dragon spoke about. It was large and filled with the clearest of waters. Delighted that they'd arrived, the dragon asked the boy to dance with it under the silver glow of the moonlight.

"Why?" the boy asked, surprised by the dragon's offer.

"This Lake is a gateway to Heaven," said the dragon. "And to open it, I must use the power of my Mutiara Naga. I want you to come back to Heaven with me."

And so they danced over the clear waters of the Lake – danced a mysterious, entrancing and beautiful dance – that even the world stood still to watch their performance. And while they danced, the Mutiara Naga shone in a fierce, white light and soon after, both boy and dragon began to ascend to the skies.

On the next day, the people were shocked to find the snow gone and grass had sprouted from the ground and the sun shone high in the sky like a smiling face. To this, some say that the power of the Dragon Dance had finally brought an end to the winter.

So from that day on, a special festival was held to celebrate the last days of winter and during every one of these celebrations, the traditional dance between the boy and the dragon was performed to families of young and old, generation after generation.

I. d r i f t i n g.

Vertigo. Vertigo. Dizzy… oh god, it's too high–

Swiftly, he pulled the single book out from a compacted row of volumes on the top shelf and did not anticipate that doing so had caused a couple more books to join it. Before he knew it, a heavy weight hit him smack in the face and the ladder beneath him wobbled and finally tipped over, simultaneously bringing him down with it. He landed painfully onto the carpeted floor with a strangled cry and then a moan.

"Owww…"

He lay there, sprawled over the fallen books, next to that confounded ladder, telling himself that he had been reckless with his book arranging as he tried to ward away the pain that had paralysed his limbs. The bruise forming on his forehead throbbed unpleasantly and it took a few more seconds to pass before he could manage to make a couple of his fingers twitch.

"Sora!"

In recognising the voice, Sora tried to suppress a groan as his eyes shifted towards the figure of a brown-haired man whose grey eyes were widened with shock at his sprawled state. The man quickly rushed over to him, dropping the books he held in his arms as he cautiously hauled him up into a sitting position.

"God, are you alright? Is anything broken?"

Sora flexed his fingers again before turning his attention to the rest of his body. Nothing seemed to be broken. He was lucky that he wasn't badly hurt this time. When his form swayed with dizziness from the fall, he felt a warm hand touch the small of his back in support.

"I'm okay, I'm alright," Sora muttered, squirming under that stormy grey gaze. "I just … fell off the ladder, that's all."

Leon frowned, before slipping his fingers under the boy's messy brown bangs and gently pressing them onto the blue bruise on his forehead. "Sora, this is the third time you fell off another ladder this week, you know that? Maybe you should man the counter instead of this sort of work …"

"No, no. It's okay," Sora cut in weakly, pushing Leon's fingers away from his forehead, feeling flustered that the other man would think he couldn't handle a simple job like this. "I'm fine with arranging books. Besides, it's far more interesting than sitting in one place, sucking mints and reading Mills & Boons all day – like the way Aerith does."

It was true. He wanted to move around and actually do something in the library. And if climbing ladders was the only way for him to get some active work, then so be it.

Leon sighed and ran his fingers through his shoulder-length brown hair. The motion caused Sora's gaze to catch hold of the thick leather band wrapped around the older man's wrist. It was one of those bracelets where you pull on the two string ends on either side to tighten the accessory around your wrist. The wooden beads that hung from the bracelet's strings dangled in the air as the other man's fingers remained buried in those brown locks. At this, Sora vaguely remembered Leon telling him that he had gotten the bracelet somewhere from Pride Rock – wherever that was – and as long as Sora had known him, Leon had never taken that bracelet off.

"Well, you have a point there," Leon finally spoke as he lowered his arm back to his side. "But really, I think you should be assigned to less dangerous forms of work. You're awfully susceptible to small accidents all the time."

Here we go again.

"I'm fine," Sora insisted, his cheeks red from Leon's earlier proclamation. "I've been lucky so far. Look, I'll be much more careful next time. I promise."

At this, the older man harrumphed disapprovingly and began to pick up the fallen books scattered around them in an almost absent-minded way. Mind you, Leon had spent years working in the Borough & Bailey Library and as a result, picking up books had become second nature to him.

"I wish that idiot-of-a-brother of yours didn't leave you to fend for yourself like this," Leon grumbled to Sora. "Especially for the entire winter season. Why couldn't you just stay at my place? Or at Aerith's? Both of us would have gladly taken you in anyway."

There was a small trace of exasperation in Leon's words but Sora merely frowned at this, knowing that he had already heard this statement many times before. Really, sometimes he wished that Leon would let the matter drop. He already insisted that he was fine on his own and that he could take care of himself. What's more, he was only staying in the empty house for a couple of months before his brother would be back… and then be off on another trip again.

No, no. He was definitely fine by himself.

Sora hauled himself up onto his feet and was about to limp towards the stairs when he sensed Leon's expectant gaze on him. It occurred to him now that the older man was still waiting for his answer. Without looking back, he mumbled over his shoulder, "I'm perfectly fine at my brother, Cloud's, place. Besides, I don't want to be a burden to any of you if I stayed over."

Perhaps he had said the answer too light-heartedly because he felt a strong hand on his shoulder and Leon's grey eyes confronted his own blue ones.

"You know we don't believe that," he said solemnly as he squeezed Sora's shoulder lightly.

Seeing that same worried look on him almost everyday, Sora gave a wry smile before he pulled away from the older man and staggered down the hallway where his path was wedged between rows and rows of bookshelves on either side. For a moment there, he thought he heard Leon heave a deep sigh from behind him.

Sora lowered his eyes to the floor.

The library that afternoon was as silent as always except for the quiet murmuring of a few voices, the occasional whisper of whirling pages, the shuffling of footsteps against the carpet. During the early days of the New Year and especially in such snowy weather, not many people visited the Borough & Bailey Library. Yet Sora and his two colleagues, Leon and Aerith, never failed to miss a day of work. Because there were too many books to sort out, too many to categorize, too many to look after during that winter season.

When he reached the ground floor, he was suddenly aware that Leon was trailing after him and sure enough, a hand caught onto his elbow and pulled him towards the circular counter by the library entrance with a large overhead sign spelling out the words: CHECK-INS/CHECK-OUTS/INFORMATION.

"Leon, what–?"

"We need to do something about that bruise."

Oh, the bruise. Sora unconsciously reached up and felt the swelling bump on his forehead. He then tried to suppress another groan when his eyes shifted onto the person who was behind the circular counter.

It was a young woman who sat snuggling into the puffy office chair, her brown hair curled into ringlets and her green eyes fixed onto the pages of a small romance novel she held in her hands. As the two males approached closer, Sora saw the woman's fingers crawl into an open packet of mints, take one out and slip it absent-mindedly into her mouth.

"Aerith," Leon called, rapping his knuckles onto the counter for her attention. The woman lowered her book and blinked at her co-worker before her eyes travelled to Sora and immediately settled onto the blue bruise located smack in the middle of his forehead.

Sora held his breath. Three…two…one–

Aerith dropped her book.

"Oh my goodness! What happened?!" she cried, her voice echoing throughout the silent halls of the library and causing both Leon and Sora to cringe at the volume. A few visitors hanging by the Fiction section startled at her voice before muttering inaudibly to themselves and resuming their current businesses.

"It–" Sora began.

"Never mind that," said Aerith as she reached under the counter to extract a first-aid box. Flipping the lid up, she whipped out a small round container full of herb-smelling green gel and a square plaster.

"Honestly, Sora," she began ranting, unaware that her voice was loud enough to be carried around the halls. "You're so careless sometimes! If it wasn't falling off ladders or getting occasional paper cuts (which you always do, since you're working in a library), it's getting bruises. Whatever are we going to do with you if you just carry on with this job?"

Oh god, no. Not again. Leon's been talking to you about me, hasn't he?

Immediately, Sora knew where this conversation was going. It always seemed to pop up in situations like this and today, unfortunately, was no exception. And as always, he dreaded it.

"Aerith, I'm perfectly–"

"You really deserve something better than this life," Aerith cut in, her voice fading softly into that of motherly concern. "Go out of Hollow Bastion for a while, get a better job. You don't need to stay here forever for our sakes."

She was looking at him with an expression that was identical to Leon's, and Sora – damn it – couldn't hold that gaze any longer. Instead, he settled his eyes onto the brown-haired man who was, at the moment, reading the synopsis on the back cover of the romance book she had been reading earlier. After a few seconds, he sensed Aerith's disappointment at his casual disregard of her words as she carefully dabbed some of the gel onto his bruise.

It had always been like this between him and other people.

For god's sake, he was fine. Absolutely, perfectly, stupendously goddamn fine.

Why did they pester him so much?

"You just seem so lifeless, you know."

Leon's voice broke his train of thought and Sora stared at the brown-haired man who was looking at him with eyebrows furrowed with worry.

"You're like a drifting presence of uncertainty."

This time it was Aerith who spoke, her words said almost dreamily as if she was quoting from one of the books she had read before. She carefully planted the square plaster onto his forehead and stood back to look at him.

Sora was shocked at what he was hearing.

Seeing the boy's stunned look at the answers to his unspoken question, Leon attempted to explain, "It's written all over your face – your thoughts."

My thoughts?

Embarrassed, Sora turned his head away from his colleague's gazes. A sudden pang of guilt had just hit him in the chest.

What do they mean…? What are they talking about?

He had only taken up this job just last summer after he graduated from high school and he always liked working in the library, always liked immersing himself in handling the colossal collection of books. He wasn't much of an avid reader but he liked the look of books, the touch of them, liked having their presence around him. To him, the library was like home. But as months passed by, he became a little restless and opted for handling tasks that involved him moving about the library a lot. Thus, there was the incident yesterday when he went to the hospital as the library's representative to read the story of the Boy and the Dragon to the kids at the children's ward. And then there was, well, the crazy task of pulling books out of high shelves with equally high ladders.

But really, he was still fine with it. He was entirely contented with spending his days sorting out books and alphabetizing titles. It wasn't as if he was complaining. What was with all this "lifeless" and "uncertainty" rubbish anyway?

Sora shut his eyes, his mind exhausted of thoughts. Facing him were Leon and Aerith who continued their silent watching of him, their expressions etched with worry.

Worry, worry, worry. Dammit, he was so sick of it.

I'm alright the way I am.

He released a deep sigh.

"Please."

Even with his eyes shut and his vision in darkness, he could somehow sense Leon's and Aerith's attentions perking up a little at his next words:

"Please stop … nagging me about it…"

It was dark when he descended the snow-covered steps of the library, wrapped up in an aqua-blue Mickey Mouse Works windbreaker and a pair of gloves. The snow was grey all around him and crunched loudly as his boots sank into the mass of soft ice. White puffs left his mouth as he breathed in and out the biting cold air of the night. Inwardly, he wished the winter would soon pack up and leave before the month was out. He was really looking forward to some warm sun and the emergence of spring weather.

The town square was very empty as Sora made his way across the snow-ridden, street-lit pathway. To his left was the department store, a large CLOSED sign hanging from its glass entrance and its dark display windows presenting the store's product promotions.

To his right was a lane leading up towards the marketplace – a high street where a variety of shops sat in rows on either side. Small kiosks and stalls were placed in the middle of the street, covered with layers of cloth that was smothered in snow. They were all closed and the marketplace looked dark and abandoned.

It was kind of like how he felt at the moment.

He proceeded onwards and reached the end of the town square, stepping off the cobbled pathway and onto tarmac. Just over the other side was a large parking lot – Sora's destination – and he scrabbled into the confines of his Mickey Mouse Works yellow duffle bag for his brother's car keys.

He stopped when he reached the small, black convertible with a bent bonnet and a dented bumper. At the moment, the poor machine looked miserable and lifeless, being half-buried under the layers of grey snow.

Lifeless.

You just seem so lifeless, you know.

Yes, Leon. I'm lifeless – like the goddamn car.

He kicked the wheel of his car irritably and the impact sent the vehicle wobbling slightly as if it was attempting to shake the snow off its body like a wet dog.

Unlocking the car and eager to get out of the cold, Sora slipped inside, dumping his bag onto the passenger seat and slamming the door shut. A pile of snow that covered his window fell away, exposing him a small view of the outside world he had left behind. He turned on the ignition and the engine whined as a series of dry knocks vibrated along the car. When he succeeded in starting up the blasted thing, he turned the heater on full blast and pulled out of the parking lot and headed towards home.

Home.

Did he really call that silent, empty house of his 'Home'?

He quickly placed the thought out of his mind, telling himself that he was much too exhausted to think. The events that happened today had seemed too much for him to mull over. He didn't care if he got back to the cold and empty house. He just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep in the quiet, peaceful dark.

Sora sighed wearily and felt the bruise on his forehead give an anxious throb. He unconsciously touched the plaster and looked over at the overhead mirror to study his injury.

Instead, his gaze landed onto a pair of eyes that watched his reflection from the gloom of the backseat.

Eyes–?

"AAAAHHHHH!"

The car suddenly swerved off the road and he tried to regain control, seeing the vision outside his window spin in a flurry of grey and black. Panicking, he slammed his foot onto the brakes and heard the horrid screech of the wheels roaring in his ears. When the car struggled and finally halted into a complete stop, he was thrown forwards from the sudden momentum.

"Oh god, oh god… what the–"

Sora swore out loud, breaking the silence that descended upon the car like the aftermath of a violent shower. He fumbled with the clasp of his seatbelt and when freed, leaned over the driver's seat to see exactly what had startled him so badly like that.

He jumped back in horror.

There was someone there – a person – crouching in the dark and on the floor just behind the driver's seat. In the silence that overwhelmed the car, he could faintly hear the stranger's breathing.

In. Out. In. Out. Dammit, what am I doing?

And in a few moments, Sora's heartbeat slowed down and he was able to shakily blurt out his words:

"Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my car?"

But complete silence followed after these demands.

Sora swore again, not caring if he was going to be condemned in his afterlife because he found himself indignant – yes, absolutely, perfectly, stupendously goddamn indignant – that this sort of thing would happen to him of all people and kicked the door of his side open. Cold air rushed at his face, shocking his body, and he sank his boots into the deep snow and staggered his way towards the passenger door.

Right then. Right…

He wrenched open the door and discovered that whatever was crouching there a few seconds ago had shifted and was now on the other side of the car. Sora glared into the gloom and was able to make out the form of – a boy? A girl? – perhaps a bit much older than himself, curled at the foot of the backseat.

He slowly reached inside and flipped on the small light attached to the ceiling of the car.

The interior of the car was filled with golden light.

And a silver-haired youth with green eyes, as deep as the sea itself, stared right back at his blue ones.

Sora found that for a few seconds, he couldn't move, because he had never seen anyone as … peculiar as the person – the boy – he was looking at now. The youth's pale skin brought out the deep colour of his sea-green eyes. His hair was long, tumbling down his shoulders, his way-too-long bangs flopping into his eyes. And it was silver, his hair was the colour of moonlight which gleamed almost proudly from under the glow of the car light. It was then when Sora noticed that the oversized black jumper the boy was wearing belonged to Cloud (for his brother usually gave him hand-me-down clothes anyway) and the paopu-fruit patterned shorts belonged to him (he remembered tossing those shorts into the backseat last summer and forgetting about them).

He snapped out of his stupefied trance and glowered at the thief of his clothing.

"Why are you wearing my stuff?" he demanded coldly. "And … what the… what are you doing in here of all places anyway?!"

Despite the demands, there was no reply. Sora continued glaring at the youth with an air of expectancy for an answer, a sound, something. The seconds and the silence continued to stretch on between them and the more Sora glared at the boy the more he began to notice a certain wild air about him. Perhaps it was the way he crouched there, quivering under the exposing light. Perhaps it was the way his long, pale fingers twitched tensely. Perhaps it was the way his back arched like a fox cornered by a pack of dogs. And the way his bright eyes gazed – no, stared back at his, unblinking and filled with watchful fear.

Those eyes… they were too intense. They were so, so…

Green.

He had never seen such a deep shade of green before. He almost felt like drowning…

Sora felt so light-headed and dizzy all of a sudden that he quickly shut his eyes and dragged himself out of the car. The sensation he was feeling was like vertigo, like looking down from a high place and feeling your head spin. He was uncertain of which steps to take to get him to safety.

You're like a drifting presence of uncertainty.

Why are your words in my head at this time, Aerith?

A few metres away from the car, he finally collapsed onto a pile of snow and tried to regain his thoughts. He was still trembling from the shock of the near-crash and it took several seconds for him to collect himself again.

He noticed that he had stopped the car in the middle of a small woodland surrounded by a coppice of snow-covered trees. Gazing about the vicinity, he ran his fingers through his brown hair and released a deep sigh, exorcising his frustrations of the day – the images of Leon and Aerith's worried expressions, of books tumbling off high shelves, of returning to an empty house – and for the first time that night, he felt his shoulders relax slightly. It was as if being outside in the middle of nowhere had done the trick. He felt much calmer than he had ever been before… somehow.

…Not to mention strangely so.

Weird. What could've–?

There was a soft, hesitant crunching of snow behind him and another body, he noticed was barefooted, swooped down and crouched in the snow beside him.

Sora startled and leaned away, staring widely at the boy who had finally emerged from the confines of the car. He was surprised to see that the silver-haired youth had calmed down a little as well. The shock and fear had faded away from his expression but Sora could still see that alertness still remaining there. It was strange the way the boy stared at him from under his curtain of silver bangs with an air of curiosity. It reminded Sora of a shy mouse coming out of its hole and was ready to bolt if its predator made a move.

It was then when Sora found his voice working again, "Wh-who are you?"

A cold breeze rustled past, picking up the strands of silver and courting them with a dance as they whipped about the youth's pale cheeks.

"I'm Riku."

The voice that formed those words was quiet and, Sora was surprised, oddly soothing as if it had a rather magical, mysterious ring in it.

"I can see them."

"What?" Sora blinked and tried hard not to look directly into the green eyes that watched him constantly. He was afraid he might feel dizzy again.

"Your thoughts."

Sora's face darkened to a frown. His sour mood was back and boy, did he feel like starting up the car and running it over this kid's body over and over again. But he extinguished the tempting idea and settled instead with a very simple question:

"Why were you in my car?"

And the boy, Riku, fell silent for a while before his eyes narrowed slightly as if he was recalling a bad memory, "I was hiding from some people. They're trying to catch me."

"Catch you? Why's that?"

At this enquiry, Riku's gaze finally broke away and shifted down onto the snow, his lips pressed into a thin line. His expression, Sora found, was strangely impassive. It was hard to guess whether Riku was looking guilty or not. And there was another thing that Sora noticed about Riku. It was that unnatural air and manner about him – the way he crouched in the snow like that, the way he seemed unaffected by the cold surrounding him (considering that he had Sora's shorts on) and the way his bright eyes looked alert and wary of their surroundings, as if he was expecting some kind of attack to happen at any moment. And there was the fact that – he didn't want to sound rude or anything – Riku just seemed more or less… animal-like. There was something about him that seemed almost, well, inhuman.

"How did you get into my car anyway? And why myclothes?" Sora asked some more because he still needed answers to clear his mind. To be honest, he was baffled like hell.

"I just slipped in. It wasn't so hard."

Slipped in? What on earth–?

"As for the clothes, I found them inside. The people outside the window were wearing them so I thought it seemed appropriate. And your… car has a lot of clothes in the back."

Sora blinked.

Riku had just successfully ruined his chances of making proper sense to the situation.

Apparently, thinking too much had brought his mind back into exhaustion. At that very moment, Sora felt like burying his head into the snow right now.

I think it's time to go.

Alright then.

Sora heaved out a great exasperated sigh, exhaling a cloud of white condensation into his surroundings. He had decided once and for all that he should drop Riku off somewhere, get rid of him, so that he could finally drive home in peace and resume his perfectly normal daily routine. He stood up abruptly, wiping off the snow that had clung onto his pants and plodded back into the driver's seat.

"What are you sitting around for?" he called to Riku, who had been watching him all this time with interest. "Get in the car."

Hesitatingly, the youth got up and trudged, barefooted, over the grey snow and glided – it seemed to be the best word for it –into the backseat of the car. There, he curled back into his original position on the floor, his sea-green eyes always alert, always watching.

Sora turned off the ceiling light and started the car.

The engine roared into life and they were off into the darkness, leaving long, trailing wheel tracks on the ground. It had begun to snow heavily - swiftly and silently – that in just a few minutes, the tracks disappeared completely and all that was left was a layer of snow looking untouched.

"This is your stop."

Sora had pulled over in front of a dim-lit inn situated at the far corner of Hollow Bastion, near the grand arch that marked the road leading out of the town and onto the wild highway. The curving rooftops of the inn were cast in shadow and the windows of the guestrooms were entirely encased with the grey coating of snow. It seemed that the south end of the town appeared to have suffered much worse weather than in the town square.

The brown-haired boy looked into the backseat where Riku still sat curled on the floor. Having dug into the car bonnet earlier on, Sora had pulled out from the pile of clothes that he had dumped in there a few pieces of clothing he donated to Riku. Now the paopu shorts had been exchanged with a pair of baggy pants, a pair of old boots and a frayed cashmere white scarf. He was allowed, however, to continue wearing the oversized black jumper.

Seeing that Riku hadn't moved as much as a finger from his spot on the floor when Sora announced their destination, Sora impatiently tapped on the steering wheel with his finger and gave the other a look. "I said this is your stop. You can get out of the car now."

Riku seemed to have roused from his trance because he unhesitatingly rose and slipped out of the car with not so much as a sound. As he stood in front of the inn, looking as if he didn't know what to do next, Sora was suddenly aware of how tall and well-built the other actually was. Under the dim lights of the inn, the clothes that Sora had lent him somehow suited him perfectly and as the snow continued to drift down upon Riku's form, they seemed to tease at the silver locks, giving them an almost mesmerizing shine.

Such an captivating shine. It was like the moonlight…

"You do know where you're going afterwards, right?" Sora asked, attempting to sound nonchalant but turning out slightly concerned instead. He was leaning over the lowered window with hands grasping the steering wheel.

Riku turned his head to look back at him and nodded, the motion causing the greenness of his eyes to sparkle. "I'm going back home… to the Lake."

The Lake…? Strange. Almost sounds like…

Sora blinked in hearing such an answer but dismissed it from thought afterwards. He looked at Riku again, at the frayed ends of his cashmere scarf and his black jumper, and at once had a stray notion, a stray suggestion floating into his head.

Tch, I can't just leave him in the cold like that.

Sora quickly whipped off his aqua-blue Mickey Mouse Works windbreaker and held it out of the window to Riku. The silver-haired youth seemed surprised by this sudden act and took to staring at the offered piece of attire. Sora felt the beginnings of a blush creep up his face. He felt very awkward holding out the windbreaker to someone who hasn't taken it yet.

"It's for you," Sora said, his face flustered and he motioned again for the other to take it.

At this, Riku slowly reached out and curled his fingers into the folds of the windbreaker. And then he did the most curious thing. He raised his eyes from the windbreaker to Sora's face and just looked at him.

Sora thought – no-I-must've-been-too-tired-or-something-because-I-could-have-sworn… – that he felt something, something strange flowing through his being. It was unexpected and mutual and it had connected him and Riku together for a quarter of that second. It took hold of him and it whispered to him and he involuntarily shivered in response.

He didn't know what it was. It disappeared before he could figure it out.

The windbreaker left his hand.

"Thank you," Riku murmured as he pulled on the windbreaker and zipped it up. Sora just nodded dumbly in response. He was still somewhat dazed by what had just happened.

And then there was silence between them, broken only by the whispering of wind and falling snow, and Sora hung about the steering wheel, trying to think what he should do now while Riku just looked and looked back at him with that shy-mouse air still lingering in his gaze. It had just occurred to him that they were parting their ways and it felt oddly strange to be separated all too soon.

"Well," Sora finally said after the awkward moment. "Good luck."

And he started the engine and pulled out of the kerb, driving off into the darkness and feeling his heart beating fast and unsteady. Unmoving, Riku watched as the figure of the little car blended and disappeared into the night. When he felt something inside the pocket of the blue windbreaker, he slipped his hand in and pulled out a library I.D. card, wrapped in a plastic cover with a metal clip attached to it.

There was a small photo of the boy whose spiky brown-hair flopped about his head, his sky blue eyes twinkling as his lips stretched out in a sheepish smile.

And Riku opened his mouth and whispered out the name printed upon the card as if tasting the way it rolled out of his tongue:

"Sora."

A few hours later, at the grand arch that led into the town, two figures, wrapped up entirely in black, trudged through the deep snow.

"Damn this cursing snow! Damn this confoundable cold! Damn it all!" the shorter one of the pair growled under the fur-trimmed hood that covered his head.

"Now, now, Roxas," drawled his much taller companion, who was smoking a lit cigarette as he picked his way across the snow with one of his hands buried deep into the pockets of his thick coat. "It doesn't matter how many times you cuss, it'll still keep snowing and it'll still stay cold."

"Damn you, Axel," snapped the shorter one. "I hate being cold. And this goddamn wild goose chase–"

The taller one, Axel, flicked his cigarette away and watched it crumble in the snow before cutting into the other's sentence, "Well then, I'll hafta warm that little body of yours up, doncha think?" He glided over to Roxas' side and in one swift movement, wrapped his long arms around the smaller body in an embrace. "After all, we don't want your special little powers freezing up just because–"

"Get off," Roxas muttered, pushing Axel off him before crouching over a pile of snow and examining it.

Axel gave a sigh, causing a small cloud of condensation to emerge from under the fur-trimmed hood of his coat and planted his hands onto his hips as he regarded his young companion.

"You found something?"

"More than that," Roxas murmured, looking up with a gleam in his eyes. "I've found his tracks. He's headed for the public library."

Notes:

Where is bubbly, happy Sora? Why is he pushing Leon and Aerith away? Who exactly is this mysterious Riku? What exactly was that mysterious feeling passed between Sora and Riku? Who are Axel and Roxas and what are they looking for?

Hm, I seemed to have portrayed Sora as a "reality anchor" as what my sister puts it. He's a normal, bored guy suddenly thrust into a wacky world the minute he meets Riku. Can you guys see any connection between the legend and the story itself? Sash versus windbreaker (both being blue), perhaps? And really, why have I called the dragon orb as the "Mutiara Naga"? Yes, it sounds like the dragon ball, don't you think? It's the stuff in those oriental legends. I've been sniffing around for info on things like this. Eastern dragons are so cool!

Urm, I've leave you guys to ponder upon it.

Now go and click the little review button there and make me a happy authoress.