Terra and Aqua were some of the last to leave the library to find places to sleep, events of the past days taking their toll. The hall was quiet as they walked. 

“They’re really not how I expected they’d be.” Terra admitted “Who knew Master Eraqus was such a little dork?” Aqua hummed a smile as Terra grinned wide. “I knew that he and Xehanort were friends but I guess I didn’t realize just how close they were.”

“They reminded me of us..” Aqua agreed, and Terra could see what she meant. The way they joked with each other and bantered. He and Aqua had been the same when they were younger, before Ven joined their family. That was when they started taking things more seriously, at least. So the playful arguments and pranks died down as they grew up.

“Yea. Those were the days, huh.” They laughed and they returned to companionable silence. 

They walked for a few minutes more before Aqua spoke again. “I.. I admit that I acted too rashly back there. But you understand why I did, right?” 

“I do.” 

“It’s just. He always had another plan. How can we know that this isn’t one of them? Trying to trick us with who he was before he turned to the darkness?” They stopped walking as they reached the rooms at the end of the hall. Terra saw Aqua clench her fists as she looked at the floor. “We just need to be careful.”

“Right.” He yawned through the word, earning a giggle and a yawn from Aqua who had raised her head to look at him. “Welp, that’s our queue.  Goodnight, Aqua.” He told her as he reached for the door.

“Night, Terra.” She smiled, opening her own door. 

They parted into their separate rooms to get some much needed rest.

Xehanort groaned as he pushed himself off the damp ground. His stomach protested at the movement and he recalled feeling a similar sensation, but more intense, before he passed out. He shook his head in an attempt to clear the fog as he moved to stand. 

He didn’t know what he’d expected, but a dense forest and giant flowers surrounding him was certainly not his first guess. Though it did explain why the ground was damp. 

Looking around himself, Xehanort spotted a shining object partially hidden underneath some brush. Picking it up, he recognized the object as part of the blue-green star shape that they had been looking at before. The piece was broken, just one point and part of the lightning bit remained. “Perfect.. We broke it.” He muttered to himself before pocketing the piece and taking another look around for any other shards of it. 

There was no one around the clearing that he’d woken up in. No Eraqus or Yen Sid to be seen either. At least there appeared to be a path leading through. Xehanort began following it.

He stepped out into a wider clearing with paths winding every which way. On the trees were many wooden signs in the shapes of arrows. The words, ‘This Way’ and ‘That Way’ scribbled on them. All pointing in so many contradictory, unhelpful directions. Xehanort stopped in his tracks, shoulders slumping in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Shaking his head and taking a deep breath, he looked around for any other sign of which path to take. 

“Lost are you?” Xehanort heard a voice, but saw nothing when he turned toward the direction it spoke from. His eyes darting around in confusion.

“Or, perhaps, misplaced?” The voice came again from behind him. Xehanort whipped around, but again, met with nothing. He fell into a defensive stance, eyes scanning the treeline. 

“Show yourself!” He spoke aloud after an unsettling beat of silence. Xehanort could feel the eyes on him, his sneaky company still hanging about. 

Unsurprisingly, the voice responded. “But what of myself might I show?” The voice was close. Directly behind Xehanort, who turned quickly only to see two bright yellow cat eyes staring him down. Xehanort jumped back in surprise. The eyes were not connected to anything, no face, no body. Just a pair of eyes floating in the air. The voice continued to speak, undisturbed. “The eyes can misdirect.” The eyes blinked and vanished again into thin air. “The mouth can lie.” a wide, grinning mouth appeared in the air. Visibly speaking the words before disappearing yet again. 

Whatever it was had paused in its little speech, the forest falling silent again. But Xehanort couldn’t relax, it hadn’t left. 

“So tell me,” It was farther away this time, and when he turned toward it, Xehanort was shocked to see it, maybe, fully visible. A striped purple and pink cat was perched on a tree stump across the clearing where it continued to speak. “Do you believe what has been shown?” His eyes narrowed at the creature. It hadn’t given him any information that could be a lie. Everything it had said was just examples of how lies can be told. Its question made no sense. Unless-

“You’re... not talking about yourself are you?” As the cat stayed in its spot on the stump, Xehanort lowered his defensive stance. It didn’t seem the type to attack him, anyway. 

“My self, your self, all the selfsame without a name.” The cat squirmed upon the stump. It was as if it was immune to gravity, rolling lazily until it was supported only by its tail. 

“A name?” he repeated, contemplating the cat’s meaning.  “I’m Xehanort.” He offered in response, still unsure. 

“So you are,” it said. “One of children three that nestle near,”

“Three? Eraqus and Yen Sid are here!?”

“Eager eye and willing ear,” the cat went on as if he hadn’t asked a question. “Pleased a simple tale to hear.” It finished. The rhyming lines it spoke were reminiscent of a poem. The cat vanished after it recited the verse. 

“Wait! Where are my friends?!” Xehanort looked all around, hoping to catch another glimpse of the cryptic cat. Only to come up empty. “Well, that was unhelpful.” 

He lingered a few more minutes for the cat to return, before huffing out a sigh and following the closest path. Might as well start somewhere. What an odd world so far. 

Yen Sid had been wandering for quite a while now. He’d gathered he must be in some kind of hedge maze with how many turns and branching pathways he’d found himself in after he awoke in this place. Just the color green everywhere. Green grass, green hedges that were at least ten feet high and stretched across the ground. The only things that deviated from that hue were the too-blue sky overhead, and the occasional red rose that grew in bushes that were yet another shade of green. 

Yen Sid was really beginning to get tired of that color. He came to another set of branching paths with a choice of four more directions to take and Yen Sid let out an aggravated groan before flopping down on his back in the center of the clearing. He closes his eyes against the incessant glare of the sky above and curses his luck. “Of course the world we get warped to is nothing but a maze!” He groans aloud again and remains lying there. 

After a moment, he moves. Reaching into his pocket for the item he’d found and stashed there shortly after he woke. Blinking his eyes open to see, he raised the object above him. The sunlight catches in the semi-transparent material, making it appear jewel-like in his hand. “That Xehanort and his curiosity…” 

Yen Sid breathes deeply and closes his eyes as he lets his arm fall back to his side. 

It’s silent for the next few beats before he sighs and raises to sit. “Might as well keep going..” He said before getting to his feet again, dusting off his robe and returning the broken object to his pocket. “Now, which way,” he mused to himself as he considered each path. They all appeared the same. Yen Sid sighed and after a quick game of eenie-meenie-miney-mo, he started walking. 

The too-green hedges curved left, then right and there was another sharp left that abruptly stopped. Dead end. Yen Sid grumbled as he turned around taking the path back. Past one curve, then two. But where the five way cross-section was before, there were now only two branching paths. 

Yen Sid blinked. He was sure that there were no other branches down the path he took. This had to be the same intersection. If that was the case…

“AARGHHH!” Yen Sid growled his frustration. Not only was this a labyrinth, it was a magic labyrinth that can change the paths. 

Yen Sid once again flopped to the grassy ground in the clearing, only momentarily defeated. He closed his eyes and let himself breathe deeply. He could find his way out of this, but he didn’t have to be happy about it. 

A few moments pass and Yen Sid has calmed down. A breeze flows through the clearing and he opens his eyes. He watches as the rose petals on a bush catch in the breeze and flutter down. Another breeze picks up catching a few falling petals and instead of just fluttering to the grass, the wind lifts them higher. The upward draft lifting the petals high into the air and over the side of one of the high hedges.