6,581 Miles to Luma [ 2/?? ]
Yes, I'm a horrible tease only putting up the prologue on Tuesday, but I figured since I'm going back to post-on-the-weekend schedule (a la Boys) it was only a few days before a proper chapter went up. I'm sure everyone survived. xD
So yeah, this is where the story actually starts.
Title: 6,581 Miles to Luma [ 2/?? ]
Author: Casey
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Rating: R/M
Pairings: Axel/Roxas, Riku/Sora
Warnings: The holy trinity of language, sex and violence.
Genre: Post-apocalyptic sci-fi/fantasy road trip
Summary: A clone, a priestess, a fugitive and a knight are crossing the desert together in a V-class 1300-series armored truck. There must be a punchline.
Previous: 1
The Girl in the Desert, Part One
Hot. It was hot.
Hot like a scathing bonfire against her back, hot like the rough surface of a cast-iron skillet against her front, and between the two she was fairly certain she was dying. She flexed her fingers and felt grit slide under her nails, turned her cheek and felt skin scrape against the burning surface she was lying on. Let her eyes flutter open and only one could see past the hand lying limp in front of her face, around the strands of red draped over her nose. It tickled, and she made a soft noise of protest that sounded louder than it was in her ears, but when she tried to move her muscles simply tensed once, then relaxed into a dull pain that ran deeper than the heat.
She blinked, exhaled and some of the hair fluttered to the side just enough to expose the landscape beyond. An expanse of pavement bleached gray under the sun, dust and sand skittering across it in a fitful breeze, distorting waves of heat rising up from it and throwing the world behind it into a watery haze. Endless faded brown, the baked and cracked earth, pavement splitting it down the middle like a strip of withering twine.
How...?
She wondered, and the word alone seemed to sum up everything. How.
What little she could see of the sky above her was just as stretched and washed-out as the road beneath her. She was facing north, she noted--she recognized the way that the sky cracked on that side of the world. More jagged than in the south, where it was a thin splintering, fine as a spiderweb and meandering in slow, lazy arcs until it touched the earth somewhere distant.
In the north, though, the crack was more apparent. It gaped like a wound, massive and black between the edges, and on either side of it the color of the sky was a shade different. Paler blue to the east and more violet to the west. In the desert, where the land was flat and barren and endless, it looked closer than she remembered.
She shivered, chill running down her spine that defied the heat--licked her lips, felt them splitting in the dry air and tasted blood, felt how dry and swollen her own tongue was and wondered again, how--
How long will it take me to die like this?
Memory fogged and swirled when she tried to dredge up information, but she thought she recalled something about heat stroke, and thought that she would probably pass out first. That was somewhat comforting, although before she died she would really, really like to know just how it was she'd ended up here, on the side of the refugee road in the middle of the desert, still in her temple silks, hair loose to the wind and dangling red over her face, slowly roasting under the sun.
She didn't think it was too much to ask. She closed her eyes again, silently apologizing for being unable to move and fold her hands over her heart properly, and prayed.
She wasn't sure how long that lasted--she sent out at least a dozen prayers to any of the Seven who might listen, extra to the Twin Goddess as Her servant, pleading for at least an explanation if not forgiveness. It may have been hours, as the sun never seemed to move anywhere that would result in being any less hot, and by the end she was sure it was nearly over, anyway. There was a roaring in her ears that she imagined was a prelude to unconsciousness.
She stopped praying and opened her eyes. If there was no response now, perhaps the Seven would explain this after she was dead. Perhaps.
What she saw, however, was not death (Dawn, the second, goddess of death and rebirth), but a whirl of movement in front of her eyes, across the baked gray and haze of the road, that resolved itself after a moment to an enormous set of tires screeching to a halt, kicking up sand in clouds that crawled pitifully across the pavement. Her gaze traveled up as far as it could, taking in scratched and dented gray metal, molded to itself and larger than she could see in any direction save where it stopped around the tires, black and heavy-treaded under the dust. She coughed, weakly, and thought she heard something slam, though all of this might have been her imagination.
Looked like a V-class, she thought, idly--strange thing to think while dying. She'd worked on one or two of those, volunteering in the camps around Luma. Strange to see one outside a caravan. It was probably her imagination.
But she didn't imagine hearing the footsteps skidding across the road, the sound gritty with sand--or the voice, or the cool hand that brushed her hair back and pressed against her cheek.
"Hey. Hey! Are you alive?"
Her eyelids fluttered for a moment and she realized she was on her back, a figure hovering over her and blocking the sun, and when it resolved she coughed again, blinking again, unable to hold the image. A boy. Blond hair, messy with spikes, and blue, blue eyes.
"It's you," she murmured, hoarse, and her tongue stuck inside her mouth. Then shook her head. "No--no, it's not. Who are you?"
But another sound filtered past the engine of the truck still running, a buzz at first, then more than one, then three--maybe more. The figure's head jerked to the side, looking past her and down along the road. "Shit. Can you walk?"
She tried lifting her arms, and was able to grasp the boy's shoulders. He resolved in her vision again just long enough for her to catch the look of panic on his face, too pale for this desert and so much like... something. Someone? "I'm sorry," she said, but wasn't entirely sure why.
His arms were strong, though. She could feel muscles through the silk when he lifted her up, steadying her when her feet stumbled over each other, lifting her when they reached the truck. It was huge, she could tell now even though the image of it jumped around in front of her eyes--definitely a V-class, armored, probably customized--and the shade it threw off was so welcome she nearly collapsed in it.
"Almost there," he said, holding her securely by the waist and throwing open the passenger door with his free hand, and his voice had that same panicked edge, and the buzzing was growing louder.
She found enough energy to climb up and into the seat and--goddesses, it was blessedly cool inside, cooler yet when the boy outside closed the door, and she leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes, feeling her muscles uncoiling one by one.
She had the presence of mind, in that moment, to fold her hands over her chest. Thank you, Seven, for affording me rescue--she prayed, and she meant every word, but when she opened her eyes and found the strength to reach up and smooth her hair back, tucking sweat-soaked locks behind her ears and gritting her teeth at the thought of a boy seeing her in such a state, silks stained and hair on her shoulders, she added--
Now, just what the hell is going on?
There was a shuffle and a slam of the opposite door, muffled cursing and then the vehicle sprang to life, engine lurching and protesting as it rolled forwards, the seat beneath her jerking and rumbling along with the rest of the truck.
Other sounds followed, toggles switching and monitors sputtering with static and beeps and the low, displeased and rather frightened hisses of the truck's driver. She opened her eyes slightly, head lolling on the back of the seat but at least the world around her was holding steady otherwise. He was young, she thought, watching the boy with one hand on the wheel in front of him, other hand alternating between tapping at a monitor that was still reading static and operating a gear shift, or flipping a toggle, or pressing a series of buttons, still hissing and muttering to himself and watching the rearview mirror outside his window more than the road in front of him. Although the road, what she could see of it, was as empty and endless as the desert around them.
He was young. As young as her, at least, and thin and lithe in a way that was familiar, all long lean muscle and slender fingers--and pale like a Western refugee in a way that wasn't. Even with her vision cooperating she couldn't quite pin him down, her memory grasping and failing and grasping again. He was probably a stranger that just felt familiar, in the way that some strangers did--someone who just felt trustworthy. She was positive she didn't know anyone who had any business being in the middle of the desert.
Although she hadn't had any business being there, either, so she could be wrong.
"What's going on?" She asked, finally, shifting enough in her seat that her head stopped lolling. She thought she could see some movement in the rearview mirror on her own side of the truck, black specks resolving into something like insects, rolling along the ground at speeds that kicked billows of dust behind them.
"Angels," he muttered, jerking at the gear shift again before looking over at her, face drawing into something like concern, though he was frowning so it was hard to tell. "About five of them. Can you put your seatbelt on?"
She swallowed and coughed again, feeling dust and sweat against her skin when she rubbed her throat, light tug at the choker there and a brief moment of relief that it hadn't been lost. She pushed against the seat, reaching both hands down at her sides and feeling for the harness, fumbling with the straps and pulling them up, over her shoulders, breathing deeply to focus her movements and get the buckles to snap together. It was a little too loose, she thought, but had run out of energy, and when she opened her eyes the boy driving appeared satisfied. The figures in the rearview were larger now, less insect-like and more apparent--motorbikes, two and four-wheeled, the men astride them burnt brown by the desert sun. The Tribes, the fog in her mind supplied. Their exiles and outcasts, pirates of the refugee road.
"Are they dangerous?" She asked, watching him fiddle with another toggle and wait while a series of lights on the consoles began turning on.
"Only if they get close enough to shoot," he replied and shot her a curious look, but his lights were lit and he turned his attention back to the wheel, palm slamming on a button before he took the wheel with both hands. "Hold on."
She barely had time to wrap her hands around the armrests before the truck shot forward with a speed that threw them both back against their seats. She remembered this vaguely, remembered the sound of the boy chuckling softly and revving the engine, and then she remembered nothing.
"Hey. Wake up."
The voice was soft and tickled her senses to life, and when she opened her eyes she blinked in the light, and once her memory caught up everything looked pretty much as it had before. The truck was slowing gradually back to its normal speed, the lights on the consoles dimming and flickering out as it did, and the boy in the driver's seat was watching her intently. The rearview mirror showed only desert and road receding behind them. "What happened?"
"Outran them." The driver smirked a bit, pleased with himself and presumably the capabilities of his truck, and he looked so much like a normal, school-aged boy that it made her heart ache--because clearly, anyone in a V-class armored truck in the middle of the desert was nowhere approaching normal. "So--what's your name?"
She frowned, partially at herself and the sudden emotion and partially at the belated question. And all the important questions like 'Where did you come from and why the hell were you lying in the road in the middle of the desert?' that weren't being asked. Partially at herself for feeling nothing but a cool sort of calm at the very center of her being. "Kairi."
The boy shot her a look, one eyebrow cocked at the tone and the frown. "You okay?"
She shrugged against her skin and the crackle of dry sweat covering it, and pushed herself a little more upright, muscles sore as they stretched, shaking her head more for movement than in response. "I'm fine."
"Kairi." The way he repeated her name had a certain tension to it, like he hadn't decided what to think of her just yet and was about to put that to the test. "I need you to hold the wheel for a minute."
He made a soft humming noise when she turned to face him fully, mouth falling open--something approaching an abbreviated laugh. "I killed a fuel core with the drive accelerator. There's nothing else on the road, just hold the wheel steady while I go replace it. I'll be right behind you." He reached back without looking away from the road, between the seats with one hand to rap his knuckles against the pocket door leading to the rest of the truck, slid closed at the moment. It made a hollow, metallic sound. "Okay?"
She considered this for a moment, licking her lips before nodding just slightly. "Yeah, all right." Then leaned to the side and reached out to grab the wheel, and his hand landed on top of hers, assuring her fingers were securely wrapped around it. She noted again that his hands were cool, and then the contact was gone and he was standing up, slipping between the seats and sliding the door open, disappearing beyond.
The road spread before the windshield was indeed empty, dusted with sand and disappearing at the edges into brown dirt. If she squinted, at the very edge of the horizon she thought she could see the curves of hills. If she stared at it too long she started to feel dizzy, so she busied herself looking from one side of the road to the other, clicking her teeth together and counting the seconds.
"Almost done," the boy's voice called from the truck's interior, followed by the hiss of pressurized air and the slide of metal against metal. The sound set her teeth on edge, and she realized her head was beginning to ache.
The boy appeared at her side and slid back into his seat just as her eyes were starting to droop and her grip on the wheel was starting to slide. He pulled her hand away gently and held it for a moment until she looked up again, then shook it rather formally. "I'm Roxas." He said it with an level of patience that was as abbreviated as his laugh, and the two words were enough to express the sentiment that she had not been rescued to be coddled. He nearly discredited himself by pressing a water bottle into her hand before releasing it. "Drink slowly or you'll make yourself sick."
Kairi considered the tone and the ascertaining way his eyes widened when he looked at her before returning to the driver's seat--then curled back into her own seat with the water and decided to do as she was told. It was lukewarm and not cold, but heavenly against her parched mouth anyhow. She shifted a little more for comfort and was content to just sit there with her water, staring at the endlessness of the desert and half-dozing in between sips. She could see Roxas from the corners of her eyes, fiddling with some more controls and shutting monitors off, eventually leaning back in his own seat and resting both hands at the bottom of the wheel, barely needing to do more than hold it steady as the road careened straight ahead into the horizon.
If she closed her eyes for long enough, bits and pieces of memory started to float to the surface, bobbing along amidst the fog like toy ships in a wading pool. She remembered the temple like a brand in her mind's eye, polished wood and stone and crystal windows, candlelight reflected a thousandfold until the nave glowed as bright as day all the way to the buttresses high above. It was perfect and whole there but all the things in and around it wavered uncertainly. Hymns were sung but the women singing were invisible. Faces and events escaped her, bits of conversations floated around and contradicted each other. Arms cradled her in a gentle embrace, she was laughing with someone, and the last thing she could remember clearly, she was sure--a boy's voice, low and fearful, a hand securely wrapped in hers.
Kairi, they're coming.
"You should get some sleep."
Roxas's voice jerked her out of the doze she'd fallen into, pulled her upright while she inhaled like coming up from underwater, blinking at the bright light of the desert. Kairi settled after a second, reorienting herself and let the breath back out; reached up to rub her forehead. "Yeah. I should."
He was looking over at her, bright blue eyes and no expression there to interpret, just a nervous flick back and forth between her and the road. "Look," he said, letting out a short breath and staring at the windshield with a kind of resolve. "There's a bunk back there, with drawers alongside it. In the second from the bottom there should be some clothes that'll fit you. The shower is kind of tricky to find, but if you look for--"
"There's a panel between the bunk frame and the control access closet." Kairi finished the sentence smoothly, set her water bottle aside and placed her hands on either armrest, testing her own weight. She felt heavy and awkward, her joints were watery and unreliable.
Roxas was staring at her again, eyebrows up under his messy bangs. "You've been in a V-class before?"
"I used to..." Kairi trailed off, took a deep breath and levered herself out of the seat, clutching the armrests until she was nearly upright, then the back when she felt her knees steady to hold her up. "Work on trucks in the refugee camps." She wavered a little, felt the blood rushing to her head, reached out to rest one hand against the pocket door and waited again for her body to settle. "There were so many, sometimes the city couldn't let the caravans in. There was nowhere for them to go, so we made sure they could survive outside the walls." Her eyes slid closed and she felt the world tilting, fog tumbling over itself and for a moment she thought she was falling.
"Kairi." Cool hand around her wrist and her eyes fluttered open, swaying a little where she stood. Roxas was frowning. "You need to rest."
She took a deep breath, let it out slowly along with a nod. "Yeah."
The space beyond the pocket door was just large enough to be functional, a double-bunk on one side, extra mattress stowed in a drawer beneath the lower one, flanked by storage for personal items and clothing. Appliances on the other side for everything from cooking to laundry and a cold pantry for fresh food. Everything was gray and metal, the bunks clothed in white, the appliances with rows of darkened lights. Most of these trucks, she could almost remember--they'd been cheerful places, if small. A place for a family to live for the months it took to travel from West to East, all the way to Luma, decked with their treasures, colorful beads and scarves to brighten the drab interior.
This truck wasn't someone's home. She wondered at that, opening the second drawer from the bottom and selecting a grayish pair of drawstring pants, a white cotton shirt--most likely to fit and just as uninteresting as the rest of the truck. The only part with any color was the boy driving it.
The bathroom was even smaller than she remembered and the shower minuscule; she bumped her head against the nozzle several times and wondered if she'd really grown that much without realizing it--hissed when the water hit her skin and stung the developing sunburn.
It was, needless to say, not as pleasant and refreshing as a shower should have been.
She'd found a length of leather cord in the drawer and stood in the bathroom, wrapped in a towel while a fan blew the steam away through a vent in the ceiling, and slowly plaited it into her damp hair. Priestesses shouldn't be seen by men with their hair on their shoulders, her memory murmured, soft and muted through the fog. It was too familiar, like a flirtation. An invitation. Kairi stared into the mirror, damp hair garnet-dark, sunburned cheeks and blinked at herself, fingers tangled and tugging awkwardly.
Had she... really grown older? She didn't think she remembered this, the mature angle to her face. The length of her hair. The way her body felt full and curved like a woman's rather than a girl's. It didn't seem quite right and like instinct she closed her eyes to the reflection, shifted the damp locks under her fingers and tried to twist them into the right shape.
It was almost familiar, right here like this. Like a swirl in the fog, she could almost feel a pair of hands stopping hers, a soft laugh and then other fingers taking over, expertly pulling the plaits into place and continuing on. Soft hum in the background, right behind her head. Her cheek resting against a silk-covered knee. Murmured conversation.
You're such a tomboy, Kairi. The voice chided but it was warm and fond, soft and female like her own. You come back for evening hymns every day with dirt on your knees and your hair falling everywhere no matter how well I braid it. What am I going to do with you?
When she opened her eyes, she was winding the braid into a knot at the back of her head with practiced ease, tying it carefully in place. And her heart ached, but she wasn't sure what for.
She woke once, briefly, just enough at first to rub at the soreness in her arms and roll to her other side, stretching and curling under the sheets. She was nearly asleep, slipping down irrevocably into the lull of slumber, but then Roxas's voice carried through the open doorway.
"That's not the point, though, Zex, if it was really that important he would have come himself by now."
She couldn't see Roxas from the bed, and only a bare crack of the doorway that showed a strip of the consoles and the arm of her empty seat. Roxas's voice paused after the initial sentence, and continued on after a moment.
"Well--it's not like I'm looking forward to it." Another pause, and that short laugh of his. "Well, orders are orders. Or they were, for me. I mean... if you were a traitor--okay, never mind, bad example. It doesn't matter now, anyway."
The words made her head throb, trying to think about them and put them in context. Who was he talking to? The truck was too small for someone else to have been lingering somewhere within it unseen, and communications in the desert were unreliable if not nonexistent. She rubbed her forehead and tugged the sheets up further.
"Don't worry about that," Roxas said after another short pause. "You could have left, you know. You still can, it's your contract."
She thought she heard a chuckle sometime after that. And she thought she might have heard another voice, just faintly, but the haze of sleep was dragging her down and she was never certain if the entire thing wasn't just a dream.
The next time she woke, it was because the rumble and vibration of the truck had stopped. She stretched, arms straight over her head and hissed when her sunburnt skin pulled over her muscles, shifting to a cooler part of the sheets to soothe it. When she opened her eyes and pushed herself upright, metallic footsteps tromped through the pocket door and Roxas appeared by the bunk, toolbox in one hand. "Hey. Feeling better?"
"Yeah." It was a murmur, breath mostly, and she yawned, rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and felt like a child. "Not great, but better. Why are we stopped?"
"It's almost sunset." Roxas set the toolbox on the floor and stepped up on the edge of the bunk without much preamble, shirt hiking up at his waist as he reached up to the ceiling--Kairi realized she was staring at a pale slit of skin and quickly averted her eyes, reached up to assure her hair was still mostly in its braided knot. A jerk at the handle of a hatch above them and Roxas dropped back down, pulling a utility ladder with him, a square of orange sunlight glowing down at them.
"I'll go up." Kairi made the offer almost automatically, sliding to the edge of the bunk and reaching for her shoes. She had them on and straightened before realizing that Roxas was staring at her, yet to say anything, blue eyes blinking like he wasn't quite sure what he was seeing. She felt the corner of her mouth quirk up--she'd never get tired of seeing that look on a boy's face. "You're checking on the lights, right? You can switch the fuse groups at the control panel, I'll go up and change the duds. It'll get done twice as fast."
A few more blinks, a moment of uncertainty, and then Roxas shrugged, handed her the toolbox. "Okay, then."
The air outside was still hot, but far more bearable in the fading light, the sky's red glow reflecting in spikes of red along the crack that split it. The sun melting in the western sky had lost the burning power that had attempted to cook her on the asphalt earlier that day. The desert would cool in the night, and the morning would be pleasant.
The night itself would be... less pleasant.
She avoided thinking about the amount of light left in the sky and methodically checked the lighting on the roof, humming the evening hymns to herself to assure she remembered them. She called back and forth through the hatch for Roxas to switch from the small yellow track lights to the bigger white dome lights, and then the emergency floodlights on each corner, brighter than the sun. Switching out dead bulbs for the new stock kept carefully in the toolbox.
When the roof was done, she crawled down the ladder on the back of the truck and did the same with the lights on the side, the back, the headlights and the blinders that would blast out the underside of the vehicle in the early morning when the shadows were still heavy and dark, just as a precaution. When she finished, screwing a clear dome back into place over the last replacement bulb, Roxas opened the driver's door and waited for her, sideways in his seat with a metal cylinder fidgeting in his hands.
"You weren't kidding about working on refugee trucks," he said, not really expecting a response; it was more of a quiet observation. An acknowledgment. She nodded a little, handed over the slightly depleted toolbox and he exchanged it for the cylinder. Gray metal with a strip of glass down the center, simple buttons on one end. "For your sunburn. It's pretty lousy as medpacks go, but it'll take the edge off."
Kairi felt the smile flutter on her face, and for a moment she thought maybe she was flattered by his concern. Maybe. "Thanks."
"Sure." He shrugged, throwing off the smile and any suggestion that he might feel something like worry from time to time, and the gesture itself was so familiar it made something jump in her gut. Something swirl in the fog of her memory but never surface. He jerked his head to the side, swung his legs back into the truck and that was a silent order to get in, now, and stop this nonsense. She grinned at his back and hurried around to climb inside.
Fifteen minutes later, the eastern sky outside the windshield was darkening to violet. Roxas had secured the truck, spinning the pressure wheels on the roof hatch and the back door, showing her how to secure the passenger door before finishing with his own and settling into his seat to restart the truck. It rumbled away steadily beneath them now, behind and beyond the stuttering buzz of the medpack in her hand. Kairi spent the minutes twisting herself into awkward angles, trying to reach the sunburn on the back of her arms and neck. Finally switching to her calves, pant legs rolled up, the little device coughed and blinked on and off, protesting its own function.
"Told you it was lousy."
Kairi glared at the driver's seat, catching the edge of a smirk on Roxas's lips before returning attention to the medpack, shaking it slightly. "Honestly."
"Try thumping it." Roxas gestured at her, mimicked whacking the cylinder against the heel of his hand.
She gave the thing a few good smacks, felt it sputter back to life and continued scanning it over her sunburn, little bar of energy through the glass panel stimulating her skin to repair itself. "If this is all you have, you'd better pray to Eden that nothing bad happens before you get to civilization."
"I didn't really have time to be picky." That smirk was still on his mouth, quiet amusement, and it stayed there for a few more minutes, the amount of time it took for the sky to darken from lavender to purple. He reached over his head, flipped the switches methodically--all the track lights, one set of domes for each side and a low-set flood for the rear where the mirrors couldn't see. The headlights came on last, washing out the road before them to bright gray.
Roxas breathed out in a whisper, fingers curling around the edge of the wheel. "Here we go."
It started simply enough. Sagebrush on the sides of the road, beyond the edges of the light the truck cast, spread long shadows pointing east, graying light dimming the edges as the last of the sun faded. Ink black darkness in patches, shivering. Wriggling, turning on itself, spiking out searching fingers and as Kairi turned her head to watch in horrified fascination, through the window of her door a flash of glowing yellow eyes peered at her from the shadow's depths.
In her seat, she pulled her legs back against her body, medpack forgotten in her hand, curled around herself and murmured the name of her goddess.
Luma guard me, Luma keep me, Luma temper the quaking darkness and lift up thy servant to the light--
"Don't panic," Roxas said in that same whisper, steering wheel creaking under white knuckles, and the night exploded around them.
Swarms of them, black shifting bodies, quivering antennae and long, spindly fingers, searching and clawing and writhing over each other and eyes, eyes everywhere, thousands of them glowing and blinking yellow, watching as the truck passed, squirming out of the road in wake of the headlights, crawling at hissing and unable to get close, to find the prey the lights were guarding.
Kairi thought of the city, vague images swirling around and the Holy Guard patrolling the city walls, minding the floodlight perimeter, and wondered how they could watch this horror unfurl night after night. Heard a child's voice in the back of her mind, deep with the intent of frightening its friends, the Shadows come out of the crack in the sky and live in the dark, and if they catch you they'll eat you and then eat your heart, and then you can never come back for your next life, because your heart is gone forever.
"It gets easier," Roxas said in a voice that was defiantly even and his hands were still wrapped around the bottom of the wheel in a death grip. "After a while."
Kairi swallowed, and had the presence of mind, finally, to switch the medpack off. The sunburn was still raw on the backs of her heels (and that was a strange place to be sunburnt, she thought) but she wasn't willing to unwrap herself enough to treat it any further. "How long until sunrise?"
"Eight hours."
The nights were going to be decidedly less pleasant.
[ NEXT ]
So yeah, this is where the story actually starts.
Title: 6,581 Miles to Luma [ 2/?? ]
Author: Casey
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Rating: R/M
Pairings: Axel/Roxas, Riku/Sora
Warnings: The holy trinity of language, sex and violence.
Genre: Post-apocalyptic sci-fi/fantasy road trip
Summary: A clone, a priestess, a fugitive and a knight are crossing the desert together in a V-class 1300-series armored truck. There must be a punchline.
Previous: 1
The Girl in the Desert, Part One
Hot. It was hot.
Hot like a scathing bonfire against her back, hot like the rough surface of a cast-iron skillet against her front, and between the two she was fairly certain she was dying. She flexed her fingers and felt grit slide under her nails, turned her cheek and felt skin scrape against the burning surface she was lying on. Let her eyes flutter open and only one could see past the hand lying limp in front of her face, around the strands of red draped over her nose. It tickled, and she made a soft noise of protest that sounded louder than it was in her ears, but when she tried to move her muscles simply tensed once, then relaxed into a dull pain that ran deeper than the heat.
She blinked, exhaled and some of the hair fluttered to the side just enough to expose the landscape beyond. An expanse of pavement bleached gray under the sun, dust and sand skittering across it in a fitful breeze, distorting waves of heat rising up from it and throwing the world behind it into a watery haze. Endless faded brown, the baked and cracked earth, pavement splitting it down the middle like a strip of withering twine.
How...?
She wondered, and the word alone seemed to sum up everything. How.
What little she could see of the sky above her was just as stretched and washed-out as the road beneath her. She was facing north, she noted--she recognized the way that the sky cracked on that side of the world. More jagged than in the south, where it was a thin splintering, fine as a spiderweb and meandering in slow, lazy arcs until it touched the earth somewhere distant.
In the north, though, the crack was more apparent. It gaped like a wound, massive and black between the edges, and on either side of it the color of the sky was a shade different. Paler blue to the east and more violet to the west. In the desert, where the land was flat and barren and endless, it looked closer than she remembered.
She shivered, chill running down her spine that defied the heat--licked her lips, felt them splitting in the dry air and tasted blood, felt how dry and swollen her own tongue was and wondered again, how--
How long will it take me to die like this?
Memory fogged and swirled when she tried to dredge up information, but she thought she recalled something about heat stroke, and thought that she would probably pass out first. That was somewhat comforting, although before she died she would really, really like to know just how it was she'd ended up here, on the side of the refugee road in the middle of the desert, still in her temple silks, hair loose to the wind and dangling red over her face, slowly roasting under the sun.
She didn't think it was too much to ask. She closed her eyes again, silently apologizing for being unable to move and fold her hands over her heart properly, and prayed.
She wasn't sure how long that lasted--she sent out at least a dozen prayers to any of the Seven who might listen, extra to the Twin Goddess as Her servant, pleading for at least an explanation if not forgiveness. It may have been hours, as the sun never seemed to move anywhere that would result in being any less hot, and by the end she was sure it was nearly over, anyway. There was a roaring in her ears that she imagined was a prelude to unconsciousness.
She stopped praying and opened her eyes. If there was no response now, perhaps the Seven would explain this after she was dead. Perhaps.
What she saw, however, was not death (Dawn, the second, goddess of death and rebirth), but a whirl of movement in front of her eyes, across the baked gray and haze of the road, that resolved itself after a moment to an enormous set of tires screeching to a halt, kicking up sand in clouds that crawled pitifully across the pavement. Her gaze traveled up as far as it could, taking in scratched and dented gray metal, molded to itself and larger than she could see in any direction save where it stopped around the tires, black and heavy-treaded under the dust. She coughed, weakly, and thought she heard something slam, though all of this might have been her imagination.
Looked like a V-class, she thought, idly--strange thing to think while dying. She'd worked on one or two of those, volunteering in the camps around Luma. Strange to see one outside a caravan. It was probably her imagination.
But she didn't imagine hearing the footsteps skidding across the road, the sound gritty with sand--or the voice, or the cool hand that brushed her hair back and pressed against her cheek.
"Hey. Hey! Are you alive?"
Her eyelids fluttered for a moment and she realized she was on her back, a figure hovering over her and blocking the sun, and when it resolved she coughed again, blinking again, unable to hold the image. A boy. Blond hair, messy with spikes, and blue, blue eyes.
"It's you," she murmured, hoarse, and her tongue stuck inside her mouth. Then shook her head. "No--no, it's not. Who are you?"
But another sound filtered past the engine of the truck still running, a buzz at first, then more than one, then three--maybe more. The figure's head jerked to the side, looking past her and down along the road. "Shit. Can you walk?"
She tried lifting her arms, and was able to grasp the boy's shoulders. He resolved in her vision again just long enough for her to catch the look of panic on his face, too pale for this desert and so much like... something. Someone? "I'm sorry," she said, but wasn't entirely sure why.
His arms were strong, though. She could feel muscles through the silk when he lifted her up, steadying her when her feet stumbled over each other, lifting her when they reached the truck. It was huge, she could tell now even though the image of it jumped around in front of her eyes--definitely a V-class, armored, probably customized--and the shade it threw off was so welcome she nearly collapsed in it.
"Almost there," he said, holding her securely by the waist and throwing open the passenger door with his free hand, and his voice had that same panicked edge, and the buzzing was growing louder.
She found enough energy to climb up and into the seat and--goddesses, it was blessedly cool inside, cooler yet when the boy outside closed the door, and she leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes, feeling her muscles uncoiling one by one.
She had the presence of mind, in that moment, to fold her hands over her chest. Thank you, Seven, for affording me rescue--she prayed, and she meant every word, but when she opened her eyes and found the strength to reach up and smooth her hair back, tucking sweat-soaked locks behind her ears and gritting her teeth at the thought of a boy seeing her in such a state, silks stained and hair on her shoulders, she added--
Now, just what the hell is going on?
There was a shuffle and a slam of the opposite door, muffled cursing and then the vehicle sprang to life, engine lurching and protesting as it rolled forwards, the seat beneath her jerking and rumbling along with the rest of the truck.
Other sounds followed, toggles switching and monitors sputtering with static and beeps and the low, displeased and rather frightened hisses of the truck's driver. She opened her eyes slightly, head lolling on the back of the seat but at least the world around her was holding steady otherwise. He was young, she thought, watching the boy with one hand on the wheel in front of him, other hand alternating between tapping at a monitor that was still reading static and operating a gear shift, or flipping a toggle, or pressing a series of buttons, still hissing and muttering to himself and watching the rearview mirror outside his window more than the road in front of him. Although the road, what she could see of it, was as empty and endless as the desert around them.
He was young. As young as her, at least, and thin and lithe in a way that was familiar, all long lean muscle and slender fingers--and pale like a Western refugee in a way that wasn't. Even with her vision cooperating she couldn't quite pin him down, her memory grasping and failing and grasping again. He was probably a stranger that just felt familiar, in the way that some strangers did--someone who just felt trustworthy. She was positive she didn't know anyone who had any business being in the middle of the desert.
Although she hadn't had any business being there, either, so she could be wrong.
"What's going on?" She asked, finally, shifting enough in her seat that her head stopped lolling. She thought she could see some movement in the rearview mirror on her own side of the truck, black specks resolving into something like insects, rolling along the ground at speeds that kicked billows of dust behind them.
"Angels," he muttered, jerking at the gear shift again before looking over at her, face drawing into something like concern, though he was frowning so it was hard to tell. "About five of them. Can you put your seatbelt on?"
She swallowed and coughed again, feeling dust and sweat against her skin when she rubbed her throat, light tug at the choker there and a brief moment of relief that it hadn't been lost. She pushed against the seat, reaching both hands down at her sides and feeling for the harness, fumbling with the straps and pulling them up, over her shoulders, breathing deeply to focus her movements and get the buckles to snap together. It was a little too loose, she thought, but had run out of energy, and when she opened her eyes the boy driving appeared satisfied. The figures in the rearview were larger now, less insect-like and more apparent--motorbikes, two and four-wheeled, the men astride them burnt brown by the desert sun. The Tribes, the fog in her mind supplied. Their exiles and outcasts, pirates of the refugee road.
"Are they dangerous?" She asked, watching him fiddle with another toggle and wait while a series of lights on the consoles began turning on.
"Only if they get close enough to shoot," he replied and shot her a curious look, but his lights were lit and he turned his attention back to the wheel, palm slamming on a button before he took the wheel with both hands. "Hold on."
She barely had time to wrap her hands around the armrests before the truck shot forward with a speed that threw them both back against their seats. She remembered this vaguely, remembered the sound of the boy chuckling softly and revving the engine, and then she remembered nothing.
"Hey. Wake up."
The voice was soft and tickled her senses to life, and when she opened her eyes she blinked in the light, and once her memory caught up everything looked pretty much as it had before. The truck was slowing gradually back to its normal speed, the lights on the consoles dimming and flickering out as it did, and the boy in the driver's seat was watching her intently. The rearview mirror showed only desert and road receding behind them. "What happened?"
"Outran them." The driver smirked a bit, pleased with himself and presumably the capabilities of his truck, and he looked so much like a normal, school-aged boy that it made her heart ache--because clearly, anyone in a V-class armored truck in the middle of the desert was nowhere approaching normal. "So--what's your name?"
She frowned, partially at herself and the sudden emotion and partially at the belated question. And all the important questions like 'Where did you come from and why the hell were you lying in the road in the middle of the desert?' that weren't being asked. Partially at herself for feeling nothing but a cool sort of calm at the very center of her being. "Kairi."
The boy shot her a look, one eyebrow cocked at the tone and the frown. "You okay?"
She shrugged against her skin and the crackle of dry sweat covering it, and pushed herself a little more upright, muscles sore as they stretched, shaking her head more for movement than in response. "I'm fine."
"Kairi." The way he repeated her name had a certain tension to it, like he hadn't decided what to think of her just yet and was about to put that to the test. "I need you to hold the wheel for a minute."
He made a soft humming noise when she turned to face him fully, mouth falling open--something approaching an abbreviated laugh. "I killed a fuel core with the drive accelerator. There's nothing else on the road, just hold the wheel steady while I go replace it. I'll be right behind you." He reached back without looking away from the road, between the seats with one hand to rap his knuckles against the pocket door leading to the rest of the truck, slid closed at the moment. It made a hollow, metallic sound. "Okay?"
She considered this for a moment, licking her lips before nodding just slightly. "Yeah, all right." Then leaned to the side and reached out to grab the wheel, and his hand landed on top of hers, assuring her fingers were securely wrapped around it. She noted again that his hands were cool, and then the contact was gone and he was standing up, slipping between the seats and sliding the door open, disappearing beyond.
The road spread before the windshield was indeed empty, dusted with sand and disappearing at the edges into brown dirt. If she squinted, at the very edge of the horizon she thought she could see the curves of hills. If she stared at it too long she started to feel dizzy, so she busied herself looking from one side of the road to the other, clicking her teeth together and counting the seconds.
"Almost done," the boy's voice called from the truck's interior, followed by the hiss of pressurized air and the slide of metal against metal. The sound set her teeth on edge, and she realized her head was beginning to ache.
The boy appeared at her side and slid back into his seat just as her eyes were starting to droop and her grip on the wheel was starting to slide. He pulled her hand away gently and held it for a moment until she looked up again, then shook it rather formally. "I'm Roxas." He said it with an level of patience that was as abbreviated as his laugh, and the two words were enough to express the sentiment that she had not been rescued to be coddled. He nearly discredited himself by pressing a water bottle into her hand before releasing it. "Drink slowly or you'll make yourself sick."
Kairi considered the tone and the ascertaining way his eyes widened when he looked at her before returning to the driver's seat--then curled back into her own seat with the water and decided to do as she was told. It was lukewarm and not cold, but heavenly against her parched mouth anyhow. She shifted a little more for comfort and was content to just sit there with her water, staring at the endlessness of the desert and half-dozing in between sips. She could see Roxas from the corners of her eyes, fiddling with some more controls and shutting monitors off, eventually leaning back in his own seat and resting both hands at the bottom of the wheel, barely needing to do more than hold it steady as the road careened straight ahead into the horizon.
If she closed her eyes for long enough, bits and pieces of memory started to float to the surface, bobbing along amidst the fog like toy ships in a wading pool. She remembered the temple like a brand in her mind's eye, polished wood and stone and crystal windows, candlelight reflected a thousandfold until the nave glowed as bright as day all the way to the buttresses high above. It was perfect and whole there but all the things in and around it wavered uncertainly. Hymns were sung but the women singing were invisible. Faces and events escaped her, bits of conversations floated around and contradicted each other. Arms cradled her in a gentle embrace, she was laughing with someone, and the last thing she could remember clearly, she was sure--a boy's voice, low and fearful, a hand securely wrapped in hers.
Kairi, they're coming.
"You should get some sleep."
Roxas's voice jerked her out of the doze she'd fallen into, pulled her upright while she inhaled like coming up from underwater, blinking at the bright light of the desert. Kairi settled after a second, reorienting herself and let the breath back out; reached up to rub her forehead. "Yeah. I should."
He was looking over at her, bright blue eyes and no expression there to interpret, just a nervous flick back and forth between her and the road. "Look," he said, letting out a short breath and staring at the windshield with a kind of resolve. "There's a bunk back there, with drawers alongside it. In the second from the bottom there should be some clothes that'll fit you. The shower is kind of tricky to find, but if you look for--"
"There's a panel between the bunk frame and the control access closet." Kairi finished the sentence smoothly, set her water bottle aside and placed her hands on either armrest, testing her own weight. She felt heavy and awkward, her joints were watery and unreliable.
Roxas was staring at her again, eyebrows up under his messy bangs. "You've been in a V-class before?"
"I used to..." Kairi trailed off, took a deep breath and levered herself out of the seat, clutching the armrests until she was nearly upright, then the back when she felt her knees steady to hold her up. "Work on trucks in the refugee camps." She wavered a little, felt the blood rushing to her head, reached out to rest one hand against the pocket door and waited again for her body to settle. "There were so many, sometimes the city couldn't let the caravans in. There was nowhere for them to go, so we made sure they could survive outside the walls." Her eyes slid closed and she felt the world tilting, fog tumbling over itself and for a moment she thought she was falling.
"Kairi." Cool hand around her wrist and her eyes fluttered open, swaying a little where she stood. Roxas was frowning. "You need to rest."
She took a deep breath, let it out slowly along with a nod. "Yeah."
The space beyond the pocket door was just large enough to be functional, a double-bunk on one side, extra mattress stowed in a drawer beneath the lower one, flanked by storage for personal items and clothing. Appliances on the other side for everything from cooking to laundry and a cold pantry for fresh food. Everything was gray and metal, the bunks clothed in white, the appliances with rows of darkened lights. Most of these trucks, she could almost remember--they'd been cheerful places, if small. A place for a family to live for the months it took to travel from West to East, all the way to Luma, decked with their treasures, colorful beads and scarves to brighten the drab interior.
This truck wasn't someone's home. She wondered at that, opening the second drawer from the bottom and selecting a grayish pair of drawstring pants, a white cotton shirt--most likely to fit and just as uninteresting as the rest of the truck. The only part with any color was the boy driving it.
The bathroom was even smaller than she remembered and the shower minuscule; she bumped her head against the nozzle several times and wondered if she'd really grown that much without realizing it--hissed when the water hit her skin and stung the developing sunburn.
It was, needless to say, not as pleasant and refreshing as a shower should have been.
She'd found a length of leather cord in the drawer and stood in the bathroom, wrapped in a towel while a fan blew the steam away through a vent in the ceiling, and slowly plaited it into her damp hair. Priestesses shouldn't be seen by men with their hair on their shoulders, her memory murmured, soft and muted through the fog. It was too familiar, like a flirtation. An invitation. Kairi stared into the mirror, damp hair garnet-dark, sunburned cheeks and blinked at herself, fingers tangled and tugging awkwardly.
Had she... really grown older? She didn't think she remembered this, the mature angle to her face. The length of her hair. The way her body felt full and curved like a woman's rather than a girl's. It didn't seem quite right and like instinct she closed her eyes to the reflection, shifted the damp locks under her fingers and tried to twist them into the right shape.
It was almost familiar, right here like this. Like a swirl in the fog, she could almost feel a pair of hands stopping hers, a soft laugh and then other fingers taking over, expertly pulling the plaits into place and continuing on. Soft hum in the background, right behind her head. Her cheek resting against a silk-covered knee. Murmured conversation.
You're such a tomboy, Kairi. The voice chided but it was warm and fond, soft and female like her own. You come back for evening hymns every day with dirt on your knees and your hair falling everywhere no matter how well I braid it. What am I going to do with you?
When she opened her eyes, she was winding the braid into a knot at the back of her head with practiced ease, tying it carefully in place. And her heart ached, but she wasn't sure what for.
She woke once, briefly, just enough at first to rub at the soreness in her arms and roll to her other side, stretching and curling under the sheets. She was nearly asleep, slipping down irrevocably into the lull of slumber, but then Roxas's voice carried through the open doorway.
"That's not the point, though, Zex, if it was really that important he would have come himself by now."
She couldn't see Roxas from the bed, and only a bare crack of the doorway that showed a strip of the consoles and the arm of her empty seat. Roxas's voice paused after the initial sentence, and continued on after a moment.
"Well--it's not like I'm looking forward to it." Another pause, and that short laugh of his. "Well, orders are orders. Or they were, for me. I mean... if you were a traitor--okay, never mind, bad example. It doesn't matter now, anyway."
The words made her head throb, trying to think about them and put them in context. Who was he talking to? The truck was too small for someone else to have been lingering somewhere within it unseen, and communications in the desert were unreliable if not nonexistent. She rubbed her forehead and tugged the sheets up further.
"Don't worry about that," Roxas said after another short pause. "You could have left, you know. You still can, it's your contract."
She thought she heard a chuckle sometime after that. And she thought she might have heard another voice, just faintly, but the haze of sleep was dragging her down and she was never certain if the entire thing wasn't just a dream.
The next time she woke, it was because the rumble and vibration of the truck had stopped. She stretched, arms straight over her head and hissed when her sunburnt skin pulled over her muscles, shifting to a cooler part of the sheets to soothe it. When she opened her eyes and pushed herself upright, metallic footsteps tromped through the pocket door and Roxas appeared by the bunk, toolbox in one hand. "Hey. Feeling better?"
"Yeah." It was a murmur, breath mostly, and she yawned, rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and felt like a child. "Not great, but better. Why are we stopped?"
"It's almost sunset." Roxas set the toolbox on the floor and stepped up on the edge of the bunk without much preamble, shirt hiking up at his waist as he reached up to the ceiling--Kairi realized she was staring at a pale slit of skin and quickly averted her eyes, reached up to assure her hair was still mostly in its braided knot. A jerk at the handle of a hatch above them and Roxas dropped back down, pulling a utility ladder with him, a square of orange sunlight glowing down at them.
"I'll go up." Kairi made the offer almost automatically, sliding to the edge of the bunk and reaching for her shoes. She had them on and straightened before realizing that Roxas was staring at her, yet to say anything, blue eyes blinking like he wasn't quite sure what he was seeing. She felt the corner of her mouth quirk up--she'd never get tired of seeing that look on a boy's face. "You're checking on the lights, right? You can switch the fuse groups at the control panel, I'll go up and change the duds. It'll get done twice as fast."
A few more blinks, a moment of uncertainty, and then Roxas shrugged, handed her the toolbox. "Okay, then."
The air outside was still hot, but far more bearable in the fading light, the sky's red glow reflecting in spikes of red along the crack that split it. The sun melting in the western sky had lost the burning power that had attempted to cook her on the asphalt earlier that day. The desert would cool in the night, and the morning would be pleasant.
The night itself would be... less pleasant.
She avoided thinking about the amount of light left in the sky and methodically checked the lighting on the roof, humming the evening hymns to herself to assure she remembered them. She called back and forth through the hatch for Roxas to switch from the small yellow track lights to the bigger white dome lights, and then the emergency floodlights on each corner, brighter than the sun. Switching out dead bulbs for the new stock kept carefully in the toolbox.
When the roof was done, she crawled down the ladder on the back of the truck and did the same with the lights on the side, the back, the headlights and the blinders that would blast out the underside of the vehicle in the early morning when the shadows were still heavy and dark, just as a precaution. When she finished, screwing a clear dome back into place over the last replacement bulb, Roxas opened the driver's door and waited for her, sideways in his seat with a metal cylinder fidgeting in his hands.
"You weren't kidding about working on refugee trucks," he said, not really expecting a response; it was more of a quiet observation. An acknowledgment. She nodded a little, handed over the slightly depleted toolbox and he exchanged it for the cylinder. Gray metal with a strip of glass down the center, simple buttons on one end. "For your sunburn. It's pretty lousy as medpacks go, but it'll take the edge off."
Kairi felt the smile flutter on her face, and for a moment she thought maybe she was flattered by his concern. Maybe. "Thanks."
"Sure." He shrugged, throwing off the smile and any suggestion that he might feel something like worry from time to time, and the gesture itself was so familiar it made something jump in her gut. Something swirl in the fog of her memory but never surface. He jerked his head to the side, swung his legs back into the truck and that was a silent order to get in, now, and stop this nonsense. She grinned at his back and hurried around to climb inside.
Fifteen minutes later, the eastern sky outside the windshield was darkening to violet. Roxas had secured the truck, spinning the pressure wheels on the roof hatch and the back door, showing her how to secure the passenger door before finishing with his own and settling into his seat to restart the truck. It rumbled away steadily beneath them now, behind and beyond the stuttering buzz of the medpack in her hand. Kairi spent the minutes twisting herself into awkward angles, trying to reach the sunburn on the back of her arms and neck. Finally switching to her calves, pant legs rolled up, the little device coughed and blinked on and off, protesting its own function.
"Told you it was lousy."
Kairi glared at the driver's seat, catching the edge of a smirk on Roxas's lips before returning attention to the medpack, shaking it slightly. "Honestly."
"Try thumping it." Roxas gestured at her, mimicked whacking the cylinder against the heel of his hand.
She gave the thing a few good smacks, felt it sputter back to life and continued scanning it over her sunburn, little bar of energy through the glass panel stimulating her skin to repair itself. "If this is all you have, you'd better pray to Eden that nothing bad happens before you get to civilization."
"I didn't really have time to be picky." That smirk was still on his mouth, quiet amusement, and it stayed there for a few more minutes, the amount of time it took for the sky to darken from lavender to purple. He reached over his head, flipped the switches methodically--all the track lights, one set of domes for each side and a low-set flood for the rear where the mirrors couldn't see. The headlights came on last, washing out the road before them to bright gray.
Roxas breathed out in a whisper, fingers curling around the edge of the wheel. "Here we go."
It started simply enough. Sagebrush on the sides of the road, beyond the edges of the light the truck cast, spread long shadows pointing east, graying light dimming the edges as the last of the sun faded. Ink black darkness in patches, shivering. Wriggling, turning on itself, spiking out searching fingers and as Kairi turned her head to watch in horrified fascination, through the window of her door a flash of glowing yellow eyes peered at her from the shadow's depths.
In her seat, she pulled her legs back against her body, medpack forgotten in her hand, curled around herself and murmured the name of her goddess.
Luma guard me, Luma keep me, Luma temper the quaking darkness and lift up thy servant to the light--
"Don't panic," Roxas said in that same whisper, steering wheel creaking under white knuckles, and the night exploded around them.
Swarms of them, black shifting bodies, quivering antennae and long, spindly fingers, searching and clawing and writhing over each other and eyes, eyes everywhere, thousands of them glowing and blinking yellow, watching as the truck passed, squirming out of the road in wake of the headlights, crawling at hissing and unable to get close, to find the prey the lights were guarding.
Kairi thought of the city, vague images swirling around and the Holy Guard patrolling the city walls, minding the floodlight perimeter, and wondered how they could watch this horror unfurl night after night. Heard a child's voice in the back of her mind, deep with the intent of frightening its friends, the Shadows come out of the crack in the sky and live in the dark, and if they catch you they'll eat you and then eat your heart, and then you can never come back for your next life, because your heart is gone forever.
"It gets easier," Roxas said in a voice that was defiantly even and his hands were still wrapped around the bottom of the wheel in a death grip. "After a while."
Kairi swallowed, and had the presence of mind, finally, to switch the medpack off. The sunburn was still raw on the backs of her heels (and that was a strange place to be sunburnt, she thought) but she wasn't willing to unwrap herself enough to treat it any further. "How long until sunrise?"
"Eight hours."
The nights were going to be decidedly less pleasant.
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