♕ - A hard wince causes his shoulders to tense up, the term, the reality of it all, it pounds at both his skull and his rib cage with a form of relentlessness he wishes to avoid entirely. His heart was already twisting in discontent as the realization of those mental thorns were once against realized, no longer protected by barriers of padding through reassurance and the belief people instilled into him. He could feel the way he gently clenches his teeth before inevitable tipping down his head in bitter acceptance. He does know. For too many nights spent out in his travels did the painful ring of those words from the old master reverted in his skull like a persistent demon.
It doesn’t stop him from ultimately nodding his head, far too exposed, too open to go and turn back now. “Yeah.. I do..” That sensation to squirm from the bitterness of those words was pushed down as he listens, some part of him dreading and negative expected to hear ins and outs pertaining as to how it wasn’t good that he did, that improvement had to become the definite. Yet.. that wasn’t the case, not at all. What Terra speaks of is a odd admittance that makes those harshly clenched eyes ease up, confusion evident for the wayward heart handling the essence of his mistakes.
To hear it was a shared burden, a personal, in depth cross of shame they carried for something so substantially importantly made his mouth softly gape. What he comes to heart surges such an odd feeling of.. relation, an unknown perspective of understanding that his body softly shudders, baring with this vulnerability as without realizing it, he’s straining so hard with his everything to just listen.
“That.. That was exactly it..” Soft shock is laced with this sense of awe, this.. he doesn’t know how to describe it. Sympathy imbued with gratitude, wonder, this need to just want to understand their kind of path that much more. To hear someone actually voice their angle, to see it mirror their own, how that mere idea alone of being someone those he loved couldn’t turn too clutched at a haunting loneliness that his desperation wanted to claw and tear away. Those memories before the keyblade war. The impact of his close friends, if Riku, Donald, or Goofy couldn’t..
If there was ever a day where Kairi couldn’t..
He immediately crushes that final thought, a soft warmth within instantly, firmly telling him otherwise it’d never be the case with her.
“..Even if it was my test? I feel like with something this personal, it’d be so much of a burden.. when everyone else have their own world of worries too.” He notices a touch of how this sounds hypocritical, especially with his way of living, but the thoughts spilled before the mind could correct them.
“Sora..” The boy’s worries appeared antithetical to entire existence. He was not one to shy away from his friends, the very idea was a foreign concept from the little Terra knew of him.
And yet that was precisely how doubt operated. A small seed would sprout and fester, clinging quietly to your heart and nudging you further and further away from your true self. Rarely would you catch it in time. It would happen again and again, before you ended up entirely a different person.
With Sora, that ending seemed unlikely because of those who looked after him —namely a boy who had done his own dance with doubt and fear— but the fact that it could happen was enough to worry Terra endlessly. To see history repeat before his eyes was a fear that weighed on him, he noted, as mistakes were best to be made a learning experience. That was how he was taught, but if those mistakes were not looked over and understood, then they were going to happen again. Absolutely.
“..you don’t believe that. I know you don’t.” The words spoken he believed would resonate with the younger boy. Doubt lingered, sure; it would always linger. It would force one to question their skills, their memories, their own dreams. It would grow fat on the darkness in your heart and become something that could not be snuffed out, not entirely. That imbued fear. Fear that you would not stop feeling this way. Fear that you alone are never enough, but that was the thing wasn’t it? Doubt also made you forget. That you are never alone. Sometimes a reminder never hurt.
“By thinking that you are alone, you worry the people that care most about you. It feels unavoidable but you have to remember that no matter how far you go, or what state of being you are, you’re never alone. I know you know that, Sora, but sometimes it’s easy to get wrapped up in your head. Sometimes things don’t work out even when you’re doing your best, but if you lose sight of what your goal was in the first place, you might forget it was there at all.”
