Feeling nicely refreshed and rested when she woke up in the morning, and rather pleased that there hadn't been anything of particular import that Kairi or the mystery kid wanted to discuss with her, Sarah levered herself up and out of bed. Laughing softly as Kuromaru hopped down to the floor after her, Sarah made for the bathroom so that she could take her morning shower and properly start her day.
Once she was finished with that, and feeling both relaxed and refreshed for it, Sarah changed into a new set of clean clothes and went off to meet her compatriots for breakfast. Pausing just before she would have reflexively swept up her supply-pack and swung it up onto "her" back, Sarah considered just had happened during the last few days of her stay in this place.
A certain someone had apparently been blabbing about Kuromaru, evidently to anyone he could pin down long enough to say more than a handful of words to, and what Sarah wanted to know was just what kind of consequences those conversations were going to have.
Smiling slightly as Kuromaru hopped onto "her" back and climbed into the supply-pack that she was wearing, Sarah left her room and made for the one that she recalled Squall, Aerith, and Yuffie staying in. She didn't know if they were all there now, but it was as good a place to start her search as any. Knocking on the brown door, with even Kuromaru reaching out to knock as well, Sarah chuckled softly.
"Leon, you in there?" she called, just loudly enough to be heard through the door without disturbing anyone more than strictly necessary.
"Sora, I was just about to come get you," the man said, looking more than a little surprised to see the boy everyone still thought she was.
"I wanted to talk to you about something. Mind if I come in?"
Squall seemed perfectly amenable to the idea, and so Sarah stepped past him as he cleared the doorway, heading for the small table as Squall closed the door behind them.
"So," she said, plopping down in a nearby chair, as Squall settled down in the one just opposite her. "How many people did you tell about Kuromaru?"
"Just Cid and Merlin," he said, his eyes briefly flickering to "her" lap as Kuromaru settled itself down there. "I didn't want to start any kind of panic."
"Good thinking," she said, patting Kuromaru's head as the little Shadow looked up at her.
"There was something I wanted to talk to you about after breakfast, but since you're here I guess I can say it to you now," Squall said, and Sarah relaxed back into her seat, rather than getting up, like she'd been planning.
"What's on your mind, Leon?"
"I think the two of us should go see Merlin about these," he said, taking out a red gem that bore a striking resemblance to the one that Cody had given her just last night.
"You have one, too," she observed, as Kuromaru peeked its little head over the table to get a look at the gem. "That's interesting. After breakfast, then?"
"I was about to suggest that, myself," Squall said, nodding sharply as Sarah stood up and made to leave at last.
"All right, I'll remember that," she said, as Kuromaru scampered back up onto "her" back. "I'll see you then, Leon."
"See you then, Sora," the brunet said, showing her to the door as the three of them made to depart the hotel at last.
Kuromaru rested lightly in its favorite place as their trio made their way out of the Second District and up to the doors that divided it from the First. Passing through that District on their way to the restaurant where their group seemed inclined to congregate – though Sarah didn't quite know if that was due to both the quality of the food and a lack of competition, or if it was just the former – Sarah followed Squall and the pair of them said down among the group of their fellows to order.
She had pancakes, with lots of butter and maple syrup, and a tall glass of cold milk to wash them down. And, once the lot of them had finished with their respective meals, Sarah separated out the Munny owed for her own meal from the remaining funds that she possessed. Making up her mind that she would replenish her stores as soon as she had the opportunity; i.e., when she and her group made it back to the Item Shop. Or else she would go there on her own, depending on what Donald and Goofy ultimately chose to do, themselves.
"Sora and I are going to go talk to Merlin about that gem he got from Cody last night," Squall said, as their group of six – seven, if one was inclined to count Kuromaru – all stood up in preparation to leave.
"All right," Donald said, nodding. "Goofy and I are going to be going to the Item Shop to replace our used Potions."
"How about you guys wait for me there?" she suggested. "I need to pick something up there, too."
"We could pick it up for ya, Sora!" Goofy suggested enthusiastically. "What is it?"
"It's four hundred Munny, if I have it," she stated, turning to face her traveling companions more squarely. "I'm starting to run a bit low on funds."
"All right, Sora," Goofy said, who was actually the only one to speak up in the confused-seeming silence that descended in the wake of her admission. "I'll pick it up for ya!"
The only real explanation that she could figure for the silence was that she had either violated some kind of cultural taboo that only Goofy was insensitive to, or else they'd just never heard someone admit to being strapped for cash before. Still, cash ran out just like any other finite resource, and she personally didn't see much point in hiding something like that from people who'd already helped her so much.
Whatever the ultimate cause of Squall and Donald's discomfort, however, it remained on them to get over it. Nice as the pair of them had been, in their own unconventional ways, Sarah had other things to concern herself with besides the affairs of a pair of guys who'd proven perfectly capable of looking after themselves.
Sarah followed Squall out of the restaurant, back into the Second district, popped briefly into her hotel room to grab the golden gem she'd gotten from Cody last night, then rejoined Squall for the remainder of their journey to Merlin's workshop in the Third District.
Squall had been looking back at her occasionally as they walked, but since she'd have wanted to make sure that anyone following her hadn't gone and wandered off anywhere, Sarah didn't pay the action anymore mind than to notice it. The swiftly-becoming-familiar snap-tingle and smell of ozone that greeted the pair of them as they crossed Merlin's threshold, as well as the prompt appearance of the wizard himself, brought a small smile to "her" face as she watched.
"What can I do for you gentlemen this fine morning?" he asked, seeming perfectly happy for any number of reasons.
"Sora and I wanted to know what these strange gems are," Squall said, as the pair of them placed said gems beside one another on the small table that dominated the center of the room.
"Oh my," the old wizard said, pulling his glasses off to polish them, and then setting them firmly back on his nose once more. "It seems that the both of you have found something rather unique and precious. I'll confess that I am hardly an expert on things of this nature, so would you both wait a moment while I fetch someone who is?"
"That's all right with me," she said.
Squall also agreed quickly, and so the pair of them waited for Merlin to return. When he did, he was accompanied by what looked like a kindly old woman in soft, pale purple clothes that had almost looked like a robe from far-off, but actually turned out to be a hood, skirt, and a blouse; all of them in varying shades of pretty much the same color. In fact, the only thing that the newcomer was wearing that didn't carry what seemed to be her signature colors was a strange sort of tie that was a deep, rich shade of red.
All in all, Sarah really couldn't have called it color-coordinated, but it was certainly unique.
"Merlin tells me that the two of you have managed to find something that I would know about."
"That's what he told us, too, Ma'am," she said, though she still remembered – in the most general of senses – what she gems she and Squall possessed were capable of, it would be nice to have confirmation.
Rather than just the hunch she'd been operating on before.
Apparently, Simba and Marahute had both turned into Summon Gems when their respective worlds had been destroyed, managing to escape from said destruction in a decidedly different way than Cody or any of the other refugees who had made Traverse Town their home. Squall asked about Cody before Sarah could articulate the question herself, but hearing about the way that the eagle had – according to everything that Merlin and his associate knew about the mechanics of a Heartless invasion – protected Cody with her own Heart while the pair of them had fallen through the space between Worlds had been interesting.
It'd also fit perfectly well with the relationship that the pair of them had shared in the movie she knew them from.
Once she'd thanked Merlin and his associate – who didn't seem to have a name that she was willing to share, which fit with the bits of fairy lore that Sarah had picked up from the Dresden Files, Gargoyles, and the like – for their time, she followed Squall as the pair of them departed from Merlin's workshop and made their way back into the Third District. Squall got a bit tense when they passed through the place uncontested, but since Kuromaru was perfectly calm, Sarah didn't let herself get too fussed.
Squall could be as paranoid as he liked, so long as he didn't try to force his fears on anyone else. And yeah, in-game the Third and Second Districts had been swarming with Heartless, but that had clearly just been game mechanics. As weird as it was to think about, Traverse Town was a real place, now.
One couldn't really expect video game logic to work in a real world.
Meeting up with Donald and Goofy at the item shop like they'd planned, she smiled and thanked the dog-man as he handed over the bag of Munny that he'd clearly fetched for her.
"So, how many Potions did you end up having to use on me, Donald?" she asked, drawing the attention of both the drake and pretty much everyone else in the room. "Tell me, and I can replace them for you."
"No, no, no," Donald said, waving off her words like they were a swarm of stinging insects. "I couldn't ask you to do something like that!"
She was about to suggest that something of that nature would only be fair, since it'd been her stupid miscalculation that'd nearly ended up getting her killed, but when she saw the stubborn expression coming over the drake's face and remembered just who it was that she was dealing with, Sarah decided that it would be more trouble than it was worth to explain her reasoning to him.
"All right. So, where were you guys thinking to head next?"
"Cid said that that Gummi we found on… That other World could let our ship go to even more Worlds than we could before," Donald said, seeming rather relieved that she'd chosen to forgo speaking about their previous topic. "So, Goofy and I thought that we would all go to one of the next Worlds we can get to, and see if we can find some sign of where the King might have gone."
"Sounds like a plan," she said, nodding as she tucked the bag of Munny deeper and more securely into Sora's left pocket. "I'm going to head back to the hotel to drop this off and pick up some more supplies, then I'll meet you guys back at the hangar, all right?"
After her traveling companions had both answered in the affirmative, Sarah bid them both farewell, thanked the ducklings for holding onto her earnings for her, and then departed once again for the Second District.
Once she'd made it back to her room, Sarah quickly changed into the clothes that she'd previously selected for making their trip across the desert that made up a large chunk of the world they were going to make planetfall on next. She also packed a bottle of water for each of them, since keeping hydrated was particularly important in such an arid environment. Even moreso when you were going to be heading into combat, of course.
Once she had all of her provisions for their next trip packed and ready, Sarah slung her supply-pack back up onto "her" shoulders, paused a moment to let Kuromaru climb inside, then made her way back out of the Second District to meet up with her compatriots again. Jogging so she could get to the hangar without making the pair of them wait for too long, Sarah slowed back to a walk as she made her way inside. Greeting Donald and Goofy as the three of them climbed aboard the ship, Sarah idly toyed with the idea of having a talk with Cid; he seemed to be the one in charge of building and maintenance, so he probably would be the best one to consult about building a ship of her own.
She'd done it often enough in-game, but that was when she'd fully understood the collection mechanic, and knew just what kind of parts to place where to get the best effect. As their ship launched into the aether once more, Sarah made up her mind to at least find out what Cid had to say on the matter of ship construction before she started making any concrete plans. Still, all of that was for after they'd returned from the latest leg of their search.
Laying on the triggers as soon as their ship had passed beyond what she'd come to think of as Traverse Town's airspace, Sarah watched for any stray Heartless ships that might have tried to keep themselves just beyond the paltry range of her current ships guns and thus avoid destruction. None of them seemed to have been intelligent enough to take that tack; no, instead they came at her in what amounted to a slightly jagged line.
It was kind of funny, the way world-destroying monsters could be so aggressively stupid at times. However, it was useful enough that Sarah wasn't going to spend too long looking this particular gift horse in the mouth.
Soon enough, the planet they were due to land on came clearly into view: a vast desert, drier and more arid-looking than the one that had housed the Coliseum and its surrounding environs.