Once she'd finished with that, Sarah tucked the journal away again and leaned over the side of the bed to grab her supply-pack, and from there fish out the enchanted cooler-pack so that she could grab a turkey sandwich. Shifting so that she could lean up against the wall next to her bed's headboard, she felt the negligible weight of Kuromaru as the Shadow leaned against "her" legs. Patting Kuromaru between its antennae as they twitched restlessly, Sarah mused idly that it seemed like the Shadow was listening to something that only it could hear at idle times like this one. Who knew; that could be just what was happening. Idly stroking Kuromaru's head as she continued to eat one-handed, Sarah turned to look at the door as someone outside opened it.
Not really the most polite thing in the worlds, but then maybe etiquette was different here. Some other customs sure as hell were. When she saw Squall, standing in the threshold just between the room she was making use of and the hallway outside, reach up to rub the bridge of his nose in that way that people always did when they were exasperated with someone or trying to ward off a headache – or both – she smiled widely, and deliberately reached out to skritch behind one of Kuromaru's antennae.
Squall sighed, looking for a long moment as though he was going to launch into some sort of lecture about the Heartless that Kuromaru's very existence was already starting to prove was a bit one-sided. But then, possibly prompted by the raised eyebrow she was aiming his way, he decided on another subject.
"Donald and Goofy are going to be heading out soon," the man said, seeming to be deliberately ignoring Kuromaru as he focused on "her" face.
"Well," she shifted to kneel on the bed as Kuromaru hopped up on top of it. "I suppose I'd better get ready, then."
As she climbed back down off of the bed, Kuromaru latched onto "her" back and nuzzled the back of "her" head.
"I take it you're bringing the Heartless along, then."
She turned a semi-amused smile on the man, as she grabbed both her supply-pack as her duffel out from under the bed where she had stashed them earlier so they'd be out of the way while she slept. "I don't think Kuromaru would be particularly happy with me if I told him to stay back here while I went and had all kinds of adventures out in the 'verse," she said absently, pulling up both the duffel bag and the supply-pack onto the bed itself.
Opening the two of them, she began transferring the things she wouldn't need for the various trips she was going to be making – spare clothes and the like – into the duffel, so that she would actually have room to carry the essential items that she would need during her journeys. Patting Kuromaru's head as the Shadow rested its hands on "her" right leg and looked up at her with an expression that Sarah didn't have the attention to spare at the moment to puzzle out, Sarah finished getting everything in order and hefted the temporarily-lightened backpack up onto "her" back while at the same time standing up from the bed that she'd been seated on.
"Clever," Squall appraised, as the two of them fell into step on their way out of the hotel room.
It was interesting, she reflected as Squall pushed open the doors in front of them, how the only Heartless she'd regularly encountered in this area was Kuromaru; back in the game, she used to use this place as just one more grind-point out of many in Traverse Town, since there were just as many Heartless in that location as there were anywhere else, but here and now things seemed perfectly calm. Of course, judging by the tension she could read in every line of Squall's body as the two of them continued on their way to the entrance/exit of the First District, she got the feeling that this wasn't strictly normal.
"Quiet night," she commented, wondering what kind of reaction it would draw from Squall.
"Yeah, it is," the man in question said shortly.
"Isn't that pretty much a good thing?" she asked, curious about any further input that he might have had on the matter.
"It would be, if we weren't dealing with Heartless," Squall said, just before he leaned forward and shoved open the doors that stood sentinel in front of the First District. "Out of all the Districts, the First is the only one that has proven consistently immune to the threat of Heartless… attack."
The expression on Squall's face as he snap-turned back to look at her was one that Sarah only had the chance to see for a few moments, before the sound of a backpack being unzipped drew her attention to just what Kuromaru might've been doing. The Shadow practically poured itself in through the open flap, landing on top of the cooler-bag that she'd used to hold her sandwiches, and not really adding much to the weight of the pack at all. Sarah would have been more surprised, if Kuromaru's favorite place to hitch a ride hadn't been right in the very same spot that was now occupied by her supply-pack.
She chuckled softly, slinging the pack off so that she could fully zip it up once more. Turning back to Squall, she smiled amusedly at the stunned expression on his face. "I didn't see 'im if you didn't."
Squall stood there for a long few moments, just staring down at the boy he thought she was, then he palmed his face and sighed deeply. "Let's just go."
"Right with ya," she said, suiting actions to words as she fell into step with him again.
Smiling slightly as she felt Kuromaru nuzzling against "her" back as well as the Shadow could manage through the material - canvas, it felt like – that separated the two of them, Sarah began to sing Porno Graffiti's "Anima Rossa" at a low enough volume that Kuromaru – and Squall, but she wasn't really singing for him – would be able to hear her without anyone else being disturbed by her current activities. When she noticed that Squall was leading the two of them back to Scrooge's restaurant – residence of her current business partner, at least as far as she knew – Sarah was at least mildly curious as the two of them continued on their way toward the building.
Still, that sandwich she'd had a bit ago wasn't going to hold her forever, and as she was pretty sure that she was the only one who'd brought food from what passed for home, it really only made sense that Donald and Goofy would be feeling a bit peckish themselves around this point. Kuromaru had settled down against "her" back before she was halfway done with the song, and happily enough she finished entirely before Squall let the two of them into the building.
Sure enough, Donald and Goody were seated at a table together, and as soon as the two of them spotted her and Squall coming inside, Goofy enthusiastically waved the two of them over.
"So, what's been happening with you guys?" she asked, once she'd settled herself down at the table and tucked her supply-pack under it, while at the same time being careful to let the pack itself rest against "her" left shin.
Kuromaru reached out to touch that same leg, as though the Shadow wanted to reassure itself that she was still there.
"We've been getting ready to leave," Goofy said, smiling at her over the plate of French Fries – whatever other name they went by in this particular place, that was what she'd grown up calling them – he'd clearly ordered for himself. "In fact, we're just finishing up with lunch before we go out to the ship."
She would have continued the conversation with Goofy, mundane as it very well might have been, if she hadn't noticed then just how intently Donald was studying her.
"What is it, Donald?"
"Why you?" the drake asked, his eyes roving briefly to take in Sora's form from head-to-toe before settling back on "her" face.
"What about me?" she asked, debating for a few moments whether or not to open up her supply-pack and get out one of her sandwiches, or wait until the three of them left for the hangar where their ship was waiting for them to board her.
Deciding that she could eat on the way there, since it looked like the two of them were just about ready to leave, and she didn't wasn't to keep them any longer than they could afford to stay.
"I mean, why out of all the people Scrooge could choose as a business partner, did he choose you?" there was curiosity in Donald's tone, sure, but there was a hint of annoyance in the drake's mien that Sarah wondered at for a moment before dismissing the thought.
It really wasn't any of her business.
"I honestly don't know," she said, jerking "her" shoulders in a brief shrug. "You'd have to ask him."
"See, Donald? I told you he didn't mean anythin' by it," Goofy said, the smile on his face just as wide and comforting as any she'd seen in-game.
"I guess," Donald said, still sounding a bit upset about the whole thing, but in a way that no longer suggested that it was eating at him they way it clearly had been in the past.
"If you don't mind the change of subject, are we going to be leaving soon?"
"We are," Donald said, his expression clearing but the tone of his voice sounding about the same as she'd ever heard it. Maybe he just wasn't a naturally cheerful person. "We were just finishing lunch."
"We would have asked you to join us, but then Donald remembered that you had already packed all of those nice sandwiches for yourself," Goofy said, still smiling.
"Yeah, I figured I'd either eat on the way to the hangar, or on the ship itself if I end up getting hungry," she said, feeling Kuromaru settle back down against "her" legs after the Shadow had perked up for a few moments; likely as not in response to the thought that she might have been getting into the pack it was hidden inside. "You guys did give me time to make the last of my preparations before we set out, though. So thanks for that, at least."
"Gee, you're welcome, Sora," Goofy said, with the gentle chuckle that seemed to be almost habitual for him as far as Sarah could figure.
There wasn't any real conversation between the three of them after that, leaving Sarah free to reflect on what she could recall of the first Kingdom Hearts game. Her foreknowledge wasn't infallible, witness her being rather completely blindsided by the huge armor-Heartless in the Third District's courtyard. And yeah, it'd been a long-ass time since she herself had picked up her PS2 controller and joined Donald and Goofy on their first journey through the various worlds that they and Sora had made planetfall on during the course of that particular game, but it'd been a fair bit less than that since she'd last gotten the urge to watch NTom64 and The Helldragon's adventure though the various words that they had encountered on their own journey. So, half-closing "her" eyes in an effort to focus her attention inward so that she might be better able to recall the sequence of events that this particular journey had had when those two had taken their own trip through what had, at the time, been just one of the many games that those two had had in their library, too.
"Hey, Sora, what're you thinking about?" Goofy asked, prompting her to look back up at the two of them.
"Just about where we might be heading once we get offworld."
"Well, the first thing you should know before we go out to the hangar, is that our ship runs on happy faces," Donald said, the expression on his face changing to match the one that he said was necessary to get their ship off the ground.
That'd never really sat well with her. "Seems a bit of a design flaw, that; I mean, whoever designed that ship of yours must have understood that you'd be taking her into combat." Sarah narrowed "her" eyes slightly, thoughtful. She'd always wondered about this part in particular. "I mean, what if you had to evacuate someone who'd just lost their entire world? You can't really expect a grieving person to smile right away, but during an evacuation every second counts."
Goofy scratched the back of his head. "Gawrsh, I don't think we've ever done somethin' like what you're talkin' about, Sora."
"Well, if yours is a scoutship, it makes sense that you wouldn't participate in evacuations," she said, tilting "her" head slightly as she rested it on "her" left fist. "What about the rest of your fleet?"
Donald was the one who answered her about that, though that did kind of beg the question of whether or not Goofy knew this particular bit of information in the first place. "Well, we don't actually have a fleet, you see," the drake said, looking a bit sheepish for a few moments.
"Ah," she nodded in understanding. "Is there a limitation in manpower, or resources?"
"Both," Donald said, his narrow shoulders slumping as he sighed. "There aren't enough ships to go around, and even if there were, there wouldn't be enough pilots qualified to fly them."
She 'hmmed' softly in thought, but it was Goofy who made the next actual contribution to their conversation.
"Come on, you two," he said, grinning cheerfully as he clapped both her and Donald on one of their shoulders. "Let's not think about all this depressing stuff," he laughed in that cheerful way he had. "We can go to all kinds of different worlds on our ship, and I'm sure Sora here'll be able to find his friends on one of them."
Well, I suppose denial is one way to keep smiling during this kind of mess, she mused, though she was tactful enough not to say it. "All right, so once you're both finished here, let's get going."
"Well, I'm finished right now," Goofy said cheerfully, standing up from his place at the table. "How 'bout you, Donald?"
"Yeah, I guess I'm done here, too," the drake said, though not nearly so enthusiastically as his counterpart, as he rose from his own place at the table.
Sarah chuckled under her breath. "Well, don't go holding back on my account," she said, smirking as she rose from her own place at the table.
Squall was long gone by now, and Sarah briefly wondered if he'd left before their conversation or during it, before dismissing the thought as she fell into step with Donald and Goofy. The three of them continued on their way through the town, passing an eclectic profusion of buildings that Sarah couldn't quite recall if she had seen in-game or not. The entrance to the hangar itself was indeed listed as such, which was particularly helpful in her case, and would have still been so if she had actually been Sora.
Inside the hangar was a rather interesting collection of oversized gears, cogs, and various other machinery that made the place look quite a bit like a scaled-up assembly plant, but as the strains of Home Made Kazoku's "Shonen Heart" began to grow louder within her mind, Sarah found that she was rather less interested in that.
Mystery Kid jumped out from somewhere behind "her" left shoulder, and Kairi emerged from between Donald and Goofy to her right. The fact that neither of those two showed even the slightest reaction to said emergence made it clear that she was the only one actually seeing anything, even after Kairi and the mystery kid started dancing together; the expression on Kairi's face suggested that the other girl was enjoying the whole thing, so when Kairi caught "her" eye, Sarah winked. The other girl laughed silently, and Mystery Kid waved to her as the two of them continued dancing.