Butterfly Wings

Traverse Town

There was something licking his face.

He opened his eyes to see a bizarre yellow furry thing that bore a passing resemblance to a dog. "What a dream..." he mumbled, dazed. The dog jumped up, its front paws hitting him in the chest and jolting him fully awake. He let out a startled cry. "This isn't a dream!"

Sora stared at the dog, which remained as strange as at first glance, then stood up, looking around. It was still night, so he couldn't have been asleep for that long. He was in a narrow stone alley beside some wooden crates. At one end of the alley was a crumbling wooden barrier with a bunch of torn, faded posters stuck onto it that were written in some other language. On the other, dark buildings rose into the sky, a handful of windows lit. "Oh boy," Sora said quietly to himself, feeling a strong sense of foreboding.

The girl – Kimi-something – was to his left. She made a confused, sleepy sound, followed by one of revulsion. She shoved the yellow dog thing away and shoved herself to her feet at the same time, banging her back against the rock wall. Then she looked around, not seeming at all surprised by the surroundings.

The dog grinned at Sora, tongue lolling out of his mouth and its thin black tail waving wildly.

"Do you know where we are?" he asked it. A talking dog couldn't be any weirder than what had already happened.

The dog bounded off. "Hey!" he called after it, but it was gone.

Sora sighed. He looked up, seeing the stars. There didn't seem to be as many as he was used to. He shook his head. He was probably imagining things, or there might have been some thin clouds blocking the fainter ones.

Since the dog hadn't given him any idea of what to do, he turned to the girl. "Do you know where we are?" She'd looked like she might have recognized the place.

She was staring off in the same direction as the dog had gone with a look full of loathing. "We have to follow that," she said, sounding intensely annoyed but resigned at the same time. "Well, come on."

Sora followed the girl out of the alley.

Like so many things recently, the dog has disappeared. Beyond the alleyway were stairs leading down to an open square. There were two circles of grass, each with a branching lamppost coming out of the center like a strange tree, each bulb releasing a bright glow. Was this really another world? The girl didn't spare it a glance. She walked around, past the door of a shop marked with blue lanterns on either side, then started jumping next to the building. She grabbed the edge of the roof, dangled for a second, and dropped. She jumped again and dangled.

Baffled, Sora turned to regard the square again. He heard the girl drop to the ground. "Where are we?"

"Oh – Traverse Town," the girl said, sounding a bit annoyed.

He felt like he'd heard name that before. "You know this place?"

Instead of answering, the girl said, "Why can't I get up there?!" She jumped again.

"Could you before?" Sora asked.

"I could in the game," she replied. "There are heartless, why aren't there jumps?"

Sora walked to stand beside her. He jumped, grabbing the shingled edge and then flipping in a smooth, automatic motion to land on the rooftop. He reached down and grabbed her hand, pulling her up.

Instead of being grateful he'd helped her get onto the roof, she whined, "Why can you do it?"

"You just need to learn how." Sora remembered his younger self clumsily following after Riku, and added, "And practice. You'll get it. Kairi didn't know how when we met her either."