Song list: L'Arc~en~Ciel "Ready, steady, go!"; Porno Graffiti "Mellissa."
As Kairi tugged her away from the small dock – barely distinguishable from the one that she had seen on the Destiny Islands – Sarah fell into step with the other girl, waiting until they were both out of Riku's earshot to begin what was likely to be a particularly interesting conversation.
"That was a good bluff; I have no idea where your house is."
"You're from another world, aren't you?" Kairi asked, and the expression that the younger girl turned on Sarah was one of such earnest, wide-eyed curiosity that it was all she could do to keep herself from laughing at the sheer adorability of the expression.
"That's been the general assumption I've been operating on," she slanted a half-lidded "this is probably stupid" look at Kairi as the two of them continued on their way. "Unless you've actually heard of a place called California."
"No, I haven't," Kairi said. "Is that the name of your world? It's very nice."
Biting "her" tongue so she wouldn't be tempted to laugh, Sarah couldn't quite suppress the amused smile on "her" face. "No, California's the name of my home state. The planet I live on is called Earth; or Terra, or Chikuu, if you want to bring other languages into this," she paused for a moment, casting back through her memory for the third language she spoke; though she would have been the first to admit that she didn't speak that one nearly as well as she did the other two. "I'd tell you the German name of my planet, but I can't remember it off the top of my head."
"Wow," Kairi said, turning back to Sarah with an expression of wonder on her face. "Your world has three different languages?"
Sarah laughed softly, as the two of them continued their slow walk. "Oh, there are quite a few more than just those three," she said, reaching back to run "her" hands through "her" hair. "And no one really uses Latin in conversation anymore; it's mostly a language for scientists, historians, and scholars." And the 40k 'verse, where it was known as High Gothic, but that would have taken entirely too long to explain.
"So, your world has an entire language just for people whose job it is to study things?" the younger girl asked, seeming both amused and a bit charmed by the idea. "Do all of them learn two languages, just to be able to communicate with other people?"
"No, not really," she said, pausing for a moment to consider how to explain the significance of Latin in relation to science and other areas of study. "They mostly use it for classifications and other things like that; so-called scientific names, you understand?"
"Yeah, I think I do," Kairi said, then she smiled. "Your world must be an interesting place."
"It definitely has its good points," she said, as the two of them continued walking.
They had begun treading on distinctly familiar territory by this time, so Sarah knew that she would have to get back into her "Sora" persona soon if she didn't want anyone else making the connections that Kairi already had.
"Well, good night," Kairi said, as the two of them reached what seemed to be the halfway point between Kairi's house and Sora's own.
"Good night, Kairi," she said, tilting her head slightly as she smiled at the younger girl.
Just after Kairi had turned away, when she had clearly been about to start making her way back to her own home, the younger girl turned back to face her. "Sora's mom goes to work early during the week, so she might already be gone by the time you wake up."
"That's good to know," she said, having been wondering on and off all day just how she would manage to prepare for her upcoming offworld journey without drawing any more attention than she clearly already had. "Thanks for keeping me posted."
"You're welcome, I guess," Kairi said, still looking a bit confused.
"I'll see you tomorrow, then," she said, clapping Kairi's right shoulder as she herself turned to leave for Sora's house.
"Wait," Kairi called suddenly; Sarah paused, turning to look back over Sora's right shoulder with a slightly raised eyebrow. An expression that she couldn't quite read passed over the younger girl's face, but it was gone almost as quickly as it had come, so she dismissed it almost as fast. "I've been meaning to ask you this since I… well, since I found out, but then we started talking about what your world was like, and then it started getting late and we needed to get back home, well I needed to get back home, I know you can't really get back home without some kind of help, and I'm really sorry about that-"
"You know you're rambling, right?" she asked, smiling softly at the younger girl as she fell silent; she'd already turned to face Kairi more squarely, just to avoid getting a crick in Sora's neck while the two of them talked.
"Yeah, I guess I was," Kairi said, laughing in a way that sounded distinctly rueful. "What I meant to ask you, before we both got distracted, was what you're name is," the younger girl said at last.
"It's Sarah; with an 'h'," she said, giving the specifics out of long-ingrained habit.
Turning to leave once more, wanting to have at least some light to navigate by on her way to Sora's house, Sarah found Kairi walking beside her once again.
"I thought you might want some help getting back to Sora's house, since you've only been there once before," the younger gild said, in response to Sarah's curious expression.
"Decent of you; thanks," she said, as Kairi linked her arm with Sora's and the two of them made their way down the path to the kid's house. Kairi laughed softly, drawing Sarah's attention away from the list of supplies that she had been mentally compiling.
"It's just, I finally understand what you meant when you told Riku that he was a syllable off when he was calling to you this morning."
"Ah, so he told you about that," she said, thinking back with some amusement on this strangest of all days, back when she'd first thought that all of this was just some kind of a dream; she'd long since dismissed that claim.
Dreams, even particularly vivid ones, were simply not this detailed and did not last this long.
"That was also something I wanted to ask you," the younger girl said, stopping in her tracks just a few feet from the front door of Sora's house; Sarah stopped as well, not wanting to pull the younger girl off her feet, and at the same time curious about just what other question Kairi wanted to ask her. "Riku told me that you called him Kadaj, when you were still half-asleep," the younger girl continued, and Sarah got the distinct feeling that she already knew just what the question was going to be. "He didn't really think it meant anything, and I'm pretty sure he's forgotten about it completely by now, but it seemed a little strange to me that Sora would say something like that." There was a faraway expression on Kairi's face as she spoke, but it cleared and was replaced with a gentle smile. "Then, when I realized you weren't actually Sora, I also realized what you meant when you said that. Kadaj is one of your friends, back on your world, isn't he."
How to properly explain this without sounding crazy? Sarah mused; she didn't even know if they had fandom here on whatever planet this was, much less how those "outside" of certain fandoms – or outside of fandom itself – thought of those inside. "I guess you could say that," she said, settling for a half-truth again.
"What do you mean?" Kairi asked, her expression becoming one of curiosity again.
"We don't really know each other very well," she said, deciding against explaining that Kadaj – and his "brothers" Yazoo and Loz – was a character in a franchise that she was sort of a fan of, for the interrelated reasons that it was fairly late, she was getting tired, and Sora's mom wasn't likely to be very happy with "him" if she stayed out here talking for too long. "Look, it's getting late, and I'm sure your parents won't be too happy with me if they find me keeping you out here all night," Sarah said, having to stifle a brief yawn even as she spoke.
Kairi yawned outright, making the younger girl giggle while Sarah herself chuckled softly. "Okay, I guess I can see your point, Sarah." The amusement on the younger girl's face was short-lived, however, and was soon replaced with a soft expression that Sarah didn't quite have time to identify before she found the younger girl hugging her tightly. "Have a good night's sleep, Sarah. And, don't worry: I'll help you find your way back home," the younger girl said, with such firm conviction that Sarah would have believed it herself if she hadn't already known what was coming.
"Thanks," she said, holding Kairi a bit tighter; she was a good kid, and while it was a shame that one of her friends was a self-absorbed prick with his head so far up his ass that he could lick his own kidneys, she was fairly sure that the only thing drowning Riku would accomplish now would be to delay the coming Heartless invasion. The floodgates had already been opened, and the only option left was to close them; there was nothing for it but to make the journey. "Thanks a lot," she said, briefly squeezing Kairi tighter before the two of them separated and Sarah made her way up the stone-lined path to Sora's house alone.
Turning to wink over "her" left shoulder. She smiled slightly as Kairi waved to her, then turned her attention back to the path, making her way up to the door of the house where Sora and his family lived. Said door opened before she could even reach out for the knob, however, so Sarah tucked "her" hands back into "her" pockets and simply waited. Sora's mom stood in the doorway, looking down at her son with an expression of parental concern that was very easy for Sarah to place.
"What were you doing out so late, Sora?"
"Sorry, Mom." And that really did get easier to say with repetition. "Kairi and I were talking, and I kind of lost track of time."
"Well, I'm glad that the two of you are such good friends, but I'd still like you to get home before it's dark," Sora's mother said, wagging an admonishing finger at "him". "You're a growing boy, Sora; you need your sleep."
Well, two out of three ain't bad, Sarah reflected, biting the inside of "her" cheek to keep from smirking in amusement. It had passed into full dark by now, and she was beginning to get tired. She still had things to take care of before she could actually go to sleep, yes, but that was beside the point.
Letting Sora's mother guide her back to the room she had awakened in, Sarah bid the older woman goodnight and then made her way over to the desk that she hadn't been able to see before she'd so unceremoniously arrived here. As her eyes began to adjust to the low light of the room, allowing Sarah to see the placement of objects within Sora's room and hence to stop relying exclusively on her sense of touch to navigate, she found that there was indeed a small lamp atop the desk itself. Every desk seemed to be equipped with one of them – computer desks being the only exception in her experience – and Sarah was glad to note that this one followed the trend as well.
Feeling along the base, up the neck, and across the head of the lamp, Sarah soon located the switch in the center of the lamp's rounded head. Gripping the switch so that she wouldn't lose track of it, Sarah turned the chair around so that its back now faced the desk she stood in of, grabbed one of the spare sheets of loose-leaf paper on Sora's desk – their whiteness still reflecting the light coming in through the windows even though it was pretty pitiful – and finally turned around so that she herself was facing away from the desk and its small lamp. The comparative flood of light as she turned the lamp on didn't, therefore, hurt Sarah's eyes quite as much as it would have if she'd actually been facing the lamp, but it did completely destroy her night-vision and leave her blinking harshly in its wake.
Rubbing her eyes to soothe away the slight ache caused by the sudden light, Sarah settled herself down in the chair and focused her attention back on the supply list that she had been mentally composing when she had found the time to think. The first item on the list was, of course, to assemble a First Aid kit so that she wouldn't be forced to rely too much on expensive healing potions or MP-draining spells; and for that, she would need to gather – or make, but that was more a last resort than anything else – bandages, alcohol or some other kind of disinfectant for cleaning wounds, splints, possibly a tourniquet if she could find the materials to properly fasten one, and band-aids for anything too small for a cloth bandage.
Some people might have found that kind of planning excessive, probably particularly if they had played the game before, but her dad and Big Mack himself had both taught her that it was a hell of a lot better to have something and not need it than it was to need something and not have it.
The next item – or several items, depending on how you looked at it; though she was still going to list them as just one – was several days' worth of clean clothes; because there was no way in hell that she was going to spend an unknown amount of days and nights without showering. The next item after that was, naturally, provisions for the journey that she was about to undertake. Perishable items to be eaten first, and then more long-lasting foods that she could take on the ship for eating while they were in transit. The next after that were backup weapons, whatever blades or bludgeons that she could lay her hands to, since she wasn't going to make the mistake of relying exclusively on the Keyblade the way Sora had.
As she'd been told before, on many different occasions and by many different people including Big Mack himself: use all weapons, but trust only in yourself. You had to be a weapon, to have the proper mindset, before you could expect to use any other weapon proficiently.
Next on the list were the various toiletries she was going to be making use of during the course of her of her journey. And last, but certainly not least by any means, was the duffel bag – or at least the very large travel bag – that she was going to take to the hotel, and the smaller pack that she was going to carry a day's supplies in.
Settling back into Sora's chair, Sarah revised the list she had made, looking for any essential items that she had missed, or anything that she might want to add. Finding nothing of the sort, Sarah got up, folded the list in half, plucked the journal she had started out of the oversized pocket of Sora's gray shorts, tucked said list neatly inside the front cover, and then slipped the thing back inside "her" left pocket and started to undress.
This was the last night that she was going to have the luxury of doing so, Sarah knew, and so she was going to enjoy it while she could; on this world, at least. Flicking off Sora's desk lamp, Sarah made her way back through the now almost-oppressive darkness back to Sora's bed. When "her" shins made contact with the bed frame, her night-vision having been degraded enough to be almost useless at that point, Sarah removed "her" shorts and tossed the shirt she had been carrying onto the carpet. Yawning widely one last time, Sarah climbed up into the bed and made herself comfortable.
Sighing contentedly as she closed "her" eyes, Sarah slowly drifted off to sleep in the dark, silent confines of Sora's room.
KH1
Awakened the next morning by a sense of urgency that she would have been hard-pressed to explain to anyone else who had been in the room with her, Sarah looked over at the clock. Just as she'd been expecting, it was almost a full half-hour before she'd set the alarm to go off; that was the way it always seemed to work for her: the alarm was just something to get her body to wake itself up at an appointed time, she'd never ended up actually hearing the thing. Even her own iPod alarm back home, she just left on because she'd always enjoyed having music to go along with her morning routine.
Shutting off the alarm clock she'd found before its harsh ringing could tempt her to pitch it at the nearest wall and then straight out the window – not to mention prompting Sora's mom to wonder just why he had set his alarm during summer vacation in the first place – Sarah climbed out of bed, ran "her" hands through "her" hair in an effort as familiar to her as it was most likely futile, and shifted to seat "herself" on the edge of Sora's bed. Pulling the clothes that "she" had worn yesterday back on – she'd only worn them once, so they were good for at least one more day of light-to-moderate activity, though she was definitely changing them when she got to Traverse Town and managed to finagle a shower – and made her way over to Sora's closet. Sarah looked for and quickly found a backpack large enough to suit her needs while "she" and her future traveling companions were making their way from world to world on their appointed quest.
Scanning the racks of clothes in front of her, Sarah took a moment to recall the kind of environments that they were going to be dealing with on said quest; it only took her a few moments.
All right, so: desert, jungle, what amounts to someone's back garden gone a bit wild, a tamer version of Gotham City, someplace completely underwater, a small ship, another city, what pretty much amounts to a steampunk castle, an arena, and somewhere that I won't really be getting to until this is pretty much all over and done with, she mused, tapping "her" lower lip with "her" pointer-finger the way she always tended to do when she was deep in thought or making plans. Of the environments that she, Donald, and Goofy would be facing, she really only had to worry about actual environmental hazards in three of them: Agrabah, whose hot, dry environs would suck the moisture right out of you, and whose almost blinding sun reflecting off the wide expanse of sand could easily disorient you, getting you lost and dropping you dead of exposure and heat-exhaustion if you were careless, unlucky, or stupid; Deep Jungle, where it would be entirely too easy to catch a foot on one of the many vines and creepers running along the jungle floor and violently twist or break one's ankle while battling Heartless, to say nothing of the various kinds of insect – both bloodsucking and not – that made their home in every jungle that she had ever read about back home; Hollow Bastion was going to be a bitch and a half to plan for, not because of any natural hazards – there were precious few natural things in that architect's-nightmare-designed-by-a-mad-Spark-on-L SD of an excuse for a castle – but because the very things that would actually keep her safe from myriad hazards of the environment there: climbing ropes, pitons, and harnesses for a start; were the very things that she couldn't get without access to a fair amount of money and a sporting good store to spend it at.
Sarah hated that; not being able to adequately prepare for hazardous situations grated on her nerves in a way that few other things ever had or ever could; still, this was what she had to work with, so this was what she was going to use.
Zipping open the faded-yellow backpack that she had found in Sora's closet, Sarah began to take out the clothes that she would need during the journey she was about to undertake. She didn't much care what colors they were, so long as they weren't gaudy and they didn't clash too horribly. She honestly preferred to wear darker shades or more muted tones; but, then again, she would have honestly have preferred not to be here in the first damn place, so it really wasn't like her personal preferences counted for much at the moment.
Riffling through Sora's closet, Sarah came up with two pairs of long pants – useful for keeping bugs and other annoying things off of her in the jungle, or for keeping her warm in the cold desert night – a windbreaker – good for pretty much the same thing, though it wouldn't be quite as effective at retaining heat as the long pants she'd slung over "her" left arm; or a real jacket, but she doubted that she'd have much of a chance finding one considering the climate – several pairs of shorts and short-sleeved shirts, and or all things a dark-blue hoodie. Chuckling softly at the sheer incongruity of finding something like that in Sora's closet – sure, the kid had his share of hooded outfits, but most of them had been sleeveless; however the hell that had ended up working out – she decided to take it along just for the hell of it. She'd liked wearing hoodies even before playing Prototype.
Checking Sora's closet one last time, Sarah made sure that there wasn't anything useful she had missed. There wasn't, but Sarah had always believed it was better to be over-prepared than the reverse. Especially considering what she knew was going to be coming tomorrow. Of course, no one in their right mind was likely to think that you could be over-prepared for the end of the world.
Moving back over to Sora's bed, Sarah removed the clothes from "her" arm, let Sora's backpack fall from "her" shoulder at last, and yawned briefly as she began to roll up the previously hanging clothes and pack them away in preparation for her upcoming journey.
Once that was finished, Sarah turned her attention to the large chest of drawers set flush against the wall midway between Sora's bed and his closet. Making her way over to it, Sarah found that the bottom two drawers contained socks and underwear, which was in stark contrast to the one she had in her closet back at home; Sarah sometimes wondered if she was the only one to keep her own socks and underwear in the top drawers rather than the bottom.
Picking out a variety of socks, thicker for when she would need better insulation against the cold and thinner for when she would need to pay more attention to the heat, Sarah rolled them a bit tighter so that they would take up that much less space, then made her way back over to Sora's bed to pack them. Finishing with that task, Sarah returned to the chest of drawers, grabbed every last pair of underwear in the second-bottommost drawer with both of "her" hands, and returned to Sora's bed and the backpack on top of it.
Rolling up the individual pairs and packing them away, Sarah found herself wondering once more just what kind of weapons – improvised or otherwise – she would be able to collect for herself here. Knives were the most likely; everyone she'd ever known of had a set of knives in their kitchen, bought for slicing, chopping, and peeling vegetables if they didn't eat meat for whatever reason.
Maybe they wouldn't have a set of carbon steel knives-for-all-occasions, or a bread knife large enough to double as a short sword, she'd still be able to handle cutters and peelers and steak knives well enough to make the stupid or the unwary regret ever having tangled with her.
Once she had finished packing the last of "her" clothes, Sarah stood up and stretched to wake herself up a bit more, and to work out the kinks that came naturally from sitting in any one position for too long. Making her way over to the door of Sora's room, Sarah pressed "her" right ear against it and waited for a few moments. Collecting weapons, assembling medkits, and stocking provisions wasn't really something she could really do while Sora's mom was still kicking around the house; it being something that would have raised inconvenient questions if "she" were spotted in the process; likely enough starting with just what in the hell "she" thought "she" was doing.
Though perhaps not so bluntly put.
Still, the fact remained that if she wanted to avoid complications at this stage, then she would have to avoid Sora's mom as well. To that end, Sarah held her silence and listened at the door for any sound indicating that Sora's mom was still in the house with her.
The sound of footsteps, muffled though they were by the carpet in the hall, propelled Sarah into action. Moving quickly but quietly back down the length of Sora's room, she shoved the kid's backpack just far enough under the bed that no one who wasn't actually looking for it would be able to see the thing, then quickly climbed back into Sora's bed and pulled up his covers far enough over "her" body so that the clothes "she" was wearing wouldn't be visible to anyone who didn't check for them. Closing "her" eyes and relaxing as best as she could under the circumstances, Sarah found herself both pleased and rather relieved at the fact that she hadn't yet picked out a pair of shoes to wear.
A few seconds later, the door to Sora's room opened, and Sarah heard someone making their way inside.
Relaxing herself to the point where she probably would have been able to fool the more observant of her brothers – or even Big Mack himself, if only for a few seconds – Sarah focused on one of the meditations that a sensei whose name she couldn't quite call to mind at the moment had taught her. Focusing her thoughts on a point just beyond what she would have been able to see if "her" eyes were still open, Sarah let herself fall further into that state of mixed awareness and not-quite-awareness even as she heard the person – most likely Sora's mom – making their way into Sora's room with "her".
When that same someone kissed "her" softly on "her" upturned right cheek, Sarah thought that it had to have been Sora's mom who'd come into the room with "her" – this kind of thing really did seem like more of a Mom thing than a Dad thing; at least, her dad didn't do things like that – and that supposition was only confirmed by the newcomer's words:
"Have a great day, Sora honey. Your father and I will be home just as soon as we can."
For a few, long moments, as Sora's mother was making her way out of his room, Sarah found herself wondering just what she and Sora's as-yet-unseen father did for a living; what their names were; and, out of the almost morbid sent of curiosity that she had developed regarding underdeveloped background characters in stories just like this one, what they had been thinking and doing when the sky had opened up and the world itself apart all around them.
Neither of them had been developed at all during the course of the one-and-a-half games in the series that she had actually played; she pretty much doubted they would be in the future, either. Their only real purpose in-game had been to show that Sora wasn't an orphan, or else vat-grown in a factory somewhere. Hell, the both of them combined had had less of a presence in their own son's story than Fumio Fukamachi had had in Guyver; and he'd just been brought in to showcase Chronos' true ruthlessness unleashed.
When Sora's mother left, closing the door behind her the way she'd likely been taught to do by her own parents, Sarah held herself in meditation until she could at least be reasonably sure that Sora's father wasn't going to be adding his own goodbyes, then opened "her" eyes and stared at Sora's door for a few, long moments.\
They seemed like nice enough people, or at least Sora's mom did, so the fact that she was pretty much leaving them to their fates when the world ended didn't sit well with her at all. Still, it wasn't as if there was anything she could really do about that. They weren't likely to take a letter from a mysterious, otherworldly benefactor seriously; anything she said would sound completely pants-on-head crazy without some kind of extraordinary proof to back up "her" story. And, by the time she got her hands on the Keyblade, this world was pretty much done for.
And, any way you looked at it, she had no one to vouch for her story in any case.
Frustrating as it was not to be able to help people who'd shown her such hospitality, even if they hadn't ultimately known what they were doing, it looked like she was going to have to leave Sora's parents to their fate. She hated that thought, but unfortunately hating something wasn't likely to make it any less true. Not even here, in a place where magic was a fundamental force of the universe.
Levering herself up and out of Sora's bed for the second and last time, Sarah yanked the backpack back out from under it and slung the thing over "her" right shoulder. There were a lot of things that she was going to have to do today if she wanted to be prepared for tomorrow; best she got to them quickly. First things first, of course, she mused, shifting her course so that she was headed for the bathroom.
There was bound to be a closet nearby that she could raid for the supplies necessary to construct her First Aid kit. And if not, then she would probably at least find it somewhere in the general vicinity. Linen closets always seemed to be close to the bathroom, for convenience's sake if not out of respect for tradition.
Finding herself humming softly under "her" breath as she made her way down the hall, Sarah almost stopped out of hand, since both of her encounters with Sora's friends indicated that that wasn't something he was known for doing at all. But hell, it wasn't like there was anyone in the house to hear her, and this really was the last chance he was going to get to indulge herself.
At least for the rest of today.
"Ready, steady, can't hold me back," she sang softly, standing just in front of the closet beside the bathroom. "Ready, steady, give me good luck." Pulling open the door, Sarah found that this was indeed the linen closet just like she'd been hoping for. "Ready, steady, never look back." Gathering up three washcloths and a small towel – long and short strips for bandaging wounds – Sarah draped them over "her" left arm and continued to look through the closet in search of rubbing alcohol or some other kind of disinfectant; it wouldn't do anyone any good to bind up wounds that hadn't been cleaned. "Let's get started; ready, steady, go!"
Not having found the rest of what she was looking for in the closet, Sarah moved into the bathroom itself.
"Fukitonde yuku fukei, korugaru you ni mae e." The compartment behind the bathroom mirror was just the same as the one in her house, and Sarah smiled softly at the sheer familiarity of it. "Kurushi magure demo, hyoteki wa mou minagasanai."
Plucking out a selection of larger and smaller band-aids from the various boxes that she found, Sarah was also pleased to note that there was a nearly full bottle of rubbing alcohol sitting on one of the higher shelves. She picked it up and tucked it into the crook of "her" left arm.
"Ate ni narani chizu, yakute shimaeba ii sa." Making "her" way back down the hall on her way to the house's kitchen, Sarah smiled just a bit wider. She could almost swear, that if she just concentrated hard enough, she could hear L'Arc~en~Ciel playing in the background.
It was kind of fun.
"Uzumoreta de tsukami torou." Reaching the kitchen, already beginning to ride the wave of energy that most of her favorite songs summoned up from somewhere deep inside of her. Sarah swung in on the threshold and continued on her way into the room. Stopping just long enough to drop all of the items that she had collected off on the tabletop, Sarah continued on her way over to the drawers and cupboards that made up a good proportion of the far wall. Along with the sink that she was going to be putting to use later.
"Muchuu de, hayaku!" she sang out, throwing "her" head back as she continued moving forward. "Kake, nukete kita. Urusai kurai ni harisaki sou na kodou no takanari. Hibite, yonde!" throwing "her" head back once more, Sarah pulled open the drawer in front of her and then almost instantly dismissed its contents as useless: measuring spoons and the like. She closed that door almost as quickly as she had opened it. "Iru, kimi no koe. Koko de tachidomaru you na jikan wa nai sa. Ready, steady, go!"
Moving on, she checked the next three drawers.
"Kazoe kirena kizu, kakae konde ite mo," the first one had only two things that she was interested in: a roll of tape and a hammer, which she tucked into the left pocket of Sora's shorts. "Chotto yasotto ja, tamashi made wa ubawasenai." The second had nothing of the sort. But the third one more than made up for the deficiencies of the first and the rather underwhelming finds in the first: the third was the knife drawer. "Ano oka no mukau de, kimi ni deaeta nara." She took four of the standard-sized steak knives, two paring knives – as they would be much easier to conceal and would do nearly as much damage if used right – and one more after a moment's consideration. "Nani kara hana sou, sonna koto bakari omou yo."
Making her way back to the kitchen table, Sarah dropped off the knives that she had elected to take on her trip. There had also been a mini-cleaver in that drawer, but anyone who wasn't an idiot could see that those things were a hell of a lot better suited to intimidation than they were to actual combat.
"Muchuu de, hayaku!" pulling out the chair closest to her, Sarah plopped down into it and grabbed the towel nearest "her" right elbow.
"Kake, nukete kita. Urusai kurai ni harisaki sou na kodou no takanari." Wrapping the knives that she had gathered up in the towel so that they wouldn't shift around inside the pack while she was trying to essentially escape Ragnarök, Sarah made herself a mental note to secure them better once she made it to Traverse Town.
"Hibite, yonde!" digging under the socks that she had already packed for her trip, Sarah carefully nestled the bundle of knives in between two of the shirts that she had packed beforehand. "Iru, kimi no koe." Once she had set the backpack she was working with back to rights, Sarah zipped the thing back up and left the table again. "Koko de tachidomaru you na jikan wa nai sa. Ready, steady, go!"
The next things she needed to find was a pair of scissors, so that she could begin making bandages to put in her First Aid kit – scratch-built as it was going to be – and something to hold the kit itself. Her best bet for that was probably going to end up being one of Sora's lunch boxes or something like that. "Ready, steady, can't hold me back. Ready, steady, give me good luck. Ready, steady, never look back. Let's get started, ready, steady, go!"
With half of the drawers in Sora's family's modest kitchen searched, and a pair of scissors in Sora's right pocket for her trouble, Sarah turned her attention to the cabinets.
"Kokoro wa, hashiru!" the first three that she checked were filled with pots, pans, and other cooking paraphernalia that Sarah had less than zero interest in at this point. "Ano sora no shita." The fourth of the cabinets was under the sink, so it came as no surprise when that one was filled with cleaning products and sponges, and other things of that ilk. "Karamawari suru kimochi ga sakebi dasu no o tomerarenai. " The next one down the line was full of Tupperware containers, or something that looked enough like them that it didn't make much of a difference. "Kimi made, todoke!" Marking that one off for when she started gathering provisions for her trip, Sarah turned her attention to the last cabinet on this side of the room. "Kitto ato sukoshi."
The lunchbox that "she" was now holding both looked and felt like something out of one of those retro shops that sold stuff from the 50s, but it would serve her purposes well enough, so Sarah put it out of her mind. "Atsuku hizashi ga terasu kono michi no mukou. Ready, steady, go? Ah please, trust me!"
Making her way back to the table, Sarah settled back down, set the now-open lunchbox down just outside of her work area, and began to gather up the towels and washcloths that she had previously found to make bandages out of; she left out one of the washcloths so that it could be used for cleaning wounds if she ended up needing to do so, of course. By this time, Sarah was starting to seriously miss her iPod; having music during long, monotonous jobs like this had always seemed to make them go by a hell of a lot faster.
Still, just because she didn't have her iPod, that didn't mean she didn't have to go without music.
"Kimi no te de, kirisaite tooi, hi no kioku wo," grabbing the scissors, Sarah set about methodically dismembering the various towels and washcloths she'd placed on the table in front of her. "Kanashimi no, iki no ne wo, tometekure yo. Saa, ai ni kogareta mune wo tsuranuke!"
As she was rolling up her makeshift bandages and packing them neatly away inside what was most likely one of the lunchboxes that Sora used for school, Sarah realized that she had forgotten splints when she had made her initial calculations about what she was going to need for this First Aid kit of hers. Sure, magic opened up quite a few more possibilities for dealing with wounds than any "normal" person could ever have at their disposal, but that still didn't change the fact that Ethers and Potions – for restoring magical power and physical health, respectively – were pretty damned expensive. And, unlike back when she was the only one who wasn't a pre-programmed A.I. with all the limited-responses that implied, here people would actually notice that "Sora" seemed more interested in hunting Heartless for money – or Munny, here – than "he" was in saving the various worlds.
"Asu ga kuru hazu no sora wo mite, mayou, bakari no Kokoro, motea mashiteru." With the last of the towels reduced to strips suitable for bandaging wounds or tying tourniquets, whichever they ended up needing to be used for, Sarah decided to put aside the issue of splints, casts, and/or crutches until she'd made it to Traverse Town and had a chance to talk to Squall. It wasn't like she had many options for making those kinds of things here, anyway.
"Katawara no tori ga habataita, doko ka, hikari wo mitsukerareta, no ka na." Picking up her newly packed First Aid kit, Sarah packed it in with the rest of the stuff that she was going to be leaving in her hotel room once she'd left the broken remains of whatever planet this was far behind. "Naa, omae no se ni, ore mo nosetekurenai, ka."
Lifting the backpack to test its weight, Sarah found that she could bear it at least reasonably comfortably.
"Soshite, ichiban takai toko de, okizari ni shite, yasashisa kara, toozakete." That was good, since she was going to have to move quickly when Zero Hour came, and therefore she wanted to be as mobile as she could manage while still being up to her own standards of preparedness.
"Kimi no te de, kirisaite, tooi ni no, kioku wo." Slinging Sora's backpack firmly over "her" left shoulder, Sarah made her way back down the hall to Sora's room so she could drop it off.
"Kanashimi no, iki no ne wo, tometekure yo."
This next part is going to be kind of interesting, Sarah mused, setting the backpack she'd been working with for a fair bit of the morning down at the head of Sora's bed, so that she could get to it easier when Zero Hour rolled around. "Saa, ai ni kogareta mune wo tsuranuke!"
It would involve food, and if her many camping trips with her family had taught her anything, it was that any situation that involved pre-made food and travel plans was interesting; sometimes annoying as all fuck, but always interesting.