Eos, Part III

Wake up the dawn and ask her why
A dreamer dreams she never dies
Wipe that tear away now from your eye
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball

"Champagne Supernova" (Oasis)

-break-

The elusive Cloud appears one day, to the shock and awe of Kairi. (She had been expecting something red, but instead he wears navy blue and black. Cold colors.) The blond--with a hairstyle curiously similar to Sora's--carries himself politely enough around everyone, but barely says two words until he takes a look at Kairi and asks, "Who's this?" At which Aerith smiles and places her fingers on Kairi's shoulder for a sisterly squeeze.

"Kairi, this is Cloud. Cloud, Kairi."

"Hi, Cloud," Kairi greets him, bolstered by the gardener's presence. Cloud gives a distant nod, then waves slightly to Leon, Yuffie, and Cid before walking down the hallway to... his little-used room, probably. She notices an air of bone-tiredness around his dark-clad figure, so instead of feeling ignored she only feels slight disappointment. Until she looks around to realize they're all watching Cloud slump and slouch with every step he takes out of the common room.

Not only that, he does not give even a second glance to his friends, and when he finally disappears everyone gives various sighs of exasperation. Cid's and Yuffie's have a clear sense of irritation about them, Leon's tone is more resigned, and Aerith seems faintly depressed. Kairi decides that she has a right to know what's happening and asks (rather tentatively), "Is something wrong?"

"Well, no," Yuffie starts. "Unless you count Cloud Cuckoolander coming back after days--scratch that, weeks--without changing one bit."

Leon makes a move as if to stop the ninja from spilling the beans, then shrugs and pulls back at the last moment. "Go ask around, if you like. We... we don't like talking about it."

"You and Aerith don't like talking about it," Cid shoves in. He can be every bit as pushy as Yuffie when he wants to be, despite the fact that he keeps saying he hates the way she talks to people. "Girl's got to know what happened. And I don't trust Yuffie's version--she was too young back then to keep things straight."

"Nine-year-olds can keep things straight!" Yuffie protests. "My memory's as straight as a poker, old man--!"

"Just go," Leon orders. He never really yells or whispers, and at best his voice has a limited range; but he instinctively knows which words to emphasize. Kairi notices that in her lessons. When he talks about something he thinks is boring (like reminding her about posture), he has a flat monotone; but when he is talking about something somewhat dangerous (like a technique Kairi has never used before) he is adamant about explaining everything and Kairi listens.

Meanwhile Aerith looks suspiciously tearful. She retires to her room as Yuffie and Cid herd Kairi to the kitchen; Leon's status remains unknown, but Kairi decides that he probably wouldn't just stay there alone in the empty common room. Or maybe he would, if he had something worthwhile to do.

-break-

"Sit," Cid grumps. Kairi promptly takes a seat at the table while the former pilot takes a chair for himself. Yuffie plunks her shuriken into a lean against the table leg before swivelling a chair around and sitting on it backwards. "Now ask me a question. And don't mouth off about how I'm trying to control you--that's just how I roll, and if you want any information about Mr. Angsty Angst you will do what I say."

"Coot," comes a mutter from Yuffie's side of the table. Cid scowls but does not comment as Kairi thinks about her question.

Finally she settles on, "Why don't we ever see Cloud?"

"Good question. You should win a prize." Cid ruminates for a moment. While he's doing so, Yuffie rolls her eyes and gets up, opening the green and gold china teapot so she can check if it's empty or not. It is apparently not full enough, as she holds it under a running faucet for a moment before setting it onto the stove so it will boil. "He's looking for something."

"For what?"

"Tifa!" Yuffie bursts out from the counter, as if it was a game. She retorts at once to Cid's unspoken reprimand. "Well, that's what he's looking for, isn't it? Tifa! You know, all that time he spent going--"

"Ninja, I am answering her questions here--so shut up and drink your goddamn tea."

"You cursed in front of Kairi, and it's not ready yet!" The aforementioned ninja gestures violently towards the teapot, still sitting on the heated stove without a hint of steam. Kairi refrains from pointing out that she's only four years younger than Yuffie, while at the same time mentally contrasting the people in front of her with Leon and Aerith. They're complete opposites right down to their hair color, Cid and Yuffie, with so much arguing between them that she wonders how they get anything done.

"Who's Tifa?" Kairi asks, in an attempt to keep the peace and satisfy her curiosity at the same time. Yuffie takes a deep breath, then lifts the lid on the teapot instead of speaking--though she does grumble a little about Cid's meanness. Yuffie is better at making tea than Aerith is, as strange as it seems. It's just that Aerith tends to have more time on her hands, not being the only one of two weapon-wielders in Hollow Bastion. Well, three, technically, but Kairi doesn't know if she herself counts yet.

"All right, Tifa." Cid brings up one of his hands to bring out the toothpick he perpetually chews, and after a quick inspection he tosses it into the trash can by the sink. Yuffie skitters to avoid it, though it actually lands smack in the center without a single bounce against the rim.

"Watch where you're throwing that! Don't you know people get mono from touching those things?!"

The pilot waves it off, irritated, as he searches for another. "Ah, I don't have mono. Keep calm." Cid digs in his pockets and after a moment he comes up with the second toothpick, biting down on it securely and grumbling as he does. "Stupid... This wouldn't have been a problem if Leon had just left me alone."

"He said his lungs felt rusty," Yuffie backhands. Kairi is surprised, and as if to answer this the ninja continues: "Well, he said Aerith didn't like it, but we all know that whenever Leon says something bothers Aerith it really bothers him. And conversely, whenever 'Leon would not approve!'" she signals air-quotes with two fingers since one hand is checking the kettle. "It means Aerith doesn't. Liars."

Upon hearing this, Kairi feels distinctly out of the loop. "Liars?" she repeats, as incredulous as she's ever been in her relatively short life. "But, Aerith and Leon aren't..." Pointed glances from the two of her companions stiffen her jaw and she closes it. Though, since she feels a sense of moral outrage at the same time she also fixes her face in a stubborn frown. Yuffie waves it off and hops onto the counter, swinging her legs while Cid squints at Kairi and makes her feel nervous.

"You're young," he tells her. "You look up to those two--and Eos knows you should! Keeps another nosy teenager out of my hair!" With the toothpick wedged firmly between his teeth for the moment, the pilot gives a messy swipe at his hair and ignores Yuffie's 'hmph' of indignance. "But really, they do lie. Less than Yuffie and me for sure... and maybe less than Cloud, if what I'm thinking is true. Your perfect big brother and sister figures--well, they're not perfect. Never were. Never will be. Just watch them and you'll see. I know for a fact that they were both as young and clumsy and stupid as you feel deep down inside when you look at them, so don't let anything convince you otherwise. Just try to be your own damn self."

"And, you know," Yuffie adds, probably noticing how exposed and vulnerable Kairi feels upon hearing her innermost feelings deconstructed for everyone to see, "I didn't really mean they were liars. I was just being snarky, y'know. Don't you ever rib your best friends? Just for fun?"

"No!" Kairi answers, a little more irritably than usual. "And if I do, it isn't behind their backs."

Yuffie blinks. Then she shakes her head, apparently nonplussed at the jab towards her moral integrity. "Okay. You've been spending way too much time with those two."

"Need to get you out of this place before your hair turns brown." Cid glares at the offending redness that frames Kairi's face as if it is already dulling at the roots, then takes a deep breath and exhales slowly; it takes a moment for her to remember he's holding a toothpick and not a cigarette in his mouth. "So where were we about Cloud?"

"Crazy and looking for Tifa," Yuffie answers easily. "Going to give me some stick about that, Cid? Should I not have answered?"

"Nah, that's right. Pretty much." The pilot leans his chair back on an invisible wall, half-attempting to smoke his dummy cigarette before remembering too. As she realizes the tension is suddenly gone, Kairi also realizes that she has forgotten about Cloud in all the side-tracks the conversation has taken. She backtracks valiantly, then gives up when Cid decides, "I'll tell you about Tifa first. You need to know about her to understand what comes later."

And it looks like Cid's starting on another tangent again. Kairi makes herself comfortable as Yuffie lifts the lid of the teapot again and prepares the matching teacups, dropping a half-handful of leaves into each one with a cheerful attention to detail that strangely enough reminds Kairi of Aerith.

-break-

"She was a pretty good girl. I think she lived in Verdurity before she came here--freaking small town. It didn't even reappear, so people just built a new town where it used to be. Maybe that's where Cloud went, and maybe that's why he went bonkers. I don't know, and I don't want to. So Tifa was best friends with Aerith since they got here about the same time and were basically the lowest of the low. Tifa washed other people's dishes in the kitchens, and Aerith was just another draftee of the Groundskeeper's (well, Ansem's) in the battle against weeds. But they got comfortable later when people realized they were actually good at things besides that. Aerith started learning healing from Rosa and Merlin in her off-time, and Tifa... well, Ansem had a biscuit of hers and she was set."

Yuffie sighs fondly. "Tifa made the best biscuits ever. She always said that they came out so good because she checked every five minutes to make sure they didn't burn, but everyone knew she secretly meant it was love. Mine were star-shaped." Kairi looks at Yuffie's weapon in shock, vaguely star-shaped and dangerous. It isn't the shuriken she's thinking about, but the quick comment about stars has brought something to mind: a phrase no one ever mentioned to her in Destiny Islands. Go and catch a falling star--

"She liked Cloud," Cid goes on, ignoring Yuffie's aside. "He grew up with her. Think he was a delivery boy or something, so he always had excuses to swing by on the way. Tifa was always talking about him up till the point when he actually visited, and then she got nervous--"

"And she was never nervous!" Yuffie interjected. "I have seen that woman swirl through the kitchen at top speed preparing eighty-seven dishes for a formal dinner and not one of them was burnt or raw even though she didn't accept my help, so I find it hard to believe she could get nervous about talking to a friend for the first time in... ages."

"Everyone guessed they were pretty sick puppies over each other."

"I..." Kairi rests her chin on the back of her hand, drawing lines between pieces of the puzzle. Crazy Cloud, no sign of Tifa, Aerith's sudden depression... It is a picture that is unsettling at best. "Oh, I think I know what's going to happen next... and I don't think it's going to be very nice..."

"Don't we all?" Yuffie asks. The kettle gives a forlorn whistle and she pours out some subtly steaming tea for the whole table. "Drink up, me hearties! Maybe once Kairi joins the ranks of the castle defenders I'll be able to make tea more often."

"Yes, it's sad." Cid swirls his tea as if to check the amber liquid for flecks of leaf. "But that's just the way things happened. Nine years ago, or... ten, I'm not sure... Tifa got a summons from Ansem to his lab. This meant he'd remembered to eat, so we weren't worried. But Cloud was there, and he started acting pissy for no reason until Aerith told him to just spit it out (not her words). He didn't live here, so he didn't know it was normal by then, and when he answered Aerith said--in her words--'She's going to be fine.'"

There is a long pause. Yuffie putters around, straightening out the corner of the kitchen she'd used to make drinks while Kairi stares into her teacup feeling edgy. The castle seems dimmer and stranger than ever, especially when Kairi hears an echo of 'She's going to be fine' in Aerith's voice, and not one word is something the gardener wouldn't say in an attempt to calm someone down.

I understand what Yuffie said about the lying thing now...

"She wasn't," Cid says, in his usual gruff tone. "Of course she wasn't! Cloud followed her down, that crazy bastard, and whatever he did it wasn't enough because when he found her and brought her out, she wouldn't wake up. Weird things started happening then. Nobody walked around at night, not even me--not alone. That was when Aerith made friends with Leon, or so I'm told. I don't know, I was up in the air a lot by then."

Yuffie rolls her eyes. "She bullied him into being her bodyguard. He was the number one cadet, wouldn't say no to a woman, and really handsome to boot. It was weird, though--at first she made a lot of excuses to grab his hand, and then she just stopped all of a sudden. Said she grew up."

"Okay, no more stalling," Cid retorts. "Even though it is kind of funny how neither of them admits that they look too much like each other to be comfortable with any romance."

"They're not related," Kairi points out. "Leon told me so."

"Well, Leon honestly believes that not growing up together and having different last names makes people unrelated entirely," Yuffie replies with a grin. "Not to mention he is frigid as the Rising Falls in winter, so it doesn't matter anyway. Ask Aerith. See how she dances around and tries to forget she did like him once."

Cid reminds the ninja: "Stalling."

"Right." They all take a moment to remember where they were in the story, then Cid continues.

"The weird thing was, it was empty. The lab. Ansem wasn't there, and neither were his apprentices, and the guards stationed in that hallway were relieved and never replaced. So maybe Tifa'd missed him and knocked into something, I guess. Aerith felt pretty damn bad about it, especially when it was a week and Tifa still wouldn't wake up. Then Aerith and Leon said they'd found this little girl wandering around after dark, and they led her home but they never found out her name--"

"What?" Something twinges in Kairi's brain.

"Yeah, and she was conveniently wandering right by Ansem's lab," Cid adds. "They decided to go and investigate it, but they needed a really good excuse since nobody in their right mind would want to go there. One day they offered to look after Yuffie and let her wander around--"

Two quiet steps at the door draw everyone's attention to Leon, looking tired and forlorn. He watches their expressions. Kairi swirls her nearly empty cup of tea, feeling a headache coming on. Then the swordsman informs them, "That's not what happened."

Cid gestures to the empty seat at Kairi's right. "So go finish it for me. Anyway, it's time for my cigarette break." Leon shrugs and sits in the chair, after which Kairi decides she must be more tired than she thought: there's a buzzing sound at the edge of her hearing that will not go away, like the ringing people hear when it's too quiet.

"What happened?" Kairi asks, in an attempt to distract herself from the sound. "Leon?" Leon doesn't look at her directly as he answers; he leans forward so his elbows are on the table and starts talking in the direction of Cid's retreating form.

"The second time, Aerith asked me if there were any shortcuts to the Infirmary because she had a headache and she'd run out of medicine for herself. I knew the last part wasn't true, so I took her through the hallway around Ansem's lab again and she didn't protest like she had before. Then we saw someone running and for a second we thought it was Yuffie..."

Kairi presses her hand to her temples for a moment. Her head suddenly has a layer of thick stuffing padded around it which isolates the buzzing sound and muffles the voices of everyone around her.

"--right," Yuffie breaks through momentarily. "Like I'd... that creepy lab."

"Yuffie!"

"Are... sure? Because I..."

"It's not..."

"It wasn't..."

"We can't... alone like that."

"...kept trying to tell her but--"

With a final shake of her head, Kairi successfully manages to bring herself back to reality. The buzzing stops altogether, and the voices of Yuffie and Leon are perfectly clear to her. For now. At least, Yuffie don't sound so strange or far away when she asks, "Not a thing?"

Leon shakes his head. "No. We had a bad feeling about that, but we couldn't... We just took her to the quarters she said she lived in before. That's what happened--you think we could have done that if she couldn't remember the first time?"

"Ah, go easy on Cid! He was up in the air. He admits it."

"Yeah," Leon says, exasperated. "At least some of us could..." He lifts the silver lion pendant off his chest and observes it for a moment before letting it go with a sigh. "I'm in the training room if you need me. And... one of you, at least, go talk to Aerith. She wouldn't let me in."

-break-

Yuffie heaves an enormous sigh as they trek out into the hallway and shoulders her shuriken. Slumped over like that as she walks, she looks almost forlorn. "This is depressing," the ninja announces. Kairi doesn't know quite what to say, and the feeling continues when Yuffie goes on, "This is seriously depressing--like, the complete opposite of the bee's knees. We should go to Eos sometime, kid."

That tears it. "I'm only four years younger than you, Yuffie."

"I know you're only four years younger than me, Kairi," is the reply. "But tell me--can you imagine being nineteen?"

"Yes." A long, perfectly calm look from Yuffie slows Kairi down quite a bit, and also brings up a nervous feeling--maybe she'd spoken too fast. Yuffie's questions always seem so easy at first. Finally Kairi admits, "Well, no, actually. I can't imagine being nineteen."

"You think I'm old," Yuffie says, her grin huge as ever and ready to separate her chin from the rest of her face. Kairi shakes her head, hard, and tries to stifle an urge to laugh (it doesn't work) as the ninja prods her relentlessly: "Admit it! You can't imagine what four years are going to do to you, and you think I'm impossibly grown up!"

"I most certainly do not!"

"You most certainly do too!"

-break-

Yuffie gives another sigh as they turn into a narrow hallway that resembles the way to Aerith's room. "Ah, I should have saved it for Aerith. Now we're going to get depressed and lonely again. Figures that..." Kairi stops in her tracks as the buzzing noise returns. They are getting too close to-- "What? What is it?"

Too close? Kairi thinks. To what? She can't finish the thought, or really doesn't want to at least, but a glance ahead draws her eyes to the door she inexplicably knows is right down the hall. Her skin prickles and feels tight on her hands--it's all she can do to calm down and keep her keyblade from appearing. "I don't want to go down there, Yuffie."

"What? But it's a shortcut! Come on." Yuffie takes her arm and pulls. Kairi shakes her head and refuses to be budged as her companion frowns, bracing herself to pull harder. Her knuckles turn paler than Kairi ever thought possible in human skin. But Yuffie lets go after several futile moments, shaking her wrist out and staring at Kairi with an odd mix of respect and exasperation. "You are stronger than you look, you know? That doesn't sound like much, but it is. Long way around, then. To Aerith!"

-break-

After Yuffie's knock, there is a long, expectant pause. Then an acknowledgement comes out muffled by the door. "Yes?" The tone causes Kairi to share a hesitant glance with Yuffie, before the ninja shrugs.

"Hey, sweet pea! Let us in." Another pause. Then the door gives an arthritic creak and Aerith's bloodshot eyes appear in the space.

"S-sorry, but... I don't really think now's a good time..."

"Are you okay, Aerith?" Kairi asks, earning a jab via Yuffie's sharp elbow for her show of obliviousness.

"Scratch that, hon. We know she's not okay--we want to know what's wrong."

"Sorry if I was trying to be nice," Kairi retorts. Immediately after, she realizes that probably wasn't so nice. However, Aerith smiles slightly and opens the door a little wider.

"Okay. We might as well all sit down..."

Yuffie bounces into Aerith's room without a second thought. Kairi starts to step in, and then catches something flicker out of the corner of her eye. Curious, she stays a little to peer down the hall to her left. The person steps around a corner before she can catch a definite glimpse of his identity, but he was definitely blond--it could have been Cloud wandering with the light glinting off his blade, or Cid coming back from his cigarette break. She definitely saw something shine, almost like a stray shaft of sun.

"I think that was Cloud," Aerith says, and ushers her in.

So it was Cloud's sword, then--that bright thing Kairi saw. Although she isn't convinced because it hadn't looked like metal shining...

-break-

The next day, Kairi is slightly lost in her wanderings (she's still not used to the size of this place--the Destiny Islands could easily fit into the old ballroom, she feels) and has the fortune to happen across Cid, who squints at her a moment as she tries to phrase her question both honestly and in the least humiliating way. Then he does it for her. "You lost, kid?"

Kairi sighs. "Yes. I don't think I'll ever get used to this."

"Where are you trying to get? Yuffie's or Aerith's?"

"Aerith's."

Cid turns obligingly and points to a smallish narrow corrider. There must be several hundred of those things, including the one she hadn't felt right about yesterday. "Go down there, then take the nearest right and keep going till you see it."

"Oh, all right. Thanks." They start walking on their respective paths before Kairi has a thought: "Cid?"

"What, you want me to repeat it? I said, go down--"

"Er, no! No--I meant to ask you how you got used to this."

The former pilot scowls. "I haven't."

"But... none of you ever seem lost."

"We might not seem lost, yeah," Cid agrees. "But sometimes we are. We don't try to put the whole castle in our heads--that's Leon's job. The only place we all know where to go is the training room, which is where Leon is most of the time. I think he's been sleeping in different rooms ever since Yuffie got mad at him and somehow managed to--" He cuts himself off as Kairi tries hard not to seem interested. "Forget it. I'm not giving you ideas! If you really want to know, ask Yuffie--Leon won't say."

-break-

After a few minutes, Kairi stands at Aerith's door triumphant yet slightly out of breath. She puts her hand against the wall and leans for a moment, deciding to cool off before presenting herself to her friends. She catches herself and wonders about whether she can call them that since it's been such a short time (she can't remember how long it took for her to feel Riku and Sora were her friends), then decides she can. Thankfully neither Yuffie nor Aerith appear and Kairi knocks on the door, refreshed.

The door opens on the first knock, startling her. "Kairi! Thought you'd never knock." Yuffie grabs her wrist, still poised in a light fist at the doorway, and pulls her into Aerith's room. "Aerith has just finished taming her hair and she's getting the rest of her ready. Let's talk while she struggles with her disobedient dress."

"I don't struggle," Aerith says from her closet. Her back is turned as she pulls her fluffy skirt over her head. "I just want to be careful."

"You're lucky your boobs aren't any bigger, lily-love. Otherwise you'd need a zipper." Yuffie winks silently at Kairi and shrugs her own vest on, carefully avoiding the zipper teeth on the armholes. "Yeah, I know how undignified you think they are! The truth is, you haven't begun to see the awesomeness--and kinkiness--of zippers as fashion. Kairi, for example--"

"Please don't finish that." Aerith turns around, skirt now securely over her hips, as Kairi edges away from the ninja. "Kairi, do you mind helping me with my top?"

Kairi takes the long rope of hair in her hands, looking to the side as Aerith pulls her top over her head before gently pulling it through. It's silky, cold, and very thick, making her feel a little inadequate. Her own hair is smooth and she likes the color, but it grows slowly for girl's hair and it's not thick, which is why she keeps it short. Yuffie's hair is short, at least. She never realized how similar she is to the ninja--in the dark, she presumes, they could be sisters.

"There!" Aerith says, making a few minor adjustments as Kairi lets go. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Kairi moves back to Yuffie, who had been watching with a large grin on her face. She doesn't know whether to smile back or feel worried before the ninja gives her a pointy-elbowed jab and asks in an undertone, "Scale of one to ten, from least to highest: How much did you feel like pulling it?"

"Wh-what?" The terrifying thing about Yuffie is that she can make Kairi laugh without letting out a single sound of her own. A smile, a few words, and suddenly Kairi feels her chest start to tighten. How does Aerith stop herself?

"Come on. You had to at least hit a seven."

"What are you talking about?" Aerith asks, sensing things awry as she applies her pink lipstick and Kairi starts to giggle helplessly.

"Um, we are being immature, hormonal teenagers and junk. Zippers! You don't want to know." Yuffie lowers her voice again. "I actually hit a forty-five, which is not an exaggeration--to this day she has never let me touch her hair. That's why she asked you."

"What did you do?"

"Oh, please!" Aerith walks over in a huff. "Why don't we just go to Eos already since you've both started to talk about--?"

Yuffie undergoes a minor transformation as she turns to Aerith with a smile meant to disarm. "You are especially beautiful today, Aerith."

"Leon should be wondering why we're taking so long, anyway," the gardener brushes the uncannily sincere compliment off.

"Leon's coming with us?" Kairi asks uneasily.

Yuffie rolls her eyes. "Probably because we're all girls and it's his duty to protect us." She notices Kairi's sudden silence and tells her, "Look, don't worry about him sucking the fun out of everything. We'll lose him once we get there. To Eos!" With that, the ninja takes Kairi's arm in one hand and Aerith's in the other, pulling with all her gleeful enthusiasm until she sees Leon turn the corner and stops.

"Oh, there you all are," Leon remarks. He takes something out of his pocket and holds it carefully out to Aerith. "Here, Aerith. Merlin gave me a Haste spell for you, just in case."

"Are you not going with us, Leon?" Yuffie asks, eyes excitably wide. He shakes his head as Aerith peers at the spell. Kairi looks at it, too, because there is something strange about its presence. A low sound is coming from the little shining clock that changes hands--she knows some spells are visible, but...

"--don't think I really need to go." Leon moves his eyes towards Kairi. It takes a moment for her to realize that it's a glance of the Very Significant Sort. Even though she's taken aback a little, she nods and the swordsman turns away as if nothing has happened. But something has--Leon has just told her that she is the one who needs to go. She is the one whose duty is to... protect...

"I'll see you all later, then," Leon continues. He crosses Kairi's path and she hears that same buzz coming from the Haste spell, but louder, before he suddenly vanishes around another corner.

"Huh!" Yuffie remarks, displeased.

"Did you hear that?" Kairi asks them, surprised at Yuffie's nonchalance.

"What, that whooshing sound as Leon walked faster than the wind? Of course I did! We all heard it." Yuffie starts walking as Aerith finishes fixing her ribbon. Their Haste spell, Kairi notices while she tags along helplessly, is nowhere to be seen although Aerith has no visible pockets. "I bet he used another Haste spell to run through the castle and find us. It's just neurotic enough for Mr. Wet Blanket. That Leon! Sometimes I try and imagine what--"

-break-

"It's not like the principle was exactly the same, you know, but we never, ever got it back! That was weird. Normally I'm the one who never gives things back!" Yuffie chatters animatedly as they step into the soft daylight outside the castle. Kairi blinks a moment, then looks around and sees no particular pathway other than the one she took in months ago, with Mickey.

"Yuffie?"

"Yeah?"

"How do we get to Eos? There's nothing but stone all around us."

"Oh, you want to know?" Yuffie asks. To Kairi's nod she continues easily. "We climb."

"We what?"

"Climb. Meaning, we pop ourselves over the wall, slide down, and end up in Eos!" she replies, heading over to the rough, huge wall and scrutinizing it for handholds. "What, did you think I meant dig?"

She stares at the towering wall in disbelief, and then does the smartest thing she could have done in this situation: look to Aerith, who sighs and chides the ninja shortly. "Yuffie, don't scare her like that." Said ninja starts to laugh for all she's worth, starting with a solid chuckle before ending up doubled over, with both arms coiled around her short, skinny torso.

"How's that for fantastic--you actually believed me! I can't believe you believed me! 'We climb.' Wow!"

Kairi's face turns so red her eyes water a little with the unexpected heat; Aerith puts a hand on her shoulder and uses it to steer her a short way down the path. When they stop, and things have settled enough for Kairi to feel really, really mad instead of mortified, Aerith taps the stone with a knuckle and runs her hand along it as if looking for a crack in the wall.

"There's a door we can't see here. I think it was put under an illusion to keep up aesthetics, but I know where to find it. You may want to look where you are, though, since--ah!" Aerith's hand hits an invisible obstruction, and she immediately twists it. Kairi expects the stone to shift, but she hears nothing and is faced with the uncanny sight of her friend passing straight through the stone.

Once through the wall and in the city, Aerith begins walking with undecipherable purpose through the streets of Eos. This prompts Kairi to speak, at the exact same time as Yuffie: "Where are we going, Aerith?"

It doesn't feel as fantastic as everyone made it seem, but it is open and full of fresh air, which Kairi didn't realize she was missing until now. She takes a longer breath; it smells like sun-dried soil and wood, or stone--made things. Cultivated land. The crowds are thin for afternoon, but people seem generally friendly and nod when Kairi smiles at them.

"We're going to the White Dragon," Aerith replies. "Not for drinks!" she says sternly, at which Yuffie looks crestfallen. "You're both underage, remember? Cid asked me to see how Rydia is, and I need to see how her yard's doing after the fire."

"Oh, Cid," Yuffie says. "Figures he'd be the reason behind you going to the only pub in town."

-break-

They enter The White Dragon. It is quite empty with only a few regulars sitting in front of plates at varying degrees of emptiness, and the counter is unmanned. Very serene, in fact; however Yuffie takes matters into her own hands and breaks the silence in a spectacular manner. "Rydia!"

"Oh, get stuffed!" comes the contrary shout from the kitchen.

"Business!" Yuffie counters.

"Gimme a mo, why don't you! I'm coming!" That's a woman's voice all right, but she sounds like Cid when she shouts.

"Is she Cid's..." Kairi runs through the list of all possible titles she can think of and finishes weakly, "Daughter?"

A snort from Yuffie. "She's his niece. By marriage. Well--not exactly, but... Just go on and ask her yourself, we've got the time--"

"Well!" All attention is diverted as Rydia bustles in behind the counter, an irritable-looking young woman swathed entirely in a practical muddy brown apron and dark green dress. Her similarly green hair is cropped in a boyish cut except for a few feathery bangs, which she scowls through until she sees the three. "Well!" Then her expression brightens and takes several years off her age. "Looks like my girls are in! All right?"

"All right," Aerith agrees. For the first time Kairi hears a quiet accent in the greeting. Whether it's because Rydia's voice is so strong Aerith unconsciously mimicks it, or because Aerith once had an accent of her own and is just slipping back into it out of habit Kairi isn't sure. She has heard the similar roughness from Cid's voice now and again, but...

"Siddown." Rydia motions to the three-legged barstools at the counter. "So! How's my uncle, who's the bird, and Aerith can just go on back and see for herself--you know the way." Aerith bustles off through the back door (at the same time giving Rydia a Very Significant Glance) while Yuffie drags Kairi onto a barstool. Rydia pours out two glasses of what looks like some sort of fruit juice and passes them over.

"Cid's right as rain--never been grumpier! The little bird's Kairi, who just got here from someplace she never mentioned..." The accent coming from Yuffie is as strong and broad as Rydia's, even through the half-glass she's just chugged. Kairi takes a sip and decides she likes it.

"Oh, wait." The door has swung shut long since, but Rydia directs her attention to it expectantly. "Where's Leon, then? Did you leave him for dead in a ditch?"

"Brooding away back home," Yuffie says. "Said some stuff about not having to watch us anymore--I think he was just bored. Good chance he's training himself to death as we speak."

"Aww." Rydia takes out some mugs and starts to wipe them absent-mindedly while she turns to Kairi. "What about you then, little bird? What's your story?"

"She comes up outta nowhere all quiet-like last month and--"

"What? Was I talking to you?"

"Nah, but--"

"So if I wasn't talking to you, why don't you shut up?"

"You shut up!"

"Titchy tea leaf!"

"Green-haired gash!"

The conversation degenerates into Rydia and Yuffie firing more phrases at each other that Kairi doesn't understand at all, which is probably for the better. Aerith pokes her head in, hands full of clipped twigs and pruning shears. Rydia sees them and breaks into a smile. "Whoops! Sorry, love." Appeased, the gardener vanishes. Yuffie and Rydia glare at each other hotly before returning their gazes to Kairi.

"So, birdy!" Rydia begins again. "Your name again?"

"Kairi."

They shake hands across the counter as if nothing in the last thirty seconds has happened. "You lived here once, right? Red hair, blue eyes... Pretty. I think I'd remember your family with that face, but..." Rydia pauses, and looks at Kairi. Yuffie also stares, and it is just then that Kairi realizes she has no idea about what to say.

"Tell us any time now," Yuffie presses. "Come on! Who's your folks?" Kairi shakes her head. Tellah was family, but she doesn't know the color of his hair before it grayed. She remembers a warm maternal voice, dimly...

"My grandmother..."

"Did they die on you, then?" Rydia gives her a pat on the shoulder and reaches under the counter. "Oh, I know how that feels. Here--" The item is a crumbly pastry set on a small-ish plate. "Cold, but I guess it'll do..."

"Er..." Kairi shakes her head again. "Actually..."

"Did they skip out on you?" Yuffie gasps. "I bet it was your dad! Did he leave you to fend for yourself? Did your mum die of heartbreak? Did they both--"

"I... I hope not, but--"

"They didn't love you, then!" Rydia settles on the answer of her own accord once more. "Seven out of twelve, what?"

"I--"

"Spit it out!"

Kairi takes a timid breath and answers honestly, "I don't remember."

A moment of silence as Rydia and Yuffie stare at her; then the door bursts open to reveal a tall, thin form. "Y-yo... Rydia!" The very drunken man shambles in, with a visible slouch and a head of flaming red-hair. Rydia scowls and brandishes a wooden spoon, obviously familiar with him.

"Keep off, Reno! Not twelve yet and you're already pissed out of your mind--you should've died a year back!"

"Don't worry," Yuffie whispers to Kairi as Reno manages to slosh across the floor. Her accent is gone. "He never remembers a word and he's her best customer anyway. When he's sober, though, and not being weird? He's kind of funny and cool. Oh hey, Reno!"

"No, no..." Reno takes a few shaky steps forward, eyes blearily searching the bar. Aerith finishes at that moment (or for the moment), returning with pruning shears in hand. She steps in front of Kairi protectively, but it's not enough to make her feel completely secure. "No, not about booze this time... I thought--"

"You telling me you know your way here better than back to your own house?" Rydia scoffs. "Good grief. Can't you--"

"I... told you! Not for that, I saw something! Something important..." Reno looks around again and fixates on Kairi, who wishes she hadn't peered out from behind Aerith's back. "Wh-who's that behind that chick in..." Aerith glares at him. "Behind you?"

"No one," the gardener answers, without even a hint of an accent this time. Reno has no accent either, or it's so thin it's overpowered by his slur. He veers haphazardly to the right as he comes closer. Kairi shrinks the other way, hoping it's just his apparent drunken state that's causing him to hallucinate something important about her.

"That's no nobody," Reno counters. "Not at all." Amidst protests from just about everyone Kairi knows, he sits down on the barstool right next to her and twists her shoulders so he can look at her more closely.

"You're scaring her," Aerith says. It's not a loud phrase, but there is a definite steely undertone to it--almost like Leon's. (Kairi doesn't know if Keyblades work on something that isn't a Heartless; she also doesn't know how to intimidate people into backing off with words. Now, she decides, would be the perfect time for Leon to show up and rescue them.)

"Just hold on! Hold on for a moment, please? I... Honest. I won't be a moment." He stares into Kairi's face with an alarming concentration in his blue-green eyes. "Your name, kid? What's your name?" Kairi looks at Aerith, who sees the sudden involvement in Reno angular face and nods, but just barely. Enough to show she's allowing this even though she doesn't approve.

"Karina... no, Kairi. That's right. Your name is Kairi, and... y-your hair..." He reaches behind his back and pulls forward a thick lock of his very red hair, which is lighter than Kairi's at the tips but near black at the roots. "Blue eyes... Little on the short side, though..."

"Please, no," Yuffie voices. "If you're there, Eos, you are not going to let Reno say what I think he's going to say."

Reno falls silent in contemplation, sloppy unbuttoned blazer hanging open like a dead fish to reveal his wrinkled white shirt. Kairi tries to shrug off his hand, then sees it against her shoulder and freezes. His skin is deathly pale like hers, and he is skinny like she is, and his--well, his eyes are not anywhere near the right color. But they are nearly blank with a rock-steady focus and Kairi just doesn't feel...

"Alex," he says, sounding much less serious and (strangely) more sober at the same time. He has no accent to speak of. "Yup! You're Alex's kid." Finally he leans back, oblivious to Yuffie's gaping jaw, Kairi's relief at his mention of one of her parents (her father?) and Aerith's silent surprise. "Mom told me about you--but I bet she never told you about me. I understand. Anyway, it's nice to finally see you! How've you been?"