The stronger you are, the more brittle you become, and everything has a breaking point.
I’m so relieved to have gotten this out before KH3′s release, even if it’s sneaking in by the tiniest little margin. I needed it out before the new game absolutely destroyed all my ideas. THERE ARE NO SPOILERS HERE.
This was originally my @treasuredmemorieskhfanzine submission before I decided that it was going to be too long and also too upsetting and went with my original submission instead but hey, that’s life.
I love Aqua with all of my heart. Which means, of course, that I have to make her miserable. Those are the rules, right? Right.
Thanks to the Terraqua discord for helping me out with this.
It hurts.
One foot in front of the other.
It hurts.
She can't stop. She can feel it behind her. Feel it reaching, claws scraping lines across the bare skin of her shoulders, scars sinking deep into flesh and sinew and bone, ripping her open and laying her bare for the blackness of the world to seep in to her empty heart.
It hurts, it hurts, ithurtsithurtsithurtsithurts-
One foot in front of the other. There is nothing left in her barren soul.
In the moments where she allows herself a moment to pause, to rest her aching, weary legs, she stares up at the inky dark above her, searching for any speck of light above her, any sign of stars. Sometimes, when her head swims with exhaustion, she can see little pinpricks above her, but those nights are worse. Once she had felt hope when she saw those sparks. Now she feels nothing but the bitter taste of loss.
The sparks blur, twist, and Aqua becomes aware that her eyes burn from staring up at them. Her chest spasms with a hunger she cannot remember not feeling. When was the last time she felt full? When was the last time she was rested, full, peaceful?
When was the last time she had been whole? There had never been anything but this neverending walk, nothing but the pain in her feet and the exhaustion in her soul.
Who even was she anymore?
It hurts.
She was Master Aqua. She was an apprentice of Master Eraqus, a partner to her friends Terra and Ven. She was a Keyblade wielder. She was strong.
She was exhausted.
She was beaten down.
Was she even a Master anymore? Her home didn't exist anymore, her friends lost to the ever present dark threatening her every step, her Keyblade long gone in a final token of affection to a young man she wasn't sure she'd ever see again.
Could she be a Master of nothing and a partner to nobody?
Her eyes blurred. At a time, there might have even been tears.
It hurts.
-
She wasn’t sure when the tendrils stroking along her ankles started to feel inviting rather than terrifying. There had been a point and time when she would have been horrified by the way the darkness felt brushing across her skin, threatening to grab her and drag her off the path and into the darkness. Or at least, she thought there might have been. She thought she remembered the sickening, sharp touch of ice. When it touched her like this, soft and cool and promising her an end to her ceaseless wandering, it was hard to remember.
The false moonlight of the sandy shore was just enough to stare out at the shoreline, see the way the water curved along the horizon, the way the surf lapped at her stocking-covered feet. Her shoes lay abandoned somewhere behind her. It felt good on her warm, swollen toes, soothing blisters she thought should be there. She wished she had Master Defender, though she couldn’t quite remember why that was its name or where it had gone.
She knew it had belonged to her Master, a man she had respected and trusted without question.
She knew her Master was dead, struck down by a boy she had once considered her closest friend.
She couldn’t remember what he looked like.
Hours passed, and yet she still sat there on that darkened beach, head bowed, staring sightlessly at the dull gray metal, mindless of the way her tears warmed and cooled the metal.
What had the boy looked like? The boy who had killed her Master, shattered a part of her soul?
She pictured blue eyes, the color of the ocean beneath a moon, but her brain stopped at that point as though it was an insurmountable road block.
“What else?” she whispered, her voice too broken from lack of use to make more sound.
He had brown hair- or was it silver? Maybe blond. Somewhere in the torn crevasses of her mind, she could picture blond hair, short and spiky and puppy soft, but when she tried to put the blond and the blue together, it didn’t seem to fit quite right, as though the blue was wrong, even though that shade of blue was all she could remember.
Trying to remember made her head hurt, and so she quit. It did her no good to dwell on half-remembered mysteries, not when they made her ache like this. Sometimes, she had learned, it was just easier to let things go without the fight.
At her feet, the waves lapped a little higher on her ankles, threatening inch by inch to pull her out to sea.
How she wished she could just lay back in the sand and let the ocean take her away.
-
There came a day- or a week or a month or maybe a year because she had always been down here, really, so what did the days matter really?- when the darkness didn’t frighten her anymore.
No, why had she ever thought that the dark surrounding her had ever meant her anything but kindness? Now when the tendrils surrounded her, the soft cool smoke sneaking into her lungs and caressing her heart, she relaxed into it with relief. It had never been there to tear her down, no. No, it had always meant to rip away the parts that brought her pain, to lift her up. The light that she had fought so hard to carry in her burdened soul really did nothing but cause her pain in the end.
When she tried to think of that boy, she no longer got stuck on blond hair or blue eyes. How easily she had allowed herself to be deluded by her panic, how her pain had twisted the truth in her mind. There had been two boys, of course. One strong like the earth and the other quick as the wind. But neither of them had blue eyes. Where had she ever gotten that idea from? They both had amber eyes, glowing like warm coals. Just like hers.
They were so beautiful, her two boys, one with hair made of sunlight and the other with moonbeams. She missed them terribly down here, but she could sense that they would be joining her soon. It was safe here, in the dark, so very far away from the light that threatened to tear her soul apart.
She was so grateful that the shadows had shown her the light. Where would she be if they hadn’t? She no longer needed her Master’s lost soul, poor fool that he was. Placing his faith in his sword, in his light, had been his downfall in the end; she could see that now. She trusted nothing but her claws and the comfort of the dark now. Her clawed hands brushed icy streaks out of her face, tucking them back out of her way as she slunk along the jagged, rocky paths.
Something was pulling her along, guiding her feet at every crossroads. It was instinctive, the way she followed the familiar roads toward the ocean. Something was waiting for her on that shore, or someone would be soon enough.
Her feet sunk into the sand, leaving footprints from the end of the stone path to the shoreline. Whatever intended to be waiting for her… she would be waiting for them first.
She was, and had always been, a hunter. And whatever had decided to try to hunt her…
Would regret it.
-
It was hours before anything stirred. The girl, arms soaked in blood red and inky black, with claws stretching her fingers into razor-sharp crescents, waited, crouched by the shoreline. She might have looked like a gargoyle to any passing person, had anybody actually been living in the darkness to walk by. She waited, muscles couled like a cat, amber eyes glowing in the darkness like warning flares.
A sound, footsteps through the darkness. She tensed, her head swiveling toward the sound, every muscle poised to strike.
He was standing there, across from her, close enough that she could taste the bitter taste of his light on her tongue, not alone for the first time in an eternity. The boy she had gifted her only chance at freedom. A splash of color on a dark horizon, his hair like starlight, holding his hand out to her with a soft smile, like they were friends. He smiled like he knew what she had suffered for the last ten thousand, million, trillion steps across a world razed to ash by hopelessness. His eyes sparkled like stars beneath a silvery-white moon.
His smile was soft, warm, like home. It was familiar. For a moment, she imagined a tuft of rowan hair, the glint of armor on his arm, the sound of laughter under a star-strewn sky. Her heart felt like it was being torn open. The girl wanted to know why, why the thought of this stranger threatened to rip her chest apart. Who was he? Who was she?
The boy took a step closer to her curled form, said something she couldn’t hear past the roaring of the ocean- or was that her own ears, the blood in her veins calling out to kill the boy in front of her.
She wanted him to suffer. She wanted him to feel the ache in her bones, understand the terror in her chest at his light. She wanted freedom, to go home to her boys, to bury herself in silver and gold and hide in the darkness their bodies created.
She wanted him to burn, the way the blood pumping through her threatened to set her body alight.
Her teeth bared, hands curled into claws, she leapt across the empty landscape with all the strength in her tattered soul.
Local keykids go on a date, take their little brother along. Everyone had a good time and nobody passed out or got possessed. I'd call that a success. Had a great time with @sailorscoutsaix and @randomfandomosity at Metrocon's Masquerade! (Also the fire show was Amazing.)
Friends forever is a pretty long time, but caring for him was easy and loving her was easier. A collection of firsts.
Chapter 9: First Beach Day
Or: The ocean seemed full of promise, the sunlight sparkling off of its surface like stars.
Read it on AO3
(Now featuring Ventus!)
Aqua laid back across her towel, its deep purple fabric soft against her tender skin, stretched out in the heavy sunlight like a contented cat. The sun here was so very different from the sun back home.
The sun of the Land of Departure was comfortable, always warm but never scorching. Some days were warmer than others, yes, but never hot, not really. Not like here, where the cerulean water foamed white on the border between land and sea, where the sun caressed her porcelain skin like fingers. She sighed, rolling onto her stomach and nestling her head into the cool, dark hollow made by her arms.
In the distance she could hear splashing sounds, laughter and shouting, and in that moment she truly felt contentment. Their lives were so busy, full of lessons and training and Keyblades, and she wouldn’t give up a moment of it for all the munny in the world, but there was something uniquely pleasant about getting to be like this, just the three of them, getting to hear the two most important people in her life laugh and enjoy being together.
“Aqua!” Ven called from the surf, stirring her from her contemplation. “C’mon, get in the water!”
She sat up and squinted, her eyes adjusted to the dark of her arms, just in time to see Terra scoop him up from behind and throw him deeper into the water, Ven whooping with joy until the moment he hit the water and vanished below its surface. Aqua hid her laughter behind a delicate hand before standing on her towel, peeling her cover up away from her skin to reveal a modest two-piece suit colored in blacks and whites before tucking it into her bag.
“Come put more sunscreen on,” she called to the two boys, both of whom seemed eager to continue their water wrestling, “and we’ll talk.”
Ven rolled his eyes but bounded toward the shore, Terra wading more calmly behind him. Aqua would not forget the time she’d decided to be lax about sunscreen and Ven had come home crisped to a fine, tender red from shoulders to waist, nor the week after where Ven would whine at the slightest touch and shiver whenever he was left alone. She scooped the sunscreen up from the sand and shook her azure hair out of her face, gesturing to Ven. He made a face but spread his arms obediently, allowing Aqua to cover his back with sunscreen. Once his back was thoroughly covered, he held his hands out so she could pour more of the liquid into his hands.
“And make sure you get everywhere this time,” she said, her eyes sparking playfully. He stuck his tongue out and started on his shoulders and chest while she turned to Terra. He seemed a little flush from the sun, and while he never burned while she or Ven did, he would still go home tender and grouchy if she didn’t force him to put sunscreen on too. Terra, as if sensing his fate, sighed heavily and turned away, exposing the expanse of his back to her. Aqua forced herself to not think about what she was doing as she poured more of the sunscreen into her palms. The bottle found a resting place in the sand as she started to gently rub the cream into the muscles of his back, trying to not notice the strength beneath her fingers, the way they flexed as he moved.
There was something about touching him like this, in broad daylight, that felt different than when it was just the two of them in a sparsely-lit room. She swallowed back the lump in her throat, hoping neither of them noticed anything different about her, really hoping Terra couldn’t sense the racing of her pulse as she moved her fingers down his spine to his lower back, trying to ignore the low hum in his throat when she pressed into the muscle there.
“All done,” Aqua said, clearing her throat after to rid herself of the odd rasp. He turned to her, and was he smirking, just a little bit? Aqua shook her head to clear it; when she looked again, there was only the same small smile he reserved just for her, soft and innocent and one of her favorite expressions on his face. He held his hands out, and she scrambled to find the bottle, pressing it into his hands.
“Your turn,” he said, and Aqua must’ve been imagining the way his voice lowered as he popped the cap open. “Turn around.”
Aqua did, running her hands through her hair to make sure it was pulled up off of her neck, grateful again that she had cut her hair short like this. The sand beneath them shifted as he stepped close, and there was a moment before he pressed his warm hands to her shoulders, gently massaging the cream into her skin. Aqua sighed, letting her head hang forward. His hands were lovely and calloused and warm like the sun before but in a whole different way at the same time as he worked the sunscreen in, slipping fingers under the straps of her suit and causing her to giggle a little. From behind her, he laughed, moving his hands down to get her lower back and turning her giggles into quiet near purrs of pleasure.
“Done,” he whispered into her ear, making her jump and spin around only to see him laughing and giving her that big puppy smile she loved so much. There was a moment where she tried to look stern before she, too, dissolved into laughter.
“Are you guys done yet?” Ven whined from halfway down the beach, already bouncing around in the wet sand where the water lapped. Aqua grinned at Terra and grabbed the sunscreen from the sand where he’d dropped it, quickly covering the rest of her body.
What was a little bit of tenderness compared to the grins on the faces of both her boys? She’d be fine. So she grabbed Terra, who had barely managed to finish covering himself in sunscreen, by the hand and dragged him down the beach to the water, grinning and laughing like it might be their last day in the universe.
Friends forever is a pretty long time, but caring for him was easy and loving her was easier. A collection of firsts.
Chapter 7: First Date
Or: Courage really has to come from both sides, but it's easier to be brave when Ven is still snoring away.
Read it on AO3
Aqua was used to being the first apprentice awake in the castle. Her normal morning routine usually meant that she was showered, dressed, and downstairs with a cup of perfectly-heated tea and something to eat by the time Terra came stumbling into the kitchen, his dark blue eyes bleary with sleep and his hair toeing the line between adorably mussed and just uncaring. Ven, the newest addition to the castle, was usually even later to the kitchen; he was just as likely to fall asleep in his bowl of cereal as he was to eat it. It made her heart light to think about, the quiet way she and her best friends had settled into a routine. It felt like they belonged together, the three of them. Like they’d been together their whole lives.
Aqua knew exactly how the routine should go, which was why she jumped when she turned the corner and noticed a shadow moving around the lit kitchen. She must have gasped, because the shadow froze before turning, revealing-
“Terra?” Aqua said, the surprise clear in her voice. Terra smiled sheepishly, a large hand coming up to rub against the back of his neck.
“Um, morning Aqua,” Terra responded, lowering his hand and turning back to the counter behind him. The muscles of his shoulders were tight, stiff with what Aqua assumed was embarrassment at being caught awake so early. Speaking of which…
“What’re you doing awake?” Aqua asked as she made her way to the fridge. “You’re not usually the type to be up before you have to.”
Terra shrugged, a movement so casual it had to be fake. “Wasn’t tired,” he tried, only for a yawn to sneak out anyway. Aqua laughed, turning back from the fridge with a bottle of water in her hands.
“Not tired, huh?” Aqua asked. Her lips quirked up in a wry smile, and she tried to pretend she didn’t notice the way Terra’s eyes flicked down to her mouth before darting back up.
“Okay, so maybe I just had plans,” he conceded with a smile of his own. Aqua took a cooling sip of her water and walked over to where Terra was working, hopping up on the counter and crossing her legs.
“Plans, huh?” Aqua asked, peeking over at the setup Terra was working in front of. Lunch meats, sliced bread, and husks of once whole fruits littered the counter top. On the other side of his cutting board, there was a slightly dusty wicker basket waiting with its lid open. She could see the white of the castle’s plates on top of what might’ve been Terra’s blanket, stripped from his bed and tucked into the bottom of the basket. “Are you running away or something? What’s with all the food?”
Terra laughed again, setting to work on a head of lettuce with a sharp knife in his right hand. “You sure love asking questions, don’t you?”
“One of us has to,” Aqua replied. Her foot bumped against his hip when he moved. She wiggled her toes, bare of shoes or socks, against the rough fabric of his pants until he swatted at her ankle. “Might as well be me.”
“That’s fair,” Terra said, “but I think Ven might have you beat.” He finished chopping the lettuce and dumped it into a plastic container before moving on to slicing cucumbers into what could almost pass for even circles. They sat in silence for a while, Terra’s knife clicking against the cutting board while Aqua sipped at her warming bottle of water.
“So what’re you doing today?” Terra finally asked, breaking the comfortable quiet that had descended. “Any plans for this rare day off?”
Aqua shrugged, rubbing her fingers through the condensation on her bottle. “Not much, I was going to read a book, maybe go down to the lake.” She could feel his eyes on her for a moment, weighing heavy on her shoulders, before the clicking of the knife resumed.
“D’you wanna go on a picnic with me?” he asked.
Aqua looked up in surprise just in time to see Terra determinedly not looking at her, instead focusing on the tomatoes he was quartering, a hint of red across his cheeks.
“I should’ve probably asked before I started putting the whole thing together, I know, but I forgot today was our day off until after we went to bed last night and I wanted to surprise you and you really don’t have to if you don’t want to, I’d completely understand, I just thought-”
Aqua leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek, cutting off Terra’s rambling speech with a sound that she would gracefully pretend wasn’t a yelp of panic. Clearly she would have to be the one to press the issue.
“You mean like a date, Terra?” Aqua asked. Terra sputtered, his cheeks turning redder as Aqua giggled. It took him a moment to compose himself. Aqua loved how blue his eyes were when they were contrasted by his flushed cheeks.
“I mean, uh, d’you… want it to be? A date, I mean?” Terra finally asked. His eyes flicked everywhere but hers.
Aqua leaned in again, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. When she pulled away, Terra’s wide eyed stare forced a laugh from her. His mouth worked silently for a moment, clearly trying to make some sort of sound.
“Does that answer your question?” Aqua asked when it became clear that Terra had no intention of speaking any time soon.
“I don’t know,” Terra said after the shock had worn off, a grin now making itself known on his face. “Maybe you need to explain it to me again.”
Aqua loved the familiar sound of Terra’s surprised laughter, almost as much as she loved the new, unfamiliar feel of his lips against hers. “Nice try, mister. Now if you’ll excuse me, I apparently have a date to get ready for.” She grinned up at him. “Meet by the lake?”
Terra nodded, still looking mildly dumbstruck from the kiss, and returned to cutting fruit. Aqua watched him for a moment before turning and darting out of the room, worried he’d catch on before she had a chance to calm the raging panic and nervousness in her chest. A date! With Terra! She hardly dared believe it. She debated for a moment about pinching herself before deciding that such an action was too cliché for her tastes. Still, the other possibility, that she was awake and about to go on a date with her best friend, was more absurd by far.
The morning breeze was cool, bordering on biting as it nipped at her skin, but she appreciated it nonetheless as she made her way down to the almost lake she had started to think of as their spot, the spot where she’d first kissed him, where they’d discussed a future where they were masters together. She settled on the sandy shore, crossing her legs neatly underneath her. Now that she had the time to sit and really think about what she’d agreed to, she couldn’t help the anxiety that twisted in her chest. Would this go well, or would it only end in awkwardness? The idea of losing Terra as a friend hurt, but at the same time, she couldn’t let this chance slip away from her. The Master always said that they could not be steered wrong if they followed their hearts, and her heart wanted to be with Terra.
Aqua was so wound up in her own thoughts, one hand pressed against her chest as she watched the stars fade into the morning’s dawn, that she jumped when something was set down beside her.
“Hey,” Terra said as he crossed his arms, a playful grin crossing his face. “A little jumpy there?”
“I guess so,” Aqua responded with a laugh. “You know how I get caught up in my own head.”
Terra crouched down next to her, opening the basket and tugging out a blanket. Up close, Aqua could tell that it really was his blanket, dark brown and thin from repeated washings. Together, they laid the blanket across the sandy ground. Terra set the basket in the center of the blanket and knelt next to it, pulling sandwiches and fruit from inside it. Aqua hesitated for a moment, watching him work, before walking around and sitting next to him. He tensed for a moment, pointedly not making eye contact.
“Nervous?” Aqua asked.
“Of course not,” Terra responded, bravado in his tone. Aqua recognized it; it was how he sounded when the Master challeged him to try something new. Like it was a foregone conclusion that Terra was right. It also usually meant that Terra was not right.
“It’s okay to be nervous, you know,” Aqua responded after a moment of uncomfortable silence. “I am.”
Terra looked up from the spread of food in surprise. “You are?”
Aqua reached across the distance between them to rest her hand on top of his. “A little, yeah.”
Terra slowly relaxed, the hard line of his mouth softening into a smile. “Oh. That’s good. Me too.”
Aqua met his eyes for a moment before they both started laughing, and it was as though the tension was bleeding from them. When they finally went quiet, Aqua leaned against Terra’s side, allowing herself to appreciate the heat radiating from his skin and the comfort of his light so close to her. They ate their meal in a comfortable silence, listening to the sounds of their world coming alive around them. When Aqua had eaten her fill, she sighed and stretched out across Terra’s legs, resting her head gently on his thigh and closing her eyes.
“Thank you for this, Terra,” she murmured to him. The sun was warm and red through her eyelids as it rose higher in the clear sky.
“Thank you for agreeing,” Terra said. Aqua felt him move, but was surprised nonetheless when his hand came up to cup her cheek.
“So,” Aqua said, opening her eyes to make eye contact with him. “Does this mean we’re…?”
“Dating, you mean? Because, I’d like to, yeah,” Terra said. Aqua covered his hand with hers, tugging gently until he brought his hand close enough for her to kiss his palm.
“Oh, Aqua said with a smile, "that's good. Me too."
Terra looked pensive for a moment, his thumb brushing along the line of her jaw, before he started to grin. “So does that mean I get another kiss now?”
Aqua laughed, allowing her eyes to flutter closed once more as she released his hand. “I don’t know, Terra, what do you think?”
The lips pressed to hers were better than any answer Terra could have offered.
Or: Courage really has to come from both sides, but it's easier to be brave when Ven is still snoring away. (I'll post the whole fic to tumblr later today but it's late and I'm mobile)
