Musings of a Self-Diagnosed Introvert

“Can you stand up?”

Rainfell is left neglected on the ground next to her. They’ve been fighting each other with their Keyblades. That’s what she’s not telling him. 

“I can’t.”

Aqua blinks away her worry, but Terra sees past the armor. “That’s okay. You’re doing good. You’re beating him.”

Bile clogs his esophagus. He needs to roll over and let it all out but he swallows it back. Swallows again and swallows hard to keep it in and not let Xehanort go—

—Sleep.

“Aqua,” he says, his voice frail, “I’m sorry.” 

Aqua smiles morosely. She’s never been the type to rub it in. 

There’s a lot to be sorry for. One: The Master is dead. 

—Sleep.

Two: They fought. In front of Ven.

—Sleep.

Three: He left her behind. 

Four, just to decapitate the dead horse: He never congratulated her on achieving her Master status.

—Sleep.

And five: for that night before the Mark of Mastery. Terra had hoped there would be less stress the night after.

This can’t be the last time he touches her.

“I know,” she says. 

What was once a headache that jerked his forehead is now a quiet null, and he’s losing feeling in his fingers, the feeling of her skin.

His eyelids are heavy, and he sighs.

Aqua holds his chin and makes him stare into her eyes. “Listen to me. You’re strong. You can defeat him.”

Terra stretches the fingers in his free hand and tries to ball them into a fist.

“I can’t find Earthshaker.”

“What?”

He tries again—that small shred of Light he is supposedly connected to, the warmth of a friend who will always listen, the certainty of having someone there to help, is gone. Earthshaker won’t come. 

This is what it’s like to have regret. Tell me, how does that honor our Master’s memory, Terra?

“I know Earthshaker. It will always be there for you,” Aqua says, so confident and so wrong, wrapping his arm around her shoulders to get him to stand. 

Terra flinches—a profound image of choking her invades his senses, bleached knuckles that won’t respond to him, rigid around the same neck he’s buried his nose in before. 

He leans over on his side, too weak to push her off. “Aqua, just let me go.”

“Never,” she snaps. “How can you ask that?”

“He’s coming back.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We can fight him off together.” 

How does that honor our Master’s memory?

—Sleep.

In a page tucked away on some textbook Terra has always hated reading for its archaic nonsense, was a line: F’r our lighteth in the dark hast us by the heart, at each moment. 

Too heavy for her, Aqua brings Terra back to rest on her lap. When they’re weak, they’re supposed to be each other’s Light to guide them back home. That’s what the Master said. One star to find another lost in space. 

(And when stars flicker out, they explode in a supernova, then disintegrate into a black hole. That is something the Master refused to discuss. Their job was not to let that happen, period.)

“Terra, stay with me?”

For a moment, the lights go out. For the next, they come back on. Terra looks up at her blue eyes. She knows what’s happening to him, from the way she quiets down and rubs her thumb on his jaw. 

“You just have to find your Light again,” Aqua says. She’s talking about Earthshaker. She’s talking about Ven. She’s talking about going home together. “And this will be over. Then we can find our own little hiding place.” She soothes, stroking his cheek. “Like we promised.”

But—

But, just in case, Terra squeezes her hand one more time. He’s going to have to let go.

Terra lifts his head and points with his nose to beckon her to go lower, to get closer to him, as if he’s telling her a secret. Closer, enough for him to lean up with what’s left of his strength, to press his mouth on hers, and open his lips, and ask for more. She trembles against him, and he kisses her again, and inhales her smokey sweat and lavender shampoo with all that he wants to say but has lost the voice for.

That’s his last memory before sinking into the black hole. Someone far away says, “I’m with you,” planting one little star into his hand that he can caress to his chest while he slips into something like sleeping. Then he tears apart.

~*~

Awake. Awake? 

Terra sits up. He rolls to his hands and knees, and coughs—there’s sand crumbling under his tongue, and he spits out the remains. 

After he nearly gags from what doesn’t come up, he realizes. Sand crumpled underneath his fist, as if he was in the middle of choking someone. More sand caked into his nails. A musty odor—he needs deodorant. That numbing feeling on his wrists that means he needs to shake them off. Wake them up. Awake. He’s breathing, and it’s hot, and he’s sweaty, and he’s hungry. 

“Terra!”

It happens so quickly, the way Ven rushes to Terra’s side, and checks his eyes to see if they’re blue. Terra doesn’t register a single word out of Ven’s mouth but he registers the feeling of Ven’s chest crushed against his, muscle trapping boy in a hug. Cheek to cheek, the sound of tears and tears.

“You’re crushing me.” 

Terra lets go, but not the shoulders. It’s too early to allow the feeling of someone slipping away. 

Ven is the same as he's always been. All bones. “You’re still chubby in the cheeks,” Terra says, smushing them between his giant hands.

“Fuck you.”

“What is that language?” But Terra is crying, messing with Ven’s well-kept hair.

“Ugh, why.” The disturbed styling cream flattens the cowlick Ven likes so much and his attempt to make it right dwindles. But he’s smiling. Crying, too. “I’ve missed you.”

“Me, too.” More tears.

Ven stops his fussing and lowers his hands. His voice breaks. “I thought I’d never see you again.” 

To make up for it, Terra tries fixing Ven’s hair for him. Thankfully, considering the result, there’s no mirror nearby to upset Ven. “Hey. It’s over. We’re safe. We’re back together and—”

Terra looks around. They’re in the Keyblade Graveyard, somewhere within starched erected stone walls that are falling apart. But Terra doesn’t understand why they’re here. He tastes smoke. Magic residue. 

They fought Xehanort-as-Terra here, and Terra doesn’t remember much except reaching for a night sky. She was here, he was certain. A star gauzed behind clouds and he reached, and reached and caught Xehanort by the throat. 

“Where’s Aqua?”

Ven doesn’t respond. 

Terra’s heart pounds, assuming the worst. Did he hurt—

“Um.” Ven wipes his hands on his pants and stands. “She’s different.”

Terra gets off his knees. He’s unbalanced, swaying with his heavy legs, and Ven holds him up by the arm. “What does that mean?”

Ven grunts his disappointment. He points behind Terra, to a wall that bends open to the rest of the labyrinth. “She’s behind there. She fought with me” —against Terra— “then left.”

Terra trips on his feet as he limps. How different? Hurt-different? Tired-different? Furious-different? Furious with him? Won’t want to ever talk to him again-different, and there’s no turning back-different? 

He catches himself at the side of the wall. “Aqua?”

Rustling and steps respond, in the slice of shadow around the corner. Terra looks over.

Two little orbs, lights in the shadow that remind him of monsters, stare back at him, waiting before the onslaught. Terra’s instinct is to call Earthshaker, but it still won’t come. Left defenseless, how fast will the monster get to him if Terra yells? How fast will Ven come to the rescue?

But a second passes by before he realizes what he’s looking at. Golden eyes in fury, white hair, pulling her ripped sleeves, inked in black, to hide her red claws. 

She looks like a creature. 

When Terra was six, the Master would tell him stories of valiant heroes defeating monsters with eyes like lanterns, which seduced victims into thinking they’re safe, and made them follow false lights until they were isolated in the dark. 

Aqua shivers. “You,” she says. Her voice is steady and solid, but he hears all its cadences. Rage, sadness, something like relief but too numb to feel it.

Terra steps toward his monster but he lowers his gaze from her glare. If he doesn’t see, then it’s not as bad as he thinks.

This is what it’s like to have regret. Tell me, how does this honor our Master’s memory, Terra?

He coaxes her into his arms, and rests his mouth onto her forehead, letting her heave dry sobs into his shoulder while his hot tears trickle down to her hair. She smells like ash. She’s freezing.

He doesn’t have the courage this time to apologize. He almost asks if she’s okay. Stupid question. “Let’s go home.”