-o- CHAPTER SEVEN -o-


the wailing bagpipe


I wandered the endless labyrinthine halls of the castle for hours, hoping in vain to stumble across something that would spark a memory. Something that would spark an undeniable longing to be queen. But I had nothing. This was not my home.

At night, lying under heavy blankets in a guest chamber, I stared at the walls through the darkness. This feeling was getting familiar: lying in bed for hours, waiting for sleep that may or may not come. I didn't even bother closing my eyes. For some chilling reason, I felt that every time I shut them, Axel's grinning face appeared in my head. Why couldn't I stop thinking about him? Of all the things I had to stress over, all the hundreds of intricate thoughts plaguing my anguished teenage mind, Axel was the first thing to surface when I lay in bed. Not my new fling with Sora, not my concern for Riku's memories of the past, not the possibility of me ruling over an entire world, not the looming possibility of widespread, devastating war… No, it was Axel. A Nobody. A stranger.

With a frustrated sigh, I heaved myself out of bed and put on my shoes. There was no use in tossing and turning all night again. I'd rather have been in motion. I crept out of the room and into the darkened castle hallways, wondering if anyone would see me. Would it cause alarm to have me wandering around while everyone else was asleep? Was midnight a strange time to go for a run?

"Young ladies who slip off in the night are inclined to gain a reputation," said a somber voice, cutting abruptly through the night's shadows.

My heartbeat screeched to a halt for one terrifying moment, and then Goliath stepped gracefully into the light. I was still unnerved and astonished at his enormity. How could a creature so massive move so gently, hide so easily from view?

"I can't sleep," I said timidly to the gargoyle, forcing myself to meet his eyes. "Lately, I've been kind of a night owl."

Goliath smirked, and I was surprised by how warm his facial expressions were. "You and I would do well to get better acquainted, then. The nighttime is the only time I have. Are you going anywhere in particular on this midnight wandering?"

I shrugged. "I thought I'd go for a jog or something."

Goliath stretched out his massive hand, which was surprisingly soft for a hand that was stone by day, and placed it sweetly on my shoulder. "If you have no specific destination in mind, I'd be most pleased if you would accompany me, instead. I am meeting with an old friend in the square. It's best if you stick with someone who knows the city… Radiant Garden is not an entirely safe place, yet."

I usually found myself stubborn and resistant to people who offered to keep me "safe," but Goliath seemed different. He intrigued me. I nodded softly and we fell into step together as we left the castle and wandered toward the main business square in the city.

"So you know Radiant Garden well, then?" I asked him as we walked. It was indeed very late, but the streets were far from empty. Small crowds of people wandered from pub to pub, enjoying the nightlife.

"I spent some time here years ago, yes. More troublesome times, of course. My clan and I came to aid those who were oppressed under Ansem's regime."

We stopped outside a building called The Wailing Bagpipe and Goliath ushered me inside. It was a jubilant pub, dimly lit by candles and filled with the melodies of a single violinist. I felt a sudden, devious giddiness. I'd never been inside a bar before.

"Oh crivvens! Look at that there, right before me eyes!" quacked a loud and inebriated voice from a table in the corner, cutting through the noisy chatter of the pub. After a moment, I spotted the old duck who'd shouted it, wearing a plaid smoking jacket and a top hat, and I realized that he wasn't just shouting at someone; he was shouting at me.

"Um, excuse me?" I said cautiously, feeling increasingly uncomfortable as the old duck stared at me through his spectacles and pointed dramatically.

He exchanged glances with the younger duck beside him, an enormous muscular guy in a red sweater with goggles perched on top of his ginger-tufted head, and nodded reassuringly. "That's her alright, I'd recognize her even after all these years! This is the lass, I tell you! Princess Kairi of Radiant Garden. Oh lordy how yeh've grown up. Well don't just stand there, come have a drink with us, young lady… a virgin drink, of course! And bring your, uh…"

The old duck squinted, taking in his first notice of the giant gargoyle behind me. "Well I'll be a witch's tit, it's Goliath!" he chuckled. He slapped his knee. "The two of you are here together? What a delight, a delight. Both of you, come sit!"

Goliath smiled in greeting and guided me to the table. "Scrooge McDuck, old friend. It's been a long time since we last met here."

Scrooge nodded with a mildly mournful look, reaching for his mug of beer and taking a foamy slurp. "And longer still since Scotland. We really are getting to be a couple of old fogies, aren't we?" He pounded his white-feathered fist on the table, which signaled the waitress to appear. He ordered Goliath a whiskey neat, which the noble beast politely declined, and he ordered me a hot apple cider, which I shyly accepted.

"It does an aging soul good to see familiar faces, eh, Goliath?" Scrooge continued. When the waitress brought a fresh round of drinks, he toasted his giant glass mug with my apple cider. "And this, wee little Kairi? A pleasant surprise indeed. You must be at least…. Twelve, thirteen now?"

I blushed and rolled my eyes. "Sixteen," I corrected gently. I fidgeted for a moment and sipped my apple cider. "And I'm sorry, sir, but I… I don't actually remember you. I don't remember anything from my childhood here."

Scrooge simply nodded, his eyes drooping sadly. He even reached out and gave my shoulder a little pat. "Certainly, certainly, lassie. Such a sad time for the people here! I'm not native to this world, of course, but I've been living here going on twenty years. Long enough to have seen its many tragedies. I'm so sorry that you were robbed of a happy childhood here… but all the more reason to celebrate that you are alive and well now!"

He clinked his glass against mine once more and took another gulp. He shifted his gaze to Goliath. "And as much as I like seeing you again, old friend, it's a shame it has to be under such dreadful circumstances."

Goliath nodded. "It is an unfortunate side effect of being a gargoyle. We are protectors, and so you are most likely to see my kind when there is trouble afoot."

"Damn good protectors, too!" Scrooge asserted, pounding his fist again. The waitress glanced over, thinking she may be needed, and Scrooge apologetically waved her off. "Never was a castle in Scotland better guarded than one with gargoyles around. That's why I told the King, all those years ago, when the witches were gettin' killed off, you and your clan were the ones to send for."

Slowly, I let the warm cider tingle on my lips and I examined Goliath thoughtfully. "Witches?" I asked, unable to silence my curiosity. "You came here to fight witches? Was Maleficent one of them?"

"Bah! Not in the slightest!" Scrooge barked. His companion patted his hand on Scrooge's shoulder, gently reminding him that perhaps his inebriation was making him inappropriately loud. Scrooge did not seem to notice, and looked pointedly at me over the rim of his mug. "The gargoyles didn't come to fight the witches, lassie, they came to protect them. A misunderstanding that has plagued Radiant Garden for years is that all witches are bad. What happened to the witches of this city was a mighty sad affair, and you, of all people, THE PRINCESS KAIRI HERSELF, SHOULD SURELY KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT WITCHES!"

At this point Scrooge was standing in his seat, and his bulky duck friend had to physically reseat him. I noticed curious and mildly threatening glances in our direction from all around the bar.

"All right, chief, let's keep it down there," instructed the big guy. "No need to get riled up and cause a scene in your own bar, eh?" He glanced apologetically at Goliath. "Uh, forgive all this, he may have had a few too many. It's been kind of a rough day for the old guy. Family troubles, you know? Everybody's tense nowadays, what with the army enlisting and whispers of Maleficent..."

Goliath nodded in understanding. "You are Launchpad McQuack, I presume?"

Launchpad extended a jovial hand to shake. "At your service."

Scrooge sighed, clearly displeased to be chided by his younger companion. Nonetheless, he lowered his voice and spoke more calmly to me. "It's a tragedy to this day. Some people still go around saying the witches caused all the Darkness. But it was Xehanort, you see? Before people caught on to what he was scheming, he tried taking over the government quietly. And all of the killing and soul-eating and terrible things the Heartless were doing, he blamed on the witches. He had the people in hysterics, crying witch left and right, turning over their friends and neighbors for witchcraft. So many innocent people killed."

"They killed people who weren't really witches?" I asked.

"Certainly! But they killed real witches, too, witches who never caused any harm to anyone. The Circle of Witches in this place were spiritual folk. Peaceful people. They used to be respected for their wisdom, and for their good influence on the crops. But Xehanort made them out to be something Dark." Suddenly, the drunk duck's big blue eyes got a little weepy. He even touched my face. "And you, poor little tyke, in the middle of all that mess... You must have been then no older than my poor little Webby is now!"

Rather unexpectedly, the old duck turned to Launchpad and buried his face in his chest, sobbing. Launchpad blushed as he awkwardly tried to comfort his emotional elder. He looked at the two of us with another apologetic shrug. "Family troubles," he reiterated.

While Launchpad gave Scrooge reassuring pats on the back, I felt my gaze drift to Goliath. I tried to picture him here, with Scrooge, years ago, fighting Heartless and saving witches. I tried so hard to remember myself, a poor little tyke, in the middle of all that mess...

"Goliath," I said, something clicking suddenly. "Did you know me then? When you and your clan were here, did you know me as a little girl?"

Goliath shook his head somberly. "My arrival was just after your disappearance. It was the height of chaos in this city, just before Xehanort's true intentions and ties to the Heartless were finally out in the open. We called it the Resistance; the witches, despite being persecuted, swore to defend their innocence and to destroy Xehanort, the true originator of the Darkness. King Mickey supported them, and that is why he summoned my clan. When I arrived, in fact, the word amongst the people was that you had been killed with your parents."

In an instant, it was as though someone had fired a shotgun at my chest. I struggled to find words. "...Killed?" I mumbled softly.

Goliath's hand rested upon mine immediately. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize that you did not know... I only assumed that surely someone had told you of your past. I never would have mentioned it so carelessly, Kairi..."

I shook my head quickly, still finding my breath. "No... no, it's fine. I mean, I guess I always assumed that my real parents were dead. I had just never really thought about how." A hard icy lump formed in my throat at the thought. I knew that I had always avoided thinking about who my real parents were because I was afraid of the harsh truth. Whoever my parents were, I would know them only as ghosts.

Scrooge reached over and pulled me into his warm, feathery arm. "Ah now, don't fret, wee Kairi. There was plenty of good in this place, too. Why, I remember when you were just a tiny thing. I was frequently around the castle back then, meeting with Ansem the Wise and King Mickey, planning out the possibility of my interworld transit system, of course. And I remember you and your little friend Cale always running around playing games. Such mischief! Precious things."

My mind dulled with the familiar emptiness I experienced when someone spoke of my past and I had no images to fill the space. "Cale?" I repeated, mindlessly.

"You mean to say you don't remember your very first partner in crime? Oh, Cale was a nasty little lad, for certain, but he loved nothing in the world so much as he loved you. I never saw the two of you apart. Everyone in the kingdom was charmed by it, I think. Imagine, to be betrothed so young to your childhood best friend!"

"Um, betrothed?"

Scrooge nodded, unaware that he was blowing my mind with this seemingly trivial detail of the life I'd never known. "Naturally. He was the son of knights, very close to the royal family, chosen to be your husband. You two would have been groomed to be king and queen, of course, but in the time I knew you, you were just wee innocent babes, playing at pretend. And now, well... things changed, as we know. Best laid plans of mice and men… Ugh, bloody mice..." He sighed, suddenly deflating, staring into the foam of his beer. "If you'll excuse me, ah, I think I'll be heading to the little drake's room..." In his drunken daze, Scrooge climbed out from behind the table and stumbled off in the direction of the restrooms.

Launchpad grimaced as he gave another apologetic nod toward Goliath. "Sorry he's not exactly top of his game tonight, he really was looking forward to see you."

Goliath smiled warmly. "I can't say I haven't seen him in worse states of drunkenness. Though he does seem a little maudlin. He didn't mention gold or his next big money-making scheme once."

Goliath had said it with something of a chuckle, but Launchpad's eyes widened in concern all the same. "Yeah... I would try not to mention anything like that around him tonight. He and his nephew got into a pretty nasty fight earlier over Scrooge's big interworld transit system. He's spent years of his life on this project; it's his pride and joy. The King's been convincing him to put off production, with the war and everything, but I guess the King finally came clean: He doesn't want the project to be finished, ever. He told Scrooge to scrap the whole thing."

"Did the King say why?" Goliath asked.

Launchpad shrugged, and took a gentle sip of his beer. "World order," he echoed vacantly.

"So Scrooge's nephew," I said, cautiously inserting myself into what seemed to be a fairly adult conversation. "That's Donald, right? What was the argument about?"

"Well, uh, Scrooge has something of a temper. He's mad at the King, he said some ugly words, and I guess it offended Donald. They're really close, he and the King. He defended the King, which made Scrooge even angrier, and things just sort of escalated... Look, you don't wanna see two McDucks getting into it. When it was all said and done Donald was yelling things like never wanting to see him again, and telling him to stay away from the little guys, too."

"Little guys?"

"Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Donald's nephews. And Webby, his adopted niece. Scrooge loves 'em to bits. It's just ugly. War. Family troubles. We got a long road of pain ahead of us." Launchpad took a slurp of his own drink, then.

Goliath nodded somberly. "The centuries have shown me that war is an inevitable tragedy in the rise and fall of societies. But family is one thing we must cling to."

A quiet fell on us as we waited awkwardly for Scrooge's return, none of us desiring to extrapolate on the many things we had to be fearful of. I could only sip my cider, and ponder Goliath's words. Sora and Riku were my family, the one thing I could cling to. But still my heart ached to know more of the family I had long lost.