literature

SoD part 1 chapt 11

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Literature Text

Finding shelter

"…Close to my heart I keep
The memory of yours…
" (Brake up, by Silverspegel)

---

Kairi felt a slight panic rise in her chest when she saw Riku close the portal behind her.

She hadn't been able to see why he'd done it, but she figured that the most probable reason was also the one that she most of all feared – he'd been attacked and had decided it to be safer to close the portal until he could follow.  If he could follow…

Kairi bit down hard on her lower lip and forced herself to put away her doubts. Instead, she turned her attention back towards the other opening, hovering in the midst of all the floating colors and indistinct shapes that was the space in between the dark portals.

Riku had once told her that traveling between these portals drained you on your light. Knowing this, Kairi walked over to the opening without further delay. No matter what happened, she would find him again, and she would save Sora. She couldn't see the destination to which Riku had opened the portal, but she trusted him to have been able to find a place that was at least a little safer than the place she had just left. Her home…

This was the third time she'd lost a home.

The first time she could barely remember at all, having been too young to have shaped any clear memories of the place where she'd lived before the heartless took over that world. Only later on she had learned that she belonged to the same world as Leon and the others and that her home had been at the city of Radiant Garden. The second time, the heartless had taken her new home at Destiny Islands away as well, but Sora had returned it to her. And now it was taken once again, and Sora with it…

Angry with herself for letting her thoughts constantly remind her of her loss, Kairi let out a low growl and clenched her fists while forcing back the gathering tears in her eyes. She would be the strong one now. This time, for all she knew, the worlds depended on her to save them, and so did Sora… and Riku.

"Let's face it Kairi," she said to herself in a reprimanding tone of voice, " that until you see the both of them in front of you again, you will have to assume that they are taken and imprisoned by the heartless. This means you will have to be the one saving them this time."

She fell silent for a moment as she took a deep breath to steady herself.

"…and heroes don't cry," she added, once more directing her eyes towards the opening.
"Here goes…"

She took a last look over her shoulder, hoping for Riku to show up and prove her wrong, but as nothing happened, she turned her back to the empty void and stepped through the portal.

---

Hauru grimaced as his fist hit the hard wood of the door.

He had tried so many times to find the right opening, to get back to Sophie and the others, but all he had managed to achieve was yet another opening to a place he didn't know and didn't want to see. His magic was still active, despite the absence of magic in this world he was in, and it was just as strong as it had been before he got here. But this new world, with it's strange lack of native magic representatives, was somehow affecting his own magic, making the once tamed powers act just a little unpredictable.

But in terms of magic, an art of preciseness and exact actions, "a little" unpredictability meant a huge difference to what the magic he used produced at his command. He had to work his way around the new routes the energy flow wanted to take by changing his directives so that each side step still would lead to the intended goal.

So far, though, he still had to work on getting even the simplest of spells to work as intended.

Practice was another problem. Being in a world without surfaced magic, Hauru had quickly figured that he would have to keep his own abilities hidden to the main crowd. Only, this world was way more crowded than he had ever thought a place able to be.

He hit the door again, feeling his skin getting somewhat sore at the rough treatment.

He refused to cry. But the burning pain in his hand as he let it strike the door once more couldn't silence the stinging and crushing sensation that was growing in his chest.

"Calcifer…" he mumbled as he remembered the last time he'd felt this pain. The first time had been when he gave up his heart to the fire demon, saving it from extinction and cursing himself with the demon's powers as it ate away at his soul and very connection to the world around him. After that, he had felt it once more when Calcifer had been close to dying, just before Sophie had revived the demon and returned the heart to Hauru.

Sophie…

Hauru had to smile through the pain as he closed his eyes and remembered her. She still had silvery grey hair instead of the brown that she should have had, but the rest of the curse that had turned her into an old woman had been lifted at the same day that Hauru got his heart back. She was just as beautiful as she had been the first time he'd seen her, even more so now that she had come to know her own worth.

He had come to love her beyond her looks, her own love for him and everyone around her tearing down every wall that he had ever built between himself and the world. Together with her, he had become human again.

And then the shadows had come.

Despite changing their place of residence ever so often, Hauru had found no way to permanently escape the ghostly creatures and finally they had managed to get inside the castle. He had fought them with all that he had, Calicfer adding his strength to the magic used, but nothing had seemed to be taking any effect other than delaying the advance for a bit. Realizing they were outnumbered, Hauru had opened a new doorway while he fought the shadows back, telling Sophie to get herself and the others through the door.

But when he'd looked over his shoulder to meet Sophie's eyes, she hadn't been there and forgetting about the danger in doing so, he had turned around to find her. He'd spotted her half way up the stairs to the second floor, trying to get the shadows to back off by swinging an old umbrella in front of her, the boy and the old witch behind her further up the stairs.

She'd turned towards him and called out a warning, but it had been too late.

Hauru had felt something grab at him and had taken a step back to avoid the chilling claws, but in doing so he'd fallen down the few stairs to the open door and gone through to the world on the other side of it.

As soon as he got back up on his feet he had rushed for the door to get back, but it had closed behind him and as he opened it up again, all he had seen had been the empty back room of an abandoned shop.

Ever since then he had tried out a large number of doors, but with no luck in finding one that could take him back home. Two months had passed and he was starting to think of it as a hopeless hunt.

Giving up his tests of the doorway for the day, he decided he should pay a visit to the market down by the docks and see if he could find something useful for his business. The abandoned shop he'd stumbled into his first day in this world had proved to be on the market for renting and since Hauru had been lucky enough to carry a small pouch of gold and various jewels with him into this new world, he had been able to rent the place. For starters, he had only used it as a place to sleep in while he tried out every possible way of using the doors of the shop to get back home, but later on, as he had felt the need to move his sleeping quarters elsewhere, he had started up a small business in the shop in order to earn some money to pay for himself.

At the shop he sold his advice and products, being a man who knew quite a lot about healing herbs and other drugs, along with the everyday spells that would help even the most anti-witchery supporter believe in remedies that weren't all together scientifically provable. Luckily, his smaller spells had worked pretty flawlessly right from the start.

It was the more complicated ones that got messed up.

With a deep sigh, Hauru turned the multi-colored disc above his door so that the dirty white field on it was directed downwards, turned the lock on his door shut, then unlocked it again, before stepping out of his room and into the messy, noisy world of the place where he'd been living for the last few weeks.

The open corridor was a bit too crowded for his taste, but despite the constant chatter and movement around him, Hauru had found himself liking the place. It could have something to do with the soothing fumes of the herbal baths that always seeped through into the main halls, or the impeccable service he'd been receiving ever since he'd stepped inside the over decorated and luxurious entrance, but he felt calm and secure here and this had had a positive effect on his magic. All that was missing for the moment, in order to make him feel completely satisfied, was Sophie…

Another chilling pinch in his chest made him grit his teeth.

Would this nightmare never end?

The young, black haired magician swiftly made his way down the narrow wooden stairs, weaving through the crowd of strange creatures that filled the building. During his first week in this world, Hauru had been having some trouble dealing with the fact that the majority of this world's population seemed to be far from human, but as time passed he had grown a bit more used to the sight of all the different creatures around him, to the point where he didn't stop to look at every new oddity he saw.

He efficiently squeezed himself past a huge, cat-like troll of some sort with grey and white fur. The creature turned towards him with a toothy grin that reached from one end of its wide face to the other, its kind and gentle eyes following him curiously as he went by. With a soft, recognizing smile, he nodded at the girl behind the reception desk, before he went out the main entrance doors.

The streets outside the bath house were just as crowded as the building he'd just left and with yet another sigh, this time one of frustration, Hauru started to move through the mass of people, looking for an empty spot or alley where he could sneak away and get his magic together well enough to take a much less traveled route – above the heads of the crowd.

A few minutes later he walked into a narrow alleyway, looking over his shoulder and up ahead of him to make sure no one could see him, before he closed his eyes in concentration. He could feel the energy of the magic build up a welcomed breeze around him and opened his eyes, seeing the density of the air and started walking upwards on the steps that formed themselves at his will. This was one of his favorite tricks, but in this world it took more concentration than it usually did and as soon as he'd got himself high enough, he started looking for a place to land that wasn't too far away. When he found one, he started moving with precise and careful, but yet swift steps.

When he started his decent about three minutes and just as many blocks later, he suddenly felt a tear in the magical weave where he had his focus. A little shocked at first, he almost lost his grip of the spell that kept him aloft, and made a far more hasty landing than planned, stumbling to a halt on the ground as he turned in all directions in a try to make out where the interruption was.  A chill down his spine told him that he had felt something familiar to this before, and he didn't like the memory it brought up to the surface.

Darkness, was all that his magical senses screamed out as the magical tear grew stronger and he turned around once more, finally pin-pointing the direction to be just about two steps away from him. Before he could back off or build up a defense, a dark line tore up the air in front of him and widened itself into an oval of swirling black and purple tainted navy blue.

Hauru cursed under his breath and took a step back, going through all his possible escape routes in his head, when suddenly something unexpected happened that made his pale blue eyes widen.

Out came, not the hordes of moving shadows that he had prepared himself to meet, but a young woman with red long hair gathered in a thick ponytail at the back of her head, dressed in an odd fashion of clothing in lilac, black and white.

She looked just as surprised as him and her dark blue eyes grew a bit bigger as she tried not to walk right into him when her feet touched the ground, resulting in a very sudden and fumbling embrace, both of them trying hard not to lose their balance while holding on to each other in a mere reflex move.  

The dark portal closed just as quickly as it had opened and Hauru finally managed to get the two of them to a standstill, looking in disbelief first at the spot where the portal had been and then back at the woman in his arms. She was quite beautiful, and if he hadn't met Sophie, he would most definitely have gone for her. As it now was, all he did was smile softly at her as soon as he got back his control over his features.

The red haired young woman's cheeks were suddenly flushed in a rose color and she hastily made herself free of his arms.

"Uhm, hi, sorry about that…" she mumbled, her eyes flicking back and forth in a desperate need to find words.

"It's alright," Hauru said in his most soothing voice, took a light hold on her chin to force her to meet his eyes. "I'm Hauru. And you are…?"

"Kairi," she answered when she finally looked at him.

"Well, Kairi," Hauru said and let go of her chin, "could you explain to me why you came out of one of the shadow doors, instead of the shadows?"

Kairi blinked in surprise, looking more closely at the young man in front of her. Hauru had raven black hair reaching to his chin, with thick bangs cut straight off at the top of his brows. The pale water blue eyes were intense despite the lack of sharpness in their color, and together with his warm smile it made his features all the more eye catching.

He wore an old fashioned long sleeved white shirt with wide hems gathered at his wrists with the aid of a pair of palm length bracers of tan colored leather. Around his waist he wore a wide, dark turquoise scarf as some sort of girdle, making the soot black, skin tight pants take on a slight bluish green shade, this in turn enhancing the black color of his elegant knee-high leather boots.

There was something odd about him that reminded Kairi of someone she knew, but she couldn't quite place it. What she did know though, was that she could trust him.

"A friend of mine managed to open it so that I could escape," she said, a sting of sadness in her chest as she thought of Riku.

Hauru raised an eyebrow.

"Your friend could open one of the dark doors? How?"

Kairi bit her lip, not sure what to say.

"He, well… it's a long story," she finally said and looked away. "Our world was attacked by the heartless, and my…" her voice trailed off for a moment as she forced back the tears threatening to break free from her eyes. "… a very close friend of mine, Sora, was taken. Riku and I fought them but we couldn't stop them all so he opened the portal for us to get away, but he never made it through before the portal closed. I'm… I'm the only one of us that made it here."

Hauru observed her with a concerned and serious expression. She was forcing herself to not break down from the emotions that so clearly wanted to escape her, putting up a defense against the depression that could otherwise threaten to drown her. The dark blue eyes were vivid with emotion at the mentioning of her friends and her entire body was shivering from the shock she had just gone through – or maybe it was just a sign of exhaustion? Looking closer, Hauru noticed the weary look in her eyes and the slow motions of her limbs.

"These things, you called them 'the heartless', are they the same living shadows that invaded my world as well?" he asked as he tried to gather his thoughts in order to decide what he should do about this whole situation.

Kairi nodded and described the heartless to him, trying to explain their existence in the same way as Sora had explained it to her, once she'd got around to asking him about it.

"So they keep collecting others' hearts and in so doing they keep growing in number?" Hauru filled in and Kairi nodded. "But you said that you and your friend were fighting them off?" A slight tone of hopeful interest was heard in his voice.

"They are darkness, and can only be fought off with weapons made from the light within one's heart. Me, Riku and Sora, we each have that sort of weapon, making us able to fight them," Kairi explained, her eyes focusing on some distant view in her memory.

Suddenly she swayed a little and Hauru was fast to step in and take a hold of her shoulders before she could fall.

"I think you need some place to rest," he said, the concern back in his face as he looked her in the eyes.

Kairi could only nod in reply, too tired from all the fighting and from emptying all her magical preserve not too long ago. She could feel Hauru lift her up in his arms and closed her eyes, finally feeling safe enough to relax and rest her weary body and mind for a while.

---

"You cannot take advantage of my hospitality like this!"an old woman's voice ranted, the raspy tunes increasing in volume as she went on. "Who is that girl? I don't want anything to do with any shabby street victims that my guests decide to drag along…"

"Hush, madam. She's not one of the drugged alley girls. She's a friend of mine who's been through a lot, and now she needs some place to rest and recover from it all. I assure you that I will pay for the extra cost this is, so do not worry," a soft male voice interrupted the woman, and Kairi could vaguely remember it belonging to a man named Hauru.

Her entire body felt numb and heavy as led. She tried to move, but gave up the idea as pain shot through her sore muscles. Slowly and with the use of her entire remaining strength, she managed to open her eyes and moved them towards the sound of voices, trying to see through the haze of newly broken sleep.

Hauru was standing by a door, talking to a very short woman with a very, very large head.

"My dear sir, master Hauru," the strangely looking old woman said, her voice now terribly soft and oily, a touch of false flatter being heard in it as she forced a smile onto the dry lips. "I am most sorry that I ever suspected you to be one of such low taste," she continued, obviously not feeling all that sorry for the mistake as she said she did, "but I have had some bad experiences since I started my business here and I have to make sure…"

"No harm done, my dear madam," Hauru interrupted her, his voice just as soft as before. "I know all too well of the dangers in letting the wrong people pass through your door."

The old woman seemed pleased with this and after exchanging a few words with him concerning the pay for the room and food, she left them and Hauru closed the door.

As he did so, Kairi noticed a multi colored disc that was placed at the top left corner of the door frame. It had stripes of different colors going out from the center like the spokes of a bike wheel. At the moment, a dirty white stripe was pointing downwards, marked by a black iron arrowhead that stuck out from the wall.

When he turned to look at her, he smiled, relief showing in his eyes.

"Ah, you're finally awake!" he said and came to sit on her bedside. "How are you feeling? You've been sleeping ever since we met yesterday."

Kairi wrinkled her forehead in thought as she tried to remember what had happened. It didn't take too long for her memory to come back though, and as it did, she wished for it to have stayed away for just a little while longer. The image of Sora's sad eyes as he made the decision to let go of her hand in order to save her, and then how he slipped away into the dark pool, was something she didn't want to remember. She wanted her latest experience to have been nothing but a bad dream, but no matter how hard she tried to believe so, she knew it wasn't, because she was here with Hauru, and not back at Destiny Islands with Sora.

She forced a smile onto her lips.

"I'm still tired, but I'll be fine soon, I guess," she said, her voice sounding strange and weak to her.

She could see in his kind eyes that he didn't buy her lie, but he didn't say anything about it, instead he reached for a round, jade green tea pot and a large mug of the same color that was standing on a small coffee table at the side of her bed.

"If you can get yourself to sit up, I bet you that some of my own home made tea will make you feel a whole lot more refreshed in only a few minutes," he said and Kairi smiled with gratitude, the offer sounding most welcome in her ears. She struggled to get up and, with a little help from Hauru's steady hands, she finally sat up and could take a sip from the mug she received.

The tea had a wonderful taste that made her think of the Islands. It tasted of mint and something that could only be described as summer sun. The brew warmed her up from her mouth and into her every limb in an instant and even though she knew better, she was almost certain that what Hauru had given her was actually a High Potion.

"Well?" he said after she had taken her first sip. "What do you think of it?"

Kairi's eyes beamed at him, full of her regained energy.

"It's amazing! What's in it?"

Hauru smiled back and shook his head.

"Now that's a secret," he said and got up from the bed.

"Come on!" Kairi objected and took another sip of the tea, all weariness gone.

"It's true," Hauru responded and started to pour the rest of the brew in the pot into four small glass bottles, which he corked and put down into a large bag standing by the door. "And I never tell my secrets to anyone."

"Magician's honor, right?" Kairi added with a snort.

Hauru looked at her with wide eyes of surprise.

"How did you…"

Kairi blinked. Suddenly she remembered what it was about him that made him seem familiar; he had magic. It was like a field of static energy embracing him, giving her a feeling similar to that which she had felt around Donald.

"I just know. I've got my own magic as well, but I'm not all that good at using it yet," she replied quickly and swung her legs over the side of the bed, testing their strength a bit before she got up and took a look around the somewhat luxurious room, more or less ignoring the still surprised look on Hauru's face.

The walls of the room were a pale pink, a dark cherry tree wood panel stretching along the lower half of them on all sides. Large paintings hang on the wall with even spaces, all together five paintings, all of them depicting long legged white and black birds with red spots over the eyes, Kairi couldn't recognize the bird, but the paintings were kind of pretty, simple lines creating an illusion of a whole despite a lack of coverage in between the lines. The bed in which she had been placed was low and wide, with large bed posts of wood the same color as the panels and the linen were made of a silk like material in a deep pink shade, save the sheet, that was an ivory black.

The room also held a small kitchen area, cut off from the rest of the room by a high bar table of dark wood and close by was a dark wood door that she figured lead to the bathroom.

"Uhm, where is this place?" Kairi asked after a moment of silent observation.

Hauru, still wondering over Kairi's mystical power that he for some reason couldn't sense, stood up from the hunched down position he had been in since he'd put down the bottles in his bag.

"Right, you wouldn't know that, now, would you," he said and put the gentle smile back onto his face. "When you fell asleep like that, I took you here to let you get some rest. This is a bath house, serving as a sort of hotel offering healthy herbal baths to its customers. The old woman who were here earlier, Youbaba, is the owner of this establishment. She's a real hag, if you ask me, but deep inside her wrinkly self I know she's got a good heart. She just has some trouble showing it."

Kairi had to smile at the comment.

"Well, I don't know all that much about her, but she didn't sound too friendly to me," she said in thought as she went over to the large spruced window and took a look outside. "But what world is this? It's not your home; that much I can tell."

Once again Hauru was a bit surprised by the ease with which she talked about such things as magic and different worlds, as if she wasn't surprised at all.

"Hrm, no, my world is a bit different from this," he said and hurried to go on, not wanting to think too much about the fate of his loved ones. "I've been stranded here for about two months now and I've learned that this city of sorts is only a small part of this world. During the night time you can see a planet nearby; that's Montessor, and this place hovering in space, is the Montessor Space Port. Here solar sail ships dock on their way to other locations."

Kairi hummed at the information as she took in the sight outside the window. The streets were crowded with a mass of varying creatures, only a few times she thought she could spot what she figured to be a human among the other species that mixed and mingled about three floors below her.

"This is a perfect place for hiding," she mumbled, forgetful of Hauru, who had walked up to stand behind her.

"Hiding from what? The heartless?" he asked and Kairi was snapped out of her thoughts, turning to face him, just a little embarrassed at having spoken the words out loud.

"Yeah, well, if you want to hide from them, being in a world like this, where a lot of different worlds are connected already, makes it a bit easier. They can't really pick you out from the mass if there are no standards to stick out from."

Hauru nodded in understanding and Kairi realized that she had met an ally in her fight, knowing deep down inside of her heart that for some reason, she was meant to be here with him at this moment. She looked around the room once more, when her eyes stopped at the colorful disc above the entrance door.

"Hauru, what is that disc doing there?" she asked and nodded towards the door.

Hauru's eyebrows were slightly raised for a moment, as he realized what she meant - then a new expression crept across his face, an expression of dawning hope.

"That, my dear friend," he said," is what I use to make this door open up to worlds other than this."
Chapter 11! Finally back to Kairi! And, entering, a new character! And yes, the big grey thing is the lovable Totoro, for those of you who recognized him. ^^

Note: I know he's called Howl in the original english language, but in japaneese and in the swedish dub of the movie, (The moving castle, Ghibli) he's Hauru, so i'm sticking to that. ;)

Time works differently in all the worlds, therefore things happen in different places in different times. This explains how Hauru has been trapped on Montessor Space Port for two months, and how Youbaba has managed to build up her franchise and so on at the point of Kairi arriving. The heartless are working faster than that, but adding this time-twist sort of helps me put stuff together in a reasonable way, since I've planned on some stuff to be present when some things occur...

Now, let's wait and see what new pepole and twists and turns I can squeeze into the next chapter... ;)

I don't own anything but the story.

KH-related characters and stuff: Disney and Square Enix
Treasure Planet setting: Disney
Hauru: Studio Ghibli and Diana Wynn Jones
Totoro and Youbaba with her bath house. Studio Ghibli

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ME-Jones's avatar
I thought his name was Howl, from Howl's Moving Castle... >.>

Anyways, good chapter so far! Can't wait for more!