Young Writers Society

"Giant puppy?" Axel repeated, more than a little confused. The confusion quickly faded, however. Axel had the benefit of having raised a child who was very easily distracted, so he was quite good at deciphering random comments that made zero sense with the context of the conversation.

Axel thought for a moment, then made a guess.

"You were in Wonderland," he said.

Baba nodded, as they did, with vigour.

"Mhm! We didn't get to see the Queen, though. Baba stayed small the whole time, and Kate had to carry Baba in her apron pocket. She had a puffy blue dress. And Vil wore a red, black and white dress with lots of hearts on it and a biiiiiiiig collar, and the big puppy tried to knock over the table, and we were on the table..."

An explanation is required. Baba has somehow made it through life under the impression that 'dress' simply means 'fancy outfit', and has misapplied it to Vil's Wonderland suit. Baba foresees zero consequences that may arise from this use of terminology.

"What happened to the puppy... the puppy got smaller... maybe it's still with Vil."

Baba's head sagged a little bit. Thinking about Wonderland had reminded them of the argument they'd had before they split up- about Lira. About rescuing her from Castle Oblivion. She still needed their help. So did Donald, and Goofy.

"Axel?" said Baba in a quiet voice. "What do you do when you want Vil's help, and you want to help Vil, but he wants to do everything himself?"

That was a lot to unpack. Before Axel could even try deciphering half of what Baba had said, Baba asked a question that was like a punch to the gut. It was a question that Axel had asked himself for years, and a question that he hadn't ever been able to answer.

It didn't help that the tone Baba used—a quiet, hesitant one—was the tone Vil had once used when asking Axel questions. Now he just pushed Axel away whenever he got the chance.

"I wish I could answer your question, kid," Axel said with a sigh. He rubbed the back of his neck. Even after raising Vil for years, he still wasnt entirely sure he could talk to kids right. "I've been trying to do that for a long time. Vil's a stubborn guy. If he doesn't want your help, he won't take it. I just keep offering it in the hopes that he takes it someday."

He gestured at Baba's now melted ice cream.

"This used to be our tradition," Axel said. "Coming up here and enjoying ice cream together after missions. It was my tradition long before it was both of ours, but I do it now in the hopes that he'll meet me here and finally take the ice cream I always bring for him."

Axel got to his feet. Even without being able to see the clock face, he knew he would have to leave soon. Saix would give him an earful if he didn't report back in soon.

He looked down at Baba.

"But, between me and you," Axel said, "Vil likes you much better than he'll ever like me. If you keep offering your help, he'll take you up on it eventually. And if you need his help with something, all you need to do is ask—he's a softie, even when he doesn't act like it. Just watch how he treats that dream eater of his."

Baba listened to Axel's advice, so still that they could have passed for a regular scarecrow.

"Of course." said Baba. There was a disconcerting sureness in their manner, like they'd just made their mind up about something and would not be swayed from their designs.

"That's it."

Vil cared for his friends, but he couldn't trust them. He was afraid, too afraid to be reasoned with. So, the way to give him help and to receive it from him was simply not to engage in reason at all.

It was time for Baba to go rogue.

There would be no need for Vil to accept Baba's friendship. It was not an offer and it was not a question. He was getting it wether he liked it or not.

Baba jumped to their feet, and got to wiping even more melted ice cream on the front of their overalls. They succeeded mainly in redistributing the mess. Those overalls were due for a wash now.

"Thank you, Axel!" said Baba merrily. "I know what to do now."

Baba gave Axel a sticky affectionate pat on the arm, and left him. Baba stood on the very edge of the clocktower, ready to descend and begin the search for their missing friends. But there was still one thing they needed to know first, wasn't there?

Baba began to play tightrope on the border of the roof, stepping back and forth with their arms outstretched.

"Oh, where can Baba find a castle? A secret castle. A castle that isn't allowed.

Baba won't be mad if you can't tell. We always find each other just when we need to."

Baba's bearing remained cheerful. What they had said to Axel was a reassurance. It was also a threat.

A castle that wasn't a...

Ah. Axel smiled. Not because Castle Oblivion was something to scoff at—it very much wasn't. But even though Vil tried his best to keep his plans secret from Axel, Baba had just let it slip where he was heading next. And while Axel could have been a good little soldier and reported this information to Saix or Xenahort, he decided it would be far better to keep this to himself.

"If you're asking me," Axel said, completely undisturbed by what was probably supposed to be a threat, then I'm sure Vil has already told you he doesn't know how to get there. He probably also told you I can't say."

Axel thought for a moment, the beginnings of a plan forming in his head. If he remembered what Demyx had been complaining about last time they were on a mission together, he'd be going to...

"But," Axel said, "if you need a detour and want Vil to open up just a bit more, you should ask him what world he first learned how to play music on."

And with that and a wave, Axel stepped through a corridor of darkness and vanished from the tower.

Hehe. Heheheee. Ooh, this was good.

With renewed sense of purpose, Baba peered over the streets below, looking out for any sign of Kate of Vil among the townspeople. And there it was! A flash of blue sweater!

Baba scrabbled down the clock tower in a flash after the blue sweater, and chased its inhabitant down an alleyway. They would catch Kate with a surprise hug, and she would have to forgive Baba because they had been missing. That was the plan.

Baba pounced, and was surprised to find themself hugging a large outdoor pot plant.

"You're not Kate," said Baba, releasing the pot plant.

"No?" came a sleepy voice from the windowsill above Baba's head.

"Oh, but of course you'd be looking for somebody else. That's the only time I can be found."

Baba looked up, and saw Kate's sweater floating in the air. Then the sweater started singing.

"Twas brillig, in the slithy toves, did gyre and gim-bel in the wabe…"

Purple and magenta stripes gradually curled into view inside the sweater, until it filled out the shape of a fat fluffy cat with a fat fluffy tail. Upon his face were two unsettlingly droopy yellow eyes, and a grin as wide and curling as a crescent moon. What bothered Baba about this cat was that its many teeth were not pointed, as cats teeth should be, but flat.

"Oh- um." Baba stammered. A vanishing cat was a step above a floating, singing sweater, but it was about as jarring. "Yes, Baba is looking for a friend. Her name is Kate. She's grouchy, and pointy, and a little awful. Also that's her sweater you're wearing. Please give it back?"

The Cheshire Cat extended his tail, and thoughtfully stroked his chin with it.

"Oh, I'm not sure, it does go so very well with my stripes."

"I'll swap you!" said Baba.

Baba rifled through their four or so pockets, finding mainly mending supplies, and a few small stuffed animals. In the end, Baba found something suitable.

"This ball of string?"

The cat squinted and stared at the string. "Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I do like string…"

"Yes?"

"But I think I like tormenting your awful friend more."

"What?" Baba groaned in disbelief. "Are you going to track her down to see her face?"

"Oh, I can't be bothered to do that much." said the cat. "I'll use my imagination."

This cat. This horrible cat.

"Two! Two balls of string!" said Baba.

The Cheshire cat started 'hmm'-ing again.

"Two balls of string, and I won't hit you with a stick!"

"Oh." said the cat. His grin blossomed so wide he had to distend his cheeks. "I see you know how to bargain, little scarecrow. Let's have it, then."

Baba summoned their Keyblade, and pounced.



Baba rolled furiously out of the alley, covered in purple fur, clutching the sweater in a deathgrip. They bumped hard into someone's leg.

So the invisible vanishing trickster cat wasn't the smartest fight Baba had ever picked.

In the act of reclaiming Kate's sweater, Baba had lost both gloves (but they had stuck to the cat and gotten him all sticky and not the sweater, so all was well) and some stuffing was falling out of a scratch on their neck, but the taunting had ceased so it seemed the cat had tired of this joke and buggered off.

Baba remained curled in a ball for now. Just in case.

Kate had been stalking down another goddamn fucking piece of shit street looking for the fucking scarecrow when someone hucked a heavy sack at her legs. She stumbled sideways and looked up at the nothing in the alley, then down at the fucking sack of glittery, good-for-nothing, Shakespearian bullshit-

"There you are!" There wasn't nearly enough irritation in her voice when she said it, but she quickly schooled her expression into a deep scowl. "Where the actual fuck have you been?!" She noticed the sweater in Baba's hands as she said it, and snatched it, scowling down at the haystack.

Friends! It was friends!

Baba uncurled, and stood up.

"Hi Kate! Baba was looking for you and Vil. Hi Vil! -But Baba just found a spiky tomato. And an evil purple cat. And your sweater."

Baba was pleased that Kate's sweater had miraculously gotten away with a very light dusting of pink and purple fur. It had escaped the melted ice cream remains entirely. It must have been knitted from the luckiest wool from the luckiest sheep in the world.

Baba had not thought of this, but there was something that she and Vil were likely take notice of. The stuffing that was coming out of a small hole in their neck, for starters. Of course, it had always been clear that Baba's burlap sack skin was a covering a stuffed interior.

But now without the gardening gloves to cover them up, it became apparent that the sack was tied off at the ends of Baba's wrists, and from the stubs sprouted two skeletal hands.

Right up until the moment they found Baba curled up in the alleyway, Vil had been panicking. Baba was missing in one of the towns the organization—and specifically Axel—frequently went to, and all he could think of was Baba getting caught by them, too. He had already lost Lira to the organization. He didn't want to lose another one of his friends.

But then Kate and Vil stumbled into Baba, and all thoughts of stomaching the clock tower to get a better view of the town slipped out of his mind. Baba was here. They had found Baba.

That relief was quickly dashed when he realized how beat up Baba looked, and was even more dashed when he realized who the spiky tomato was.

"Did Axel do this to you?" Vil said, voice low and angry. It wasn't really all that terrifying, seeing that he looked and sounded like he was ten right now. If Axel had done this to Baba, Vil would...

...He didn't entirely know what he would do, but he knew it would be something more than just giving him the silent treatment atop the clock tower.

Poor Vil. He must have worried so much while they were apart. He worried so much that he got shorter again. Was that how that worked?

"Oh, no." said Baba, brushing purple fur off off their clothes. "Baba had a fight with a stripey purple cat to get Kate's sweater back- a pink and purple cat with a big grinning mouth, who likes to disappear. That was after Baba saw Axel."

Oh, bother. This didn't seem to console Vil at all.

"Baba can fix a rip like this, it's alright."

Baba retreived their sewing kit from a pocket on their overalls, and threaded a needle with lilac twine in under a second. Baba patted their neck to assess the damage, and stopped.

"Darn it. It's hard to see Baba's neck when there's a head in the way."

Baba stepped aside to an adjacent shop window, and used it to check up on their reflection.

"Yes, this isn't too bad."

Bony fingers already freed and ready, Baba began to gently poke the loose stuffing back inside.

Kate's eyes flashed in anger. "Where's the fucking glitter-plush cat," she growled, having pulled her sweater back over her head.

Baba was so excited by Kate's open display of care and affection, they let out a happy squeak.

"Oh- um, the cat turned invisible. He likes to appear and disappear. He says he can only be found when you're looking for someone else. Baba was looking for you when they found him, so maybe that's true? Maybe Vil knows, he knows all sorts of people.

...Vil, could you hold Baba's scissors, please?"

Baba held out a small pair of sewing scissors, and waited for Vil to take them. Baba needed their hands free for the needlework, and at the same time they wanted the scissors nearby. But more than that, Baba thought that being included might give their friend a needed sense of belonging.

...Axel hadn't hurt Baba.

Axel hadn't hurt Baba, but they had met. While Kate was ready to fight someone who was probably the Chesire Cat, Vil's mind flickered back to what must have gone down when Baba and Axel met. Baba had ice cream down their front, so Axel must have given him the ice cream he always got for-

Before Vil could finish that train of thought, he finally noticed Baba's hands.

Their gloves were missing. For as long as Vil had known Baba, they had never seen them with their hands showing. Vil had always assumed there would be hay underneath, not...

"You...You have bones," Vil managed to get out, so surprised that none of his usual dark moods slipped into his voice. "How does that even...How did I never realize...?"

Baba was from Halloweentown. A skeleton in a scarecrow really should have been expected. But still. Vil was so shocked that it took him another moment to take Baba's scissors.

(Behind Vil, the puppy from Wonderland excitedly tussled with Terra. It was clear the two of them had quickly become best friends.)

"Oh? Bones?" Baba mused pleasantly, nimbly stitching up the cut at a speed that was near nauseating to watch. It didn't seem right that stitches so rapid could be so precise. Of course Baba found the motion comfortably familiar, having mended themselves like this many times after falling out of trees in the orchard. Typically crows were involved.

"Yes, Baba has a skeleton of them." Baba said proudly. "A wonderful skeleton."

"Maybe Baba has never seen your bones, but Baba knows you have them."

Baba paused, and looked at Vil with concern.

"You… you do have bones, don't you?"

Vil's first thought was to question why he wouldn't have bones, but then he realized that him having no bones and being able to walk was roughly the same as Baba having bones despite being something that shouldn't have had bones.

Vil sighed.

"Yes," he said. "I do. I was just surprised that you had bones."

He paused.

He looked down at himself.

And then, thinking of his technical state in the world, Vil realized with a little bit of shock that he wasn't sure he had bones anymore. He might have, five years ago, but things had changed since then. Did Nobodies even have bones?

"...I might not have bones," he corrected.