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tiny-cloud-of-flowers · 1 year ago

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the changes darkness brings (Clio/Aria)

Shortly after the Keyblade War has taken place, and the Dandelions have successfully resumed life in their new world, Clio receives a special mission from the Foretellers to clear out Heartless in the Corridor of Darkness. In the process of carrying it out, she finally finds Aria again, whom she had not seen since becoming unchained - but something seems to have happened to her.. (4359 words)

Set during KHUX Quest 491; note that much of Chirithy's dialogue is taken directly from the game. Sequel to my previous piece of writing for this selfship.

Content warning for a monstrously-transformed character (or, rather, my self-insert). This is a Darkling AU.

(Anyone is welcome to comment on and/or reblog my work, as long as my DNI is respected! A transcript of the document is under the readmore.)

It looked like a sunny early morning in Daybreak Town, and the tall Keyblade wielder was ready bright and early to start off her mission for the day, much like she would be on most other days. A mint-green Foxstar was happily keeping pace behind her, eagerly looking around at the familiar buildings the two passed on their way to where today's mission briefing would be given.

The only thing that could be called "out of place" was the fact that, instead of just sticking to her usual comfortable clothing, Clio was instead wearing a suit of shining spiked armour over her clothes, its light blue and dark purple details complementing her eye colour perfectly. Only her head was uncovered, but the crown of clovers that normally adorned her hair was left safely back in her room. She did not normally need - or want - to wear such serious attire, but her companion Chirithy had informed her to make sure that she was prepared for today's mission, so she thought it might come in handy to don the regalia she and the rest of the Sapphires had won for being one of the top one hundred parties in the Anguis Union.

As she made her way out onto the streets and through to one of the town's many open plazas, Chirithy popped into view in front of her, bouncing ahead to perch on the edge of the fountain in the middle of the square.

"Alright then, Chirithy - what are we up to today?" she asked, following it forwards to the fountain. Despite knowing that what was coming was important, her voice kept its usual cheerful tone.

"You've been doing a fantastic job lately." it said in response. "So, I have a present for you!"

It stuck a grey paw into its signature pink purse and rustled around in there for a moment, giving Clio time to sit down next to it on the fountain's edge and watch with curiosity. Tea Leaf, her Foxstar, hopped up next to her as well, as if wondering whether he would get a present too. Finally, Chirithy found what it was looking for, and pulled out a glittering bangle that caught the rays of the rising sun spectacularly.

"Dun dada duun! The Bracelet of Light!" it exclaimed, perhaps slightly too loudly and dramatically for what felt like so early in the morning. It hopped up and pushed the bracelet over Clio's wrist, at which she grinned and leapt up again to twirl it around on her outstretched hand with a laugh.

"I'm glad you're excited, but gee, calm down." it said playfully, the light-hearted tone in its voice showing it wasn't being serious. "Why don't you put it somewhere for safekeeping?"

"Hey, a bracelet's meant for wearing!" Clio countered. She did consider dispelling the armour for a moment to put it away in her pocket underneath, but decided to keep the bracelet on her wrist instead; with how she had to hold her gauntleted hand to get it on in the first place, she was fairly confident it wouldn't fall off of its own accord.

"Thanks for this, by the way!" she told it with another smile. "It means a lot that you think I'm doing well."

"You are!" it said confidently. "But, you also need it for this upcoming mission."

"Oh yeah?"

"With that bracelet, you can protect yourself against darkness." Chirithy explained, regaining a more serious tone of voice. "You'll need it for the special mission we got from the foretellers."

"Huh? Special mission?" Clio's eyes widened slightly at this announcement. "This must be why you wanted me to come in my regalia too, I'm guessing, but- what's this mission all about, then?"

It nodded to show she had guessed correctly. "You'll be doing the same thing - you know, dealing with monsters.. Just in a different, darker place.."

As it spoke, something started to materialise in the plaza, a short distance from the fountain, and it turned to face it. The air seemed to shimmer for a moment, before a ring of dark energy suddenly appeared and transformed into an oval shape. Clio let out a "Whoa!" of surprise, and instinctively stood up from the fountain to try and get a better look at what had just appeared.

"..Wait, you mean I have to go in *there?!*" she exclaimed after a pause. Chirithy's own lack of shock, and subsequent nod in response to her question, had let her figure out that this was intentional, but she still seemed uncertain - and surprised.

"Your mission is to defeat the Heartless in the Corridor of Darkness." it continued matter-of-factly. "But be careful. That bracelet can only protect you for so long."

"Right.." Clio trailed off as she continued looking at the portal, trying to gain some idea of what would lie beyond it but only seeing flowing darkness cloud the doorway. Tea Leaf was now standing on the ground next to her, and trying to look determined, but his tail was slightly bristled due to his fur sticking up, which showed he was also uncertain.

"The fact you're wearing the Anguis Regalia will help you in there too, but there's quite a lot of targets for you to take down, so this isn't going to be easy." said Chirithy, who had really never been too good at sugarcoating things. "I'd recommend you bring your Starlight for this. Or, no, your Sleeping Lion's upgraded all the way, right? Some of your targets are magic-attribute, so having strong speed attacks will be good.."

"Thanks for your insight, Chirithy." Clio replied. Then, she walked away from the fountain, and as she did so, a winged helmet appeared on her head, matching her armour perfectly. A blue cobra, the insignia of Anguis, was emblazoned above her forehead, and her face was now protected by a sheet of purple-tinted glass. Tea Leaf let out a bark at this change, but she crouched down and ruffled his forehead gently with a smile, which was more than enough to reassure him of her presence.

The dark corridor's entrance loomed ominously before her, standing out like a sore thumb in the peaceful fountain square. Tea Leaf raced up to stand next to her, poised and ready to help as always. Chirithy's eyes narrowed as she went against its prior suggestion, choosing to summon Missing Ache again instead of her stronger Sleeping Lion, but any concerns it may have had were allayed when it spotted her determined expression through her visor.

"I'm all set!" she declared, turning to look over her shoulder with a smile.

"I knew I could count on you, kiddo." Chirithy replied. "Now go and get 'em! I'm rootin' for you!"

"I will!"

With the bracelet's light shining, her armour glinting strongly, and her Keyblade's darker colour scheme giving them both space to glow, she stepped into the corridor of darkness.

==========

The process of going through the portal was noticeably uncomfortable - it was nothing like anything that Clio had previously experienced, and the darkness felt heavy and constricting even through the armour she was wearing. Thankfully, that sense of heavy closeness opened up somewhat once she had made it into the corridor itself, but there was still a foreboding sense of discomfort that hung in the air. Red and blue threads seemed to weave their way through the floor like wires, and misty clouds of darkness obscured the details of her surroundings; everything had a sense of flowing movement to it that would almost make her feel like she was floating underwater if not for how solid the ground felt at her feet.

It only took a few moments before the first signs of trouble made themselves known to her; a Violet Waltz and a Shadow both rushed towards her quite suddenly, as if they had appeared out of nowhere from the darkness itself. Thankfully, such relatively weak Heartless were of no threat to a seasoned Keyblade wielder like Clio - she was a Sapphire for a reason, after all - and two uses of Nature's Gift were more than enough to let the rest of her Medals defeat them. Tea Leaf helped her out as well, using his tricks as a Spirit Pet to help dispel status conditions the Heartless tried to inflict on her. Even still, despite all of these advantages, she could tell that these enemies were noticeably stronger than normal as she fought them, and they also seemed to be appearing more frequently than she was used to as well.

As she tentatively made her way through the corridor, she remained aware of the bracelet on her wrist, which was giving off enough light for her to always be able to see her surroundings and not feel pressured by the darkness despite how much of it there was around her. While its presence was undoubtedly essential, especially as Chirithy had stressed its importance before starting the mission, she couldn't help but wonder whether its powerful light was somehow interfering with the Reversed Medals that she had equipped on her Keyblade. They were by no means her strongest, but she could still hold her own with the powers she had to hand - and the fact she had wielded Missing Ache since arriving in the new world with her fellow Dandelions was a sentimental gesture more than a strength-based one anyway.

It was as she found the first target that things started to take a turn.

Chirithy had told her to be on the lookout for a Darkball before moving to the next part of the corridor, and sure enough, one was now hovering idly some distance away from her. Despite its lazily-floating appearance, Clio knew that this type of Heartless was not to be underestimated, because of how they could sap an opponent's strength before raising their own. She decided not to take any chances once she had spotted it, and made a strong first strike using Ultimate Sword - the Medal's power let her summon a ring of shining swords around herself before soaring forwards to attack the Heartless three times in rapid succession. It was clearly not expecting such a powerful move, and one of Tea Leaf's tricks gave her an opportunity to strike an extra time with her attack, giving the Darkball no time to react before being soundly defeated in a burst of light and Lux.

"Alright, that's the first main target down!" she said aloud, reaching down to give Tea Leaf another well-earned head ruffle for its hard work in helping her. Her Keyblade was still in her other hand, but she felt confident in her pace, even despite how harsh the environment around her was.

It was then that she heard an unrecognisable sound, this time from behind her. And when she turned around, nothing could have prepared her for what she saw.

The figure looked a bit like it was crouching, touching the ground with all four limbs - its claws were a deep red, fading down into a dark blue-black that covered much of the arms and legs. However, most of the arms and legs were obscured by admittedly-tattered pieces of clothing - torn brown trousers that were ragged at the ends, a fluffy black fleece that had tears in the sleeves, the remains of a white T-shirt still draped over the body like a shroud, and what could have once been a red scarf sitting wrapped around the neck. Its messy hair was a strange mix of golden and black, and fell wildly over most of its face; two horn-like structures appeared to rise up from the top of its head, and a pair of black wings with dark red feathers jutted out from its back, looking decidedly too thin for their length.

Despite everything about what was in front of her - the powerful darkness it was emanating, the many monstrous features it possessed - it only took Clio a moment to fully recognise what could have been facing her, which happened as soon as she spotted the loops of empty red ribbon on the left side of its head.

"No.. There's- there's no way.."

Her words held denial, but she had already realised the truth. Now, she faced the awful decision of what to do next as her body shook with apprehension. In that moment, the tension paralysed her so strongly and she had gripped her Keyblade so tightly that it sputtered out and disappeared, causing her to freeze further with rising panic. The figure had seemed poised to leap when she first saw it, as if ready to attack at any moment; it held itself tensely on its claws, and a growling sound could be heard coming out of its mouth. However, at the dissipating of Clio's Keyblade, it almost seemed to settle very slightly, all of a sudden appearing like at least slightly less of a threat. Clio could see this change happen, and was filled with even more emotion at the sight of it - her relief at not being immediately attacked was quickly swallowed whole by the implications of what that meant.

When she spoke again, Clio's voice was shaking almost as much as she was.

"Aria, what *happened* to you..?"

Tears started welling up and running down her cheeks as she made the admission and said the name aloud - as she admitted that what she was looking at was painfully suspected to be the partner she had been separated from at the flight of the Dandelions, her girlfriend whom she had been forced to leave behind for the sake of escaping the war. The figure seemed to become more alert in response to her words, but gave no indication of replying, still staring up at her silently with what could possibly have been mistaken for apprehension.

It was then that Clio remembered she was wearing her regalia - a full-body suit of armour that obscured most of her features and was said to provide protection and defence against darkness. She did not normally choose to wear it for most missions - in fact, as Aria had joined the Sapphires some time after the regalia was awarded, she had actually never seen Clio wearing the whole thing herself. Taking any part of it off seemed like a death sentence, not only in such a dangerous place as a corridor of darkness, but also with such a monstrous entity present directly in front of her.. but it was the only thing Clio could think to do in her desperation and hope that she could somehow be recognised, and the idea had settled in her mind with soul-crushing finality.

"Please.. *Please* still be in there somewhere, Ari.. I- I'm trusting you..!"

With her eyes tightly shut, Clio reached up to grab her winged helmet with trembling hands. In one motion, she lifted it off of her head, only to freeze as it tumbled from her grasp, holding her breath and tensing up all over again as it landed on the floor.

And then the figure lunged forwards.

Clio had braced herself as much as she could in the state she was in, but she was still thrown down to the ground herself from the force. The impact was not as hard as she had feared, and it took her a moment to realise that this was because her head and her back had been cushioned by a pair of arms that hit the ground ahead of her. She became aware of a very slight weight on top of her as she opened her eyes - a blood-red claw was curled around the left side of her face, but no part of it dug in whatsoever, and it was even splayed as if to avoid hurting her eye by accident. Something was pressing itself into the base of her neck, but then lifted. The weight shifted, though its movement could scarcely be felt for how light it was, and Clio was met with a face - and she could finally make out the details that distance and darkness (and the purple tint of her visor) had previously clouded.

What she had briefly mistaken for horns were in fact still a pair of ears, lynx-like and lined with thick, darkness-covered fur. They poked upwards from the head of identically-coloured hair, once a dark golden blonde that had since been mostly stained with inky black, and from this lack of distance, she could finally see the figure's face clearly from beneath the messy hair. A scar ran down the left side of her face, but it hadn't healed like a normal injury would - instead, it looked like melting darkness had covered or perhaps created the wound, staining her sclera pitch-black. In fact, both eyes were now set in that same darkness, which was spreading out to form a leopard-like pattern around them. Her eyes themselves *blazed* with glowing amber, predator's pupils carving through them like slits cut by a knife - and were those tears welling up at the corners? When her mouth opened, it did so to reveal fangs that were even sharper than they had been before; they looked as though they could pierce through skin just as easily as water.

More incredibly, when her mouth opened, what came out was a warped and scratched - but still unmistakeable - voice.

"Clio.. *My* Clio.. You're here.. you're- really here.."

"*Aria-*"

"I found you.. I *found you..* I finally.. finally found you..!"

As she spoke, emotion rose up in her voice until it was shaking, and her eyes were fully filled with the same tears that Clio’s had held before. This was enough to set both of them crying into each other, hugging so tightly that it looked like they would never let go. A whirlwind of feelings - joy, exhaustion, happiness, disbelief, desperation, hope, elation, and a thousand other things - overwhelmed the pair so strongly that it was almost as if their feelings could be physically seen in the air. All that could be heard ringing out through the darkness were both of their sobs as they lay on the floor of the corridor, holding each other as much as they could out of such all-encompassing relief to have found each other again.

It was Aria’s tears that finally slowed first, but she was content to stay where she was once they had come under control, emitting a sound that almost made Clio nervous again before realising it was more of a purr than a growl this time. Finally, the Keyblade wielder caught her breath and was able to speak up herself.

“Ari, we- we should probably go. I need to get you out of here.”

“We can leave..? You can still leave?” she replied tentatively. Her voice was slightly less hoarse now considering how much she had just been crying, and would sound almost fully familiar if not for the fearful quality some of it still held. Her eyes still glowed strongly like before, and Clio could see that they kept darting about, looking at every part of her face except her own eyes directly. The familiarity of that movement was enough to make her smile, and it brought her yet another sense of relief.

"Yeah, don't worry. I know how to get out of here, and I'm not leaving without you."

She shifted to start to get off the ground, which prompted Aria to quickly move off to the side in order to let her stand. Once she was up, Clio held out her hand to help Aria stand up as well- but she flinched away upon touching the bracelet of light that still hung from Clio's wrist.

"*Ah!*"

Both of them made the same sort of sound at the same time, but Aria was holding the side of her claw as if it had caught on something sharp as Clio took a step backwards. A shock of worry shot through her system, but she was able to settle down once confident that her girlfriend had not been seriously hurt.

"Uh.. Hmm.. I don't want to keep this on if it hurts you, but I kind of need to keep it close before we get out, just in case.." Clio mumbled.

Aria stared up at her for a moment, before giving a nod. "That's.. I understand. It's- This is-"

She started shaking her hand up and down in the air, just like she sometimes used to when the right words would not come to mind for a moment.

"..This place is not safe for you." she finally settled on. "Even so- I won't let anything here hurt you."

A gentle smile appeared on Clio's face. "Thank you, Ari - that really means a lot.."

She trailed off in thought again, trying to decide what to do about the bracelet, before looking down towards the ground and catching sight of her Spirit Pet, who had dutifully been standing guard for the pair. A burst of inspiration came to mind, and she crouched low to the floor in front of him.

"Hey, Tea Leaf, could you maybe hold this for me?" she asked. As she did so, she took hold of the bracelet and managed to twist it off of her wrist. Tea Leaf let out a happy-sounding bark, and took hold of the bracelet in his mouth once Clio had shown it to him. With a few wags of his tail, he took a step back to look at Aria and Clio in succession. The bracelet still shone with the same light as before.

"You.. would really do that for my sake?" Aria asked quietly, still sitting half-upright on the floor of the corridor.

"In a heartbeat." Clio replied, once again smiling brightly. "Come on, let's get you somewhere safe."

For the first time in what felt like far too long, Aria smiled back, and she took Clio's hand with as much softness as her claws could muster. It was easy for Clio to help her stand up, and she used the momentum to embrace her love once more, before quickly letting go to let her lead the way out.

In a flash of green-tinged darkness, Clio summoned Missing Ache once again, and reached around with her other hand as soon as she sensed Aria flinch behind her at its materialising. A part of her was sad that even Keyblades with such a strong Reversed focus, and the Keyblade she had been wielding ever since having to leave Aria behind because of that focus, triggered such a strong instinctive response in her now; but any concerns that were building dissipated just as easily when she felt her girlfriend's hand - now clawed, and now stained, but still *hers* - hold on gently to her own.

Light flooded into the corridor as an entryway was made within it with the Keyblade, the way out shining blindingly with the might of the breaking day. Aria lowered her head behind Clio's shoulder to hide from its brightness, so she gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, always reminding her that she was there for her again now. The pair stepped through the portal together, keeping close to one another as Tea Leaf brought up the rear.

"Your mission is to defeat the Heartless in the Corridor of Darkness."

That was what Chirithy had said to her, what felt altogether like so recently and so long ago back at the fountain.

Instead, she had abandoned her mission entirely just after starting it, and while what was left of Aria's clothing made it unclear whether she now bore an Emblem on her chest, Clio knew in her heart that a Heartless was who was now following her back into the world that was supposed to be light-filled.

Even so, she was firm in her decision, and knew that she was doing the right thing - love and care for the people she cared about had always been more dear to her than mindlessly following rules, after all.

There could be time for tricky questions after everything had settled - after she had held her arm out over Aria's eyes upon stepping back out into Daybreak Town, after she had breathed a sigh of relief to see the plaza still empty, after she had successfully made it back to her room and closed the curtains to make the space as dark as possible for Aria to relax and remain in.

For now, all that mattered was that the two had finally fulfilled their earlier promise, and come back to each other once more.

#heart of the void #creations from the void #selfshipping #OC selfshipping #selfship: of flowers unchained (clio/aria)#of flowers unchained: darkling aria AU #love: crown of clovers (clio)#also featuring her chirithy and her spirit pet #self‑insert: darkness' champion (aria)#of lux and daybreak (union x)#of hearts and friendship (kingdom hearts)#previous pieces #anyone is welcome to comment on or reblog my work as long as my DNI is respected #delayed echoes

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