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plotdesigner · 6 months ago

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@xehanortsreport i have Thoughts TM i have to ramble about -

j;ladfka I'm so glad you liked him! and like! you picked up on so many of the load bearing details i put in! like -

like ok so bbs!eraqus and xehanort read like the religious trauma brothers in a vacuum, with eraqus doubling down in a maladaptive attempt to protect the wayfinders and xehanort deciding if the storebought religion wasn't able to create a good world, he'd make his own! and then khux's lost master backstories doubled it down,and dark road tripled it. it's all religious trauma going down!

( I know current canon suggests that Scala recreated itself in a vacuum since many of the disney worlds were stuck repeating their disney film stories on loop until they finished cooking, but I personally headcanoned it as the remains of the khux squad meeting up with japanese christians, dutch merchants and jesuits leaving Tokugawa Era Japan World after the edict of 1635 banning christianity. Having to share a world and everyone having just gotten out of Major War Stuff would lead to a new religion synthesizing itself pretty fast.

The general Church of Light varies in being chill and fun to being completely wild as most religions do, but Scala's branch's obsession with light and purity and it's evolution into a theocracy meant that it slide into YIKES! pretty fast.

...I'm still not sure how to get everyone on scala being out of norse mythology yet. WELP... the problems with developing headcanons before new material comes out lmao )

Before Dark Road came out, the headcanon was that a big step in Xehanort's fall was that he destroyed Scala, in part because of that YIKES! LIGHT! energy and in part becaues luxu was like heyyyy i fuckin hate those guys can you help a guy out? which would lead to xehanort feeling like he's on a path of no return and eraqus's tripling down on isolating himself/religious stuff that leads to his uhh. unique bbs parenting style.

(Luxu, between his Plans and his loneliness as the one lost master still around waiting for the others to come back, was watching the increasing cultural valorization of the lost masters/the keyblade war with increasing ire. I tend to characterize luxu on the more antagonistic side BUT i think even a very chill luxu would be having a terrible time watching it all.)

Also making Eraqus the leader of a bunch of sword wielding mystic monks who get disrupted by an authority figure befriending one of them and convincing him to go off the rails for a greater good tickles me as a star wars fan.

(I know you definitely caught the lanif final boss fight/kh3 final boss fight paralells, but did you catch the paralells between lanif boss fight and eraqus vs terra boss fight? hey xehanort why did you put terra through the same traumatic experience you had a day before you try and bodyjack him?)

KH1 had such an emphasis on magical-scientific research that was doubled down with KH2, how magic was as much a science as anything else, how computers were basically magic to sora and co - I already had magic system brainrot from the final fantasies in general but i really wonder how magic and science are intertwined in this verse!! You can physically study the human soul if you're willing to be super unethical about it! If Kingdom Hearts functions as an afterlife, can you storm it? How does having a magical sword that lets you rip souls out or alter them make things weird?

(which i know kh proper is not likely to tackle outside of Keyblade Ethical Drama but kh has enough interesting concepts to play with that get tossed to jump on newer concepts i'm gonna run away with it anyway)

(plus like! insulin itself is a life saving thing, imagine what people could do if they could use magic to treat diabetes instead of having to deal with the complications of buying and storing insulin.... medical magic has got to be fascinating )

Chu and I made Scala's noblility star themed specifically to set up the Castor & Pollux thing!! Sometimes two people can be soulmates platonically as a treat! Lanif ended up organically evolving as someone with a healthier relationship to his homework than xehanort, who couldn't go back as much as he could vs xehanort drawn back to the destiny islands over and over again despite himself... But he was specifically written to have a very neutral opinion of both light and darkness vs literally everyone else in kingdom hearts. the fandom discusses if dark can be good/light evil and i wanted to dig into that more - or if like. they're just magic too. its not what you have its how you use it. Stop putting human values on magic! It's just magic!

(Something something darkness being stigmatized makes people fear themselves makes their darkness stronger etc, a bad loop?? )

(Something something me reading Dark Road last week for this write up and going D: at Baldr gettin locked away and being eaten by darkness. scala thsi wouldn't be a problem if you'd treated him normally!)

There's also something about how Lanif and Xehanort come from very different worlds and circumstances, but on Scala, they're both Black Offworlders TM and have each other's backs. I was shooketh when you blogged about Xehanort's hair since I was working on the section about Lanif's hair and his decision to double down on being Black And Space Egyptian - no matter what either of them do, their chosen presentation will get Politicized so they've got to prepare accordingly...

(and like!! Xehanort ends up being moved into a role or being projected on a lot in his first life and after becoming Terranort/Ansem Seeker/Xemnas - even Eraqus who was so fond of him keeps on demonizing him or putting him on a pedestal. He should get at least one person in his life who's trying to see him as he is, not as he should be. I don't think he always communicated it great? but dark road had me WHERE THE OTHER ADULTS IN THIS CRISIS?? which was part of the tragedy inherant in the story, xehanort having to take on the responsiblity of killing a guy so young, but also HELLO??? )

(...which leads of course to the new tragedy, where lanif cannot save every student he has, and he cannot help xehanort if xehanort thinks he doesn't need saving. the slow breakdown of a relationship until the sudden realization it is too late. uhhh i cried a LOT writing the fall of scala section can you tell xD;)

uhh final thoughts

the student lanif was going to go see was kairi's grandma. i think kairi's grandma can have a keyblade as a TREAT. (specifically treasure trove, though she does use radiant garden's Ragnarok keyblade for a time as queen before she retires) (it's mostly for royalty stuff TM ) ( id retire too if ansem the wise took the throne from me)

jackal time jackal time jackal time, he's an mmo healer and he WILL dps with his cool familiar all the time

picrew used here

It's oc time, tumblr!!

Name: Lanif Castor, formerly Yaniv Khouri

Species: Human

Homeworld: born Black River Delta, lives Scala ad Caelum

Age: late 50s (time of Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road), mid 60s (time of death)

Occupation: Professor/Medical Biomagus/Keyblade Wielder

Job Class: White Mage/Summoner/Black Mage

Relationships:

Xehanort: student, quasi-son

Eraqus: student, adoptive nephew

Weapon: Blue Blooming Lotus (Keyblade)

Gender: Male

(More under the cut!)

Black River Delta

Lanif’s homeland is a combination of floodplain and desert centered around the enormous river that gives the world it’s name. The river runs black with the amount of sediment it carries, along with the sheer amount of fish, boats, megafauna and people that rely on it. The three seasons are Flood, Farm and Harvest, relying on the yearly rise and fall of the river; weather that gets below freezing, much less snow, is a once a century scenario.

Being an agricultural powerhouse near a locus of gummi ship routes meant that Black River Delta became a center of trade, culture and science centuries ago and remains one to this day. Much like Agrabah, it retains a skepticism for the reliance on magic common on worlds like Radiant Garden and Scala ad Caelum; although magic practitioners are more common than on Agrabah, they often approach magic as a science rather than a spiritual phenomenon.

Having been conquered by others and conquering others back many times over in it’s long history, Black River Delta’s monarchy has developed the kind of family tree and drama usually only seen in long running soap operas. All royal decrees are translated into five languages to ensure the majority of the incredibly varied population can understand them, and religious freedom is not so much a right as a necessity given the amount of ways the many faiths that were born or introduced intertwined among each other.

Backstory

Once Upon a Time....

Lanif Castor, born Yaniv Khouri, was born fifth of seven in a rural village far away from the drama and bustle of the capitol. He was a quiet, serious child who would help on the family farm by weeding plants or making sure the goats didn’t wander off; as his older siblings grew more interested in continuing the family farm, he grew interested in the spiritual and practical tasks of the village mortician, who took him under his wing as a potential apprentice.

When Yaniv was fourteen, his parents’ house collapsed with them and his two younger siblings inside due to a fault in one of the walls and an otherwise harmless sandstorm. Running home to find the house buried in sand, Yaniv started digging with his bare hands, only to be overcome with a sense of certainty - there was a way he could get them out easily, but it would leave him with responsibilities for the rest of his life. Was he willing?

Of course he was.

His keyblade manifested. Yaniv used it to sweep away the sand.

He was able to dig his siblings out safely. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to get to his parents in time.

In the aftermath, the mortician sent a message to a larger village to try and found out why, exactly, his apprentice had spontaneously manifested a magic sword. The priest in the next village sent word to the village in a nearby town, and she contacted another city -

It wasn’t long until a keyblade wielder came to the little village in Black River Delta with an explanation and an offer. Keyblades came to those with worthy hearts, and Scala ad Caelum would teach those worthy ones how to wield them responsibly. They’d even offer a stipend in order to offset the loss of a pair of hands from the family farm - modest for Scala ad Caelum, but a fortune in a village so far from Delta’s capitol.

It meant leaving home, possibly forever. It meant saying goodbye to his siblings, his ambitions, his teacher, the goats, and the river. Yaniv took it the opportunity, intent on supporting his family.

Leaving Home

The change was stark. Scala ad Caelum was a city on a vast archipelago (too humid and cool) on the ocean (too big) where the streets were narrow and the buildings tall (too crowded) and the basic assumptions of the others at the school he was enrolled in were too strange.

Scala ad Caelum had been founded in the ashes of the Keyblade War; it venerated light and keyblades alike, and the world had ritualized communication and emotion to free it from darkness, and saw the keyblade as a holy tool - words taken from the Church of Light itself. Strong emotions were to be repressed and individual action was to be aligned with the greater good in order to prevent a repeat of the war; society calcified into classes. As more Scalans began to lust for the keyblade as a sign of prestige rather than a tool for good, fewer and fewer of them manifested one, leading to an offworld recruitment campaign that many Scalan nobles resented and envied in turn.

As such, while Yaniv Khouri was considered a reserved and intelligent teenager at home, in Scala’s most prestigious academy he came across as blunt, overly emotive, obnoxiously pagan, and obviously rural. His classmates either avoided him or tried to pick fights; well meaning teachers pushed him to convert as a solution to the issue. (And being one of the few arab-african students on a world with a population of mostly east asian and european descent did not help.)

His one ally came from an unlikely corner: Xine Pollux, the youngest daughter of an old blood Scalan noble family and inheritor of the Master Defender keyblade. She was more interested in maintaining the martial tradition of the family than the political, and increasingly annoyed with the attempts by ambitious classmates to drag her out of the knightly footsteps she was quite happy to follow in thank you very much, and into the realm of marriage alliances and violence with words instead of fists.

Yaniv and Xine found fellow spirits in each other, both wanting to get offworld to do good and get away, excel in their studies, and also get a little peace and quiet; they offered each other mutual chicanery in the name of helping each other, Xine helping Yaniv pick a Scalan name to pass better and teaching him world customs, and Yaniv, now Lanif, was one of her few classmates, then associates, then friends, to respect and stick by the strict principles she held herself to.

He went home for summer vacation. He came back with his hair impeccably braided, three months worth of coffee beans, and the goal of becoming so much better than his classmates that they’d have no choice but to shut up and sit down.

And then he did.

Magic, combat, history, maths, etiquette - he threw himself into it all with the red hot energy that came from spite - and then, as he discovered more and more about magical healing, with burning interest. When he and Xine were approved to fight as keybearers, they went as a team, Xine as tank and offense and Lanif as healer, support and mage.

Growing Up

As Xine’s parents and older brothers succumbed to old age or dangers of being active keybearers, she had to spend more time helping with the political side of being a noble; Lanif used the opportunity to begin courses to hone his white magic from general use in combat to handy for more specialized emergencies.

And when XIne became head of her noble house after the abrupt death of her final living brother, having quit taking active missions to take care of him in his final days, Lanif had worked his way through medical school and was alternating between clinical work and being sent out on healer-specific keybearer missions, and spending what little free time he had left stress cooking and helping Xine deal with the mounting paperwork.

Xine’s House Pollux was old, but it’s power had dwindled with it’s population; the family had tended their resources well, but manpower was low. It’s sibling House Castor had died a generation back; Xine alone held the pull of two noble houses and all their holdings, and with Scala’s obsession with lineage dating to the Keyblade War and increasingly batshit politics, she’d have little ability to get anything done with people begging for marriage alliances -

Unless she revived the old House Castor and gave it to her pagan offworlder friend. Lanif accepted the responsibility with glee, despite knowing how it’d put a bigger target on his back; the two of them had spent their youth fighting evil in the shape of monsters, and now that they were getting into their thirties, it was time to fight it in the shape of society. Scala ad Caelum’s isolationism and obsession with light was growing worse, and someone had to try and hit the brakes.

(Or disappear for three months and come back pregnant with nary an explanation. Rumors abounded about the parentage of little Eraqus Pollux - but being born a near copy of his mother dispelled a great deal of them. Xine never told.)

Teacher Time

Time flew between the politics and the parenting. Lanif discovered a passion for translating nonmagical medical procedures into spells into materia, where even a layman could instantly cast the spell to provide treatment - useful for chronic conditions that otherwise required constant synthesis of a delicate hormone, like insulin, or to replace kidney or liver function to reduce reliance on dialysis machines. He moved on from clinical work to medical research, which was easier to balance with his duties as a Head of House and a keybearer -

And was eventually invited to teach at the same prestigious school for nobles and keybearers he attended once. His prestige was growing enough to outweigh his infamy, and some of Lanif’s enemies on Scala hoped that distracting him with teaching would dilute his influence - which it did, only to be replaced with him immediately working to reform the school that had given him so much trouble in his teen years.

It was at Scala’s school and his student labs that Lanif would encounter the roses he would become famous for in his final years - great rosebushes that had endured the archipelago’s monsoons and centuries of students to engulf entire swathes of wall and tower, climbing several stories up to the rooftops. As Lanif’s medical experimentation went from the physical to the metaphysical, he used the hardy roses to begin to cultivate small amounts of both light and darkness - transforming the difficult to handle raw magics into safe to handle dilutions for his own research.

Eraqus grew up with the support and nurturing of his mother and his uncle, but found navigating relationships with his peers tricky, feeling as though like and dislike were measured out by opinions on his famous and infamous guardians rather than any personal feelings for him. He developed a smiling facade to keep people at a safe distance while remaining friendly, eventually testing how much he could mess around with his studies and still pass due to his famous lineage - though whether it was to make a point or because of the increasing strain of his self-imposed isolation, he was not able to articulate.

(Lanif flunked him, cementing his own reputation as a hardass teacher and Eraqus’s as Tardy Fleetfoot.)

And then, on one cool summer day, a portal was ripped on one of Scala’s beaches, and an offworld boy with a keyblade stumbled through.

Xehanort

No one really considered the boy wandering the streets of Scala of much import until he brought out his keyblade - and then people were very interested in a kid with no id and no money and an entire magic sword was doing wandering around Scala.

It was lucky that Eraqus was out on the boardwalk fishing. He saw the commotion and vouched for Xehanort before things could escalate, and innocently asked if he could ask his mother to come help clear things us.

Xine and Lanif promptly came down like a pile of bricks and brought Xehanort home. Xehanort haltingly explained things - he’d found a way to Scala to find out how to use a keyblade, he didn’t want to go home, he’d been told that anyone with a key would be welcomed, and he was rattled by the less than warm welcome.

Lanif, with his own less than stellar first year in Scala running through his head, promptly dipped into his emergency funds while Xine pulled strings to get Xehanort an ID, a scholarship and a place in the dorms faster than Xehanort could kick Eraqus’s ass at chess.

Xehanort and Eraqus would have hit it off without Eraqus’s family swooping in to help, but borrowing a room in his house and deciding yeah, sharing a dorm room with him would be cool just speed-ran the friendship. Xehanort’s wonder and joy at a new world made Eraqus engage with it once more, and Eraqus’s earnestness and willingness to wear his heart on his sleeve were a salve for Xehanort after what had been a very bad year.

( Meanwhile, Scala’s more conspiratorial wing of the church checked in on the chosen one who had been sent to a very special island to be free of the corruptive influences of the newer, more liberal Scala and had three very bad realizations in quick succession: one, the child’s caretaker had died a year previous, two, the child had been dumped into foster care about it, three, no one was really sure where the child had gone. Whoops! Cue a scramble to figure out where the FUCK their chosen one went. )

And as the two of them began school together as part of the keyblade wielder class, apprenticed under Master Odin, they were inseparable. While Eraqus continued to mostly float through his classes, Xehanort studied like a man possessed; while Xehanort found fighting unwieldy and slow, Eraqus took to combat like a fish to water. They challenged each other, pushing each other in skill level and knowledge as they grew, and grew close to the few other keyblade wielders who were learning alongside them.

Lanif, for his part, tried to provide Xehanort with tutoring and guidance as he forged forward on his path, sometimes falling on the side of strict as he gave him additional lessons. Scala demanded twice as much from offworlders like them, and Lanif would not let Xehanort be torn apart by it’s judging claws - even if it did, at times, frustrate Xehanort. He tried to recreate old meals Xehanort remembered from home, and showed him his own home cooking, and even if their conversation was stilted at times - he became someone Xehanort could come home to happily.

They would have liked it to be official. It would have been good. But it was not allowed. Lanif’s political power was considered too great as it was, and so his enemies insinuated that he wanted to use Xehanort, manipulate him - and so for the sake of Xehanort’s privacy and safety, Lanif abstained for the time.

....it would be a few years later, at the end of this idyllic period, that Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road takes place. (Which, I’ve only read the script and not watched it so, grain of salt on how well I’ve got all the details lmao) What was supposed to be a simple Mark of Mastery exam escalated into the near-unbalancing of multiple worlds, an attempt to destroy the world in the name of light, an attempt to destroy the world in the name of darkness, and the murder of most of Xehanort’s fellow keybearing students.

In the aftermath, the world was in shock; Eraqus and Xehanort shot into celebrity status as the two who had survived, who had saved the day - Eraqus took to avoiding the fame as much as he could as he tried to silly his way out of his feelings, while Xehanort smiled his way through it as turmoil grew in his heart.

(Xine gave Eraqus a place to hide and lick his wounds. Lanif tried to do the same for Xehanort, but Xehanort couldn’t stand the thought of showing such vulnerability, even around someone he knew and trusted. In the end, none of the adult keybearers had come in time to stop the killings; it had been up to Xehanort alone.)

Lanif could not bridge the gap between himself and Xehanort, though he tried; he was never particularly good at a bedside manner on his own, and it was worse when it was something important like this; worse when his duties as a teacher and doctor had kept him from noticing Baldr festering in in his own darkness, when he only knew Xehanort and Eraqus were in danger well after the time had passed.

He could not force Xehanort to bridge the gap before he was ready. He could only make sure he was ready to reach out fo rhim when the time came -

And he could turn his studies fully to light and darkness. Darkness had overcome Baldr, but could it have been stopped with an application of light - not as a weapon but as medicine? Light and darkness in high enough measures affected the personality and temperament; he had dabbled in treating keybearers who had been exposed to too much of both, but could he formalize it? Get rid of the stigma against darkness so that the fear of darkness did not make events escalate again?

Well, probably not, but he had to try.

Scala’s Chosen One

Between Master Odin’s retirement and Xehanort taking and passing his own Mark of Mastery, Xehanort didn’t need a new master - but there was always the possibility of, metaphorically, post-doc study. Lanif had taken on a few students in his time to train in white magic - and, once, in summoning - and had eagerly made plans for Xehanort’s graduation. They had both discussed light and darkness and their study eagerly, and Lanif’s hardy roses were beginning to bear fruit - literally, bearing safe to handle rosehips full of light and darkness for study.

But it would not come to pass.

Some weeks after passing the Mark of Mastery, Xehanort summoned a new keyblade - the great black key with one Gazing Eye, the keyblade of Scala’s Great Founder. He’d already been the center of attention as a survivor of Baldr’s massacre, but it doubled when he became the heir of that key.

Scala had been put together by the great Ephemer, who had spent his entire life rebuilding the city on the ruins of the Keyblade War; the only one who was more revered was the Great Founder, the single surviving Lost Master, who had left a holy book from which the Church of Light grew. Those who could wield the Founder’s Key were said to understand the Founder’s will, and would be brought into the church as figurehead and prophet as fast as possible.

....Luxu was not so thrilled about this. He’d written the damn book as a guide to try and keep the surviving keyblade wielders from murdering each other before the Master of Master’s plans could kick into gear. It wasn”t supposed to be religious! And people kept on twisting things more and more out of context in the pursuit of thei own desires! He said no Unions, why are there 108 Houses?? Stop obsessing over the light!

The one good thing about it was that every decade or two, Scala spat out someone so deranged they’d try and end the universe. One of them probably had to be whoever he was waiting for for the plan, right? And if not, it was funny watching them kill each other over self fulfilling prophecies. He’d alternate between taking the body of a wielder and that of a priest or politician, pushing their obsessions further and further, trying to get the pot to finally boil the frog...

Xehanort had been his friend as Bragi. He was brilliant, and he’d become cynical, and he had his keyblade. Maybe he was the frog.

So Luxu shucked off his old body and took on that of Lucian Patine, bishop and politician for the Light. He could figure out that Xehanort was that missing Chosen One with a few strings pulled; when Lanif tried to invite Xehanort to be adopted properly, the paperwork went missing. Xehanort was being dragged into politics whether he liked it or not, judged quite literally by the entire world; it was easy enough to show up as a mentor, to offer guidance, to slowly but surely expose Scala ad Caelum’s rotten core -

Xehanort was already on the right path when Luxu had found him. All he needed was a little push and a few resources. They both needed the world to become better - Luxu would not see the other Lost Masters until then, and Xehanort would not find the justice he craved.

They spiraled together in mutual disgust for the world, and Luxu would find a new place to push xehanort every time, to drive him deeper down his path.

And - if he had his frog, his chosen one, did Luxu need this world to continue birthing wanna-be apocalypses every decade? Didn’t Xehanort want a chance to destroy the pressure cooker that had created Baldr?

Xine’s work slowed from politics to her old hobby of blacksmithing as decades of fighting caught up with her. Eraqus, missing his friend and growing more fanatic about light, isolated himself at the monastic world he’d been assigned to. Lanif studied light and darkness in his lab and tried to help his students and waited and waited as days turned to weeks, weeks to months, waiting to hear from Xehanort one more time.

The Last Day

Lanif was supposed to be visiting home, but one of his old students was pregnant and had invited him to the birth and christening; he’d moved his vacation days around so that he could leave a little later and visit Hikari on Radiant Garden. If it was a boy, he’d be Ansem; if a girl, Kairi.

It was the reaction of the roses that let him know something was wrong. The darkness roses hissed and let darkness ooze from their buds, making the air stink. The light roses grew stiffer, their rosehips shining every brighter.

Which would only happen if the ambient darkness in the atmosphere raised exponentially.

He slammed a door open - and, again, there was the smell of darkness in the air, almost spicy, and the sky was turning dark even though it was mid-morning. There were terrible rents in the sky, black pools dotted with glowing yellow.

Not the night, but another world.

The Heartless weren’t the most common enemy Lanif had faced, but he could recognize them. Could recognize the portals to the World of Darkness with a fear that shuddered down to his bones.

There weren’t many Keyblade Wielders left this generation. Not many people had a consistent way to get off-world. But with that many Heartless coming, the best way to save people would not be to fight, but to flee.

So he flew on his Keyblade and started them running. Portals offworld, clumsy ships - the students funneled in, since the school was closest, and then -

He couldn’t go home. Xine would be fine on her own, organizing the evacuation there; to go find her would only distract both of them from the task at hand. They’d split to tackle major problems hundreds of times before. He would trust her to survive to the end, just as he’d do his best to survive so he could see her again.

Eraqus was offworld, thank goodness, still moping about -

Xehanort. Where was Xehanort? In town, probably - Lanif could check the port area next to the school, he was going there anyway, not a distraction, it would be fine -

The port was swarming with Heartless. The great clock had been cracked; boats were drowning in the harbor. On top of one of the old buildings was a person in black keyblade armor with a goat’s head as a helmet; they tore open another portal to the World of Darkness as he approached, staring down.

He couldn’t go look for Xehanort if an enemy was there summoning Heartless. Besides, Lanif had spent a lifetime fighting Scala ad Caelum, trying to tear all its stupid rules to shreds so it’d be a little more fair, a little better, but that didn’t mean all the people there deserved to be eaten alive.

So he attacked.

Lanif was primarily a doctor in his later years, but that didn’t mean he’d let himself lose his edge; you didn’t get to making materia without being good at magic. He summoned his favored summon - Anpu, a black jackal whose healing and buffing were matched only by being extremely immune to instant death attacks - and started going ham with the magic, spamming Triple Blizzaga from range and swapping to Balloonga or Reflectga when the goat-head got too close.

The goat-headed warrior didn’t summon a keyblade; they cast Flare, Firaga Burst, spells that alternated light and darkness, and even made the dark sky glow from an Ultima. It was -

Familiar. This had to be someone he knew hiding their keyblade. But who? Why?

“Run away,” said the goat head, voice raspy from the smoke coming from nearby buildings damaged in the fighting. He was unsteady on his feet, but his armor was holding up - for now. They were both fighting MP Exhaustion as well as each other at this point.

“I can’t,” Lanif replied. His ears were ringing from getting slammed against the ground; he couldn’t recognize the voice, he could feel his bones scraping together despite all the healing magic he’d used on himself. Pieces of his armor were beginning to break off; his summon had been pancaked against a wall minutes ago, an eternity ago. He tried to shove himself back to his knees anyway, using his keyblade as leverage to maintain his balance. “There’s someone I have to protect.”

“People always say that before they do something unforgivable.”

“Maybe so. I don’t care.”

“Are you, too, full of false light? Hiding cruelty under your pretty declarations? Do you think you’ve fallen to darkness, or is this rage of yours a holy light?”

“I don’t care about light and darkness,” Lanif declared as he dragged himself to his feet. “Or the Founder whose symbol you’re so happy to stick on your head. A heart is as much defined by light and darkness as it is by blood and vessel, or the body by hormone and sinew, or the brain by fat and flesh. I’m stopping you from summoning more of these monsters, and then I’m going home and taking my son out for coffee, like I promised him!”

Lanif lunged forward, his keyblade tilted up to smash the helmet off or into his opponent’s face - despite how obviously telegraphed it was,his enemy didn’t dodge - no, by his body language, he was shocked, but by what?

“As if, old man.”

The blade slid through the hole in Lanif’s armor and into his side,up into the ribcage. He’d been so focused on staying upright he hadn’t noticed the man in white behind him until it was too late. He swung his keyblade back, striking his attacker, but it was too late; he fell to his knees, his vision going black at the edges.

Whatever was hit may not have been immediately fatal, but after this fight, and at his age? Even if he could manage a Curaga, he was pushing his luck to not bleed out.

There was a clatter as the goat’s head tumbled to the ground. He couldn’t see either of them - it was an effort to keep his arms straight enough to keep him from collapsing.

“Professor!”

He was caught just before he collapsed, pulled into strong arms, his helmet pulled off carefully to free his braids in an explosion of silver and black. Xehanort was holding him - ash smudged, sweaty, alive - was casting whatever cure spells he could think of.

“Is now the time?” said a familiar, obnoxious voice. Lanif’s head wasn’t clear enough to recognize it, even though he should, even though he knew it was the voice of someone who’d taken something precious from him...

“Shut up,” Xehanort snapped to the other man, and then looked down at him. “What have I done? I just wanted to - to make this world’s cruelty stop.”

What had he done? Lanif wasn’t sure. He’d been looking for him but he hadn’t seen him until now, and there - was - something important, wasn’t there - what was he worried about -

He reached up and cupped Xehanort’s face. “It’s fine. I know it’ll be fixed now that you’re here.”

“Don’t say that!”

“I’ve always had the greatest confidence in you.” And his vision was dimming, holding only Xehanort’s tearful face in it’s shrinking diameter. “Sorry for scaring you. I’ll be on my feet soon. We’ve still got to go out for coffee together. I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Xehanort said, holding Lanif’s hand to his face. Tears welled and dropped on Lanif’s armor. “Don’t go. It wasn’t supposed to end like this, you weren’t supposed to be here - You should have run away!“

“How could I run when... I didn’t know where you were?”

That just made Xehanort cry more. That wasn’t - it shouldn’t - Xehanort hated being seen crying.

“It’s alright,” Lanif murmured. He was - tired. Maybe he just had to - close his eyes - “It’s alright, son. It’s ok, it’s ok.. it’s... “

...................

............

.....

The Aftermath

Xine Pollux survived, bringing a number of Scalan residents to the world her son had moved to. Other survivors went to nearby worlds as well; the largest group settled on Radiant Garden and would become a major cultural influence on the branch of the Church of Light that had developed there.

Nevertheless, the death toll was catastrophic. Centuries of knowledge were lost. The art of keyblade wielding dwindled.

No body was ever found, much to the upset of both Lanif’s Scalan friends and his family on Black River Delta. Lanif’s family on the Delta held a funeral that numbered hundreds - six siblings begat dozens of nieces and nephews and even more grandchildren, who he’d visited regularly for over fifty years.

Xine and Eraqus held their own small funeral, which grew larger as former students came, and people he’d saved during the fall of Scala. it turns out that despite his reputation for being abrasive, blunt and argumentative, he’d actually done a lot of good. It would jumpstart the transformation of his reputation from a controversial political figure to a renowned scientist and keyblade wielder, which would be further fueled by the popularity of the Auto-Cast medical materia that he’ engineered. By the time of Kingdom Hearts, he’d faded to a semi-famous historical figure who figured in several books and plays - and also several more that never were published as Eraqus and Xehanort kept on showing up to go ‘hey you’re not erasing his identity as an offworld polytheist to make the church of Light look good, right?’ because even if they were fated to eventually try and kill each other, they both had some fucking standards.

Xine helped the refugees resettle and remained a resource as both a leader and someone with a vast cultural knowledge, but she was never the same after losing her home and her best friend in one fell day. She stayed at the monastery Eraqus had been assigned to when not traveling. When she died, Eraqus was left truly alone.

Xehanort sat at his desk, staring down a mess of papers - plans for Kingdom Hearts, for light, for darkness -

An old essay with a handwritten note and a fading coffee stain. Well done, Xehanort.

“Is this worth it?”

Silence.

“It has to be worth it.”

Personality Quirks:

Due to a bad habit to burn the candle at both ends and a genuine love of coffee, Lanif has a severe caffeine addiction. God help anyone who gets between him and his beans. Likewise, him brewing someone a cup of coffee is one of those nonverbal affection signs that have more weight behind them than people may realize.

He also tried to keep up traditional cooking he learned as a child, but he’s had to adapt to Scalan’s tastes and ingredients - especially since Eraqus can’t handle anything spicier than paprika.

Lanif’s keyblade is Blue Blooming Lotus. The hilt is carved dark wood, with a keychain dangle of a blue Egyptian water lily; the staff is a flat plank of dark river water suspended by magic; the ‘key’ is a tangle of blue Egyptian water lilies, which bloom when Lanif is happy, and revert back to buds when he’s upset. Blue has long reach, low critical rate and high magic stats, with an innate skill of MP Hastaga. Blue’s keyblade transformation is into a pair of floating water lilies Lanif uses as skates and a staff, with gameplay similar to the mobility and high magic potential of Sora’s Wisdom form, culminating in a Finish similar to Aqua’s Magic Pulse.

Lanif tends to wear long sleeves and layers (usually jellabiya modified to match Scalan fashion, with high collars and tightened sleeves, but sometimes Scalan-style haori for formal events) because most worlds are cold compared to Black River Delta; he mostly wears black because even if being a goth hadn’t been invented in Scala yet, he is still a goth at heart.

His keyblade armor, likewise, is black with golden highlights. Since armor with animal motifs were popular among older keyblade wielders, he based his on the jackals native to Black River Delta. There was absolutely some point where he and Xine had an argument on if adding a tail would be ‘sick as hell’ vs ‘a liability in combat.’ (Xine won. No tails!!)

Lanif’s summon, Anpu, is also a black jackal - a Persona, manifesting not an elemental being or a ghost but a reflection of his personality made manifest. Xine’s one of the few people who have gotten the full powerpoint presentation on what Anpu represents. She’s also quick to tease that as much as Anpu cut a dashing figure in public, if he got summoned for a long period or in private, he had a bad habit of begging for scraps off Lanif’s plate.

Every few months, Lanif will head to Olympus or Mirage Arena to blow off steam at a tournament and also enjoy the company of the other contestants dot dot dot. Scala wouldn’t be too weird about the gay thing, but hooking up before marriage? Scandalous!

Battle Music (as player character): Rivers in the Desert - Persona 5 OST

Battle Music (as boss fight): Persona 3 - Battle For Everyone's Souls - Traditional Japanese Version - Hyuman

#hiii uh. responding to the tag essay turned into an essay essay #lanif castor #lanif

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