Questions

I do not own Kingdom Hearts. It is the property of Square Enix and the Walt Disney Studios. This is a creative work that I do not profit off of in any way.

How are you today, my dear readers?

In some ways, it was comforting the way some things remained the same, even after everything that had happened. Even with the Keyblade War and the machinations of Organization XIII, there were still constants. The same little old lady that liked being called Granny ran the ice cream shop, as she had done for years. Scrooge McDuck still traveled the worlds to open more businesses than anyone else ever. People lived and loved and started families. And Roxas and Xion badgered Axel with their six zillion questions.

This was actually one of Axel's favorite things about his half-pints. He hadn't been the best student when he was a kid—as Isa never failed to mention when they were growing up—but he relished the opportunity to tell them stuff they didn't know. Unfortunately, the kiddos were smarter than he sometimes gave them credit for. As time went on, they began asking harder questions. Sometimes, he thought they did it on purpose.

"Axel," Xion said, between bites of her ice cream, "Why do trees grow here?"

"What?" Axel asked. "What do you mean? Like how do trees grow in the first place? Well…plants breath in a gas called carbon dioxide and they use sunlight to make plant food. It's kind of complicated, but there's this thing called chlorophyll and—"

"No, I understand how trees grow," Xion said. "What I mean what how do they grow here, in Twilight Town? The sun doesn't shine in the right way for photosynthesis to work."

"Oh…" Axel said. "That's actually a good question, kiddo. I'm not sure…but now that I think about it, the shadows move here. So maybe the setting sun is an illusion."

"Maybe…" Xion said. "But it does make me think. There's so many worlds…but they all have the same sky. It just…seemed odd. Maybe I'm just over-thinking."

"Could be," Roxas said, polishing off his ice cream. "But who says that's a bad thing?"

"Is that a question you want me to answer?" Axel asked. "Because I'll tell you this now, anyone who makes you feel bad for thinking is not someone you want to listen to. You have big brains, so you should use them as much as possible."

Xion didn't say anything, but she did smile as she finished off her own ice cream. With one potential problem taken care of, before it even really became a problem, Axel felt a rush of satisfaction that vanished as he glanced at his ice cream. Ew, it was almost melted. He'd been so distracted by Xion's question that he had forgotten about it.

"What I'd like to know is why some birds fly south," Roxas said. "And why others stay put."

"That's easy," Axel said. "Some birds migrate south for the winter because that's where the food is. There's more food down south than there is here, under all the snow that's gonna be coming."

"But why…what do they think about when they're migrating?" Roxas asked. "Suppose some of them didn't want to, but knew they had to. What if they had a choice?"

Leave it to Roxas to get philosophical about whether or not migratory birds had free will. Axel remembered studying that in school…something about magnetic poles? Like there was something that forced the birds to fly south. Man, when you put it that way…

"Ooooh," Xion said. "Look! There's the tram! Axel, how does a tram stay on its track?"

"Er…it has to do with…magnets, I think? Or there's a third rail it's stuck to that we can't see," Axel said. "You guys are asking some tough ones today."

"You've answered them, though," Xion said, her big blue eyes blinking at Axel with admiration and curiosity. "That's what you've always done. Or have you been guessing the last few times?

"That settles it…" Axel said. "What the two of you need is library cards."

"What's a library card?" Roxas and Xion asked in unison.

Okay, how on earth is that question anything but on purpose?

Really, what would a series of Sea Salt Trio vignettes be without one devoted to Questions?

Thank you for reading my dear, dear readers. Leave a comment if you're so inclined! I appreciate each and every one of you!