Once she'd finished with that, Sarah yawned deeply as she tucked the thing neatly back into its drawer and climbed into bed at last. The "snap" of the light switch as Kuromaru obligingly turned them off brought a brief smile to "her" face as she closed "her" eyes, but as Kuromaru scampered up onto the bed to settle itself down beside her, Sarah was already starting to feel the familiar heaviness of sleep settling firmly over her.
Bracing herself as she was tackle-hugged for the second time in what felt like only a handful of seconds, Sarah laughed gently at the two forms she could see latched onto her waist as if they would never let go.
"Missed me that much, did you?"
"That's not funny, Sarah!" Mystery Kid exclaimed, looking up at her with that blank, expressionless helmet he had for a face. "You almost died out there! I could feel your Heart about to detach from your Body," Sarah could imagine she felt the kid shudder. "If Kuromaru hadn't been right there with you, I don't-"
"I think what he's trying to say is, since you knew what kind of a horrible person Mr. McLeach was, why did you provoke him like that?" Kairi asked, after the mystery kid had cut himself off for some reason or other.
"Yeah; bit of a miscalculation on my part, that," she said, with as close as anyone could come to a sigh in this realm of dreams and memory.
Mystery Kid made what sounded like a few, abortive attempts at speaking, before he finally managed something coherent: "Sarah, I want you to promise me you'll never do something that dangerous again!"
"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that," she deadpanned, understanding the source of his vehemence but thoroughly unimpressed by it.
"This isn't a joke!" Mystery Kid shouted. "You could have died out there!"
"Yes, I could have," she said, still unimpressed but sympathetic all the same. "Squall could have had his skull smashed open by that giant Heartless we faced in the Third District's courtyard. Donald and Goofy risk death – or worse – every day we all fight together. Each and every one of us is in the same kind of deadly danger each and every day," she continued, folding her arms and narrowing her eyes. "So, I don't see how you thought I was going to be any different."
"This is crazy!" the mystery kid snapped, faceless head snapping from her to Kairi and back again. "You're not an Assassin, or a Templar, or… or a member of Blackwatch-"
"I should hope I'm not Blackwatch," she scoffed, carefully not smirking.
"That isn't the point," Mystery Kid said, but most of the fight seemed to have gone out of him. "You're a girl," he crumpled against her, and she draped her left arm around his narrow shoulders. "Why can't you just be a girl?"
"That's not something any of us can afford right now," she said; she could almost feel him shudder again.
"Sarah, can you at least promise that you'll try to be more careful from now on?" Kairi asked, a plaintive look on her face as she looked up.
"Insomuch as I actually can, I'll do my best," she said, allowing Kairi to lean in for comfort, as well.
"I guess that's all we can really ask," Kairi said, giving a wan, watery sort of smile.
The three of them stood that way for a long moment, just holding onto one another, before-
~KH1~
Sarah opened "her" eyes and yawned widely, sitting up in bed as Kuromaru went to attend to the lights, scampering down from the bed and over to the door. Thanking the little Shadow as she hauled Sora's body up and out of bed, Sarah made her way toward the shower room, with Kuromaru swiftly at "her" heels. Discarding the underwear that she'd worn the previous day, Sarah turned the shower on full-blast so that it could warm up.
The feel of Kuromaru's head bumping against "her" legs drew her attention, and she reached down to scruffle the little Shadow's antennae.
The steam wafting out of the shower beckoned then, and so Sarah gave Kuromaru a last, firm pat on the head, and then gratefully climbed inside. Once she'd finished washing and rinsed up, Sarah switched off the taps and made her way over to the towel rack. Drying off, she tossed the towels she'd been using over "her" right arm, and then looked down as Kuromaru nudged "her" legs again.
About to ask just what the little Shadow wanted, Sarah raised an eyebrow as she saw Kuromaru offering what was clearly a clean pair of underwear for her to take.
"You learn quick, little guy," she said, scruffling the Heartless' antennae as she took the offered garment.
Shifting the towels so that she could set them down on the counter by the sink, Sarah put on the new underwear, then picked the towels back up and made her way out to dump them in her room's hamper. Once she'd finished with that, Sarah made her way over to the still-open duffel – she wondered for a moment whether Kuromaru had thought ahead to even that need, or if the little Shadow wasn't capable of thinking that far in advance – and picked out her next set of clothes for the coming day.
She chose one of the generalized "cityside" outfits that she'd prepared beforehand, since she didn't know what Squall, and potentially his fellows, was planning to do today. When she made her way out of her room, she found the very man whose presence seemed to be something of a given in this world.
"Morning, Leon," she said, falling into step with Squall as the pair of them began to make their way out of the hotel building.
"They told me about what happened yesterday," the man said, once the pair of them had made their way out into the Second District.''
"You mean our little run-in with Percy?"
"Yeah," he said, and she turned back to see the man studying the boy everyone thought she was rather intently, as the pair of them continued on their way over to the double-doors that stood sentinel over the First District. "How are you?"
"Can't really complain, given the alternative," she said, offering a lopsided smirk in response. "Still, that was definitely an experience I could have done without."
"Couldn't we all," Squall muttered, with enough, bitter, cynical amusement that Sarah wondered for a moment just what the man had been through in order to provoke that kind of a response.
She'd never played FFVIII before, so she didn't know him as well as someone who had might have.
The pair of them crossed the center square of the First District, heading to Scrooge's place for breakfast, and Sarah idly wondered just how many people were going to end up finding out about her and Percy's rather pointed encounter during their trip to that jungle planet that they'd visited yesterday. She wasn't particularly interested in that kind of thing, but she knew that a lot of other people would be interested.
She appreciated their concern, of course – whoever they ended up being – but she just didn't like being fussed over, particularly about something that hadn't really amounted to anything. Squall pushed open the double-doors to the First District, and the pair of them made their way to Scrooge's restaurant to that they could have breakfast and properly start their day.
She ordered hashed browns and sausages, and while she and hers all ate their respective breakfasts, Sarah couldn't help but notice the glances being thrown her way. It was only natural that they would be concerned about what had gone on, considering it had been only yesterday, but as long as they didn't act like jerks about it, she was willing to field whatever questions they might have.
The rest of their meal was taken in silence, with only Donald and Goofy shooting the slightly-more-than-occasional worried look her way. She smiled back in response to the first two, and thereafter ignored the rest to focus on the remains of her meal. Squall and Yuffie, naturally, were a great deal more sanguine about the situation.
"We should go see Merlin," Squall said into the silence, once the last of their plates and cups had been cleared away.
"Any particular reason for that?" she asked, counting out the proper amount of Munny for her meal, and setting it down neatly on the table with the other stacks of coin.
"I think we could all use a more thorough grounding in magic, considering the circumstances," Squall said, and while he did flick a glance her way when he said that, but considering that he was checking the reaction of the whole group when he did that, she didn't make much of it.
The idea of paying a visit to their resident wizard was generally agreed upon, though Donald and Goofy seemed a bit more enthusiastic about it; Sarah could guess why.
Making their way back through the First District the way they'd come, Sarah wasn't particularly surprised to be met at the doors by a rather enthusiastic Kuromaru.
"Good morning to you, too, boy," she said, reaching down to scruffle the little Shadow's antennae as it nuzzled "her" legs. "Come on, Kuromaru," she said, snapping "her" fingers to call the little Shadow to her side as their group continued on their way through the Second District, and then to the doors that stood sentinel over the Third. Passing through those doors in turn, Sarah found herself wondering just where in the hell all the other Heartless were.
She distinctly remembered at least three waves of various types showing up in the purple-checked courtyard that had served as just one more natural arena in-game, as far as she'd been concerned at the time.
"Is it normal for things to be this quiet for so long?" she asked Squall, deciding to defer to his greater experience with the things; hell if she knew if this kind of things were kosher when one wasn't dealing with pre-programmed NPCs who'd attack in waves once you'd stepped out of a designated safe-zone.
"No," Squall said darkly, eyes narrowing as he scanned the empty courtyard. "I don't trust this quiet, and you're right not to, either. They're planning something; we shouldn't let ourselves get complacent."
Well, at least I know I'm not the only one getting tweaked by all this alleged peace and quiet, she mused. Still, there was a point at which reasonable caution became paranoia, and it was a fair bit harder to find that fine line when you were working with someone who didn't seem to know the line existed in the first place, much less just where it was. Which made it all the more of a relief when she saw Yuffie rolling her eyes behind the man's back; the ninja – ridiculous outfit and all – really did seem to provide a good counter-balance for the gunbladier's less than helpful traits.
The six of them passed through the fire-and-rune marked door that separated Merlin's cavern from the rest of the Third District at large, and for the first time Sarah became aware of some kind of pressure – accompanied, for whatever reason, by the distinct smell of ozone – all over Sora's body; as though she'd just walked under a sheet of rushing water.
"Gawrsh, what was that?"
"You felt something too, Goofy?" she asked; it was a bit much to be a coincidence, that Goofy would mention something so soon after she'd taken note of something herself, to think that the two of them could be unrelated.
"We should talk to Merlin about this," Squall said, looking up at the roof of the cavern in such a way as to suggest that he himself had felt the same odd, not-quite-pressure that she and Goofy had.
She wondered for a moment, as the ever-shifting rocks formed themselves into a neat pathway five of their group – Kuromaru already having taking its preferred place on "her" back – if the rest of their group had felt it, too. Kuromaru had squirmed a bit, but that might have just been the Heartless getting itself settled. Still, there was every chance that she'd manage to find that out while they were all talking to Merlin about whatever other magic-related things that Squall had wanted to bring them here for.
Detouring around the scraps of what looked like a shattered crate, a thing Sarah raised an eyebrow at since they hadn't been there before, she followed Squall into the wizard's house. Holding open the checked green curtain until she felt the thing taken from "her" left hand. The first thing she noticed was the distinctly-dressed newcomer who now stood in the center of the round room.
"Yen Sid," both Yuffie and Squall said at the same time, sounding more than a bit surprised to see the man standing before them at present.
It was a bit surprising to her, as well, since as far as she could recall, Yen Sid hadn't showed up at all in KH1. He could have showed up in the later levels of Riku's story in Chain of Memories, but you couldn't have told it by her if he did. Still, Yen Sid was here, and now it only remained to find out what he wanted.
"Merlin, why is Yen Sid here?" Squall asked, sounding a bit more off-balance than she'd ever heard from the man before.
"He insisted upon seeing Kuromaru himself, once I had informed him of Sora's… rather unique circumstances."
"Yes, the Heartless," Yes Sid said, turning a stern yet not quite disapproving expression on the boy everyone still thought she was. "This is unknown ground you walk now, young man. No one has ever before stood beside a Heartless without losing themselves to the Darkness, or else simply being devoured," Yen Sid breathed deeply, his gaze flicking briefly to Kuromaru – she could feel the little Shadow softly nuzzle the left side of "her" head with its own – and then settled back on her once more. "If you would, young man, I would see something of your usual interaction with this Heartless."
"Kuromaru, down," she said, having decided that the man's request wasn't troublesome enough to bother contesting it, and she was actually rather interested to know what Yen Sid made of a relationship that she herself was fully willing to admit was extremely strange any way you sliced it. "Say hi to the nice man, Kuromaru."
As the little Shadow waved to the tall – compared to Sora, at least – wizard in the voluminous dark-blue robes, Sarah could hear Yuffie making a less-than-game attempt to muffle her snickers. Yen Sid, on the other hand, stroked his full, dark-gray beard slowly and deliberately.
"Well, yes. That hardly seems like the kind of order that someone lost in the Darkness would give," he said, sounding just a bit nonplussed about about what he'd just witnessed.
"Yeah," Yuffie said, sounding generally amused by the whole thing. "Any of their orders would have been like," here she adopted what she probably thought was a stereotypical "bad guy" voice. "'Heartless, steal their Hearts!' or 'Heartless, destroy that World!' Not," and here, Yuffie tried her hand at imitating Sora's voice; the result was rather interesting, all things considered. "'Say hi to the nice man,'" Yuffie burst out into full, open laughter after reciting that, and Goofy and Donald weren't far behind.
Smiling slightly at the antics of her comrades in arms, Sarah turned her attention to Merlin, who was watching the proceedings with an expression of amusement on his own face.
"Hey, before we all get too preoccupied by something else, was that your threshold we all passed on the way in?" she asked, as she watched the expression on the other wizard's face change from one of amusement to one of surprised pleasure.
"You know about thresholds, my boy?"
"I read a lot," she said, since it would likely take too long to explain where and from what she'd actually learned about the concept from.
She didn't know just what kind of fiction they had on these various, tiny planets, but she didn't really think it was much like The Dresden Files' urban-fantasy noir.
"Wait, a threshold is just the space between a door and the rest of the building," Squall said, sounding confused. "How could that have been what we all felt?"
"Merlin has told me that the five of you have been undergoing training to be able to sense, and indeed eventually to draw from, the natural flow of Mana all about you," Yen Sid said, taking the whole of their group in with a long, sweeping gaze.
"That's right," Squall said, sounding like he wanted to ask just what that had to do with anything, but didn't want to come off as sounding disrespectful or impatient or something like that.
"A wizard's threshold, being the focus of a great deal of their magical power, in order to keep the secrets of their workshop safe, would naturally register powerfully to your senses now that you are beginning to develop them in such a direction," the other wizard – she didn't know if he was actually older than Merlin, what with the both of them having big beards and suchlike, but Yen Sid did seem to be a bit more stern in his mannerisms than Merlin bothered with being – said. "In fact, it is even possible that, with enough training, you will each be able to empower your own thresholds in such a fashion."
"I thought a threshold could only properly form when a person felt at home, or at least safe, in the place where they were staying," she said, having been content up to that point to let Squall do the talking.
"Yes, young man, that would be a great detriment to the formation of a neutral threshold, such as that which stands before a house that has been inhabited by a large and loving family," Yen Sid looked thoughtful for a moment, and slightly said, for some reason. "However, the fact remains that a threshold can also be channeled into being when one has sufficient command of the Mana both within and around themselves," Yen Sid paused again, sweeping them all with his stern gaze. "However, a threshold formed in such a way is a great deal more aggressive against those who have not been invited to cross it than those that are allowed to form naturally. They must, therefore, be handled with great care."
"We'll make sure to remember that, Master Yen Sid," Squall said, bowing to the other wizard.
"Yes, thank you," she said, rising from her seat so that she could sketch a courtly bow, herself. "It's definitely a useful sort of information."
"You are quite welcome, young man," Yen Sid said, stepping forward with a flow of robes, as Merlin lowered the platform for the six of them – five who were actually standing on said platform – to step up.
As the platform ascended to become part of the second-level's floor once again, Sarah looked to the spot where Merlin had appeared the last time all of them had come up to this little room for one of his lessons. Sure enough, Yen Sid had appeared right there next to his fellow wizard. She wondered for a moment if Yen Sid himself was going to be sitting in on their lesson today, before deciding that there was no real point in asking a question that was more than likely to be answered very soon.
Their lesson today was a lot like the last one, but Yen Sid also spoke of reinforcing the body's natural workings with Mana, something that sounded a lot like Nasuverse-style Reinforcement, and hence something that Sarah was rather interested in for more reasons than merely the ones that Yen Sid had probably intended. There was kind of an interesting moment when Yen Sid stepped behind each of them, channeling a bit of Mana through their bodies so they could get a feel for it; the look he gave her wasn't one that Sarah was equipped to understand the significance of at the moment, but she made note of it all the same: a sort of sad, resigned understanding.
She wondered about it, but Merlin took up the lesson again, and Sarah shelved her curiosity once more; it wasn't really a pressing thing, anyway.
When the lesson had ended and the six of them had bid a fond farewell and thanks to the pair of wizards who had aided them, Sarah noticed that Yen Sid's eyes were still upon her. Smiling with a slightly sarcastic air, she waved to the ornately robed wizard as their group of six gathered atop the platform once more. That seemed to be just the cue he needed to regain his composure, and the last she saw of the man was him turning to Merlin with the mien of someone with something important to discus.
"Yen Sid seemed pretty interested in you," Squall said, once the five of them who were actually walking had stepped off of the platform so that it could ascend once again.
"You noticed that too, huh?" she muttered, pulling out the nearest chair so that she could hop into it. "Kuromaru, you mind?"
The little Shadow nodded sharply, vanishing and then reappearing with her cooler-bag and a thermos of milk.
Yuffie burst out laughing. "There's another thing that someone who fell to Darkness probably wouldn't do: order a Heartless to fetch lunch for them."
"You're quite right, young lady," Yen Sid said, as he and Merlin returned to the room amid a dull, short pulse of Mana that Sarah was just able to catch the edges of with her developing senses. "Nor would they have been so kind as to ask, rather than simply to order." Yen Sid focused on her for a long moment, and Sarah raised an eyebrow in response. "It is more than plain to see, young man, that you consider that Heartless to be far more than merely a creature of Darkness," he stroked his long, gray beard in a contemplative manner. "I will confess that I don't quite know what to make of someone like you – one who sees the Darkness, and neither fears nor craves it – but as Merlin has informed me that you have shown no hesitation in dispatching those Heartless that are an active threat to the Worlds you and your companions have been traveling to, I see no reason to dissuade you from your current course of action."
"Thanks," she said, pouring out some of her milk into a glass that Merlin had just conjured in front of her. "You want a sandwich?"
"It's generous of you to offer," Yen Sid said, with a gentle sort of chuckle. "But I wouldn't wish to impose."
Yen Sid left without another word, and the five of them plus Merlin shared a last, small meal of various conjured foods before departing for the Third District again. Once the flame-and-rune marked door had descended back into place, and the six of them made their way out to the purple-checked courtyard that made up the majority of the District, Sarah didn't need Kuromaru's frantic shaking of "her" left shoulder to know that something distinctly Not Good was in the offing. The air was almost charged with the anticipation of violence.