I managed to get a third piece done for 'Terra Week 2024', but at what cost? 😅 I had this grandiose idea of drawing Terra facing Dragon Maleficent in Hollow Bastion, the likely scene before my entry-point in that dream (from my last post). It was all going well, I was doing Terra, and then I find out I won't be home for the ENTIRETY of tomorrow, so I've had to go all 'Quick Sketch Mode' for the rest of this and post it as close to sleep as possible.
So for 'Quick Mode', I've decided to do like a Station of Sorrow/Mirage Arena setting; but it's got my initials engraved in there to suggest which astral cord the battle stems from.
In relation to the idea itself and Terra: I thought it couldn't be a more suitable encounter as even though Terra sort of witnessed Xehanort's 'end' (psssing) in KH3. There was really no closure with Maleficent, and she was a major manipulation factor in Enchanted Dominion. So it feels like through the experiences that Terra has had, he now has the strength (and wisdom) to get back at Maleficent, who doesn't hesitate to give Terra a worthy ultimate form. Also serves as some good 'revenge' for how Maleficent used Terra's successor [Riku].
--- Perhaps I can post a close up of just Terra when I'm next on the PC; so we can at least see him good quality ---
In no relation to the drawing, I would also like to personally/etherically thank Terra. That guy has been bringing some miraculous experiences to my 2024.
Disclaimer: We know the gremlins got to the cables of the "official Terra Week" this year.
A/N: This is for Terra Week 2022!! You can find the event on Twitter.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Scar Tissue, Ch. 5
Even after being let go, Terra doesn’t get up. His eyes burn from tears. Swallowing is like stuffing brick down a thin, metal pipe. Naminé.
“Come on,” Riku whispers, pulling Terra by the elbow. Isa has already left for the manor. “Let’s find her.”
I’m sorry, Terra doesn’t say. Empty words for what he’s done.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Terra kicks over a padded armchair—as if a hole underneath would expose Naminé’s whereabouts—and scoffs. Empty. Its cushions bounce across the carpet, leaving puffs of dust in a trail. They’re searching this creaky manor for clues. So far, nothing has come up.
They’re here because Terra had said, “All I can think of… I pushed her through a door.”
“You don’t remember anything else?” Isa had said, glancing at the chandelier, in pieces.
“No.”
“But it is a part of you,” Isa said, rubbing his fighting arm. He still couldn’t move it well. “Can you not reconnect with it and glean information?”
It’s so little to ask of Terra yet it’s too much.
“Don’t egg him on,” Riku had said.
So they’re here, opening doors, checking behind curtains, in closets, uncovering every inch of space. The house has a tired history. There’s old paintings left behind, vases filled with withered flowers more delicate than paper, furniture in odd positions as though someone had already been here, doing their own search, years ago.
Worse is that the house has a dark history. It drips over the walls. Terra hates it here.
“Anything?” Riku calls from the kitchen. He’s peeked his head across the hall. Isa comes back from the foyer to see if there’s any news.
Terra throws books off a library shelf. They’re in a language he can’t read. “Nothing,” he grunts.
“Don’t worry.” There is anything but. “There’s still the second floor.”
Isa glares at Terra before returning to his post. He’s about to say something, but he thinks better of it.
That’s the way it has been this past hour—Isa on the precipice of expressing something to Terra. This search seems moot—if Naminé is indeed hiding here, she’d simply walk out and tell everyone she’s okay. A ghost in the house. She’d be a light with her white dress. The manor is so dark.
But they’re not looking for a real door here, are they?
On the second floor, Isa volunteers to search the eastern wing. Riku follows Terra to the west.
The Master bedroom has its own fireplace, the wood rotten and almost black. The walk-in closet is bare of clothes, and the bedsheets are faded. The tub in the restroom is dry, leaving brittle residue.
Terra tries the next door.
“This was her room,” Riku says softly when Terra turns the knob.
Inside are white walls. Almost pristine if it weren’t for the layer of dust and plaster. Terra runs his finger over the surface of the large table in the middle of the room—too long for one person. The dust is thinner here than all the others, making this room the most recently occupied. On the walls are faded paper drawings. Most of them, from the hard brush strokes, are of Sora. Terra can recognize Roxas in some, even Xion in one of them. Several notebooks are laid out here, too. Terra opens the first page—it’s of his armor. There was a time, in the Darkness, when he heard a voice call to him. Your friends, it told him. Your friends need you.
It was Naminé’s.
Terra sniffs. Two tears fall onto the page, smudging one of the armor’s ears.
“She was kept away in here for some time,” Riku says. He presses a fist onto the table. “I used to meet her.”
“Did you bring her sweets?”
“Sometimes. She preferred the company.”
A breeze flows in through the curtains, through a hole in the windowpane. A moth escapes the mansion using this passage. It’s not hard to imagine Naminé standing here, staring at the skyline beyond the forest into a world where she wasn’t allowed to venture, alone. Terra rubs the tears away but it worsens the crayon markings. Just another thing he’s ruined. He closes the notebook.
“I’m so sorry.”
Riku leans on the table, nearly sitting on it. “How long has this been happening?”
Terra joins him. “I nearly took Ven. I woke up in the middle of it.”
“And you had no idea where you were going to take him?”
Terra shakes his head and crosses his arms. “Come to think of it, I wonder if I was trying to do the same to Aqua.”
Together, they contemplate her drawings in silence. Naminé features herself in one of them, standing next to Kairi.
“You’re there,” Terra says, nodding to one that is unmistakably Riku.
“She gave most of my portraits to me.” Riku smiles.
Terra wants to promise that they’ll find her, no matter what it takes. But Terra hates the thought of breaking promises, unintentionally or otherwise. A narrow mirror sits in the corner of the room. Behind Terra are the eyes.
“There was a short time,” Riku says, “when I was experimenting with Ansem’s powers. He became a part of me, and for a while I had control over the Guardian.”
Terra bites his lip. It’s hot in the room, despite the breeze.
“What did you use the Guardian for?”
“Correction.” Riku smirks. “I used you to discipline Roxas.” He looks over to Terra. “Did you have any idea you were holding someone that looked like Ventus?”
“No.” Terra scoffs. “It’s not like I could see.”
Riku pauses. “I can’t remember the time when I first met the Guardian. I didn’t get the sense that I knew it before. One day, it was just there, like I had opened the front door and it invited itself in.” He sighs. “Before I knew it, it left, when I came into my own powers and realigned what my heart was all about.”
Terra’s lips quiver. “It really hurt.” He wiped his pants of dust. “Everything about being that thing hurt. I barely had my own thoughts. I would know a command, and I would perform it.”
“And if you didn’t follow the commands?”
“It would hurt more.” Terra sighs, and waves his arm in dismissal. “I don’t know how to describe it. Like being on fire all the time. It was easier to appease them. The moment of peace afterwards was worth it.” He pauses, and lowers his voice. “Then again, maybe not. Seems like it always came at an expense.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s not your fault. It was just another Heartless to you.”
“Does that mean that all Heartless hurt?”
“I couldn’t tell you.” Terra smiles. It slacks with the weight of too much fatigue.
Another pause, this time suffocating. “Do you think she’s hurting?”
Terra clears his throat. Suddenly, he couldn’t bear to look at her drawings. “I just wanted her safe.”
Isa steps into the room. When he looks over the drawings, he frowns. “We’re wasting our time.”
Riku stands up. “Let’s not give up. There’s one more place to check.”
In the basement, through a secret panel on the wall, is a back room full of what the others call computers, torn apart, bent, shattered into glass all over the floor. Good riddance. Terra doesn’t get the sense that these were used for any good.
“Is it possible Naminé was tucked away in a data world?” Riku asks. He attempts to turn on one of the computers. It doesn’t react.
“I don’t know what data means,” Terra says. He doesn’t miss the way Riku phrased the question: “tucked away” by an unspoken “something else” as though Terra didn’t have a hand in it.
“Fair enough.” Riku snorts.
“What now?” Isa asks.
“Well, I think we’d be walking in circles if we searched the woods, but I have an idea. Let’s go.”
Terra starts to follow, but Isa pulls him back by the arm. They wait until Riku is out of earshot.
“I’ll speak my mind.” Isa crosses his arms and studies Terra, as if digging for an answer to a question not yet asked. “I understand the hesitation to call forth your Darkness again, for fear of the consequences.”
“Well—”
“And I understand fully the shame of it.” In the pockets of his elbows, his hands twitch. “My weapon is a part of me.” He presses a hand over his chest. “When I hold it, it spreads numbness up through my arms, towards my heart, into my mind. There was a reason I was the Berserker of Organization XIII. I felt nothing otherwise.”
Terra hangs his head.
“It stays with me as a reminder. It gives me strength to know that I can live a normal, pleasant life now, where I can never feel that way again.” Isa leans forward to catch Terra’s attention. “I’ve seen the Heartless come back to you. Why reject it when you need it most right now?”
Terra swallows.
In a whisper, Isa says, “I also understand the feeling of not being worthy enough to have it.”
“Of having these powers or having a pleasant life?”
“Why exclude one from the other?”
After a moment, Isa leaves him when Terra doesn’t reply.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It takes a back and forth between Isa—
“Cut the nonsense. Engage him in a fight—”
And Riku—
“Naminé wasn’t the one fighting him. Neither were Aqua and Ventus—”
—before they settle on an agreement, and suggest that Terra should sit down on a soft patch of grass, close his eyes, and relax. It’s a lot to ask for.
Terra fidgets. He clogs himself with a cycle of thoughts.
Is she safe? Is she safe? Is she safe?
It’s my fault.
What are they thinking of me?
Every once in a while, Riku comes to check on him. “How’s it going?”
Same as the last five minutes.
“I’m still trying.”
Terra feels Riku set his weight next to him. Terra wishes he didn’t. Terra also wishes Riku didn’t ask the question, “Can you at least tell me she’s okay?”
Terra doesn’t know how to get that answer. In a moment that lasts a second, Terra sees the black door. Closed, always closed. A second gone, he’s back in Twilight Town. A second later, the black door, far away. He opens his eyes.
Isa keeps himself at a distance, rotating his right wrist and flexing his fingers.
I don’t know.
I’m so tired of not knowing.
Voices from the heart speak so quietly that they’re easy to doubt. Is Naminé asleep? (yes), is she safe? (yes… maybe not), will she wake up? (depends). Does that mean Terra knows what’s going on with her? Can he say for certain?
He needs something tangible, a real door that he can open so he can wake her. Right now, he’s at the cliffside, barely a step away and no tools to fly. Coming near an answer is like giving himself in to the Darkness, all over again. Terra is afraid of shutting off the light. He’s afraid he won't want to turn it on again.
Riku leaves his side.
Terra thinks of Aqua and Ven. She must be forgoing all of her chores, stuck in a worried cycle that won’t leave her alone, wandering the castle halls with a mug of tea in her hands, going cold. Ven must be quiet, dealing with her mood, fiddling for things to do in random rooms. Terra’s heart lurches and lulls. It’s subtle, when the monster begins to pluck it. In the silence, Terra can feel his skin being caressed, soft enough to wonder if he’s making it up.
Terra waits to be taken over. He’s waiting for nothing to happen.
He goes back to Aqua and Ven, and how worried they’d be if—
Something clicks. They’ll be safe, says a confident voice, as small as a lint of dust, with the assurance of a mountain surviving an earthquake, like that of a father’s assuring his son. They’ll be safe, I’ll make sure of it.
So… he turns off the light. He dips.
The Station of Awakening is a far-fetched idea to most Keyblade wielders. It’s common to hear from others that it’s a figment of the imagination, a far-off memory distorted by time, a dream where they can’t quite remember the details. It takes a lot of sinking—like the fall to Darkness, almost exactly, by letting the body go and hoping that someone friendly will catch you.
“Terra?”
Don’t interrupt me.
He falls.
He feels a hand on his shoulder, shaking him, and Terra (someone) smacks it away.
It’s a door. It’s just a door. Let me get to it.
“Isa! Come here.”
Be quiet.
He’s almost there. All he needs to do—
The door shuts and locks itself. He twists the knob. Someone on the other side is trapping it with a fist.
“All I need to do is knock,” Terra says out loud.
“Did you say something?”
Terra bangs on the door.
“Something is wrong with him.”
“Be mindful,” Isa says. “It’s coming.”
Bang bang bang bang.
Terra opens his eyes to Riku’s concerned expression, crouched in front of him, and Isa standing in the background, looking down on him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It’s beautiful, the sky of stars. A blanket of glitter, soft, like fleece on a winter night, like silk on a humid summer evening, twinkling with the gentleness of kissing piano keys with fingertips that it barely plays a note. A Darkness so calming, the deepest night where the deepest sleep can settle into the body, without light to disturb or strain.
Terra reaches up to touch them but they’re too far away.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Terra gags. He’s on his hands and knees, keeled over. He’s nauseous enough to retch but his stomach is empty. Near him, his friends groan. Isa is caressing his back from soreness. Riku is holding his head. It’s as though they’ve been in battle.
The door is still locked. The Guardian is keeping him out on purpose.
“No more,” Terra mutters. He summons Earthshaker.
“What are you doing?” Isa rasps. He picks himself up on the shoulders, his eyes widening. “You’d lock a part of yourself away?”
“I’m willing.”
“This is disaster.”
“Not if I want it—”
“And if it disagrees?”
To shit with what the Guardian wants. “It doesn’t belong to me!”
Terra flips the Keyblade at the hilt and points it towards himself. The last time he did this, it wasn’t so bad, he tells himself.
Isa reaches out. “Don’t—”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When he was a child, Terra used to draw stick figures without eyes.
Eraqus was concerned. Children destined for the Keyblade were subjects for odd dreams, shifting realities, visions within visions, symbols without meanings. Terra called them friends. He told Terra not to worry.
When Ventus joined the family, he did the same—he drew figures without eyes. He continued doing this until Eraqus told him to stop.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It feels empty without Terra here. The sun is vibrant but the light feels bland. All the chores are finished. Without Terra to bother, there’s not much else to do. Aqua isn’t up to grading his essays, isn’t up to pranks, and isn’t up to jokes. Ven stuffs another (third) fudge cupcake into his mouth as he struts down the eastern hallway.
Ven passes the door that leads to the cellar, and pointedly ignores it. He hasn’t been to the cellar in five years (minus the twelve he was asleep). Not since Terra told him there was a ghost living there.
Aqua hasn’t said much since Terra left. Something very disturbing is going on with him, he needs to figure this out on his own, etc etc… Ven wishes she could see that he knows more than what she’s letting up.
Ven had asked, “How will we know when he needs our help?”
When, not if.
Aqua had smiled, and it looked unnatural. She’s supposed to look happy, or at least at peace. “When he needs us, he’ll give us a signal.”
What sounds like thunder hitting the castle jerks Ven off from his thoughts. Not thunder, but thuds of heavy footsteps. He turns over and expects to see… well, someone wearing armor. He doesn’t have his activated, so it must be Aqua walking about the castle—for reasons that would only define her as slightly paranoid, since nothing can hurt the Land of Departure anymore. Ven keeps his Keyblade near his fingertips, waiting for the slightest summon, just in case.
The thuds sound muffled. They’re not on this floor.
A crash—the knocking over of plaster and metal. Ven nearly jumps, and squeezes his cupcake so tightly that it spills over to the floor.
The cellar door bursts open.
Ven drops what remains of his cupcake and runs. Behind him, the grandfather clock knocks over and crashes onto the floor.
~*~*~*~*~*~
There’s not a lot to say except that she’s prayed over and over again for the same things.
Aqua kneels before her Master’s Keyblade, now adorned with a fresh flower wreath and their Wayfinders draped over its hilt. Over time, she stops to pay her respects less and less, his death no longer a raw chasm that swallows her. But when she does, she sits cross-legged and folds her hands together. The days have crawled since Terra has left. What plays in her mind over and over is the image of him stepping out of the castle with a morose smile on his face, of him barking and turning his back on her in Radiant Garden twelve years ago. She asks the Master for advice, but her heart only leaves her with:
Trust him.
Or,
Be careful. Follow him.
Both seem correct.
Sometimes, she’s not sure what memory of her Master would be real to his image in death. Is he more forgiving as a ghost? Or does he worry more?
Aqua wishes she had the mind to tell Terra to take his Wayfinder just in case.
“AQUA!!!”
She jolts out of her meditation and stands up.
Ven scrambles down the terrace. He nearly trips, yelling “IT’S THE THING” and “IT’S COMING” and “WE GOT THE SIGNAL.”
When he reaches her, he’s hyperventilating, clasping for breath from his run-for-life-or-death. He throws himself behind her and guards himself with her sash. “It’s here,” he rasps.
From the entrance to the castle walks out Terra’s armor.
“Terra?”
Ven scoffs. “That is not him.”
Her face ices over. “He left that here?”
Ven’s expression is serious. He grips her sash tighter.
The armor marches down the terrace and onto the forecourt where they keep the Master’s memorial, over a cliff that holds the audience to the mountains beyond. The armor stops, still as a statue left behind in the castle, as if someone had dragged it out and left it here. Moments pass. Nothing else happens, as though this outcrop, at their feet, has been its destination.
“What’s it waiting for?” Ven whispers.
Aqua steps forward. It doesn’t move. She’s looked at the face of its visor so often that she almost expects it to take the helmet off and see Terra’s face right behind it.
“Terra?” she says, even though she knows it won’t answer. Her heart still drops when it doesn’t. “Can you take us to him?”
What makes it worse is the armor’s casual access to Earthshaker. Terra shouldn’t be able to share that without express permission. The armor summons it into a glider.
“We have to follow it,” Aqua says, her voice shaky.
And though Ven hesitates to go with her, though Ven whines about what they’re going to find, she knows he knows they must. Terra has been separated into pieces again.
Day 3: Friendship. Sora wants to become Terra’s friend, but Terra asks Sora for his forgiveness rather than friendship. Though he’s unsure if he can ever make up for the pain that he caused the one boy who has done more for the light of the worlds than anyone else.
Notes: I totally forgot about Terra Week until today and I feel so bad but here’s Day 1′s prompt. I’m sorry it’s late. Day 2 and hopefully Day 3 are incoming.
Aqua led Terra into the café, sitting him down at a table while she went and grabbed them both something to eat.
Olette took in the blank look on his face and his arm in a sling and gasped, “Astrals, Aqua! What happened?”
Aqua sighed, “Ven and Vanitas were messing around by the pool like idiots,” she glared over at the two who were now sitting at the table by Terra, shame written all over their faces. “They were about to fall in and Terra caught them, but in the process, he slipped, fell in and pulled his shoulder out of place.”
Olette shook her head, “I’m sorry to hear. Is he okay?”
Aqua shrugged, “Right now he’s doped up on pain meds so he’s fine.” She turned and headed back to the table, narrowing her eyes at the twins, now having a quiet argument on either side of Terra. She looked at the brunet, who was currently staring down at the table, brows furrowed and decidedly less loopy looking. “Terra, did the pills wear off?”
The twins stopped arguing, looking towards Terra with concern. “’S'okay…” the word came out slurred and barely understandable and Aqua held in a sigh. ‘Always a martyr.’
She pulled the medication out of her bag, shaking out two pills before sliding him a drink, “Here, the doctor said to take them when you’re in pain.”
Terra shot her a weak glare, seeming to want to argue but not having the strength for it. “Fine,” he grabbed the pills from her waiting hand and took them quickly, gulping down the tea Aqua had gotten him and grimacing at the taste of the bitter pills.
Immediately, Ventus and Vanitas began talking at once.
“We’re so sorry, Terra!”
“It was all our fault, well mostly Ven's.”
A glare shared between the two, “More like mostly Vani's fault!”
Their argument restarted louder than before until Terra stopped them with a hand held up between them. “Guys, ‘s'fine. ‘S'over now. Go…”
Both twins sighed. “Right. Sorry again, Terra.” Ven gave him a hug on his good side and Vanitas patted his arm as the got up and left.
Terra sighed, putting his head down on the table. Aqua snorted, “You didn’t want them getting hurt because you didn’t want to deal with the whining, right?”
She took the slight head jiggle as an affirmative and chuckled. She couldn’t have handled it either.
Summary: Terra struggles to hide it from his friends. He struggles to tell the truth.
Read on AO3
A/N: This is for Terra Week 2022!! You can find the event on Twitter. Also, thank you for the support on this fic!! the comments I’m getting are blowing me away, and I’m so grateful. <3
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Scar Tissue, Ch. 2
Terra sits on cold, concrete floor. The cellar. Shelves of wine are stored here, and here they discard artifacts too heavy to drag into the attic, such as statues which used to guard a garden that doesn’t exist anymore. Chests of old swords. Scrap metal that Aqua has used for her projects (including the Wayfinders; their birth place is here). Surrounding him in a circle are open books, some in the ancient language from Scala. Terra can gleam certain words. He flips through pages for glints of chained letters that he recognizes.
Standing in front of him is his armor, completed with its cape. Sunlight cuts across its barreled chestplate through a narrow awning near the ceiling, the only source of light in this dank room.
Xehanort did something wrong when he stabbed Terra’s body with the Keyblade. One of these books must have the reason why.
But most of them repeat the same thing. To raise a Keyblade against another human being is taboo, unthinkable, evil. The effects of directly affecting a heart are devastating. It could leave an empty shell. It could engulf the person in Darkness. It could dissolve them into a stupor, never to be fully human again. Terra picks up one more book—Affairs of the Heart, translated, so used that the leather casing is peeling and the author’s name, the Master of Masters, is barely legible—and finds nothing else on the subject.
Just the typical:
May thy heart be’est thy guiding key.
And the thought-provoking:
Less of heart, less of pow’r, lest thee locketh the doth’r.
Useless. Master Eraqus’s library does not have variety.
Xehanort had attempted to lock Terra’s heart away for good, if not break the tether that inevitably bound them together when they shared the body. And he failed.
Terra had chalked it up to his own willpower not to let go.
So what’s left?
Terra drops Affairs of the Heart on his lap, and stares at his armor. On the reflection of the chestplate are the eyes staring back. They never blink. Last night, after waking up in Aqua’s bedroom, he ran back to his own room and locked himself in. This morning, he found himself barefoot in the squash patch. Something must be done.
Perhaps the point is exactly that Terra didn’t want to let go of his heart, and never had all these years. He never willingly gave up his body. His armor lived, his Guardian lived, he lived. He lingered.
These books assume the victim of a Keyblade wielder would also resist. It’s a natural reaction against someone meant to cause you harm.
But what if Terra is willing?
The Master would have killed Terra himself if he caught wind of this. But the Master isn’t here.
Terra is crazy.
And he can’t—shouldn’t—go through with this. He has to think about it more.
Terra climbs the stairs, on his way back to smooth marble and tile floors.
He leaves his armor behind—not a common decision when the armor should be stored inside his heart. It would definitely worry his friends if they stumble upon it.
Luckily, no one comes down here anymore.
~*~*~*~*~*~
When he was a child, Terra was once so angry with Eraqus for snatching a fantasy book away that he hid inside the armor that belonged to an ancient Master, long since rusty and unused because that Master was long since dead. There he simmered, and he boiled, and refused to come out. The armor stood in the hall that led to the western tower, and Eraqus had passed by three times, noticing no foul play.
The hours ran into night, and Terra only creeped out of the helmet when he realized Master Eraqus had been crying, looking for him.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Terra is in the attic. Dust snows into his hair. The attic is full of outdated books, ugly paintings, old journals from people Terra has never met. Anything that belonged to Eraqus wouldn’t be up here.
But Terra notices something: these episodes happen when he’s alone. Near sleep. Reading a book in an empty room. Cutting meat with no one to share it with. Some days are worse than others, but so far, with his friends by his side, Terra is more grounded, less in his head, less lost. The more he spends time with them, the more he remembers his day.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Terra finds Ven gazing out the window in the lounge, as still as a tree on a day when the wind doesn’t blow. Ven shouldn’t be this way. Ven should be enjoying what’s left of his youth, to smile, to laugh.
“Ven?”
Ven glances over his shoulder, distracted. “It feels like I’m missing something.”
Vanitas. Terra sighs. Neither of them have done anything to deserve what’s been handed to them these last several years.
“Me, too,” Terra says, mostly-true. He’s missing pieces of time.
On a coffee table in the middle of the room is a stack of textbooks. These were some of the last the Master had assigned before they left home.
Terra snorts. “You’re procrastinating.”
Like the swing of a pendulum, Ven turns and his mood shifts—more grounded, more present, as if the lounge is a tangible thing. Either we’re all a little crazy, or we’re each other’s medicine.
Ven groans. “Don’t make me finish them.”
“You still gotta do it.”
Ven slumps on an armchair. “Says Master Aqua. You have no power over me.”
“I have the power of telling her what’s going on.”
“You smell worse than a turd.”
“I love you, too.” Terra ruffles his hand through Ven’s hair, rough enough to ruin the style.
Ven slaps his hand away and frantically massages his hair into standing up again, the gel strong and pointing the wrong direction. “What are you up to?”
Terra shrugs. “Nothing.” A whole morning wasted.
“Come on, it’s more interesting than what I’m doing.”
“Cleaning my armor is fun?”
“Relative to these”—Ven kicks the coffee table, and the books shuffle but don’t topple over—“yes.”
“I bet future Master Ventus won’t assign essays to his students.”
“They’re torture devices.”
“How are they going to learn?”
“I beat them up. They’ll have to grow up eventually.” Ven leans forward and pouts at the books. His brows furrow like he’s just realized something, and he drags his attention away from them. “Why are you cleaning your armor anyway?”
Their armor will shine so long as their hearts stay strong. By lying about cleaning, Terra implied that his heart is darkening, or in need of help.
“No reason.” Terra breathes. “Just thinking about the past and I wanted to take a look at it.” He rests his hand on his hip. “I can’t believe it was awake all this time.”
“Oh man, it was so cool.” Ven pumps fists in the air. “The way it slammed into Xehanort to protect us, and drove him away.” He slacked his arms. “I wish I could’ve spent more time with it.”
“It just… came to your rescue?”
“Yeah.” Ven contemplates, chin on his hand. “I think it could sense our danger. Or maybe it sensed Xehanort and hated him so much that it had to come. It definitely had a mind of its own, and it was definitely a badass.”
“Huh.”
“I wish my own armor could do that.”
Terra at first says nothing. Ven doesn’t need a lecture or a reminder. He means it as, I wish my own armor could do that—without consequences. “Maybe that’s something we could figure out,” Terra says.
“What?”
“I mean—” Stars. It came out completely wrong. “There’s so much we don’t know. We could discover a lot of things that can help people.”
Ven glares at him. Without consequences. Without ruining your heart or someone else’s. “Is something going on?”
“No.” Terra slips his hands into his pockets. “Wishful thinking. Sometimes I feel helpless when I think of everything Xehanort got away with.” Ven doesn’t say anything back. “You know?”
Ven chews on his lip, ruminating on something to say. Vanitas is one of those everything’s that Xehanort got away with. “Whatever. Aqua is looking for you, by the way. She’s in the Master’s study.”
“Got it.” Terra bolts out of the room, and doesn’t look back, doesn’t read Ven’s expression, doesn’t want to.
~*~*~*~*~*~
When Terra enters the Master’s study—now a mess, it never used to be like that—Aqua is folding over some robes.
“Are you okay?” she asks when she notices him. She pulls one more robe from a pile draped over a loveseat. The Master’s study was his favorite room, and where he had spent most of his time. He had everything he needed here. Files kept in his desk drawers. Books labeled and in order on the shelves behind the leather chair. A globe that mapped out the stars of their universe by the window. A leftover journal still in its place on the desk, next to a dried quill. The fireplace. A wardrobe, now open. A rug, a couch, a coffee table.
“I’m fine. Why do you ask?” It’s a dumb question. Aqua reads him best.
She looks at him as if to confirm it. I know you. You can’t hide from me.
“I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
Aqua rolls her lips inward, and nods. She folds the clothes with reverence, bending them at the seams and ironing her hand across the fabric, discouraging wrinkles. “I do, too, sometimes.” She smiles like the ignition of a lamp. “Let me distract you.” After placing down the folded robe, she pulls out another one with a burgundy trim. “What do you think?”
The robe is made of satin, sturdy enough for a fight instead of fine silk, and distinguished enough for a night out. “It’s nice.”
“It’s yours,” she tempts. “If you want it.”
“I think it would be big on me.”
“Of course it would. I’m taking this one.” She plucks one with blue trim, which at best would drag on the floor if she wears it. “You know I have skills.”
“Right.”
The robe is limp in his hands. It smells of stale, humid wood. Nothing smells like the Master anymore, his leftover cologne in his restroom having turned acidic over the years it waited for him to come back.
A mirror stands in the corner of the study. The eyes glow above Terra’s shoulder, watching him try the robe on. It’s long, down to his ankles, the sleeves over-ballooned and the seams sloping off his biceps. Aqua takes measurements at his hips, writing down notes of how much she will have to tailor. She doesn’t see the eyes in the mirror—neither does Ven. She pinches the excess around his arms and pins it back.
The alterations don’t look half-bad. If the Master were here, he’d be proud of handing it down to his first and oldest Keyblade wielder. Yet, the entire ordeal leaves Terra feeling like a fraud, playing dress-up, when it’s all changed and there’s something wedged into his heart that doesn’t belong. A regression. A black door. Something is wrong and he has to fix it.
“I found this really cute one with green trim,” Aqua says through the pins in her mouth. She’s measuring the length of the sleeve. “I want to give it to Ven.”
“You’re better off buying one that’s child-sized.”
She slaps his forearm. She’s smiling.
This is peace. He really should be more grateful. He really should be more careful. They had risked their lives to bring him whole again, and thinking about forging a part of his heart to metal is spitting on that.
“Listen,” he says, as Aqua pins the other side of his shoulder. He’s cold. “I know I’ve been acting weird lately.”
Her jaw hardens. She doesn’t deny.
“I’ve been seeing…”
He doesn’t know how to explain it. What do you see when you look in the mirror? I forget where I am. Something is controlling me. I don’t know what it wants. I don’t know what’s behind the black door.
Aqua smoothes the fabric across his chest, and tugs on the hem to see if it fits correctly. She pulls the pins from her lips. “You know you can tell me anything.”
“I was in your room last night.”
Aqua jerks her head up.
“What does that mean?”
She’s concerned. His heart pounds. It pounds louder. Suddenly he feels alone, a speck under a magnifying glass. It’s cold. He can’t hold the door by himself. He’s not holding any door.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Terra stands closer to the black door, can see the grooves in the wood, the paint layered over the carved floral details. He could reach out, and touch the knob.
What does it mean?
Terra turns the knob.
Terra opens the door.
Behind it is a void, deeper than ink, darker than shadow. The eyes are not waiting for him there. There is no movement.
What does that mean?
Terra breathes. Something breathes with him, from behind, and it scares him and he slams the door shut.
~*~*~*~*~*~
He wakes up to pain.
Terra groans, his back sharp and sore. He’s slugged onto the Master’s mahogany desk, which has been pushed off its center like he’s been hurled against it. Robes spew all over the carpet. They’ll get wrinkled this way. He moves to sit up. Papers fall on his head.
Aqua is prepped with her Keyblade drawn, her breath heavy as though she’s been pulling weight. The yellow eyes sit behind her in the mirror, closer as if to cross the glass. If they had fingers, would they be able to touch her?
“What was that?” she demands.
Terra doesn’t know. He does. He’s locked one door and opened another, and invited it out.
Summary: They're not safe anymore. Terra knows he has to leave.
Read on AO3
A/N: This is for Terra Week 2022!! You can find the event on Twitter.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Scar Tissue, Ch. 3
Terra doesn’t know.
Ven charges into the study. “I heard a crash.” He notices Terra sprawled on the floor, clothes in heaps and books thrown open with bent pages. “What’s going on?”
Aqua tightens her grip on Rainfell. She holds her other hand out like a barrier between herself and Terra. “You were staring at the mirror,” she tells Terra.
“What? Seriously, Aqua—” Ven interjects.
“You wouldn’t hear me or react to anything I said. I saw it in your eyes, and I knew. It wasn’t you.”
Terra is silent. Ven gapes.
“What aren’t you telling us?” Aqua continues, her voice trembling. Terra can only imagine, after trying to strangle her when Xehanort took over. After his Guardian attacked her. After they fought and fought. She doesn’t want to lose him. He doesn’t want to lose her either.
“I don’t know,” Terra near-whispers. He stands up and slips the robe off his shoulders. One of the pins ticks at his shirt. I see things. “I don’t know.” I don’t remember. “What do you want me to say?” Something is coming for me.
“Xehanort?”
I don’t know. “No.”
Aqua purses her lips, her face as hard as stone, her eyes watering.
Ven snaps. “Say anything else, why don’t you?”
“Most of the time, nothing happens,” Terra says, reaching for words like grasping at thin, limp straws. He’s supposed to stay grounded when he’s around his friends, supposed to be safe. Yet now, among company, he’s alone. “I’m still inquiring.”
Aqua scrutinizes him. “You’re still inquiring? You don’t even sound like yourself.”
Terra groans. “I mean, I’m still figuring this out.”
Aqua tsks and storms off. Ven has to step aside or else be pushed.
Terra sighs, and the sound makes Ven flinch back.
“Sorry.” Ven shakes his head, but he doesn’t take that step forward. He stays back, a conspicuous distance between the two of them.
“It’s fine,” Terra says, his throat thick.
“What if it gets worse?”
Terra doesn’t want to think about it. “I need to talk to her.”
He runs, following her down the hall. He passes windows where the sun is warm and unaware, transforming stained glass into colors that dance across the wall. No black. Aqua turns and heads toward the dining room.
But Terra forgets where he is, and he goes somewhere else.
~*~*~*~*~*~
He’s back at the cellar.
So cool, so badass. There for them, there by association, by a need to protect or by a need to rectify the memory of what had happened, to right the wrong.
Something is wrong with him.
“I want you to be there for them,” he tells the armor, his lips dry. “In case something happens to me.”
It might hurt.
It’s just a little piece.
Fuck it.
Terra summons his Keyblade. It does hurt.
~*~*~*~*~*~
He finds her in the kitchen. Aqua is washing dishes, scrubbing them too hard. Soap suds grow so much that they spill over the sink. She sniffs.
“I didn’t mean to keep anything from you.”
She says nothing.
“I wanted to see how far it went. I don’t remember the times I space out.”
“I wouldn’t call it spacing out,” she bites. She doesn’t bother to look at him, rubbing and rubbing like meditation, giving herself something to do. Terra wouldn’t dare take it away from her or ask her to look at him. She needs this.
Terra stands by her side, digging into the soap suds and wandering for something to clean. He takes a rag discarded on the counter and scours a plate, then hands it to her. She takes it wordlessly, sliding it into the rack. The occasional splashing of water and clinking of clean porcelain snaps the silence into pieces.
Aqua inhales sharply, and slides down to the floor. Terra catches her elbow and goes down with her. They’re both covered in bubbles. The sink is still on. Aqua holds her head high, blinking back tears. “I wish you had said something earlier,” she says with a low voice.
“I really didn’t want to worry you. You don’t deserve it.” It’s not a good enough answer. “It’s been happening really quickly, and—” It’s not a good enough answer. “I know I’m being selfish, keeping it to myself.”
“But you’re supposed to feel safe with me.”
“I am.”
“Then why don’t you feel safe enough to talk?”
At first, Terra says nothing. “That’s what you think?”
“I—I just want to keep the family together.”
Silence. “It’s not that. It really isn’t. The point is to be safe with me.”
Aqua deflates, picking at her soapy fingers. “What is next?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay,” she says sharply. She lifts her knees and stands up. Terra stays on the floor, deflated. He knows what her tone means. “I think Ven and I should take turns sleeping, until we can figure out what’s happening. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be alone.” She turns off the sink. “I guess I don’t think it’s good for any of us to be alone. Was there anything you saw? Or dreamed?”
“I opened a door,” Terra says to himself.
Aqua hears him. “Maybe we can find a resource. We can always go to Yen Sid, see what this door means. If it’s open, we’ll need to find a way to lock it…”
She continues on like this, swimming for ways to fix things for Terra, throwing straws in the sky to see which one clicks, which one is the right answer. He can’t bear to see the way she scans the kitchen as if there’s a tool here that would solve everything, can’t bear to see her march through the castle to call Ven’s name so they can slam their heads together for a plan. A plan. Terra doesn’t know what to do.
~*~*~*~*~*~
It’s night. Aqua is supposed to “babysit.” She excuses herself to the restroom (“I’ll be right back”; “Just a little while”; “Wait for me” —how many times will she be excusing herself before she finally goes?). Terra will watch Ven while she’s gone, who’s snoring in his bed. Terra sits on the carpet, leaning against the mattress, listening to stuttered, deep breaths.
Everything moves so slowly.
~*~*~*~*~*~
………..
No.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Terra stands over Ven’s bed—it’s empty.
What am I doing?
Ven is cradled in his arms, deep in sleep, as though Terra was meticulous in picking him up.
Where was I taking him?
He shudders.
What was I going to—
Terra shakes his head and snaps himself out of it. Enough is enough. There is one thing he can do, and it’s going to upset Aqua, but it’s time. He gently lays Ven back down, covers him with the blanket, apologizes, and shuts the bedroom door behind him.
Terra doesn’t need to take anything with him, except a change of clothes and a toothbrush. He almost wants to tell her what just happened, but she shouldn’t have to worry—well, truthfully, he can’t stop Aqua from worrying, it’s part of her charm. But he can at least give her a sense of peace. When he walks, he does so deliberately, planting his feet so he doesn’t make noise.
Of course, Aqua knows him best. By the time he reaches the main entrance, she catches up to him.
“Please don’t do this,” she asks softly.
Terra grips the door handle. His eyes trace the golden frames that outline the doors. “I want to figure this out on my own. I don’t want you in the crosshairs. Can you respect that?”
“You’ve turned your back on me before. Please,” she whispers. “Don’t do this to me again.”
He doesn’t want to look at her. It’s going to stop him.
Be strong.
Terra smiles at her. She’s crying.
“Then I won’t turn my back,” he says with a brittle voice. Her eyes are red, her cheeks lined with tears. Terra wants to step forward, and wipe them away.
Be strong.
Instead, he pushes his back against the door. It opens.
He keeps her in his line of sight so it doesn’t break.
She takes one step toward him.
He’s ruining her.
Be strong.
He smiles one more time: See you later without words. Aqua disappears in shadow when he slips through the doorway, swallowed by a Dark Corridor.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Behind the black door are eyes.
“I know you.”
He leaves the door open.
~*~*~*~*~*~
When he was a child, Terra once swung his wooden Keyblade so forcefully that it decapitated one of Aqua’s dolls. She was six, and she was crying.
He had glued the head back on. But after his surgery, it could no longer turn its face.
“Look, it’s a zombie now,” he told her.
She cried even harder.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The first person he texts is Isa.
In the hallway that leads into Isa’s apartment hangs a mirror.
“The couch is spacious and comfortable,” Isa says, weary from lack of sleep. Terra can hear it in his voice. “You can stay however long you like.”
“Thank you for having me.”
Isa crosses his arms, and points to Terra’s shoes in a silent request to remove them. Terra obliges. “I admit I find myself to be wary, considering what you’ve told me.” He eyes Terra crown to feet, as if measuring how menacing of a threat has walked into his home.
“So far, nobody’s gotten hurt.”
“So far,” Isa repeats. “I agree that seeing Naminé would be your best plan of action.”
Terra bites his lip. In the mirror are the eyes. They’re larger now. “I hate bothering Naminé.”
“But you loathe to bother your closest friends more.”
“I don’t mean it that way—”
“I know.” Isa smirks, amused. “I am also curious. And I certainly do not mind a runaway monster in my home.”
Terra snorts, and nods in silent, grateful acknowledgment. “Thanks,” he mutters. “By the way, do you see anything in the mirror?” Isa raises his eyebrows, and Terra specifies it a little more. “Besides you and me?”
Isa studies the mirror, his arms weaving tighter across his chest. Terra gets the sense that there is something there, a light of recognition in Isa’s eyes.
“What a preposterous question.” Isa massages his eyes, groaning. “It’s late. I should go back to bed.” He opens a broom closet, where he pulls out a fleece blanket and lays it in the middle of the couch. It’s wide enough to accommodate several people. “We have a long day tomorrow. Get some rest, and please don’t knock unless it is absolutely necessary.”
“Thank you,” Terra says, his head down.
He doesn’t miss how Isa locks his bedroom door behind him, barricading Terra out. Terra sits on the couch, and runs his clammy palms against each other.
His Gummiphone pings.
Aqua
Ven is still asleep.
She is trying to make up reasons to talk.
Terra
I think someone else should go to bed
Terra stands up and walks through the apartment. It’s tidy, as though Isa doesn’t own any belongings besides furniture. Terra wonders if there’s dishes in the cupboards. There are, spotless. Terra would have preferred to make tea, but Isa’s selection—black tea, poppy seed, chamomile—sound gross. No berries. No spices. No choice of mints.
Aqua
You’re ok?
Terra
I promise I am
GO TO SLEEP
Or I’ll come back and kick you in the face
Terra should make coffee instead, but the urge is more a habit, an irrational fear of sleeping when being awake doesn’t actually protect him either. He throws the idea out—maybe he’s bored. Maybe he’s anxious. It’s too late to consume calories anyway.
Aqua doesn’t text back. Maybe he said the wrong thing.
Terra
You in bed?
Aqua
I promise I am
Come back and I’ll kick YOU in the face
<3
Terra plops onto the couch and covers himself with the blanket, tossing the Gummiphone onto the coffee table. It’s not so bad, staring at the fan’s blades losing themselves in a spiral.
Summary: It only feels like you’re dying because you’re still alive.
Read on AO3
A/N: This is for Terra Week 2022!! You can find the event on Twitter.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Scar Tissue, Ch. 6
The armor takes them to Twilight Town. They soar above the skyline where chimney smoke rises over rooftops. It’s midday, but the sun is setting like it’s evening. The ocean on the other side of the city is painted orange. Street lamps make the city look like a city of fairies. The armor takes them beyond the city limits where they hover over tree canopies. It takes them to a clearing, where they see Terra on his knees, his head hanging up to the sky in a stupor, and a black mass fighting Riku and Isa.
~*~*~*~*~*~
When he was a child, Terra learned to read the stars.
Now, he’s not sure he remembers their language.
A soft voice, a pleasant little one,
more than one,
then two,
then three,
now many,
songs in twinkling light and
sleep at night.
Can he please, can he please have one?
He reaches, he can’t. He reaches, he can’t, too far away for a touch.
Can he please, can he please have a little light to keep all for himself, for all night?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“There!” Ven points. Aqua’s already noticed, quiet in her shock. Terra looks dazed and removed from this reality, with an empty expression. He’s not moving.
Aqua dispels her armor and jumps off her glider, transforming it back into Rainfell. She slashes the Guardian across the chest before she lands.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A shooting star slices past him.
Can he please, can he please…?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Aqua places herself between the Guardian and Terra’s body. She summons a barrier to protect him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Fireworks of stardust glitter in the distance.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Ven hurries to her side, Wayward Wind ready in his hand. “What’s the plan?”
Aqua takes a breath. Riku and Isa are tag teaming: Riku at the front, distracting the Guardian with blows to the face; Isa from behind with heavy slams. It’s only when the Guardian hides itself in the ground that they get disoriented, when it bursts back up with sneaky surprises. Terra’s armor retaliates, stringing fierce strikes to keep the Guardian low to the ground.
The Guardian’s tail stretches long across the grass, trailing right to Terra’s body.
“We have to sever the ties,” Aqua says. She inhales, and stabs the ground with her Keyblade, over the shadows. Ven follows her cue.
The Guardian roars and dodges Riku’s next attack, coming at Aqua and Ven with its hands outstretched.
“Get ready,” Aqua calls.
A rumble in the earth dislodges her. She steadies her feet. The sound of something boiling builds up from behind her.
“We’ve attracted the Inferno,” Isa says through gritted teeth.
A tall, barrel-chested, sharp-horned Heartless with flames for a mane and a red scarf appears in the clearing. With a heart-shaped cavity wedged into the center of its chest, it reminds Aqua of the Guardian, angry and resentful. It swings one of its long, wide cleavers and the earth trembles again. Terra loses his odd posture and falls over to his side as though he’s unconscious.
“I’ll take it on,” Ven says, transforming his Keyblade into his glider and flying up and over.
The Inferno fixates its target on him.
Aqua charges in for the attack to distract it from Ven.
It blocks her with one cleaver. The other is pointed to the sky. It strikes.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A falling star, sloping down in an arc.
He catches it in his hand. He gets to keep it.
The other stars in the sky, far away and far by years, burst into clouds of dust and rain on him.
He gets to put it in his pocket.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Ven!”
Ven has disappeared into the Guardian’s grip, its fist enclosing over him and then opening with emptiness like a magician’s trick.
Does it mean its touch is a void of some sort?
Terra’s armor aims for the Guardian.
Riku and Isa set their sights on the Inferno.
Aqua kneels and shakes Terra’s shoulders. “It’s got Ven,” she cries. “Wake up. Ven is gone.”
The Guardian dodges the armor’s attacks with speed and frantic avoidance, as though it’s allergic and can’t get near.
The Inferno has thrown Isa into the thicket. It sends a dark shockwave across the ground, aiming for Terra. Aqua’s barrier breaks. She scrambles to build up another one and block the attack—just in time.
“Terra,” she tries once more. Like this, he’s exposed and in danger.
Riku can barely keep up with the Inferno, down to his knees. Isa is slowly getting up, dropping back onto the ground.
The armor charges but then stops attacking the Guardian, freezing in place. What happened?
There’s no time to figure it out. Aqua goes on the full assault. For right now, the Inferno is the dangerous one.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A star soars up high, dancing in circles.
He follows—but he’s lurched back by shackles.
He pulls.
He can’t.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Aqua is thrown back.
The Inferno charges its next dark attack—
The Guardian gets in between, absorbing the blast into its skin before it hits Aqua. The Guardian shivers, lowering onto the ground and holding itself up by the forearms.
It’s enough to make Aqua second-guess. The Guardian’s bindings over its mouth are ripped and hanging off its jawline, but it won’t speak. It just glares at her, teeth clenched like it’s about to bite her. Looking into its bright yellow eyes feels the same as that night, when it appeared before her in the Realm of Darkness and changed her perspective on what life can truly do when it’s unfair.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
He pulls, but the chains hold him back.
And he wants to give them to her. To him. One chain for each hand, one chain for each friend, a million lanterns for each millions’ star, and a safe place to land. True freedom.
He knows. He must. They’re his, and he follows their trail, and the chains slacken, each with ends, each with never-ends into a horizon of purple light, depending on the angle.
He runs.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Her instinct is to stab it. She lifts her Keyblade.
It grumbles—not offensively, but if Aqua heard it right, it sounds tired. Or disappointed. Even sad.
“Where is Ven?” she demands.
It doesn’t speak back. It lifts its hand up to grab her.
She slices its palm. It roars.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It fucking hurts.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Riku and Isa are yelling and grunting as they take brutal assaults to their bodies.
With the Guardian gripping its wrist in pain and out of her way, Aqua moves on to the Inferno. Rainfell locks with one of its cleavers, and the second cleaver crushes her waist, cutting her off from her breath, and throwing her off balance. She collides onto the grass and yelps from the sting.
She’s exposed. The Inferno comes for her with both weapons.
The Guardian dives and picks her up. Underneath her body, it trembles. When she sees Terra, she gasps.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
He’s catched another. A really large one this time, but it’s dimmer than the rest, its light a gray white like the sun in winter, as though a thin shroud of shadow is draped over it.
He did this. I’m so sorry.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Up from his sleep is Terra, panting and heaving, growling. His eyes still glow, and he can’t stand straight, but he brings a fist to his heart as if he’s carrying something precious, and the Guardian reacts by cradling Aqua closer. They’re connected, she realizes, and she finds herself holding on, watching the chaos below as she winces from pain.
Terra yells and summons Earthshaker away from the armor’s gloves. He slams the ground. Bright, earth-ripping light rips through the dirt and strikes the Inferno hard. It disappears, fleeing the battle.
Riku punches the ground. “We need more wielders next time. Stupid thing.”
Terra stumbles on his feet and falls to his hands and knees. He blinks, his eyes turning back into the blue that is so undoubtedly his. The Guardian lets Aqua float gracefully back down to solid earth, and fades away.
Terra finally sees her, beaten up and dirty, and offers her a guilty smirk. “At least you’re safe,” he says, almost like a question, his voice coarse. “Unquestionably,” he continues, in Xehanort’s choice of words, like a playful slap on the face.
Summary: They find less answers and more questions. They bring the monster out.
Read on AO3
A/N: This is for Terra Week 2022!! You can find the event on Twitter.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Scar Tissue, Ch. 4
Terra wakes in the middle of a busy street. Children bat balls and collide into each other when they don’t pay attention. Someone—a woman—nearly runs into Terra with a paper bag of groceries. Couples are ordering sweets from street vendors, and the air is permeated by the smell of steak and spices. Golden light drapes the cobblestone. The street lamps have been lit. The sun is already setting even though it’s morning (in Twilight Town, it always sets).
Behind him comes a flurry of heavy footsteps and gruff pants like that of a bull’s. Isa shoves his shoulder.
“You’ve left my front door open,” Isa barks, his jacket halfway on his shoulders as though he was in the middle of slipping his arms through the sleeves when he ran out of the apartment. He zips it up.
Terra groans, hiding his face behind his hand. “I’m so sorry.”
Isa sighs. “I wasn’t sure what to think when I found you missing.”
Terra pats his pants and digs into his pockets. Relief sweeps over his shoulders when he touches his munny pouch—he didn’t leave it at the apartment. It’s as if his other self is at least the tiniest bit considerate. “Where can you buy cake around here?”
“After a stunt like the one you pulled, that’s the first question you ask me?” Isa rolls his eyes. He points to a bakery. Confections from Tiana’s Place. Imports from another world.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“We got a new hang-out?” Terra dips the box of cake bites away from reaching tree branches. They’re hiking through the woods behind Twilight Town, far from the direction of the ocean.
“An abandoned manor deep in the forest. It’s private.” Isa steps over an overstretched root. “There are Heartless lingering here, so beware.”
The warning doesn’t come soon enough when they’re suddenly surrounded by Shadows. Most Heartless are weaker these days, as though their connection to Kingdom Hearts has been frayed. There’s always the occasional one that proves more resilient to attacks, hearts wanting and yearning too much to be dissuaded by weapons and magic. Unlike Unversed, Heartless have needs.
Terra slams the last Shadow on the head before it could slip its dirty paws into the cake. He opens the box—none of the frosting has been disturbed.
“We’re lucky,” Isa says, dispelling his Claymore. “There is a particularly nasty one haunting these woods.” After looking at Terra’s expression, Isa assures him. “We’re almost there.”
The mansion in question is in disrepair. Some of the windows are cracked, the curtains ripped or missing. One of the door handles to the entrance is loose, its door never closing all the way. Terra tries it—on the floor is a thick sheet of dust. The furniture inside is draped in fabric. The chandelier in chunks on the floor. It’s not dark inside the house, just a lot of shadows that the light has a hard time eliminating.
“It feels awful in here.” Terra shuts the door. It bounces back slightly.
“I cannot sense anything.”
“I don’t want to go in.”
“We can stay outside,” says a small voice. Naminé approaches them from behind, her notebook wrapped in her arms. She smiles. She’s always smiling.
Terra pats her head and lifts the box of cakes. “Look what I got you.”
Naminé sits on a stump of plaster, leftover from a broken column. She brings the box to her lap. Terra likes to get her gifts—she’s new to life, open to trying things. There’s so much for her to taste: saltwater from the ocean splashing into her face; coffee, bitter and sweet; burgers; plain steak, for protein; Aqua’s brownies. Today, Terra has brought her samples of cake: fudge, vanilla, strawberry, orange, sugar, lemon, and—
“What’s this one?”
“Turmeric.”
Her face scrunches up. “Okay… I don’t know what that is, but I’ll try it.”
“It’s the only cake I enjoy.”
“You don’t like chocolate?”
“I don’t like sweets.”
Naminé blinks at him, rolling her mouth as she takes a piece of turmeric.
“Dark is decent,” he clarifies. “Nut brittles, pistachios, pecan pie...”
“Inhuman, isn’t he?” Isa snatches half a piece of fudge. He smirks to himself.
Naminé wipes her hands. “I don’t like this one,” she says of the turmeric.
It doesn’t come as a surprise to Terra. The only other person he’s ever met who enjoys it is Aqua.
Naminé claps her hands. “There’s so much I’ve done in the last few days.”
She talks of making flower crowns with Xion, of scaling mountains and visiting beaches (yes, she’s swallowed ocean water—she never expected the waves to push against her that strongly).
“Will you learn how to swim?” Isa asks her.
She wants to.
She continues her little tales of adventures with the joy of a six-year-old. Much of what she appreciates would be taken for granted by anyone else. Sunsets and sunrises. Rainy and blustery days. Silk feels better than cotton. Rainwater doesn’t taste so bad. Rainbows are rare—why? Nobodies don’t feel much. She’s never felt so much. Terra will need to bring her to the Land of Departure one day so she can see what a real sky looks like.
“What’s wrong?” she asks Terra.
Terra blinks. His heart pounds. Usually, he’d be drifting off somewhere else, but he remembers everything she’s said. He’s not sure why, but thank goodness.
“I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“Like the door?”
Terra holds his breath. He shouldn’t be surprised. Naminé always had a way with the mind.
“I don’t know where it comes from,” he says quietly.
“From yourself,” Isa says. He leans on a completed column, save for chipped pieces at the top. He crosses his arms. “Am I right?”
“What makes you think that?”
“I will not pretend to understand much of Keyblade magic. But from what I know, I imagine that anything connected to your heart—in this case, a door that appears in your dreams, from the deepest, most sacred place of your entire being—must be a piece of yourself.”
“You’re saying that Darkness is a piece of the pie.”
“Isn’t it so for us all?” Isa waves his arms. “Don’t we all have a black door?”
“I don’t know.”
Naminé opens her notepad and gathers several crayons: orange, yellow, black. “Did you see a black door when Xehanort took control?”
“Never.” Terra never even had a chance to visit his Station of Awakening. He was asleep. Sometimes, he’d see a star or two or three in the distance. Only when he was fortunate.
“Then I agree with Isa. The door does not come from Xehanort.”
Terra sighs—it stutters, shakes and tightens. He’s relieved, he’s not.
Naminé begins drawing in circular motions. The eyes. It never feels like anything, when she works with you. Not the sense of a prong in the mind or a brush on the skin. If anything, she’s a friend who listens. A girl in a white dress. A bystander. Quiet. Sensitive. She wrinkles her nose. “Why are you concerned with mirrors?”
Terra leans back, sitting on the grass. “Am I the only one who finds them weird?”
Isa purses his lips.
Naminé slows down.
“When I look into the mirror—” Naminé flips to a blank page—“I only see myself. Even if there are other people in the background, or standing there with me, I’m always alone.” She smiles, and it looks so sad. “Mirrors are weird.”
She draws with the black crayon.
Isa steps off his column, and hovers over shoulder. “What can we do to bring out the Darkness haunting Terra?”
She looks up at him. “You think we should bring it out?”
“How else would we vanquish it?”
Naminé giggles. “You can hit him.”
“How nice.” Terra pushes her head.
“He’s right.” She pauses. “Terra, there is something you’re not expressing.”
Terra imagines Aqua’s face. And Ven’s. His Gummiphone pings, and he ignores it. Words sound hollow relative to what he’s done.
“Does it hurt?” she asks Terra.
Her questions are usually unspecific, as though they all must read her mind, too, and instinctively know the right answer. “What does?”
“The scar on your chest.”
“Not at all.” Terra places a hand to his heart. “Did you know: Scar tissue heals stronger than what you originally had.”
“Really?”
“That’s why they’re ugly sometimes. They grow too fast, but it leaves the skin thicker. Bones are stronger after you break them.”
Naminé thinks. “They’re also in your mind.”
Terra rubs the crown of her head. “Sometimes. Yes.”
“How do you stop them from growing?”
“You don’t.” He second-guesses his answer when she frowns. “You have to
outgrow
them.”
“Outlast them,” Isa adds. “We fortify after we hurt. We become more resilient.” He slides his hands into his pockets. “We might not otherwise stare down a ghost.”
Naminé looks at Isa’s X-shaped scar on his face. “May I?”
Isa nods his approval, and she traces her finger across his nose.
“See?” Terra asks.
Naminé brings her hand to her chest, over her heart. “You didn’t mention anything about the heart.“
Isa glances at Terra. I leave this to you.
Terra rips a grass blade off the ground. “Yes, they’re affected.”
“They hurt the most.”
He crumples blade into a ball. “Yes.”
“That’s sad.” She stares at her half-finished drawing. “I work with memories, which are tied to both your mind and your heart. Your mind is what organizes them. Your heart...” She holds the end of a crayon to her mouth. “When it turns to stone, your chains become brittle and rust away. So I always want to keep the heart soft. When I draw around scars, I usually have to un-knot them,” she says as though it’s as simple as spreading butter on bread.
Naminé loses her concentration in Terra’s eyes. She gasps. “I know where the eyes go,” she whispers. She draws lines, rushed and inspired. She stops. “It’s them.”
“Who?”
“Aqua and Ventus. They bring it out.”
His Gummiphone pings—another text. He pulls it out of his pocket.
Ven
I wake up and you aren’t here.
What gives?
Terra doesn’t know what to say back.
“I think we should try your idea,” he hears Naminé say softly to Isa.
“A duel?” Isa says back.
Naminé pauses. “I’m not sure. He needs to make peace with it.”
Terra stares at the text message. Words don’t come to him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When he was a child, Terra once slipped on the terrace and fractured his skull at the base of a concrete step. He was practicing form and balance, and he wanted to impress. That day, he learned his body wasn’t invincible. He’s since carried a bump. He’s since had multiple appointments. Hair now won’t grow on the lining of the scar, the follicles gone and knotted over. It hurt for several months, then he forgot it was there.
When he was fifteen, Terra had his first kiss. He would never, ever, speak about it, five plus twelve years later.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Naminé has been drawing a figure with two horns, black and blue and purple, like veins for bruises, and a gnawing frown, eyes gold, an empty shape in the middle of the chest. She draws while she talks, she draws even though she’s not paying attention.
Isa pulls out his Gummiphone. “I will call for Master Aqua.”
Terra doesn’t say anything.
Hearts have threads—their sinew a pathway, empty at birth, braided as they grow identities, like bridges between one person and the next. The closer the loved one, the bigger and stronger the bridge, the more open their doors. Chains, heavy and strong, tight and slack, depending on the dynamic, bonding memories together that forge keys into each other’s hearts. Naminé draws the creature like a weave of yarn, pieces that connect together. A lot of rage, exhaled from Terra’s armor the day she awakened it and now formed into this.
In Terra’s heart are three faces: Eraqus, desaturated. Aqua, Ventus, vibrant. In Terra’s heart, a Darkness, cold and warm.
From her page, the Guardian wants to burst. She only needs to find out how.
“I think we should contact Riku first,” she says.
“As you wish,” Isa says.
Terra doesn’t say anything.
She lifts her eyes from her work. “Terra?”
He says nothing. He’s staring at his phone.
“Can you hear me?”
Isa bends to his knees, and shakes Terra’s shoulder. “He is somewhere else.”
“Be care—”
Terra stands up. His expression is blank, frozen like a statue of a clay model. He digs his Gummiphone into his pocket, and without acknowledging Isa’s touch, he walks away.
“Where are you going?” Isa calls.
Naminé drops her notebook and runs to Terra, pulling his arm back. It doesn’t stop him. “Don’t go.”
Isa faces Terra and pushes him back, at the chest. With the strength of a machine, Terra yanks his arm from Naminé and shoves Isa harder. Isa stumbles back with a groan. Not a moment passes when Terra continues on. He can’t hear them. He doesn’t see them.
Isa growls from annoyance. “You will answer us.” He summons his Claymore, a menacing weight that sharpens its talons and engorges as soon as his hand clasps its hilt.
“What are you going to do with that?” Naminé says.
“I want to see what will make him respond.”
Isa charges for an attack, and swings his Claymore in an attempt to bash Terra’s head. Terra grabs the shaft as if it’s as light as a stick of bamboo. He twist’s Isa’s arm. Isa yells and his Claymore dispels. Terra lifts Isa up by the neck, dragging him off the ground.
“Don’t hurt him!” Naminé pleads.
And that does it.
Terra pays attention, staring at her without seeing her.
Naminé cups her mouth with her hand as if to block a scream, but it comes too late.
Terra’s eyes are glowing yellow.
Isa kicks Terra in the stomach but it barely leaves a blow. “Hide!”
It takes a moment before Naminé turns and runs to the manor. One of the doors is stuck, so she pulls on the other one. It doesn’t close behind her. She crawls across the floor, no time to be concerned about the dust collecting on her knees. Outside, she hears grunts and blows, Isa cursing and Terra silent. She peeks out the window. Isa is sprawled on the ground, knocked out. Terra is coming, but Terra stops, and Terra shakes his head.
He finally sees her, and yells, “It’s not safe there!”
The monster appears. First, in the glow to his eyes that come back as fast as the flick of a light switch. A cloud of darkness wraps itself around Terra’s body. Out from the chest, comes the horns.
Naminé doesn’t have the time to squeak. She crouches and shields her head. Glass shatters above her and falls around her like iridescent confetti. The Guardian grabs her by the waist. She gasps.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When Terra finally wakes up, he’s hurting, slumped on the ground. And he can’t move.
Jabbing into his back are the knuckles of bark. His arms are sore, pulled tightly behind him, twisting him in a way that the slightest movement sends a shock through his tendons. His head is throbbing as if he’s been dealt a blow. The sun is still setting, light broken up by the shadows of leaves that pepper across the ground.
He’s tied to a tree.
“He’s awake,” he hears. Riku’s voice.
Isa limps into view, clutching his right arm—his fighting arm.
Riku crouches in front of Terra. His Keyblade is drawn. “How’re you doing?”
Someone is missing. “Where is Naminé?” Terra’s voice is coarse.
“I was going to ask you the same question.”
The heat, the headache melts from Terra’s face, leaving it as cold as an empty room. “What—?”
“It took her,” Isa says, scowling. “Where would it take her?”
Terra stammers. His tongue is too thick. Even his eyes hurt, as though he’s kept them open under the ocean. He jerks—he wants to wipe his eyes—but the restraints won’t let him.
Naminé running into the manor is the last image he remembers.
I wanted her to be safe.
“Let’s get him loose,” Riku says softly, and Isa crouches behind the tree. The rope binding Terra sounds dry and flaky.
“I know it’s not your fault,” Riku continues to say, though it sounds very much the opposite.
The rope slackens. He rubs his arms, his biceps, which took the brunt of the hold.
“Come on. Let’s try again,” Riku says, and it sounds like it’s coming from a teacher, from a mentor, from a judge. Not from a friend, not from a child. There is a knowing to Riku’s eyes, a skepticism. Terra’s prodigy, eclipsing him, now reading him down. “Where is she?”
Terra licks his lips. His tongue is too dry. “I don’t know.”
