[Team One] A man's house (is his castle)

[green-eggs101.livejournal.com]

~1850 words of Riku accidentally inheriting a castle. Mostly gen, but Riku is pining hard for Sora.

"Do you think it comes with the evil minions?"

“What?” Riku looked up from where he was still staring at the scroll in disbelief. Ven was staring out at the castle. 

Ven pointed towards the treacherously narrow path leading up to the front gates. “You know. Those pig guys that she bossed around.” 

Riku tilted his head. “I don’t… She didn’t have those when I knew her. She bossed the heartless around though.” 

Ven hummed. “I don’t think they were heartless… though they did vanish if you poked them with a keyblade.” 

Riku summoned Braveheart. “Better safe than sorry then.” 

Ven nodded, summoning his own blade. 

They didn’t meet anyone — or anything— on their way up the path. Though some parts were so narrow they had to pass single file. 

‘Maybe I should put in a railing,’ Riku thought. ‘Or maybe some earth magic to widen it? Or—’ 

Then he caught himself and he shook his head. He wasn’t even sure if he was gonna keep the castle yet. Much less make it… livable. 

He was still in shock from when Aurora and Philip had told him. 

“I’m… what?!” Riku glanced from the scroll in his hand to Philip, then to Aurora. “There must be some mistake. I’m not her… heir” 

Philip gramaced. “Maybe not in the traditional sense but… the laws in the Enchanted Dominion allow for unconventional heirs, even ones that aren’t formally acknowledged. You said once that Maleficent stated you were like a son to her?” 

“As a manipulation tactic,” Riku muttered. And not a very good one.

“However it was meant…” Aurora shook her head. “Her bond to the land and the castle, well it took the statement serious enough. So when she died her land and castle fell to you.” 

“But she’s not even dead!” Riku protested. “We just saw her not even two days ago.” 

“And she hasn’t returned to forge her bond to the land again. She has, in essence, forsaken her claim. So it goes to her next… heir presumptive.” 

In fairness, Aurora did look rather sorry about the whole thing. Likely she too had not want to drudge up old memories. 

Riku glanced back down at the scroll. The paper was ancient, much, much older than he was, but in stark lettering it did state Riku as the sole heir and now lord of the land and castle that had once belonged to Maleficent.

It made Riku’s heart drop a bit. Even with Maleficent ‘gone’ (though alive and well and apparently after some sort of box or book or something), Riku’s mistake of listening to her at all would forever haunt him. 

Though the (probably) haunted castle was a little much. 

He had offered to just give it to Philip and Aurora, but they had enough on their plate managing two kingdoms themselves. They offered to keep an eye on things though until Riku could figure out what to do with it himself. Though Maleficent saw herself as the mistress of all evil, her actual ‘domain’ was quite small, limited to the castle and the surrounding area, including the thorned forest. 

So that’s how he ended up here, on his one day a month he was ‘off’ (or rather forced by Namine, Xion, Aqua, and Terra to take a break from Sora Searching) looking to enter an old creepy castle and hope no pig men attacked him. 

“Thanks for coming with me, Ven.” Riku said as he had to jump and dark portal across a chasm where the path gave way. Ven glided across and landed with a grin. 

“Well it wasn’t like I was doing anything else.” He crossed his arms behind his head, a gesture that was so Sora it made Riku’s heart ache for a moment. “Aqua and Terra are still recovering from the dark realm.” 

Riku frowned. “And you’re not?” 

Ven shrugged. “I feel fine. It doesn’t… bother me as much as I think it’s supposed to.” 

He looked a little confused and concerned by that, and Riku knew the feeling. 

“Well, I’m thankful anyway.” Riku pushed open the heavy wooden gates. 

He wasn’t sure what he expected to find, but after a brief glance at a desolate but large court yard, Riku suddenly found himself and Ven surrounded by a guard of several creatures, many of them brandishing spears and arrows. 

“Ah… the minions?” 

“Yep.” 

The pig-minions— Pignions? — poked their speers closer, though none of them seemed eager to speak. 

Riku wondered if they knew how. 

Clearing his throat, Riku held up the scroll. “Um… I’m the, uh, Lord now?” 

Enchanted Dominion may have taken Maleficent’s words as legally binding, but that didn’t mean her minions had to agree. 

Indeed the pigs stared at the scroll, clearly not in an effort to read it, but possible to just see what it was. Then, one by one, they lowered their weapons. 

“Master!” one croaked out, followed by acknowledgements from the others. 

Riku grimanced. Being called Master Riku as a title of his status as a keyblade wielder was already strange enough. 

Being called Master by a group of pignions was just… weird. 

“You can call me… Riku.” 

“Riku!” a cheer went up again in hoarse snorts and accentuated by harsh squeals. 

Even Ven grimaced that time. It was all a bit too surreal. 

“Um,” Riku cleared his throat once more. “Yes well… Mal— er, your mistress isn’t coming back, so I’m your… boss? Now?” Riku wished this sort of thing came with an instruction manual. “Is there a leader I can speak with?” 

The pignions conferred amongst themselves, before one big stepped forward. He was a little bigger than the rest, his helmet a little more decorative. 

“I am—” The pignion let out a series of snorts and squeals that Riku believed was a name. Or maybe a rank?

“Um, yes, ok.” Riku wished Sora was here. “Can I call you Snort?” It was the closest to the first sound the pig had made. 

The pig nodded, as if that made perfect sense. 

“Right, well… I suppose—” How long had it been since Maleficent had been here? Iti had been almost three since Sora had defeated her in Halow Bastion. But enchanted dominion fell to darkness long before that so— “I suppose i should first ask how you guys are doing? Since Malefi— er, your former mistress has been gone?” 

Snort shrugged. “All’s good. Plenty to eat. Nothing to fight.” 

“Alright.” 

Snort looked up at him. “We fight for you now?” 

“Uh, no?” 

Snort and several other pigs looked offended. 

“We fight good!” 

“We tear down enemies!” 

“We poke them with spears!” 

“Is he an enemy?” 

“What?” Riku turned to see one of the pigs get his spear a little too close to Ven. “No, no! Ven is a friend. Not an enemy.” 

The pignions didn’t look convinced. 

“To be fair, last time they saw me, I was their enemy,” Ven pointed out. “But I promise not to poke anyone who doesn’t poke me first.” 

“That’s fair,” Riku said, then turned to the pignions. “No one pokes— or tears— at Ven. Okay?” 

Snort and the others grumbled in agreement. 

“Ok.” first hurdle passed. Or so Riku hoped. “What about your payment?” 

Snort looked befuddled. “Payment?”

“Yeah. What was she paying you to guard the castle?” 

“.... we have food?” Snort tapped his foot in thought. “Armor.” 

“Spears!” 

“Arrows!” 

“Pointy sticks!” 

“We fight now?” 

Riku sighed. It was going to be a long afternoon. 

—

It took a week to get the pignions settled to the point they understood they were not to fight anyone, except maybe themselves, but not to the point of injury. Though Riku had taken to keep a few potion bottles on hand just in case. 

Instead his pignions took up other trades. A group of them were working on a railing along the rocky path tot he castle, while others were surprisingly skilled at bricklaying and construction. According to Ven and Aqua, the castle had been falling apart when Maleficent had it (though mostly by her own aesthetic reasons), and it had not changed much in the years since. 

But now the pignions, led by Snort and his second in command Squeal, were shoring up walls, and patching foundations where they could. Riku stopped by when he could to help out, though mostly he was relegated to carrying heavy items and reaching high places. 

“I think they’re just afraid you’re gonna take away their new jobs,” Namine said as she stared at the chests in front of her. Xion poked at it with her keyblade until they were sure it was an actual chest and not the mimic ones that had attacked Roxas and Lea earlier that day. 

Lea was still nursing the bite the mimic had given him, wondering if mimic chests had rabies. 

“I don’t want to do that,” Riku pointed out, poking another chest and dispatching it with a fire spell when it growled back. “Besides, they’ll be busy here for a long while just fixing up the castle. 

“So you are keeping the castle then?” Xion asked. 

“Well…” 

He had asked Yen Sid about it, wondering if keeping the castle he accidentally inherited would be against any world order laws. Yen Sid had sighed and hummed and mulled it over before deciding that Riku could keep the castle if he wished, he just couldn’t meddle with any major affairs in Enchanted Dominion. 

Which was fine with Riku. He had no desire to meddle with any affairs in Enchanted Dominion. 

“Riku?” Xion looked over when he still hadn’t answered her question. 

“I don’t know. But maybe?” Riku shrugged. “At least for now. If i own it and continue to own it, it can’t revert back to Maleficent if she decides to return.” 

Atleast that was the working theory of the Enchanted Dominion inheritance laws. Even Prince Philip didn’t quite understand all of them. 

“I think it’ll be a great place to bring Sora once we find him,” Namine said, her voice gentle as always.

Riku frowned a bit, and he looked at the chest that they had opened. So far they had found more fabric and furnishings than Riku knew what to do with. He knew Kairi, when she woke up, would love to decorate the castle, and Sora— 

Sora would have loved to explore every inch of the place. He would have made friends with Snort and Squeel and learned the names of every other pignion. He would have drug Riku all over Enchanted Dominion twice over to get a good look of Riku’s own “dominion.” 

And yet—

“Hey!” 

Riku startled at the sudden shout outside the door. He looked over just in taime to see a Hookbat fly past, Lea chasing after it while waving his keyblade. Caught in the Hookbat’s hook was the scarf Lea had taken to wearing on occasion. 

“Give that bat you Captain Hook wannabe!” 

Lea chased the Hookbat down the corridor and soon Roxas followed behind. 

“You got a Hookbat infestation in the attic Riku!” Roxas called out as he helped Lea chase down the Heartless. 

Riku sighed deeply and Namine patted his arm in commiseration. 

Why was homeownership so hard?

Next up is Kit with "Why was homeownership so hard?". I'll mess them on discord. :)