The Travellers - The Complete Deepdive
Hi again! I’ll be dissecting my own now complete AOD sequel fanfic along with excerpts, and I’ll also reveal the vision I had for it, and all the details I can think of. I said over a Discord conversation that I’d be releasing a master post over here in my blog, so here it is. I had so much fun typing this up, and I promise it will be a worthwhile read if you liked it!
How This Story Came To Be
Okay, quick backstory time. The main idea for this story came to me in 2021, when the 25th anniversary celebrations of the franchise pulled me back into it. I was quick to rediscover the unending love I held for TRAOD since my childhood, thus that led me to do some research on its story. I was captivated by the vision Core Design had in terms of a storyline. Soon after my research, a brand new idea had popped up in my mind: I was going to write my own sequel. The rough idea for this new story then took form in my head. I went on to write a rough draft, and to publish the first chapter in AO3. Though the chapter got positive feedback from folks in the TRAOD community, I didn’t continue.
Then things happened, several years passed, and I found myself in last October. I had just heard about the second set of the classic remasters coming out, and that rekindled the love I had for this story. I was determined to complete it this time. And the rest is history :)
I generally struggle with self-esteem issues, and convincing myself to share my works online was quite the challenge. Yet now I am more than glad to share them with you wonderful people.
Backstory over. Now I’ll be moving onto the story details.
The Title
I’ll begin this by touching on the fic’s title itself. As you may be able to guess, it refers to our main duo, Lara and Kurtis. They are two travellers, navigating through the ups and downs of the harsh world they’re in in their own way, whose paths eventually converge.
Why Kurtis’ POV?
Writing the whole thing through Kurtis’ eyes was one of the earliest decisions I had made in the writing process. One reason for that is I wanted him to be in the spotlight as much as possible. We see what Lara is up to and who she is throughout the classic games, but what about him? We see just so little of him. I saw writing through his POV as an opportunity to explore his character to the fullest. This was first and foremost a study of how he may see the world around him.
Another reason why was that male characters in media tend to get written in a way where they show minimal amounts of emotion, so I wanted to challenge that ideal with my writing. I know first person POVs in fanfics aren’t generally favored, yet I don’t regret this decision.
In the coming section I’ll be touching on each of our characters.
Kurtis
It would be a crime not to start with him, as he is the star of the show (Sorry Lara! You’re still the queen).
-Kurtis, in the context of this fic, is a damaged man. He’s forced into a life he didn’t want by his father and the rest of the Lux Veritatis. He ends up formulating a plan to run away and to escape his circumstances, along with his significant other, but that backfires massively.
-We see that he has a tendency to idealize the past in his head. The world was as cruel as it is now, yet he fails to realize that and tries to focus on hopeful memories instead.
-He often detaches from reality, whether it be visions, dreams, flashbacks or dissociations. It’s important to note that Lara is the one anchoring him back to reality every time he slips from it.
-He is in a phase of denial, as seen in this excerpt:
Disheveled fragments of memories. Stolen glances. Her sunlit hair.
Soon after, they overtook me, soaked with blood from old wounds.
With great effort, I pushed them back into their mental graves.
My stare fell back on Lara, whose visage was noticeably expectant as she awaited an answer.
“No…” I finally blurted out. “Didn’t have any.”
We see that Kurtis is unwilling to even remember what had happened. He pushes these unsightly remembrances under the rug, lying to himself. This blinds him to the truth.
-He does not realize the damage said denial has done to him. Dark circles surrounding them showed me the true toll of the past few nights on me. My irises appeared grayer under the scarce light, reminiscent of the wild sea under a stormy sky.
And the more I looked, the more the knot in my stomach squeezed with the grim reality crashing down on me.
The man staring back at me felt like a stranger.
-We can also see that he wants to be a “regular” man, away from all the things related to the Lux Veritatis.
-Another important thing about Kurtis is that he was taught to keep his emotions concealed by his family, as they believe showing weaknesses to others may be fatal. This is another factor of his secretive behavior throughout the story. He tries to keep things to himself, yet we know this greatly damages him in the end.
-He endangers himself in order to make sure Lara meets no harm.
-He is characterized by worry for her wellbeing, sometimes to the extremes. He fears what had happened to Ana will happen to Lara, repeating the cycle of loss surrounding him.
Lara
Moving on to Lara.
-She acts as an “anchor” for Kurtis; an anchor that connects him to reality. She also is the sole person he can rely on.
I stopped, giving myself time to select my words. I gestured to my outstretched hand. “If you think you understand me, Lara…” My eyes narrowed. “... promise you’ll stand by me. Because I know I’ll need it.”
Without much room for contemplation, she reached and took my hand.
-Though our focus is mainly on Kurtis, it’s possible to see that Lara has struggles of her own. She is haunted by the deaths of the Bedouins and Von Croy.
She shook her head. “We weren’t the best… and I don’t think I can forgive him for the things he did. But he didn’t deserve to die that way. I know he didn’t.”
No words left me.
“I was way too up on my high horse to notice I was in the wrong…” she said, voice booming. She paused, letting deafening silence fill the room. “...and too self-absorbed to admit that.”
We can see that she holds immense regrets within her towards her mentor.
-She is a lot more accepting of the things that have happened to her, compared to Kurtis.
“But the past is past, right Kurtis?” she asked, tilting her head. A bitter smile got a hold on her expression as she eyed me. Her stare shifted to my lips, searching for a movement, then back into my eyes.
I didn’t answer.
-She fears she will be abandoned or left to die yet again, just like how Von Croy did with her.
She shut her eyes. “We were in my room. During the storm from the other day. You were… right behind me, holding me.”
Chills ran down my spine. An exact copy of my own dream.
Lara continued. “Then you told me you weren’t real. When I reached behind me, you… had disappeared. Gone, just like that.”
I scanned her face. “...So you came into my room because you wanted to check if I was still there.”
She tore her stare from me, letting out a sigh. “That’s… correct.” she said quietly. “And I remember being just so angry at you for leaving me there, in the cold. Just like how I did with Werner.”
-She sees right through Kurtis’ lies ever since the beginning, yet she also holds an idea of why he is the way he is.
“Kurtis?”
Lara’s voice pulled me out of my sudden dissociation. I flinched as my stare fell on her face again.
I didn’t exactly know what I expected to see in her expression upon noticing my gaze growing distant. Maybe disappointment, or probably annoyance upon seeing I wasn’t paying attention to what she had been saying earlier. As one would expect from her. But to my surprise, none of those were present. Her eyes gleamed with a noticable sense of understanding.
As we can see in this excerpt, she isn’t angry at him for his dissociation. She knows the possible reasons behind his behavior towards her, so she chooses to approach him with a subtle sympathy instead of reproach or resentment.
-She isn’t afraid to show her compassion towards him. Though she isn’t open about it, she subtly lets him know she cares.
The crunch of the grass under Lara’s feet accompanied her quiet steps as our shoulders made contact. She finally stopped by my side, arms crossed. She closely examined me, then reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s get going, Kurtis.”
There was a unique kind of warmness to her voice, that I hadn’t heard before from her.
As you may remember, this particular moment takes place right after Kurtis chases down Ana’s hallucination in the forest. She comforts him with a simple gesture: by placing a hand on his shoulder, even at the beginning of their growing bond.
Ana
-Though she has been dead long before the events of the story, we get a glimpse of what she was like through the flashback sequences. She is incredibly sweet, ambitious to see what the future holds, and is deeply in love with teenage Kurtis; the very love that got her killed in the end.
-She gives him a taste of the delicate peace that lies beyond the Shadow War, aggravating his thoughts to get away from the Lux Veritatis. She also shows he can be something more than a pawn for the Order to use against Eckhardt.
-Her visions are the embodiment of Kurtis’ dreams of running away with her, which are now impossible to reach, haunting his every step. Her image is there, yet she isn’t real, just as we get visions of the past, yet it’s impossible to bring it back or change it.
-Later, when Kurtis walks through the rift to have one last conversation with her, we find out that she chose to be with him despite potential future adversities that may happen to the two of them.
Her fingertips brushed my left cheek, which now was devoid of the scar I had gained at 21, during a battle. “I knew it… deep down…” she uttered. “...that our time together would be limited.”
My lips parted. I had thought she had shared the same ideal that we could build a future together. I had thought she was as blind to the dangers awaiting us as I was. “...Then why did you not leave me?”
“Because you make me feel alive… because I need the way you make me feel… more than anything else. I was down to whatever life would throw at us as long as I had you. That’s the price of love, isn’t it?”
I wrote this passage specifically to show the sheer beauty of choosing to go down a certain path, despite knowing there may be terrible things that await you, alongside happiness. This begs the question: would you give up said happiness to spare yourself the consequences, or would you take the risk to get it?
I also would like to mention that Ana’s choice to stay with Kurtis directly mirrors Lara’s choice to not leave him to fight against Karel on his own, but I will be talking about the rest of these parallels in the coming parts of this post.
Karel
And lastly, Karel.
-The great orchestrator of every event in this story.
-The fact that he never appears until the very end was a creative choice I made to heighten the tension and the uneasiness over our duo. Just the knowledge someone is watching you from afar, tracking your every move, bending your mind at his will is just sinister. All while you can’t see them.
-In the end, he offers Kurtis a critical choice: he can either get the life he’s always wanted with the condition to help Karel in reviving his race, or risk getting killed in a fight against the Nephilim. Karel thought he could win against Kurtis in a fight, yet as we saw, he was very, very wrong.
Character overview is done. Next up, we’ll be talking about the relationship between Lara and Kurtis.
Lara And Kurtis
And after everything we’ve been through, I had come to understand the one place that felt the closest to what I seeked was by her side. A place I truly belonged.
Lara has shown Kurtis that he’s not alone in his quest of vengeance against the Cabal, both physically and mentally. She becomes his compass in navigating the harsh realities of the TR world, and provides him with a sense of belonging, as we see in the excerpt above. He too becomes a cherished partner for her in their journey.
Similarities And Differences
There are certain aspects where Lara and Kurtis mirror one another, and also differ. I’ll be listing these below. First up is similarities.
-They were both forced to live a life they didn’t want by their parents. Kurtis was forced to be part of the Lux Veritatis, whereas Lara was pressured to be more “aristocratic”.
-Both have experienced major losses at the hands of the Cabal.
-Both are struggling to face their past regrets.
-Both are being manipulated by visions of the dead.
-Both hold certain items that remind them of the dead (the amulet for Lara, the sketchbook for Kurtis).
-Both hold certain anxieties unique to them (loss for Kurtis, abandonment for Lara).
Now onto the differences.
-Kurtis was forced into the turbulent side of the world by the Order, whereas Lara willingly chooses to dwell in it.
-Kurtis wants a peaceful life for himself, while Lara is after the thrill of it all.
-It’s a lot harder for Kurtis to forgive himself for his regrets, compared to Lara.
Possibly the most striking difference is that Lara has a confrontational nature, whereas Kurtis is an avoidant man. We can see this nature of Lara in the following excerpt:
She let out a shaky breath. “...And what about you?” A brief pause. I felt my pulse accelerate. “What does he make you see?”
I blinked in confusion, my stomach knotting.
She crossed her arms. “I can see that Karel is also messing with you. And that you’re trying to hide, but it just doesn’t work, Kurtis.”
Here, she openly confronts Kurtis about his lies, confessing she always knew he had been concealing the truth.
Moving on to Kurtis. After Ana’s death, he has completely closed himself off to close relationships, building walls around him. This shows off his dismissive and avoidant nature. He also deters from thinking about unsightly memories, as we have mentioned. Later on, Lara is able to break through said avoidance.
We finished talking about the characters and relationships, now I’ll be touching up on the writing side of things, and tell you all about the techniques I have used in the process.
I am a detail freak, and I try to stuff in as many as possible in my works. TT was no exception.
Symbolisms, Metaphors And Settings
In this section I’ll touch up on everything metaphorical, and how I used the outer world to show the internal conflict of the characters.
-The fire Lara and Kurtis light at the end of chapter 5, right after they get out of the cave, may seem insignificant, yet it holds a figurative meaning. It's a symbolic representation of the growing warmth between the two.
-You probably remember the infamous forest sequence in chapter 7, the one where Kurtis hallucinates Ana and chases after her. That entire scene is meant to be a metaphor in itself.
As you may remember, during the chase, all he can think of is catching up to her. He does not care about getting lost inside the woods. This mirrors the fact that he gets mentally “lost” inside his head the more he runs after the transient comfort from the memories of the past, without him realizing it.
As I have mentioned earlier, Ana and her visions are a representation of his unreachable dreams, so you can also view the forest chase as a metaphor for Kurtis chasing a dream that has no chance of becoming real.
When the hallucination reaches and “touches” his cheek, he feels a fake (but seemingly real) warmth from the contact. This represents the said transient comfort he seeks. Later on, when Lara puts her hand on his shoulder, he senses a similar warmth from her, but this time it’s real. As you may be able to guess, this represents the real comfort she has to offer to him.
-Crows are a common motif throughout the story. Kurtis mentions several times that he hears their cawing in the environment.
A flock of crows sounded from a distance, creating a cacophony of deafening caws as we went by.
—
The cawing of the crows brought me to the present.
—
Chirping birds and cawing crows resumed their symphony as usual.
This holds a different meaning for both Lara and Kurtis.
For Lara: In AOD, crows are known to be a manifestation of Putai, the Egyptian shaman that saved her after the pyramid collapse in The Last Revelation. You can see these birds in the deleted Putai cutscene, and also all around Parisian Backstreets. This is a sign of her watching over Lara.
For Kurtis: Crows are traditionally associated with death. Crows following Lara and Kurtis around represent death following Kurtis wherever he goes, whether it be the deaths of those he knows, or the demise he’s trying to protect Lara from.
-The storm that breaks out in chapter 12 is a metaphor for the growing uneasiness and turbulence around our duo.
-The sun was setting moments before Ana’s death. This represents the light over Kurtis’ life dimming, just as how daylight dims during sunset.
-Similarly, in the epilogue, Lara and Kurtis meet in the sunrise. This is a metaphor for a new chapter in Kurtis’ life (that is, travelling to Surrey and living with Lara), and the reentry of hope into his mind.
-Kurtis’ flashbacks are overrun with daylight and brightness…
It was a day just like this; at the edge of spring, yet the colors appeared much brighter, at least in my memory.
—
It was a Saturday evening. The setting sun shone through the clouds, warming us up with its gentle rays and painting the sky in vibrant colors.
…whereas the present tends to be drenched in darkness.
With every quiet step, we were submerging into the deep black further and further.
—
Neither there was sunshine, only darkness lingering in the corners of the room.
—
The branches above me blocked out most of the sunlight, drowning everything around in a gloom-filled shadow.
This can be seen as Kurtis’ worldview changing, before and after he runs off to the Legion. We know that he greatly underestimated the dangers of the world around him when he was a teen, and the light can be seen as an embodiment of that naivety. The darkness of the present can be interpreted as him having to find out the world is out to get him the hard way, and that he is now aware the circumstances surrounding him are far from pretty. That naivety is gone for good.
-After the battle between Kurtis and Karel, our duo get trapped in the darkness after rubble blocks the entrance of the hallway they’re in. Kurtis clearing the rubble and getting himself and Lara out can be interpreted as him regaining his freedom from the Cabal’s control, with his own efforts, and also as him breaking the cycle of losing his loved ones to them by saving Lara.
-This one is just so simple and so subtle.
I leaned in towards Ana and freed myself from her grip, my arms encircling her. Her familiar scent filled my nostrils: the affectionate tone of daisies, mixed with a hint of vanilla. A gust of wind, blowing from a distance, bathed us in the incense of cyclamens.
Kurtis states that Ana’s signature smell was daisies. Daisies are traditionally known to mean innocence, symbolizing both her naivety and the last bit of innocence Kurtis had left that had died with her.
Another flower mentioned in this passage is cyclamens, which can mean sorrowful goodbyes, departures, and a new path in life. Here, we see Kurtis saying goodbye to her one last time, and also deciding to move on from her memory, essentially taking a new path in his life.
-In the epilogue, Kurtis tells Lara to meet him at the bayside. The location choice is important in a metaphorical sense. As we know, his life started going downhill at the bayside Ana and him used to meet. The fact that he picked a place similar to the one where his life turned upside down signals us that he’s no longer hesitant to face what happened.
-Lara’s amulet is lost at the end. This also figuratively signals that she’s let go of her past regrets entirely.
Parallels
This is my favorite section in this post, and parallels are my favorite writing technique. There are quite a lot, so bear with me!
-The first and the last chapters mirror each other in a number of ways. They both have Lara and Kurtis meeting, yet as two drastically changed people in the epilogue. The line “And I almost forgot to give this to you.” is also repeated in both.
-Now we will see a parallel between the past and the present.
I lay myself on the unforgivingly cold floor, next to Lara.
In chapter 21, after Lara and Kurtis get trapped, he lies next to her. This mirrors when he used to lie next to Ana, as we see in one of the flashback sequences in chapter 13.
We kept on lying there, our fingers interconnected, and our gazes travelling over each other's faces; appreciating each and every detail like an art lover reading a well-written poem.
-Another one from chapter 13 this time, from that same flashback sequence.
“You should work on dealing with ambushers, Kurtis,” she exclaimed as she straightened and settled on her knees. “One day, somebody might get you from behind when you least expect it, kick the gun straight from your hand, and…” Her hands slowly drifted apart, mimicking an explosion. “Poof!”
This mirrors the way Lara ambushes Kurtis in the airlock cutscene (Lara gets Kurtis from behind, kicks his gun, then fires her pistol).
- “My father sent me to a Monstrum crime scene to do an investigation when I was 17.” I explained. “There was this girl there… my age…” A broken chuckle left me. “We had an argument, I told her off, saying she tampered with my investigation…”
Kurtis tells Lara that he and Ana’s first conversation was an argument. This directly parallels his first ever conversation with Lara (well, if you don’t count the newly added conversation in Café Métro in the remaster) being an argument about how she got in his way.
-Next up, we have another parallel to the airlock cutscene in chapter 21, yet this one’s less subtle.
The ghost of a smile lingered on her lips upon seeing me. Through her labored breaths, she muttered in a volume I wouldn’t be able to pick up if I wasn’t knelt next to her.
“You came back, stranger…”
—
Lara placed two blood soaked fingers under my chin, and despite my best attempts to fight back, forced my head up until our eyes met.
As you may be able to guess, what she says to him in this scene is a reference to the line “Glad you came back to save me, stranger” in AOD.
- In chapter 12, the section where Kurtis has to take Lara’s gun from her while she’s hallucinating parallels the Louvre encounter, yet this time there are some differences.
My eyes frantically scanned the room before falling on her again. I then got reminded of a moment from yesterday; the one I had ripped the shard from her grip, ultimately stopping her from hallucinating. And at that moment, I knew what I ought to do. Something that would gravely put my life on the line.
I had to take the gun from her.
In the Louvre, Kurtis approaches her from behind to catch her off-guard. She couldn’t see him coming. He also wasn’t her ally at this stage.
Yet here, they are facing one another, with Kurtis directly in front of Lara. They can see one another this time. This showcases the trust they hold for each other.
-We see the line below in the flashback sequence of chapter 8.
Ana let out a soft giggle. “I’m just being observant. Isn’t that the main thing of my major anyway?”
In the present, Kurtis says the same line to Lara.
She snickered. “Did your research, I guess?”
“It isn’t hard to see, is it?” I added. “I’m just being observant.”
I wanted to highlight the impact she left on him with this parallel.
-Next up is another repeated line.
“I’m surprised…” Ana said, brows shooting up. “You’re a bad liar. A terrible one, even.”
—
“And I knew it…” Lara finally mumbled.
I tilted my head.
“That you lied.”
She continued. “You’re a terrible liar,” she uttered, flashing a playful smile. “Has no one told you that before?”
-Kurtis beginning to live in the Manor along with Lara in the aftermath of the events mirrors what his teenage self once wanted: to live in a house along with the woman he cares for the most.
This has been reaaaally long! I really hope I was clear and concise with my explanations. If you have questions you would like me to address, feel free to ask me through the Tumblr Asks section! I would be more than happy to answer!
