Young Writers Society

“Yes!” Donald fluffed proudly at Lira. “For his Majesty King Mickey, of the-”

Goofy interrupted him before he could get into the secondary titles.

“We’re lookin’ fer the keyblade wielder- but it looks like there’s more ‘a ya than was expected.” Goofy shrugged, and smiled. “Good for the forces ‘a goodness, then.”

“We need your help to vanquish the Heartless. Them shadow things. King Mickey told us to find ya, and now we found ya, we just gotta find him, and he’ll know just what to do.” said Goofy.

“We’re personal friends.” Donald added proudly.

“Donald,” Goofy chided, “yer gonna get us accused of nepuh-tism again.”

“That’s nee-” Donald corrected.

“But you know what’s going on!” Baba interrupted, jumping up and down.

“Sure.” said Goofy. His knowledge of proceedings was on the wanting side of passable, but he was not worried. He was never worried.

“Whaddo we do, Cap?” asked Baba eagerly, not entirely sure what a captain was, but elated to be on a team with one.

Goofy opened his mouth, and Donald stepped out in front of him again. Goofy let him have it.

“We travel the worlds, fight the Heartless wherever we may find them, and we find King Mickey, so he can share his plan with us. And we save the worlds.” Donald relayed happily, also content with this plan. Or nonplussed by lack thereof.

“Yeah, he knows all there is ta know about the Keyblades, and the Heartless, and ever’thing.” said Goofy.

“Holy Mother Goose, stop interrupting me.” Donald swore.

“Donald, not in front of the children.” hissed Goofy.

Understanding dawned on her.

She didn't care about the possible nepotism, or the supposed swear. Fighting Heartless sounded like a great idea, too, and she didn't mind the thought of doing something good that would potentially prevent other worlds from becoming like her own.

But that wasn't what she realized.

King Mickey knew about the monsters that had attacked her world.

The monsters that she had seen Levi near.

Her gaze dropped down to the silver charm dangling from her wrist. King Mickey might not know anything about Levi, but understanding the Heartless and her strange weapon - a keyblade? - would be the first step in figuring out how Levi was involved with, well, everything.

"I want to help," Lira said, standing a little straighter. "Where can we find King Mickey?"

Goofy looked at Donald. Donald looked at Goofy.

"He'suhh..."

"He didn't tell us where he was going, but..."

"There's a plan, of course..."

"He will meet us, on the way." Donald concluded confidently.

"Wow." said Baba, eyes sparkling.

Lira gave a small nod in agreement, though it was more because she didn't want to face how difficult finding out more information about Levi was probably going to be.

Kate rolled her eyes, "This is a waste of time," she said, "I'm leaving." She turned to do so. There was nothing more annoying than listening to that stupid duck talk. It was like it had a broken dog toy trapped in its throat.

Goofy went after Kate. “Hey uh, what about the Heartless? Savin’ the worlds?”

He quickly realised from her expression that this approach would go nowhere.

“Welluh, doya need a ride home? We’ve got a spaceship that can go purdy much anywhere.”

Donald was about to back Goofy up, but instead he gasped, at the horrifically scarred country bumpkin before him.

"Oh!” Donald lamented, waddling fast, “You poor child, did the Heartless do this to you?"

The child blinked back, caught off guard. "We were fighting them, but I didn't really get hurt-"

"Awww, there's no need to act tough. I can help! I'll cast a healing spell, and it'll be all better."

Donald the Grand High Wizard waved his mighty staff, waggling his fingers at the perfect cosmomorphilharmonic degree, and sparks of soothing green light curled into a ball, which swirled through the air, and leapt forth into the child’s chest.

The scarred child was replaced by a patchwork scarecrow.

Donald's beak dropped so hard it slapped his chest.

The child stopped. They lifted their arms, and stared at the sackcloth, the seams, the yarn stitches. They felt the buttons on their face where eyes used to be. They traced the outline of a jack ‘o lantern smile, cut from black felt and stitched onto their face.

The scarecrow whooped for joy, and ran around Donald and Lira in circles, arms stretched out like an aeroplane.

Donald shrieked. “WACKWACKWACKWACKWACK!"

He shook his head rapidly, steadied himself, and shrieked some more.

“D-don’t panic! Don’t panic! I’ll fix it!”

The scarecrow stopped in front of Donald. They turned around to face him. Only their face, that is. The head swivelled independently, like an owl.

“But you just did.” said the child, confused.

If Baba hadn't turned their head around like an owl, Lira would have likely continued to stand there and just stare at the person they had been certain was just as human as her. But then Baba spun their head around without the rest of their body moving, and Lira got a very, very tiny squeak of surprise.

She nervously looked at the others in their group.

Kate was a vampire. Goofy was a dog (?). Donald was a duck (?). Baba was a sentient scarecrow.

(Why hadn't Levi ever mentioned meeting a sentient scarecrow!?)

Which meant...

"...Am I the only human here?" Lira questioned to both herself and everyone else, her voice very, very quiet.

Kate gave Lyra a look that might burn through steel with its pure strength of apathy.

"Obviously not," she said, "I'm just as human as you are, you sparkle-loving-piece-of-fae-devoted-trash. So what if my diet's a little different and my lifespan's longer. I was born human, and I'm still human, you can go to hell with any statements to the contrary." Her eyes flashed red as she took a pointed step closer to Lyra with every sentence, getting into her personal space so she could glare directly into her eyes.

A vampire that was human? Baba found the concept confusing. They’d met plenty of vampires, but no human-vampires, or even humans (until now), so they were unsure of what it was that Kate identified as. Whatever the case, she was being rude.

“She just made a mistake.” said Baba. “She didn’t mean anything by it.”

Goofy stood at the ready, and Donald stood at the ready behind him, dreading the prospect, but prepared to intervene if the children started ripping each others’ throats out.

Lira faltered.

"I'm-I'm sorry," she managed to get out, going a little pale when she heard the threatening tone in Kate's voice. Her grip on her keyblade tightened. It was taking all of her effort not to raise her hands up to cover her neck; if Kate didn't like her calling her a vampire, she probably wouldn't like her doing something like that. "The stories I read about vampires didn't have many vampires who were humans, and Levi never really explained how being a vampire worked..."

He also hadn't mentioned that fae were real, but Lira didn't think now was the time to bring that up.

She really shouldn't have mentioned Levi.

"You had better make like an eldritch witch and sew your trap shut right about always before I gouge your tongue from your mouth," she growled. How dare she. First, she calls Kate non-human just because of this stupid condition, then she brings up Levi. Levi who left her the moment he had the chance. Levi who was probably behind all of this.

If her blood wasn't raw in her veins Kate might rip out her throat then and there.

His own teenage son wasn’t quite this bad, but he knew how to deal with them.
Goofy stepped between the two girls, and folded his arms, looking down at the troublemaker from his six foot plus stature. He spoke calmly, but firmly.

“You can’t ride on the ship with us if you’re going to be like that. You threaten her with violence one more time, and we’re leavin' without you.”

Kate glared at him, those glowing red eyes flashing brighter before she turned away, arms crossed, and said nothing.

Gummi blocks were a rare and unique material, the only way to make a reliable vessel for traversal between worlds. They also had the unfortunate effect of making any vessel created with them look as though they were made out of brightly painted children's building blocks.
Unfortunate to the kitsch allergic, but a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.

Baba was entranced, running up and down, inspecting the chairs, the buttons, the lighting fixtures, anything that poked out. They didn’t open any of the drawers, but observed the knobs quite closely.

Goofy had been flicking nervous glances at Baba between steps in the process of prepping for liftoff, worried something might get set on fire. Thus, Baba was on his mind, and with Baba, the transformation fiasco from before.

Goofy looked down at Donald, and without need for words, asked him why one of the nice children was now an articulated sack.

Donald aired out his collar. “That one was already a scarecrow. That’s what theeeeyyy-” Donald trailed off, unable to supply a pronoun.

“Baba.” said Baba. “Baba the scarecrow.”

Goofy squinted.

Donald put on his most innocent grin. “See? Scarecrow.”

Goofy looked at Donald. He looked at Baba. The child said it was fine. In the end, he accepted it.

Donald pouted. He was out of trouble, but he didn’t like his ability being questioned.

“It makes sense,” he said, unprompted.

“That happens! Sometimes.” He began to explain, enunciating impressively through his heavy lisp, checking up on instruments that didn’t really need to be checked as an excuse for any pauses.

“When a golémesapiéns is parateleported to a unicosmiversal hub for the first time it jiggles the particles on the sublunaneurisapient circumference, confusing the virtua-personasystem into thinking that it is an organic mass, reversible by the simple healing spell, by virtue of reminding the pseudomagiconscience of its proper state.”

“Gawrsh, Donald.” said Goofy. “Y’sure are smart.”

Donald fidgeted nervously with his staff. “Haha.” he said. “Thaaat’s me.”

Goofy did not reply. He merely took the driver’s seat, one hand resting on the key, and the other on the right joystick. He remained in this position for ten whole seconds.

“...Why haven’t we left yet?” Donald hazarded a question.

Goofy turned his head, disappointed that Donald needed to ask.

“Seatbelts.” said Goofy.

After the short-lived argument (?) with Kate, Lira didn't like the idea of causing more trouble. But her world had left her wholly unprepared for the inside of their ship - which wasn't anything like the ships she knew - and, more importantly for seat belts.

"...What's a seat belt?" she hesitantly asked.