It was later than they'd thought; Hayner ran for the Sandlot to practice, Pence home for dinner, and Sora and Riku had gone out back in the mansion's ruined rear garden to spar, the sound of clashing keyblades and taunting carried by the breeze.  Naminé and Roxas had gone to the White Room upstairs to talk. Kairi and Olette wandered around the front garden, stretching after sitting still so long. Olette's family was going to eat late tonight, so she had a little time to spare. The grass swished around their ankles, crickets scattering; a mouse ran across Kairi's foot, and they had to walk around a very large spiderweb.

"It must be nice to have your own place like that. I get tired of living with my parents and my sisters," Olette said, rubbing the strong-smelling leaves growing on the broken column between her fingers.

Kairi picked a wildflower, something small and yellow, and spun it between her fingers. "Yeah, it is. We can go anywhere, if we figure out how to get there, and it's all ours."

"I want to see some of these places you talk about." Olette scuffed through last year's leaves, sending them swirling briefly before they settled to the ground, and ran her fingers over the rusty iron gate. "Hey, maybe I can save enough for sailing lessons and boat rental. If I rent a boat this summer, I could at least see those islands east of here. There's ruins on that one really far out, right?"

Kairi nodded and pulled Naminé's sketchpad out, flipping through it to the right page. "See? I don't know who built them, though, or why they left."

"Kind of like this mansion. Nobody seems to know anything about it either." Olette studied the drawing intently. "Hey, these look kind of familiar. There's a bunch of old ruins behind this place, too, up on the mountain. Hey, do you want - oh, you've got to work through most of the week, right? I thought we could hike up there and look around since we're off school."

They walked through the mansion to the back, where Sora and Riku were racing around the dry fountain fighting, through a large overgrown herb garden and an even more overgrown rose-garden, where a few last white roses were still determinedly blooming, across a lawn and through a rusted-open gate. The remnants of a path led from the gate up into the woods behind them, and the woods were scattered over the mountain in patches; Kairi could just see outlines that might or might not be buildings.

"Up there. It's about an hour's hike," Olette said, pointing. "It's pretty big, too. It'd take all day to explore it all, and even then there's still something left to see."

"Now I want to see it," Kairi said. "Maybe I can work something out."

-----

It turned out to be just a little more than an hour's hike from the abandoned mansion up to the ruins, broken branches and crushed undergrowth showing that the path was still occasionally used; the first sign of the ruins were stone walls, laid out around abandoned terraces overgrown with weeds and the tougher vegetables, and the second the mostly-buried remnants of a flagstone path. The path led through an arched opening in a wall considerably taller than either Kairi or Olette, and on the other side were the ruins, heavily in shadow still since it was just past dawn. The stone buildings were arranged in long narrow terraces, like the farmland outside, hugging the side of the mountain, with stone stairs and paths between them. Trees had grown up between the buildings and climbing plants snaked over them; tough old roses were still blooming along the edges of the paths, and grass pushed up between gaps in the stones. She could feel Naminé itching to draw, playing with angles and scenes already. Soon, okay? Let's explore first.

All right.

"You weren't kidding when you said it would take all day to explore," Kairi said. "This is huge!"

Olette nodded. "It's a good thing we have plenty of time. Where do you want to start?"

"Let's go left - then we can just work our way around."

Like the islands, everything usable and moveable here had been taken away, but the buildings themselves were different. The window and door openings were much larger, the bigger buildings arranged around courtyards that had once had fountains and gardens in them, and there was some sort of plan to it. There were carvings above the doors, seals, sea-serpents, dolphins, and other sea-creatures, and there were sometimes two or three buildings with the same carving close together. The islands had felt much more haphazard and rambling, buildings and gardens tucked in anywhere they could fit, maybe because they were so much smaller.

Maybe they were in a hurry, Naminé said.

Kairi, thinking about the skeletons around the canal, agreed.  Something twitched at her nerves, as if something was moving just barely at the edge of her sight, but nothing was ever there when she turned her head.  They hadn't seen anything in Twilight Town at all, no Nobodies or Heartless, just punks and pickpockets and the occasional drunk, as if everything had simply gone back to the dark when Xemnas had been finally and completely defeated.  It nagged at her as they walked around, looking at the buildings and the overgrown flowers, listening to birds and insects and the wind.

Olette pointed to one of the larger buildings and suggested going in; Kairi agreed. This one had about a dozen small apartments on the first floor, four rooms each, plaster cracked and fallen on the floor, walls battered; two were severely water-damaged, their ceilings almost completely caved in. The stairs to the second floor were stone, and still solid, though the wood floor in the corridor and the apartments creaked ominously; they walked carefully here, testing the remaining floor before committing their weight to it. There were only six apartments here, larger than the ones downstairs, but in the same damaged condition; one, that they could only peer into cautiously from the doorway, was almost totally destroyed by water that had caved in the ceiling and most of the floor. There were stairs to the third floor, but they'd been made of wood that had rotted and snapped in too many places to risk climbing. They'd been carved with merfolk, once, a few details still visible, and when they made their way back to the stone stairs and down, she saw the same carvings on the broad banisters and the newel post. The broad opening at the center rear of the first floor led out into the building courtyard, a flower garden centered around a fountain of singing merfolk. Naminé seemed especially interested in the fountain; Kairi agreed to let her draw after she'd had a chance to look at the flowers.

"Roses," Olette said, sucking at the finger that had gotten pricked by a particularly vicious thorn. "They look kind of like the ones in one of the parks; maybe some of the originals came from here."

"Whenever they abandoned this place to move down to where Twilight Town is now? I'd take my roses along too, if I had any. I think these are azaleas," Kairi replied, kneeling down to look at foliage. There was something yellow in the shadows under the bush, maybe some prematurely fallen leaf or a bird-feather, though it was oddly round.

The yellow spot blinked. Kairi jumped back, calling her borrowed keyblade to her hand. "Olette, look out!"

The Shadows crept out from under the overgrown bushes and the tall grass, antennae waving as they raised their heads, flinching uncertainly in the daylight, before surging at Kairi. Kairi swung, a resounding thump traveling up her arm as she connected, the Shadow falling back only to charge forward again, and the second time she hit it she felt the broken-string twang of a heart escaping as the Shadow disappeared. Olette had grabbed a broken branch and was using it to shove the Shadows away from her. Kairi swung again, knocking Shadows back, hitting a rhythm, the broken-string twang repeated again and again, stumbling a few times when one sank unexpectedly into the ground and appeared right behind her, and finally chased one into a corner to finish it. She swung her keyblade up defensively, turned, and realized there weren't any left.

Olette leaned against the fountain, panting. "Are they gone?"

"I think so." Nothing moved but some old leaves and a disturbed, very large, very furry spider, but she kept the keyblade in her hands anyway, just in case. She'd lost count of how many there'd been; a lot less than there'd been in the castle, of course, but maybe a dozen or so. She felt a grin tugging at her mouth. A dozen Shadows by herself in a sneak attack. Not bad at all.

I can't tell any more, Naminé said apologetically. There might be more around.

Don't worry.

"I'm glad you were here," Olette said. "I wasn't doing much against those - Heartless? Is that what they were?"

Kairi nodded; nothing else seemed to be moving, so she dismissed the keyblade and went to stand by Olette. "Yeah. They're called Shadows. I couldn't do much the first few times I encountered them either."

"At least it's not just me. So ... should we keep exploring for a while, or leave?"

"Do you want to keep going?  I want to go on if you're up for it."

Olette's voice was shaky. "Yeah. Well, give me a minute."

"Sure."

Kairi prowled around, nervously checking for more Shadows while Olette looked at the roses and the fountains;  when no more came out, she let Naminé quickly sketch the fountain and its sculptures.

In the next building, almost ruined, Shadows crawled out of the shadows beneath broken timbers and stone;  there were fewer of them this time, but they sank into the ground and slipped behind her more often, interrupting her rhythm.  Olette gripped her branch and smacked them away from her, but they were more interested in Kairi, trying to drag the keyblade out of her hands and her down to the ground.  The last two fled back under the rubble, and Kairi and Olette retreated back into the light.

"You still okay?"

Olette nodded.  "Y-yeah.  I'm all right."

They stayed out of the remaining buildings on the lower levels and in the light as they made their way up to the highest level.  Three large buildings were arranged around a big plaza with several fountains, one for each carving from the buildings on the lower levels, around what had probably been a large reflecting pool.  There'd been a mosaic in the bottom of the pool once, but too many tiles were missing to tell what it had been.  Olette opened the bag with their lunch; they sat under one of the dry fountains to eat, and afterward Kairi let Naminé come up again to draw.

She sketched the fountains and pool, quick rough black-pencil sketches, and Olette sitting against the merfolk fountain; then she sat down at the top of the stairs, where there was a good view of the whole ruined town, and began to really draw, careful with angles and shadows and colors, trying to get it just right. She still wasn't happy with it when she finished, as if something she could see and Kairi couldn't hadn't quite made it to the page.

All the buildings on this level shared one set of carvings, a crown between crossed swords above a key on a lozenge, and the rooms were large and individual, not arranged into apartments or offices, well-lit from the large window openings. These were built solidly, stone-floored throughout, and the stairs were still in good shape; there was nothing on the upper floors but more rooms and terrific views of the ruins. On the first floor, they climbed down the steps into the inner courtyard, wildly overgrown, with climbing roses half-covering a statue in the middle.

"You know, we didn't find a basement," Olette said. "It's built high enough that there might be one."

Kairi studied the walls. "You're right. I wonder if we missed it, or if it's a secret door somewhere. Too bad we have to go back soon."

They pushed through the overgrown flowers, careful to keep a watch out for Shadows and scratching themselves bloody on rose-thorns, to the statue. The eight-sided pedestal was almost as tall as Kairi, and just visible through the rose vines were carvings of merfolk, sea serpents and other sea-creatures. The statue was of a woman in armor, face hidden by her helmet, with a long sword in her left hand, and shield with the crown, crossed swords and key lozenge leaning against her right leg. The sword was pointed down, as if she'd already defeated something, with an oddly heart-shaped guard around the hilt, and the blade marred at the tip. She thought it was damaged at first, but it was too regular; she and Olette climbed up on the pedestal for a better look.

"Isn't that a - "

"Keyblade!" There was just enough room for an unsteady perch; she leaned, carefully, keeping a grip on the statue's leg, to look more closely. Definitely a keyblade. "What's it doing here, though?"

Olette shook her head. "I don't know. I don't think we made it up here the last time." She stood up, very carefully, to peer up at the statue's head. "Hey, maybe this is one of the founders. They rescued people from a war and brought them here to safety, and they they just sort of ... vanished."

"Huh. We're all supposed to be descendants of refugees in Destiny Islands, too," Kairi said. "I wonder what kind of war it was?"

"They never say. Just that there was a war, not who was fighting or why," Olette replied. "Nobody ever said in your islands, either?"

"No," she replied, climbing down the other side. "Maybe they didn't know." She stumbled a little, the ground here lower than in front of the statue, almost a shallow ditch a good five feet long, just as wide as the statue. "I bet it's supposed to move," she said, crouching down. "Or maybe there was something else here."

"Well, it was something," Olette said. "But we'd better go if you're supposed to be back by sunset."

"Yeah, you're right." They hiked back down through the ruins, down the path and back to town.