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mimiplaysgames · 3 years ago

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A Powerful Enough Dream (Ch. 11)

Rating: T Pairing: Terra/Aqua (eventually) Word Count: 7,750

Summary: It’s time for Ventus to wake up.

Read on AO3

A/N: has it really been A YEAR SINCE I UPDATED THIS??? Hello, I’m back on my bullshit, I am so sorry it’s been so long!!! I didn’t forget about this fic - there’s so many scenes that I want to touch on that keep haunting my brain, so I thought as a holiday treat that I’d give this a small update. I’m sorry that it’s such a transitory chapter though! I hope you like it!

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

Serendipity

Ven liked Terra more.

It took Ven losing his smile a notch, when he glanced at Aqua, for her to realize this. Why Terra? She was much more careful when they played. She made sure his clothes were spotless and fresh. She baked him his favorites.

Ven was now only just starting to speak again, eleven years old, barely capturing full sentences. Aqua prepared a feast: fudge lava brownies, where they melted in the middle; licorice, coated in extra amounts of sugar; vanilla cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles and strawberry icing. She’d change his mind. She’d show him that Terra wasn’t the coolest.

Ven chose the licorice first. He sucked them into his mouth, his grin curled upwards as though drawn with a pencil, dips into his dimples.

“Ven,” she whispered, on her knees like she was sharing a secret. “Can you say, ‘Aqua, you’re my favorite friend’?”

“Eh.” He chewed.

“‘Aqua, thank you for everything you do for me’?”

“Aqua.”

She smiled and patted his head, watching the way he munched loudly, and how he stretched his jaw to detangle the elasticity, and how he nodded at her when he finished the first roll before picking up a second.

~*~*~*~*~

He’s sleeping.

Ven rests on a slab inside the gummi ship, which is shaking from turbulence, its walls creaking as if loosening its screws.

Aqua weaves her fingers through his. He’s warm as if he’s been tucked under a blanket all these years. Under his wrist is a gentle pulse. His breathing, though, is still. Like he’s dead. He’s not dead. He’s just sleeping. Right now, it’s hard to tell them apart.

Aqua hears the pitter-patter of footsteps: crumpling, confident, staggering, defiant. Kairi is glad Riku is okay, mad that he’s walking.

Riku passes by the room where Aqua sits alone with Ven, holding his head as though it’s about to leak. He doesn’t look her way, focused on getting through the hall and up into the cockpit.

There goes Sora’s snicker from the other side. Kairi throws him a glare.

Aqua doesn’t catch most of the conversation, just passing comments about Riku’s health and how, any time now, they’ll be arriving at Disney Castle. That they’re safe. Sora says something in such a muttered voice that Aqua can’t make out the words. Kairi giggles. Riku groans. The beauty of inside jokes.

Aqua holds onto Ven a little tighter. “You’ll wake up soon,” she promises. “Terra will be here, and we’ll both look out for you.”

“Oh, did he open his eyes?” Sora asks her from the doorway. “Did he say anything?”

Sora has asked about Ven so often that he’s running out of options; he’s been through a list of different questions so he doesn’t sound repetitive. How is he? Is he okay? What’s up? How’s he doing? Has he woken up? What if you spoke to him? With minutes in between.

Aqua sighs—she’s finding the right octave to start so it doesn’t sound condescending. “Nothing’s changed.”

Sora takes the seat next to her, pressing his hand on Ven’s chest. He’s done this, too—twice already. Aqua never took him as the sort of person to over-worry.

“Don’t sweat it, buddy. We’ll figure out a way,” Sora mumbles, before speaking up. “I can’t wait to meet him. It will be fun.”

Aqua wouldn’t call it fun. There’s getting Ven to wake up, there’s finding Terra, there’s securing a solution so that they would never be targeted again. There’s learning to live a new normal.

“He’ll look forward to meeting you, too.”

Sora grimaces—the painful type, when you smile to hide the sting.

“Are you okay?”

Sora tugs his shirt. “I don’t feel good. It’s like…” He inhales deeply enough for his chest to balloon. “I’m out of breath when I’m not. I’m constantly swallowing, and I’m nauseous, too. It’s weird like… something is trying to come out of my throat.”

Aqua holds his shoulder, feeling the thrum of his energy jump like static. He’s hurt, but she can’t see the scar. She whispers a Cure spell, letting the tendrils beneath her skin surface and glaze over his. He relaxes.

“This is why you’re my new favorite,” he says.

Aqua stares at him. There’s a sort of sparkle to his eyes, a naive expression that seems familiar. “What did you say?”

“Hmm?” Sora blinks. “Did I say something wrong?”

Maybe she heard something else. “Nothing.”

“I wanted to thank you.”

Her ribs clutch. “For what?”

“I know that you let Riku go in the Realm of Darkness. There was an open door, and you let him through. You saved him. I can’t imagine what it’d be like if we lost Riku then.

“So I have to thank you, for everything you’ve done for us.”

Aqua holds her breath, but she doesn’t notice. She doesn’t notice that her lips are quivering until she bites them.

“Besides,” Sora says, amused with himself. “Riku used to be my favorite, but then he opens his damn mouth.”

It’s all familiar, like she’s had this conversation before. She remembers how Sora described her home, a not-Castle Oblivion, with the sun shining through stained glass windows when he shouldn’t have known. He shouldn’t have known forests. He shouldn’t be sick.

She remembers Terra’s words. He’s with Sora.

Aqua grips his wrist, checking for a second pulse. Sora only has one, but she could see it in his eyes—he has a second smile.

This should have been impossible—a fantasy, a too-hopeful wish. But then again, what does Master Aqua know? Next to nothing about any secrets the Keyblade has hidden from her.

She wraps her arms around Sora. She pulls him tighter. Under her, she feels him tense up, like he’s about to cry. She wants to cry, too.

“I’m going to have to wash your mouth with all that cursing,” Aqua manages to say through her chuckling, ruffling her hand through Sora’s hair. It’s full of knots.

“If you’re going to be all Mom on us, then you’ll lose your spot as the favorite.”

Ven doesn’t like to be mothered either. Aqua smiles—really smiles. “Then I’ll have you to hold you tighter.”

“You and Terra really like hugging, huh?” he asks.

A swagger approaches the room—Aqua can tell by the heaviness at the heel, the lightness at the ball of the foot. Whoever is coming (that’s got to be Lea) walks like he’s in the mood to dance.

It is Lea. “We’re landing.”

Aqua doesn’t want to let Sora go but she does, and Lea takes Ven into his arms.

The doors to the hangar open. A crisp stale air billows through the ship as if they’ve entered a stuffy room just cleaned. The loading dock is actually the inside of a clock mechanism, exposed gears turning contraptions. Chip and Dale scurry out first, their tiny voices chirping in a call to action. They’re worried.

The Gummi ship took damage. They won’t be able to fly for a while.

Sora strides as if he has the map to Disney Castle sketched at the back of his hand. Aqua’s never seen the inside of the castle before. So far, it’s so much like its sewage system: colorful, gimicky, vibrant. They say the sun is so powerful here that nights at Disney Town don’t ever get dark. The brightest world on record.

“They’ll know where to put him,” Lea tells her. He’s doing a good job at keeping Ven’s head upright, letting it plant on his elbow.

Donald and Goofy are nervous—talking about what they’re going to say to Queen Minnie, Queen Minnie, Queen Minnie.

“Maybe we should just tell her the truth,” Goofy says like they’re discussing breakfast. His voice has a permanent cheer to it.

“We’re going to lose our necks,” Donald spits.

“Aww you don’t mean that. Minnie’s real nice.”

Riku groans behind Aqua. He’s leaning on his shoulder against the wall, panting.

“Headache?” Aqua asks.

Riku grumbles. So that’s how it is. Terra is the same. Won’t tell anyone what’s bothering him.

“May I?”

He nods.

Aqua brushes her fingers lightly through his hair—she feels the pressure like a pumping artery, right above the brainstem. She whispers a Cure spell, letting his scalp cool then settling him down from the high so he can relish the relief.

“Thanks.” It sounds nonchalant, a bit too confident. Aqua expects a smirk, but then his eyes fall, drifting away from her.

He’s watching Queen Minnie gracefully approach the loading dock like she’s floating in her elegant, frilly pink dress, her hands kept together, her tiara shiny.

Riku is to deliver the news. At least, with Aqua’s help, he’s walking taller.

There is Donald with his hat in his hands to pay his respects, his little lady Daisy caressing his shoulders. There is Goofy doing the same, bowing. There is Riku, tall, his head hanging, somber. It hits them all so hard. It hits Aqua differently.

It’s not that Aqua doesn’t feel sorry. There’s a part of her, something frigid deep inside that makes her wonder if she’s been infected by her years in the Darkness. That part doesn’t want to care. That part worries her.

But if things were flipped…. In Minnie’s place, Aqua would have also shed tears. Aqua would have also covered her face for the privacy to cry, would have also rubbed her wrists to remain composed, would have also held her head high, would have also willed smiles to warmly greet new guests despite not wanting to. Queen Minnie has a lot of grace. Aqua wants to hold her, wants to assure her that her king, her partner is alright and safe. After all, that’s the one thing Aqua asks for, too.

“Welcome, Master Aqua,” Queen Minnie says with a bit of a crack in her shrill, squeaky voice. But when she smiles, it’s as though her sadness blends away, very natural.

“Your Majesty.”

“Minnie, I insist.”

“We need a healer for Ven.”

Minnie cocks her head. “I’ve been informed of Ventus’s circumstances. I believe he would need someone far more specialized than a healer.” She interlaces her fingers, a huge ring surviving the folds. “We have the most marvelous witch in the castle. We’re giving her shelter for the time being. Such serendipity for her to be here when Ventus needs help.”

Aqua purses her lips. A witch isn’t what she has in mind, but it takes what it takes. “Please lead the way.”

The rest of the castle is brilliant, shiny alabaster with golden archways, proud with vibrant tapestries that depict stories in weaves of rainbow colors. Most of the halls are open, leaving a vista for strong blue skies, for fluffy clouds and loud pigeons taking flight. Light, light, light, so much brightness. Aqua shields her eyes. She doesn’t recall it ever being this offensive the last time she was here.

“There is no safer place for him to be, I assure you,” Minnie says as they pass by the gardens. “We are protected by the Cornerstone of Light, our most sacred artifact.”

“I feel that,” Aqua says, the thrum in her heart certain. The Light here is so powerful, it feels as if it’s grinding her down, tackling the bones first so her skin flounders over dust. “You said you were giving the witch shelter?”

“We give a home for anyone left behind,” Minnie says.

Ah, so it’s the same as Traverse Town. A refuge for people who have lost their worlds.

“Ventus will be right around the corner.” Minnie gestures daintily through a hallway of closed doors, one open. “Please make yourself at home. I must attend to certain matters.”

“Your Grace,” Aqua says, hesitating. “Minnie, about King Mickey—”

“May they both be safe.” Minnie offers her a smile, this one unpracticed and tight. “Terra has no one better to accompany him.”

Such faith in someone who has failed so spectacularly.

Aqua almost spits that out. She bites her lip. There are things she knows for certain (that Mickey never came back for her) and things she’s never seen (that he’s loved). There are doubts that are rude to speak of, that Mickey might be in the worst danger being around Terra right now. Aqua won’t voice them. Aqua can’t believe in them right now.

“Thank you,” Aqua says, bowing, and turns over her shoulder.

The open door creaks before Aqua could get to it. A small girl in a red dress appears behind it—in more than a red dress, she’s a cacophony of textures. Her dress is draped by a patterned scarf over the hips. She dons beaded sleeves, stockings in one color and a cape in another, floral patterns that clash by the fabric type, a mix of red, white and purple. It all comes together with her curly blonde hair in a ponytail and a shortsword brandished on a sheath.

The girl looks at her, speaking timidly. “Are you his friend? I have questions about the boy.”

She must be the witch. Aqua hasn’t expected someone as young as Ven.

“Is he okay?” Aqua rushes inside, where Ven has been laid out on a bed. Lea leans on the opposite wall, cross-armed. It’s a child’s bedroom, with a fireplace next to a table and a set of chairs, a rug, a toy box. The windows stretch high, covered by sheer curtains. This is nothing like the chloride whiteness of Castle Oblivion. Ven needs this.

“We will start from the beginning,” the witch says. She sounds kind and soothing, small and strong, the kind of person with a lot of knowledge and not a lot of self-esteem to wield it. “This is not normal sleep.”

Impressive that she could gauge his situation so well. Aqua starts to take Ven’s shoes and socks off.

“What happened to him?” the witch asks.

Aqua doesn’t know how to describe it. “The Darkness broke his heart. Then he fell asleep.”

“How long has he been this way?”

“The better part of twelve years. Almost thirteen.”

“Thirteen?” The witch tsks through her teeth, pressing her palm on Ven’s forehead. She shakes her head. “He will need intervention and therapy to gain back control over his body. He has spent far too long without using it. I’ll begin working on that right away.”

Aqua purses her lips. Ven cannot be brittle, he cannot. “Can you wake him?”

“I have already tried.” The witch sighs, stroking Ven’s hair. “But there are matters of the heart that I cannot pretend to understand. You Keybearers are miracles. The only beings I know of who would dare touch a person’s soul like this are dark sorcerers.”

“Then what am I going to do?”

Lea clears his throat. “I left some books in the cockpit,” he announces as if Aqua is supposed to know what that means.

And he does expect her to know what it means, what with the way he’s winking at her. Lea strides over, tapping the bed frame. He watches Ven knowingly, fondly. It surprises Aqua. They must have met years before.

“I gotta shake the trail anyway,” he continues, stretching his wrists above his head. He conjures something in a puff of smoke—a black cloak. It drapes over his arms. “Didn’t think I’d wear this thing again.”

One of the Organization’s cloaks. That’s right, he was one of them. Rehabilitated now. “What are you going to do with that?” Aqua barks.

“Walk the Corridors of Darkness,” he says with an unsung ‘Duh, what else.’ “This will redirect their target on us. Make it seem like we’re still traveling.” The zipper is broken, unable to close all the way to the neck. “I look good in it, don’t I?” he asks when he catches her staring.

“That is dangerous,” Aqua says, but it’s obvious. Lea knows it and he’s willing to do it anyway.

“The journals are in the cupboard, to the bottom right, straight behind Donald’s seat.” He smirks. “Just don’t tell him. He’s annoying enough as it is.”

Lea summons one of his Dark Corridors and steps through. The witch embraces herself after he leaves, as if spit with frost.

Aqua picks up Ven’s ankle so she can tuck his legs under the sheets. “My name is Aqua,” she says, glancing at the witch’s gray eyes.

Distracted, the witch nods. “I’m Terra,” she says.

Aqua loses her voice in shock. For years, she had entertained the notion that no one was listening.

Out there, though, was a little star who heard her prayers, who listened to promises, the same ones Terra used to make. The three of us are one. I’ll look out for you. I promise.

It’s not the answer Aqua would have wanted. An incorrect, innocent sort of reply. A small gift with a crushed bow and ripped paper.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Aqua says, her gaze low. “Terra.”

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

Xehanort’s journals are wedged between two black boxes with blinking lights, behind cables. These must have been the ones Lea asked Ienzo about. Aqua doesn’t want to be grateful.

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

Aqua sighs through her teeth. She has spent several minutes staring at the cover of the first journal, now laid on the table in Ven’s room. It’s a blank leather canvas, no embroidery. Aqua moves to crack it open and stops. She blinks.

She can do this.

It takes several moments but she finally flips it open. She shivers at the sight of the first written word.

The handwriting isn’t Terra’s.

“He has the gift of flight,” Terra the witch says, who has dragged a lounge chair to sit by Ven’s bed. A pale light emanates from her palms. She’s a multitasker—she’s left a basin to pour itself water from the sink, and a knitting project to knit itself, all the while passing her hands over Ven’s body, starting at his crown and down to his heart. Then over his shoulders, over the elbows, pinching her fingers over his hands as if she’s pulling something unseen out of his skin. She’s meticulous with his legs until she finishes at the ankles, and sways as if she’s massaging energy out of the fibers of his muscles, tossing it over Ven’s feet as if it has the weight of paper. Then, she starts all over at the crown. Like bloodletting.

“Excuse me?” Aqua asks.

“Flight,” Terra repeats, smiling at Aqua. “Someone has given him the ability to fly.”

Ven can fly. Terra can play the piano. Terrific.

Aqua rubs her eyes. “How is he doing?”

“Fine for now. I don’t expect that he’ll use his legs right away. They’re quite weak. His heart,” she stresses, “is strong but quiet.”

“So he’ll be okay?”

“He will, especially once he builds muscle again.” She waves more energy out of his skin. “I’m trying to speed up the process.”

“Thank you,” Aqua says, pausing. “Terra.”

“May I ask something?”

Aqua inhales. “Of course.”

“Why do you flinch when you say my name?”

“Oh…” Aqua bites her lip. “I’m sorry, my best friend’s name is also Terra.”

“I see.” She smiles morosely. “You can call me Miss Terra.”

“Please, that’s not necessary—”

“Why not?” She almost sounds sadder. “It’s respectable. It’s cute.”

“If you want to.”

“I would hate to be confused with someone you love.”

Aqua’s breath hitches at the gut of her throat. “Okay,” is all she can muster.

She returns to the journal and lets Miss Terra work uninterrupted. The witch is like a star. Aqua reads her as safety—they’re okay here. It’s peaceful. Ven can rest for real in a comfortable bed. He has new friends watching over him. All that’s left is horror.

The handwriting in the journal is an aesthetic: precise calligraphy where the loops of the O’s and A’s are sophisticated and the lengths of G’s and S’s are long:

That fool would not give his blessing. He’s engorged with self-prescribed and ill-willed fear.

I aim to fill the blanks he leaves behind.

There has always been that question: What did they do with Terra’s hands? The handwriting isn’t his, but he made these words, with his hand, probably with a quill, sitting on a dank desk at night with a lab coat on, with white hair.

A handful of pages—Aqua counts the remnants at a total of sixteen—had been ripped from the seam, so the next page opens to:

Subject 390

Memories are ingrained into our hearts—it makes up the value of each individual. If we can extract a piece of the heart, we can implant it into a puppet and create an unfinished copy. In theory, the puppet will carry selected memories of the original host.

Needle/syringe, powered by a drill that would imitate the velocity of Keyblade energy

These sentences are followed by illegible equations, the word “heart” repeated with variables.

Followed by rushed notes:

Subject has collapsed.

The next few pages are about Subjects 1434, 4770 and 8181 but the story is the same: hearts disintegrating when pulled out of the body, Darkness molding into its own form, empty bodies left behind then disappearing, all in the name of tweaked equations. If they could extract the Darkness from the heart at forty-seven degrees instead of forty-two; if they could apply pressure on the chest to suppress the Darkness while they extract it; if they could allow pressure to be released so the Darkness has a place to go; if they could keep the person alert; if they could sedate them instead. Each story has the same ending.

Aqua turns to a diary entry that Xehanort left behind, in his carefully crafted penmanship:

In every heart there is a place so guarded and so delicate: the Station of Awakening. It is our deepest identity, the single core where the very nature of our heart is born, embedded and welded together. The body would rather decompose than let this sanctuary be penetrated.

This is the basis for every one of our failures.

Aqua’s stomach dips then lurches. What if this is the secret: reactivate Ven through his Station of Awakening?

The Station of Awakening—all Keybearers travel to theirs when they’re ready for their Keyblades. This has to be it.

Which is the problem. Keybearers are not to raise their Keyblade against the heart of another. It is unnatural. It could damage them forever.

Ven had already arrived at the Land of Departure not-quite-there and not-that-distant, unable to talk, damaged. Something must have happened to him already. Aqua would never make him relive anything unpleasant. Anything.

(But what if that’s her only choice?)

There’s got to be more clues among the muk. Aqua scans the journal for related words, ruminations for nuggets of information.

Halfway through the book, Aqua finds another diary entry:

Master Ansem may cast his doubt and disapproval, but I’ve continued regardless. We have already committed atrocities, have witnessed the speed with which these Heartless have spread in numbers. They are crawling in the dungeon below as I write this. We’ve locked them in but still they escape. No human-made door can keep them in and so our newspapers have reported sightings.

I’ve proposed to alter our approach, to deal with the Heartless directly instead of pursuing the Door to Darkness. Such times change the course for something more suitable, but I believe they all lead down the same path. A Door to Darkness will not answer the more immediate question: Is there a way to control them? These creatures are feral and savage, no intelligence to be noted of. There is something, for the better good, to be learned of here.

And I expect these labors to be rewarded. The possibilities that lay before me. Maybe their numbers are exactly what we need to open the Door.

We will start taking people tomorrow and offering them to the Heartless. The Heartless respond better to the living, and the living are safer in the dark, enlighted and illuminated.

The bottom right corner of this page is over-folded. Aqua flattens it out.

A single word, roughly pressed, hurried in thick strokes and blotted with ink, in someone else’s scratchy, uneven handwriting:

why

Aqua runs her fingers over its deep creases. Terra’s. Terra broke free for several seconds, took control over his hand as if he slammed his body against someone’s back, stealing the quill and sinking it so deep that it nearly ripped the page. Aqua checks the date it was written: ten years ago.

“Terra,” she whispers, as if the word on the page could respond.

“I think you need a meal,” Miss Terra says, who places a hand on Aqua’s shoulder. “You look pale.”

Aqua glances at Ven sleeping soundly, his hands crossed over his chest. “In a bit.”

Miss Terra slowly pulls Aqua’s hand off the grainy surface of the open journal. “These pages are coated in Darkness. The heart can only take so much.”

“My heart is strong.” Aqua takes it back.

“It has become heavy.” Miss Terra frowns. “You cannot lie to me. I sense this, I feel it sinking. Your heart is surviving with nothing but a string, deep in an ocean of oil.” She shakes her head, offering Aqua a warm smile. “Ventus will still be here when you return. But he needs you taken care of.”

I’m fine.

Aqua purses her lips. In all honesty, Ven would want her to stop, would want her to reevaluate, would want her not to worry him.

Aqua is about to formally agree when Miss Terra jerks up, like a cat wary of a silent voice. Aqua doesn’t like how worried she looks, a sudden sinkhole in an otherwise gentle forest.

“Darkness walks through here,” Miss Terra whispers.

“What does that mean?” Aqua gets up from her chair, summoning Master’s Defender. She hasn’t heard anything, and she can’t believe how it’s changed so suddenly, how sanctuaries can become so frail.

“I do not know, but he is outside.”

They’ve found us already?

“I’ll go check.”

“Do not let him see,” Miss Terra says, holding her palm up and towards the door as if to gesture a stop. If she’s casting a spell, nothing shows for it.

Aqua peeks out from behind the door at an unassuming, empty hallway, quiet as a still-life painting. The sun shines bright, as if any moment now, one of Disney Town’s furry inhabitants will squawk down the corner.

Aqua steps outside and shuts the door behind her, turning the knob in miniscule movements to mitigate the noise. It locks behind her. She doesn’t get the sense that anybody is watching, so she walks. The only footsteps are her own.

That’s when she hears the bubbling.

A Dark Corridor draws upward from the floor with its slick smoke and fizzy groan, and outlines the wobbly shape of a large man—large only because it’s two men stepping out: a tall, blue-haired man with Lea draped over his shoulders, unconscious.

“Lea,” Aqua calls, hesitating to move.

The man bears a set of cold, golden eyes and a scar across his face in the shape of an ‘X,’ his long, blue hair draping over his shoulders. He smirks at her. Lea doesn’t register her voice, eyes closed, mind far, far away.

How could this be? Lea was gone for only two hours.

“You’re not welcome here,” Aqua growls, readying the Master’s Defender.

She waits for the man to make his first move. He scoffs, letting Lea slide off and land on the floor with a crumpled thud.

“He knew what he walked himself into,” the man says, surveying the hallway.

Aqua attacks—but he doesn’t care. He dodges, disappearing in a puff of smoke and reappearing behind her, no weapon unsheathed, his chin on a hand while he studies the walls. “I will not bore myself with your nonsense. I am only here to talk.”

“You’d have nothing interesting to say.” She keeps her Keyblade out, crouching by Lea and checking his head and neck. He’s okay.

The man opens a door—not Ven’s—and looks inside. “Hm.”

Aqua readies for her next attack. “Don’t you dare—”

“You’ve already exposed him through your defensiveness.” He taps the wall to make his point, checking the room right next-door to Ven’s. “This world isn’t as safe as you think it is. It’s been attacked before, so I advise you to be wise.” The man shirks a shoulder. “Not here either. But what does it matter.”

He passes by Ven’s door and stops.

Aqua holds her breath. In that split second, she considers exposing Ven anyway. This man would be no match for her, and they could find shelter somewhere else.

Then she remembers: they’re stuck here. She’d have to leave the others behind.

“Interesting,” the man says when he stares at Ven’s door. He presses his hands on it, feeling its texture. It’s almost as if he’s trying to find where the door meets the door frame, lost on the wall.

Can he not see it?

Aqua doesn’t ask. “Why Ven? Why hunt him down?”

The man smiles. It’s unsettling. “Are you unaware of where he comes from? The brightest bright and the darkest dark, stark and sharp. In other words, fodder for reaping. Under his condition, he’s no different from a puppet.” He glows with Darkness—he’s trying to summon a Corridor, but cannot pass through the wall. He tsks through his teeth. “No matter. Lea had asked me to give him three days.”

“Excuse me?”

He knew what he walked himself into.

So Lea sought this person out?

“You’re Isa.”

Isa glances at the sound of his name. “A simple favor.” He holds up his fingers. “Three days. Be punctual.”

With that he disappears.

Aqua pounds on the door. “Miss Terra, it’s me.”

The lock turns but there’s no hand to lead it ajar. Miss Terra stands by Ven’s side, her palm still open, sweat on her brow. Ven sleeps peacefully.

“Lea needs help,” Aqua says. “Help me lift him up.” He’s heavier than he looks, long and snake-like, his ankles getting caught at the door frame, too tall for the loveseat. Lea had said that Isa was a close friend, but what kind of friend would do this?

Why would he seek Isa in the first place?

“You lied to me,” Aqua whispers, but Lea doesn’t reply, off in a dream where he gets to enjoy a world with no danger. “Did you think it was smart?” She swallows. It was cocky, as soon as his head hit the floor, it was cocky and he’s smart enough to know better. She’d shake him if it wasn’t for the concussion.

Miss Terra starts chanting healing spells for Lea, her hands glowing a familiar green.

Three days. They know where Ven is. And yet… Isa has given her a warning, an opportunity to make a move. How far will they follow her around with Ven heavy on her back? They could even use Disney Town as leverage to force a hand.

They can’t keep going like this. The best thing for Ven is to wake up and defend himself.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Aqua storms down the hallways. She runs through a list of things to say, like a speech: what happened, what their next steps should be, where they need to go, if they run out of time… they’ll have to prepare for battle.

Her thoughts are laced with threads of guilt about to catch fire. Aqua has brought this onto this world and its inhabitants. She’s brought it onto the marching brooms carrying their pails of water, off to clean the dining room, which is fifty times the size of the one in the Land of Departure. She’s brought this onto a maid, a cow-lady, who is humming to herself as she stands at the top of a ladder, dusting a chandelier. They don’t know what’s coming and they don’t deserve it.

She’s brought this chaos onto Queen Minnie, who she nearly crashes into.

“Pardon me,” Minnie says like it’s her fault.

Aqua forgets all about polite words—she’s distracted by the tall people with Queen Minnie, faces she recognizes but never expected to see here.

A man in an elaborate, embroidered gold vest and his partner, a dark-skinned woman with jackrabbit ears and white hair to her ankles, barely clothed.

“What are you doing here?” Aqua asks Balthier and Fran, who are far away from Traverse Town.

The abruptness of the question leaves Queen Minnie blanched, but Balthier smirks, sly and unabrazed, a hand cocked to his gun holster.

“Charming, isn’t she?” he says to Minnie.

Fran, instead of saying anything, scowls.

The pieces don’t fit. It looks like they were all leaving the throne room, but... Pirates don’t belong in this picture. What reason would the Queen need them for? What purpose would they be asking for her audience?

Despite these questions, Aqua’s mind locks onto one irrelevant fact.

If they’re here, this would mean that their ship is docked outside, with access to the outside worlds, exchanging goods and people. With Fran’s ability to read the stars, they would have their sights on worlds about to fall to the Darkness. It can’t be right that Disney Town is falling, so they must be dropping off refugees.

Which means they’ll soon be leaving for the next world about to fall.

Which means a Door to Darkness will open.

And a rare chance to get Terra back. A small opportunity gifted to her from her star, right into her palm.

“When do you leave for your next destination?” Aqua asks, not charmed or charming.

Balthier, in a raw state of being surprised, raises his eyebrows. “In the morning.”

She’ll have to wake Ven tonight. Today. Now.

“I want in.”

“Absolutely not.”

Aqua stammers. “You need me to stop the world from falling.”

“Whether a world falls is an unpredictable factor in my experience,” Balthier says casually, crossing his arms. “My only goal is to extract.”

“How can you say that?”

“I play the protector quite terribly.”

Aqua rolls her lips inward to bite curses. “Then who will protect you?” she starts in a deadpan sales pitch.

Fran scowls harder than her usual, rolling her R’s and enunciating her vowels. “We need no spoil for guardians.”

“Keyblading is a messy business,” Balthier explains, realigning his sleeve. A whiff of cologne billows from the movement. He’s too clean for dirty jobs, his ear piercings made of delicate metal and precious stones. “Hardly suitable for a straightforward job.” He glances at Queen Minnie, and Aqua almost wants to slap him for it.

“I’ll look away.”

“I’m certain you will not be able to.”

Aqua, feeling useless, thinks. He’s a pirate. He’d want—-

“I can pay.”

“I’m in no need for munny.”

Then what else does he want?

Aqua fishes in her pocket and pulls out her blue Wayfinder. It took her five hours to make it—five hours for each Wayfinder, weaving silver in hers and Ven’s, gold for Terra’s. Terra used to scold her for skipping her studies to make them instead. She would study the way vague light would touch its blue color for twelve years, a small reminder to keep walking. Treasure worth more than a price.

At least she still has Terra’s. “I can give you this. The glass is from a world that no longer exists.” She wants to vomit, acid seeping out of her skin. “One of a kind.”

Balthier reads her face before barely giving her Wayfinder a passing lookover. “Nothing but a trinket I cannot accept. Too personal.”

Thank the stars she gets to keep it.

Aqua notices too late that her hand is shaking, and wipes her palm on her sash before pocketing the Wayfinder, where it truly belongs. She presses it on her thigh. It will stay with her until she can no longer breathe.

Curse the stars. Now she needs another way to get to Terra.

Minnie starts talking but Aqua has tuned out, staring at the two pirates. Fran stares right back, not like a rabbit but like a predator. Balthier has quite the protector already. How chivalrous of both of them. She’ll have to follow them to Terra anyway—

—and ruin whatever job they’re really here to do.

“Excuse me,” Aqua half-mindedly interrupts. She walks away, picking up her pace when she gets the tingling sense that she’s still being stared at. “Pirates,” she mutters disapprovingly.

She enters the gardens, where Sora, Riku and Kairi are laughing. Their feet shuffle on the grass and rip the blades off its roots. They’re sparring, pausing every once in a while to talk about Kairi’s posture and the lack of strength in her swings.

They can see that something is wrong when Aqua approaches them.

Sora asks, “He’s not okay, is he?”

~*~*~*~*~*~

The sun is halfway to setting, still high, soon to dip quicker than they’ll realize.

Kairi is flipping through Xehanort’s journals. Riku is shaking his damn head. Sora is studying Ven a little too much, and part of Aqua suspects that he must know they’re connected. Maybe the time has run out for them to be dancing around the subject.

Lea is still passed out on the loveseat. Good riddance. Aqua would knock him out again if he wakes up.

Miss Terra is dutifully sitting on a chair to the side. She knows when to be near and when to keep herself out of matters. And Aqua is indebted—cloaking Ven’s room in a magical spell was near-genius and supremely helpful. She’s a good friend to keep.

“We can’t do this so quickly,” Riku says, shaking his head again for the tenth time that day.

Aqua almost agrees. Almost. “It has to be done tonight.”

“I thought you said—”

“Tonight.” She hasn’t bothered to mention Balthier, not wanting anyone to talk her out of anything.

“We’re not prepared.”

“If we work together, we can get through these journals—”

“I’m not reading them. I already know what needs to be done.”

Aqua stops her pacing. “You do?”

“The Power of Waking.”

Sora turns over and… something about the way his frown is wilting, it almost seems like disappointment, like he’s been shunned out of the conversation.

“That,” Sora says, “is something we haven’t tried before.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” Aqua says, silently demanding to be explained.

“Yen Sid described it as the power to wake a sleeping heart,” Riku says, slipping both of his hands into his pockets. He stares at the floor long enough for Aqua to anticipate bad news.

“How do you perform this power?” she asks. It’s like pulling teeth. Her Master never once mentioned such things. Maybe he and Yen Sid didn’t always see eye-to-eye.

Riku shrugs a preemptive apology. “We use our Keyblades to connect—”

“Stop right there.” Aqua holds her finger up. “You are not going to suggest we raise our Keyblades against Ven.”

“In our Mark of Mastery,” Riku says slowly to stall any more interruptions, “Sora and I were tasked with waking sleeping worlds. We had to use our Keyblades.” He gives Aqua a pleading look so he could continue. “I had to do it to Sora.”

“If it makes you feel better,” Sora says, “I don’t remember it at all. I don’t think it hurt.”

Eraqus would not have gone along with this. Aqua turns her back on them, placing Terra’s music box on the surface of Ven’s nightstand. She doesn’t yet wind it. “What if something goes wrong?”

“Which is what makes me nervous,” Riku says. “In my experience, there’s a kind of… protection that I had to sift through with Sora.”

“Protection?” asks Sora.

“You know, the dreamy stuff. Weird nightmares, riddles…” Riku waves his wrist as if to pretend all of this is casual.

Kairi isn’t reading anymore. She has one page pinched between her fingers, and she’s looking for Sora’s reaction. She’s about to say something, when Sora exclaims.

“So that’s what that was!”

Aqua doesn’t want to hear anymore. There’s a reason the heart protects—The body would rather decompose than let this sanctuary be penetrated—and destroying Ven’s delicate defense mechanisms could spell disaster.

“I think I remember falling asleep,” Sora says, fingers to his temple, fist to his chin. “And being in the dark with stained glass. And there was this moving armor that was trying to fight me. Aqua, it looked a lot like yours—”

“Enough,” Aqua says. She’s squeezing the music box tight against her chest to prevent herself from slamming it onto the nightstand.

It’s cold. Kairi lets go of a squeak and that’s when Aqua realizes that she’s scared them. It’s cold, like the trickle of snow on skin, like the ocean at night, and Aqua is angry beyond the point of being reasonable and she doesn’t know why. It’s cold, like the way the Darkness wraps around your skin before it numbs you. Outside the Realm of Darkness, Aqua shouldn’t be feeling like this. She breathes, and tells herself that there’s no reason to be angry. There’s no reason to be a wounded animal. Something is wrong. She’s scaring herself.

Aqua gently places the music box down, and winds it. It chimes with the melody that tells the story of a ghost walking through a forest and finding a friend, at least in Aqua’s interpretation. It becomes the only sound to speak in the room.

If Terra were here, they’d have more ideas.

“You know,” Sora says, interrupting the music where it saddens, right when the ghost’s friend dies, before its soul leaves the body and they can continue with their afterlives reunited. “You were included in that mission. You and Terra. Yen Sid expected us to wake all three of you up.”

“Clearly,” Aqua says, rolling the touch of her tongue to the roof of her mouth, “I am not asleep.”

“It was just a theory.”

“Riku,” Aqua asks, watching the pins hit the stubs of the music roll, “if this power was a test you’ve passed to be a Master, why are you hesitant?”

Riku takes a while to speak. She doesn’t look at him to read his face. She stares at Ven and his barely-there, almost-dead breathing.

“Like I said, there are defense mechanisms. I know Sora well, so I had a handle on it.” He pauses again. “I don’t know Ven and I’ve never done this on anyone else.��

“You can do this, Riku,” Kairi says.

“I can, too,” Sora says. More silence, like the weight of a piano with no keys crashing through the ceiling. “Why is everyone looking at me like that?”

“Sora,” Kairi says, “you’ve been acting weird lately. We’re not sure if you’re alright.” It’s a gentle way of reminding someone they’ve failed their exam.

“But I really feel that I have to do this.”

“Why?” Riku asks shortly.

“I don’t know why. I feel like I have to. And I can’t leave Aqua or Terra behind.”

“Do you hear yourself? Why would either of them assume you’ve left them behind?”

Because Ven would hate to be left behind, and wouldn’t dare try that on either of his best friends.

“I don’t know why,” Sora says quietly.

“I’ll do it,” Aqua says, finally turning to face them, a room full of defeated and confused people. Kairi has let go of the page, ignoring the rest.

“You said you’ve never heard of it before,” Riku reminds her.

“But I know Ven,” she says, “better than anyone here. No offense, but I wouldn’t want to let anyone else near him.”

Sora almost hangs his head in defeat when Aqua continues, “Can Sora come with me?”

Riku’s jaw slacks and Kairi almost quips. “Why Sora?” she asks.

“I agree that he has been acting strangely.”

When she says this, Riku’s eyes glaze over with the dawn of understanding. It gives him moments to react, not with words, but by the expression: relief that he isn’t crazy, worry for his friend, determination to bleed the sickness out of the body.

“Okay,” Riku says.

“Riku—” Kairi warns.

“I think I know what I need to do. Aqua, you and Sora will go together. This may not make sense, but it’s up to you to guide me.”

“Does this mean that you’ll pierce both of our hearts?” Sora asks.

“I’m not piercing anybody,” Riku snaps back, his throat hitching. “But if I do this right, then we don’t need to be discussing this anymore.”

The promise of decision sounds like victory, but it feels empty. It’s not the same without Terra’s voice. Most likely, he would have suggested fighting the enemy instead and brainstorm for a better plan.

But Aqua’s hand has been played already, and Terra would have held it tightly until she got to her senses, but he will never come back unless she does something. She cups her palm on Ven’s cheek. Tonight, regardless.

Aqua and Sora drag chairs near Ven and sit across from each other. Sora smiles at her—the Sora-smile, the overconfident one.

The song is through its fourth repetitive cycle, right where the ghost doesn’t know it yet, but its friend will die soon. Aqua sends another little prayer to her distant star, wishing it could come quickly.

“Here,” Sora says, taking both of her hands as though he knew this was what he had to do, as if Terra himself told him to do it. “This will make it easier.”

Aqua doesn’t know what dropping into someone else’s dream will feel like, but as the light behind her glows lilac, as Riku’s breath gets more hitched, it’s like the poke of the hard end of a feather. It doesn’t really hurt.

The ghost loses its friend, and cries, thinking it will never wake up.

“I wish Terra were here,” she says quietly, her voice breaking.

“I do, too,” Sora whispers.

It happens slowly and it happens quickly. That’s when the darkness washes over, like the drop of a pillow on a chilly summer evening when she falls deep, deep, deeper. Ven is nowhere. She floats. Ven is nowhere. She waits. She’s alone, until Sora takes her hand and falls with her, his smile looking different this time around. But he’s not really taking her hand—it looks like he is, but she can’t feel here, weightless and senseless, the ache knotted within her shoulders now lifted and dispirited.

She’s waiting for the star to tell her it’s arrived.

And it appears, a soft yellow light in the distance, the size of the thicker side of a needle. Aqua thinks about weeds swaying in the wind.

~*~*~*~*~*~

A/N: Yes that Terra is Terra Branford from Final Fantasy VI! I’d been planning this for yeeeeeeaaaarrsss and it’s finally happened. I couldn’t help but think of her theme song when she walked out of that door. ❤️

#terraqua #aqua #lea #sora #riku #ventus #terra branford #kingdom hearts fanfiction #kh fanfic #time to bring this little guy back around #my fic

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miss-tc-nova · 2 years ago

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S/O Making Mistakes - Aqua

I feel this is super relatable and I needed something a bit softer. I think a short headcanon was a good distraction. So thank you!

~~~~~

With a S/O Who Made Mistakes

Well, it’s not exactly how Aqua wanted to spend her afternoon.

Cleaning up after your mess.

Correction: messes.

You were certainly having a day. One minor mistake created a chain reaction of terrible results that seemed to just blow up right in your face.

Very quickly, it became an enormous problem you were incapable of handling on your own.

Of course, Eraqus scolds you.

He’s stern and makes certain you understand where your mistakes came from.

But even though he isn’t harsh, being scolded by an authority figure like Eraqus is never pleasant.

It gets even worse when your teammates are dragged into it, awkwardly forced to watch said scolding and then told to assist you in cleaning said mess.

Now the quartet of you are in the process of cleaning up the physical side of the disaster.

To hear Terra and Ventus gripe about it, doesn’t make it any easier. They don’t outright blame you for the current predicament, but their complaints make their mark nonetheless.

Though she’s also miffed at having extra work, Aqua watched your face while you were facing Eraqus’s stern talking to—like a kicked puppy.

So she refuses to add to your misery and keeps to her work (which may not add to your crestfallen mood).

Once the work’s done, she shoos the boys away, ignoring their grumbles.

Then, by the hand, she leads you to her room, still yet to really say anything about the situation you put her through.

But once you’re in the privacy of her room, she wraps you up in her arms with a heavy sigh.

She asks you a few probing questions about what happened, but doesn’t poke at open wounds too much.

Whether you’re frustrated or in tears, she holds you, both of you decompressing together—the rhythm of your breath slowly falling in sync.

Gentle fingers ghost across your skin, drawing aimless designs while a soft voice hums in your ear.

If you ask her if she’s mad, she’ll be honest: she didn’t love the extra work but everyone has off days.

Then she reminds you of the time she blew up a pot in the kitchen using fire magic, spraying soup everywhere.

Or the time Ven fell off a playground slide and got a concussion, so he had to be rushed to Master Eraqus.

And that Ven fell off the slide because he was trying to free Terra who got stuck in said slide, who then had to wait over an hour while the Master tended to Ven first.

There’s really no end to the shameful stories in this hodgepodge family, you included.

So she assures you that today will pass and there will be happier days ahead.

Kisses press against your face, instigating a laugh from you.

She would never ask you to, but if you feel like making it up to her, she won’t say no to a massage (girl has some tense shoulders).

Or she’s a real sucker for little gestures, like making her favorite food or helping her out with chores/missions without being asked.

“Oh my little troublemaker. I’m only kidding; you know I love you. Don’t worry too much about it. Today is done and tomorrow will be better as long as you learned your lesson. You learned your lesson, right? Haha, I’m just making sure.”

~~~~~

Nova’s Kingdom Hearts Masterlist

#novas kh headcanons #novas requests #kh aqua

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viaetor · 1 year ago

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ㅤㅤ“hmmm…” the gentleness of his eyes narrowed for a moment, as if honey golds turned into ready spears. years away from being able to take the knight of favonius exam, huh? it didn’t add up. ventus was young, but very strong already. the small scratches and old scars that decorated his arms were few, even though tanning lines would prove that he had already been adventuring alone in the wild for quite a while. his technique highlighted his best features as a future warrior, and he was well aware of his surroundings during their entire duel. if by youthful will or sheer skills, he had managed to keep aether on his toes, too. whatever his teacher meant by the fledgling’s supposed ineptitude was founded not in a master’s gaze, but in an overprotective whim, it seemed.

ㅤㅤyou should stand back, sister. / i can still fight. i always can. / … i do not want to pray for the stars to be merciful again tonight. please.

ㅤㅤwell, not like he couldn’t understand where his teacher was coming from, anyway.

ㅤㅤafter long seconds, aether’s gaze finally fell to their sparring wooden swords. to carry something like that… he really had something to prove deep in his heart. “why don’t i spar with you from time to time, then?” and the good usual old traveller smile was back on caeling’s features, as if it had never left. perhaps it never did indeed. still, aether could only hope the budding squire would soon learn that masters and teachers were wrong more often than not. “i may not be an official knight of the order, but i’m an honorary knight. might be a nice opportunity for your growth, if you’re worried.” he crossed his arms, voice almost taunting through his heavy accent. “i won’t go easy on you, though, so be prepared.”

ven sprawls out on the grass as their friendly spar regretfully comes to an end, his chest heaving with each inhale and exhale that whooshes past his lips. he has a stitch in his side and his arms are still trembling from the effort of deflecting would-be blows with his sword, but it's the most fun he's ever had when sparring with someone. though they would never admit it, ven knows that both terra and aqua hold back whenever they train together, so it's somewhat cathartic to have a sparring partner willing to push him to his limits for once.

a hand appears in his line of vision, blocking the blanket of stars twinkling overhead. ven lifts his head off the grass, delight overriding his exhaustion at the praise aether offers. “ really? ” a giddy smile breaks across his face as he accepts aether's hand and sits up (though his aching muscles protest against it), crossing his legs beneath himself.

he's about to risk stretching his arms above his head to alleviate the stifness of his limbs when aether's curious, lighthearted query stops him in his tracks. “ oh— no. i'm not. not yet, anyway. ” he rushes to say with a weak laugh and a shake of his head.

it's hard to conceal the disappointment that dampens his enthusiasm as his smile swiftly falls. he lowers his head, twiddling his thumbs in his lap as he explains in a mumble, “ my teacher says i'm still years away from being able to take the exam. my friends said i've been improving lately, but i guess i need to train even harder if i ever wanna catch up... ”

but ven knows that even if he did train twice as hard to try and prove himself ready, he knows his master's answer would remain the same... isn't that part of the reason he left in the first place?

#destinywoven #❛ㅤ𓆩✦𓆪ㅤ:ㅤver i﹔ㅤㅤ/ㅤㅤof teyvat and lost wings.#aether rly wishes he could say 'ur teacher sounds dumb' but hes holding it in bc this is a canon event #DHASJDASDNHG #his big brother spirit tho?? definitely there #aaaaaa i love this lil dynamic thyme ;v; hope this is okay too!!

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phoenix-downer · 4 years ago

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Melody of Memory Thoughts

I finished the game yesterday and have a lot of thoughts on it, so I thought I’d stick them all in one megapost. Contains spoilers, for obvious reasons.

So, going into the game, I knew the plot choices would be questionable/disappointing because a few friends warned me, but I didn’t know the exact details. I was actually relieved things weren’t as bad as I feared they might be—I was worried Kairi would be going back to sleep or going back to Destiny Islands to patiently wait, so at least we did not get that. I think knowing what I was getting into beforehand helped prepare me for the plot points we did get.

Gameplay

I’ll talk about the gameplay first because that’s easier to summarize. I had a lot of fun with it, and the trip down memory lane with all the familiar music was wonderful. I played with Sora, Donald, Goofy, and then Terra, Aqua, and Ventus, and it was really satisfying in particular to play as the latter three because I always wanted to see them fighting as a team more often. I need to try out the other teams; perhaps I will soon.

I loved the attention to detail with the character animations and the little loading screens. The main menu scenes were adorable too, and it was nice seeing the characters chatting to each other. Riku’s scene with the Dream Eaters was precious.

I played the songs on various difficulties, depending on the extra challenges. One thing I did notice is that the difficulty was variable even for the same level. Some Proud mode songs I was able to complete, others I really struggled with and gave up on for the time being. I can imagine it was difficult to create a consistent standard of difficulty when the music itself varies so much. I noticed that battle songs, songs with strong downbeats, and songs with syncopation translated better into rhythm games. The slower songs did not, and for a couple of songs I noticed that the buttons were not matching up with the rhythm, which threw me through a loop. Overall though, most of the music matches the timing of the buttons much better than in previous KH games, so I appreciated the improvement there.

The Memory Dive and Boss Battle system is different from the Field Battle system, so there was a learning curve for me there. KH3 features more Memory Dive segments though, probably to show off the nicer graphics and to prepare you for the final battle. By the time I got the hang of the Memory Dive system, I was enjoying myself a lot. I still wish KH3 songs had featured more, but perhaps they’re planning on a Melody of Memory Volume 2 or some DLC or something.

Pretty much all of the character themes have to be unlocked. I’ve done Kairi’s, Naminé’s, and Sora’s so far, and the videos accompanying them are really nice. I honestly wish I could watch someone play so I can pay attention to the videos because the glimpses I catch are lovely.

Maybe it’s because I marathoned the game, but it does start to feel grind-y after several hours of playing. It’s the kind of grinding I enjoy doing, but by the time I unlocked BBS and DDD, I stopped trying to complete the extra challenges because I wanted to get to the plot. Speaking of the plot, by the way, all of the new stuff is at the end of the game. Everything up till then is just a summary of what’s come before. I do understand why Nomura went with that, but it does make it a little tiring to get to the new plot because of the sheer number of songs you have to get through first.

Now that we’re discussing story, though...

Story

I. The Good

1. Kairi is playable (well, this is more gameplay, but it also ties into story).

I know a lot of people watched videos that cut out the gameplay, but she does get a couple of segments of her own where she is playable and you get to do a Memory Dive-esque segment. The first instance is set to “Stranded Beyond,” the music that plays in the Final World. The second instance is set to the music box version of her theme I believe it was as she gathers pieces of her heart. She did get a render for the game, so I was expecting her to be playable at some point, and I was happy she was.

2. Kairi puts up a darn good fight against Xehanort. I wish we could have played through this part, but she kept attacking and didn't let him grabbing her Keyblade deter her. She's clearly improved even since the Keyblade Graveyard.

3. Sora showing up to help her is really sweet, as was her thanking him.

It would've been nice if we got to do that fight as the two of them or as Kairi herself (and more on that later), but the romance of it all was nice. The boy's not even in the real world anymore, and he still shows up to help when Kairi’s is in danger. At first I thought she'd managed to summon his Keyblade, which is awesome and shows how connected they are, and then he appeared and I was like woah okay guess their hearts really are connected thanks to the paopu fruit.

4. Kairi’s going to train with Aqua! Yes!

The fans have been clamoring for this for years and it's finally happening! And she chose it for herself. Leave it to her to try to make the best of the short end of the stick.

5. Letting Riku go alone takes a lot of trust on her end. Yeah, it would've been nice if she got to go, but she's also realistic about her own abilities, and that is in line with how she's been in previous games. I think especially after her failures led to Sora disappearing, she'd be hesitant to rush into danger if she's worried she'd be a liability.

6. It was a pleasant surprise that the Nameless Star was the third key (with Kairi and Riku being the other two) and not Yozora. I thought for sure he would be, so I’m glad Nameless Star gets to be instead. She seems like a kind soul and I like her a lot already.

7. It was nice hearing Kairi's thoughts on Sora's sacrifice for her in KH1. I also love the implication that everyone’s told Kairi their stories, hence why she’s able to tell them to us. The BBS segments especially sound as if she spoke to Aqua in particular about what happened, which ties in nicely to how Aqua’s going to train her at the end.

8. Alyson upped her voice acting game in this, props to her. Her lines when Kairi was facing off against Xehanort were great, and her voice was very soothing to listen to for the narration.

III. The Bad

1. Kairi should've been playable in that last battle. I can see why Nomura had Sora show up though; he's the hero and people want to see him, etc. The same issue happened with Riku getting sidelined in KH3, so it's hardly unique to Kairi; it just seems worse because of Kairi’s past treatment. Sora showing up was a cool moment and looked neat visually, but it would’ve been better if he and Kairi had fought together or if he’d encouraged her and then she’d done the fighting herself. Sadly, Sora winds up shining more in this game than Kairi does as a result, and the advertising feels like a huge bait-and-switch. Again.

I'm honestly beginning to wonder if part of the story for ReMind was written after Melody of Memory, because Melody of Memory seems to follow more directly from KH3 whereas ReMind almost feels like it was written... in reaction to the fanbase being upset about how Kairi was treated? I think Nomura must’ve had his heart set on certain plot points for the story post-KH3, and instead of letting his characters guide him, he’s forcing his decisions on the characters. Which leads me to the next point:

2. Kairi staying behind does feel like a character regression. It made sense in KH1 and during Blank Points I suppose, but it's disappointing she didn't go with Riku this time. I guess it's realistic though, and so the whole plot point is a mixed bag. It's hard for me to make a final judgment call on this until we see more of the story. Is she training with Aqua so she can be shunted aside, or is she going to be in a game with Terra, Aqua, and Ven that delves into Ven's past or something? Until we know more, I’m not sure how to feel.

3. If I had to guess, the next game(s) will have Riku, Yozora, and Mickey be playable. Possibly Sora too because Nomura can't help himself lol. This is... about what I expected. I figured Riku would be the one in Yozora's world just based on the secret ending of KH3. I wonder how all of this is going to go down (I know Square has several KH teams now, so multiple games are probably in development right now).

4. I don’t know how I feel about us possibly getting DDD the Redux + Yozora for the 20th anniversary in 2022. Having another DDD-esque game would not be treading any new ground, and it feels like Nomura wants to do Versus XIII at all costs, the main plot of KH be hanged (hi Foretellers and Luxu, we miss you, you were disappointingly absent in this game). But I do think the Yozora game is next in the cards, and then maybe there will be another game focused on Mickey going to Scala ad Caelum. I really hope it's not just Mickey by himself in that game... And I’d really like a game about the Wayfinder Trio + Kairi...

5. Riku's character is getting worse and worse. His entire character has become about saving Sora, and saving Sora isn't any different than his role in DDD. Feels like a rehash of past plot points, much like Kairi having to train feels like a rehash of past plot points. And at this point it just feels like he’s taking away screentime and agency from other characters, Kairi in particular. David also kind of phoned in the voice acting again on this game. To be fair, he only had a handful of lines, but some of his lines in KH3 also sounded tired and bored.

6. There’s only a passing mention to Roxas, Naminé, Xion, Axel, etc., and not even by name (they’re just lumped together as the others in Twilight Town or something along those lines). It would've been nice to know what they've been up to; they feel strangely uninvolved in the plot. At least we know Kairi will be training with Aqua, so there's that.

7. I really wish Kairi had argued with Riku more about going. She did briefly, but it's sad that she gives up so easily and that Riku doesn't really trust her. It's such a huge contrast to how Sora treats her; whereas he believes in her and raises her up, Riku is like, "Nah, you should stay behind, you're not good enough yet, let me handle this." Riku still coddles her too much and treats her like she’s a doll on a shelf whereas Sora invites her to fight alongside him in ReMind and comes to her aid when she needs it. Riku comes out of this looking like a jerk, which I doubt was intended by Nomura, but it is what it is. Especially because Mickey is really worried about him going alone later on.

8. Kairi's backstory being used only to forward the plot instead of delving into her feelings more is a missed opportunity. Also features retcons galore with Xehanort apparently sending her away to save Radiant Garden all along? That part confused me. And the meta implication that Riku is getting to go on the journey she was originally meant to go on... It makes me wonder if Nomura thinks the implications of his writing through. Riku is literally stealing her role and her plotline now, and neither of them react like two people in such a situation would. I hope Nomura’s going somewhere with this and that it's not just completely unintended bad implications, or worse, fully intended bad implications...

III. Miscellaneous Thoughts

1. It's hard to know how to feel about this game without knowing the next chapters of the story. It does feel like it leads directly from KH3, but it feels like a regression character-wise from ReMind.

2. I hope Kairi going to train with Aqua isn't just an excuse to sideline her from the plot... again. I have some serious caveats about her role going forward, but I'm relieved she didn't go to sleep again or go back home to Destiny Islands. That was my worst fear, and thank goodness she is taking her fate into her own hands in the small ways she can. I wonder if this is Nomura trying to continue a plot point from BBS Volume 2 that had to be scrapped or something. Let's hope Aqua can actually teach her competently, unlike Merlin...

3. Mickey getting a Melody of Memory render confuses me. He wasn't playable, was he? I didn't 100% the game so I have no idea. Maybe he is playable somewhere in the game and I haven’t gotten to it yet. Or maybe he really will be playable in a future game as a main character.

4. No one will ever be able to claim Kairi is a Mary Sue lol. She's had an (almost disappointingly realistic) learning curve when it comes to fighting, especially in comparison to the other characters. I hope that by the time KH4 rolls around, Nomura will let her be fully competent/fully trained. It's frustrating that pretty much all of the other characters get to learn as they go, but she is relegated to more training.

5. This game almost makes me more impatient for the next chapter of the story when I was feeling pretty content after ReMind. I guess the game has done its job in that case, but while I feel better than I did after KH3, I feel slightly worse than I did after ReMind. I wish Nomura wasn't so fixated on maintaining the status quo and would stop rehashing past plot points. But again, it'll be hard to judge all this until we get more material, which probably won't be till 2022 at the earliest if I had to guess.

6. The Yozora stuff wasn't as hackneyed as I feared it would be, but I still can't shake the feeling that that whole plot point is sucking up precious screentime from other characters. I think Nomura's going to spread himself too thin again and have trouble wrapping all of this up in KH4. Because now we have the Riku-going-to-Yozora's-world plotline, the Mickey-going-to-Scala-ad-Caelum plotline, the Kairi-training-with-Aqua plotline, the overall-rescuing-Sora plotline, the Luxu-Foretellers-MoM plotline, the Subject X plotline... how on earth are all these plotlines supposed to be connected to each other and resolved in a satisfying fashion?

7. My guess is that the switch to Kairi being narrator instead of Chirithy happened late into development of the game, perhaps because Nomura saw how much the fanbase does appreciate Kairi and wanted to throw us a bone. Unfortunately, what resulted is a bait-and-switch that made us hope we'd get a Kairi-focused game, only for it to... end the way it does. Ironically, I think it might've been less disappointing if Chirithy had remained the narrator. I'm glad Kairi got to be the narrator, don't get me wrong, but I think the way Nomura handled things set us up for disappointment again. I just hope whatever comes next makes this game feel better in hindsight.

8. I’m not entirely sure what to make of the whole “unreality”/fictional worlds thing. I guess I’m having an easier time accepting it than I thought I might, but it still feels like the whole plotline was introduced just to shove Versus XIII into the KH universe. I sympathize with Nomura for having his baby taken away from him in the first place, but I worry both it and KH will suffer as a result of combining the two.

IV. Future Speculation

1. If I had to guess, Kairi is probably not going to be very involved in the Yozora game(s). It'll be focused on Riku, Yozora, and possibly Mickey and Sora too. Yozora and Nameless Star will probably be instrumental in bringing Sora back "to the real world,” and then Sora will come home just in time to have to face off against the Foretellers and the Master of Masters in KH4 (which, I'm gonna make a wild guess and assume we'll get in 2025 or 2026 at the earliest).

2. I do hope Kairi plays some role in bringing Sora back, and honestly, I think it's possible she will. Nomura, I would imagine, is setting up her reunion with Sora to be Big and Important™️, so it wouldn't surprise me if he wants to save it for KH4. I think a part of Sora’s heart might be inside Kairi or linked to Kairi, and that will be the final key to bringing him back. The whole scene where Sora appeared reminded me of when Ven briefly manifested when Sora was facing off against Vanitas, and Ven was inside Sora’s heart at the time.

3. We know from past covers that the current cover actually foreshadows future events in the story. KH3's cover depicts parts of Tokyo and then Sora wakes up there (oh excuse me "Quadratum" lol nice one SQUARE), the KH2 Final Mix cover depicted The Final World, so maybe MoM's cover is meant to depict future events as well.

4. Sora being unable to speak in Kairi’s dream when he faces off against Xehanort has me intrigued. Why can’t he speak? Is it because his heart is in the unreality? All I can think about is The Little Mermaid when Ariel lost her voice because of Ursula’s curse “deal” with her.

5. I don’t think the person Kairi and Sora actually fought was Xehanort. Why would a dead Xehanort care about where Sora is? It would make more sense to me if it was the Master of Masters (hinted at by the acronym for the title, MoM), and that he was using Xehanort’s image (and then Xemnas’s, and then Ansem SOD’s, and then Apprentice Xehanort...) to manipulate Kairi. It would fit his whole “puppetmaster behind the scenes” vibe I get from him and his previous manipulation of Xehanort. I think he was trying to locate Sora’s heart in this game, and Sora stepping in to help Kairi allowed him to pinpoint Sora’s location. Now he seems to know where Sora’s heart is, so mission accomplished, I guess? Ooooph, Sora walked right into that trap if that’s the case.

V. Final Thoughts

Fun if uneven gameplay and some questionable story choices dragging down the good stuff. I’ll hold my full judgment till we see what happens next though.

Congrats if you made it all the way to the end of this, haha. I’d be happy to hear your thoughts!

#kingdom hearts #melody of memory #kingdom hearts melody of memory #kh mom #melody of memory spoilers #kh mom spoilers #kingdom hearts melody of memory spoilers #kh analysis #kh meta #long post

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atomic-taco-muffin · 4 years ago

Note

Hey there! Keep up the good work!

Can I ask for an another KH boys request? I seriously can't get enough(I probably need help😂). The reader is depressed and has been mentally drained for a long time. The reader later reveals about not feeling to live anymore because of depression(and maybe anxiety too, if you wanna add). I really need some comfort as I'm going through the same situation right now😔.

Awww, I’m sorry that you feel like that. I’ve been there. It sucks! I actually have a emotional support dog that helps me with my depression. I have other ways of helping, but my dog is the most helpful. Anyways, here ya go!

KH Boys Reacting To You Being Depressed

Warnings: angst, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, why aren’t they real?!

Sora:

You’ve been feeling depressed for over a month now and no one has shown any sympathy for you. They didn’t even know you were depressed. But Sora knew that you weren’t your usual self. He decided that he was going to make you a care package having your favorite foods, books that you’ve been dying to read, and a whole bunch of stuff. He headed to your place, making sure that he didn’t drop anything or forgot anything. He knocked on your door and waited for you to open it.

“Baby? You here? Hmm, their lights are on. And their doors unlocked. Where are they?” Sora asked. Sora looked around your house, trying to find you. He saw that the bathroom door was closed.

“Baby? You in here?” Sora asked. He opened the door and saw you sitting on the bathroom floor with your arms cut.

“Baby! What happened? Talk to me.” he said. You said nothing but looked at his necklace. Sora helped clean your arms and gently placed you on his lap while he stroke your hair. You soon told him that you’ve been feeling depressed and that you feel like you don’t deserve to be alive.

“Baby, you deserve to be alive. You have all these friends that care about you including me. If you died, I don’t know what I would do without you. You mean the world to me.” You started to cry and buried your face in his shirt. Sora gently shushed you and stayed with you until you calmed down. He then took you to bed and cuddled you while giving you your care package.

Riku:

Riku knew that you were depressed from the first symptom you had. He didn’t want to pressure you into telling him what was wrong but he needed to know why you’ve been feeling like this. He went to your house and saw how you were lying on the couch and staring into space.

“Hey, bunny. You okay?” he asked. You didn’t say anything. He walked closer and sat down next to you. He moved a piece of you hair (if you have short hair you can ignore that part) and rubbed your cheek with his thumb. You looked at him, your eyes showing no emotion.

“Bunny, what’s going on? You’ve been acting different lately and I want to make sure it’s nothing serious.” You told him that you’ve been feeling numb and how you wished that you went to bed and never wake up.

“Bunny. How long have you been feeling like this?”

“A couple of weeks.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought that you wouldn’t care.”

“Bunny I do care. I care a lot about you. We all do. I know what it feels like to feel depressed but you have your whole life ahead of you. You’ll get through this. I know you will.”

“Thanks, Riku.”

“Anything for my bunny.”

Vanitas:

why are all the good gifs on the tumblr app?

Vanitas was sort of pissed when he found out what’s been going on with you. But he wanted to hear from you. He stormed into your room and demanded to know what was wrong with you.

“Alright, you’ve been acting weird and I want to know. Do I have to kill somebody or what?” You told him that you’ve been feeling overwhelmed and it caused you to go into a state of depression. He gets it honestly. Being trapped in world of numbness, feeling like people don’t care about you.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner, babe?”

“I thought that you wouldn’t care. That you would brush it off like you do with everything else.”

“Babe. I care. I care so fucking much. I know that I’m not the best boyfriend but I do love you. Why else would I come to figure out what was wrong?”

“Thanks Vani. I love you.”

“I love you too, babe.”

Terra:

It took a while for Terra to figure out that there was something going on with you. But once he did, he went to go do everything that he thought would make you feel better. When they didn’t work, his last hope was looking at the stars.

“What’s going on, babycakes? I know something’s up. You can tell me.” he said. You soon confessed about your depression and how you wanted it to all end.

“Baby, it’ll be okay. You got me, your friends, everyone. I know it seems hard right now, but you’ll get through this. I know you will. It’ll take some time though. But don’t worry, I’ll be right here to support you.”

“Thanks, Ters. You’re the best.”

“I try my best.” He pulled you close and gave you a kiss on the head.

Ventus:

why did i choose this one?😭

Ven knew something was off but he couldn’t figure out what. He decided that he was going to ask you nicely. He went up to your room and knocked gently on the door.

“Butterfly, can I come in?” You opened the door and looked at him with a very tired look.

“Butterfly? Are you okay?” You shook your head no and hugged him. he hugged you back and rubbed your back.

“Can you tell me what’s going on. I hate seeing you like this.” You told Ven how you’ve been feeling depressed lately and wished things would end.

“Aww, butterfly. That sucks! Is there anything I can do?”

“Can you hold me for right now?”

“Sure. Let’s go cuddle.”

Axel:

Axel returned home from a mission one day and saw you laying on the couch, not touching the food you made for yourself. He set his stuff down and sat next you.

“Hey firecracker. You okay?” You mumbled a yes and continued to play with your food.

“You sure? You’ve been playing with your food for a while now and I’m sure that it’s cold now.” You set your fork down and buried your face into a pillow. Axel heard you sniffling and knew that you were crying.

“Aww, firecracker. I didn’t mean to make you cry. C’mere.” Axel gently picked you up and held you close.

“What’s going on? I’m sure that I can help.” You told him that you wanted to end your existence because of how overwhelmed you feel.

“It’s gonna be okay. I know it seems overwhelming right now, but you’ll get through this. You have me to help you.”

“Thanks Axel.”

“Anytime. Wanna go take a bath with me?” You nodded and you two went to go take a bath.

Roxas:

Roxas was confused when he heard that you were depressed but he was willing to learn. He asked you what it meant to be depressed and you gave him an answer.

“I’m sorry that you feel like that. Is there anything I can do?”

“Can you just hold me, please?”

“Of course. Do you want something to eat as well?” You shook your head.

“Okay.” He laid down and wrapped his arms around you and you two took a nap together.

#kingdom hearts #kingdomhearts #kingdom hearts imagine #kingdom hearts x reader #kingdomhearts x reader #kingdomhearts imagines #kingdomhearts+imagines #kingdomhearts+x+reader #kingdom+hearts+x+reader #kingdom+hearts+imagines

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razorblade180 · 4 years ago

Text

Venqua Week:Music

“When you-gah! No, that’s not right. When- ugh! Come on Ventus, you can do this!” The boy said, frustratingly tuning a guitar. He had been at this for months now. It all started when Namine moved into the Land of Departure with him, Terra, and Aqua. The boy had stumbled upon her drawings and by extension, the arts itself. He was completely hooked. Outside of fighting, Ventus didn’t have much time to explore possible talents. He was determined to find a hobby he was good at! It took all of ten minutes of Namine teaching him about color theory for him to realize that maybe literal art wasn’t his calling.

That’s when Namine recommended music. Seemed like a good idea. He didn’t want to brag, but Ventus always thought he was a bit musically inclined. Between dancing and the ice cream beat machine, he thought learning an actual instrument would come easy. Wrong! It was critically difficult! Three months into learning guitar and his confidence was was fading like the golden sunset that washed over him as he sat at the edge of the trio’s stargazing spot. Ventus played a few more strings and sighed. It didn’t sound off. Honestly it never was. The problem was his nerves. Ventus was trying to be a perfectionist with the only song he’s been able to learn so far. All for a special someone, Aqua.

He had always had certain feelings for his friend, but expressing them was beyond impossible. Any time he tried to show her a cooler, more mature side of himself it never worked out. He’d either screw up really hard, or Aqua would do her pretty little giggle while patting his head like he was some sort of puppy. He was not a puppy darn it! Ventus wanted to at least be a cooler, older anime. Something like a fox or a leopard. Just once, he wanted to leave Aqua speechless. He thought a singing to her would be his best bet. His face face grew redder at the thought of her listening to the song in awe, her deep blue eyes captivated by his feelings.

“Geez, I’m so hopeless.” He said, covering his face. Ventus turned his head towards his master’s keyblade that rested peacefully just several feet away. He wondered if Master Eraqus had any hidden talents? No way keyblade wielding was his only gift. If Aqua’s fighting style was any indication, the old man was probably a bunch of fun on the dance floor. The thought of him doing even half the moves Aqua did was enough to make Ventus laugh lightly. Once again he strummed his guitar. “Oh master, you think I stand a chance?”

“Stand a chance at what?” A voice asked from behind. Ven’s face went bright red, then pale in a less than a second when he realized it was Aqua. She smiled her beautiful smile like she always did and held a crown of flowers in her hand.

“A-Aqua!?” He stammered, “W-What brings you up here....!?” He wanted to hit himself right now. The answer to that was quite literally in front of him.

“Changing out Master Eraqus’s flowers” she answered anyways. Aqua walked over to the memorial and did just that. The old ones weren’t dead yet, but their color was obviously starting to fade. Still, they looked rather pretty. So pretty in fact, Aqua took it upon herself to sat right next to ventus and hang it around neck. “Wow, I’m a little surprised it passed your hair so easily. I thought it would sit on top.” She teased, ruffling the wild dew.

“Hey! It’s not that spiky! Also my head would have to massive for it to sit on top!” He pouted. Why is always a head rub!? This time he was minding his own business and still wound up like this. “Do you have a thing with my hair or something? You’re always doing stuff like this.”

“Of course. You always pout and turn red. It’s cute.” She answered, watching him get redder. Aqua couldn’t help herself. Teasing Ven like this was just irresistible. “So, what is it that you were trying to stand a chance in? Maybe I can help?”

“What? Oh! Umm it was nothing! Just talking aloud is all.” Lying was not a strength Ventus had.

“Really?” Aqua said sarcastically. She reached over to the guitar in his arms and ran her fingers across the strings, making a subtle but pleasant sound from it. “Nothing to do with the acoustic currently in your hands?” She looked at the blue eyes that were inches away and avoiding contact. Aqua tilted her head, a bit confused by Ven’s shyness. “Ven, I’m not a mind reader. Tell me what’s up?”

“If you read minds then you know mine only has you in it.” He thought to himself. “I’m just having a little trouble with a song I wanna sing. I learned all the notes and everything, but I get anxious anytime it comes to playing the whole thing.”

“How come?”

“I’m...self conscious is all.” It wasn’t a lie but it was certainly vague. “Any time I think about singing it the way I intend to, I get worried if it sounds bad or if I look like an idiot.” Ven could feel his heart beating so loudly that he was afraid Aqua might here it. Here being this close was nothing new, yet it too much to deal with.m right now moved back a little by pretending to readjust how he was sitting.

Aqua could the boys hand fidget a little. He wasn’t kidding at all about feeling anxious. She had never seen him so flustered when it came to things like this. Aqua had caught him a few times over the past few months really putting an effort into learning when nobody was around. She had even secretly caught him sneaking off early in the morning to find a place to practice. Learning this song must’ve been really important. For Aqua, that only left one response to this.

“Can I hear it?”

Ven was going to have a heart attack. “What!?”

“I wanna hear it.” She repeated, “We’re often our own worst critics. If you only play with no one around then you might always think it needs improvement, so let me hear it. I’ll give my honest opinion!” She said, excited to listen.

“That’s the one thing that scares me!!!” Ventus could not believe this was happening. How was he supposed to explain to her that she couldn’t listen because he was doing it all for her!? She even gave a valid reason for helping! “Oh, no I uh- you don’t have to do all that! Hehe, I just-” he stopped when he saw Aqua move to sit on her knees. His crush sat patiently with her hands resting her hands on her lap, a heart stealing smile still on her face. Here she was. Here they were. Two people bathed in the golden light of a sunset. Warm air and breath stealing views anywhere you looked. A gentle breeze made Aqua run a finger across her face. All attention was on him. Well, no time like the present right? Ven stood no chance of resisting with a face like that.

He sat facing her, legs crossed. He new his face was still red and the sound of his beating heart hadn’t gotten any calmer. However, a comfort came from that with a mix of excitement. An honest truth about his feelings. He really had fallen for her and wanting nothing more to express his feelings with all of his heart.

“Aqua...can I ask a favor?” He somehow managed to say. “Can you...close you eyes while I sing to you?”

The request was surprising but understandable. This was more about sound then sight anyways. “Okay.” She closed her eyes in earnest. “Ready...” For some reason Aqua felt herself get a little embarrassed as well. She hoped it didn’t show on her face.

Ventus took the deepest breath he could. Mustering his resolve and composing himself, Ventus began to strum.

🎶When you walk away, you don't hear me say

"Please, oh baby, don't go."

Simple and clean

Is the way that you're making me feel tonight

It's hard to let it go....🎶

Yeah, Aqua could totally feel herself starting to blush. Ven was only a few lyrics in, but she couldn’t think of a time she heard a more stunning voice.

🎶You're giving me, too many things, lately

You're all I need, oh~

You smiled at me and said...

"Don't get me wrong, I love you

But does that mean I have to meet your father?"

When we are older, you'll understand what I meant when I said

"No, I don't think life is quite that simple"

When you walk away, you don't hear me say

"Please, oh baby, don't go."

Simple and clean

Is the way that you're making me feel tonight

It's hard to let it go🎶

Ventus felt his nerves melt away as he kept playing. His mind was too focused on the notes to worry. Too focused on the girl in front of him. He was starting to find his stride.

The daily things, Like this and that and what is what

That keep us all... busy are confusing me~

That's when you came to me and said

"Wish I could prove I love you but does that mean I have to walk on water?"

When we are older, you'll understand it's enough when I say so

And maybe some things are that simple.

When-🎶

His serenade was unexpectedly cut short. Aqua had reached for his hand and stopped him from playing. Ven’s heart skipped a beat. For a moment, nothing but dread filled his thoughts. Did she hate it? Why else would he stop him midway. He would’ve asked, but Ventus couldn’t find the words. Not out of fear, but because of the look on Aqua’s face. Her calm demeanor was entirely gone. A the warmest smile Ven has ever laid eyes on was on her face with rose red cheeks. “A-Aqua...?” He finally spoke.

“S...sorry.” She spoke, “it’s just...well....” finding the words was a little difficult. Aqua couldn’t help but laugh at her own skittishness. “You confessing to me like this might be a little more than my heart can handle.” There, she said it. She watched a Ven’s eyes start getting bigger and bigger while his face tried rivaling hers in terms of red.

“Y...You knew I-”

“Of course.” Aqua giggled, “I watch you just as much as you watch me you know? Because...I like you...too. A lot.”

Ventus must’ve been dreaming. Chirithy has to have put him in a special dream. It’s the only way this made sense. “Why didn’t you say anything?” Like he was one to talk.

Aqua rubbed the back of her neck, “I’m not very good with this kind of stuff. Even though I had a feeling you liked me, I just couldn’t find the nerve. Then I started thinking about how I could be wrong and I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. I kept finding reasons to keep quiet. But next thing I know is I started thinking more and more about these feelings sense we got back home and I-” Aqua jumped at the touch of Ven’s hand grab hers. She’s glad he did it, or else she might’ve rambled for hours.

A pressure weighed on their chest. One that was slowly pulling them together. The two of them couldn’t speak, only lean closer. They wanted the same thing. They knew it buy all the blushing moments and not so secret glances. Aqua moved the guitar away from Ven to get even closer. Ven invited the approach by tugging her hand closer to him. Her face had to be only inches away. Way to far for his liking. Aqua finally spoke.

“I think we should both close our eyes this time.” She said, flustered by her own suggestion. She was glad she managed to say it though. The moment his eyes closed, Aqua understood why he asked before. Filled with ease and courage, Aqua pressed her lips against the ones that had just serenaded her moments ago. Neither kept track how long they remained like this and neither cared. The only thing that mattered was it had finally happened; and it was only going to keep happening for many days to come.

[many thanks to @venquaweek because fun fact, I’ve had this music idea for three years and never wrote it 😂]

#kingdom hearts #ventus #aqua kh #birth by sleep #aqua x ventus #venqua #venquaweek

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fisherrprince · 4 years ago

Photo

how many cowboys can we GET in this forest

(i wrote a minific too)

“I’m gonna do it.”

“Don’t even think about it--”

(CLANK)

“Ow! J -- Lord almighty -- ow.”

“Yeah, what did I just tell you, idiot?”

Voices filter through the dilapidated barn like the last rays of dusty sunlight through the old wood slats, only two people around for either of them. A horse snuffles in the dirt near where the doors would be, searching for dried grass and vehemently ignoring the other horse getting its saddlebag turned inside out.

Vanitas kicks at the leather strap for being as useless as it is. The bag doesn’t have anything aside from extra bowstrings, an empty canteen, a very small stash of coins, and a pair of too-big gloves. He shoves his free hand into the pockets of his coat instead, searching for something he might have missed.

Ventus, on the other hand, has stuck his left pinkie in his mouth, because he chipped a nail deep using a rock to try to break the handcuffs currently around both their wrists, instead of being sensible.

“You don’t get to call me an idiot when you got the both of us arrested,” Ven snaps, sort of undermined by the fact that he’s talking around his finger, which is not bleeding.

“I got us out, didn’t I?”

Ventus grumbles. Vanitas thinks he catches something like “barely, wouldn’t even be in this situation if we’d followed my plan”, but his immediate response is cut off by something sticking out of the lining in his pocket. Vanitas digs at it, and shoves it up through the fabric, and then grins and pulls it out into the light.

“Hah!” he says, brandishing the tiny metal pin.

“That’s gonna break.”

“Don’t be such a downer, angelface,” Vanitas crows, and yanks their hands closer so he can inspect the lock and ignore Ventus’ spluttering.

He gets about ten seconds of focus before Ven turns curious, again. “What’re you doing?”

“Concentrating.”

“How’re you picking it without a hook?” Ven cranes his neck around to try to see, effectively blocking the light. Vanitas shoos him off.

“I ain’t. I bit it, it’s got a bend on the tip.”

“Oh. Well, ‘mnot gonna ask where you learned all this,” Ven says (“Finally,” Vanitas mutters), “but why do you know all this?” (Ugh.)

“Why d’you?” Vanitas counters, his fingers slipping on the pin. He curses.

“Bored, mostly.” He gets a scoff in response -- it’s not surprising, but it is annoying. Bored. In his pretty lil house with his fancy sheets and the food he doesn’t have to find himself, bored.

“Wanted criminal status has its perks,” Vanitas mutters in response, holding the handcuffs higher so he can see inside the dang things. Luckily for his fed-up levels, Ventus doesn’t press.

Unluckily for his fed-up levels, the pin snaps in the lock.

Vanitas snarls wordlessly and flings the snapped piece across the ground. Ventus watches it fly, and watches him gather the end of his coat and shove it through the dirt with his fist.

“Aw,” is all Ven says.

“...You know, I could try shooting it.”

Vanitas whips around and glares at him. “I’m kidding! I’m kidding, that was a joke. I was making a joke,” he says through an incredulous smile. How he can be so light and airy -- it’s annoying. Ventus is annoying.

The sun’s orange is fading rapidly, replaced by the burnt twilight blue of an empty sky. It makes Ventus’ horse antsy, and she ambles into the old hay alongside Ven and shoves her nose into his neck, in case there was grass he was hiding in his shirt. He giggles -- it makes his voice squeak, softly -- and pushes her away. Void won’t do that, she knows Vanitas doesn’t have anything for her. She stands by the entrance, guarding.

Ven’s baby-talking his horse. Vanitas rolls his eyes so hard into the back of his head, he ends up rocking himself backwards until he’s laying down on an odd mix of dirt and dry straw. Wouldn’t be the worst thing he’s slept on, but by virtue of still being stuck to Ventus by the wrist, it’s way up at the top of his list.

Ven doesn’t seem as bothered, resigning himself to sleep next to a wanted criminal. He should ask why. He won’t. Ven stretches, pulling Vanitas’ arm up slightly (considerate enough to move it less), and pats his leg, beckoning his horse to lay down. For some reason, she obeys, and kicks her hooves out to the side with a shffff of unstable dirt below her. Vanitas finds that if he rolls his eyes any more, he’ll give himself a headache, so he shuts them and tries to fall asleep before the cold sets in.

Vanitas’ rolled up coat sleeve has been dislodged, falling back down to his forearm. It moves, when Ventus does, and that means it moves quite a bit in response to his constant fiddling. If he wasn’t trying to sleep, he’d slap his hand away from the loose strings and tell him to knock it off.

It’s a little bit of a comfort, though. Something else, alive, next to him. He’s not admitting that out loud.

“Hey,” Ven whispers, breaking the silence.

“...what.”

“Forgot to say thanks.”

“Hah? For what?”

“For not leavin’ me, I guess? I’unno, I’d rather be out here than in a jailhouse,” he says, picking at the cuffs of his sleeves.

Vanitas rolls to face him so his arm isn’t twisted to the side and scrunches his nose. “Don’t be. I was saving my own hide.”

“Still counts.”

“Not when you’re stuck to my hide.”

“Alright, jeez, I’m not thankful!” Ven retorts, puffing up his cheeks a little. Vanitas feels a grin tug at the edges of his mouth -- he ‘s only seen Ven mad briefly, and it’s a nice break from his default... blithe, or confused, or straight-up happy.

“What’s that for?”

“Nothin’.”

Ven yanks on the handcuffs. “Don’t laugh at me. You’re so weird.”

His word choice makes Vanitas snort, and yank his wrist back to his own chest. “Et tu, kettle,” he says, and to his great exasperation it makes Ven’s expression soften back into a teasing smile. He resolutely turns onto his back and shuts his eyes.

There’s a shift in the dirt next to him, and a slight tug on his wrist.

“Ah, you’re not so bad,” Ventus mutters, and leans back to lay down himself.

#kh western au #kh #kingdom hearts #kh ventus #kh vanitas #my art #my writing #i should change my art tag honestly #something more unique #i talk about western au on twitter just by way of Chatting with Buds jSFB #so a lot of these are just in response to dumb things #theres demons in this story i did mention they can possess people right?#gun //#the story starts and then a chapter or so in they get arrested and break out of jail and escape still handcuffed together JKFHSJ #thesere kind of old but nonetheless!#cowboys content

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cutegirlmayra · 4 years ago

Text

Kairi Prompt

* !!!SPOILERS FOR MELODY OF MEMORY WARNING!!! *

This happens during Kairi’s exam, where Aqua was trying to prepare her but suddenly, a new enemy began to threaten some uncharted worlds.

Worried this could mean something bad is happening with darkness again, Aqua, Terra, and Ventus go to investigate through the door to darkness, while Roxas, Axel, and Xion state they’ll try looking around in the world of light.

Kairi wants to journey too, but wonders if she should go alone...

Thinking this may be from the data world, Mickey can’t abandon his research, and Goofy and Donald are sent there.

Kairi... is once again alone.

She hadn’t really snuck onto the gummi ship, she just wandered into it and no one seemed to notice.

She wondered if she should talk to Master Yen Sid... but something told her she already knew what to do.

She continued to walk over to the main chair of the ship... in the middle and in front of the other two.

She placed a loosely-bundled fist up to her chest, looking down a moment. “Why... am I here?”

She could feel something... calling... and closed her eyes.

“Sora... you’re with me, right? Hehe, I should have known.” She smiled and lowered her hand down, looking more determinedly towards the windows of the gummi ship. “If you heard what was going on, you wouldn’t just sit back and wait... for someone else to direct your course... would you?”

She tilted her head, under the impression that maybe if his voice couldn’t reach her where he was... that her voice still could.

“Right, let’s do this! Together!” She summoned her keyblade, pointing it out as it began to glow at it’s tip, and the gummi ship began to activate.

“Ohh!” Startled by the sudden wind, Queen Minnie and Daisy turned to see it floating up and a lighted beam shoot out from it. “Could it be..?” Minnie had to wonder a moment, “No, it’s Kairi! Kairi..!” She waved, joyfully wishing her off.

“Your majesty!” Daisy reached up and dropped her hand, “Should you really be so relaxed right now? She’s going off on her own!”

“I know,” Minnie smiled to her, then gently placed her hand on Daisy’s which had lowered her arm from sending Kairi off on her way. “Isn’t it exciting?”

Daisy looked amazed, her beak opening to say something, before shaking her head and smiling politely to her. She let her arms drop and remain poised in the front of her, down and over one another, “You’re right... It is...” She looked up with hope in her eyes and faith that Kairi was ready, and that she may find something the others couldn’t.

“Besides,” Minnie began, still watching the gummi ship take off in a large burst that rippled the wind back and made the two girls brace themselves. “Hmhm, she’s never alone.” Minnie placed her hands together, as though saying a silent prayer, and then with a touch of magic, her fingertips started glowing and gathering light around them.

“Ah! Your highness!” Daisy seemed to recognize this power. “A-are you sure!?”

“I’m very certain... Kairi may not need it, but I’d feel awfully worried if I didn’t at least give her a... oh, a pick-me-up! That’s a fun thing to call it!” she giggled once more in her glee and raised one hand away from the other, shooting a star up into the sky that trailed after Kairi.

“A royal blessing...” Daisy commented, and lowered her head in respects. “Ohh... without that blessing though, who’s going to guard you?”

She seemed to be hinting at the magic being somewhat a shield of somekind, but it wasn’t certain.

Minnie turned around and winked to her, and stated, “I’ll be alright! I’ve got Mickey home at last. Though he’s hard at work, I don’t want to seem like I’m slacking either.” and again, her eyes turned back to where the gummi ship was far out of sight now... the shooting-star’s trial of stardust was all that twinkled to show which way it had headed. “It’s up to Kairi and the lingering spirit of Sora’s presence in her heart to carry out the rest.” She nodded with certainty. “And if anyone can teach Kairi what she needs before taking the mark of mastery, it’s definitely going to be from a journey with Sora.” She amused over the idea, “What a lovely date they’ll have!” She covered her mouth and closed her eyes, realizing she was being a bit nosy, and turned around to think her mischievously charming thoughts to herself. “Come along now, Daisy. Let’s tell Mickey what we’ve done...”

“Y-yes, your majesty.” Daisy sighed, walking after her, “Oh bother... Do we have to take the stairs?”

Kairi went to many Disney worlds that Sora and the gang haven’t ventured to before, previously. However, many of the characters seemed to know Sora, or at least, friends of Sora by some degree.

Kairi also came back to other worlds he had visited, finding that their stories were far from over, and there was--in fact--something influencing darkness and evil in the worlds... it strengthened their foes or new ones...

For example, Kairi learned from Merida that one decides their own fate, whether it’s by their hand or some magic, you always can choose your fate... if you’re brave enough to seize it.

“This time...” She watched the ghostly wisps beckoning her to where the bears were fighting. She summoned her keyblade, gripping it strongly as though with an iron fist, “I’ll decide where my fate starts.” she took off, ready to help Merida and her mother.

In Dumbo, Kairi realized that it wasn’t her keyblade, her own personal strength, or even her friends that necessarily gave her all the power she ever needed. It was also faith in herself, what she already had, that would bring her the greatest powers yet to come.

“And you gave him that faith to fly, didn’t you?” She looked at the little mouse as it took off it’s ring-master hat and bowed to her. “And Dumbo...” She giggled, “It was never the feather that you wielded. It’s power was always your own... I think I understand now.” She looked over at her keyblade, “All my strength... or at least, the strength that I’ve always had... I’ve just yet to realize it.” She smiled, finding some confidence in herself. “I bet that’s how Sora and Riku once felt... I thought, if I could be a Keyblade Master, maybe... I don’t know,” She lowered the keyblade, looking back to the little elephant and it’s mouse friend. “I still gain so much strength from their faith in me... but I see now that I need faith in myself, my own abilities, to really succeed at being my own kind of keyblade wielder... Thank you for that, both of you.” Dumbo wiggled his ears, elated to have helped as she had also helped them so much. “Now, let’s make sure your mother’s okay.” Dumbo jumped around in a cycle, full of glee at that idea, and took off as the little mouse gripped it’s hat, ran in the air a moment, before darting after him.

“Heheh... Well, I be done seen about everything.” She laughed to herself, and for a second, her heart took her to a moment long ago lived... where Sora and Riku were laughing beside her on the dock back in Destiny Island. Riku swung a hand into Sora’s face and he tried to fight back, causing the two to tumble into the sea...

“Sora... Riku...” She gripped her heart again, “...I will join you, once I’m ready. You don’t have to worry about this world anymore... I’ve got it covered.” She nodded with a sincere wish that they could trust her with this task, and continued her journey to find the mysterious force causing so much problems.

In Lady and the Tramp, she followed a puppy with a dog muzzle on it’s mouth. Later, she helped a stray into the zoo to help follow the other dog, and watched as the two seemed to have gotten separated by the dark-influencer. They seemed to be asking her to help them escape the dog-catcher, and did so.

“These... interesting dogs... are mine, sir!” she stood between him and the two, what appeared to be in love, dogs as the dog-catcher waddled his way up to her in a goofy manner. She stood her ground though, as he commented back, “Their be laws in this fine city, Miss! Put a collar and leash’em! Or they’re heading straight to the pound!” He wiggled his finger up above her, but Kairi just sweetly nodded.

“Yes, sir.”

“Hmph!” He stomped away, and Kairi narrowed her eyes and turned to whisper back at the dogs.

“I’ve faced scarier things than him!” She joked, as the dogs yipped in thanks. “Now, you two should get out of here... I don’t know if you belong to anyone... but I can see now that you belong with each other.”

They both snuggled up in their iconic hug, and looked back to Kairi. “What a fine lady you have there.” Kairi smiled, remembering how she had offered Kairi her paw in greeting.

Lady barked with approval. “Oh? Is that... That’s your name, right?” She nodded, “I could feel it... in my heart.” She looked to the other dog. “Keep her out of trouble... ya here?”

Tramp also barked in agreement.

“...Take care of each other...” As they took off, Kairi couldn’t help but think of Sora. “...I’ll keep you safe... Sora.” She decided this world still had a mystery to solve, and continued on.

Later, She found that a Lion knew Sora, and that his daughter had gone missing. Stopping some feuding prides, she learned a valuable lesson about not judging by one’s past... She may had been sent to Destiny Island against her will, used for a terrible fate in summoning the true Kingdom Hearts, “But love find’s a way!” She knew that to be true, “And I’ll find my way!” She prepared to fight the Lioness of the Shadow lands, and finally met the misty dark presence...

“Who are you? Why are you causing so much chaos in these worlds?” She demanded to know, but it took off, and she hurriedly followed it in the gummi ship.

Pocahontas had the last key she needed to fully unlock her true potential. The dark influencer was giving strength to the fear in both people’s hearts, and while Pocahontas raced to save the man she loved, Kairi returned to grandmother willow, asking sincerely how to help.

“Listen... with your heart... you will understand~” Grandmother Willow sang, but Kairi couldn’t just sit and mediate.

“There’s a war, Grandmother Willow! And I don’t have a compass to point my way like Pocahontas does! Please, I’m begging you, why can’t I summon my keyblade here? I must help them!”

“Let it break... upon you like... the waves upon the sand~” She kept singing, as Kairi was panting from her long journey through the woods filled with the dark-influencers presence and creations, having their contentions manifest as new dark creatures she had never seen before.

“My... heart... waves... sand?” She spoke through her heavy breathing, and taking a deep breath to try and calm herself, she looked within...

Her heart seemed to open up, and she was standing before Sora... upon the stainglass of her story.

“I don’t understand,” She admitted, gesturing to him while his face looked sorrowful at her plight. “I know you can’t answer me... but you can hear me, right?” she was holding back tears, and then... withdrew her hand to crunch her torso in and shake her angered fist. “I don’t know how I lost the power to summon my keyblade... I don’t understand why! In such a critical moment where I’m needed... it’s never been this bad in the other worlds, I’ve always found some sort of solution, but the settlers won’t listen to me! I don’t have Kiara to help me reason with them, and faith in myself isn’t going to help John Smith escape execution! They’re all too afraid of each other for me to get through to them over bravery alone! I don’t know... I don’t know what to do!” She gripped her head, still struggling to not cry.

“Sora... how have you been able to go through so many worlds... face so many challenges that a keyblade can’t always solve? I don’t understand... I’ve tried everything within my power, but a man’s going to die and I can’t just sit by and watch it play out!” she fell to her knees, “Sora! Sora, just take over! I don’t know what to do anymore! They need you! Not me... I’m still too weak! I... I can’t pass my training...”

As she shook her head, she revealed the true fear that had lingered in her heart.

“I... Don’t know if I can live up to the expectations you and Riku gave to these people... to their worlds... I... I’m just me.”

Feeling a bit hopeless, she finally saw Sora’s form move.

It advanced towards her before he dropped to a knee and placed his hand on her shoulder.

“So... you’ll help me?” She looked up into his eyes.

He squinted his eyes slightly, looking into each one of hers.

“...Listen... with your heart...” she scrunched her face up to avoid crying, and placed her hand by her heart again. “And you will understand...”

The setting suddenly changed to Destiny Island, and Sora was a child...

She had gotten Riku and Sora out of the water, and began actively teasing them about not fighting so much, “If you’re real friends, you should treat each other with a lot less rough-housing! Though, it was pretty funny.”

“Give us a break, Kairi...” Sora scratched his head, looking apologetic.

“It’s a boy thing.” Riku hooked his arm around Sora’s head, and pulled him over to him as Sora struggled.

“R-right... hey, Riku!”

Kairi giggled, “I guess... if you really fought, I’d have to pull you out before you drowned yourself.” She knew they had a rivalry, but put her hands behind her back. “Alright, that does it!”

The two boys looked to her new declaration, seeing as her voice had pepped up quite a bit.

“From now on, I’ll make sure you two don’t fight..! Or bicker behind my back...” She grinned then, “Cause you’re not gonna leave my sights!”

“H-hey!” The two didn’t really complain, but they refused to rough-house since she would intersect herself, saying that if they were gonna fight, they’d have to contend with her too.

“...I’m...” Kairi opened her eyes, looking up at Grandmother Willow. “I’ve always been a mediator... I’m not meant to just be a fighter!”

“Go, my child! Your course is set, and the compass of your heart spins and guides you!” The wind rustled by fiercely and Kairi felt a surge of power come upon her.

She turned as the large sails of the mistaken clouds of the sky lightly glided behind her.

“You know your path, now, Kairi! Take it!” Leaves of differing color spun around Kairi as her hair beat against the wind, the light sparkles suddenly trailed down her arm with the leaves and Kairi summoned a different keyblade...

She raced through the forest, and as Pocahontas cried out, “Stop!” She threw her keyblade up to the chief’s staff.

He was a powerful man, and for a moment, Kairi saw in her mind’s eye the glitching reality of Xenanort, then back to the chief.

She continued to strain, letting Pocahontas speak, and hearing for the first time... the words that no one uttered, but that were meant by their hearts.

She spoke them after her, and from what she learned at Pride Rock, taught the same lessons. “We are one... all of us!”

She knew what Simba had meant when he sang to Kiara now... and what Kiara learned after her journey. “Can I also... trust in my own heart?” She felt Sora’s light, and knew that she could.

“Can you trust yours?” Kairi lowered her keyblade... and the chief looked settled. “We don’t need to fight.”

However, she did finally confront the Dark-Influencer, realizing he was the lingering will of the dark-side of Kingdom Hearts...

“You... You just aren’t completed. But your hatred... all the loathing of the heart, it’s insecurities that we all felt during that battle at the keyblade graveyard...” she took a deep breath, “Now, I will set free those awful feelings... and the last of the lingering feelings we’ve had then... will finally come to an end!”

She fought with everything she had, as it morphed and changed into many of the silhouettes of her friends, their fear that she thought Sora had defeated... but it was exactly Sora’s lingering heart within her that had guided her to the Dark-Influencer.

As she fought it, it would shift at intervals between her friends and allies, even the foes and their lingering spites or sorrows... but then...

After defeating the dark silhouette of Master Aqua, the dark silhouette transformed into a figure looking like Sora...

It staggered, before regaining slowly itself into a powerful stance.

It swiped out the kingdom blade and began powering up.

“Sora... this is it, isn’t it?” She saw a light begin to shine from her heart. “You trust me and only me to defeat the last of your fear from this world... the last thing holding everyone back from living at peace again, right?”

She also threw her new keyblade up to the sky, then slowly lowered it to have a crown appear below her.

“Sora... if I can... please... lend me your strength!” she felt a surge of power, light shining from the crown as the shooting star spiraled down to the crown and filled it with magnificent power, granting a keyhole to appear.

“Ah..!” not sure what it was, but knowing it was going to temporarily grant her some help, she trusted that if she unlocked this... Sora might be given a second chance to aid her. She stepped back, flying slightly in an arch before unlocking it, having the shooting-star’s dust fly out and glitter against a new form...

A light-figure of Sora slowly arose from a kneeling position... the same that he had when she was in her heart... he reached up and grabbed her hand to help her glide back down safely...

“Sora..?” She held his hand a moment... and it squeezed it.

She nodded to it, not knowing quite how this magic worked, but knowing she could fight with him against this powerful foe just like beforehand... when he had gathered the petals of her crystal lotus heart and they fought the greatest evil together.

This... was truly like before, but the foe was now their own emotions... having gathered under Kingdom Hearts... and having the last of it’s power leak life into them...

She looked to the dark figure, “You’re no longer a part of us!” she swiped her hand out, as the Lighted Sora silhouette got into battle position, letting go of her hand as a one-sided wing appeared on both their shoulders, matching the other.

“I will act as the light from my friends! This is where Kingdom Hearts ends, for good!”

With their hearts as one... they beated the lighted wings once behind them to propel them forward, holding their keyblades back to attack the last of the darkness that still plagued this world...

Like the fight between the nobodies, darkness, and her friends, the light... she would not let this end... with savage emotions.

#sokai #sokai prompt #kairi prompt #melody of memory #kh spoilers #cutegirlmayra #sora and kairi #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts melody of memory #kh #khmom #kingdom hearts prompt

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forestwhisper3 · 4 years ago

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Welcome back to the SI/OC series, where I introduce my various brainchildren. This time around, though, we’re gonna do something a little different. Apart from giving you a couple of pics, I’ll also give you snippets that I’ve written out. This is mostly because I have nothing near resembling an actual fic and have literally just written segments.

It’s kinda long, so click the expand to read on.

So...this SI/OC is one that I’ve had in my head for a while. I mentioned her in one of Klonoadreams’s streams and figured I should probably mention her in this SI/OC series too. She is one of two for the Kingdom Hearts fandom, and when the mood strikes, I try to flesh out her story a little more. Maybe one day I’ll have something publishable. For now, here’s Ignis, a fellow student of Master Eraqus, along with Terra, Aqua, and Ventus:

This is her before everything goes to pot, however. The thing with this SI is that, despite her knowledge of the games, and despite all of her efforts to prevent the events of Birth by Sleep, she still fails. Master Xehanort is not a man easily defeated, after all. So, it is a weary, heartbroken Ignis that finds herself on Destiny Islands after she loses everything yet again...

OoOoOoOoOoOoOo

'This is...'

I smiled, knowing it was a bit wry in nature. After all, whenever I'd given the thought to being here, I'd never quite pictured it...like this.

"Whoa, you were right! There is another weird person here today!"

I found myself laughing at the comment without meaning to, the reaction startling me and filling me with sorrow all at once. It had felt like ages since I'd laughed so freely...

"Hey...are you okay?"

I looked at the two boys before me, ready to assure them that everything was fine but...the words just didn't want to come out.

"You're crying..."

Fingers touched my cheeks, only to come away wet. How did I not realize...?

I gave a start when I suddenly felt small arms wrap around me, the warmth of the action seeping into the chill that had seemed to settle in me these past days.

"Don't cry," Sora pleaded, his own eyes staring earnestly into my own. "Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?"

If my next laugh was mixed with a sob, I didn't think any of us would tell.

"You already have," I told him once I'd calmed down, making sure my smile was gentle.

"Really?"

"Yes. I think a hug was just what I needed. Thank you."

"Oh! I'm glad! I don't like seeing people sad."

I smiled, the warmth continuing to spread as I studied him. I'd thought...it would be strange to see them as children while not being the same age, but...this felt right.

Suddenly, I knew what I had to do.

"My name is Ignis," I began softly, "and I come from somewhere far from these shores."

"I knew it," Riku piped up. "You're from the outside world! Just like-...uhh..."

I chuckled a bit at his attempts to back up, clearly not wanting to break his promise.

"Going by your comment earlier, I'll have to assume you've met Terra or Aqua?"

"Yeah! Miss Aqua was nice!"

"Terra was too," Riku added.

"And he left you with something special," I finished.

"Err...yeah."

"What?! He gave you a present!? No fair!"

"Hey now, don't get upset. What's your name?"

"Sora!"

"Sora..." I put my hand out, smiling at his gasp when my Keyblade appeared. "Terra entrusted your friend with something very special because he must have seen something in him...just like I see it in you."

It wasn't just because I knew what was to come. Riku's light was...amazing- there was no doubt about that. But Sora-...Sora gave off his own light too. A light so warm, and loving, and kind that it chased away the darkness and made me feel safe. I know the games had always made Sora's light out to be something special, but...Being able to feel it, and knowing that both Aqua and Terra had passed him up for one reason or another made me want to cry all over again at the injustice of it all.

Sora would not be the backup plan. Not if I had anything to say about it.

"In your hand, take this key..."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"Master!/Master Ignis!"

I groaned, turning over in my cot and doing my best to block out their yells and subsequent pounding at my door.

"Master!"

I yelped when a large weight practically threw itself upon me, sighing at the sound of Sora's giggles and Riku's snickers. Still, it wasn't quite enough to stop the smile that tugged on the edge of my lips.

"Alright, alright, I'm up. What are you two doing here so early anyway?"

Sora propped his chin up on his hands from his position on top of me and grinned. "It's not early. You just slept in!"

"Yeah...I thought adults were supposed to be responsible and stuff."

Riku laughed when I threw a pillow in his direction.

"You're lucky I like you," I said without any real heat.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"This form was a particular favorite of Master Eraqus," I began, smiling slightly when I saw how much Sora and Riku were struggling to remain in position. "Not so much one of ours."

"I-...I can't feel my legs!"

"Don't tell me you-...you can't handle it, Sora!"

"Your legs are shaking too!"

I felt a laugh bubble up. God, those two really were like-

A sharp pang shot through me, and despite my best efforts, it left me feeling desolate all over again.

'I'll see them again. I know I will...but...twelve years is a long time.'

And I would be the only one to actually age.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"Kairi, I understand that you don't like fighting like Sora and Riku do. Really. But...Keyblades don't just go to anyone- you have to be chosen. The fact that you have one...will you at least learn the basics? You don't have to use them, but you'll know them. Just in case."

She mulled it over for a while, before nodding.

"Thank you," I sighed out with a relieved smile.

"It...means a lot to you...doesn't it."

Despite my efforts to the contrary, the question made me freeze. By this point, the boys had given up any pretenses of being busy and were watching in unabashed curiosity. With a welling sadness that hadn't really dulled these past years and an ache in my heart, I nodded.

"It does," I confirmed quietly. "But more than that, I just want you three to be safe. To know how to take care of yourselves if-...Anyway, this is the best I can do."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"Master Ignis, when-...when is Master Terra coming back?"

The question, sudden and unexpected as it was (though I really should have seen it coming), hit hard. All of a sudden, it felt like there was a vice-like grip around my heart, and I flinched so violently that there was no way I could have hidden the reaction.

And Riku- who was so clever and so observant that I was constantly reminded of Aqua -didn't fail to catch on.

"...He's not coming back. And...Master Aqua isn't either."

There was a deep hurt in his eyes, and hints of betrayal. All three of them were aware of how the relationship between Masters and students worked by now, which meant that they knew that despite the fact I was teaching all of them, only Sora was my true apprentice. The rightful heir of my teachings, so to speak.

"Oh, Riku," I breathed out, feeling that all too familiar twist of my heart, though this time, it was accompanied by the sharp sting of tears. "They-...They can't."

Riku blinked, the hurt look being replaced by a questioning one. A few feet back, Sora and Kairi watched on, too hesitant to get closer, but not enough to leave their friend completely.

I sighed, and if there was a breath of a sob mixed in, well, no one would know but me.

"Come on...I think it's time I told you."

They were young yet, but if I didn't tell them now, I didn't think I'd ever work up the strength to do it.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"...When I finally managed to get back to Radiant Garden, there was no sign of Terra or Aqua- the only hint of their fate being the lingering chill in that courtyard. I-...I can only assume they were dragged into the Realm of Darkness. I spent the next few months searching for a way to get to them, as well as keeping an eye out for Ventus, but..."

"...You didn't find either," Riku finished sadly.

"No. Eventually, I found myself here, on these islands. When I saw you, I-...I knew that I couldn't leave. It would have been the height of negligence and cruelty to move on- to leave you ignorant of the legacy you bear. I knew Terra well enough to say that he had every intention of coming back for you, but since he can't, I will do my best to train you in his stead."

He was silent for a while, mulling it over. Finally, he nodded.

"Thank you for telling me, Master Ignis."

"What about Kairi?" Sora asked, his head tilted. "If Mister Terra chose Riku, and you chose me, who chose Kairi?"

"That would be Aqua," I told them. "Just like I could feel Terra's claim on Riku, I can feel Aqua's on Kairi."

"...I don't remember," Kairi said.

"Perhaps it's one of the things you've forgotten," I told her gently, even though I knew that even if she had remembered her meeting with Aqua, she still wouldn't have known when she was given the power. "But even if the mind forgets, the heart remembers."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOo

The stars were disappearing.

I looked up at the night sky, unease settling in my stomach as I watched another one blink out of existence. It was the third one this week, and while I now knew that some stars actually were just stars in this universe, I also knew that those weren't what was going out.

Xehanort was on the move again.

I'd been wondering about it for a while- mostly since the finer details of the games had slipped from my memory as the years passed -whether or not his plan had some sort of deadline he needed to meet. It seemed I'd gotten my answer. The question now, however, was how were things going to play out.

I was under no delusions that I hadn't derailed things. I had not only trained Sora, Riku, and Kairi, but I had actively done my best to keep them hidden. My unease mostly stemmed from worry over whether it had been enough. If it hadn't, then odds were that Xehanort was going to be paying a visit to the islands soon.

Just the thought of it made my blood run cold.

Ten years, and it still didn't feel like I'd had enough time. I had known what was going to happen, and I hadn't been able to stop it. It had taken everything Terra, Aqua, Ventus and I had had to fight him, and we'd still lost. This time, I was alone. If he came-...

If he came, I probably wasn't going to make it out alive.

I swallowed, feeling my eyes burn as I continued to stare up at the sky. Years ago, that was all I could have hoped for. Anything to escape the agony brought about by losing everything yet again. Now, however...

"Miss Ignis!"

"Master Ignis!"

"Master!"

I found that...I didn't want to go.

"Master...?"

I sighed, a small, wry smile making its way onto my face at the voice. He would be the one to run into me tonight, wouldn't he?

"You should be asleep, Sora," I scolded, though anyone could tell it was halfhearted at best.

"I can't," he said, settling down next to me.

"You should at least try," I told him. "You've got a big day tomorrow."

His grin was just as bright now as it was when I'd first met him.

"That's exactly why!" he exclaimed, turning his gaze up to the night sky. "We've always heard the stories, but to know that we'll actually get to go out there! To see other worlds! It's amazing!"

I couldn't help the fond smile that slipped onto my face at that. He was so much like them, and yet, the warmth he always seemed to instill was unique to him alone.

I hoped that by nurturing it in him, I'd thrown Xehanort's, and even the mysterious Master of Master's, plans awry.

"But," Sora continued, his much more subdued and hesitant tone instantly drawing my attention, "there's...something I've been meaning to ask."

"What is it?"

"If-...If Riku hadn't been chosen when you first got here...or if Kairi had already been with us and not chosen by Master Aqua...would you have still chosen me?"

I blinked, honestly taken aback at the question. "What?"

He seemed a bit more embarrassed now, but the question still seemed to be weighing him down. "It's just- since you've started teaching us how to sense light and darkness in others, me an' Kairi noticed that Riku's...bright. Like, really bright. Then I noticed later that I couldn't sense any darkness in Kairi, and I just-...I couldn't help but think that-...that I-..."

"That you were chosen only because they were first."

He winced and I felt my heart twist painfully at his small nod.

"Sora, no," I told him, perhaps a bit too vehemently, but maybe that would make him listen more. "No, that's not it at all."

I placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and waited until he was looking back at me to continue. "Sora, even if I'd had the option, I still would have chosen you. Precisely because you are you."

"Because...I'm me?"

I smiled. "Maybe Riku's a bit brighter, and maybe Kairi's a bit purer, but you...You want to know what I see when I look at you?"

He hesitated for a moment, probably afraid of what I might say, but nodded in the end.

"I see a warm light. Soft and gentle, like a sunset on the beach. It was that very light that reached out to me ten years ago, and pulled me back from the abyss I could feel myself starting to slip into. Sora, I wasn't kidding when I said your hug was just what I needed. That warmth- your warmth -kept me from ending up just like the others."

He blinked rapidly, his eyes becoming glassy with tears, and I sighed softly before throwing an arm around his shoulders and pulling him close. Even after all I'd done, Sora had still ended up doubting himself and his place as a Keyblade wielder. Still, at least this had happened now, when I could set him straight, as opposed to later, when I...might not be around.

"...Do you really mean that?" he asked quietly.

"I do," I reassured him. "Never doubt yourself, Sora. If you ever find yourself feeling low just remember this:

I chose, and would always choose, you. Not Riku. Not Kairi. You. Because you are kind, and cheerful, and strong- even if you may not believe it at times. You also have something special that they don't: a warm light that welcomes all. A light that shelters and heals. I know, without a doubt, that you will do great things. Amazing things." I smiled down at him, my heart lightening at the small smile on his face as he looked back. "And you trust your master, don't you? So trust in me now."

"...Okay."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Sora watched with growing concern as his master paled. His gaze fell onto the figure behind her, his eyes widening when he realized it was the man in the cloak he'd spoken with just yesterday.

"I must admit to some surprise," the man continued, seemingly unaffected by the storm that raged around them. "I thought I'd gotten rid of all of Eraqus's pupils, yet here you are- with students of your own, no less..."

She stiffened, finally whirling around to face him with a glare. "You will get nowhere near them, Xehanort!"

Suddenly the gravity of the danger was clear, and going by how Riku and Kairi seemed to freeze right next to him, they realized it too.

Xehanort. The man who was responsible for all of the bad things that had happened to Master Ignis and her friends. Because of him, Mister Terra couldn't be here to teach Riku, and Miss Aqua and Ventus were lost somewhere.

It was because of him that his master was so sad and lonely.

Even his laugh was sending chills down his spine. "Is that so? You may have ten more years under your belt, girl, but you're still nowhere close to my level."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOo

...To be continued?

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this! Maybe I’ll post snippets of my other, as of yet, unpublished SI/OC fics if you all like this well enough. I leave you with a picture of how Ignis looks at the end of these snippets, or rather, at the beginning of the events of KH1:

#SI/OC series #Ignis #Hearts- fanfic #Yeah I have a title for the fic despite not having much of a plot #Story snippets #Storytime with ForestWhisper3 #Brought to you by my brain

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snowflake-of-destruction · 4 years ago

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53 and 64

More Grass is Greener. VanVen and Kaixi interaction but, really, showing why GiG Vanikai is a couple that works.

53.

"Take off your shirt," Vanitas demanded without preamble, shutting the office door behind him.

Ventus barely glanced up from his computer screen, and his fingers kept typing, finishing the e-mail to his students that the syllabus was being adjusted. "You know, usually you at least say hello."

"Shut up and do it," the raven haired man snapped, tossing a plastic grocery bag mostly filled with a blue lump onto the desk. "You took one of my shirts this morning. By the time I finished shaving and went to get dressed myself it was too late for me to catch you."

Ventus didn't look like a man who had risked getting caught in an affair because he couldn't tell red and blue apart. He beamed the same enthusiastic and vaguely clueless smile he always did, the one that disarmed everyone, including Vanitas himself, and made them underestimate him. He probably would have gotten away with showing up at home in a shirt that wasn't part of his wardrobe just on the merits of that smile alone. Vanitas didn't know where Ventus had told Xion he was last night and he didn't care. "Good catch. Shouldn't I change at the end of the day though? Wouldn't want to tip off the whole philosophy department."

"I'll spill something on my shirt for you."

"Don't you dare!" Ventus shrunk back in his chair. "I like this shirt. It's one of my favorites. It makes your features pop."

"Bullshit. You didn't even realize it was mine."

"It makes my features pop too." The smile intensified.

"Did you take it on purpose?" It seemed like it was all a game to Ventus. It was to Vanitas too, but sometimes he felt like Ventus was playing hopscotch while he was playing chess.

"No," Ventus scoffed and Vanitas wasn't sure he believed him. "I can't believe you talked me into doing that again," the blonde muttered, smile wilting without warning as he changed the subject and abdicated his own responsibility.

"It was one last time for nostalgia's sake," Vanitas dismissed the topic airily.

"Just promise you won't break up this wedding too." Ventus continued to darken.

"I didn't break up the last one." That was the truth in Vanitas's eyes. He hadn't planted any doubts in Xion that hadn't been there in the first place, and if their relationship had been that strong he wouldn't have been able to fan them either. He hadn't even introduced Naminé and Xion, so clearly he hadn't been the mastermind of every factor that has led to Xion running off. Ventus still stared him down like he'd planned every catastrophe in the universe. "So, Xion told you I had a little talk with her before the ceremony. How long after?"

"After I proposed this time. Do you think I would have...that we would have happened if I knew you'd chased off Xion?" Ventus stayed the course on the accusatory track.

"I don't see how it would have mattered. If anything, it was romantic." Vanitas refused to be the villain Ventus needed, though he didn't mind being cast as one in general. "Anyway, you don't need to worry. I'm happily married myself this time."

"Happily?" That scoff actually cut. Ventus had to be more careful.

"It's a rough patch," Vanitas defended, crossing his arms.

Ventus instantaneously made Vanitas wish for the blame game or the superior looks to return when his face and voice both softened to the gentle demeanor befitting breaking bad news to a volatile personality. "Xion told me Kairi's planning on serving you divorce papers."

"Ah, well if the rumor mill declares it, it must be so," Vanitas spat venom, reaching for the door.

"For what it's worth, I hope you two work it out." Ventus wielded pity like a weapon, knowingly or not.

The words made Vanitas pause, but it wasn't in order to deliver a thank you. "One of us should have a healthy relationship. Have you talked to her about getting the tattoo removed?" Ventus had to know it would be used against him one day when he'd told Vanitas how much the starfish Xion had gotten when she was with Naminé bothered him.

"She loves that tattoo." Not said was that Naminé had a matching one. Never mentioned was that the only reason Xion had been single again at the same time Ventus had found himself in the same position was that Naminé had been the one to leave her. The first time Ventus had suggested he and Xion just pick up where they left off rather than starting over she'd refused. She'd said they were both rebounding back into each other. He'd re-proposed every date. He'd wore her down. What a love story.

"I'm sure that's all there is to it." When Vanitas smiled he looked like the devil himself.

"Don't do that," Ventus admonished, more wearily disappointed than inclined to snap.

"I was just asking a question. I say let people have their nostalgic artifacts."

"As long as it works out for you." Ventus turned his attention back to his computer. He had forgotten to send the e-mail after all.

"It always works out for me."

64.

"Are you even human?" Xion gaped at Kairi, all wounded animal eyes.

Kairi pouted at her reflection in the mirror while fixing her hair. "What? I said it was romantic. I believe my exact words were that it was 'so romantic' that you and Ventus just got swept away. That you know, for a fact, that it only didn't work out last time because it wasn't the right time. Who cares if you've only been back together for a short time. You've been in love for years!"

Xion could only be grateful she hadn't told Kairi about Naminé. The redhead was fairly transparent, but it didn't stop the catty words disguised as support less likely to burrow under skin.

"I'm sure none of the problems from before will come back. You're both different people now, and you've both learned and matured. And you've talked things over, right?" Kairi didn't wait for an answer. "It's all in the past....and I'm sure Ventus feels that way too and doesn't resent you one bit." Satisfied with her hair, she started working on makeup.

"You're evil. Actually evil," Xion marveled, wondering what she'd gotten herself into.

"Thank you." Kairi flashed a smile in the mirror during a brief pause between eyes, applying eyeliner. "If you think it's playing more fair, honey, I could play it a bit more straight and point out that my whole marriage is built on the fact that, at least initially, Vanitas wanted to make someone jealous and took a joke too far, and it seems to me your man's doing the same with you, but I think that lacks nuance enough to make it fun."

#grass is greener verse #vanven #kaixi #snippets #drabble ask meme #shaky-mayhemm

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meadow-roses · 5 years ago

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Okay I'm here to confess a sin, I don't care much for Aqua. So I'm really curious what are the fanon misinterpretations of her?? With Ven it's funny, like I saw I saw in an incorrect quotes blog. Ven: People think I'm an angel. Terra: ...I have no idea how.

Yeah, most mischaracterizations can get pretty amusing, trying to imaging so-and-so actually saying such-and-such. XDD But anyway, thank you for asking! I was actually just talking to August about it last night but wasn’t sure typing anything out would be worth it because who would read it??

Quick disclaimer, I am not Nomura. I do not claim my opinion is right and I know who these characters are, as they are not mine. What I AM saying is, characters are my passion in storytelling. I love sitting down and thinking over a story, mulling over what they said and did and how they reacted, so I can feel like I really know the characters. I began playing BBS after knowing the basic plot, and having met the characters and “knowing them” from the fanon. Through playing the game, however, I became confused, because the character interpretations I had understood were so, did not match the way they acted in the actual game cutscenes. Playing through Aqua’s storyline especially, I was struck with a compelling and interesting character, completely different from who the fanon had told me she was.

First I just want to say, cause this is the one that gets me the most: Aqua’s greatest fault is NOT HER SELFLESSNESS. Aqua’s selflessness is her STRENGTH. I personally know people who are selfless to a fault, and Aqua does not behave like that. From what I see playing BBS, Aqua’s greatest fault is pride. She thinks that no matter what, she is always right. (if you want to hear all of the reasons why her fault is pride I have more, this is just three) She refuses to listen to any of the explanations Terra and Ven give her, because she “knows better than them”. After defeating Maleficent, Aqua misses her opportunity to destroy her (as she wanted to) because she has to gloat in her face about the power of love. Ventus, who knows Aqua very well, even tells her, “You’re letting this Keyblade Master stuff go to your head.” I don’t think he’s just saying that cause he’s mad about being treated like a kid- he actually knows Aqua, and is worried she’s getting carried away by her pride. (yeah he doesn’t deal with it maturely but he’s Ven and that’s one of his faults) Another of her flaws is actually impatience- she’s just soooo much like Eraqus- she leaps into action without pausing to think at all what the consequences are, or if she even should be interfering at all. She’s also very judgmental. All this to say, Aqua is usually right. She has a strong innate sense of right and wrong, she knows her own mind and is not easily swayed by anything that goes against that. Her problem is, she’s just too stubborn and prideful and it gets her in trouble. (the main reason why she hates Vanitas so much. He offends her by making her feel like she isn’t in control of the situation.)

Okay, so. “Aqua is a kind young woman who’s sense of right and wrong never wavers.” Not much personality to go off of in that one sentence, but it does tell us the most core parts of her being. She was raised to quickly determine right from wrong with her innate sense of justice nurtured to an almost purist level. She cannot STAND for “light to mar darkness”. She is Eraqus’ prize pupil. We can pretty much easily tell from watching the mark of mastery exam scene- there is absolutely no doubt in Aqua’s mind that she is not ready, that she could possibly not be what Eraqus is looking for. That likely means she rarely fails to meet his expectations. **She is confident and secure in who she is, and how the world works** even though she’s never been out there to see it. Aqua’s storyline follows a young girl who has lived a very sheltered life, and is just as naive as Ventus and Terra are, she’s just not as quick to accept she could have been wrong.

One of my favorite scenes is her conversation with Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother. This is one of the few moments we see Aqua not being a “Keyblade Master” and actually acting like the confused young woman she is. Her purist attitude is questioned- darkness can never be destroyed, only conquered, (which on an interesting note also was what needed done with Vanitas too. 🤔) and for once she is at a loss for what to do. The Fairy Godmother in her wisdom, realizes this is not a lesson that can be taught, it must be learned through experience. In other words, Aqua’s gonna have to TRY to destroy darkness to protect the light, and lose, before she’ll realize and finally admit, that she was in fact wrong.

People like to characterize Aqua as “the STRONG one”, “the perfect one”, “the one who never did anything wrong”, and say “she never deserved this”. Aqua is strong. She is too strong. She is not adaptable and does not know how to bend and shape her worldview when it comes out that she was wrong. Aqua is NOT perfect. If you say she is you do her an injustice. No character should ever be perfect that is just ridiculously DULL and does Aqua and Nomura an injustice. Aqua did a good deal wrong throughout BBS! It’s actually my opinion the three of them being driven apart was entirely her fault. She pushed them away by refusing to listen to any explanation they tried to give. Basically, “do it my way or we can’t be friends”. She didn’t deserve it, those years in the Dark Realm, losing her friends like that despite her best attempts. But she did need it. Aqua needed to lose everything, and find herself completely helpless, to really become a Keyblade Master, who knows how to wait, listen, and show compassion. Real quick so the whole thing isn’t negative lol, Aqua’s strengths.

She is Brave. Personal danger is not a worry for her when the things she has sworn to protect are in danger. She is Confident. There is no whishy-washy decision making. She makes a plan, she sticks to it, and no one with their beguiling words can pull her astray. She is Kind. Her ultimate goal as a keyblader is to protect the weak. “To protect the things that matter, like my friends” which I think is something that should be at the core of every keyblade wielder. She is Selfless. Aqua will do. anything. it. takes. to protect the light, and her precious friends. Her life, her safety, is of little importance if she can secure the safety of another.

Honestly, it can be nicely summed up in the one sentence describing her in BBS: “Aqua is a kind young woman who’s sense of right and wrong never wavers“ u_u

#thanks for the ask!#I hope I didn't ramble too much lol #i just love talking about characters #aqua #kh #text #ask #asks #answered #bbs #birth by sleep #birth #by #sleep #kingdom hearts #kingdom #hearts

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beastenraged · 4 years ago

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About your kh story idea of SI in Ventus's body. The one who doesn't know KH. Can you give some snippet? Or just raw ideas? Cause I just like this oblivious person being dropped sideway into KH, causing confusion everywhere.

Yeah, let me just shove some stuff I’ve written under a readmore.

Note: It’s set in the space between DDD and KH3. I’ve also moved up some events that I’m pretty sure happen either during KH3 or right at its beginning for...reasons. Also, using my usual worldbuilding extra for lulz.

Out of (Anime) Body Experience

My room’s cold. Frigid.

The heater go out again? Third time this month, stupid landlord...

I smack my lips, hand reaching up to rub at my face. No blankets, probably pushed off by my active sleeping. Sleeping I would like go back to, fuck the cold.

Feels awfully hard for my bed.

I snort and roll over.

Only there for to be nothing to roll onto.

WHACK!

“Fuck!”

That hurt! The floor is super hard. Not great for smashing your face against.

I peel myself off and sit up, rubbing at my sore nose.

Wait...that hand. Not my hand.

And the rest of me? I look myself over. This isn’t right at all.

My new clothes are a mismatched black and white mix, and seem kind of small for some reason? Tiger-like stripes (scars, maybe?) stretching curling around my arms, my wrists, in a pale brown. Hair’s not in my face, should check that out...

My fingers brush the top of my head. My hair...it’s all pokey. Spiky. Naturally, no gel needed apparently. Could be a really bad case of bedhead, but bouncing the hair with my head...it stays in the same spiky shape pretty stubbornly.

“What the hell.”

Okay...everything is anime. Why is everything anime? Am I dreaming?

I glance behind me at my “bed.” Not a bed at all, but a white throne. Chain patterns surround it, on the walls and floor.

Also, a pressing problem: what the fuck was my new body doing sleeping on a throne? That’s never a good thing in a story. Implies some sort of special destiny whenever it happens. A special destiny that does not belong to me, stranger of this body.

Maybe my surroundings will provide me with some clues.

First observation: everything is very...white. A neon, eye blinding white. The white of mad scientist laboratories from fiction. Possibly real life too, don’t you need stuff to be white to see if blood and shit gets on the floor?

...actually, that’s my second observation. My first is that I’m anime now.

Another point of interest: do I know what anime? If it is an anime, I guess. Can’t tell without a mirror, unfortunately.

Well, can’t see my face at least. I reach up and tug a chunk of hair down into my field of vision.

Blond. Bright blond.

...

Well, that told me...not a lot. Blond’s the usual tropey thing, isn’t it? Probably makes me a...possible protagonist. Not good for my future health and wellbeing.

If this is an anime, again. Still don’t know that for certain.

This shit’s way too weird for me.

Need a breather.

I sit down on the throne again, for a spot of thinking. Shiver as goosebumps race along my new skin.

My fingers drum against its arm.

My list of facts so far:

-Room is white. Very white. Also cold.

-No bed. Just a probably symbolic throne.

-Anime hair, anime clothes, anime body. Not my body. New. Also short?

Also. Probably, possibly a dream. Doesn’t feel like one, but...who knows for certain?

“Gotta find a way out.”

Won’t that be fun...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I shield my eyes as I look over the building I’ve just vacated.

A...castle. A weird Alice in Wonderland, on a bad acid trip type of a castle, pointy green roofs everywhere. Not a speck of white to be seen, unlike the entirety of its interior.

A castle. Huh.

“That explains the throne.”

Better not be a prince, new body. I don’t have any idea how to run a country.

My current surroundings are gray fog-mist. Everywhere.

No landmarks, other than the castle.

My chest heaves. Great. Time to pick a random direction and walk.

Everything keeps looking the same even after who knows how long I’ve spent walking through the shitty fog.

Probably magical or something like that. Meant to protect the castle most likely, from people finding it.

Really inconvenient to me, trying to leave the castle.

I groan and pop my back. I better not get stuck here for-

Wait.

A shiver runs across my back. A someone-is-watching-me kind of shiver. I turn and there’s...

There’s someone about my size standing in my way.

Wearing a black coat, and a strange faceless helmet made of a pitch black glass.

Yeah, this guy is clearly some sort of villain.

Whoever you are, I dub thee Mr. Helmet. Nah, Dark Helmet. Better reference.

“Hey, Venty-Wenty. Fancy meeting you here,” a pretty roughed up male voice grinds out.

Huh, that's a derogatory nickname if I’ve ever heard one. Also a clue.

Apparently this body did belong to someone else at some point. Someone who this guy has a derogatory nickname for.

Venty-Wenty.

...

Oh God, please let this body’s name not be a type of coffee. Please.

Fishcake was bad enough.

Dark Helmet seems to be expecting an answer of some sort.

I really don’t have enough information nor the desire to pretend to be someone I’m not. Straightforward it is.

“Who’s that?”

Dark Helmet doesn’t seem happy with that, moving more into my personal space.

“...did you forget again?”

Again, an important clue. My body reacts before my head does, shoving the guy out of my space. My mouth follows after. “Back off.”

A choke of a laugh. This guy needs some cough medicine or something, stat. “Venty-wenty, I can’t do that.”

Okay, enough of this.

“Look, I’m not this guy you’re looking for and frankly? I don’t give a shit.”

I turn my back on him. Have my own answers to look for, away from this dude.

Look, I know, I know, dumb mistake on my part. Hindsight 20/20.

Catch a swish of something smashing towards me, in the corner of my eye.

Dark Helmet’s already displayed a temper. A dislike for whoever owned this body before me. Why wouldn’t he attack me from behind?

With a fizzle of something that jitters in my veins, I twist and my hand stretches out.

CLANG

The strange weapon Dark Helmet’s using clashes against some kind of sword, cold metal suddenly appearing out of nowhere in my hand.

A sword that-

Wait.

Wait just a damn minute-!

I know what kind of weapon this is. You wander around long enough in any anime or video game adjacent part of the internet, you learn at least about the kind of weapon I’m currently using to keep myself from getting a severe case of stabbitis.

A Keyblade.

“Shit, Kingdom Hearts?!” I blurt out.

Dark Helmet moves his helmet head closer to me. Enough to catch some of my puzzled blue--eyed reflection in the black glass. A head tilt of some sorts, maybe? Can’t see his expression, makes everything harder on my part.

“What?”

“Shit, fuck. Just ignore that.”

I press back with my “Keyblade.” My body somehow manages the rest, doing some kind of flick that pushes me away from the masked guy. Out of his reach.

A state of being that doesn’t matter much with video game mechanics or any kind of anime stuff.

...Wait, is that something I have to worry about? Food for later thought.

More importantly, Kingdom Hearts! I don’t know anything about it, other than the Keyblades and shadow monsters called Heartless and there’s Disney characters!

The main character’s either...Riku or Sori? Can’t remember.

Definitely not me.

...Considering I’m currently going up against what is most likely a minor villain of some kind, that doesn’t actually make me feel better.

My face screws up in a scowl. “Go away, got it? I don’t want to fight you!”

“I’m going to beat some sense into you, Ventus.” Dark Helmet lifts his own Keyblade into some overarching attack stance, like the one Obi Wan always uses in Star Wars.

Finally got a name. But...got a fight too.

Of course it’s going this way.

It’s totally anime, shounen anime at that. Fighting solves everything, right?

Great.

I’m no Naruto though, able to pull off a talk-no-jutsu. Just...try not to die, I guess.

I sigh and attempt...to do something. I don’t actually know real fighting stances, so I hope the position my new body has fallen into automatically will do me some good.

Dark Helmet makes a hissing growl noise and goes right into it.

Time for one last word.

Perfect for the situation, I settle on,

“Fuck!”

(>.<)

Don’t really want to go by my real name.

What can I use instead?

...

Not one of my most recent handles, even if they can’t access

Well, there is that really old internet username I used back when I was a dumb Spyro fanboy on the edge of middle school wandering through forums I probably shouldn’t have been going through.

sparxbestfriend11.

Or an actual name out of that...

“Sparx.”

#my writing #my kh fic #my fic #oc sparx #just this much at the moment #gotta a lot of stuff i'm writing right now #out of (anime) body experience #answering asks #fanfiction-and-everything

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midnight0stars · 4 years ago

Text

**This Side of You ~ Aqua x M!Reader NSFW**

Words: 2637

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The door to your room swung open as you pushed your body against it. A twin sized bed was settled under the window, the covers ruffled and wrinkled from you scrambling to get up just a few hours before. You hadn’t meant to sleep through the first half hour of training, but Master Eraqus was sure you more than made up for it when you finally did arrive. Your muscles were sore, your legs wobbling with exhaustion, and the start of a migraine throbbed in your skull from a well placed hit by Terra during a sparring session.

Today just wasn’t your day.

With a sigh, you plopped your bag on the floor, uncaring as the contents spilled out of it as it impacted the ground. Your legs dragged forward, meeting with the edge of the bed and allowing you to belly flop on top of the plush comforter that welcomed you back with its warmth. It wouldn’t take much for you to drift away into your dreams, and part of you yearned for what you believed was a well deserved rest. But you couldn’t… There was still so much to be done that day and you were only excused to take a shower before heading back to study for an upcoming trial.

Grumbling, you rolled onto your back, your arm over your forehead. You gazed out the window beside your bed, able to see the shimmering lake and the birds dipping under its surface. The sight brought a smirk to your lips, recalling just a few nights before when you and Aqua had gone in for a dip of your own. She rarely misbehaved or did anything that she knew would upset Master Eraqus, but according to her, you brought out the worst in her. While she called it the worst, you preferred to think of it as her true self. The side of her that acted on her heart and her desired, without a care of her mounting responsibilities as an upcoming Keyblade Master.

You admired her. But you also loved being able to bring her out of her shell and see a part of her that no one else was privy to. She had been at training, as she was nearly everyday. The look she sent you when you arrived late should have made you feel embarrassed. Instead, you merely sent her a wink paired with a smirk and she averted her gaze with warmed cheeks. It didn’t take much to make her blush and you took full advantage of that any chance you got.

Oh what you’d do to have her there with you right then. She was probably off studying with Terra or mentoring Ventus, as she often was. There was usually no time for you until the others had gone to bed and she could breathe a sigh of relief at finally being on her own. Then she’d come find you.

Today though, you wondered if you could convince her otherwise.

It seemed that you weren’t the only one considering the option as a light knock on your door grabbed your attention. You pushed yourself to sit up, running your hand through your hair as you called back, “Uh, yeah, come in!”

The knob turned and the door creaked open as Aqua poked her head in. “I hope I’m not interrupting, Y/N.”

“Aqua,” you greeted her as you stood up from the bed. “What’s up? Everything alright?”

“Of course,” she assured you, stepping in and shutting the door behind her as she leaned back against it. Her eyes danced over you, before settling on your collection of trinkets along your desk. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“Alright?” you repeated, tilting your head to the side, before a throb of discomfort reminded you. “Ah, training?” When she nodded, you waved her off, hiding the wince of pain on your face. “It’s fine. I’m just having an off day.”

“We all have them from time to time,” she agreed, her hands clasping in front of her. “I can heal you if you need me to.”

“You really don’t have to worry about it,” you stepped towards her, brushing your fingers through her hair to push it back behind her ear and drawing her gaze back to you. “Plus, I don’t think Master would appreciate you undoing the lesson he was trying to teach me for sleeping in.”

She chuckled, leaning into your touch and bringing her hand up to yours along her cheek. “I imagine you’ve learned the errors of your ways.”

“One can only hope.” You sighed, smirking from her short laugh in response. “But, I mean, if you really want to heal me, I won’t stop you. I’d… actually really appreciate it.”

Her soft lips against your palm caused your breath to catch. Usually, you were the one initiating affection and making her breathless. You didn’t think you’d ever get used to her being the one to sweep you off your feet.

“I really want to,” she assured you, smiling softly as she laced her fingers in between yours.

A green, golden glow emanated from her palm, swirling around your arm as it traveled up your body. You took in a sharp breath, feeling the cool sensation of the spell seeping into your skin and undoing all the damage from the past week. Humming, you slipped your eyes shut, feeling as her soft hand cupped your cheek.

“I always forget how amazing this feels,” you murmured, your heart jumping from her breathy laugh.

“Just relax,” she whispered, her thumb caressing your cheek.

You hummed again, your eyes fluttering open to see her gazing back at you, a warmth covering her cheeks. She was beautiful.

Leaning forward, you felt her breath hitch just before your lips met. She whimpered, her hand tightening around yours as she kissed you back. The kiss broke, for just a moment. Your eyes danced over each other, your smiles turning into grins before you kissed again. Everything was perfect and you wished time could stand still. Of course, nothing could last forever as the moment your tongue ran along her bottom lip, her hand slid to your chest and pushed you back. The lock broke, both of you breathless as she averted her gaze from yours.

“We’re getting carried away,” she muttered, swallowing hard when you feathered your lips along her jawline. “W-We’re supposed to be on a short break to shower.” A whine came up her throat as you hummed against her skin, reaching her neck with your mouth. “Master will be expecting us back soon…”

“I know,” you murmured, pulling back just enough to see her eyes. A smirk tugged at the corner of your lips as you suggested, “Why don’t we take one together?”

She blinked, the warmth on her face darkening considerably as she darted her eyes away. “We’ll get caught.”

“Oh yeah, by who?” You asked, going back to kissing along her neck.

Her fingers hesitantly laced into your hair in a halfhearted attempt to pull you back, but they instead stayed there, allowing you to continue. “Ahh, Y/N, please,” she begged you, her head slinging back against the door.

You paused, fighting the urge to push her further. Taking in a breath, you pulled back, leaning your head against hers. “Alright… I won’t force you.”

Her breath shook as she licked her lips and swallowed. Fingers tightened in your hair before sliding away, settling instead on your arms. Her eyes betrayed her words, a sense of longing and disappointment in them that you had stopped.

“No one will know… right?” she asked, her voice barely audible between you.

Your lips curved into a smirk, “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

With a huff of breath, her hands gripped your shoulders, tugging you forward and crashing your lips together. You groaned in her mouth, your arms wasting no time to wrap around her hips and hoist her off the ground. Her hands cupped your face, fingers lacing into your hair as her legs wrapped around your waist.

The kiss broke, your eyes dancing over the other as you navigated towards your bathroom.

“You bring out the worst in me, you know.” she pointed out, swallowing your cheeky grin with her lips as she pulled you back into the kiss.

“Are you kidding?” You asked as you placed her back down along the tile in your bathroom. She leaned back against the wall, you leaning over her as you kissed her neck and murmured in her ear. “This is my favorite side of you.”

She took in an audible sharp breath, her fingers clawing at the back of your shirt to tug it off. You chuckled, pulling back and following her command, tossing the fabric away before your fingers undid the ties to her corset with practiced ease. The corset fell, followed by your pants as Aqua undid the buckle while you worked. You kissed her shortly, before turning to turn on the spray of the shower. By the time you turned back to her, she was just taking off her halter, freeing her breasts and making you breathless.

Before she could say anything, you were pressing her back against the wall, her breasts melded into your grasp. Her moan filled the bathroom, resonating off the tiles and mixing with the patter of the shower as the two of you waited for it to heat up. Kneeling down, you kissed down her neck and collar bone, keeping your eyes on hers as your swirled your tongue around her breast. She whimpered, biting her lip and slinging her head back.

You groaned, your hands sliding down her sides to her shorts. Hooking your fingers under the hem, you tugged them down along with her panties, leaving her completely bare for you. If it hadn’t been for the shower and constraining time limits, you would have gone further down, lavishing every inch of her until she was begging you to push her over the edge. Instead, you pulled back from her breasts, allowing your eyes to drift over her perfect body until her hands grabbed your wrists to pull you back to your feet.

“Less looking, more kissing,” she teased, giggling as you scoffed and kissed her.

“As you wish, milady,” you teased in return, sliding open the glass door to your shower.

Aqua went in first, humming as the heated water covered her body. You took a moment to admire her, taking notice of every curve and nuance to her form. It wasn’t often the you got the chance. One look from her though, and you were scrambling to get your briefs off and join her inside.

The hot water did little to douse your lust for her. Instead, it merely heightened it as your arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her close. She grinned, her hands lacing behind your neck as she pulled you down to her level to meet her lips. You hummed into her mouth, your hand drifting downwards to her hips and backside to press her up against you. She moaned, feeling your hardened shaft rubbing between you. Her hips rolled, making your breath hitch and the kiss break.

With a smirk, she lowered to her knees, making sure to grab the bottle of soap. Your chest heaved, lips parted as you waited to see what she had in store.

Perhaps this day wasn’t so bad after all.

Her tongue flicked along the head of your cock, matching the rhythm of her soap covered fingers as she stroked the rest of your length. You hissed, leaning back against the wall for support as the soap allowed her to move with slicked ease. Each little movement was sending your mind reeling and you wished it could last forever. But with a pop of her lips coming off of you, she stood back up, kissing along your abs and chest as her soapy hands traced the indents of your muscles.

“Oh, Aqua,” you whispered, your hand gripping the back of her neck once she was standing and pulling her to your lips.

Her breath caught, melting into a hum as your tongue danced alongside hers. Fingers wrapped back around your shaft, pumping and using the soap as the perfect lubricant. Blindly reaching over, you grabbed your bottle of soap, squeezing a generous amount into your hands before lathering them against her body. The kiss broke with a sharp gasp from Aqua as her breasts melded into your hands. With the soap, her nipples slipped between your fingers, making her a moaning mess.

Hearing her mesmerizing voice paired with the way her hand went pumping your shaft tightened the coil of pleasure building deep in your gut. Your legs trembled, your voice melding with hers whenever her thumb would accidentally slide over the head of your cock. Lips met back together, your tongues dancing and sliding against the other. One of your hands left her breast, wrapping around her back to pull her closer before your fingers trailed down between her legs.

She sharply moaned in your mouth as you met her folds. They were warm, begging to be touched and if her whines and whimpers in response were anything to go by, she had just been waiting for you to do this to her.

“Y-Y/N…!” She breathed out between your kisses, her voice trembling as her thighs tightened around your hand.

You hummed, slicking your fingers further in and sliding two inside of her. She gasped, her head slinging back and eyes slipping shut. You grinned, taking the opportunity to ravish her neck. Her hand laced in your hair, her voice filling the shower as her other hand continued to pump sporadically when she could focus on what she was doing.

“I want to hear you come, Aqua,” you murmured against her neck, suckling her skin.

“Ahh, Y/N,” she whimpered, her chest heaving and stuttering as you pushed her closer and closer to the edge. “I-I want to hear you, too.”

Your breath caught, melting into a long groan as her hand tightened over your cock. She quickened her motions, meeting your pace, until your voice cried out, breaking as you called out her name under your breath. Your legs trembled as you buried your face in her neck, cum spilling out of you and covering her hand.

Aqua’s hips rolled against your hand, watching as you came. You were sure she was saying something to you, sweet nothings and telling you how much she loved seeing you like this, but your mind was spinning too much to fully understand what she was trying to say. With a gasp, her body froze, her legs tightening around your hand as her head slung back.

She wasn’t as loud as she normally was, moaning your name under her breath as you continued to push your fingers in and out of her. All at once, her body went nearly limp against you. It was all it took to send you sliding to the floor of the shower with her leaning over you. Both of your chests heaved, your warm, naked bodies curled around each other as the afterglow of your orgasms washed over you.

“W-We’re going to be so late,” you mentioned, making Aqua sigh.

“Don’t remind me,” she grumbled, nuzzling against your chest.

You chuckled, your hand trailing up and down her back as the patter of the shower fell around you. There was so much waiting for the two of you outside your small temporary paradise, but all of that could wait. You’d make sure you got the brunt of whatever punishment was awaiting you for being late again. No matter what it ended up being, an afternoon with Aqua made all of it worthwhile.

#Aqua #Kingdom Hearts Smut

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