KH Vye Origins Part 1

            The day before my sixteenth birthday.

            I remember it well.

            That’s when everything, and I really mean everything, changed.

            “What do you mean Vander isn’t going to be at my party?!” I demanded.

            “The negotiations with the Welkins kingdom are taking longer than expected,” my father attempted to explain. “They are at a very delicate point in the process and he can’t very well leave in the middle of it all to be here.”

            Back then, I stomped my feet and gave a loud huff. My tastes were very different when I was younger. I remember I liked wearing pink dresses with frills and ribbons. I wore the pieces of jewelry I had and liked my hair long and curly. I remember that’s what I liked, but can’t seem to recall any particular dresses or accessories as being my favorites. I sometimes wonder if I ever actually wore any of them more than once.

            “You’re just trying to ruin my birthday!” I accused harshly.

            “Now, now, Vye,” father attempted again, “you know we’d like him here if that were possible but-”

            “If you want him here, then get him here!” I snapped.

            “He’s halfway across the world,” my mother chimed in. “There’s just no way we can get him here in time. It’s very sweet you want your brother here for your big day, and we all miss him, but it’s just not feasible right now.”

            “Miss him?” I scoffed. “I’m just worried how it’s going to look having the whole kingdom here but my only brother can’t make time for me. What are people going to say?!”

            My parents both just kind of stared at me, looking defeated.

            “W-well…” my mother struggled. “I’m sorry… but Vander just isn’t going to be here. We’ll make due without him.”

            “We’ll make sure the party is so grand,” father added with a smile, “that no one will even notice he’s missing.”

            I wasn’t really satisfied but I waved a hand at them as I turned it leave.

            “Fine!” I snapped. “You better put your all into it then!”

            I started walking towards the door, leaving my parents to go about whatever else they had been doing.

            “We will, we will,” father promised.

            I was… a very different person back then. I’d like to say I’m better than I was before, but maybe that isn’t my place to say.

            I’m not even sure if I can explain how I got to be that way in the first place. My parents, despite being king and queen of our home kingdom, had never been extremely wealthy. We were well off, of course, and we definitely kept up the appearance of royalty with the castle and fine belongings. Compared to other kingdoms and places though, they really were never that extravagant. At least that’s what I’ve come to learn over the years.

            Still, I saw myself as a princess and learned very early on that if I wanted something, my parents would get it. I don’t mean to blame them. I just look back and realize how hard of a time they had saying no to me.

            As far as I was concerned, everyone around me had to honor and obey me. My older brother would be the one who would eventually take over the kingdom. The only way I would ever end up in any position with real responsibility would be if I married some other prince, and I thought that would be way off in the future so it was nothing to worry about. That’s how I saw it. I didn’t realize how my actions still reflected poorly on my parents and the kingdom, and only now do I see how often I totally ignored the chances I did have to contribute.

            All of that would be changing that night. I remember the rest of the day just spending my time dreaming of the gifts and the attention I’d be getting the next day. My birthday was the perfect excuse to soak all of that in. I left the planning to my parents. I probably assumed that’s what they spent all their time doing, but I think they had other concerns they were seeing to.

            “Did you hear?” People would whisper. “More people have been reported missing.”

            “My goodness,” would be the response. “How many is that now?”

            “Around thirty,” the first would say. “And rumors are most of the ones going missing are girls. Young women.”

            “Oh my,” they’d say. “What do you think is going on?”

            “Who knows?” The other said. “They have guards out looking but nothing’s turned up.”

            “I’ve heard people reporting strange creatures,” another would say. “Like walking shadows. More and more they are seen.”

            “Really?” Someone would say.

            “That can’t be real,” they would argue. “They’re just seeing things because they’re nervous.”

            I can recall hearing several conversations like that around that time. I never paid that much attention to it. I don’t even think I considered it to be real.

            It had nothing to do with me, after all.

            There probably would have been much more I could have been doing with my time had I bothered to do anything. Instead I would just wander the castle grounds as I searched for something to amuse myself. I watched the guards practicing with their weapons and magic for a while. I pestered the cooks for a snack. Then I likely looked through my clothes to decide on what outfit was going to be the one for my birthday party.

            I remember, the sun was starting to go down and I got the call that it was time for dinner. I started making my way towards the dining hall.

            On my way there, I heard the sound of horn being blown outside. I came a stop, looking out some of the nearby windows as I tried to figure out what the sound was. There were some guards at the end of the hallway, and they knew exactly what it was.

            “An alarm,” one said. “Princess Vye!”

            I looked towards them as they ran towards me. One of them took me by the arm as they both stood at my sides.

            “We must get to safety,” they instructed.

            “Safety?” I asked as they started pulling me away. “From what?”

            Neither of them answered, likely because they didn’t know what it was either. We just ran off down the hall in the opposite direction of the dining hall.

            We had only reached the end of the hallway when a loud boom filled the air, coming from behind us. We briefly stopped and turned around to discover a section of the wall had been knocked down. The thing that had come crashing through it was still there in the hallway.

            It was big. Tall and very round. It seemed to be wearing simple clothing, but also had shackles round its wrists and a helmet. It had round, yellow eyes that glowed as it looked over at us.

            A Large Body, I’d later learn it was called.

            The guard holding my arm pulled me behind him as he raised his sword.

            “What is that thing?!” He cried.

            The other guard stepped forward toward it, also drawing his weapon. The Large Body didn’t move, and instead smaller creatures started crawling in through the opening it had left. They were completely black with twitching antenna, but they had the same yellow eyes.

            Shadows, they are simply called.

            “What are those?!” The other guard asked.

            The Shadows started swarming into the room, climbing along the floor and even up the walls. The guard standing out in front swung his sword at them as they approached him. It took them out and they even dropped munny. He kept swinging the sword and was defeating some, one by one, but it only took a few seconds for him to be completely surrounded by them.

            They started to gather around him and climb up his body. The other guard and I watched in horror as he struggled and kept swinging his sword around wildly. I saw one of the Shadows reach through his armor and into his chest like it was nothing. The man screamed and then suddenly he disappeared right in front of us.

            I was frozen in shock and fear. I could only imagine what the other guard was thinking. The Shadow was holding the man’s glowing heart.

            I never saw what happened to the heart after that. The guard panicked and grabbed my arm again. He pulled me back down the hall and we ran.

            We didn’t get very far. More shadows started dropping down from the ceiling above us. One fell onto me and I screamed as it knocked me away from the guard.

            “Princess Vye!” I heard him cry.

            More Shadows came up behind me, grabbing my arms and legs and pulling me down to the ground. I briefly saw them start to swarm over the guard. Like the last one, he screamed and struggled but could do nothing as they reached into his chest and took his heart. His body disappeared and only his heart remained.

            I screamed in terror and started to cry and struggle. I felt the Shadows crawling all over me, and I could do nothing about it.

            “Help!” I shrieked. “Help me! Someone help me!!”

            I heard loud footsteps as the Large Body made its way over to me. The Shadows got off me long enough that the Large Body could pick me up. It wrapped its large hand around my arms and abdomen and easily lifted me up. Then it just casually turned back around and started walking back the way it had come in.

            I kicked and fought but the Large Body didn’t seem to notice. It started taking me outside in the courtyard where I heard more screams and fighting going on. Shadows and other Large Bodies were all over the place, fighting other guards and scurrying all over.

            “Help me!” I screamed again. “Help me! Please!!”

            My screams seemed to blend in with the other civilians being attacked by the swarm. I didn’t know what was happening or what was going to happen to me. The Large Body was just taking me away.

            “Help! Help me!” I kept trying. “Somebody help me! Help!!”

            I kept squirming and struggling. The Large Body carried me out of a large opening in wall surrounding the castle. Like the other one it had entered the castle through, this one had probably been created when the attack started.

            There was nothing I could do but cry and scream. I remembering complaining in my mind how no one was coming to my rescue and how I didn’t deserve to die like this.

            I don’t know how far the Large Body took me as my memories of what happened next are still relatively fuzzy. After walking outside the city, the Large Body took me to another swarm of Shadows, and even other creatures I now know are called Soldiers.

            The Large Body suddenly dropped me to the ground. I landed face down and I continued to weep.

            “No,” a voice said coldly. “This isn’t the one either.”

            I weakly looked up. I couldn’t see her very well amongst the shadows, but the voice was distinctly female. She was tall and slender. She was holding a staff in one hand.

            “This world has nothing to offer me,” the woman complained, sounding rather frustrated. She turned around. “We’ve wasted enough time here. Dispose of her like the rest.”

            I still don’t understand what she meant or what she was looking for. The woman started walking away and before I knew it was out of sight.

            One of the Soldiers jumped on my back. I felt a sharp pain as it reached into my chest to get my heart. I screamed.

            Through the fear and through the pain, somehow I felt it grab onto my heart. I knew it had it.

            Before it took it though, it was struck by Lightning magic. It disappeared, defeated.

            I don’t know if it was the lightning, or if it was the Heartless that did it.

            But in that instant that the Soldier had my heart and then was defeated, my heart… broke.

            Everything went black and my body went limp.

            I couldn’t move.

            I couldn’t see.

            I’m not sure I could even think, really.

            But I could hear.

            Apparently one of the guards had seen me as I had been taken away. A few of them managed to get away from the castle and pursue us. They continued to battle the Heartless for a while. After they had defeated enough of them, one of them picked me up and carried me back towards the castle.

            A lot of it is kind of hazy. I heard my parents crying over me and my mother begging me to wake up. I heard as they had doctors and wizards look over me but weren’t able to find a solution. My condition was unexplainable.

            I didn’t just hear what was going on wherever I was though.

            Sometimes I would hear conversations in other parts of the castle or the kingdom. Sometimes it was things I couldn’t identify.

            While they had managed to fight off that initial wave of Heartless, they were still around the city. More people were attacked and I heard their cries as they struggled. I heard the despair of the family members left behind. I heard the guards continue to fight them back to protect the people that were left. I heard councils gathered as they tried to determine what was going on and how to best combat it.

            I was in that state for about a month. I couldn’t move or speak, but I was still more or less aware of what was going on. It was only a month but to me felt like much longer.

            At some point, instead of just the constant barrage of sounds from around the kingdom, I started seeing memories.

            I saw things like my complaining that my new dress wasn’t cute enough. I saw when I chased off the few friends I had because they didn’t want to play the games I wanted to play. I saw myself scream to my mother how she didn’t love me because she had to spend her time with some visiting diplomats instead. I watched myself mock my teachers for teaching me things I didn’t care to learn.

            I want to say that I learned my lesson on my own. That I replayed all these memories and came to my own conclusion that I needed to change.

            But I felt so much deep shame right at the start that I worry that my change was actually caused by the breaking of my heart.

            …And so sometimes I worry that I’ll change back if it is ever fixed…

            Between the sounds of the world fighting the Heartless around me and seeing my past play out in my mind, I would often see and hear the Heartless. At first their appearance would frighten and confuse me, and then I started to realize… somehow I could understand them.

            That’s the best way I’ve found to describe it. Heartless don’t really think or have words. Anything they “want” is driven purely on instinct or instruction should someone be controlling them.

            After seeing them right outside the castle so many times, somehow it just came to me that they wanted me. There were other people within the castle too, but often times they had started completely ignoring everyone else and were trying to get to me. When I realized that, I only briefly wondered how I knew that before wondering why. From what I could tell, the woman who had sent the Heartless into the city in the first place had left. Whatever she was looking for, it wasn’t me. So she wasn’t sending them after me.

            Eventually I came to understand even further. It was my broken heart. The Heartless wanted hearts. Strong hearts, weak hearts, didn’t matter. All hearts have darkness and that darkness called to them.

            Only my heart was cracked.

            This allowed the darkness in my heart to call to them more loudly.

            In a sense.

            My broken heart was a beacon to them. They were driven towards it. They wanted it, even more than they wanted the hearts of those near me.

            But there was something else they wanted.

            They seemed to be searching for something else. Something they wanted more than even my heart. This was harder to figure out. The Heartless wanted something, I knew. Something bigger than they had taken before.

            I kept seeing them go to a place we called the Ancient Gardens. It was a place where the castle had once stood many centuries before moving where it was now. There were ruins left behind and the gardens there were still cared for. It was a calm and peaceful place.

            The Heartless would go there and somehow I knew  they felt like they were closer to what they wanted. Many mages practice magic there and they would keep the Heartless at bay.

            There would still be random Heartless attacks around the city, but many Heartless seemed focused on either reaching me or the Ancient Gardens. I watched them. I tried to figure out what about the Ancient Gardens would call to them so much.

            One day the answer came to me. I’m still not sure from where.

            I finally opened by eyes. I was awake. I was in my room in my bed, staring up at my ceiling. There was a word repeating in my head.

            “The Keyhole…” I said to myself quietly.

            There was a woman at my bedside, apparently there to keep an eye on my condition. She twitched when I spoke. She then gasped as I slowly sat up.

            “Princess Vye!” She blurted. “You’re awake!”

            The woman stood up from her chair and ran towards my door.

            “I must tell everyone!” She cried excitedly.

            I lazily watched as she ran out my door. I heard her start telling someone in the hall that I was awake to and tell my parents.

            I knew very well how worried everyone had been about me. But I didn’t care at all that I was finally on my way to recovery. I had to move. There was something that needed to be done.

            Ancient Gardens needed to be protected.

            I had no way to do that myself, but I just felt I needed to go there.

            I slowly climbed out of bed. I was weak from the time I had spent unconscious but fortunately was able to stand, albeit a little wobbly. I still heard the ruckus outside in the hallway but was still ignoring it. I just went to my closet and got out a robe to cover the night gown I was in.

            As I put it on, my parents both came into the room. Their eyes both became watery and they were clearly emotional as they ran over to me.

            “Vye!” Mother sobbed. “You’re all right!”

            My mother embraced me. I managed a weak smile and hugged her back.

            “Sorry I worried you,” I told her. “But I’ll be fine.”

            My mother kept crying over me. My father came over to join in the hug. Eventually they released me only so my mother could grab my face.

            “We were so worried!” She wept, tears still streaming down her face. “We thought we were going to lose you!”

            “I’m fine,” I repeated. I managed to pull away from her and started walking past her. “But now I have some place I need to go.”

            “Go?” My father asked.

            A man I recognized as one of the doctors who had been checking on me entered the room. I ignored him and continued out into the hall with my parents right behind me.

            “You just woke up,” my mother pleaded. “Let’s let the doctor check you. You shouldn’t be moving around so much!”

            “I know what’s been going on,” I explained. “I could hear it all. See some of it. I know about the Heartless.”

            “You do?” My father asked.

            “They want the Keyhole,” I reported. “We have to protect it from them.”

            “Keyhole?” My parents both repeated.

            Though my parents and the doctor protested, I managed to convince them to let me go. I didn’t even bother to get dressed but just put on some shoes as we got an escort to take us to the Ancient Gardens. The head of the guard brought along some of his guards and some wizards to protect us on the way.

            “Are you sure you’re all right, Vye?” Mother asked as we entered the gardens. “You sure are acting strange.”

            “I know,” I acknowledged. “But… things have changed.”

            I started walking through the gardens, looking around for something but I wasn’t sure what. I felt like I just needed to be there to see it with my own eyes in person.

            “The Keyhole is here somewhere,” I said. I turned to them. “The Heartless want the Keyhole. If they find it…” I bowed my head. “Well, I don’t know what will happen but… we can’t let them have it!”

            My parents glanced at each other, a little confused. One of the mages that practiced there and protected the area stepped forward.

            “We’ve had to deal with an increasing number of Heartless here the last few days,” he reported. “They don’t attack anyone here but do seem to be looking for something. We’ve managed to fight them off so far.”

            My father seemed to ponder this. He stepped past me, looking around the gardens. The walls of the broken down castle were in rubble and covered in ivy. There were trees and shrubs scattered around, along with patches of flowers. My father stepped up to an old fountain. The fountain still worked, but seeing as it was centuries old, they kept it empty in their way of trying to preserve it.

            “Many years ago,” my father began to explain, “before you were born, I met a man who visited our kingdom. I never got him to say where he was from. He said he merely travelled in his search of knowledge. We came to this place. He told me this place was connected and that if it was ever tainted with darkness, it would mean the end of our whole world.”

            My father hesitated, putting a hand to his chin. “I never understood what he meant,” he admitted, “but maybe it was this ‘Keyhole’ he was speaking of.”

            My father turned to the mage. “We must protect this place at any cost,” he ordered. He looked at the head of the guard. “I know you are spread thin as it is, but please send some guards here as well to help them.”

            The head guard nodded in agreement. The mage and my father walked off to discuss the matter further. I turned to face the head guard.

            “I…” I started. I sighed. “When that attack started, I was in the eastern hallway. There were two guards stationed there. Do you… do you know who they were? What their names were?”

            The guard thought about this a moment, trying to think back that far.

            “I believe…” he thought aloud, “that would have been… Roperto and… Nathan.” He frowned at me. “They were found missing after that attack.”

            I nodded. “They… tried to protect me,” I told him. “But the Heartless… They were taken by them.”

            My mother went up to me, hugging me again as she noticed my emotions building up. I just stood there, thinking of the first two men who gave their lives to try and save mine. I knew too that I had been drawing in more Heartless towards the castle. How many more had been taken because of me?

            I looked up at the guard again. “You don’t happen to have scissors do you?” I asked. “Or a knife? Any blade would work.”

            The guard glanced at my mother who released me. She shrugged at him. The guard reached into a pouch on his side and pulled out a dagger. He held it up to me and I took it from him.

            I reached back and gathered my hair as much as I could in one hand. Before anyone could stop me, I swiped the dagger through my hair, cutting it  short to where it was about chin length.

            “Vye!” My mother cried in surprise. “Your pretty hair!”

            I looked down at the length of hair I had just cut off.

            “I’m sorry,” I uttered. “I just… I just need to start over. I need to grow up. The person I was before… doesn’t exist anymore.”

            I handed the dagger back to the guard. “Roperto and Nathan gave their lives to try and save mine,” I said. “I will never forget that.” I turned away from them. “But I won’t let it be a waste. I need to become stronger. I need to protect myself and my kingdom.”

            I looked back at them.

            “I need you to find me someone,” I said. “I need someone to teach me. Someone to help me get stronger.”

            My mother was still confused. “Teach you what?” She asked.

            “To fight,” I replied, determined. “I will join the fight against the Heartless. Find someone who will teach me.”

            The guard and my mother glanced at each other again, still confused. I walked away from them, still carrying the locks of hair. I would dispose of them.

            The old bratty Vye was gone.

            The new Vye had things to do.