#Anti-Terra

[useless-catalanfacts]

An old saying in Catalan:

De tres coses no te n'has de fiar: del rei, del temps i de la mar.

Translation: "There are three things that you must never trust: the king, the weather, and the sea."

[strayheartless]

People absolutely underestimate Rikus potential cryptid energy. We are talking like big “moth man” vibes.

Like he’s my boy, but I’m imagining nights where someone -we will say Aqua- hears noise from the kitchen in the land of departure. when she swings the door open all she sees is these two eyes that catch the light from the hallway.

Aqua yells and turns on the light, keyblade at the ready… only to find Riku standing with a yogurt pot in one hand and a spoon in his mouth.

And Riku’s just like “evening,”.

OR

times when Terra will be looking for him for literal hours only for him to fold out of a dark corner in the rafters like a paper doll. And Terra doesn’t know whether to terrified or impressed.

OR

times when Riku’s dream eater form is triggered (I love that particular fanon) and he’s crawling around and hanging off of ceilings and Roxas and Ven are doubly like “NOT TODAY SATAN”

It would be worse when Sora’s Anti form gets triggered at the same time because then you have one crawling around on the ceiling like some bram stokers nightmare fuel, and the other one crab scuttling across the floor like Gollum on darkness filled steroids. Kairi personally believes she needs a raise. Mostly because she now carries around a spray bottle to stop them from chewing on drapes.

Biggest nightmare fuel moment:

Riku’s dream eater form

Sora’s anti form

And Vanitas (just him in general)

Just coming together for one beautiful awful storm of cryptid behaviour while on mission in beasts castle.

Ven, Kairi and Xion trailing behind their path of destruction, apologising to Belle and Beast for the furniture they chew.

[starfiresky]

Kingdom Hearts?

More like Kingdom B R O K E N Hearts 💔

[punkeropercyjackson]

Acting like saying canon fascist characters are pedophiles is going too far or 'they did a lot of bad stuff but they wouldn't do THAT' is pretty ignorant tbh.Historically speaking,being a fascist and being a pedophile have kinda gone hand in hand.Shouldn't need to say this part but i don't mean 'Get over it and let people like whatever FICTION they want',this is a Certified Fandom Olds,Certified Pedophiles hate page

[mimiplaysgames]

The Bed Story, ch. 1 (Light in the Dark)

For Terraqua Week 2024, Day 1

Terra/Aqua | Terra/Anti-Aqua Rating: M Word count: 1,777 @terraquaweek

AO3 Link

Summary: Terra meets Anti-Aqua, and he's sorry for all the things they did and didn't do.

A/N: Hiiiiiiii everyone ahhh???? It's so good to be back, writing for my favorite ship ever. I've missed you all. I took the opportunity with Terraqua Week to write something new, but I've been meaning to finish my open fics for them. There are still so many scenes in my head that I want to put on the page. It's just been hard to find the time to write them as I work on my first novel. But I'm here!!! and I miss!!! all of you!!!! I hope you enjoy this one. I wrote it all in a month so there is going to be quality control issues, lmao but it is ANGSTY lmao.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Terra is watching. Terra is no longer watching. Terra is asleep, Terra is—

Awake. Coming to, he inhales dust and dirt so sharply that his throat stings, and he drops hard on his knees, face slamming against cobblestone. He can’t feel his legs, and his hips won’t buck over when he commands them to.

“Aqua,” he mumbles, his tongue thick. He struggles to buoy himself up by the elbows. Where is he?

“Terra? Thank the stars.” Aqua kneels by him and guides his head to her lap. Storm clouds prey over the city of Radian Garden, snuffing out the sun overhead (Why is he here?). “Where do you hurt?” Aqua’s hair is too short to stay behind her ears, draping over while her frightened eyes inspect him for injuries. Frizzy. He could reach up and smooth it back down, but he’s dizzy. If this is the last time he will touch her… She brushes the tips of her fingers over his cheek, cleaning it of dirt and—

Smoke? Magic residue.

“Terra, stay with me.” 

Yes, he wants to. He’s slipping, he’s—

—Sleep.

Stars, he yearns to. He snatches her hand and weaves their fingers together. He can’t think like that. He can never let go again. Everything, everything, everything is going wrong but he’ll make it right. 

Xehanort. That’s the reason for the thunder ramming beyond the horizon.

No, the real reason is Terra being stupid.

“Can you stand up?”

Rainfell is left neglected on the ground next to her. They’ve been fighting each other with their Keyblades. That’s what she’s not telling him. 

“I can’t.”

Aqua blinks away her worry, but Terra sees past the armor. “That’s okay. You’re doing good. You’re beating him.”

Bile clogs his esophagus. He needs to roll over and let it all out but he swallows it back. Swallows again and swallows hard to keep it in and not let Xehanort go—

—Sleep.

“Aqua,” he says, his voice frail, “I’m sorry.” 

Aqua smiles morosely. She’s never been the type to rub it in. 

There’s a lot to be sorry for. One: The Master is dead. 

—Sleep.

Two: They fought. In front of Ven.

—Sleep.

Three: He left her behind. 

Four, just to decapitate the dead horse: He never congratulated her on achieving her Master status.

—Sleep.

And five: for that night before the Mark of Mastery. Terra had hoped there would be less stress the night after.

This can’t be the last time he touches her.

“I know,” she says. 

What was once a headache that jerked his forehead is now a quiet null, and he’s losing feeling in his fingers, the feeling of her skin.

His eyelids are heavy, and he sighs.

Aqua holds his chin and makes him stare into her eyes. “Listen to me. You’re strong. You can defeat him.”

Terra stretches the fingers in his free hand and tries to ball them into a fist.

“I can’t find Earthshaker.”

“What?”

He tries again—that small shred of Light he is supposedly connected to, the warmth of a friend who will always listen, the certainty of having someone there to help, is gone. Earthshaker won’t come. 

This is what it’s like to have regret. Tell me, how does that honor our Master’s memory, Terra?

“I know Earthshaker. It will always be there for you,” Aqua says, so confident and so wrong, wrapping his arm around her shoulders to get him to stand. 

Terra flinches—a profound image of choking her invades his senses, bleached knuckles that won’t respond to him, rigid around the same neck he’s buried his nose in before. 

He leans over on his side, too weak to push her off. “Aqua, just let me go.”

“Never,” she snaps. “How can you ask that?”

“He’s coming back.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We can fight him off together.” 

How does that honor our Master’s memory?

—Sleep.

In a page tucked away on some textbook Terra has always hated reading for its archaic nonsense, was a line: F’r our lighteth in the dark hast us by the heart, at each moment. 

Too heavy for her, Aqua brings Terra back to rest on her lap. When they’re weak, they’re supposed to be each other’s Light to guide them back home. That’s what the Master said. One star to find another lost in space. 

(And when stars flicker out, they explode in a supernova, then disintegrate into a black hole. That is something the Master refused to discuss. Their job was not to let that happen, period.)

“Terra, stay with me?”

For a moment, the lights go out. For the next, they come back on. Terra looks up at her blue eyes. She knows what’s happening to him, from the way she quiets down and rubs her thumb on his jaw. 

“You just have to find your Light again,” Aqua says. She’s talking about Earthshaker. She’s talking about Ven. She’s talking about going home together. “And this will be over. Then we can find our own little hiding place.” She soothes, stroking his cheek. “Like we promised.”

But—

But, just in case, Terra squeezes her hand one more time. He’s going to have to let go.

Terra lifts his head and points with his nose to beckon her to go lower, to get closer to him, as if he’s telling her a secret. Closer, enough for him to lean up with what’s left of his strength, to press his mouth on hers, and open his lips, and ask for more. She trembles against him, and he kisses her again, and inhales her smokey sweat and lavender shampoo with all that he wants to say but has lost the voice for.

That’s his last memory before sinking into the black hole. Someone far away says, “I’m with you,” planting one little star into his hand that he can caress to his chest while he slips into something like sleeping. Then he tears apart.

~*~

Awake. Awake? 

Terra sits up. He rolls to his hands and knees, and coughs—there’s sand crumbling under his tongue, and he spits out the remains. 

After he nearly gags from what doesn’t come up, he realizes. Sand crumpled underneath his fist, as if he was in the middle of choking someone. More sand caked into his nails. A musty odor—he needs deodorant. That numbing feeling on his wrists that means he needs to shake them off. Wake them up. Awake. He’s breathing, and it’s hot, and he’s sweaty, and he’s hungry. 

“Terra!”

It happens so quickly, the way Ven rushes to Terra’s side, and checks his eyes to see if they’re blue. Terra doesn’t register a single word out of Ven’s mouth but he registers the feeling of Ven’s chest crushed against his, muscle trapping boy in a hug. Cheek to cheek, the sound of tears and tears.

“You’re crushing me.” 

Terra lets go, but not the shoulders. It’s too early to allow the feeling of someone slipping away. 

Ven is the same as he's always been. All bones. “You’re still chubby in the cheeks,” Terra says, smushing them between his giant hands.

“Fuck you.”

“What is that language?” But Terra is crying, messing with Ven’s well-kept hair.

“Ugh, why.” The disturbed styling cream flattens the cowlick Ven likes so much and his attempt to make it right dwindles. But he’s smiling. Crying, too. “I’ve missed you.”

“Me, too.” More tears.

Ven stops his fussing and lowers his hands. His voice breaks. “I thought I’d never see you again.” 

To make up for it, Terra tries fixing Ven’s hair for him. Thankfully, considering the result, there’s no mirror nearby to upset Ven. “Hey. It’s over. We’re safe. We’re back together and—”

Terra looks around. They’re in the Keyblade Graveyard, somewhere within starched erected stone walls that are falling apart. But Terra doesn’t understand why they’re here. He tastes smoke. Magic residue. 

They fought Xehanort-as-Terra here, and Terra doesn’t remember much except reaching for a night sky. She was here, he was certain. A star gauzed behind clouds and he reached, and reached and caught Xehanort by the throat. 

“Where’s Aqua?”

Ven doesn’t respond. 

Terra’s heart pounds, assuming the worst. Did he hurt—

“Um.” Ven wipes his hands on his pants and stands. “She’s different.”

Terra gets off his knees. He’s unbalanced, swaying with his heavy legs, and Ven holds him up by the arm. “What does that mean?”

Ven grunts his disappointment. He points behind Terra, to a wall that bends open to the rest of the labyrinth. “She’s behind there. She fought with me” —against Terra— “then left.”

Terra trips on his feet as he limps. How different? Hurt-different? Tired-different? Furious-different? Furious with him? Won’t want to ever talk to him again-different, and there’s no turning back-different? 

He catches himself at the side of the wall. “Aqua?”

Rustling and steps respond, in the slice of shadow around the corner. Terra looks over.

Two little orbs, lights in the shadow that remind him of monsters, stare back at him, waiting before the onslaught. Terra’s instinct is to call Earthshaker, but it still won’t come. Left defenseless, how fast will the monster get to him if Terra yells? How fast will Ven come to the rescue?

But a second passes by before he realizes what he’s looking at. Golden eyes in fury, white hair, pulling her ripped sleeves, inked in black, to hide her red claws. 

She looks like a creature. 

When Terra was six, the Master would tell him stories of valiant heroes defeating monsters with eyes like lanterns, which seduced victims into thinking they’re safe, and made them follow false lights until they were isolated in the dark. 

Aqua shivers. “You,” she says. Her voice is steady and solid, but he hears all its cadences. Rage, sadness, something like relief but too numb to feel it.

Terra steps toward his monster but he lowers his gaze from her glare. If he doesn’t see, then it’s not as bad as he thinks.

This is what it’s like to have regret. Tell me, how does this honor our Master’s memory, Terra?

He coaxes her into his arms, and rests his mouth onto her forehead, letting her heave dry sobs into his shoulder while his hot tears trickle down to her hair. She smells like ash. She’s freezing.

He doesn’t have the courage this time to apologize. He almost asks if she’s okay. Stupid question. “Let’s go home.” 

Aqua says nothing. She doesn’t hug him back. All she does is bore her wild eyes into him, long enough for Terra to break his avoidance. He sees not his reflection in that golden color but a silhouette of the moon.

[peachi-blossom]

Non-Hazbin Hotel characters that are better than Cherri Bomb

Vivienne Medrano trying not to write one dimensional female characters challenge

IMPOSSIBLE

Finally, I'm done.

[elizabeth-dicewielder]

Okay but the fact that Sora and Riku were able to defeat Anti-Aqua was just so ridiculous to me… Aqua survived 12 YEARS in the realm of darkness, was repeatedly shown to be more powerful than Ventus and Terra, defeated HERSELF, just got a darkness-fueled power up, and she is the only keyblade master who genuinely trained her entire life. She should not have lost that battle imo

Okay so AU where Sora and Riku can’t beat Aqua, so they flee to the realm of light, but Aqua follows them out. But even as Anti-Aqua, she’s clearly shown to still be in control. Upon returning to the realm of light, she would briefly pause hunting them down to awaken Ventus, and Ventus would be able to talk enough sense into Aqua so she would focus her efforts on taking down Xehanort and beat the shit out of Mickey later. Cue the Keyblade war, Aqua just rips through all of the members of the organization, until she gets to Terranort and there’s an epic fight and she gets Terra back, and upon seeing Terra and Ventus safe again, she lets the darkness go on her own

[gulava]

Go ahead if you wanna waste your time. Keep trying to drive us apart with your mind games. It'll never work!

[bramblequeen]

Small doodle of Terra and Aqua, as well as some whump Terra & Aqua headcanons underneath…

I wonder in the future when the Terra and Aqua are going into their later years, will getting white hairs give Terra and Aqua PTSD flashbacks?

The time she spent under the effects of Darkness was small, but I suspect she had some inkling of what she looked like as Anti-Aqua. We know that she took Master Eraqus words on Darkness very seriously, so I think she’d be quite embarrassed and mortified by it. I can only hope that in her later years, she’s made peace with that ideology. But when the white hairs start coming in, she starts to nightmares about transforming back into Anti Aqua. Thus, she ends up throwing herself into training to distract herself.

Meanwhile, Terra gets the worst of it. The guy spent 10 years under the control of Xehanort, so he has a lot more to unpack with his trauma. Much like an old wound, the deep aching fear of Xehanort coming back and taking his body again haunts him for years. Some days are good, some are bad.

When the white hairs come, he starts to have panic attacks and those nightmares. Those would get really bad if he starts losing hair. He could be found shaking after waking up from a nightmare and even screaming. It’s not a fun time for either with them…

I doubt that Nomura and the KH team would actually go this way with characterisation (let alone write about so far into the future), but it’s interesting to think about

[snowberryangel]

tryna strike a chord and it's probably a minorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[nyctoheart]

btw the other day when I said terraqua is when one is in mortal danger of becoming a monster if they dont redeem themself for their mistakes, and the other is their saving grace--- this works for the characters in either position thank u

[useless-catalanfacts]

Someone has been sticking these printed papers on small local businesses that are closing down as a result of gentrification in Barcelona (Catalonia's capital city, greatly affected by touristic massification and the gentrification it brings). They're written in the Catalan language, so here I translate them to English for you:

2 world wars, 1 civil war, bombs, the 40 years "facing the sun" [=first line of the anthem of Spain during the Francoist dictatorship], 9 popes, 15 times Real Madrid won the Champions League, 2 pandemics. It has survived everything except speculation.

Maybe 10,000 bucks for rent was a little teeny tiny bit too much, wasn't it? Maybe. I'm not saying it was. I'm just saying: maybe.

If they open a Starbucks or something like that, I'm cutting off my dick. Bring back Versalles [convenience store]!

*A picture of Asterix and Obelix hitting two Roman soldiers. Asterix and Obelix are labelled Nou Barrix and Palomarix as a joke of Gaulish-sounding names for the working class neighbourhoods of Nou Barris and Sant Andreu del Palomar. The Roman soldiers are labelled "the fucking gentrification".*

My great-grandma used to come for coffee here, now she's asking me to do this from the Other Side. You'll understand that I'm so scared that I'm shitting myself and I must continue doing it (one can't say no to a great-grandmother)

Gràcia and Poblenou [two neighbourhoods of Barcelona that have gotten very gentrified by tourists] started like this and now not even their mother would recognise them.

Photos from Et felicito fill.

[thesufferingsapphic]

No matter how many times DC retcons Slade all I will ever thing of him is the guy that abused his children, slept with a teenager, and manipulated like 3 other teenage girls.

3 examples but there’s many more.

I couldn’t find any good quality panels of Poprocket another unstable vulnerable teenage girl he manipulated.

[writnwolph]

I much prefer the Terra retcon because if you read interviews from Deathstroke co-creator Perez at that time it wasn't to make Slade or loser or crybaby. The writers actually thought it did make Slade cool and smart, neither writer saw it as pedophilia. In fact they wrote it that way because he thought it demonised *Terra* because she was (and I quote) "a slut". The whole thing was written to make Terra a morally bankrupt person not Slade. So I say good riddance to that whole thing.

I don't like retcons of it because, inevitably, it's just to make Deathstroke more appealing to the masses. It's not like Terra is the one getting comic books dedicated to her or TV shows made in her name with these retcons. It's for Deathstroke.

Deathstroke as a character doesn't deserve to have this origin written away.

He doesn't deserve to be palatable enough to get merchandise and TV shows while Terra is still left behind in the DC Universe as an evil girl who got what was coming to her. What kind of justice is that???

Slade represents what many influential men in the real world are able to get away with when you have power. These men are able to "retcon" their past sins away with money.

Retconning a canonical predator's past away just follows real world trends in a way that makes me uncomfortable to accept.

In life, girls like Terra can't retcon away their abuse. Yeah, I realize that Terra and Deathstroke aren't real people but they represent real themes. Retconning their past away leaves a bad taste in my mouth as well as a bad message in my opinion.

[punkeropercyjackson]

Acab includes whichever fictional fascist you wanna fuck because they're white and conventionally attractive,idgaf!

[mimiplaysgames]

The Bed Story, ch. 2 (Reflection)

Terraqua Week 2024, Day 2

Terra/Aqua | Terra/Anti-Aqua Rating: M Word count: 4,443 @terraquaweek

Summary: Terra meets Anti-Aqua, and he's sorry for the things they did and didn't do.

Read on AO3

A/N: I was talking to a friend and we counted - counting the separate fics that are in my anthologies, this is my 40th fic about Terraqua and the Wayfinder Trio. 40!!! To those who were cheering me on from the beginning, thanks for being there. And to those who found me other times, I appreciate you so much! <3

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The library was a place to temper—the best place to spend uninterrupted hours with Aqua, and the best place to keep up appearances. Books and homework were effective eliminators of fervor.   

Terra sat on the teal carpet, leaning against a bookshelf of Keyblade history’s oldest tomes, and stretched his long legs, crossing them at the ankles. He kept reading the same sentence over and over, the words shrouding together. 

Aqua sat across from him, mimicking his posture. On her lap was a heavy hand-written book where the pages were woven by a ribbon inside a worn leather cover. Affairs of the Heart, the Master of Masters’s stupid magnum opus. 

One month left until their Mark of Mastery. Standards for their essays were now entirely reliant on ancient texts, which discussed: the philosophy of connecting your Light to your Keyblade, ethics about fighting the Darkness, and nothing interesting Terra didn’t already know. They were tests to see if they could decipher and regurgitate common knowledge (sometimes nonsense).

Aqua sighed, bringing Affairs closer to her face, as if she needed a magnifying glass to read the text. She nibbled the edge of her lip. Aqua had just cut her hair short, and the desire Terra had for years to tuck it behind her ear intensified. Whenever she tried, it sprung back forward. Terra could do it over and over and it would never stay. It’s cute.

Terra shouldn’t gawk. He cleared his throat. The words in his book ceased to have meaning. “What’s bothering you?”

Aqua’s jaw locked. “For th’re art powers with nay mast’r,” she read. 

“In what context?”

“Some Keyblades don’t have Masters.” 

Ah. Immediately what came to mind was the Master’s Defender, something ancient and passed along to keepers of the Land of Departure. “Inherited Keyblades.”

“If…” She stopped. The Master of Masters was archaic, and her brows furrowed. She chose her interpretation carefully. She read, “Take thy heart and lodge it yonder chain, and thee shalt findeth a way.”  

“A way to what?” 

She shrugged. “Using the Keyblades of your comrades.”

“Isn’t chain too strong a word?” 

“I think he means link. He must be describing a bond that strong.” Aqua. Always the one to defend the forebears. “Listen to this: Nay fooleth, taketh thy heart and maketh thy star seeth.”

Terra dropped his book to the floor. “I don’t get where this is going.”

“Well, I think he’s using the term star to describe…” She flipped a page. “A Light. Someone equal to you.”

“Or, he’s a clown. I don’t think that book is serious. He wrote vaguely in riddles to confuse everyone.”

“We could try it. Trade our Keyblades.”

Terra strangled a cough. He was really strangling a hopeful laugh. This wasn’t the first time Aqua considered him an equal, but his heart hammered at the thought all the same. Her equal. His and hers.

And this was a very bad idea. 

“We tried that when we first conjured our Keyblades,” Terra said. Explosions happened. Earthshaker was desperate and too demanding. Rainfell was sensitive to emotion and needed control. 

Aqua straightened the pages with reverence. “We were kids.”

“It was a disaster, or did you forget? We nearly burned down the garden. Rabbits were threatened, Aqua. Innocent rabbits.”

“And we didn’t know each other as well.” 

“What difference does that make?”

Aqua licked her lips. Terra smiled. She was about to lecture. “Our Keyblades are an extension of our hearts, yes? And our Light is stronger through the bonds we make, therefore not only do our Keyblades become stronger, they shine more around the people we are connected to the most.”

“You’re saying we’re good friends. How sweet.”

She rolled her eyes and flipped to a previous page and pointed to a sentence. “It says here, To knoweth thy Key is to knoweth who is’t thee lodging thy trust.”

“So you trust me?”

She kicked his hip with the side of her foot—and Terra captured it, pulling her until her ass dragged on the floor. 

“No, I don’t,” she said, laughing. “Obviously.”

He let her go. Then Terra felt the void. It haunted him more frequently at every ghost of her touch—a pat on his shoulder, a punch to the bicep, when she straightened his bangs, an accidental brush against her shoulder. Always through clothes—Terra never had a good excuse to casually run his fingers on bare skin. 

Aqua rolled forward to her knees and leaned on him thigh-to-thigh. No void now, but a pressing worry over the possibility that one day, she would meet someone else that she would want to be touched by. She flipped the book over to show him. 

Terra didn’t take it. He couldn’t even read. Her thigh, her thigh, her thigh.

“Why is this that important to you?”

Aqua took the book back, surprised. “Well… do you know what this means for old Keyblades that are passed around?”

Terra bit his cheek. “It means we have a lot to prove to a Keyblade like Defender.”

Aqua nodded. “The Master’s guest has a similar Keyblade.”

Terra leaned forward and nearly took her chin in his hand. He kept it balled to his stomach. “Don’t tell me you’re worried about him.”

She raised her eyebrows. “I am, actually. We have this stranger judging us without knowing everything we went through. Think about it. If we could wield each other’s Keyblades, it will impress the Master and his guest. Prove to them that our bond is strong and we deserve to pass together. Prove to them that we can wield our inheritances when the time comes.”

This late into their study?  “Does the great Master mention how it’s supposed to feel?” he asked. “When we correctly do it?”

When they touched each other’s Keyblades as children, Aqua ran back to her room crying. She had said Earthshaker was “nervous,” in her words. But Terra knew better. His heart exposed like that, it became easy to read, and Terra couldn’t talk to her for days after. Truthfully, he was ashamed that she sensed his insecurity, feeling how he compared himself to her, how he was frustrated with being two years older but at the same level as her, how he was obsessed with falling behind and keeping up and excelling—all within the open aorta that was his immature Keyblade. Probably felt sorry for him, too.

And the other truth? Terra cried by himself in his own room when she didn’t know. Rainfell was confident, radiant, expansive despite Earthshaker being bigger, and Terra couldn’t mimic that. 

Aqua didn’t look at him when she said, “He mentioned the word ascendance. It’s supposed to feel like we’re leaning on a friend.” She smiled at him. Did she feel the same about his own thigh or did it not register in her head at all? “I know we can trust each other’s Keyblades. It shouldn’t be hard this time.”

Terra didn’t want to do it, but they built a metric relationship by testing the waters, by challenging each other, correcting technique, pushing and pushing and pushing to be better. If he backed out, Aqua would take it as though something was wrong.

Nothing was wrong. Terra was in love. 

What he must do was commit the same calm control Aqua had with Rainfell. 

Besides, he needed a win. Side by side for the Mark of Mastery, he needed proof he could stand next to her. 

“Let’s do it.”

She beamed.

~*~

The library is destroyed. It has (had) multiple floors, but the upper levels are now barrages of torn shelves and mounds of books that make it impossible to climb the stairs. There’s no way to reach the shelf that houses Affairs of the Heart, but Terra tries looking anyway. Maybe the Master or Ven left it on a table before… everything. But it’s not anywhere. For the time being, Terra gets no answers to any of the lingering questions he has about how to help Aqua. Only a wish to cure her.

The rest of the castle is just as damaged. The east wing is entirely gone, and the west crumbles in most hallways, leaving gaping holes that invite broken bones. Rain pours through the open wounds on the roof, and seeps through the cracks on the walls, spreading mold. Terra’s bedroom is gone, half-collapsed over the cliff below, but Ven’s and Aqua’s are intact. 

The kitchen is submerged underneath its ceiling. A cauldron remains. Ven helps by pushing it while Terra pulls. When they drag it into the Master’s study, which is untouched, Terra knocks over a lamp with the bump of his hip.

“I don’t understand,” Terra says, catching the lamp before it shatters on the floor. “Explain to me what happened like I’m five.”

Ven scowls when he inspects how dusty his hands got because of the cauldron. He claps them. 

“Well,” Ven starts like he’s talking to a child. “Once upon a time, the Master was mad at me. Terra came and saved me. Terra threw me in a voooortex—I know that’s a difficult word to pronounce—so I didn’t see what happened. Aqua said—”

“Ven.”

“Aqua said she locked me away in an alternate universe of the castle to keep me safe.”

“With the Master’s Defender. Some secret only Masters know.”

“Yeah, and she woke me up again. Well, no. I mean, Sora was the one to officially wake me up. Aqua transformed the castle back with” —Ven waves his hands like he doesn’t know how to describe it— “her incredible new powers. It’s like time went backwards or something.”

It’s impressive how Darkness can bypass a Keyblade’s spell. Then again, the Land of Departure is in the same condition Xehanort left it, from his own Dark curses. 

“Why not use the Defender?”

“We need a duster in here.”

“Ven.”

“I don’t know. She said Defender doesn’t respond to her anymore.” Ven shrugs. 

Terra taps his fingers on the cauldron. Everything he’s been learning about what happened while he slept—stars, why would anyone want him alive right now?

“How is she?”

Ven scratches his shoulder. “She’s still outside.”

Staring at the Master’s memorial, in the rain, exactly where they left her. That's most of what she does now. Stare blankly.

“At least she’s nice to me,” Ven says. “She hates everyone else.”

Terra inhales, gritting his teeth. Does Aqua have a shorter fuse? Yes. Does she judge people? Only when they truly deserve it. But hate? No. That is not Aqua.

"You're exaggerating."

"Pssh. Just wait until she wants to kill you."

Terra almost says, I don't blame her, but he keeps it to himself.

In the study is an ashen fireplace full of debris. The Master’s personal journals are scattered on his desk, and his favorite books—tomes, novels, children’s books he used to read to Terra—lay on a private shelf opposite. With how little it’s been disturbed, it’s almost as if the Master could open the door, ask them both why the cauldron has been moved here, to please move it back to the kitchen, and not to worry about the state of the castle. It can and will be fixed.

Except there’s so much to be worried about. Thunder strikes the ground, and it sounds close. Rain pummels down the window, leaving a blurred view of storm clouds hiding the mountains.

“There’s no mirror here,” Ven says.

Terra would chuckle, but nothing is funny anymore. “Why are you worried about mirrors?”

“Aqua’s making them all weird. I see things like… nevermind, I don’t want to talk about it. Can you help me take mine out of my room?”

Terra wants to collapse. Everything is weird. “Sure.”

“Where are you going to sleep?”

There’s a loveseat in the study, but Terra’s too tall, so he’ll need to find some clean blankets and nest on the burgundy rug. “Here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“What’s the cauldron for?”

Earthshaker still won’t answer when Terra commands it to. “I just need something to occupy my mind.”

“Okay.” Ven doesn’t believe him. That’s because Terra is a terrible liar. 

To shut out the silence, Terra pats Ven’s shoulder and says, “Come on. Let’s get your mirror out.”

They leave the mirror in the resident hallway, at Ven’s request that it’s left facing the wall. 

That night, it’s still storming, the wind howling like it’s crying. Which is a problem. The Land of Departure is supposed to be the balance of Light and Darkness. These storms aren’t normal. Lightning flashes purple, then green, then red. The rain leaves smears of muck. Aqua isn’t normal. Nothing is normal. 

Terra needs to busy his mind.

The way back into the kitchen isn’t safe. Terra jumps over a hole that spawns beneath his feet, and crawls under columns that have fallen over to get to the pantry. Carefully, so he doesn’t trigger a complete cave in. He grabs every herb he can safely reach.

Terra then spends hours removing stone slab after stone slab from the fireplace, some rotten with mold. He pushes the cauldron over the wood, ignites it with a Fire spell, and waits for the water to boil. As thunder rumbles outside, Terra rips dried leaves from stems and mixes them with magic-induced powders that the Master concocted years ago. 

It’s quiet. In normal times, he would be knocking on Aqua’s door, and they would sit on her bed and talk about what happened until morning. Normally, the castle lanterns would be lit, offering safe passage at night. 

“What are you doing?”

Terra jumps at Aqua’s steady voice and nearly drops the ladle. She’s standing at the doorway. The light from the fire slices half her face in shadow. Her golden eyes glow. 

“I didn’t hear you come in.”

Aqua walks up to the Master’s desk, and it’s no wonder why. Her steps don’t make a sound. She places a silver hand mirror on the desk, face down. He recognizes it: she keeps it in her vanity drawer.

Terra turns his attention back to his potions. He feels terrible thinking this, but it’s nauseating to look at her. Her body oozes black smoke when she moves, and when he crosses her path in the halls, he finds her staring randomly at the walls, at statues, at shredded stained glass. When she notices his presence, he turns the opposite direction. 

It’s not that she’s hideous. It’s that he wants to pretend her condition is not his crime. 

He can feel her staring at his back. 

“Do you remember these storms?” he asks. They pass through the Land of Departure every twenty years, and lucky Terra and Aqua were around to see the last one. The Master had locked them up in this very study, while he braved the outside and fought this dark energy. The fact that another one is at their doorstep a year early is an omen.

A pause. “Yes.”

Terra inhales to stop himself from crying. She sounds like she will never smile again. More than that, there’s a buried edge to her voice and it crawls over Terra’s skin. Like he’s around a predator, his hairs stand and he’s careful not to trigger an attack. 

“Look at me.”

Terra pretends to lean over the cauldron to mix, and lets the onslaught of steam threaten his fear away. Feel pain here, assaulting his face, and it overrides the pain of looking at her face.

But he can’t pretend forever. He finishes his “work,” and he turns. This frown is so unnatural for her—still and unmoving, like she’s dead. In better times, her frown made him laugh. 

“Don’t like what you see?” She leans on the desk. 

Her face, her jawline that he wants to stroke with his knuckle, sad and torn up. She’s beautiful, and she’s a reminder of every mistake Terra has made.  

“It’s not like that,” Terra whispers, and he stares at his shoes.

“Look at me.” Stronger, with vice. 

He does, reading her angry eyes, her bleached hair, the claws like needles into the wood. Her lips, pursed and tense. The length of her neck. The color of Darkness spreading over her arms. Her bare shoulders, the straps he’s taken off before.

“I’m sorry,” he says, her face blurring. Hot tears leave burn marks on his cheeks.

Her claws scrape the desk as she stands back up. “I don’t care about your apology.”

“I know what you’re thinking—”

“No, you don’t.”

“Aqua…” He licks his lips, and they taste like salt. Thunder roars. “We have to fix the castle. To protect us. These storms are dangerous.”

“Oh.” She crosses her arms. “How bad.”

Stars, he sounds so stupid, considering what she survived. “We have to think of Ven.”

Again, that predatory feeling that she’s smothers into control. Terra braces for an attack, but none come. “You think I don’t?”

“Stars,” he curses. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I have already taken care of his room. He’ll be fine.”

Terra swallows what feels like thick goo down his throat. “Okay. Thank you.”

“I’m here to take care of this room.”

Terra gapes. He’s expecting her to summon Rainfell, and bless the walls to keep him safe from the storm. But she doesn’t. She’s standing there, glaring at him. 

But of course—the shadows that dance with the light from the hearth dance on their own. They shift and warp. She’s creating a barrier for him with her Darkness. 

“I get it, you know,” he says. 

She doesn’t respond.

He continues, “You feel more in control like this.”

Her jaw locks. He studies her, really studies her. Her Light is still there but it’s faint. Rainfell is muted. Before, her power was like the sun— too bright to look straight on, but one you can gaze at it in the reflection of water. Now it’s like… the wick of a flame in the fog.

Terra has a faint memory of being in the dark and a star dissolving in front of him. Well, star isn’t a strong enough word for Aqua’s Light before the Guardian overpowered it and infected her with whatever this is. The Guardian wanted a sun, and the Guardian sucked all its hydrogen.

“We can help you,” he says, standing taller.

“How are you suggesting?”

“Maybe… we can remove the shroud—”

“Exorcism.” 

“No—”

“I’m not broken.”

“No.” A nervous laugh escapes his mouth. “Of course not. You’re strong.”

“Don’t,” she snaps, snarling. She lowers her voice. “Call me strong. It isn’t fair.”

Terra nods, and blinks away from her, wishing his tears would stop. She’s right. Nothing, including his tears, is fair to her.

“Look at me,” she says, gentler. She walks forward, her body warping through the desk like she’s made of mist and there’s nothing solid in her way. “Everyone averts their eyes. But I hate it when you do.”

Terra runs reasons in his mind to be brave. For her. For her pain. For his punishment. His tears now dribble off his chin.

“Do you have any idea how much I wanted to hear your voice all that time?” she says, stepping up to his face. She compresses one claw against his throat, right under his jaw. “How quiet it was when I couldn’t?”

This isn’t what Terra had expected his future to be, if a miracle were to happen and they would be this close again. For hours that seemed like years and years that were millennia, Terra asked the stars if he could touch her one more time. Hand in hand, that was all he asked for.  

“Yes. I do.” He sniffs. She presses harder and Terra grits his teeth from the pressure. “I couldn’t hear or see anything. All I did was dream memories. It was torture—”

“Torture,” she mumbles. She presses even harder that her claw stings. How is she this close to him when he perceives her so far? So close, their hips inches apart. 

“Yes.” Terra swallows but can’t. “Aqua, all I had were daydreams of when I could see you and Ven again.”

Silence. She tucks her white hair behind her ear with her free hand, and it falls forward. The claw under his jaw shifts, and the artery at his throat throbs. She leans near, almost to kiss him, when she stops just before her lips grace his. 

“You’re breathing,” she whispers.

His blood pumps. That’s what this is. She’s measuring his pulse, that he’s real under her touch. 

She’s still Aqua. Just weird. Weird like a jewel unrefined, still in its geode. For years, Terra hasn’t felt, hasn’t touched, only yearned. The restraint he has with her this close dissolves from tears of what-ifs. 

Brave, be brave. He removes her hand, clutches it to his heart, and leans toward her. Leans until their foreheads almost touch, until he takes her cheek and strokes it with his thumb. Testing their distance, looking into gold while gold looks into blue. Gold glances down to his lips.

He kisses her. Her lips are cold like she’s been in the snow, and it reminds him of bright mornings in white. Of dark, cozy nights by the fire. Of the wonder of seasons when he was young. Her lips are cold like steel when they’re soft against his, and he savors them when he hasn’t savored anything for twelve years. Her lips are no longer the way he remembers them, but they’re Aqua. And the tongue he needs is Aqua, and the sigh she gives him is her. When he lets go, she’s dazed, with his shirt balled in her fist and staring at the wall behind his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he says, letting go of the arm wrapped around her waist. “I couldn’t help it.”

“You know,” she says, “I can’t feel much.”

He peels off the claw that’s nearly tearing a hole in his shirt, and rubs it between his hands, over her scales, trying to thaw her. “Do you feel this?”

Aqua watches him work. “Faintly.”

“I can make you tea.” Cinnamon would be best considering its strong flavor, but it’s in the pantry, mixed with plaster. “Just give me a day so I can buy some.” 

She says nothing.

Terra exhales his anxiety, and brings her knuckles to his lips. The rubbing hasn’t helped. She’s still icy, and he wants to wrap her with his body, throw fleece over her face. “I can make you something now if you want. You’ll feel better.”

“Better,” she mutters, as if this offends her. She pulls her hand away. Her ice ghosts from his palms in waves, where his blood pumps warmth back with a tingling feeling. He can’t deal with the emptiness between them. When she turns away from him, he clasps her wrist. “Aqua—”

“I’m done with the room.” She dodges his hold. She makes him feel like his touch is accidental. 

“Please…” He doesn’t say, Don’t slip from me again. What should he say? Stay? Can we go to your room?

He doesn't mention they were supposed to find a hiding place for themselves the night they were supposed to be Masters together. Do they even have the same dream anymore?

“There’s… a lot we need to talk about," he continues. "Between us. What happened in the Realm of Darkness. What happened the night before the Mark of Mastery?” 

She doesn’t say anything. Not at first. “I thought about that night all the time.”

“I did, too.” 

Again Aqua has no response. 

“There’s no going back, is there?” he asks, afraid of the answer. “For us?”

She doesn’t confirm.

“The mirror should help you see.” She slips away. The void screams when she silently leaves the room, past the firelight’s barrier. 

The hand mirror is as cold as her hands, unbending metal in his tight grip. He flips it over. In his reflection is himself—white hair, golden eyes, smirking in a way unnatural to him. Faded horns hover behind the crown of his head. The Guardian tucked away, a most loyal dog.

So Terra and this anti version of Aqua understand each other better than he realizes. Even with clothes on, they’re naked. She finds herself more powerful now than she was before, and can rely on her new strength. A comforting thought for her, not having to wait for others anymore.

The truth that matches hers? Terra was stronger when Darkness overtook him, too. And he hates himself for it. Hates himself for wishing Xehanort was alive and lingering in the back of his mind, trapped like Terra was, so Terra could ask what he should do about Aqua, and Xehanort the wise would have an answer.

He hates himself for being a dog in the first place. Isn’t the Guardian a literal manifestation of what Terra’s heart truly is? A Keybearer is supposed to be a source of Light—they need Light within their heart in order to summon a Keyblade. Maybe the Guardian is proof Terra shouldn’t wield one anymore. Maybe Earthshaker has been swallowed. 

He throws the mirror into the cauldron and listens to the glass shatter. Maybe this little shred of her Darkness would make his potion more powerful.

Terra gathers blankets from wardrobes that are still intact, and layers them together to make a bed between the loveseat and the coffee table. When he’s done filling vials with potions, he lies on his back and stares at the ceiling. There’s a crack too close to the chandelier. It could fall and crush him.

Terra exhales and suppresses the need to cry. He closes his eyes and rolls to his side, but the floor is too rock solid and his bones ache. He uses his arm as a pillow, and sighs. Given enough time, with the rain tapping on the windows and the fireplace alive with groans and cracks, Terra actually catches some sleep.

Until his eyes snap open in the middle of the night. The firelight is dead, and it’s black-dark. Rain still knocks on the windows. On his side, he’s looking at a shadow hiding under the table. The hair on his neck rises—whoever is there is staring back, and he expects a claw to smite and scratch him.

Lightning strikes—it illuminates no one looking back. 

Behind him though is a predator, sitting on the loveseat, watching his back. Terra pretends he’s still asleep. 

Ven apparently didn’t sleep much either. The next morning, Terra asks about Aqua. Ven says he woke up every hour and he noticed she spent the entire night not in her bed, but wandering the castle.