Once he'd finally ended the life of that miserable reprobate Percival McLeach, Cecil turned his attention back to the poor, brave young man who had made such a thing possible in the first place. Stowing his trusty shotgun back in its proper place as he walked, Cecil came upon the small group who had come to this place for what he'd heard was some kind of hunting excursion, and then helped him to come to grips at last with one of the worst men that it had ever been his displeasure to meet.
Perhaps a great deal of his dislike for the man stemmed from the fact that Percival had used any number of the methods that Cecil had sometimes found himself pushed to, but had used such gleefully while Cecil himself had always and would always distain such excesses; or perhaps it had simply been the madness he had always seen lurking in the weathered man's eyes every time he had chanced to look into them.
However, the fact remained that Percival McLeach had been a mad dog in a man's shape; with a rough, gravelly bark, and an even more terrible bite.
There was no question in Cecil's mind that the world was far better off without men like him in it.
However, Cecil was not going to waste his time with thoughts of the dead, pleasing as such a thing might have been at this of all moments, when there were still the living to be attended to. Making his way over to the group of travelers, all gathered around the unconscious form of the third member of their small group, the first thing he took note of was the awful, sluggishly bleeding wound in the poor young man's gut.
One of Percival's oversized knives was buried hilt-deep there, and even as he felt struck to the very heart by such a pitiful sight, Cecil lifted the young man gently away from the well-meaning hands of his traveling companions before they could inadvertently kill him.
"What are you doing?" the shorter of them – Donald, if he recalled the name correctly – demanded, as Cecil rose back to his full height and carefully began carrying the young man back to the tent where Jane awaited them.
"You were about to make a terrible mistake," he informed the pair of them. "At this moment, the only thing keeping your young friend from bleeding to death is that knife pressing into his wound."
He didn't have the heart to tell them the rest of it: that there was very little chance of them being able to aid the young man – little more than a boy, truly, in spite of everything – with the limited medical supplies and equipment that he, Jane, and her doddering old father still possessed at their camp. He fully intended to use what stock they still possessed to aid the young man in his arms, of course, but Cecil was forced to admit that he himself didn't hold out much hope.
When the four of them had at last returned to the encampment, Cecil gently set Sora down atop one of the cots that had been set up at the far end of the tent. His own, in fact, and admonished the young man's traveling companions once more not to disturb the young man's wound. He then went to find Ms. Porter.
He found her speaking with that curious savage that she seemed to have formed an odd sort of friendship with, during the course of their stay in this place.
"Jane, may I speak with you?" he asked, edging up to her so that he would not need to speak such distressing news in a loud enough volume that he should risk being overheard by the young man's traveling companions.
He'd no wish to take what hope they had left, cruel as such a thing might have been in the long-term.
"What is it, Mr. Clayton?" she asked, clearly having taken note of the expression he doubtless wore on his face, after having borne witness to that poor young man's fate.
"I had the distinct misfortune of encountering Percival, when I led those newcomers into the jungle to see if we might set aright the things that man had done. And, while it does please me to be say that I was able to come to grips with that man in the most final of ways, I regret to admit that the young man who uncovered the most recent of Percival's suffered grievous injures at that man's hands."
"Mr. Clayton, what are you trying to say?" the young Mr. Porter asked, her expression of worry beginning to transform into one of horror.
"I fear that the wound the young man took from one of Percival's knives may prove fatal," he said at last, knowing that he could no longer evade the issue as he had once been doing.
Ms. Porter's horrified expression deepened, and while Cecil wished for a moment that he had been able to spare her the anguish that learning about the late, unlamented Percival McLeach's final atrocity had had caused her, he was fully aware that such a thing was not in any way possible. At the very least, she would have wanted to know why he was gathering up so much of their stock of medical supplies.
"I fear that the only thing left for us to do is to make the young man as comfortable as we possibly can," he said, sick with the knowledge that a young life such as Sora's could be cut short so easily.
And sicker still, because the man who had done such a terrible thing was not terribly dissimilar from the man that Cecil himself had once been. It was, therefore, all the more horrifyingly simple for Cecil to imagine himself in Percival's place; if he'd not had the horrid man himself to show what lay at the end of the path he'd been journeying down. So, in a perverse sort of way, Cecil could honestly say that meeting Percival had been a positive thing for him.
Though he would never say the words aloud; too many things would need to be explained.
As he and the young Ms. Porter gathered the necessary medical equipment to at least ease the young man's passing, Cecil took a brief moment to compose himself, even as he began to consider just where they would bury the boy. He thought on that for a long moment, before he came to the conclusion that it would be best to consult the boy's friends on the matter, as they had traveled with him and were like as not to have their own input on the matter.
However, when he and the young Ms. Porter were finally able to make their way back to the cot where he had laid the body of the young man named Sora to rest, even if only in the most temporary of manners, it was all Cecil could do to keep from crying out in shock at the sheer impossibility of the miracle that he and the young Ms. Porter were bearing witness to.
~KH1~
"Yes, I know you missed me, Kuro, but will you please get off my head?" this she directed at the little Shadow, as it continued cuddling up to her, flattening Sora's hair and blocking the view from "her" right eye.
"Well, he's just glad you're back all safe and sound," Goofy said, smiling widely as he reached out for the Heartless in question.
Goofy patted the little Shadow's head, even as Sarah herself reached out to dislodge it from its perch, allowing Kuromaru to settle down in "her" lap the way it seemed to want to do from the beginning. Looking back up, after she'd managed to get herself settled down again, she found that both Clayton and Jane were staring at the boy everyone still thought she was.
Jane looked more than a little surprised, but the really amusing thing was the look of slack-jawed, nearly bug-eyed shock on Clayton's face. It was all Sarah could do to keep herself from laughing aloud; not only because that kind of thing would have been unspeakably rude, but because no one would have understood the source of her amusement even if she had bothered to explain herself. She let Donald do the talking, both since the drake seemed to enjoy it so much, and because she needed that bit of extra time to compose herself properly.
It didn't really help that the drake's own almost flailing attempts to explain away her miraculous recovery as anything besides outright magic were fairly amusing in and of themselves.
Still, just knowing that the four of them – well, the three who seemed to understand any kind of necessity, at least – had a lot of work left ahead of them made it all that much simpler to calm down. When Donald started insisting that the four of them be let out to continue their search for His Royal Highness King Mickey – though they of course didn't mention the mouse by name – Sarah gathered herself and sat up straighter.
"He's right; I'm a lot better than I was when you brought me in here."
"I should say so, young man," Clayton blustered, still sounding rather shocked.
She held back a chuckle through sheer force of will. "It's not that I'm ungrateful for your hospitality or anything, but hunting Heartless isn't the only reason that me and my people came here," she said, turning her gaze from Clayton to Jane and then back again. "These two have been searching for a good friend of theirs for quite some time, and when I joined up with this outfit, I promised to give them whatever help I could." She sat up in the cot that someone – she suspected Clayton, but couldn't have said for certain – had put her up in while she was sleeping the sleep of the grievously wounded. "So, even if all we find out there is some sign that their friend passed this way, it'll still be worth it, if we can get a lead on where he might be going."
Clayton didn't seem particularly amenable to the idea, even after Jane had suggested that the man examine the remains of "her" wound – gone without even a scar; there was definitely something to be said for Potions – and, in the end, nothing less than being allowed to accompany their group on their self-imposed mission to find His Royal Highness King Mickey – or at least some sign that the mouse had passed this way on his journey – would satisfy the man. After a few moments of deliberation – Donald against, Goofy for, and her abstaining because she didn't have much of an opinion in this case – Donald managed to convince Clayton to stay behind while the three of them went to search the patch of jungle surrounding the large tent. The man himself only truly conceded after he'd been given her personal permission to conduct a last examination of the site of the stab-wound she'd gotten from McLeach. And, since the man did seem to be genuinely concerned about her welfare, Sarah had agreed to his terms, and then the four of them had been able to leave the shelter of the tent at last.
The perfumed air of the jungle was just as heavy as ever, but they had all spent enough time in this kind of environment to get used to the way things were, even if Donald didn't seem particularly happy about it.
"So, what're we looking for? What kind of signs?" she asked, after their group had passed a comfortable distance out of the clearing where the tent had been set up.
"You remember what happened when you used your Keyblade on that doorknob, back on the last World we visited?" Donald asked, even as the rocky clearing their group had been making their way through transitioned smoothly into what looked like a small, localized forest made entirely of bamboo.
"It sounded like some kind of a lock closing," she said, nodding in confirmation. "You think there might be something like that here, too?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I think there might be," the drake said, sounding more certain than she felt at the moment. "I think that closing each of those when we find them on each World is what the King would want us to do. And," Donald paused for a long moment, as though gathering himself for what he was about to say. "I think it might help us find him, too."
"Fair enough," she said, as the three of them pressed onward, Kuromaru nuzzling "her" back through the heavy canvas of her supply-pack.
When their group followed the ever-widening gaps between the bamboo stalks to yet another clearing, Sarah raised "her" eyebrows in surprise at the sheer amount of gorillas all gathered before them.
"Well, here's something you don't see everyday," she commented, sweeping her gaze over the gathering of apes.
Tarzan was at the forefront of them all, prompting Sarah to wondered if this meeting he'd seemed to have arranged was the reason she hadn't encountered him on their journey through the environs of this particular world. It was an interesting question, though not really relevant to their interests at the moment, so when Tarzan came up to them with a purposeful expression on his face, Sarah pushed the idle speculation out of her mind.
"You look friend," the wild man said, in his slow, deep voice.
"That's right," she said, stepping forward when it became clear that neither Donald nor Goofy seemed apt to say anything. "We're looking for some friends of ours," she leaned down and forward a bit, bringing "her" head into line with Tarzan's own. "One of their companions left on some kind of errand, and hasn't been seen since. And, two of my own got separated in a storm, so the three of us have been helping each other search."
"That good," Tarzan said, sounding pleased, although he didn't smile. "Friends good," he continued, then grunted in a distinct pattern, one that suggested he was speaking another language, then continued on in English again. "Find friends there."
And, if I knew a word of gorilla-speak, that would mean something, Sarah mused, wishing briefly that she'd a better memory of the in-game dialogue in this particular world.
Sure, she and McLeach had almost certainly derailed the plot with their respective antics, but it would have been nice to have at least some idea of just what in the blue, bleeding hell Tarzan was trying to say.''
"Well, thanks, but can you run that by me again? I don't think I caught all of it."
Tarzan did so, and it became clear that there was – for the time being, at least – an insurmountable language barrier between the pair of them.
"That's all right," she said, waving the wild man off before either he or her traveling companions could start to become annoyed. "If you don't have the words for it, you don't have the words for it. Thanks for at least trying to help. We should be able to find our own way from here."
"You good," the wild man said, stepping a bit closer as straightened back to Sora's full height. "You help. We help."
She was just about to ask him what he meant by that, when Sarah found herself grabbed by the back of Sora's – still bloodstained, it had to be noted – shirt, and hurled up the side of a rather sheer cliff that bordered a large lake by the side of a tall waterfall. Tucking "her" legs in as she braced for impact, Sarah felt the familiar, not-very-pleasant sensation of impact as the three of them landed.
"Well, that was a thing," she said, rising back to "her" feet as she brushed off Sora's clothes.
Looking up to see Tarzan himself free-climbing his way up the cliff, Sarah raised an eyebrow as she continued to watch. It took a lot of skill to manage something like that, and more to make it look so quick and effortless like that. Considering the kind of life that Tarzan seemed to have led, it wasn't such a surprise, but nevertheless it was still quite a sight.
"You follow," the wild man said, taking the lead of their eclectic little group, grunting out that same sequence of sounds she'd heard before. "Friends there."
That was some kind of word, Sarah could tell at least that much from the sheer regularity of the sounds, but damned if she could could suss out a meaning from what was ultimately only a handful of syllables. Huffing as the five of them journeyed into the cave behind the waterfall, the heavy scents of the jungle washed away by the rushing water, Sarah was just about to swing her supply-pack down from "her" back, when the sound of the thing being unzipped from the inside drew her attention.
"Thanks, boy," she said, as Kuromaru popped over "her" left shoulder holding one of her water bottles. Taking a long swig, Sarah breathed deeply before taking another. "Is anyone else thirsty?" she asked, as their group continued following Tarzan's lead through the caverns behind the waterfall, always moving steadily upward as they did so.
As it turned out, she hadn't been the only one reminded of her own thirst by the presence of so much water, and Sarah had a moment of perverse gratitude that all of the falling water that was now directly behind them as Tarzan led them down a right-hand path and away from that particular cavern, that the falling water hadn't reminded her of any other bodily functions that might have needed attending to.
When the five of them had come to what was clearly the center of this particular series of cavers, Sarah cocked "her" head as she found herself confronted by what seemed to be a large tree trunk covered in blue butterflies.
"Well, it's certainly pretty," she commented, looking from the butterfly-tree to Tarzan. "But, what was it that you seemed so eager to show us?"
Tarzan made that same series of grunts that seemed to mean so much to him, then continued in English without skipping a beat. "Find friends there."
Sarah sighed, trying as hard as she could not to become annoyed, and succeeding for the most part. "I wonder if anyone's ever tried to invent an Ape to English dictionary," she mused idly, reaching for the Keyblade as she remembered that there was something about this room in particular that called for it…
Just like what had happened in Wonderland, Sarah found herself almost instinctively raising the Keyblade, and that same slender, colorless beam of light shot out of the tip to impact almost dead-center in the swarm of butterflies. Most of them seemed to vanish into the same kind of colorless light that had come out of the Keyblade, with only a choice few of them fluttering off the trunk before vanishing into that same kind of light.
"Well, that was different," she muttered, then raised "her" eyebrows in surprise as the Keyblade in "her" hands began to be overtaken by that same, colorless light. "Huh?"
She could feel a shiver of pleasant warmth on "her" hands as the light fully overtook the structure of the Keyblade, and then a particularly odd sensation as the very thing she was holding seemed to briefly lose its cohesion, and then reform into some other kind of Keyblade. When the light had finally cleared enough for her to make out the new form of the Keyblade, Sarah raised an eyebrow in consideration.
Well, you certainly can't say it doesn't fit here, she mused, before movement from the corner of "her" right drew Sarah's attention to Donald again.
It seemed as though the drake had picked up a Gummi block that seemed to have shown up when she'd closed this particular lock.
"Looks like we both got something out of this," she said, smiling for the fact that this particular job was all over but the goodbyes.
Really, she couldn't have been happier, considering.
There was no real conversation between the five of them as they made their way out of the caverns, but she did remember to thank Kuromaru when the little Shadow handed her a turkey sandwich when the five of them made it back out into the warm sunlight again, and hence didn't need to use "her" arms for balance or climbing, at least for awhile. As she and hers continued on across the face of the cliff, just so that she would be in a better position to begin her descent when the time came, Sarah abruptly found herself yanked off "her" feet between bites by Tarzan of all people.
"Thanks for that," she said, a mild bite of sarcasm to her words, as she found herself deposited neatly back on "her" feet in the clearing again.
Falling neatly back into step with Donald and Goofy once more, Sarah yawned deeply as the five of them continued on their way. Retracing their previous path, the five of them had soon made it back to the large, squat form of the tent their group had departed from what felt like half an hour ago. Still finding herself hungry after all the shit she'd had to wade through – to say nothing of her all-too-recent near-death-by-stabbing – Sarah smiled when Kuromaru popped back over "her" left shoulder with another turkey sandwich.
"Thanks, boy," she said, scruffling the little Shadow's antennae briefly as it ducked back into her supply-pack.
Munching on her sandwich as the five of them made their way back into the tent, Sarah submitted to an examination of the site of her former wound, if only to give Clayton and Jane some peace of mind, and then bid the pair of them – and Tarzan, since he'd followed along – a rather fond farewell. It might not have been the most auspicious of first meetings, considering the fact that such a thing had ultimately included Percival C. McLeach, but at least the pair of them had ultimately turned out to be worth knowing.
She couldn't say much for Tarzan, considering he'd only showed up at the end of things.
As their group made their way back to the ship, Kuromaru popped back out to offer her one of the thermoses of milk that she'd packed, so long ago. It was still as fresh and cold as the day she'd poured it, but that could easily be attributed to the magic the Moogles had imbued them with. So, that kind of thing didn't really give her as much pause as it once had.
Once the four of them had made it back into the ship, Sarah slipped off her supply-pack and settled it down against "her" legs. Kuromaru curled up against her as they started to lift-off, and Sarah smiled softly as they cleared atmo. Laying on the triggers once their ship had cleared orbit, Sarah carved her usual swathe through the approaching Heartless ships that had the severe misfortune to be in her way when she was trying to RTB.
The little planet that Traverse Town was a big part of came back into view, and Sarah let herself relax at last. She still wondered if the ship's guns were capable of strafing a settlement from orbit, but as she had friends and close acquaintances down there, she wasn't about to test that out. Not around here, at least.
Of course, it was more than likely that she'd get such a chance when she and hers made it to Hollow Bastion, but that was a concern for some time in the future, and the future could look after itself. Here and now was what she had before her, so here and now was what she was going to focus on.
Making her way out of the ship as Donald finished settling them into the hangar, Sarah yawned as she continued along behind Donald and Goofy back out to the surrounding environs of Traverse Town. Their trip through the First District was rather uneventful for the most part, but Squall coming to meet with them when the four of them came into sight of Cid's shop was something of a surprise.
"Is there something I can help you with, Leon?" she asked, as the brunet caught up with their group just in front of the doors to Cid's shop.
"There's another kid here who wants to talk to you," he said. "You're not too tired for that, are you?"
"I think I could stay up for a couple more hours, at least," she said, wondering if the kid that Squall had mentioned was who she thought he might be.
Following Squall into Cid's shop, Sarah found that Cody was indeed waiting for her there; red t-shirt, light-brown backpack and all. His mop of blond hair looked a bit more than slightly windblown, and he was holding something between his hands that she could swear was causing a phantom breeze to tug at Sora's hair, but Sarah couldn't have failed to recognize one of her favorite characters from one of her favorite Disney movies.
"Hey," she called, pitching Sora's voice to be soft and gentle. "I heard you wanted to talk to me."
"Mr. Leon said you could help," Cody said, standing up from Cid's black couch and making his way over to her.
He was younger and shorter than Sora, but Sarah put any other thought about their respective ages aside before she could get too absorbed in thinking about them.
"Well, I can't make any promises if I don't know the full situation, but I'll do the best I can," she said, as Cody made his way over to stand in front of her.
The young boy looked down briefly at whatever it was that he held in his hands, before turning his gaze back to the boy everyone still thought she was. "Take care of her for me, okay?"
The stone Cody pressed into "her" hands had been warmed by the kid's body, of course, but it also seemed to have an internal warmth of its own; almost like captured sunlight. Sarah could also feel that same phantom breeze, all the stronger for the fact that she was in contact with the stone itself, tugging at Sora's hair and playing over "his" hands. She smiled gently.
"Thanks," she paused, knowing it was better to be introduced to someone than it was to startle them with the fact that you already knew their name; not a situation that had come up a lot of times before all of this exquisitely weird shit had started going down, but the notion held true, all the same. "Hey, what's your name?"
Cody looked back, smiling rather softly, himself. "My name's Cody. What's yours?"
"I'm Sora," she said, reaching out to shake Cody's hand as he offered it to her. "Nice to meet you, Cody."
The pair of them shook hands, and then Cody – by sheer impulse, if the look on his face was anything to go by – reached out to hug the boy everyone still thought she was. After thanking her once again for taking care of his friend, whispering into "her" right ear that his friend's name was Marahute, she and Cody both bid each other a fond farewell. Covering a yawn as she turned back to Squall, Sarah tucked the stone – that was clearly a summon gem – into the left pocket of Sora's shorts.
"Was there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?"
"It can wait," the man said, standing back up from where he'd been leaning against the wall of Cid's shop. "For now, get some sleep. I think we'll all be needing it."
She scoffed. "Now there's a happy thought," she muttered.
Without another word, Sarah turned and left Cid's shop, heading back through the remainder of the First District and on into the Second. Yawning once more as the four of them continued on their way back to the hotel that they were all staying in, Sarah reached up to push open the double-doors with a definite sense of satisfaction. Pausing a moment to hold the door for her compatriots, Sarah continued onward to her own room with yet another yawn, bidding her traveling companions good night.
Sarah made her way at last into the blue-shaded room that she had claimed for her own use. Tossing her dirty clothes into the hamper, Sarah made her way over to the nightstand, and the bed beside it. Settling herself down on the bed, Sarah took out her journal and quickly composed an entry.