Ariel and Merida stayed at the main Park after closing the next night. Once all the guests were gone, they headed out from the castle again in the direction of its western side. They passed through the entrance of Frontierland from the Hub, looped partway around the waterfront, and headed into the part of the Park everyone called "New Orleans Square."

Balconies ringed with fancy green railings overlooked the street from the buildings to either side. It looked nice enough—the streetlamps were on and plenty of the windows were lit. Ariel, however, seemed a little nervous, and walked down the street a little faster.

"Is something wrong?" Merida asked as she hurried to catch up with her.

Ariel shook her head. "No. No, it's just… Tiana's lived here for the last couple years, and Cinderella does now, too, but they aren't the only ones." She shot a look at a recessed archway leading off the road and kept walking.

They didn't go much further, coming to a stop at the building directly to the archway's right. A sign hung out front, saying Blue Bayou. Its walls were painted light green, accented with gold and rectangular windows of colored glass, and fronted by three panels of folding doors. Merida heard muffled voices coming through the windows. Ariel stopped at the nearest of the doors and knocked.

Before long, someone appeared, hurrying through the room on the other side of the glass. The door opened to reveal Cinderella.

Gone was the Princess in a gown of soft blue. She'd been replaced by another woman entirely. The dress she wore was entirely in shades of pink with long, puffy sleeves. She'd tied her red-gold hair back with a loose ribbon and a rope of slick black pearls hung around her neck. To Merida's surprise, there was a sword in its sheath strapped to her hip. The only thing about her appearance that stayed the same were those shiny glass shoes she always wore. Judging by the look on Ariel's face, this was a shock for her as well. Cinderella appeared to neither notice this fact, nor care.

Beckoning to the two of them with a bright smile, she said, "Come on in. Some of the others are already here."

She swept back inside, leaving them to follow her through the entryway. Past mirrored walls and cream colored lounges. Ariel kept staring at her back as she went up a short set of stairs on the other side of the room and slipped through a doorway. They went up as well, heading through the doorway and… back outside. Merida stopped, even as the other two Princesses kept walking.

They'd stepped out into a garden or patio of some kind that backed onto a marsh. She smelled the water on the air. Crickets chirped somewhere and lights floated in the distant darkness. A tree dripping with moss canopied half of the space, while decorative paper lanterns hung on lines overhead. The two-story white building behind her looked nothing like the one they entered through, but she knew enough to expect things like that by that point.

At the center of it all was a long table. Or, rather, a lot of smaller tables pushed together to form a much larger one, with flickering lamps set at intervals along it. As Cinderella promised, several of the seats were already occupied. Merida recognized Tiana from the introductions on her first full day in the Park. Ariel said she lived somewhere nearby, so it wasn't a surprise she'd already be there. The other two girls seated at the table, however, were total strangers.

Both had straight black hair and seemed athletic, but that was about where their similarities ended. The one with a complexion like burnished copper, and dressed in soft leather, sat with her chin in her hand, watching in amusement as the other fiddled with a little black box. The sleeves of the second girl's blue dress were rolled up to her elbows and her face was screwed up in concentration; she didn't even seem to notice that they were there.

"Ariel and Merida are here," Cinderella said as the three of them arrived at the long table. Pointing to the two of them in turn, she added, "Merida, this is Pocahontas and Mulan."

The one named Pocahontas gave Merida a smile and an unusual wave. She remembered Kenai and Koda talking about her. Mulan, on the other hand, didn't respond other than to brush a few chin-length strands of black hair out of her eyes.

Tiana rolled her eyes and said loudly, "No work at the table, Mulan. Remember?"

"The radios are still on the fritz," Mulan replied. Pocahontas reached into the glass sitting in front of her and flicked droplets of water at her, earning her a sigh. "Because of things like that, yes. Thanks. If I don't get them fixed, Mickey'll have a fit."

"He'll understand," Cinderella said, sweeping into her chair and leaning her chin against her hands. "Trust me. But we've got a newcomer, which probably takes precedence at the moment."

Mulan snapped a panel back into place at the back of the thing she'd called a radio and looked up at Merida, her dark eyes appraising. Then she reached across the table to shake her hand, saying, "Sorry we haven't gotten the chance to meet before. Things have been pretty busy around here."

"'Things' are always busy," Pocahontas pointed out.

Mulan ignored the comment. "We're both in charge of Park security. She's got this side, and I've got the other. Before last year, it wasn't really that big a deal. Now, well…"

She shot the other Princesses a look, and they all nodded somberly. There was no need to ask why. It was the war they were talking about. It was always the war.

Merida took the seat directly across from Mulan. If she remembered correctly, she was the character Rapunzel said had collapsed half the Matterhorn during the battle. Mulan had a sword with her as well, although it was a different style than Cinderella's.

Several more Princesses arrived not long after. Jasmine arrived first, followed by Snow White. Merida waved at them absently as they made their greetings around the table, too engrossed in conversation with the two that were still strangers to her to pay much attention to the others.

"This side of the Park has always been rough, mainly because of the pirates." Pocahontas was explaining. She narrowed her eyes and looked back over her shoulder at the dark water on the other side of the garden's fence. "Something needed to be done. Once our guest interactions became scarce, Mickey thought we were good choices. I'm also on the Full Council, but that only meets monthly."

"You don't meet with guests?" Merida asked. "But… you're Princesses, aren't you?"

They both looked at each other.

"Well," Mulan said, "actually, we're not. At least not in the traditional sense. It's more of a formality than anything else."

"You're… you aren't Princesses?"

"Nope. If we're getting really technical, she applies more than I do," she said, nodding at Pocahontas, "since her father was a chief…"

Pocahontas rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair. "It's not the same thing."

"My father was a war hero, which is really not the same, but whatever. Anyway, the Company slapped the label on us even though neither of us have a title, so here we are."

"And we're happy to have you," Jasmine said suddenly, throwing an arm across her shoulders. "Mulan and I are voice sisters."

"We share a voice actress in our films," Mulan explained.

Merida looked between the two of them. "But… you sound nothing alike."

"Okay, our main VAs might not be the same, but Lea Salonga sang for both of us, so… semi-voice sisters?"

"Close enough," Jasmine said as she dropped into the nearest open seat.

"Anyway, not a Princess, but also sort of one? The Park's never quite known what to do with me. My arrival was a mess—"

Merida leaned her chin against her fist and asked, "So who mentored you?"

"Nobody did. The Council took so long to decide that the usual one-year time limit for mentoring ran out before they could pick somebody. She kind of took over for me" — she nodded to Pocahontas again — "and a couple others that showed up and had a similar issue."

Pocahontas shrugged. "It's an unofficial job, but it might be better that way. The only mentee they ever gave me was Forgotten."

"Even if the rest didn't know what to do with me, at least Mickey did," Mulan went on. "He knew what was coming with the Villains long before anyone else. And that there was basically an army just waiting for us to notice them."

Merida blinked at her. "Really? Where?"

"It should be obvious, since you have to look at it when you're onstage every day."

"It's a Small World? Rapunzel mentioned you lot used it as a shelter, but I didn't think the dolls were part of the battle…"

"Oh yeah." Mulan stood and grabbed a puffy square of pastry, which was smothered in powdery sugar, from a plate Tiana pushed down to her. "They're surprisingly effective soldiers if you train them right. Every day. For thirteen years." She stared blankly into the middle distance and took a bite of her pastry.

With a wicked grin, Pocahontas leaned over so her head was nearly on her shoulder and started singing, very quietly, "It's a small world after all—"

"Stop," Mulan groaned, pushing Pocahontas's face away and spreading dusty sugar across her cheek.

"You don't… live in there, do you?" Merida asked.

"Ha! No, I don't. My place is at the base of the mountain; I just went over to train them every night. At least now that the Villains are down, that part of the schedule's relaxed a little to free up time for other security work."

Belle and Aurora arrived just then, with Belle carrying a massive book tucked under her arm. Mulan frowned at her with what was more of a pout than a scowl.

"How come she gets to bring her stuff with her and nobody ever says a word?"

"Because it's Belle. And she's not actually working." Pocahontas paused as the table rattled — Belle had just dropped the tome onto its surface. "I do, however, have some questions about the books she's deciding on."

There was a squeaking sound followed by the slap of bare feet across the floor. Several of the Princesses, Merida included, turned to see Rapunzel hurrying around the screen that blocked the doorway from sight.

"Sorry I'm late!" she called as she sprinted across the garden. "Flynn got stuck, and the tarts almost burned, and Pascal got into a fight with Tink, so—"

Snow White had gotten up to help her while she continued to babble. There was a box in her hands, filled with some kind of little tarts. The second she set them down on the table, several of the Princesses snatched up a few. Mulan climbed halfway out of her chair to wave down the table at them.

"Hey! Hey, pass those down here before they're all gone!" Aurora slid the tart box down, past a few other plates. Mulan caught it before it could go right off the end. "Thanks!"

Merida pulled out one of the tarts, took a bite, and wiped off her mouth. "Are you married?"

Both of the not-quite-Princesses looked at each other, then at her again.

"What?" Mulan asked.

"Well, I was curious since I know most of the others got married by now, and Belle was supposed to have waited longest—"

"Oh. Yeah, if you're counting the fact that the Beast is still around, then she definitely did. To answer your question: no, neither of us are married. We both had love interests, but they didn't make it long in the Park." She shot a look at Pocahontas, whose lip twitched. "Some of us are happier about that than others."

"The Company keeps setting me up with awful men. Kocoum, John… the other John… At least I don't have to remember him…" Pocahontas dropped her head onto the table with a dull thunk. "I'm so tired of it."

Mulan patted her back soothingly, while the fingers of her other hand inched toward the radio again. Even with her face still firmly planted on the table, Pocahontas still managed to reach out, grab it, and pull it out of her reach.

"You know, you should come visit sometime," Mulan said to Merida while continuing to surreptitiously reach for the radio. "I've already got some practice dummies set up in my courtyard, and I'm sure I've got some archery targets I can drag out. I doubt you're getting much practice right now."

"That'd be great, actually."

The thought of actually getting to do some archery made her perk up a little more. It'd been ages. While they tried to work out the details of when they'd meet up, she took another bite of the tart and looked around for Ariel. She'd asked to be informed first the next time Merida decided to go off by herself for a decent chunk of time. But she was nowhere to be found.

At some point during the conversation, Ariel had vanished, along with Cinderella. Merida looked around with a frown, trying to work out where she'd gone. The best she got was a shadow moving across the screen blocking off the entrance. Well, that was as good a bet as any.

Pushing her chair back and getting to her feet, she said hastily, "Be right back."

The other girls waved her off, descending back into the previous conversation without her almost at once.

When Merida reached the doorway of the mirrored room they'd entered through, she stopped. She hung back, peeking just far enough around the corner to see what was happening, but not so far as to be noticeable by either of the Princesses inside.

"I already told you," Cinderella was saying, her arms crossed, "my answer is no."

Ariel sat on one of the plush benches, scowling up at her. "I thought you'd be the first character to want to find it. I mean, it's something of Walt's. Something he left to us."

"I realize that, but…" Cinderella trailed off, wrinkling her nose and tipping her head back to look at the ceiling. "How can I explain this? It feels like… well, like I'm not meant to see whatever this 'gift' is."

"What are you talking about?"

"I don't know. It's just a feeling, Ariel. I'm glad you and the others want to find it — really, I am — but it's not for me."

"Did you at least check Puerto Dorado?"

"I'm still not sure if that clue's referring to one of the pirates, and there are a lot of keys down there…"

"Cindy, did you look or not?"

Cinderella heaved a sigh. "Yes, I did. As much as I could. Just because I have unrestricted access to the attraction doesn't mean I can just go wherever I want whenever I want. There are plenty of pirates who technically have a neutral status, but you I both know that line can get dangerously thin."

"Well, what about Jack?"

"He's too new to be a part of the riddle."

"Did you ask for his input?"

"Do you want me to tell him about some chest of unknown contents that might be construed as a secret treasure? Really?"

"Okay. Okay, you're right, I just…" Ariel dragged her hands down her face. "I got Peter to look into Hook and his crew, but he's come up empty, and now you've got nothing over here. I don't get it. What are we missing?"

Before either she or Cinderella could work out any sort of answer, something caught her attention. Her blue eyes snapped up to the doorway, right where Merida was still standing. She tried to slip back out of view, but it was too late. She'd been caught.

"Merida?" Ariel called. "Is that you?"

Putting on a smile that she hoped didn't look too guilty, Merida stepped back into the doorway. Ariel had gotten to her feet again and was now facing her. Her expression — a mix of puzzlement and suspicion — reminded Merida a little too much of her mother for comfort.

"Mulan and I were just talking," Merida said, perhaps a bit too loud. "She suggested I could go over to her place in a couple days and get some of the archery practice I've been missing. I wanted to know if that was okay with you."

Ariel shook off whatever frustrations from her argument lingered and nodded. "Yes. Yes, that's fine by me."

She looked back at Cinderella, and they shared a look that Merida didn't quite understand.

"We should get back to the others," the blonde said.