"Sora!" The sound of that familiar voice drew Sarah's attention, and she waved to Kairi as the other girl made her way over to where the four of them were standing. There were still traces of that inscrutable look that she had worn several times during this past day, but for the most part Kairi seemed pleased to see her. "C'mon, it's almost time to go home."
"Oh, yeah," Tidus said, sounding like Kairi's reminder had hit home for him as well. "We should be getting back, too." Slapping a companionable hand on "Sora's" right shoulder, he grinned. "See you tomorrow for another round, Sora."
"Yeah," Wakka added, tossing his ball up and catching it with an ease that hinted at long practice. "This time, I get to be on your side."
She chuckled. "Well, I am flattered by your gracious invitation, but I think I might be busy that day," she said, tilting her head slightly in Kairi's direction. "It's a fairly big day for us."
"Right," Kairi said, coming over to clap Sarah on the same shoulder that Tidus once had. "A very big day for us," she continued, wrapping both of her arms around "Sora's" left and squeezing slightly; with anyone else, Sarah would have called that a non-verbal signal.
A subtle request to play along with what was going to happen next; still, this was Kairi she was dealing with here. Not exactly one for subterfuge.
As Kairi gently steered her toward the small dock, Sarah noticed that they were the first to arrive. It was kind of interesting, she had to admit, seeing what had happened before and after – and even sometimes between – the events that she had seen in KH1. As long as you didn't think too much about what was going to happen next; she tried not to, since that way lay madness and bludgeoning Riku to death with a frying pan.
"You're not really Sora, are you?"
The sound of Kairi's voice, and more than that the words that the other girl had just said to her, brought Sarah's mind back to the present moment with a harsh, and she could have sworn almost audible, slam.
"Why do you say that, Kairi?" she asked; the first part of damage-control, after all, was to assess how much damage you had to control.
"I've known Sora for a long time," the younger girl said, looking right into Sarah's eyes with an intensity that she hadn't seen in very many people. "Maybe not for all my life, the way Riku has, but long enough to know what he's like. And you… you don't walk like him, you don't smile like him," she paused for a moment, eyes roving to take in Sarah's relaxed, open stance. "You don't even stand like him, not really. And," she looked down for a moment before looking back up, right into Sarah's eyes again. "You really only talk like him when you have the chance to think about what you're saying," she paused, glancing down for a moment before seeming to steel herself to go on. "When someone catches you off-guard… It's like you're a whole different person."
All she could think, for those few moments with Kairi's eyes locked on Sora's own, was that her efforts at damage-control were well and truly fucked; and before they even began, too. That had to be a new record.
"Have you told anyone else about this?" she asked, wanting to know if there was any part of this situation she could salvage, and a bit morbidly curious about just how fucked she actually was.
"No, I haven't," Kairi said, looking a bit more certain than she had been when she had first confronted Sarah, but also more curious.
"Because it would have sounded crazy, right?" she asked, chuckling as she tilted her head slightly.
"Is that why you didn't tell anyone?" Kairi returned, the expression on her face beginning to smooth out into relief, though she still looked curious.
Moreso than ever, now.
Sarah laughed softly. "Provided that everyone didn't think that I was pulling some kind of elaborate joke on all of them, I'd be bundled up into a straight-jacket and tossed into the nearest crazy house so fast you'd probably think I was in a time-warp," her chuckle was a bit harsher this time. "So yeah; good reason not to tell anyone what's going on with me. And that's probably the best I could hope for, if someone actually believes all of this." Sarah looked down at Sora's hands, trying not to feel the complete and utter wrongness of her current body; if her and Sora's situations truly were reversed the way that she'd once thought, she could only hope that he was doing all right. "There are times even I don't believe it."
A hand on "her" right shoulder brought Sarah's attention back to the present moment; back to Kairi and the Destiny Islands, and all the problems therein.
"I'm sorry." Were the first words out of the younger girl's mouth. "I didn't think about hard this would be on you. I worried so much about Sora that I didn't even think-"
"It's all right," she said, putting "her" hand on Kairi's shoulder in turn. "Sora's your friend, you said you've known him since the two of you were kids." She smiled, squeezing Kairi's shoulder softly to put the younger girl at ease. "It's only natural that you'd be concerned for him before you'd worry about someone you don't know from Eve." Seeing that the self-recrimination on Kairi's face hadn't diminished one bit, Sarah decided to change the subject somewhat. "Really, I'm kind of impressed."
"By what?" Kairi asked, looking back up at Sarah, but still seeming pretty down on herself.
Sarah didn't know if what she was going to say would make the younger girl feel better or not, but she was going to say it nonetheless. "I don't think that most people would have been able to spot that I was acting a bit off," she said, thinking back on all of the other people that she had met during the course of this day. "Or, that I was acting at all. Even if they did, most of them would have just shrugged it off as something normal; like someone having an off day or something. If they didn't just brush it off as themselves seeing things, anyway," she laughed softly, reflectively. "Most people aren't very honest with themselves." When Sarah turned her attention back to Kairi, she found that the younger girl was giving her a once-over, and didn't seem quite sure what to do next. "Sorry," she said, tilting her head and giving the younger girl her best reassuring smile. "Went off on a tangent, there."
"No, it's just…" Kairi shook her head, then looked back up and into "Sora's" eyes with such a profound expression of honest worry that it was all Sarah could do not to wince in sympathy. "It you're here, then where is Sora?"
Ah, that is the million-dollar question, Sarah mused, huffing softly. And really, what could she say in response to that? What did she, honestly, have to offer? Conjecture? Speculation? A random, wild guess that, when this – whatever the hell it was – had happened, Sora's consciousness had swapped places with her own instead of being displaced and flung out into the cosmos; or, worse yet, overwritten?
"I… honestly have no idea," she said, then had to laugh in rueful acknowledgement. "I really don't have much experience with this kind of thing, I have to admit."
Kairi wasn't laughing, of course, since it was her friend's life that was potentially on the line here, but she did seem to be making the effort to smile; if only just for Sarah's sake.
"Sorry," she said, not wanting the younger girl to feel like she had to keep up appearances at a time like this. "When things start going weird on me – particularly this weird – the only thing I figure I can really do is to laugh at them; panicking never really helped anyone, after all. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."
"No, it's all right," Kairi said, glancing down briefly before turning a more genuine smile on her. "I keep forgetting that this is all as strange to you as it is to me," Kairi looked to the side, her expression sheepish. "I keep forgetting to consider your feelings, and I'm sorry for that."
"It's not a problem," she said for the second time that day. "You're worried about your friend; anyone in the words would feel the same." She continued to smile, more for Kairi's sake than her own at this point.
"Thanks," the girl in question said, smiling a bit, but still looking like she didn't quite know what to do or say.
Sarah could definitely understand the sentiment.
"So, I'm guessing you have some questions," she prompted, smiling wryly at the expression on Kairi's face.
"Maybe," the younger girl said, the expression on her face turning solemn again; almost sad, really. "But, there's only one that's really important: is Sora all right?"
Sure, go straight for the unanswerable one, Sarah mused with a sigh; she didn't say it of course, blunt as she was Sarah tried not to be insensitive, but it was still the first thought that came to her mind. "I don't really know," she confessed; sure, comforting lies had their place, but that wasn't what Kairi had asked for. "Really, there's no way for me to know, I don't think. He could be anywhere, really," she said, turning her gaze slightly to take in the vast ocean and the waves that Kairi stood with her back to; these islands really were beautiful, even rendered in PS2 graphics they'd looked good. And she was dodging the issue. "I could just be possessing him; which would be strange enough, let me tell you," she took a short breath, ran "her" tongue over "her" top row of teeth, and pressed on; like any uncomfortable thing that had to be done, best she got this over with quickly. "I could have forced his consciousness out of his body when I ended up here, so he could be drifting un-anchored in the cosmos somewhere. Or-" the sensation or something – rather, several somethings – digging into "her" lower-arms, just above "her" wrists, brought Sarah's attention back to the present moment from where it had apparently strayed.
The expression on the younger girl's face was more determined than any of those that she had worn during any of the games that Sarah had played; as if through sheer force of will – force of belief – she could change reality itself. Maybe she could; it wouldn't have been the first time that Sarah had had something that she could have sworn was impossible actually happen.
It would have been the second, actually.
"No," Kairi said, the pressure of her fingertips as they dug into "Sarah's" lower-arms adding a certain – and certainly painful – counterpoint to the other girl's voice and the expression on her face. "It wasn't anything like that."
She would have asked how the younger girl could be sure of herself and what she was saying, but that would have been completely insensitive. Besides, it was blatantly obvious – from both the tone of her voice and the expression on her face – that Kairi wasn't sure of herself or what she was saying. Desperately trying to convince herself, yes, but she wasn't sure because no one could be sure under these kind of circumstances; no one could really know for sure what had happened to Sora, and Kairi knew this.
That was what was hurting her so much, and that was why Sarah wasn't going to say anything further on the matter until or unless the younger girl asked.
Besides that, she made it a point never to practice psychological warfare on anyone who wasn't her enemy.
"Right," she said, smiling for the other girl's sake. "He's probably a bit freaked out – you know, being stuck in my body and all – but my father and my brothers are most likely helping him settle in."
"Yeah," Kairi said, not looking convinced so much as she looked like she wanted to be convinced; or that she was trying to convince herself. "Thank you," she continued, after a few moments of contemplative silence. Then, with hardly any warning at all, Kairi leaned forward, wrapping her slender arms around "Sora". "And, I'm sorry that you had to get stranded so far from home like this. I promise, I'll do everything I can to help you get back home."
She chuckled softly, touched by the offer and the obvious sentiment behind it. "Thanks," she said, wrapping "her" left arm around the younger girl's upper-back. Then, remembering what was going to happen only a day hence, Sarah sighed. "And, for what it's worth, I'm sorry."
"For what?" Kairi asked, looking back up from where she'd had her chin leaned up against Sora's right shoulder.
Sarah chuckled softly, but more bitterly than she had since first coming to this world. "For not being fast enough."
Kairi obviously didn't understand the admittedly cryptic reference that Sarah was making toward future events, and the end of the world in particular, but that was probably for the best; no sense having two people stuck wondering whether the future was immutable or not.
"We should probably head for the dock," she said, when Kairi didn't seem inclined to break the silence. "Riku might already be there waiting for us."
Best not to get too off-track with regards to in-game events; dense as Riku could be at times, even he wasn't completely stupid.
"All right," Kairi said, seeming a bit dubious but still willing to follow Sarah's lead.
As the two of them separated from their impromptu embrace, Kairi took "Sarah's" right hand and gently began to tug "her" forward. Sarah was glad for the help; the geography of this particular island was more than a little fuzzy in her head – most of the transitions between scenes had been cross-fades, and there hadn't been a flyover to take in the whole island at once that she could clearly recall at the moment – and Sarah would have been the first to admit that she had been a bit too preoccupied with other matters to take much note of her surroundings this first day. Any of her various senseis would have kicked her ass for that kind of a lapse if they'd been here to see it.
Hell, Big Mack himself would have been first in line for that if he could have somehow seen what she'd been doing for the first part of her first day here; hell, he'd have probably had her running that junior-SERE course he'd set up with the help of some of his buddies from the service until she felt like all of her limbs were about to spontaneously detach.
Resisting the urge to shudder at the thought, since it was entirely likely that Kairi would feel it and hence start wondering what else was going on, Sarah turned her attention to studying the island itself. Not for the sake of having a terrain-advantage in future fights – no, that would go straight down the shitter when Darkside showed up and the entire island started coming apart like wet tissue-paper along with the whole planet that it was a part of - but simply so she could get her bearings and not keep feeling so damned lost all the time.
The first thing that she noticed was that they weren't heading toward the dock, but instead back to the tiny islet that she had already been to twice – though admittedly one of those times had been just a dream – and Sarah found that she couldn't quite recall if this was something that had happened in-game, or if this was somehow a product of her interference; it had been some time since she had played this particular game.
When Riku saw the two of them approaching, Kairi still holding "her" right hand as they made their way over to the tree he was leaning against, his eyes seemed to pass right over the other girl – pausing only to take in "her" and Kairi's linked hands – and lock right onto "Sora". Biting back a smirk at the pouty look on his face when their eyes briefly met – he was obviously still pissed about the way she'd thrashed him up, down, and sideways when they had met in combat that one time – he clearly wasn't too happy to see them like that. She was so tempted to smirk at him, or wink, or offer the kid a cheerfully-mocking wave – KH1!Riku being so amusingly easy to rile up and all – but Sarah restrained herself; oblivious Riku might have been, but even a completely stupid person could eventually come to suspect that something was going on, if they were presented with enough evidence.
"So, what were you two doing?" Riku asked, trying to sound nonchalant and failing miserably considering what Sarah already knew about him.
"We were talking," she said, considering and then dismissing the idea of needling him about that.
Kairi already had her pegged, and while she was fairly okay with the other girl knowing that particular secret, being found out by someone as oblivious as Riku would be an insult to her skills as an actress.
"What were you talking about?" Riku asked, still watching Sarah as if he could figure out all of her secrets if he just looked hard enough; fat chance.
"The raft; we're going to need a lot of supplies if we're going to be sailing into possibly-uncharted territory, the way it seems we're planning to." That was always the one thing that had irritated her about this part of the game, no matter how many times she reminded herself that it was just a Disney game and so she shouldn't hold it to any particularly high standards: the almost complete lack of attention to logistics was a real pebble in her shoe whenever the relevant scenes had come up.
Sure, the three of them had just been kids, probably a lot younger than her, and depending on where they lived they may have never been camping before; but, if it hadn't been for the whole world-shattering Kaboom, and the preceding Heartless invasion, Sarah had very few doubts that the three of them would have starved to death en rout to whatever they thought their destination was. If they didn't get caught up in a tropical storm and capsized, anyway.
"Really? Like what?" Riku asked, and for once he seemed completely focused on an important issue.
Sarah decided to make use of Riku's complete focus while she had it; no telling how long it would last.
"Fishing tackle, for one; no telling how long we're going to be at sea," she said, in spite of the fact that she knew damn well that none of them were going to be leaving this island by raft; by other means, yes, but the raft was pretty much just a footnote in their collective story. "So, there's no way to plan out just how many days' worth of food we're going to need."
Riku's jaw worked a bit, like he was either about to say something or just chewing on the inside of his lip while he was deep in thought. "Yeah, good point," he said, his expression far-off and thoughtful in a way that she had never seen on him before. "I think my dad might have some fishing stuff we could use."
"Can you see if you could get him to lend it to us?" she asked, pleased that she had managed to get him to take what she was saying seriously so quickly. "I know he won't be too happy about the whole "borrowing indefinitely" part, but we're going to need that stuff if we're going to have any chance of getting more food after our initial supplies run out."
"No problem, Sora," Riku said, that confident expression that he always seemed to wear appearing on his face again. "I just won't tell him how long I want it for. I mean, what's he going to do once we get underway? Come after the raft so he can ground me?"
Sharing in Riku's clear amusement at the idea of his heretofore-unseen father making any sort of appearance on their adventure – strange as it was going to turn out – Sarah chuckled right along with him. "Good point."
"You shouldn't be so eager to lie to your dad like that," Kairi said, the disapproving look on her face switching from Riku to Sarah herself in the space of about half a second. "And you shouldn't be encouraging him, Sora."
The slight emphasis that Kairi placed on her current alias – the name of the boy whose body she was borrowing – let Sarah know that this conversation probably wasn't one that Sora would have started on his own. But, fuck it; if she'd been stuck here by some kind of cosmic force that was beyond mortal comprehension – which, given everything that had happened and was continuing to happen, was starting to look like an honestly plausible explanation – she was at least going to make some kind of an impact. If the Powers That Be had wanted Sora to handle the upcoming crisis, after all, then Sarah herself wouldn't have ended up getting sucked into her PS2 at the beginning of all this.
And, sweet fricking hell, that was weird to even think about.
"Technically, it's not a lie. Well, strictly speaking," Sarah said, as both Riku and Kairi turned to stare at her with curiosity – in Riku's case – and disapproval.
"How can you say that?" Kairi demanded. "How can something that's not true not be a lie?"
Well, time for an object lesson, she mused. "Riku, what if I told you that there was an uncharted island with incredible treasure; not just more money than you would be able to spend in five lifetimes, but a lamp with a friendly genie inside that would grant you any five wishes you could think up?" she asked, watching the expression on Riku's face change from curiosity to avarice as she described this hypothetical island; clearly this lesson had been insufficiently demonstrated in the past, so she'd have to be a bit pointed with Riku now.
"I'd ask what direction this island of yours was in, and how far I'd need to sail to get to it," the silver-haired boy said, smirking.
Sarah answered with one of her own. "And then? What if, when you got there, you found that the island was surrounded by jagged rocks, sharp enough to reduce even the strongest boat to splinters and broken planks? And, what if you found out that there was a riptide so strong, that – even if it didn't drag you to the bottom of the ocean and drown you – would smash your unprotected body against those rocks until there was nothing left of you but shredded meat and bone-chips? What would you say then?" she asked, light and quiet in the suddenly echoing silence.
"What?! But that- that would be a dirty trick," Riku said, his fingers still twitching as if he wanted to clench his fists but he couldn't decide who – if anyone – he was really angry at.
"Why? Would you have asked about it?" she asked, raising "her" eyebrows in exaggerated – but not entirely feigned – curiosity. "Would you have even thought to wonder why a place with such an obvious attraction remains uncharted? Why no one wanted to put it on a map? Why it would even be there in the first place, if it was something so enticing and wonderful that everyone would want to get their hands on it?"
Riku had fallen completely silent now, jaw working like he wanted to say something, but lips closed as if he couldn't quite figure out what that was. She chuckled. "You've never seen a mouse trap before, have you, Riku?"
"What does that have to do with anything?" Riku asked, looking a bit startled but covering it after a few seconds.
"You've never seen the trigger-mechanism; the way it's set up to hold out a piece of food, just in front of a high-tension bar designed to snap closed when the trigger holding the food is disturbed too much."
"I still don't see why you're telling me-"
"It breaks their necks, Riku," she verbally steamrolled. "You see, a mouse is not typically equipped with the self-awareness necessary to stop and assess a potentially dangerous situation; you are, so I suggest your keep that in mind."
"Sora, what-"
"Nothing is ever truly free; anyone why tries to tell you otherwise is either naïve, using you, or trying to sell you something. Try to keep that in mind, will you?"
There, that was as close as she could come to outright telling Riku that he was going to become the patsy of an evil fairy with ambitions at being a Multiversal Conqueror – which she was inevitably going to fail at, since if she ever made it to the Marvel universe, Dormammumu would eat her alive, and if she tried anything in DC comics or any of its various offshoots, Darksied would be all over her; to say nothing of the kind of mess Maleficent would get herself into if she tried to challenge any of the Chaos Big Four from the Warhammer 40k 'verse – without everyone here thinking she had completely lost her mind. Still, if she managed to actually get Riku to think about the consequences of his actions rather than just reacting all the time, then she would be satisfied.
It would at least give him a better shot at throwing off Maleficent's influence before "Ansem" body-snatched him.
"Sora, I don't think," Kairi began, before sighing and cutting herself off. "Why don't we go back to talking about the raft? What else so you think we'll need, Sora?"
The subtle emphasis that the younger girl put on Sarah's currently assumed name, combined with the rather pointed look the younger girl was giving her – with the expression of complete and utter "what the fuck?" that Riku was wearing providing a rather amusing contrast, particularly since the two of them were standing so close together – let Sarah know that she and Kairi would likely be having some sort of a Serious Talk at some point in the not-too-distant future. For now, however, she had camping advice to a pair of people who had clearly never been camping before in their lives; how fun.
"We're going to need something to sleep on; sleeping bags if we can manage it, blankets and quilts if we can't, and either way we're going to need pillows. After all, it's not like we're going to be able to check into a hotel and use their beds, at least not without any money."
"Maybe we should bring some along, then," Riku said, clearly having gotten over his brain-lock at what she had said to him; time would tell if he actually listened, but that was an important first step all the same. "Just is case we do find a hotel over there, or at least a supermarket."
"Yes, and maybe we should bring some hunting gear along so we'll have something to trade if we run into fur trappers," she said, in that dry, deadpan tone she always reserved for when she was being particularly sarcastic.
Naturally, Riku didn't pick up on a bit of it. "Yeah, that's a good idea; I'll see what I can get from my dad," Riku looked back up, his calculating expression fading to a slightly sheepish one. "I'm going to have to wait until we actually have the raft ready to set sail before I can actually get it out here; no way is my dad going to let me borrow his hunting rifle, even if I do get him to lend me those three fishing poles."
"Your dad has a hunting rifle?" Kairi asked, just before Sarah could articulate that selfsame question.
Though really, she was more amused by the sheer incongruity of something so deadly as a rifle – she wondered for a moment what brand of rifle it was, if brands here were somehow the same as in her world, and just where Riku's father had managed to obtain a firearm in the first place – in a world as comparatively gentle as KH1.
"Yeah, my dad likes to go off on hunting trips when he has the time off from work," Riku said, adopting a thoughtful, reflective expression. "He says that it's nice to remind himself that he's still alive when he gets out of the office," Riku paused for a moment, seeming to marshal his thoughts. "I don't really know what he means, but he always sounds happy when he says that."
Sarah could guess what the man in question had been getting at, even though they had never met, and weren't likely to do so in the future; even if you were doing a job that you honestly loved – like she was, or like the guys at Channel Awesome who employed her for some of their more elaborate physical effects – it was still nice to take the time to do something more physical, just to do something that was completely outside of your normal routine.
Didn't matter of it was hunting, sky-diving, B.A.S.E. jumping, or something entirely different, just so long as it was something you didn't spend all of your time on during day-to-day life.
Though she, personally, preferred a crossbow when she went out hunting; since they were quieter than rifles, and a bolt was a hell of a lot easier to remove from a carcass than a rifle bullet. Still, at least Riku's father, whoever the hell he was, didn't hunt with a shotgun; she'd never been able to take anyone who hunted with a shotgun seriously. And, at least the world was going to explode before she would be forced to explain the finer points of gun safety to someone who could – charitably – be considered rather impulsive.
"All right," she said, once it had become obvious that no one else was going to continue the conversation. "So, we'll have the option to fish or to hunt after we get away from civilization, the means to shop or trade if we meet up with other people, and a warm place to sleep when we get tired," she listed off, more for her own benefit than either of theirs; if there was anything that this expedition of theirs was missing, she was the one most likely to spot it. "Ah, we'll also need something to cook with, if we don't want to be stuck eating raw food all the time," she mused, chewing "her" lower lip thoughtfully.
"Can't we just cook things over a fire?" Riku asked, sounding curious and slightly dismissive.
"Sure, if all you're thinking about is catching fish," she retorted, smirking. "And, somehow I doubt you'd enjoy the prospect of shoving raw, bloody meat chunks onto skewers when you inevitably got tired of eating fish all the time."
"Sora, that's gross," Riku said, a smirk starting to show on his face, too.
"That doesn't make it any less true," she returned, half-closing "her" eyes in amusement at Riku's antics.
"All right, that's enough teasing, you two," Kairi said, firmly interposing herself between the two of them. "Anyway, it's getting really late; we should start heading home."
When Kairi finished that sentence, she had been turned slightly more toward Riku, having once glanced at "Sora" before looking to the silver-haired boy, probably as a compromise owing to the fact that she couldn't look both of them in the eye at once. However, as soon as she had said those two last, little words, the younger girl winced, looking back at Sarah with an easily readable expression of mixed guilt and remorse on her face. Sarah, for her part, didn't have to waste time guessing the reason for that.
Clapping Kairi on the right shoulder, with a smile to show that there weren't any hard feelings for the other girl's perceived insensitivity, Sarah shrugged. "I think we've about covered everything we need for this trip, so let's head back now. Just don't forget what we talked about, you two," she said, though she was speaking more for Riku's benefit than for Kairi's.
He wasn't exactly the brightest crayon in the box, and he was impulsive enough that it almost didn't matter if he was, so best to remind him as gently as she could.
"Don't worry, Sora," Riku said, cocky smirk in place once again. "I'll make sure we have everything we need; just leave it to me."
"I'll hold you to that," she said, grinning in spite of the fact that she fully intended to pack her own travel bag.
Not for some rafting/camping trip that was never actually going to happen, but for the hotel she was going to be staying in during the times when she wasn't exploring Traverse Town or traveling between worlds with Donald and Goofy. She'd already begun to compose a list of supplies in her head, one that she would commit to paper before she went to bed tonight, while the three of them were making their way back to the boats they had come here on.
And, as first Riku and then Kairi and then she all launched their small craft into the open water, Sarah continued to hold her list in the back of her mind.
She'd already done this once before, and she still had Sora's muscle-memory to fall back on; besides, as unlikely as it was considering her previous experience with such, it was possible that she had forgotten something during her initial list making.
By the time the three of them had made landfall again, the sun had started to set in earnest and Sarah had remembered an essential part of any travel-pack, particularly when one was going to be heading into contested, hostile territory: a First Aid kit. She would probably have to build one herself, since it wasn't like she could go buy one in the limited time she had to work with, and she wasn't going to take Sora's family's even if they had one. It would take a bit more time and effort to assemble one from scratch than just using a pre-made kit, but if it turned out that Sora's family didn't have one, she would still have one of her own.
"Sora, would you mind walking me home?" Kairi asked, bringing Sarah's attention back to her present circumstances once more.
Climbing up and out of the boat she'd still been sitting in, Sarah ran "her" hands through "her" hair as she stretched "her" legs. "All right, Kairi. If you really want me to."
"I do," the other girl said, giving her a "this is very important" look.
"Just make sure you don't space out during the trip there, Sora," Riku said, smirking at the pair of them. "Otherwise you'll both end up getting lost."
He was completely oblivious to the subtext of their conversation, but in this case there was no reason for him not to be. He wasn't being dense in this case, he was just uninformed. So, Sarah was willing to let this case slide.
"I'll keep that in mind," she returned, smirking slightly herself. "You just keep in mind that Kairi and I are counting on you to get us those supplies. We can get the sleeping stuff on our own, but we're counting on you for the fishing tackle." She wasn't going to mention the hunting rifle, and with any luck Riku would forget about it entirely; the last thing anyone needed was for someone so obviously unstable to have access to such an unambiguously deadly weapon. "Don't futz this one up, okay?"
"Right," the silver-haired boy said, his smirk becoming wider and more clearly amused. "I won't futz things up." He chuckled. "Futz; where do you come up with these weird words, Sora?"
Better that than certain other words I could have used, Sarah didn't say. "It's just a natural talent, I suppose." She smirked.
"Well, if you say so," Riku said, reaching out to muss up Sora's hair; as if anyone could do even a bit of damage to a hairstyle that was so ridiculous to start out with.
"Well, if you're done trying to fix my hair, something I don't thing can actually be done by the way, I think I should see about getting Kairi home," she smiled easily. "The sun's almost set, and I don't think Kairi's family in going to be particularly happy with me if I don't get her home before full dark." She grinned, waving to Riku and trying not to laugh at the "fishslapped" expression on his face. "I'll see you tomorrow, Riku."