Once she'd finished with that, Sarah slung the backpack-duffel combo off of "her" back, unzipping it so that she could reach the prepared foods and drinks that she had packed for herself.
"Hello."
"Oh, hey," she greeted off-handedly; the voice sounded kind of familiar, but she'd just been in combat, and she didn't actually know when she was going to have the time free for another meal.
So she honestly had other things on her mind.
"That's a good idea, carrying food along with you. Would you mind sharing one?"
"I guess I could spare at least one," she said, having finished digging out the pack with her food, grabbing a thermos of milk in passing. "I mean, with this big a city, you figure there have to be at least a few restaurants around." She straightened up, finally getting a good look at just who it was she'd been talking to. Huh, she mused in response.
"There are," Mickey Mouse, King of Disney Castle, smiled back at her. "I could even recommend a few places to you," his face fell. "If I had the time."
"Which would you prefer? Ham or turkey?" she asked, not particularly wanting to keep Mickey any longer than he could afford to stay.
"Oh," he exclaimed, looking briefly surprised and then smiling kindly. "Ham, if you don't mind."
"Sure." She was really more partial to turkey than to ham, so this worked out well for the pair of them. "You want something to wash it down with? I have water or milk," she continued, not about to part with the single thermos of hot cocoa she had prepared for herself.
"Well, if you really don't mind, I would like some milk," Mickey said.
"All right." Extracting two thermoses of milk from her supply-pack, she handed one over to Mickey.
"You're very generous," the anthropomorphic mouse said, just as Sarah had a thought.
"It's not quite freshly-chilled, but it should still be good."
"I'm sure it'll be fine," Mickey said, gently patting the back of "her" left hand.
Then, he reached into the right pocket of the cloak that he was wearing – it looked a bit Organization XII-ish – and pulled out a bag which he quickly handed over. "Here."
Taking the bad after she'd set the thermos in "her" left hand back inside her supply-pack, she weighed it briefly, shaking the thing a bit to determine just what was inside. "What's this for?"
"Well, you'll want to be able to get food, after you run out of those sandwiches," he said, smiling widely. "And, since you were so generous to me, it's really only right that I return that generosity."
"Well, thank you, then," she said, tucking the bag of Munny away in Sora's left pocket.
"You're very welcome," Mickey said. "I've got to go now, but it was nice talking with you." He looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled once again. "I've got some friends out here, so if you happen to meet them, stick close. They won't steer you wrong."
"Do they look like you? Or, how will I know them when I see them?" she asked, in spite of the fact that she already knew full-well what Donald and Goofy looked like; and how much she'd wanted to punch Donald in the face in-game.
"I didn't even think of that," Mickey said, with a rueful sort of chuckle. "Here," he continued, reaching into the left side of his cloak and pulling out a pair of photos. "These should help," he said, as he handed them over.
Sarah took them quickly, curious about just what kind of photos King Mickey would have taken of his courtiers. They turned out to be simple portraits, showing their subjects clearly from the mid-chest up, which drew a brief chuckle out of her. "Well, at least I can say I'll know 'em when I see 'em."
"That's good," Mickey said, reaching up to firmly pat "her" left shoulder as he turned to leave. "Thanks again for sharing your food," he said, nodding toward the two items he now carried in the crook of his left arm.
"You're welcome," she said. "Good luck with whatever it is you're doing, by the way."
Mickey laughed softly. "Thank you. And good luck to you, with whatever happens next."
He'd passed out of her line-of sight – not a particularly hard thing to do when one took the alleyway they'd both been standing in into consideration – before she could say anything else in response, so Sarah went back to eating her sandwich. Sure, that'd been a fairly abrupt end to their conversation, but everything that needed to be said had been said, and His Royal Highness King Mickey probably had a crapton of things to do with regard to the Heartless invasion and suchlike.
The sound of scuffling footsteps drew her attention back to the mouth of the alleyway she was standing in. Pluto was standing there, tongue out as he panted, clearly having run to see just what had fallen into this particular alleyway.
Naturally, he looked a lot less "cartoon dog-ish" now that she was seeing him with all the filters off, so to speak. The best she could come up with to describe what he looked like, without resorting to massive over description, was a Greyhound crossed with a Yellow Lab. He had a Greyhound's leggy body, with a Lab's coloring and floppy ears.
All in all, it was certainly an interesting combination.
Pluto barked happily, prompting a gentle chuckle. "Good evening to you, too, boy." Pluto trotted easily up to her, seeming like he had not a care in the world; she laughed outright. "Well boy, I would pet you, but I always make it a point not to get dog on my hands while I'm eating." She chewed and swallowed another bite of her turkey sandwich. "So I guess you're out of luck, if you don't feel like waiting."
Once she'd finished saying that, however, Pluto sat down neatly in front of her, thin, short-furred black tail wagging enthusiastically. Chuckling deeply in "her" throat, Sarah leaned back against the wall of the alleyway she'd landed in, finishing her turkey sandwich at a leisurely pace, and then having some of her milk to wash it down with. Tucking the thermos back into her supply-pack, she zipped it back up and then hefted the thing back onto "her" back.
Reaching out, she scruffed Pluto's floppy, black ears as the dog himself panted happily and pressed his head against "her" hands and stomach in his sheer enthusiasm. Just as she'd been about to stop on her own, however, Pluto pulled his head back, barked once, then turned to head for the mouth of the alleyway they were both still standing in. His intentions probably would have been obvious even to someone who didn't have a dog, but Sarah would have been the first to admit that she wasn't in the best position to speak for those people.
Following Pluto out of the alley and into Traverse Town's First District, Sarah reflected on what else was most likely going on with two of the future members of her party. If she hadn't skewed the timeline too much by being conscious when she arrived, Donald and Goofy were probably on their way to meet with Squall; she swallowed a chuckle as she once again recalled just how much TheHelldragon had hated the first game's insistence on calling him Leon. Sure, she thought it was kind of dumb and arbitrary herself, but to hear TheHelldragon say it, it was the Wurst Thing Evar.
That, and his rather amusing bat-related rants, were some of the many reasons she had kept watching the Hellfire Commentaries LP of Kingdom Hearts even after she'd pretty much lost interest in the game itself. In fact, the only LPer that Sarah could honestly say that she liked as much as the Hellfire Commentaries crew was Skorch82, and he'd never played any Disney games as far as she knew. Or at least he didn't LP them, which worked out really well when you thought about it.
When Pluto led her to Cid's item shop, he nosed "her" right hand and she gently scruffed his ears in return. "Thanks, boy."
She was becoming steadily more conscious of the fact that she hadn't gotten any sleep since this whole fiasco had started. The minor fatigue that had been so easy to push aside when she'd been riding the adrenaline-rush of combat was starting to drag more heavily at her, now that everything had started calmed down. The food had helped a bit, since at least she wasn't dealing with a blood-sugar imbalance on top of being tired – she didn't know how in the hell the real Sora would have managed, not knowing what she knew – but she at least hoped that Cid would have some place that she could crash for awhile.
If only so she wasn't forced to curl up against the nearest convenient patch of wall and fall asleep sitting up; sure, she could do that when circumstances demanded it, but she never felt quite as rested afterward.
Pushing the door to Cid's item shop open, she saw the man himself turn to greet "her".
"Ah, it's just a kid," he groused.
She scoffed. "Nice to meet you, too."
He actually laughed in response. "All right, kid; you got me." He peered closer. "You look bushed."
"I've had an interesting day." She gripped the straps of Sora's backpack in "her" fists, turning to give the man a half-lidded I-have-had-fully-enough-of-this-shit look. "I think I'm beginning to hate interesting days."
Cid laughed ruefully. "I think we could all use a bit less excitement in our lives, kid." He gave "her" another, closer once-over, and then a subtle nod. "Why don't you take a nap? I got a couch that nobody uses much lately, and you really look like you could use the sleep."
"Thanks," she said, covering a yawn with "her" left hand, and slipping Sora's backpack off. "I've got some food in here, so if you wouldn't mind sticking it into a cooler or a fridge or something like that, I'd really appreciate it," she said, trying and failing to hold back a yawn as she made her way toward the indicated couch.
"I'll take care of it, kid," she heard from behind her, as she rested "her" right hand on the couch – which fortunately enough seemed to be upholstered with some kind of velvety fabric and not something uncomfortable like leather – and hoisted "herself" up onto it so that she could stretch out.
~KH1~
"You'll need it," Cid muttered, as the kid he'd taken under his wing – not that he was ever going to admit that to anyone – pulled down the third pillow from the couch and stuck it under his head.
Poor kid must still think he was dreaming or something; kid probably lost his whole world, and all he had left was the stuff on his back. That was the only way anyone ever came to Traverse Town.
Coming out from behind his counter, since he'd told the kid that he would take care of his food, and if there was one thing that Cid Highwind never did, it was go back on his word, he picked up the backpack. Surprised to find that the thing was fairly hefty, Cid unzipped it and began to remove the contents a bit at a time.
The packed sandwiches and thermoses filled with milk he quickly put away in his minifridge, but the last of the insulated bottles had been filled with what he'd first figured had to be some kind of tea that the kid had milked to within an inch of its life, but a quick sniff of the contents of that particular bottle proved it to be some other kind of drink. Smelled sweet as hell, but then it pretty much figured that a kid would be bringing along drinks like that. Still, it'd clearly been heated at one point and was starting to go cold, and he knew better than most just how shitty it was to end up drinking something lukewarm when you'd prepared it piping hot.
So, grabbing the hotplate he'd he used to prepare himself small meals, and one of the small pans from his collection, he poured out the contents of that particular bottle, and set the pan on the hotplate to heat up again.
The rest of the stuff he found in the kid's pack wasn't particularly interesting, although when he realized he'd been handling rolled-up underwear he was particularly glad that there was no one around to give him shit about it. There were only two – well, five if you wanted to be an asshole about it – things that were really interesting about the contents of the kid's pack; the first of them was the kit, clearly for taking care of small scrapes and cuts and other crap like that, that the kid's mom had probably fixed up for him; the other was the set of kitchen knives, four in all and wrapped in a towel, that the kid's dad had probably slipped him on the sly.
"Hell of a camping trip you're on now, kid," he muttered, turning to look at the kid napping on his couch.
His dad had probably thought he'd be having to fend off wild animals when he'd slipped the kid those knives. And sure, they'd be shit-worthless against a Heartless, but it never hurt to have a set of fallback weapons. Not all of their enemies were Heartless, after all.
~KH1~
-Stray; no regret 'cause I've got nothing to lose…-
Loud whoops and hollers echoed down the side of the snow-covered mountain – it wouldn't have looked out of place in Robotnik Winter, White Acropolis, or Hill Top Zone – as a trio of snowboarders raced down the side of it, each leaving snowy rooster-tails kicked up behind them. The once in the lead wore a full-body, padded white snowsuit and dark, polarized ski-goggles; both intended to insulate against an accidental tumble into the snow, as well as protect against the climates where snow was found.
The figure in the center, clearly female, was wearing a pale lilac skort, a white tank top, and largish shoes of nearly the same color as the skort. The outfit that she was wearing – in stark contrast to that worn by both the first figure and by the third – had clearly been chosen with warm summer days and tropical climes in mind. But the second girl felt no deathly chill, nor did those ahead or behind her feel any excessive heat from their own layers.
For this was a place more of mind than of matter.
The last of the three could perhaps be called the strangest, and was as clearly male as the one in the center had been female. His outfit was solidly black, and molded to match the musculature beneath his skin. The fact that he wore a featureless, black-visored motorcycle style helmet also made him seem as a color-inverted counterpart to the figure in the white snowsuit – less obviously female, but still female for all that – who lead the trio.
"Half-pipe's coming up!" the girl in the front, the tallest of the three present, called out in cheerful challenge. "You guys think you're up for it?"
"Anytime you are, Sarah!" the girl in the center, the shortest whereas Sarah was the tallest, called back with a wide grin on her face.
"Yeah, bring it on!" the boy at the back of their small group shouted, pumping his left fist in sheer enthusiasm.
The three of them maneuvered into the half-pipe, each of them riding a wave of their own momentum, until all three of them rode side-by-side down the half-pipesque bobsled track that they were all together on.
"All right," called the boy who had once been at the back of the group and now stood on the left, reaching out to clasp the left hand of the girl who had remained in the middle. "One!"
"Two!" the girl herself called, reaching out for Sarah's left hand while clasping tightly with her own right.
"Three," Sarah herself declared firmly, her left hand locked in a firm – though unfelt – grip on the middle girl's right.
Just that quickly, their entire landscape changed; cloudy blue brightness became an orange-washed sunset sky, snowy hills became an empty city with slowly-whirring fans on vertical posts, and the snowboards that the three of them had been riding became three mine carts on parallel tracks.
Laughing, the boy on the left and the girl in the middle settled down in their mine carts for the rest of the ride to their destination. Sarah, for her own part, chuckled softly at the antics of her two compatriots, and then lay back in her own mine cart to watch the sunset-stained clouds go by.
When said clouds had been obscured by the roof of a tunnel, its blue-tinted running lights slowly separating into more distinct glowing rectangles as their respective mine carts were slowed to a stop, Sarah laughed and sat up inside the mine cart she'd been riding in. "Last stop, Sunset Park station," Sarah announced, using the stereotypical P.A. announcer's voice that she'd heard from so many movies and television shows. "We'd like to thank you for, once again, giving your business to Crazy Larry's Transdimensional Mine Carts. Please do tell your friends about us."
The girl in the middle, who had just been starting to get out of her own mine cart, fell right back in as she curled up with laughter.
"You want any help there, Kairi?" Sarah asked, making her way over to the mine cart where the other, smaller girl still sat, the occasional chuckle still escaping her at times.
"Sure," Kairi said, reaching out to take Sarah's right hand as the taller girl offered it to her. Kairi laughed softly, as the three of them moved away from the mine cart rails and deeper into the station. "You're so weird, Sarah."
Sarah chuckled in return. "I've been told it's one of my most endearing qualities."
Both Kairi and the nameless, masked boy who had gotten out of his own mine cart and caught up with the two of them, laughed then. The three of them made their way into a large, high-ceilinged room, filled with indistinct shadows that rushed from one side of the room to the other – in from a much larger entrance at the far end of the room, and out an exit that somehow seemed even larger – on their way to important destinations known only to themselves.
"What is this place, Sarah?"
"South San Francisco train station," Sarah said, tilting her head slightly as she watched a particularly large group of shadows leave through the exit and be replaced just as quickly.
"Why does everyone seem to be in such a hurry?" the masked boy asked, his tone and body language communicating the confusion that his hidden face would have otherwise displayed.
Sarah chuckled softly, though more reflectively than anything. "No one stays in a train station longer than they have to," Sarah debated for a moment whether or not to bring up the people who would be staying at a train station longer than anyone really needed to be – namely pan-handlers, homeless people, and thieves – but soon decided that that would only confuse the issue; particularly since the only people they might know of who fit that second category were those who had had their world devoured by the Heartless. "It's a place you go to get where you want to be, not a place you really go for the place itself."
Again, unless one truly felt that they had no other choice.
"Oh, so it's just somewhere that people on your world go to when they want to go somewhere else?" Kairi asked, cocking her head in surprise, even as she settled down on the bench that Sarah had lead the three of them to. "That seems kind of strange."
"Are there a lot of places like this on your world?" the masked boy asked, looking from the rushing, shadowed forms that might have been people on Sarah's world, back to Sarah herself.
Sarah smiled a soft, nostalgic smile. "Oh, there are plenty of places like this; both inside the country and out of it." She tilted her head slightly, tucking her hands into the pockets of the well-worn pair of gray sweatpants that the lower half of her snowsuit had transformed into. "There are bus stops, train stations just like this one, airports, and you can even call a taxicab to pick you up from home. It all depends on just how far you want to travel."
"Wow," both Kairi and the masked boy said, almost at the same time; their voices nearly blended as one.
"There are so many ways to travel on your world," Kairi said, smiling brightly at the tallest member of their group. "It must be a great place to live," Kairi's smile shrank, becoming more reflective. "No wonder you want to get back there; I'd kind of like to live there, myself."
Sarah turned to look at Kairi, studying the other girl more closely. "Was it really so bad, back where you came from?"
Kairi shook her head, looking a bit sheepish. "I wouldn't say it was bad, Sarah. It just felt a little small, sometimes." Kairi looked back out into the crowd of shadowed figures; they hadn't stopped moving, not even once. "Of course, maybe your world's just so big, with so many things to see and do on it, you don't understand how small a world can really be."
"I've heard small towns are like that, but you're right in that I've never actually lived in one," Sarah said, still studying Kairi from where she sat on the other girl's right.
Kairi smiled back at the other girl. "Thanks, Sarah."
~KH1~
She yawned, sniffing the air as lucidity, and hence awareness of her actual surroundings, slowly bled back into her mind.
"Have a nice nap, kid?" Cid's gruff voice asked, as she held up a hand in front of the second yawn that practically chased the heels of the first.
That always seemed to be the way things worked, when she took the time for some sleep on safe ground; or at least on protected ground, in the case of this particular store.
"You made bacon." Was the first thing she noticed, once the after-sleep bleariness had worn off.
"Don't sound so shocked, kid," Cid said, grinning widely back at her; or at least the boy he thought he was talking to. "I might not be the best in town, but Shera would have my ass if I couldn't at least fix something tasty."
"Thanks," she said. Then, since she didn't want to be rude, and because it had been a long-ass time since her second-eldest brother had showed off his skills at playing FF7 to her, she asked. "Who's Shera?"
Cid's expression changed faster than she'd seen anyone's do on anything that might have even been charitably called a normal occasion.
"Sorry, kid." the blond's expression had become almost painfully contrite. "Forgot you were new here." Cid sighed deeply, clearly gathering himself for one reason or another. "Shera's my wife; got married just before everything fell apart," he laughed bitterly, eyes staring off into the middle-distance the same way she'd seen some of her dad's old war buddies do at one time or another. "Figured we had everything going for us, what with ShinRa gone and all, and then it was all over. Just like that," Cid snapped his fingers, and the action seemed to bring his mind back to the present. "Sorry," he offered, with another, bitter smile. "I guess you didn't come all the way out here to be bored by an old man's war stories, eh kid?"
"No, it's all right," she said, wondering for a moment if Cid was the type of person to accept physical reassurance – a pat on the arm, or suchlike – from someone he'd never met, before simply serving herself some bacon and deciding to act when she knew the man himself on more than a casual basis.
Just as the two of them had started eating, though, the door to the shop swung open again. Looking over to see who it was that was paying them a visit, not saying anything because she had a wad of half-chewed bacon in "her" mouth, Sarah raised both eyebrows when she did.
"Cid, I got a report of a fallen star somewhere in this area," the tall, black-clad, and very familiar figure who was just stepping over the threshold into the shop, said. "Have you seen anyone new around here lately?"
"You're lookin' at him," Cid said, gesturing to "her" with a gruff sort of amusement.
Squall's gaze turned to take "her" in, and she cocked Sora's head slightly as he finished his examination with a subtle nod. He made his way over to the table where the pair of them were sitting, putting his right hand on "her" left shoulder once he was close enough to comfortably reach across the gap. "Look, I don't know if you fully understand what's just happened, but I promise you that we'll help you settle in as best we can."
"Well, strictly speaking I don't, but I figured that the ground I was standing on disintegrating out from under my feet was generally not a good sign," she said, offering Squall a wry sort of smile.
"You're right, it wasn't," Squall said, studying "her" all the more closely for a few, long moments. "You seem pretty resilient," he finished at last, clearly satisfied on some level by what he'd seen.
"Thanks," she said, about to turn back to her meal when she recalled a brief conversation that she'd had before her nap.
"Don't thank me," Squall said, as she reached back into the pocket where she'd stored the photos that King Mickey had given her. "You'll need it for what's coming."
"I guess you'd know better than I do," she said, pulling the photos free from Sora's pocket and setting them down face-up on the table. "Anyway, do either of you know these guys? A mouse guy gave me these pictures, and you two are the first people I've actually talked to since I've got here."
Both Squall and Cid seemed surprised by that, but Squall was the one who spoke up.
"You've met King Mickey?"
"He was a king?" she asked, figuring that was an obvious question for a newcomer to ask, under the circumstances.
Squall closed his eyes briefly. "I keep forgetting you're new here."
"Speaking of new, we haven't even introduced ourselves," Cid interjected, a look of mild consternation on his face. "Name's Cid Highwind."
Squall looked reluctant for a moment, and then resigned. "Squall Leonhart. Call me Leon."
She raised an eyebrow. "Any special reason?"
"Yeah, there is," Squall said, but the tone of his voice and the expression on his face made it clear that any further discussion on the subject wouldn't be happening.
At least not until they knew and trusted one another, and by then the issue could very well be moot.
"Fair enough," she paused for a moment, and then decided fuck it; she didn't know Sora's last name, and with all she was going to have on her mind later, making one up would really be more trouble than it was worth. "I'm Sora Williams."
Best thing about this place and these people was that she didn't even have to threaten people about the "Labyrinth" jokes.
"All right," Squall said, standing up straighter as he gave "her" a more direct once-over. "If King Mickey was so interested in you, personally, then I think it's best that you come with me and meet some friends of mine. Let's go."
Just as Squall was starting to reach out for "her" left arm, Cid intercepted his right and held it fast.
"Siddown, Squall," the blond grumbled good-naturedly. "We haven't finished dinner yet." Squall looked like he was going to protest for a long moment, and Cid must have seen it, too, because the next thing he did was to grin in a teasingly threatening manner. "Of course, if you want to explain to Shera how you not only stopped takin' good care of yourself, but also tried to keep a hungry kid from gettin' his dinner, I'd be perfectly willin' to call her here."
Squall looked just stubborn enough to keep going through even after that, but then he relented and settled himself down at the table – which kind of reminded her of a taller, black version of her family's living room coffee table – while Cid dished him up a plate of bacon with some assorted vegetables on the side. Sarah chuckled softly at the ensuing scene.
"What's so funny, kid?" Cid asked, though his tone said that he suspected the answer.
"Sounds like Shera's made quite a reputation for herself, that's all," she said, leaning "her" chin on "her" right fist.
"Go on," Cid said, after swallowing another bite of bacon. "Sounds to me like you might have some interesting ideas, kid."
"Well, it seems like she's the kind who tries to be everybody's mom," she grinned, eating some more of the mixed vegetables before she continued speaking. "And, if there's anyone you really don't want to get on the wrong side of, it's a mom; cause the best thing you can hope for if you do, is a lecture where they don't punch you in the face."
Cid chuckled. "Nicely put, kid." He polished off the rest of his mixed vegetables. "And you're right; Shera's been talking about starting up a family of our own, once all of this shit's finally settled down."
Just as she'd started to bite down on another strip of bacon – whatever Cid's opinion of his own skills as a chef, he'd cooked the bacon just the way she liked it – Squall pulled "her" up and out of her chair, accompanied by Cid's wince, and presumably sub-vocalized cursing.
"Let's get going," the brunet said sharply, though he tried to make himself sound unconcerned.
She turned back, taking the bacon strip out of "her" mouth so that she could call back her thanks to Cid for the meal that he had shared with them, and he grinned ruefully back at "her" as she and Squall left the shop together.