okokok THIS one i had a VERY fun time with bc i started looking into minecraft lore and theories surrounding vex and boy oh boy this gave me Plenty Of Fodder for:
Aquafinity
Aquafinity used to be an Allay.
He trusted the wrong people when he was a fresh-faced new Player, and was rewarded with having a piece of his soul ripped away from him in a woodland mansion- becoming a Vex bound by those who had the Totem his soul was irreversibly chained to.
He doesn’t actually know how long he was stuck there, subject to experiments on soul magic and used as one of many expendable enforcers for the Illagers and Players that ran the mansion. For a bit after he lost that part of himself, everything was a blur. He’s unsure how long it took for the world to come back into focus- he feels like it was anywhere between two days and ten years, and it sometimes felt like both. All he knows for sure is it was a time heavily tainted by hate for himself: hate for the fact that he was an Allay, hate for the fact that he was now a Vex, hate for the fact he had to be anything other than human that attracted this kind of punishment for it. That hateful daze ended when the mansion was finally raided- and it was absolute chaos when that happened. It was a huge raiding party- one that fully intended on not leaving a single Illager alive, and one that seemed to have the manpower to ensure it. He remembers fighting, and then suddenly no longer fighting as the will to do so vanished in an instant, and he was abruptly being carted out of the mansion with rushed assurances and hurried handling by those he’d just been fighting.
At the end of it, the mansion was burned to the ground, most of the Vexes and Allays rescued, and all of the Illagers gone and the guilty Players “taken care of”. He honestly didn’t care to know what that meant, because now that he was away from them there was only one thing he was focused on: his Totem. The raiders weren’t able to recover everyone’s Totems in the ruckus, and he’d been unfortunate enough that he wasn’t one of the safe ones.
He and a few other unfortunate ones went back to the mansion’s site as soon as they could, and spent days, weeks, months, looking through the rubble for themselves.
Some of them got lucky.
Some of them found theirs.
Aqua was not one of them.
He didn’t know if it burned up with the mansion or if that was even possible. Had it been destroyed some other way? Was that how Totem destroying worked? Or maybe it had been used up in the fight, that piece of his soul forever gone to ensure that someone else lived again. He wasn’t sure how either would affect him, if he’d feel some difference or if it would slowly come back to him or if nothing would change at all. He still didn’t feel like he used to, before the mansion, and as the search stretched out it became more obvious that what was put in the Totem never came back to him in any sort of sense. But he also wasn’t being summoned anymore- not after that sudden snap in the big fight- so nobody could have his Totem or else he’d have been summoned back already. Had he really just… fully lost that part of himself? Maybe it was just dispersed, or misplaced elsewhere, or… or something, and he could find it again. Somehow.
Years passed, and he traveled around, looking for any information he could get on what exactly had been done to him, and to find any leads on how he could locate his Totem again. While his Totem did take priority, though, he wanted to make absolutely certain he didn’t repeat the same mistakes he made in the past, so he took it on himself to study the people everywhere he went, too. He learned how to read expressions, body language, vocal tones. He learned what looks mean trouble was about to hit, and when to get out of dodge. He learned that he’s actually quite good at using his words to convince people to help him out, and he learned that he’s quite good at quickly establishing a positive relationship with someone. Names, faces, preferences, any small details- he remembers them easily, and noted that folks like it when you remember those kinds of things about them as quickly as he could.
He wasn’t really able to forget the weird gap in his being, the space where Something Used To Be, but there were times when he noticed it less, and then later, even less.
Eventually, he all but gave up and accepted it had been destroyed that day. He couldn’t find anything, and all hope that he would had been slowly drained out of him by dead end after dead end after dead end.
He finally picked an area and started poking around to see if it’d be a good place to try settling, and ended up being included in a batch area invite to a beach party hosted by some big name someone. Seemed like an innocent enough thing, and it’d be an alright chance for him to be able to people-watch and see if the folks here were of a decent sort or not. He’d been able to experience a few big events like this when he was traveling around, and felt like he knew what to expect from these sorts of things. So he went.
And really, it ended up a lot more innocent of a thing than he thought it’d be- it really was just genuinely a party where people actually seemed to have fun, not boring things where people just stood around in fancy clothes and made themselves sound important, this was games and music and laughter and fireworks and… and he liked it. Everyone was smiling, everyone was happy.
For the first time in a long time, he felt ok to just let himself go for a bit and relax. He made his way around the beach, working his way through the people and through conversations, joining in on some games and festivities, and decided that overall, it wasn’t bad. He could stay here, at least for a bit, at least until the hole in the fabric of his being wore on him too much and he could no longer ignore the search again. He could stay here.
The thought was made significantly more concrete when one of the folks he’d made friendly with that night, Tyratone, offered for the two to stick together. He wasn’t as surprised as he felt like he should’ve been- he’d learned that she’d been living alone and had kind of felt like an outsider at the party, and after he’d talked to her she ended up joining him in some of the games and such and she’d seemed to be properly enjoying herself. She wanted company, and he’d proved that he was alright for it.
And y’know? She hadn’t been bad company either, and he was looking to stay anyway. Why not.
He was unfamiliar with the area, and Tyr had pretty well stayed to herself for a while so she was also somewhat unfamiliar, and so they wandered around the area for a couple months, looking around. Aqua would frequently scout out ahead while Tyr gathered materials and food, and on one such scouting, he ran into two others- Razormane and Firemite. They were on their own, wandering just like he and Tyr were. Razor seemed fairly guarded, but something about Fire’s immediate cheeriness piqued Aqua’s curiosity- he was fronting, and Aqua half-wondered if he might have found somewhat of a kindred spirit. He offered for the two to join- after all, he and Tyr were wandering, just the same as them. They could wander together.
He sort of regretted that decision, after a while. It wasn't that he was wrong, it was just… When it had been just him and Tyr, decisions were made with just the two of them. More people meant more opinions, and once the other two joined, it seemed like Razor’s opinion became the most popular. It seemed like his own ideas were heard less and less.
When they found a place to base, Aqua had gone out to investigate the surrounding folks, or at least the ones he could find. Establishing relationships was simple to him now, and he did it well. And as time went on, he kept those relationships up, getting some trades secured and getting started on mapping the area out. He carried an arrow from Tyr’s inventory so he'd be able to find his way back easier: a faint imprint still there from his days before the mansion.
Only problem was, that felt like that was all he could do. Razor somehow ended up being the unofficially appointed leader of the group, and Aqua felt like he had a lot less say in what happened than he did when it was just him and Tyr. He'd come back and the inside of the base was renovated, or that the rest of them had all gone out mob grinding, or maybe he'd be outvoted in what they should trade for next, or-
It bothered him to no end.
It especially bothered him because smooth-talking, he had read in a library once, was a common trait for Allays and Vexes. Subconsciously imbuing magic into their speech to make them more agreeable was something almost stereotypical- and he didn't like the thought that he was doing it. That he hadn't figured out how to read people and how to talk to people all on his own, that he'd had his Vex magic to thank for it.
He especially didn't like the thought of it now, because really- this was just him getting used for what he was again. He was only with the others to be a Vex for them, to work his magic with words, and that stupid ability of his, the innate ability to always find someone as long as he had an item of theirs, that he'd always had as long as he could remember, so he could make good maps.
What else was he even there for? The others were nice, yes, and maybe they weren't intentionally taking advantage of him, but it still felt like he'd just walked himself back into another mansion where he was only seen for what he as a Vex could do, not what he as Aquafinity could do. He'd tried to settle, to try to forget, but he continually just felt slapped in the face with the reminder that he wasn't worth anything. Only his Vex magic was wanted.
He was tempted, a few times, to really try exercising that magic, to make them listen, but he knew he’d never forgive himself if he did.So he didn't let himself say anything. Really, it wasn't like they were even doing anything near the level of the mansion, and he did like them a lot. Tyr, mostly, but Fire was a close second. Razor was quiet and they were nice to each other, but the two weren't spending much time together. There were a lot of good days, honestly, days where they had fun and where they had interesting conversations and where they enjoyed being together. It was just small things here and there, things small enough that he could pretend they weren’t piling up on top of each other to make something too big to ignore. So he stayed, reasoning that if it got too bad, he could always resume his search again. He hadn't intended to stay here forever, anyway.
Story idea
His story!!! starts out!!! with him being mid conversation w fire or someone in the base and just suddenly. disappearing.
entirely.
they all start poking around because that's very unusual, and cannot find him. firemite can't hear/sense him anywhere close by, maybe it's some vex magic thing? tyr pales a bit and says something about a totem, he told her about a totem a while back, before they'd met the other two.
she tells them everything she'd been told one evening by a particularly panicked aqua that had woken from a nightmare, which was. well. everything. mostly he was paranoid that this exactly was going to happen, and if it did, he wanted someone to know to look for him. she doesn't know where The Mansion was exactly, but he'd told her the vague whereabouts of it.
This becomes a Big Rescue Mission.
They're able to get help from some of the folks around to go with, and they go outpost raiding wheeee \o/ basically til they find out where aqua is
here it gets kinda vague on the details of what exactly was going on and what happens with the rescue, but they are successful :V
Aqua looks like absolute crap
He's finally got his totem back, I know he personally fights to get it back but not quite sure on deets of it. everybody's emotional (this is kinda a healing point for razor, because look, he didn't lose someone this time), they all express how much they worried about him and how glad they are to have found him, etc etc, n he mumbles something about yeah you wouldn't be able to stay on good terms with everyone without me right n everyone's like. huh?
no man they care about him and they have this Whole Conversation where things get properly aired out
tyr reminds him of the fact that she became his friend bc he offered her a drink at a server event, she'd been sat off by herself and he went up and offered a friendly face and nice socializing and they'd started hanging out after that, like. he's her friend before he's a vex.
i'm also imagining a moment where razor mentions that yeah it didn't matter if he didn't do anything for them but hanging out with em they'd wanna keep him around, they enjoy the friendship and his humor and everything
(this catches tyratone's attention)
so yEAH it's a biG huge ThingTM!!!! it's a Very Very Big Healing Point for aqua, and afterwards the group is very certain to make sure they're not talking over him and that they're giving his suggestions plenty of consideration and like!! making sure he doesn't feel left out!!! they care about him!!!!
His hels
So fun fact he gets two helsmits! Gee, bill
His second hels' story is very intertwined with razor's so i'll hold off on posting all the details about him til razor's post n i'll post abt em both together buT!!!! suffice to say he is a snobbish guy that is obsessed with getting people to listen to him and pay attention to him and think he's very important, and because he's also part vex, he's very good at that :V he becomes h!razor's sponsor in the coliseum as part of Hey Look At Me I'm Important
His FIRST hels is quite older!! He spawned in when aqua was in the mansion, coming from his hatred of his own self and of the fact that he wasn't "normal", so this first hels is a plain human!
he's got a very 'bad things happen to people who deserve it' kinda deal bc. how could he cope otherwise. he eventually visits with the order of fortune for a blessing (an order and goddess thought of by good friend @doyouknowthemossinman) and something about it piques his interest! something about it bugs him in a way that won't leave him alone!
eventually he ends up joining the order :V they're like all cats too so i thought it'd be funny to have one (1) token human in the midst
(ft. moss's cinder and ash!!)
his hels i think actualizes because of the order of fortune n like. Bad things happen sometimes n it's ok to accept that and sometimes u have bad luck but it can always be balanced out w good luck later or y'know smth along those lines
