Riku really couldn't help it; he simply had to gape at the city which opened itself before him. Part of the reason for his need to stare was the technological wonders which seemed to beckon him deeper into the twisting streets of the city, but his shock was mostly due to the fact that, only a moment or so before, he had been standing on an endless stretch of white plains. He couldn't quite guess what had allowed him to stumble into this secret city, but he was rather glad for the chance - if just to be able to experience these wonders which were beyond even his greatest imagining.

His eyes were wide and his expression openly impressed as he navigated the elevated streets. It seemed that every few steps Riku would have to stop himself so that he could admire the indescribable surface of some building or so that he could watch in stunned silence as a group of citizens zipped past enclosed in the golden tube which seemed to offer some manner of transport. All this technology was so far beyond what he had ever seen in any of the worlds which he had visited so far - and it even seemed to outdo what he had seen in Ansem the Wise's lab in Twilight Town. As a whole, the city was almost beyond his sense of logic and it rendered Riku almost mute in wonder of it all.

Feeling nearly overwhelmed by it all, Riku paused halfway along a series of steps so that he could watch a transport pass nearby - and this slight pause in progress proved wise, for he was able to spot the pale girl just as she stumbled. His reflexes quick and subtle, he was able to catch the strange girl by the arm while keeping either of them from falling all the way down.


"You hurt?" Riku asked. He kept a loose hand on her - this time choosing to hold her by the elbow - but his grip was light enough that she could easily break away from him. "These stairs are a bit tricky, huh?"

Riku was quick to remove his light hold on the girl's elbow as soon as he was sure that she was steady again on her feet, but he remained close - just in case she should again stumble on the stairs. Being close to her, he was able to come to a few natural conclusions - mostly that the girl, much like himself, was not natural to this world. Of course, this conclusion was based singly on the fact that she seemed somewhat as much out of place as he in this city, but it was enough for the moment - he would wait to evaluate how close he had been in his assumptions until he was sure that any danger of injury had passed.

"Wouldn't surprise me if they were just trying to trip up anyone who doesn't know the city," Riku joked. It did seem a little odd, if he stopped and thought about it, that a city with such advanced means of transportation would rely on something as basic as stairs but, then again, maybe it was just a way for the city to 'keep to its roots'; or maybe the local doctor - or potion shop, should there be one around - just liked the extra business? But that was a bit too cynical of a way to think, wasn't it? "Kinda hard to keep your mind on what's ahead of you when you're busy staring."

It did strike Riku, just then, that he was pretty effectively painting himself as an offworlder with his comments, but he felt secure enough in doing so; as far as he could tell, the peoples of this city were friendly enough to outsiders - despite the fact that their city apparently could jump out of nowhere to surround an unexpecting tourist; it didn't seem that there was any true need to be overly cautious and besides, from what he could tell, the native people seemed to look and to act pretty much like any other people of any other world.

"Bad habit of mine, popping out of nowhere and saving people from vile stairs," Riku continued. It was, naturally, meant as a joke - even if he could remember a time, not so long ago, when it seemed that the majority of his life was spent melting from the shadows, performing a small deed which he hoped would be useful, and then returning from whence he had come. Still, those days were past - even if some of the habits were still hard to break. "Kinda makes it seem like I'm in with the people who put the stairs in, huh?"

[XD Hey, I can actually see it, too. I'm both pleased and slightly alarmed XD]


"You know, considering how this city sort of just creeps out of nowhere, I wouldn't be too surprised if the stairs were plotting against us," Riku agreed. He was aware that he was being silly - far too silly, he would guess, for the looks a few of the eavesdropping passersby were giving - but he wasn't too bothered by the idea. "Kinda makes you wonder what might be waiting around the corner, huh?"

Thinking that they might be there for a time, Riku chose - once he was fairly sure that it wouldn't break, fall, or otherwise fail - to lean back against the strange tubing which seemed to be meant to substitute for a railing. He crossed his arms lightly over his chest and seemed to seriously consider the idea of a stair famine for a few moments before commenting.

"I guess that's what happens when you build up too much technology," he sighed, turning his head to watch with interest as another of the interesting transport vehicles wound its way past. "Things like stairs just get forgotten and then, when you least expect it, they strike out for revenge."

Despite himself, Riku found that he was glad that this young woman was not put off by how strangely silly he was being and so he managed a faint grin as he reached to take the offered hand in one of his own. "Riku."

"I've never seen technology like this before," Riku admitted. He accompanied his words with a wide, encompassing gesture - one which indicated all the various workings around them, both obvious and hidden. In a way, it was almost difficult for him to admit his lack of knowledge, but Riku was able to realize that Ivory, from her words, had far more experience than he in this realm - and he was willing to learn more. "The Island I was born and raised on - well, it wasn't primitive. We did have electricity and all the expected things - but it wasn't anything like any of this. I can't imagine what the minds who came up with this must be like."

It was something which Riku was just beginning to discover about himself, that he was intrigued by the inner workings of mechanisms - how they worked, how they moved, how they fit together, how they could be used to their fullest. Up to now, he really hadn't had much chance to explore or to develop his own interests and the realization that he might be interested in more than spending the rest of his time chasing shadows struck him with surprise - and not a small measure of guilt. These emotions were pushed aside, though, without so much as a slight change to his outward appearance; best to repress them before he was led astray from his true path.

"I guess I came here mostly by accident," Riku admitted with a candid shrug of his shoulders. "I'd never seen this world before and it seemed as good a place as any to start looking. I've been trying to find one of my friends, but I don't know how much luck I'll have." He paused for a moment, playing with the idea of asking Ivory if she had seen Sora, but he decided to leave it for later. "And you?"

"Don't apologize," Riku responded, shaking his head. "I'm just as interested in these things as you are and, to be frank, I wouldn't mind hearing from someone who knows so much about technology." He paused a moment as the realization that he had just admitted to not knowing as much as someone else registered in his mind, but he shrugged it aside; there was no point in pretending that he knew anything about this technology when someone who could likely teach him a thing or two was directly at hand. "It must be pretty impressive, though, if it can hit even someone who has stuff like this on their home world," he mused as his attention drifted to a passing hover. "Imagine what it'd be like to take one of those things apart, to see what makes it tick; I probably wouldn't even begin to understand any of it - still fascinates me, though."

The realization that he had been rambling struck Riku and he shook himself free of his drifting, wistful thoughts. There would be time enough, someday, for him to wax on and on about how interesting this city seemed - and maybe someday he'd actually be able to explore the full extent of it; for now, though, he didn't want to get lost in the ebb and flow of the immaterial.

"Wondering through the worlds does seem pretty endless, sometimes, but I've gotten used to it," he admitted easily. It seemed a bit strange to think that something which had been so new to him only a few short years ago was now mundane but, then again, he was hardly that same youth who had been so desperate to escape into the beyond. "It sounds pretty much the same for you," he continued, interrupting his own thoughts in order to keep himself from sinking into them. "Don't think I remember hearing about a world with alien problems, though."

"You could be right," he nodded to her latter comment, after a moment of thinking on it. "That, too, could be why they keep it cloaked - when the device is working, anyway; to keep any of the lesser towns and cities from taking and copying the technology and using it against them." To his own ears, it did sound as if he were accusing this city of some treacherous dealings, but such actions seemed to be a common means of keeping a tight control on the development of a world - or so Riku understood, from passing observations and overheard stories.

"Some might say that's why technology should be limited - or barred all together," That did seem like the knee-jerk reaction to any tale where technology was what brought down the world, to any fable where the lesson amounted to little more than 'don't get lazy or you'll be sorry' - but Riku wasn't sure that he bought that. True, he hadn't the experience of being raised in a world where such would be an issue, but the thought of limiting knowledge just to play it safe made something within him want to revolt.

"I can't really see living like that,  though," he finally conitnued after a moment of thought. Shaking his head lightly, he placed aside such speculative thoughts so that he could turn the faint impression of a grin to Ivory. "You know more about it than me, though, even if your city wasn't so advanced and even if you did call it on yourselves." A pause, and he tilted his head to the side. "You still seem pretty fond of this stuff, though, so it mustn't have made you hate technology or anything."

"Life's about survival," Riku repeated her words with an odd little chuckle. "That's the heart of it, I guess - and this city seems to be surviving pretty well." Even though this world had been undiscovered and unknown until just recently, which spoke to the fact that it must have been in dire straights when the heartless were still running wild. It was this fact which made the state of the world - of its technology and of its people  - all the more impressive to Riku, even as it made him wonder as to just what had happened. "It's an interesting place, to say the least."

"There's no way a city like that could survive, even if it waged war on the rest of the country," Riku mused. The logic he was using to frame his words was a bit abstract, even to his own mind, and he couldn't exactly place it - but there was sense enough for him to be able to continue on the conversation. "Though, I guess if it, this ShinRa, was the source of all the power and technology in the world, then it would have some serious sway; I just can't imagine the rest of the world living under the thumb of a corporation like that."

Of course, the words were coming from his particular bias - a bias where all wrongs were eventually upended and, even if the entire country couldn't find it in itself to revolt, then one or two people would surely take the rebellion upon their own shoulders. Rebellion in that fashion always did require a certain sort of people, but if there was nothing to be lost and everything to gain -- then who wouldn't do everything possible to free themselves?

Riku shook his head and grinned inwardly at himself. No, that was really just his own nature, his own bias, speaking and he didn't know the whole of the story, besides; perhaps there was still some redeeming feature to this company, even if it wasn't immediately obvious.

"Then again, you worked for them and you hardly seem the type to approve of power without responsibility," A flash judgement as he really didn't know Ivory well enough to guess her nature, but Riku felt fairly confident that this young woman didn't walk a shadowed path. "If anything, you seem like the sort who'd try to insist on responsibility. Though I guess when you're a weapons designer and they're the company controlling all the technology, there really isn't much choice."

He paused a moment once this thought was complete, reflecting on the fact that Ivory was a weapons designer. Not that he really needed a weapon designed for him - he was already quite more than satisfied with what fate had given him and, after all that happened, he knew that he couldn't simply lay it aside - but a curiousity bloomed to see just what the young woman was capable of building. "I am curious, though - what sort of weapons did you and your family build, when you were a part of the family business?"

"And there's some who can't change, even when pressed to the edge," Riku replied. He knew he was being a bit too bitter, and maybe a bit too flippant, but that seemed to be a part of human nature, too - dig in the heels and resist, resist, resist until there's no choice but to finally give in. He'd seen it happen more than a few times and parts of his own history echoed that - echoed it rather shamefully, in his own eyes, but Riku couldn't entirely deny the stubborn stupidity which had such a large part in shaping the person he now was. Then again, there were others who seemed to embrace change, to flow freely with it and to work with whatever was thrown at them - those were the ones who worked to rebuild what had been destroyed, if they couldn't work to pull down the walls themselves; fighter or builder, giving in and letting go seemed to be what shaped those who eventually came to shape the world around them.

A small grin, somewhat wry and slanted in its delivery, shaped his lips as he shook his head. "That's not really it, though; looking at what happened to the worlds, what still might be happening, it's changed the people as much as anything." His eyes turned briefly, watching the general movement and excitement of the city around the two of them. Riku could imagine, rather easily, that this city had always been like this - but, in his eyes at least, there seemed to be a new undercurrent to every city, to every world he visited now that he was free to do so at his leisure. "Everyone's just so glad to be able to go on with their lives, to have their lives -- maybe that's what they need, after all, just a reminder of how sweet the day to day is, in order to make them realize what could be lost, if it came to a desperate edge."

Was he speaking from personal experience again? Oh, it was quite possible. After all, the tastes of the time he had spent on the endless beaches of his home never seemed as sweet as when he was lost in the darkness and the memories of those he had once left so thoughtlessly behind never burned as bright as when he thought that they were lost. Looking back, a bit of that nostalgia had lessened - perhaps due to the fact that he could now return to the Islands whenever he had the urge - but it wasn't the same, just because he was now acutely aware that it could never be the way it had been in that magical time of 'before'.

"Small stuff, hm?" It was with effort that Riku placed aside his wistful, bittersweet thoughts, but he was glad enough to turn his attention to the rest of the conversation. "I'll keep that in mind, if I ever need anything fixed." Not that he was sure he would - he hadn't heard or experienced a keyblade needing to be fixed and he wasn't even sure that such a feat could be accomplished by most - but it did raise a few interesting thoughts of upgrading. Upgrading how, he couldn't guess since the Way to Dawn always served him well in battle, but the thought was now firmly planted at the back of his mind.

A wave of the nostalgia which he had been briefly fighting earlier overswept Riku at the mention of his home Islands, but still a grin - more genuine and brighter, this time - touched his expression as he nodded. "It was...a good place to grow up -- better than I realized when I was a kid, anyway." He tipped his head back and, staring into the endless blue of the sky above, he could almost imagine that he was staring instead a familiar stretch of seemingly endless sea. "Lots of clean white sand, the good smell of the sea, the quiet whisper of the endless waves -- but most of all lots of good people. I guess I was pretty lucky, after all." He shook his head a touch sadly as he returned his attention to Ivory. "If you ever need to find a good place to just relax, you should check it out - it's called Destiny Islands."