So Disney's Pocahontas, despite its rather controversial nature in terms of historical inaccuracies (and if you can't get over that then don't watch something like Braveheart) was one of the first Disney movies I saw (my first being Pinocchio) and so it kind of holds a special place in my heart. Heck, over several rewatches I've actually come to appreciate it a lot more like many other Disney movies. Of course in this particular story we're not following the story in the movie and you'll notice that we aren't exactly either with the Princess and the Frog world (at least not yet). That said, if you want to leave a review I'd be interested to know whether you enjoyed this movie or not. Also don't be afraid to offer world suggestions. Brave seems like a pretty popular choice at the moment but as to whether it'll appear, I'll leave that as a secret.


Chapter 59

Follow The Wind

As Neuge had described, the dark corners of the city that they had come to was like the difference of night and day. The king soon very much wished they were back in the raucous and teeming streets that they had come through on their way to get here. He scanned the area curiously, walking more slowly than the woman in front of him. In the narrow alleys they travelled sat a beggar next to every wall, figures who passed them concealed by their cloaks. Out of the corner of his eye, Mickey saw one of the figures glance his way. He hurried along to join Neuge's side.

"You don't usually feel weird coming here?" Mickey whispered to her.

"No, why? And why are you whispering?"

"You're actually serious? I guess this place does suit you in a way. Um, not that I'm calling you depressing or anything-" Mickey tried to correct but Neuge laughed the mouse's bumbling off.

"It's fine. We've reached our destination, see?" Neuge pointed upwards with a lopsided smile. Mickey followed her pointing finger before letting out a long sigh.

"Of course. A tavern. I should have guessed."

"Oh cheer up, your majesty. We won't be too long." She looked down at Mickey's expression of scepticism before rolling her eyes. "I promise. I would never take you down here of all places if I wanted to get you drunk. These are the kind of guys who can slip something into your drink if you're not careful. The only reason we're here is to collect information. There, does that perk those dishes of yours up?"

"Dishes? You mean my ears?"

"I'm sorry, they just look like they'd be good to eat ice cream from," Neuge said. She flashed him a smile that Mickey could not possibly discern between sarcastic and flirtatious coming from its owner who headed into the tavern before Mickey could say anything more.

Did she just say she'd eat my ears? Mickey asked himself, stroking the edge of his 'dishes' protectively before letting go and heading in to The Red Apple as the tavern had been named. The smell of tobacco and alcohol served to make Mickey lightheaded and remind him once again that this would usually be the kind of place he wouldn't want Minnie catching him in. Mickey's attention suddenly became drawn to a man in the corner of the room sporting a fedora playing a sombre song on the piano, a cigar hanging lazily his mouth.

"Woah!" Mickey yelped as he felt Neuge take hold of his hand and drag him to the counter.

"Nice night, isn't it? Tell me. You wouldn't happen to have seen anything strange lately or oversaw any course of dealings between any of your patrons at any point within, let's say, the last few months, would you?" Neuge asked the bartender.

"What's it to you? Even if such a thing did happen in this place, why would I spy on them and why would I report that to you?" the bartender asked.

"For the first question? Because bartenders like you aren't exactly the kind to have regards to the concept of client confidentiality. For your second? Because my wrist tends to flop every now and then and I just happen to have something pointing under the table at you that's probably not a good thing. Let's just say if the wrist were to suddenly fall asleep, you would find yourself out of business."

Mickey leaned sideways to confirm his suspicions. Indeed, under the table Neuge had her Keyblade pointing straight at the man. And here he thought the circumstances could not have been worse. He could only hope that Neuge was bluffing.

"Are you threatening me?" The bartender asked, making the ostentatious effort to crack his knuckles. Mickey buried his head into the table. When he next lifted his head to look it was because of the sudden laughter that had ensued between the two of them.

"Neuge, how're ya doin'? Haven't seen you in a long time," asked the bartender through his roaring laughter.

"I've been travelling a lot lately, Miguel, you know how it is. How're the kids?" Neuge asked.

"The little one you used to know is nine now. She's learning how to play piano. Samuel's working in one of the factories just outside of town now. In between his work I'm training him to take over the tavern once I retire. Jenny's also got a good job in textiles so all in all I'd say we're living pretty comfortably," Miguel answered. "Would you like a drink?"

"Oh, I'm afraid me and my friend are just passing by." Neuge paused deliberately to indulge in the relieved sound that escaped Mickey's mouth before continuing. "This is Mickey by the way. He's a mouse if you couldn't tell so now you don't have to look at him so strangely. Mickey, this is Miguel, owner of 'The Red Apple'."

"Good to meet you. I suppose Neuge hasn't told you how she's broke several of my glasses and windows every time she's been here," Miguel said to him with a toothy grin.

"Hence my warning about the guys around here slipping things into people's drinks," Neuge said. "I'm sorry I can't stay long. I'll visit the family again sometime and I don't mean to be forward but right now we need that information. You haven't heard of anything coming into the city lately?"

"Hmm, not really anything that I can recall. People just come for a warm ale, discuss things and go. I hear stories, but none that would be of interest to you I would think," Miguel said.

Another man who had been sitting at a table and had apparently overheard their conversation left his seat and tapped Neuge on the shoulder. "If information's the thing you seek then I have just the juicy info. I reckon I happened to be sitting near a two weirdos last week. I didn't pay too much attention, at least not at first, and then they mentioned the Shadow Man."

"The Shadow Man?" Mickey repeated, exchanging glances with Neuge.

"Yeah. It was weird to address someone in that way so it kinda caught my attention, really. I inched my seat closer so I could listen in while pretending to sip my beer. They were talking softly so I was only able to catch a few words here and there but they mentioned that a shipment was set to arrive at the port by the end of the week. I'm guessin' it's been there for at least a few days now. Then the courier, the man who seemed to be leading the conversation, would be at the port to take something off the ship and deliver it to the Shadow Man. I didn't hear nothin' 'bout what it was he was supposed to retrieve."

"Huh, well there you go," Miguel said with raised brows after listening in.

"That was actually more than I was expecting to get here. I suppose we might be too late to find this courier but maybe he left a few clues at the port. Let's head there at once," Neuge said to Mickey. She then turned to look at the stranger who seemed to want something from her in return, as expected of any person who frequented a tavern. She dug into her pocket and pulled out a few coins before handing them to Miguel. "I think this man here deserves a free drink or two, don't you?"
"Oh bless your kind heart," said the stranger before replacing the seat Neuge had once been in. She and Mickey gave another farewell to him and Miguel before leaving the tavern.

"Kind, he says. Now that's a word I haven't heard used to describe me in quite a while," Neuge said with an absent stare.

"Does it feel nice?" Mickey asked.

"Don't get your hopes up." And there was scornful Neuge he knew, thought Mickey. His shoulders slumped but he gave a small smile nonetheless. It was progress, even if she refused to see it, and he had a good feeling that Neuge didn't exactly want to resist it anyway.


Some potentially thousands of miles away from Mickey and Neuge's location, Luna awoke after a horrifying dream. She wiped the sweat away from her forehead and then proceeded to search the room frantically with darting eyes, as to confirm where she was. A smell of cinnamon and herbs drifted into the room, giving her some solace as to where she was. Her parents not lying on the floor in front of her was an even bigger one.

She looked down at her sweaty palms and crunched them both into balls. The dream had felt incredibly real, and her hands were perfect proof. They were warm, as if they had been holding onto the same knife in her dream, the same one she had plunged into her parents' bodies. After some consideration, she opened her hands up again and reached down for the knife Neuge gave her only to find it missing. She was left panicking for a few seconds before she realized that she wasn't even in her field clothes but her pajamas. Her clothes, she soon found, were lying in a tidy pile on the floor. Not wanting to head back to sleep anytime soon, she changed into the adventure gear and headed out of the hut.

The cool breeze and nocturnal silence greeted her as soon as she stepped out, and as she began walking in a direction she found that the sudden flu that had overtaken her only hours before was now gone. It must have probably been her fastest recovery from being sick yet, and she would have praised it if not for the fact that the origin of the cold had been so sudden and unusual.

It was in these instances when she started thinking too much that she looked up into the sky and tried to guess where Alexander would be. Somewhere up there, Aunt Kit was all alone and having to manage the shop by herself. When Luna returned she imagined an entire day when they would bake away their worries and Luna would describe her adventures in detail. It was only a matter of when. She also wondered about the new friends she had made in Eleftheria, the trainee journalist, and Celes, in particularly the latter who had been blackmailed all throughout her career as an opera singer by the two strange jesters whose names she had forgotten.

Time passed for which Luna could not account for due to her dream-like observation of the stars when something touched her shoulder sending her jumping into the air. She would have let out a loud noise too had a hand not covered her mouth before she could. The person behind Luna gave a soft shush before presenting themselves in front of her.

"Pocahontas? What are you doing outside?" Luna whispered.

"I could ask you the same question," Pocahontas replied with a lingering look on her face for Luna's confession.

"Okay. I had a bad dream and just needed some fresh air. You?"

"I like to wander is all," Pocahontas answered.

"Outside? You know that's dangerous. What about the fog?" Luna asked.

"I know, but the first sign of trouble and I run. Either way, I hadn't really encountered this fog or any of those creatures before today and your friend came to save me. Do… do you have that thing too, like he does? The power of nature?"

"You mean magic?" Luna extended her arm out and, following a bright light, the Dream Seeker appeared in her hand. Pocahontas gasped and started fidgeting about like an ecstatic child who had just opened up her Christmas gifts. Luna knew the feeling way.

Even she froze in a most comedic fashion before looking at the weapon again. "I've never seen a weapon like that before. We use spears crafted from wood to hunt. Do you go hunting with that thing as well? Is it effective?"

"I wouldn't say it's for hunting, more like protecting but to even explain that would mean…" Luna paused. She wondered at first whether Kairi had brought up Pocahontas' potential to her yet. Then she wondered whether it was truly the right thing to even tell her if she had no idea. She was conflicted between her mission and her beliefs, and what was she to do when that occurred? She tried to remember back to any helpful advice from Neuge or Sora about what she was supposed to do in this situation but the only thing that came up was the usual pep talks about believing in one's self. So then the question stood: what did she believe in?

"It's okay, you can tell me. Wait, maybe it'd be better if we talked elsewhere, outside the village. Follow me," Pocahontas said. As much as Luna wanted to object and explain why she felt it was naturally a bad idea, she also couldn't deny that she wanted someone to talk to, to keep her from having a reason to go back to sleep so soon. It was with a huge dread of the consequences that she made her decision and decided to go with her heart and not her brain.

She followed Pocahontas all the way to the back of the village. For a moment, Luna thought Pocahontas had come to her senses and was only going to lead them to a secluded area within the village but upon seeing that a part of the wooden stockade was slightly dislodged—and from which Luna could see was partly due to the mud underneath caused by rain—she very quickly lost all hope once again. Luna squeezed through the narrow gap as Pocahontas did and grinned.

"I feel like such a criminal," she said.

"Just picture how I do it all the time," Pocahontas said with a laugh. "By the way, you're definitely not from around here, right? You speak our language perfectly."

"Of course I do. Are we not speaking English?" Luna asked.

"English, what's that?" Pocahontas asked back. Luna's grin turned into a small smile.

"You're pulling my leg, right?" she asked.

"I would certainly hope not. That would be painful," Pocahontas answered after a moment's hesitation of trying to decipher Luna's strange sentence.

"It's an expression. So, you're not joking then? It could be the Gummi Ship. Yeah, now that I remember I think Sora mentioned something about it to me once way early on. We've been travelling to so many worlds I didn't think that we might be talking a completely different language to those there. Then maybe I really am talking your language and I'm just hearing English, or maybe it's that the Gummi Ship is somehow translating both our languages into something which we can both understand so even though I'm speaking English you hear something different then I'm hearing and I'm rambling now, aren't I?"

Pocahontas nodded slowly as if trying to agree while saying at the same time that she had no idea what Luna was talking about. Before she could say anything, two animals popped out of the bushes nearby. One of them, which looked like a racoon, trapped the second animal with its hands just as it stopped short upon seeing Pocahontas, and shoved it into its mouth before running up to the two girls instead.

"Oh, there you are. I've been looking all over the place for you guys today. Look, a new friend! Luna, this greedy little one here is Meeko." Pocahontas pointed to the racoon that she had lifted to her shoulder. "And this… Meeko, don't be stubborn, let him out. This is Flint." The racoon eventually complied with Pocahontas and spit out a hummingbird, who hastily sought to dry itself off.

"Hello Flint and Meeko. It's nice to meet you," Luna said, holding her hand out for the racoon to take.

Pocahontas observed Meeko's reluctance to look at Luna for a second before saying, "Don't worry. If you give food to him, he'll very quickly change his mind about you."

"Okay, let's see…" Luna looked around for a bit before spotting a number of small berries hanging off a branch. She plucked a handful of them off and showed them to Pocahontas. "Will these do?"

"I would say so. Meeko, Luna wants to give you a present," Pocahontas hinted to the racoon. Meeko looked at Luna briefly, and then his eyes travelled down to her hands. Luna guessed it was at that point when she could finally write down in her diary that she was adored by a racoon.

"I think he loves me!" Luna declared in a victorious tone after Meeko had finished eating all of the berries in her hand.

"Well that can be either a good thing or a bad thing. Good because he likes you, bad because now he'll want more from you in the future. Good luck with that," Pocahontas said.

"Well, they often say that love is blind and greed insatiable. Heh heh heh…" Luna gave an awkward laugh before saying, "Maybe you should handle him from now on."
Pocahontas let out a chuckle before taking Meeko back into her arms. "So what were you going to say about your weapon before I interrupted? Back in village, I mean."

"Well… I need to tell you something but… promise you won't freak out," Luna said, having finally come to her decision. Even if Luna didn't like it, she had her duty to inform Pocahontas about what she and her friends were talking about.

"I won't," Pocahontas promised, now more interested than Luna really wanted to see. Well at least the first part would be easy to tell her, she figured.

"Alright. Um, well you're right that my friends and I aren't from around here. We came all the way from a place really far away, like, up there far away." Luna pointed upwards to the sky. "You see those stars? They aren't all just balls of gas burning brightly. There are worlds other than just this one out there. Worlds, constellations, galaxies— a whole universe of things I haven't even discovered yet! We get to worlds like yours on our Gummi Ship, the Highwind."

"Gummi Ship. Highwind," Pocahontas repeated, as if going through the names several times in her head. Eventually she looked back into Luna's eyes and nodded. "It's weird. The things you're saying to me make no sense at all, but somehow, I know they're true. Then again, if you can use magic, I guess it would have to be true."

"Well, that was easier than I thought it'd be. Maybe Kairi was right then…"

"Right? About what?" Pocahontas asked. Luna sighed at her own inability to keep her thoughts as just that and proceeded to pace back and forth for a while before stopping.

"This will be harder to say. You might say that there are certain people or pillars you could call them who are meant to keep the light and darkness in each world in balance. Those seven people are known as the Princesses of Heart. Kairi's one of them."

"I see… so what you're saying is that every world including mine is the way it is because of these princesses?" Pocahontas asked.

"Right, but no one's really sure what will happen when one or more of the Princesses are taken out of the equation. The general presumption would be that the worlds will be consumed by darkness and, well… we failed to protect one of them. Alice is her name. She's being held who knows where and we don't even know her condition. We have to assume that she's alive but I won't be satisfied until I find even the tiniest of hints that she's alive and I won't really be comfortable until I know she's safe with us," said Luna.

"I'm sorry to hear that. I'm sure you'll find her safe and sound. You mustn't give up hope. Sometimes the answers you're looking for are all around you, but you can't see them just by looking. Listening, not just with your ears but with your heart, that's what will allow you to see the truth hidden behind the lies," Pocahontas advised.

"The truth hidden behind the lies? I'm not really sure I get it," Luna admitted. It seemed that Pocahontas was teaching her something new as opposed to the other way around. Even the idea of completely different worlds hadn't seemed to come as much of a surprise to the girl.

"All around us are things which have more than one meaning. It takes quite a bit of courage to not judge by first appearance and consider that there is something more. Your mind may tell you that it is what it is, but your heart may tell you that not everything is as it seems. Not that I'm suggesting you blindly choose one over the other, but recognizing that both options are valid and also not being afraid to use them both."

"Oh, you mean seeing the world from an abstract point of view? That's how I actually learned magic. When you're casting Fire magic for example, you have to really focus on that feeling of warmth in order to get it to work. It's also why Ice spells are really hard to do. That's focusing on cold emotions. But anyway, we're getting off track here so I should just come out and say it. We've been sent on a mission by two Masters who I'm sure know what they're doing, especially one called Yen Sid— he's this really powerful sorcerer. They wanted us to seek out a suitable candidate to become the new Princess of Heart if the worst case scenario happens to our friend. Kairi, being one of them, can sense the potential of suitable candidates and… she's found it in you."

In the end, Luna couldn't find the strength to look at Pocahontas when she finally revealed everything. Even as silence passed over them afterwards, Luna still refused not to check the expression on Pocahontas' face. A fist soon found itself under Luna's chin and lifted it up for her to see Pocahontas' smile.

"I'm glad you told me. There's no need to avoid looking at me."

"I'm sorry if it came off as rude," Luna tried to explain but Pocahontas cut her off.

"You were afraid of how I'd react, it's understandable. Still, I'm not really sure how to react at the moment, probably because this has all happened so suddenly. So… if I were to decide to become one of these Princesses would I have to leave my home?" she asked.

"I'm guessing so. You wouldn't be made one immediately since we're waiting for confirmation on Alice but you'd have to be there so they can get the process done as soon as possible. There's also something else you should know, about the process. Yen Sid called it purification. What it does is extract the darkness from a person's heart leaving only the light, or at least that's the basics of it, I'm sure it's a lot more complicated. The thing is though that the heart isn't made to go through something like that. If they extract the darkness from your heart there's a chance that you might be unable to cope with it and…" Once again Luna could not finish her sentence. Something she had not expected was that telling her had seemed to have taken a harsher toll on her than it had Pocahontas. Surely it should have been the other way around, and yet Pocahontas remained headstrong, showing far more strength than Luna could possibly hope to muster at the moment.

"I see. Maybe you should stop for now. This seems to be getting harder for you," Pocahontas recognized.

"Thanks. I mean, the chances are that if what Kairi says is true then the light in your heart should be able to fill in the sudden gaps left over. That's what Yen Sid believes anyway. But at the end of the day, no one else can make this decision except you. It's a big risk and I'd understand if you didn't want to take it," Luna explained in order to give a little more hope and comfort to the both of them. In truth, while there was a bigger part of her that wanted Pocahontas to refuse, she couldn't deny something smaller that urged Pocahontas to accept so she and her friends didn't have to bear through the pain of explaining it to the next person they found.

"I'd have to sleep on it, but even if I wanted to go, I'm not so sure it will be easy convincing my father to let me leave. He's rather overprotective of me," Pocahontas said.

"The signs of a good father then. I'd wished I listen to mine before…" Luna closed her eyes shut tightly. She had wandered outside in hopes of forgetting about the dream she had and had failed. "Pocahontas… first appearances can be deceiving, right? I wonder then. Am I a good person?"

"What do you mean?" questioned Pocahontas with a quizzical look.

"I'd like to think that I'm a good person at heart, I really do. But I've had dreams and in them, I've done terrible things. The dreams are all based on a memory I have of something I once did. There's also something else. I feel like there's something inside trying to take over my heart. I lost my memories at one point and when I got them back I thought I'd be able figure out who I am. Even now that I have them back, I still don't know," Luna told her dolefully. The recurring thought that she felt more unfettered when she had lost her memories than having them was not a healthy one to her. She knew she should be appreciative of the opportunities she had, particularly when she was one of the rare few who even had the opportunity to begin with, but the burden was a heavy one and there had been several times when she had wished that she could return to how things were before she had been kidnapped.

"Well, I can't say I'm in the best position to tell you that. In my opinion even the best of people can have bad intentions and the worst person can have good intentions. That just shows how human you really are. I'll tell you what, come with me. I want you to meet someone. I think she'll have the answers that you need," Pocahontas said, offering her hand.

"Well it is kind of getting cold out here. Alright, let's head back in," Luna said.

"The village? She doesn't live in the village," Pocahontas said.

"Um, we wouldn't happen to be going even farther from the village, would we? I really don't think that's a good idea," Luna objected but Pocahontas laughed it off.

"Where's your sense of adventure? Besides, if we keep to the river I'm sure we'll be fine and if we aren't, well you can use that weapon of yours to protect me," she said.

"I… I probably am going to regret this but even I can't deny a girl's night out once in a while," Luna said, trying her best to make light of the situation. If this woman, as Pocahontas claimed, was wise enough to have answers for Luna then maybe she would also have an idea of where the keyhole was. It was certainly worth a try.


Neuge and Mickey wasted no time in making haste to the port, so it came to no surprise that they were completely out of breath by the time they arrived. Aside from a straight path down toward the Mississippi river, containers filled the area, covering their view of most of what the port had to offer, though they had very little doubt there was much more than the materials to be loaded and unloaded off the ships.

"You know, I haven't… had a run like that in a good… while. It's gonna take a while… for me… to get back in the swing of things," Neuge wheezed out.

"Ha, just so long as… you don't get in my way…" Mickey quipped in between his own breaths.

"Ooh, you're getting better at this, aren't you? Maybe now… you won't look like someone just shot your dog every time I joke around with you," Neuge said.

"How do you know I have a dog?" Mickey asked.

"I didn't. Now let's cut the flirting and get down to business." Neuge moved on before Mickey could deny that he was 'flirting' and was given no choice but to trail behind. The two soon arrived at the wharf and Mickey looked down the river at the boats on the water.

"So this whole city was built surrounding this river? How long exactly does it go?" he asked.

"No idea, but it definitely is a long river. Anyway, I see someone over there. Let's check with him if the container ship we're looking for is still here." Neuge pointed to a man who was sitting inside a booth by the terminal next to them. When they approached him and asked about a ship that had come in at the beginning of the week, the man pointed them to a ship two terminals down from where they were standing.

At first glance, the ship seemed like every other lined up along either side of it. There would be no reason to suspect any suspicious packages being taken on or off board. The ship seemed mostly unmaintained and the two Keyblade wielders were able to get closer to it without much trouble. Its auspicious features only became noticeable once they were actually boarded the ship.

"There are still containers on board. Looks like they haven't finished fully unloading the cargo yet," Mickey said.

"Or they're in the process of loading them onto the ship. I guess we'll just have to check each and every one of these containers until we find something of interest. Keep your ears on the lookout though. I'm not too fond of the lack of anyone on this ship," Neuge said.

"You just said ears because you wanted to make another dish joke, didn't you?" Mickey enquired with a knowing look.

"Hey, you said it, not me," Neuge said. She began her search near the starboard side of the ship while Mickey headed for the bow. The stacked containers were protected by straps, keeping them strapped to the ground and behind that, a chain and padlock for each one to keep people out. Neuge cut through the straps and chain quickly with her Keyblade before pulling open one of the heavy doors to look inside. After quickly searching to reveal several packages worth of content, she stepped out of the container, shaking her head at the near insurmountable task ahead of them. Unless what they were looking for was so obvious that it went without saying then they would have to search every package. The problem with that, ignoring how many there were on the ship, was that they had no idea what they were looking for specifically or if it was even there anymore. The perfect scenario was a huge of quantity of the object in question that couldn't be unloaded all in one go, though that was wishful thinking and there was certainly no way that it could so conveniently happen exactly as Neuge wante-

"Neuge, I found something. A whole lot of something actually!" Mickey yelled from far away.

Neuge blinked. "Oh… that was quick."