Juliet
Kairi thought Max was leading her around to the other side of the castle. He wouldn't tell her exactly where they were going. They went down a corridor Kairi recognised, mainly due to the great statue of Donald's great-aunt. Also, the carpet was gone and there was a slim but visible scar in the polished stone floor. At the end of the corridor was a t-intersection where two sets of narrow staircases met the corridor. They took the one on the left but it didn't seem to matter whether they did or didn't because when they stepped off the curved staircase they were in a large hall serviced by both.
Kairi stared at this room in amazement. The floor here was not made of stone; it was made of a giant glazed ceramic tile with a mural painted on it. In the mural was a round frame enclosing a picture of rolling cumulus clouds in the sky with pegasuses, angels and dragons flying around in it. Around the frame were twelve monthly sections, depicting seasons and celebrations for each month of the year. On the ceiling was a similar mural but instead of all the grandiosity of the floor mural, it depicted the average life of the common person across the year with the framed section showing the sun and moon intertwined and surrounded by the constellations. It seemed to be a huge ballroom but the ceiling was rather low compared to the rest of the castle. Apparently it was in disuse since the beautiful floor now had two rows of large, thick pillars covering some parts of the mural.
"This part of the castle used to be one of the original floors," Max explained, "but my dad told me that years ago, before I was even born, the castle got renovated and more stuff was added. This floor became redundant and they had to put the pillars in to support the floors above. You can still get around on this floor though. They clean it every now and again but it's mostly deserted."
Kairi swiped her foot across the floor, noting that she was able to wipe away a very thin layer of dust. "So, how is being up here going to help me see them doing ballet?"
Max beckoned for her to follow across the floor to the end of the ballroom. At the end were large but thin columns. Judging by their classical design, they were once window frames but there was no glass in them now. Instead, the windows had been moved to taller window frames several metres away and at the bottom of those frames the ballet class was taking place. It was just high enough for there to be a good view of the class.
"Wow! This is great!" Kairi gasped, looking down at the class. A few students were getting into formations but a lot of them were just sitting around the edge. "What are they doing now?"
"I think they have a recital soon, so I guess they're practising for it," Max answered, looking down with disinterest.
A group of four students, including Monnie, lined up in a straight line at the back of the room. The penguin that had played the piano for their warm-up was now working the gramophone, finding the right place in the music for the girls to practise to. They crossed their ankles and lifted their arms to start. In near perfect synchronisation they took a step to the right and then to the left. Their teacher hopped around, in front of and even over them, dictating the steps they had to take as they moved diagonally across the floor.
"That's it, coupé, passé, down to third, now en pointe, degagé, now turn. Excellent, you're doing wonderfully!"
Indeed they were doing so wonderfully that Kairi thought all of that dictating was unnecessary. The row of girls all reached what would probably be the front right of the stage and then kneeled, waiting for the next movement. And that's when Ernabella skipped out onto the dance space with such flourish and presence that everyone else seemed to just disappear. Her movements seemed slow and gentle as she glided through her short solo like a feather floating on the breeze. As she skipped past the row of kneeling ballerinas they each stood up in turn and followed her around the stage. She commanded them like servants and when they lined up diagonally across their imaginary stage Ernabella appeared to be the leader in a series of pliés, leaps and turns even though they were performing in synchronisation. In the movement's final stage Ernabella took centre stage while the other girls formed a semi-circle around her. They kneeled again with their heads bowed and their arms spread to indicate the magnificent character standing en pointe between them.
The frog clapped and gestured to the penguin to stop the music. "Beautiful. Now, we all remember what comes after this, don't we? The boys return on stage to dance with the girls before this ball scene is finished. We'll begin again from Juliet's entrance shortly, however, I would just like to point out a few things first," he said, stretching his legs to stand at full height so that he could lecture: "Chrissie, you need to lift your leg higher on those arabesques and you're too slow on your turns. Myra, your moves seem restrained. Try to loosen up a little and don't be shy on those jumps. Linda, why do your knees seem so stiff? Get a little more bend in them. Monica, don't rush your turns and pirouettes. As for you, Ernabella, you're an excellent dancer, as always, and your moves have superb aplomb. Perhaps a little bit of subtlety in your opening steps could spice up this scene a little."
"Thank-you," Ernabella said with a smile, nodding once to show she understood and then turned her beak high into the air. Monnie rolled her eyes and one of the other girls (a calf) sighed.
"Aw, why did he have to criticise them like that?" Kairi muttered. "They're all amazing."
"I guess. But they're still relatively amateur," Max replied.
"But they're all little kids and yet they seem so advanced."
"Naw, ballet gets way more advanced than this. People usually start really young and practise for decades."
Kairi paled. "R-really? That long?"
"Yup."
"So I guess I can rule out ever being able to do it," Kairi sighed, putting her elbows on the ledge of the old window sill and resting her chin in her hands.
"Not completely," Max answered quickly, holding his hands up. "I mean, it's never really too late to try anything. But still, it would take you years to get as good as those girls." He titled his head in the direction of the class. The penguin started the music again and they repeated the dance from the point where Ernabella entered. Kairi smiled and admired them from above.
For a moment a chilly breeze blew through her. Kairi turned to look behind her but the old room was empty. She looked down at Monnie worriedly as the little ballerina lined up diagonally with her fellow performers. It felt slightly dark in the castle all of a sudden and Kairi wondered if everything was going to be okay. Through the small crack between the curtains tiny shadows began to appear. It worried Kairi at first but then something dawned on her.
"Hey, that's snow," she remarked. From where she stood, staring at it through the window, it looked like many small, white flower petals falling gently from the sky.
"You're right, it's snowing," Max said, looking away from the performance below to see the snow. "Not that we need much more of it right now. The ground is already caked in the stuff."
Suddenly a new thought came to Kairi's mind. "Hey, Max, do you have ice skates?"
"Yeah, why?" Max asked, not sure where she was going with this.
"Do you think you could teach me how to skate too?"
He shrugged. "I don't see why not."
Down in a basement level of the castle were the castle archives: a large room with a wealth of old records, scripts and books that were generally not of much use to anyone, so they were stored down below the everyday happenings of the castle in giant racks, shelves and boxes. Only once every now and again was someone required to go down there to search through the delicate castle history and now was such a time. At a small desk surrounded by piles of books, scrolls and documents, Donald Duck was poring through an old, thick folio that was almost twice as big as he was. An observer would only see his wizard hat peaking over the top of the pages as he flipped through them, muttering incomprehensibly to himself. Not too far away from the desk was an old wooden lounge set with two armchairs, a coffee table and a couch that had faded, unfashionable upholstery. There was a small pile of books and documents on the table but only a few had been touched and there was no rustle of papers to indicate that anyone was working there. Instead, there was just some light snoring coming from the couch. All of a sudden, Donald threw up his hands with a loud cry.
"This is taking forever! We don't even know if there's anything even remotely useful in any of this stuff," he grumbled, referring not only to his pile of reading but to the huge underground library in general. "Did you find anything, Goofy?"
The only response he received was a snuffle and a snore. Donald narrowed his eyes and stomped over to the couch where Goofy was comfortably reclined and fast asleep, head on one arm and feet on the other. The magician stood by the couch for a moment, glaring at Goofy and tapping his foot impatiently as if somehow just being angry would force Goofy to wake up. When that didn't work Donald raised his hand and snapped his fingers, casting a weak Thunder spell. The jolt sent a number of uncontrollable spasms through Goofy's body and startled the dog so much that he fell from the couch and onto the hard concrete floor.
"Gawrsh, Donald, didja hafta go an' do that?" Goofy complained.
"Why are you sleeping?" Donald quacked. "The King gave us an important job to do and you're slacking off."
"Aw, I don't mean to," Goofy said, standing up and rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "It's just that reading all of this complicated stuff makes me kinda sleepy."
"Try to stay awake! These orders are obviously important since the King came to us personally to make his request."
"But do ya really think we'll find anything about the Unversed in the castle's archives?"
"There must be something," Donald insisted. "Otherwise the King wouldn't have sent us down here."
"Hm, I don't know. We've been here since this castle was first built and we'd never even heard of the Unversed until King Mickey explained it to us. How're we gonna know what to look for?"
"There's gotta be a clue in here," Donald muttered, scanning the shelves and racks surrounding them. "Even if there's no information…"
He intended to continue but was cut off when he noticed a book on a shelf pulled out from the other side. He blinked, shook his head and stared. Where there was once a book there was now empty space. One of the books on the side fell down to cross the space.
"Hey, Goofy, we're here alone, aren't we?"
"Yeah, of course we are."
Donald ruffled his feathers and ran towards the shelf. Goofy scratched his nose in confusion. He followed Donald as the duck ran around the shelf and pointed down the aisle screaming: "Aha!"
But there was nobody there.
Goofy caught up to Donald, noticing that the duck was staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the aisle of shelves. Goofy scratched his head and followed Donald's gaze. He gasped. There was no one there but there was evidence of someone there. In this aisle that they hadn't even tried yet were various empty spaces between books and boxes. They stood there for a moment, contemplating how so many publications had gone missing right under their noses – probably while they were there – and turned to each other.
"Someone's thieving!" they exclaimed in unison.
The sun was starting to set on the Destiny Islands when Sora and Riku met up in front of the mayor's house. They were both short of breath, having run most of the way and spent a majority of the day searching the island high and low.
"Did you find her?" Sora asked first, leaning on his knees.
Riku shook his head solemnly. He sat on the low fence and gazed at the sea from that spot high on the hill. The mayor's house had a stunning view of the whole village and the play island and would have been an almost enviable place to live, except that when one got this far up the hill there was always the fear of the island's active volcano suddenly exploding to life. Everything closest to the cone was always the first to be destroyed. Riku turned his gaze to look at the smokeless summit. He'd never seen this volcano erupt in his lifetime but he had once seen another. All of the islands were so far away from this one that they normally couldn't be seen and yet when Riku was eight a volcano on a distant northern island erupted so violently that the column of fire and smoke could be seen even this far away. His thoughts were broken when he felt Sora sit down next to him and brush arms with him. He edged away a little bit.
"We've searched everywhere," Sora sighed, leaning his elbows on his knees and putting his chin in his hands. "She can't just disappear, can she?"
"Well, so far that's what it looks like," Riku muttered. He turned when he heard running footsteps pounding up the path to the mayor's house. Tidus, Selphie and Wakka were running up the path. Tidus waved to them and sprinted the rest of the way. They all had to stop to catch their breath once they reached Sora and Riku.
"Man… that hill is brutal," Tidus huffed.
"Why didn't you come up from the other side?" Sora asked, nodding his head in the direction of the path he'd taken to get up the slope. "It's less steep."
"Yeah, well we're here now."
"Why?" Riku inquired.
"Because we're helping," Selphie said, sitting down next to Sora. "We're worried about Kairi. We're her friends too, you know."
"We've covered pretty much the whole island, ya," Wakka said. "We can't find her at all."
"Did anyone try the mangroves?" Tidus asked.
"She'd never go in there," Riku replied.
"Why not?"
"Because it's muddy and smelly and full of poisonous snakes," Riku answered. "Even if she was really desperate to hide from us she wouldn't go in there."
"Well, we should at least try," Selphie suggested. "I mean, if we rule that out, we've got nothing."
Sora turned around when he heard the creak of the front door opening. The mayor stepped out into the evening sun looking weary as though he'd worked too hard and slept too little. He was a young mayor; he'd taken over the job from his predecessor as a teenager and had been in charge for a while (he was mayor for as long as Sora could remember). He had the regal stride and form of a prince or perhaps a knight but he dressed no differently from the people he governed and yet was still distinctly unique amongst them. He was one of the ultra-fair-skinned types – rare in the population of the island – like Riku. They were related, actually, through a great-grandfather (although to tell the truth, everyone on the island was related to someone on the island in some way and Sora thought it was a wonder that they hadn't all become completely inbred by now). They even had the same prematurely silver-white hair. He strode up to the group hanging about in front of his house looking stressed and pensive.
"I take it you haven't found her," he commented. All members of the group shook their heads. Riku noticed the thumb on the mayor's left hand playing with a ring on his fourth finger. He still wore it even though the duplicate was buried with its wearer. He sighed in defeat.
"Don't sweat it, though, we'll find her yet!" Tidus promised, puffing his chest out and hitting it with a fist. "Even if we have to build a huge raft and travel to another world to find her, we'll do it."
Riku and Sora exchanged worried glances.
"I don't think that'll work," Sora said.
"Why not?"
Sora faltered and looked to Riku for an answer. Riku just shrugged.
"It would be impossible to get to another world on a raft, you'll need something more substantial," the mayor answered. Sora and Riku looked at him in shock. The mayor saw their surprised faces and smiled just a little bit. "Shooting stars fall out of the sky, not the horizon."
Suddenly Sora jumped to his feet and grabbed Riku by the wrist. "I have an idea now. Come on, Riku." He dragged Riku to his feet and sprinted away down the slope, leaving Tidus, Selphie and Wakka at the top with the mayor.
"Hey, wait a minute!" Tidus yelled down at them. "Can we come too?"
"No!" Sora shouted back.
I seem to be developing a habit of ending things with dialogue. Urgh, it's been a really hectic week for me. The updates for this story might start to slow down because I want to try and finish writing Tidus' Adventures in Traverse Town. I've been planning for a while to make the plot points from that story converge with this one and it would probably help greatly if it was finished first. I'll try not to let it affect me too much, though, since I've got a big holiday coming up and I will probably have time to write both at once.
Glossary:
Coupé: a basic travelling move in ballet. It starts with one foot at about ankle height, take a step and bring the other foot up to or behind your ankle.
Passé: a step where the ballerina brings one foot up to or near the knee alongside or around the standing leg.
Third: referring to third position. A very easy postion with the feet turned out and one ankle in front of the other.
Degagé: argh! This one is annoying because you can't explain it without explaining something else first. Well, it's basically pointe tendu with the working leg raised so that your foot is about three inches off the ground.
Pointe tendu: when you have the working leg straight and toes pointed and touching the ground. This move can be executed in any direction.
Aplomb: refers to a ballerina's ability to balance.