Sora wastes no time in recounting the tale of his victory to Jiminy, beginning immediately after Telary finishes the jump to Halloween Town. With only half a Gummi to work with, the next world signature is faint, but just palpable enough for the scanners to pick up, so Telary sets in a course.
Sora leans back in his chair, vaguely aware that Azlyn is chattering something to him about what would have happened if he'd had to face her in a coliseum match, but far too tired to say anything back. All the fights and fatigue of the day have finally caught up with him, and he lets himself slip back into the blissful embrace of sleep…
"Sora…? Sora are you there? Are you listening?"
Sora stands on a round stained glass platform in a dark abyss, the only light coming from some unknown but powerful source that seems to shine up through the glass below.
Sora takes several cautious steps back towards the platform's edge, looking down and trying to find the whole picture.
The platform is divided into two halves: One, the left half, depicts a golden sea shore at midday, the right a green garden similarly bathed in light. Standing on the sea shore half, laughing and seeming to be having a good time, are he and Riku, smiling at a similarly contented looking Kairi, whose back is right up against the place where the two images divide. Looking down, Sora can see that he and Kairi hold a paopu between them. On the other side are three children, one a redheaded girl in a pink sundress, her back against the divider as well, her pose a mirror image to Kairi.
Looking closer, Sora can see that the little girl in the garden is Kairi, looking as she did at four years old. Sora steps closer to the garden side, managing to tear his eyes away from young Kairi to look at the two children standing behind her, a blonde girl and a boy with hair the same shade as Kairi's. The blonde girl, dressed in blue overalls, only one snap secured, with a white t-shirt underneath, has her arms crossed over her chest, looking pouty, a smudge of what Sora guesses is dirt on her cheek. She appears to be of an age with Kairi, with something about her that Sora can swear he recognizes from somewhere.
The redhead boy stands closer to Kairi, smiling brightly despite the clearly missing tooth leaving a gap in his mouth. He's dressed in a green t-shirt and yellow shorts, one hand holding Kairi's wrist. He's taller and definitely older than the other two, six as opposed to four, and also looks eerily familiar.
"It's funny, isn't it?" the voice from before returns, sweet and full of playful kindness. Kairi's voice, Sora realizes!
Looking to his left, he sees the girl in question, looking physically every bit the same as she does in the stained glass depiction at the Keybearer's feet, but wearing a larger-sized version of the dress her child self has on. Arms crossed behind her back, she takes long strides up to him, smiling in a way that's fond, yet weighed down by an incredible sadness.
"It's like there are two parts of me," she says, something dreamily wistful in her every word. "Who I was, and who I am." She stops at Sora's side, staring down at the platform for a few lingering seconds before raising her face to the boy's. "You're bringing them together, though. You're bridging the gap. Every time you get closer, so do I."
Sora looks at her, confused by the words. "Every time I get closer to what? Or… closer to who…?" He looks from his sweet friend's face to the children in the garden. "Who are they? I feel like I've seen them before, but I just can't …"
Kairi giggles, and Sora raises his gaze back to her. He enjoys seeing her like this, so free and happy. It seems like it's been years since he's seen it. Seen her.
"You never were the brightest," the redhead manages through her giggles. Sora frowns at her, and upon seeing it she ceases her laughter immediately. "Sorry, Sora. I know you're trying. It's just harder for you. But you'll see. You can make the connection." Looking suddenly sad, Kairi begins to back away, each step taking her farther from Sora. "After all," she says with a knowing smile, "you're good at making connections…"
Sora reaches after her retreating form, opening and closing his hand as if by some miracle he can grab her from this distance, hoping against hope that maybe…
Sora's eyes snap open, suddenly jolted awake by a feeling deep in his body, a feeling that resonates with something like warmth all throughout him.
He sits up slowly, all of his senses seeming to come back to him in a rush. He's in the cockpit of the Gummi ship, and at some point the color of the interworld space has changed outside, the calming blue and green replaced by an unruly, swirling mix of red, orange, and yellow.
He hears a loud noise rise then fall, only to be counterpointed by a softer, almost mewling sound. Focusing his vision back into the cockpit, he notices Azlyn, the source of the raging snore, almost curled into a ball in her chair across from him. Craning his neck he can see that Telary, who is emitting the more adorable sound, is slumped in his chair, also fast asleep.
Sora rises from his chair, legs wobbling as they try to adjust to holding up his body once more. He stumbles forward to read the ship's radar display, using both hands to hold himself up over the console.
"No, no," Telary mutters sleepily, his face contorting into a painful expression. Sora cocks his head at the napping mage and watches as he begins to shake. "I wanna stay. I've gotta wait for her! Where did she go…? Gotta… AH!"
The older boy shoots up in his chair, impacting against the steering yoke and sending the ship veering right for a brief second before his hands shoot out nigh automatically and steady the flight.
Azlyn doesn't even react beyond a mild frown.
"Telary?" Sora asks, studying his friend's face from a few different angles. He looks scared, and not just because of the near-mishap with the controls. "Telary are you okay? Did you have a bad dream, 'cause you were kinda talking in your sleep…"
Telary looks back at Sora, puzzled. "Was I? Oh, man that's embarrassing. I haven't done that since I was like six years old. Did I say anything, uh, weird or, like, embarrassing?"
Sora shakes his head, leaning his back against the console. "You seemed scared. You said that you didn't want to go, and you had to wait for 'her'. Any idea who you were talking about?"
Telary shakes his head, frowning. Truth be told, he has no memory at all of any dreams. Still, he senses something odd, like he'd been momentarily connected to something before being cut off completely.
He explains the feeling to Sora, who nods.
"I kinda feel the same way," the Keybearer admits, looking out the viewport once again. "But for me it's more like there's something I just can't put together. I kinda remember a dream, something about Kairi, when we were kids I think… Well, something to do with kids. A garden…"
The boys' contemplation is cut off by Azlyn's awakening. The knight opens her eyes and begins to uncurl from her seat, stretching her limbs wide as she yawns.
Noticing that the pair at the console are staring at her, she frowns back at them. "What's with the looks?"
Sora and Telary exchange a brief look of their own between them, then Sora turns back to explain his and Telary's feelings with her, only to be interrupted by a sudden, loudly blaring alarm!
Telary gasps and reaches out to push Sora away from the radar screen, causing the Keybearer to stumble and fall to the metal floor of the bridge.
"There's something on radar!" the pilot exclaims, sweat gathering on his brow as he grips the steering apparatus with both hands. "It's big and coming in right behind us!"
"Monstro?" Azlyn asks curiously, looking all over the circular glass viewport to try and get a visual on their pursuer.
She sees it coming up from behind and gasps. Sora gets to his feet and rushes to her side just in time to see a wooden hull pass over the viewport. The ship above is so long that it takes nearly ten seconds for all of it to make its way past.
"It's a ship!" the Keybearer cries out as he watches the large galleon pulls out ahead. Gummi blocks are fused to the wood of the stern, providing propulsion through the void. Flying high atop the mast is a swaying skull and crossbones flag, waving at the trio's Gummi almost mockingly.
"It's a pirate ship!" Telary exclaims, gripping the steering controls so hard his knuckles whiten.
"I'll get to the turrets!" Azlyn yells, making her way towards the ladder even as the pirate galleon makes a sharp turn back around, the wooden skull carved at its head closing in on them like a battering ram.
"Too late!" Sora cries out to his companion, fears of being crushed and never seeing Kairi or his home again overwhelming him as it nears. "It's gonna ram us!"
And ram them it does.
I know it isn't actually Neverland like I implied, just a little sorta-prologue, but I'm gonna be away from my laptop for most of this weekend, so I decided to just upload this bit to keep you all tided over, which I'm hoping the foreshadowing dream sequence is able to do.
Until then, as always, don't hesitate to read and review if you feel like it, and next chapter will be all of the adventures aboard Hook's ship, I promise!
