#door lords

[the-melting-world]

Free the Lines Along a technicolor street where fences have no ground  June skies bathed in paint bleeding past lines in history There are no names for what is felt meanings born in the joining of hands free to dance, laugh, be Mind, Body, and Heart Ozy, Khleo, Kipling marching as they see themselves loving together, today, forever along a technicolor street where fences have no ground

[hirodraga]

Another commission of @the-melting-world's Khleo in the FF X universe, Im really ejoying to follow this scenerio of Coco's characters! :D

commission info

[incessantscreech2000]

[the-melting-world]

🌺🌊🥥🦜THE DOOR LORDS ARE TAKING OVER SPIRA!!!!!🌺🌊🥥🦜

Khleo as Tidus // Kipling as Yuna // Ozy as Wakka

@hirodraga does it again! I have been doing nothing but drooling over these sprites for my Final Fantasy X novelization project. EeEEEEEAAAAh!

Hiro does an amazing job with my babies as always. I mean. The Hair. The Equipment. The Looks??? It's like they were born inside the game 🥹 Thank you so much, Hiro! 💖💖💖

You can follow A Quest Through Water on Wattpad and AO3

[the-melting-world]

MASTERLIST || A Quest Through Water

Final Fantasy X Timeline

Into Spira - part 1 - part 2 - part 3

Besaid - part 1 (coming soon) Kilika Luca Mi'ihen/Djose Moonflow Guadosalam Thunder Plains Macalania Bikanel Bevelle Calm Lands Mt. Gagazet Zanarkand Mika/Baaj/Fayth Sin

[the-melting-world]

A Quest Through Water I. Into Spira, part 1

We Call It "Sin"

A Quest through Water ~ a Final Fantasy X novelization with substitutions of original characters. || Masterlist || AO3

Character Substitutions: Khleo as Tidus Kipling as Yuna Ozy as Wakka Sun Bai as Seymour *Minor substitutions may occur throughout. For example, OC’s animal familiars. The rest of the FFX major cast will remain unchanged. ~ 930 words 🌊

Listen to my story. This may be our last chance.

Zanarkand came alive in the night. After sunset, the buildings grew taller, fuller, grander. You would look up and see the sky jam packed with stars, as if one marked each of the city’s inhabitants. Like the stars, the children of Zanarkand were all out tonight too. 

Khleo, hometown ace of the Zanarkand Abes, sifted her way through those screaming, cheering stars. Her people.

It was hard to believe that they had all shone up for her team on this night. Not that this was the first time. Khleo had lost count of the number of crowds that had cheered her on. She had seen so many nights like this. But for some reason she could not shake, something about tonight felt different.

“Khleo!!! I’ve been a big fan of yours. From the very beginning!”

Khleo’s sharp hearing locked onto the shout in the sea of thousands. She waved in that general direction and smiled.

“I won’t let you down.”

The fan’s jaw dropped at the sudden acknowledgement. She waved back and gasped, “Th-thanks!”

More people cheered Khleo on, wishing her luck, gently pushing her along through the living ocean of fans. One man asked her how she was feeling.

“Great as ever! Thanks!” Khleo said, meaning it with all her heart. But her heart sank a little when the man replied with: “Yeah! We’re cheering for you! I mean, you are Jecht’s kid! I’d be crazy not to cheer for you!”

Khleo’s radiant smile never wavered, but she nodded once and moved on. She hoped that little comment wouldn’t spoil her night. Her hopes were in vain.

No matter how badly Khleo wanted to reach the stadium, she took her time and made sure to give her fans what they wanted. Even though they all seemed to want the same thing.

“Are you gonna show us that shot tonight?”

Jecht’s shot, they meant. They wanted to see the famous move immortalized in blitzball legend, not by Khleo herself, but by her father.

“You should do it! For us!”

“The Jecht Shot. I’ll be waiting!”

The smile on Khleo’s face grew tight. She cursed herself. Why couldn’t she keep it cool just for a few more minutes!

[The game tonight… It’s very important.]

“Hefe?”

Khleo didn’t mean to call for her animal familiar outloud. Hefe, a psychic white lion that Khleo had had since she was a cub, didn’t usually follow her human out to blitzball events. 

But there was a moment when time slowed, a gap appeared in the crowd and Khleo stood before her lion sitting on her haunches. Khleo knew that no one else could perceive Hefe’s presence the way she could. Hefe had the ability to warp people’s sense of reality in order to go about unseen.

Before Khleo could ask Hefe what the hell she was doing out on a night like this, another fan broke her concentration.

“Khleo! Can I have your autograph?”

The radiant smile and easy charm was back. “Of course!”

Another fan piped up. “Good luck tonight!”

Khleo spoke confidently while signing the other fan’s blitzball. “Nothing to worry about! Oh, if I score a goal… I’ll do this!” She raised her arms straight up. “That will mean it was for you, okay?”

Both of the fans tittered.

Handing the ball back, she asked, “What seat?”

The fan in the pink top said, “East block in the front row!”

The redhead added, “Fifth from the right!”

“Got it!” Khleo winked and took off.

More people approached her asking for things to sign. Most of them were children, who gaped up at her in wonder and wanted to know the tricks to all of her moves. They all wanted to be blitzers someday. Khleo told them if they practiced often, backed up their teammates, and never lost sight of their love of the game, that they would.

There were women asking if they could see Khleo after the game. Not for autographs or game tips, but for a good time. Occasionally a man approached her with the same request. Usually, there was at least one or two of these requests that Khleo wouldn’t turn down, but with Hefe hanging in the background like that…

“...um…well…”

[You can’t tonight.]

Damn it, Hefe.

“I mean…tomorrow.”

There was lots of pouting, but they wished her luck all the same. Khleo really wanted to get to the bottom of why Hefe was acting so weird. What was it about tonight that was setting off not only her lion’s but the blitzball player’s own nerves?

The closer Khleo got to the gates just outside the stadium, the less helpful the crowd became. The fans were much bolder up here. They did their best to grab and claw at who was arguably the most famous person in all of downtown Zanarkand.

Khleo didn’t like to throw her weight around with bystanders, but if she didn’t tonight, she’d never get inside.

“Make way, make way! Coming through, sorry! Hey, I’m gonna be late! Hey, let go of me!”

Finally, she was in. But she barely made it. The star of the Zanarkand Abes had just enough time to suit up.

Because the games were about to begin.

[the-melting-world]

“A friend of mine once told me that opening Doors is supposed to be fun. The most important part about what we do. The only part that matters.” The steady breath of the Doors caused the tethers trailing from Kipling’s hair to dance. “For me, it finally is.” And dance they did. For they had a mind of their own. “The friend who first told me these things, the one who made me believe…” The Door Lord crouched low on her perch, her wild tethers spilling throughout the space, snapping in the wind like a sentient halo. “Ozy, that was you.” ~ Kipling Bronne, The Sun

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Once again at a loss for words over another incredible piece by @hirodraga featuring my oc Kip as a fully fledged Door Lord! 🌊🤪 This moment has been with me for a very long time and I'm so happy that I get to relive it over and over through this artwork. EVERYTHING IS GIVING ME CHILLS. Hiro made magic happen with all of the concepts I threw at them and I have no words. So so so happy with the final product! 😭💖 OBRIGADA!!

[the-melting-world]

The Sun | Series Summary and Reader Guide

The final version of this album will not contain characters from the Arcana VN. Later revisions of previous albums will eventually reflect this shift. The removal of Arcana characters will not affect the albums' plot or the characterization of the original cast: Kipling, Khleo, Ozy, Basil, Sascha, Sun Bai, etc. All locations from the Arcana will be altered or non-applicable to the story's events. The only exception is the deleted scenes, which were written beforehand and provide context for lore, but do not carry weight in the primary narrative. 

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A recap of major events:

Kip, Khleo and Ozy grew up together on an island monastery with other grey mages, including elders, who essentially act as guardians. 

A grey mage is someone who practices a type of teleportation magic. Grey magic can only be acquired genetically. Grey mages of the past used their powers to map the multiverse and the full range of its formations. They built magically-enhanced machine weapons to defend themselves from other factions that would seek to stop or destroy their progress. Grey mages are also referred to as umbras (sometimes a derogatory term) and Door Lords (those who wield grey magic to access and manipulate an inter-dimensional highway known as the Doors).

When Ozy, Kip and Khleo were children, they accidentally opened a Door that absorbed Khleo and nearly killed her. When Kip realized that Ozy couldn’t bring Khleo back, she took all of her anger out on him, hurting him and running away a year later to a different continent. Ozy is coached by the elders to seek enlightenment in a secret realm. He disappears inside of a subterranean library for ten years.

In The Empress album, Kipling regains her childhood memories of Khleo and Ozy. She suffers from a magical block that only resolves when she opens the Door to her patron Arcana and gets closure for her past mistakes. At the end, Kip's natural intuition towards unlocking Doors gives her an edge in moving them in a way that corrals roaming monsters into one space. Ozy doesn't reveal his intentions by asking Kip to do this, but he does imply that only their friend Khleo has what it takes to deal with the monsters inside the cage that Kip created. 

In the Strength album, we learn that Khleo has been living in the same city as Kip and working as a barhand. The money that she saved in order to quit her job, she instead gives to a struggling coworker, leaving herself without any options other than to keep working for Otto, her uncle. Otto consistently uses Khleo’s compassion for others and regenerative abilities to brutally control and extract from her. Khleo's reunion with her memories and childhood friends grant her the means to stand up to her uncle and embrace a new life as a Door Lord despite no longer having the magic she was born with. Just as he directed Kip, Ozy guides Khleo to the task he has set before them: taking on the monsters caged inside a series of Doors. Instead of relying on the grey magic that she no longer possesses, Khleo solves the riddle of the Doors through the blessings bestowed on her by the Strength Arcana – beast instinct as well as supernatural strength. Khleo calms the monsters and makes them clear the space that Ozy wants to use (for what, we still don't really know). 

Based on the events in The Empress and Strength, we can assume that some outside entity is working to eliminate grey magic from existence. This is achieved by siphoning magic from volunteers. Being relieved of grey magic appeals to many grey mages who no longer want to be branded by those who fear and hate them. Though Ozy has never explicitly stated that this is what drives him to help his friends reconnect with the Doors, he has expressed dread towards the question of time – whether he has enough of it and if he is using it wisely in his endeavors to bring Kip and Khleo into the fold of his grand scheme. We still do not know how much of a threat this erasure of grey magic directly poses to Ozy and his friends.

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Ozy's story so far...

Ozy has not revealed much regarding his ten years spent alone in an ancient sunken library. His only companion was his familiar, Abaco – a bird who can read, write, and register Ozy's thoughts. It's heavily implied that Ozy could not leave the library until he reached some kind of mental threshold related to grey magic. As soon as he could, however, he sought out his childhood companions, Kip and Khleo. Though Ozy has spells of self doubt and hesitation, he otherwise gives off the impression of knowing what he is doing when guiding his friends toward specific tasks. Of the three, Ozy has the most complete understanding and mastery over grey magic. This is mostly thanks to his very powerful and wealthy family, people who openly spread and endorse mistrust towards grey mages, but also in equal measure, hoard as much intelligence as they can on the subject of Door Lords. They even go so far as to employ gifted grey mages in order to educate their son. In the end, Ozy's family sent him away to live in the monastery, essentially disowning him and leaving him to defend himself among the other umbra children, who were orphaned directly because of the actions taken by House Sese Mar and other influential families like Ozy's. In the present day, Ozy nor his friends have returned to the Melting World since they left. They currently do not know if the monastery where they grew up is still there or how people on the islands view grey mages these days.

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For more context and storytelling into each of the Door Lords’ journeys, consider reading their albums before moving on. 

For Ozy, Khleo and Kip's childhood, read the prologue: Echoes of the Past

For Kip's story, read: The Empress

For Khleo's story, read: Strength

If you are ready to enter the final phase of the story, proceed to Ozy's album: The Sun