A Fragmentary Passage

Lanterns on the Main Road

She was already walking, and had been for a long while.

The road went down into a valley and then up again through trees, and the trees were coming apart. Lanterns hung along it at long intervals, not enough of them, and the light each one gave reached about as far as the next. At the edges of the path the ground had gone to blue crystal where the world had begun to fail. Above her, pieces of buildings hung in the air with nothing holding them, at the height they had been standing at when whatever happened happened.

The castle stood at the top of the valley where the trees ended.

She knew it. That was the trouble with it. She stood on the road and looked at it for a long while without going any closer, and then made herself start walking again.

"Why is Cinderella's world here in the darkness?"

Nobody answered her. She went on saying things anyway, because she had been down here long enough that the habit had stopped being strange. "There's no 'time' in the realm of darkness," she said. "I walk on and on without end. In the realm of light, do days or years pass with each step? I know something has started to go wrong. I must hurry."

The road fell in ahead of her while she was still on it, and took the way up to the castle with it.

"I guess I know which way I'm going."

Something in her chest moved, which had not happened in a while, and she stopped walking to notice it. "I haven't felt my heart stir in a long time," she said. "Something about this place. It looks like worse things are stirring!"

The thing that came out of the trees was called a Dark Hide. She put it down and went on.

The way the road left her was down into the town, and the town under the castle had been a town.

The houses were still standing and the doors were shut. There were stalls in the market with nobody at them and nothing on them. In the middle of the square a fountain stood with its water stopped, not drained, stopped, holding the shape it had been making.

She walked the length of it. She kept to the middle of the road. "I took it for granted," she said. "I thought I had nothing in life to lose. Here, too. Everyone in this world thought that they were safe. Not just the people, but the dog waiting for his owner, the cat curled up in her nook. So much life. Trees and flowers. There's no deeper sadness than discovering all that you knew is gone. The grief in this place is too much to fathom. That's enough. I can't keep on wishing for the past."

Somewhere above her the clock on the castle had moved, and the road had gone when it moved, and standing in the empty square she put those two things in order. "The road collapsed when the clock advanced," she said. "If only I'd made it in time. But there is no time in this place, only the clock."

She went and found a gear of it and hit the gear until the clock turned the other way, and the road came back, most of it.

"I knew it."

At the castle gate she turned round and looked back down at the town.

"Not even memories are safe from the darkness."

"What I wouldn't give to really turn back time," she said. "To spend one more night beneath the stars with my best friends. I'm doing it again."

There was a man standing on the road ahead of her.

It was Terra. He was the right height and he stood the way Terra stood, and he was looking at her, and he did not speak. She got closer and he stayed where he was and went on not speaking. "It can't be," she said. "What are you doing here? You should be in the realm of light. Oh no! Did you not make it out? Don't tell me. Has the realm of light. Why won't you say anything to me?"

He gave her nothing. She stood in front of him and arrived at an explanation on her own, out loud, the way she had been arriving at everything for a while. "So what are you, a memory among these shadows?" she said. "Are you here to try and tell me not to lose heart?"

Then he was not on the road any more. "The world keeps our thoughts alive," she said, to the place where he had been. "But where did the people who lived here go, once their world was taken away? At least they're not here. So, they haven't fallen to darkness. I'll take what solace I can from that."

She took what solace she could from it, and walked on out of the world.

The Glass Coffin

The next place had a cottage in it, small, with seven of most things inside.

"Another world that was lost to the darkness?"

She went past the cottage and up through the trees behind it, and stopped.

"Is that?"

There was a coffin in the clearing, made of glass, and there was a boy asleep in it.

"Ven!?"

She went down on the grass beside it and put a hand flat on the lid and left it there.

What she said to him she did not say out loud.

"Ven. What did you come here to tell me? I know I promised to wake you up. I'm sorry. But I have to find a way home before I can help you. I just want you to know that it's been you that keeps my heart strong. Keeps the dark away."

He gave her nothing either.

Then the coffin was empty, and then the coffin was gone.

What was there instead was a mirror standing upright in the clearing with her in it.

"It's a mirror. What!?"

Her reflection moved before she did, and took hold of her, and pulled.

Three Mirrors and a Face

The place on the other side of the glass looked like two places at once, and she had been in both of them. Part of it was the room behind the queen's mirror. Part of it was the cell under the queen's castle.

Three mirrors came up out of nothing around her, identical, and stood there a moment, and then drifted apart to three separate places and settled.

She looked down at herself and there was no reflection in any of them.

"What just happened?"

She went back to the way she had come in and it was not a way any more.

"Those mirrors. Maybe they're a clue."

"Is this what it means to face your demons?"

The thing that came out of the first mirror was her.

Not a shape like her. Her, at her own height, in her own clothes, holding the Master's Defender, or something the same shape as it. The only difference anywhere on it was the eyes, which were a lighter blue.

It spoke to her. She listened to the whole of it without moving.

Then she answered it.

"That's not true! My heart is strong! I'll prove it!"

She fought it. She had said she would prove it, and the fight was the proof of it, and she did not stop anywhere in the middle. "Terra, Ven, and now my own phantom?" she said, afterwards. "What could it all mean?"

Then the second mirror gave her back to herself, and she did that one too. Then the third did the same, and she did that one as well. "That's all of them," she said. "Terra and Ven didn't have anything to say. But my shadow. She wanted to destroy me."

She stood in the middle of the three mirrors with her reflection back in them and said the rest of it to nobody.

"Never would have thought I'd become my own worst enemy. I've talked to myself a lot since falling into these shadows. But with the phantom, it's as though all of my doubts have gained a voice of their own. She's the weakness in my heart. I know I'm alone here. Have the uncountable hours in the shadows whittled away the courage I never really had? I'm losing this fight. The darkness has found the cracks in my heart. Is this the last apparition before it takes me over?"

Then she went out through the mirror.

The voice did not stop when she left it.

The Road Is Thorns Now

"Another world I know."

It had been a dark forest under a mountain. It was the same forest now, with thorns grown through it, closing every way except one. The one went up. It ran through open ground first, then over rock, and then to the foot of the mountain itself.

Two figures were on the path ahead of her, some way up, walking. "Terra. Ven. Are they phantoms?" she said, already moving. "I don't care if they are, or if I fall into the darkness. I miss them!"

The thorns came across the path in front of her.

"Get out of my way!"

She cut through them. Something stood up out of the ground behind them and she went through that too.

"You really think you can keep me away from my friends?"

At the foot of the mountain there were more of them than she could count, standing in the open ground, waiting.

"Okay then."

She got through those as well, the ones in front and then the ones behind those, and she came off the open ground still going uphill, onto the rock, where the two figures had been walking.

"Terra. Ven."

"Aqua, you're."

She stopped where she was. Nothing wearing a face had ever finished a sentence before.

"Terra. You spoke?"

He stayed where he was.

"Can you see me?"

"Of course! I see Ven too."

That stopped him.

"Ven? He's here?"

He turned his head as he said it, toward the place where the boy was standing and had been standing the whole time. He looked straight through him and went on looking, waiting to be told which direction to try next. "Terra, what's wrong?" she said. "Don't you see him?"

He did not answer that. He asked something else instead.

"Where are we?"

"A world the darkness has consumed. It's Enchanted Dominion."

"Consumed? The worlds fell?"

She heard how that sounded, and she had just come out of a room with three of her own faces in it. "What's gotten into you? How do I know that you're Terra? And not the weakness that's in my heart playing more tricks?" she said. "Ven! Please say something."

The boy said nothing.

"Aqua, listen. I promise this is me. But I'm not myself."

"What do you mean?"

He told her carefully, as a man explains a thing he has had a long time to work out.

"You're using the name 'Terra.' That means you're seeing me the way that you remember me. But your heart is just painting the picture that it so wants to see. The real me is lost in shadow."

"Then you're here, trapped in the realm of darkness."

He shook his head, and he did it in the direction of her voice rather than in the direction of her.

"No. My heart has ties to the dark. That must be why we can talk. But I can't see anything, Aqua. If you say Ven is there, then he's like me, an illusion created by your heart."

Then, after a moment, on its own:

"I think."

"I understand," she said. "Then, you and Ven are safe in the outside world?"

"That's good. But, how did you find me?"

"I looked here. And heard you in the darkness."

"Right, but why does your heart have ties to the darkness now?" she said. "What did you mean 'lost in shadow'?"

"Forget about me. Aqua, Xehanort is trying to locate Ven."

"He'll never find him. I hid Ven well," she said. "I think the reason he's not talking to me here, is because he's still there sleeping."

"This 'place,'" said the voice she had been talking to. "Is it the Chamber of Waking?"

"Yes," she said, and then heard herself. "Who are you? Really."

"You don't know? My name."

Then whatever was in him lost the front of it for a second, and the man came back up through his own face and got a few words out with the second he had.

"No, I can't control."

"Terra!"

She had started forward and he got a hand up to stop her.

"Aqua! Get back!"

"Silence!"

He said the rest of it over the top of that, fast, all in one go, because he had it and did not expect to keep it.

"I messed up. Xehanort is part of me. Now he's using me so you'll tell him where you hid Ven!"

"Still you struggle!"

After that the two of them went at each other inside one body, and what she stood watching was a man losing an argument in a place she could not get to.

"I won't give in! Aqua! You have to."

Then he stopped struggling, and it was not him standing there any more.

"Now you can be one with the darkness!"

Hands came up out of the ground and took hold of her, and took hold of the boy who was standing where the man could not see him.

She could reach one of them and she went for the boy first, which she would have done every time, and the hands had him before she got there.

"Ven."

The man came back up one more time, and this time he was not warning her about anything.

"Aqua!"

"That is enough!"

Chains of light came off him and put themselves between her and the hands.

"Terra."

Then the ground took her, and she went down away from him, and she was still talking while she went.

"Now I can be one with darkness."

A Warm, Familiar Light

"Aqua, are you okay?"

The voice was not hers and it was not Terra's, and it was the first voice in a very long time that had asked her a question and then waited for the answer.

She got up onto one elbow and then onto her feet. The path she had been standing on was somewhere above her now, and the two figures were not on it, and the thorns had closed over wherever it had been.

"Mickey, how did. Terra! Ven!"

She was still turning round looking for the two of them when he stopped her.

What came along the ground was not a crowd.

It came as one thing. They had pulled themselves into a single column that turned over on itself as it moved. "No time to talk," he said.

"Dwellers of darkness."

He was already past her. "They're called Heartless!"

They fought it together.

She kept looking. She had been fighting alone long enough that she went on turning to cover ground nobody was leaving open, and every time she turned there was somebody already standing in it. "Better not push our luck," he said, when it was down. Then, in a completely different voice: "Gosh. I never thought I'd find ya in the realm of darkness, that's for sure. So, um, what happened?"

She did not answer that for a while, and when she did she answered a different question.

"Have you seen Terra or Ven?"

"No, just you."

She looked at the ground for a moment, at the place where the two of them had been standing.

"I'm sorry. The darkness in this place, it's getting to me."

"Oh. But, you'll be okay," he said, and he said it flatly, as a fact about her rather than as encouragement.

"Right."

"Say, we've been looking for ya a long time," he said. "How come you're in this place?"

She did not answer that either. She had a question of her own that she had been carrying for the whole of the walk and had never had anybody to put it to, and she asked it the way people ask a thing they have decided in advance not to flinch at.

"First tell me: how long's it been in the realm of light?"

He told her.

"About ten years."

She gave him the account in order, the way somebody delivers a thing rehearsed alone and never said out loud, and she began it with the word she had chosen for ten years.

"Interesting. After we last spoke, I took Ven somewhere safe, and then I went after Terra. But Terra was about to fall to darkness, so I had one choice. I stayed here in hopes of giving him a chance."

He was quiet for a moment.

"I didn't know."

"What 'bout you? What could've brought you here?" she said. "Has something happened? In the realm of light?"

He told her standing, in one go, without stopping to check whether she was following.

"It's the Heartless. They've been attacking worlds and taking their hearts. And worlds with no hearts vanish into darkness. But if we can lock the door between the two realms, light and dark, from both sides, we can protect the other worlds. So ya see, I came here to find the key on this side. Turns out, it's not so easy getting into the realm of darkness. The points you can cross have become unstable. It's only when a world gets consumed, that an entrance appears in the realm between. So, I waited for my chance, to sneak in. But hey, when I got here, I felt a warm, familiar light. I followed it to find my way, to you."

She had the charm out in her hand before he had finished. "The charm. So they were helping," she said. "Terra and Ven brought you and I back together again."

"Yeah!"

She put the charm away.

"But, the worlds are still in danger. Terra, did he make it back to the realm of light?"

"We still haven't found him."

She took that without any change in her face at all. "I see. Well, wherever he is, he's fighting," she said. "He'll beat his darkness. And I know he wants me to fight too."

"I think you're right. He'll be just fine."

"Yes. But what about Ven?" she said. "He won't wake up unless I'm there with him. I have to go. I have to find a way back to the realm of light."

"Good. Then let's locate that key and go home together!"

She looked at him for a second before she asked the obvious thing, because she had already worked out what the answer probably was.

"Does that mean you know an exit?"

"Well, uh, I was so busy finding a way in, that I didn't give a lot of thought to where there'd be a way out." He said this without any embarrassment whatever. "But, together we're sure to find one!"

"You haven't changed at all."

Before they started down he said a thing she had not heard anybody say in a very long time.

"May our hearts be our guiding key."

He caught her looking at him and explained it, which she had not asked him to do.

"Keyblade wielders used to say those words to each other. And now, it's something I like to try and remember."

"There's a phrase no one's used in ages."

She said it as a fact about the phrase. He took it as agreement and started down the slope.

"So. Ready?"

"Ready!"

The Same Boys

The way through was a portal, then a cavern that went on a good deal longer than a cavern needs to, then sand underfoot, then a light at the far end of it bright enough to walk toward.

They walked toward it and came out.

What was on the other side was an island.

It was made of sand and it was floating with nothing underneath it, and there were palm trees round the edge of it leaning out over the drop. A ring of large sharp purple structures stood up around the whole of it. A long way below, much bigger, another piece of land hung in the air doing nothing.

The sky over it was blue.

She stopped at the edge of the sand and stood there. "So many worlds have been lost. And now they're trapped here in the dark," he said, and then he saw her face. "Wait, you know this place, Aqua?"

"This is where I met those children."

He waited, so she gave him the rest of it, and it came out in one sentence.

"Yes. I visited once, and I met two boys I considered passing the Keyblade on to. But because Terra had already given one of them the power, I didn't."

"Aqua." Something had changed in how he was standing. "What were the boys' names?"

"They were Sora and Riku."

"I see," he said. "We're getting warm."

"Huh?"

"Welp, it's Sora and Riku who've been helpin' me," he said. "We're tryin' to get that door shut for good."

"The same boys?"

He was already looking past her at the far end of the beach, working something out, and he answered her without really answering her.

"Aqua, if this is where my friends first got the Keyblade, it also must be where we'll find its counterpart. The Keyblade of darkness has gotta be here on the dark side of their world."

"We'll have to hurry. C'mon!"

There was a fight on the way across the sand. They took it between them and got through it, and neither of them said anything about it afterwards.

"Let's keep goin'."

The place he was taking her to was a cave at the back of the beach. She had been in it before, once. "I bet it's in here," he said.

It was standing in the middle of the floor of it, upright, in the dark.

"There!"

"Is that what you're after?"

"Yep, it's just the key I was looking for," he said, taking it. "A Keyblade from the dark realm!"

"A Keyblade of darkness."

He said the old lines first, the way a man says something he learned before he was old enough to understand it.

"The door of darkness, tied by two keys. The door of darkness, to seal the light."

Then he said the rest in his own voice.

"Welp, we've got the keys. Now, we find the ones to close the door."

He explained the mechanism on the walk back down the beach.

"The door between the two realms, it won't let a heart with light pass through. So only darkness keeps spilling out. We can lock the door by using the two Keyblades, but we need help on both sides to get the door shut."

"Sorry?"

She had already worked out what the arrangement cost and had already decided which end of it she wanted.

"Well, then, since you'll be doing the locking, let me be the one to close the door."

"Sorry, but the job's taken, by somebody else."

"Huh?"

He took her to it.

"Is that the one?"

"Yep, the door to Kingdom Hearts." He looked up at it while he talked, and he talked for a while, because it was the part he had come here to do and he wanted it said properly. "Welp, it's not the Kingdom Hearts you know. Not exactly. But even though it's smaller, it's still the heart of many worlds. And even if it's not a complete Kingdom Hearts, we definitely can't leave it open like this, or darkness will escape and destroy the remaining worlds. It's time. With this key and Sora's in the realm of light, we're gonna close this door. Now, all we need is Riku."

The Shore

The boy came through onto the sand from somewhere on the other side, and she knew him from one afternoon a long time ago and from a name she had said out loud not long before.

"Sora, Riku."

"There! That's everybody! Come on, Aqua."

The swarm came together over the water.

It did not arrive as a crowd. It gathered, pulling itself in from every direction until it was one mass, and then it turned, and when it turned it went up into a column and the blue sky over the island went dark red.

It went for the boy. "Oh no!"

"Back off!"

She put the Keyblade into it and the spell after the Keyblade and tied the thing where it stood. The tie held at both ends. It held the swarm off the boy and it held her to the swarm, and when the swarm went it took her with it.

"Aqua!"

She saw him start toward her and got the words out first.

"Go without me!"

"No, I."

He did not get to the end of it. The distance between them had already stopped being a distance anybody could cross.

"Aqua!"

He said it again, and by then she could not hear which direction it came from.

"Aqua."

Then the thing threw her, and the island came up under her, and when she got her head up the two of them were on opposite sides of a great deal of water.

She fought it on her own and beat it.

Then she stood on the sand with it gone and said the rest of it out loud, to nobody.

"The battle for the realm of light is not won. Thanks to Terra and Mickey, I know what's at stake. I'm not afraid. I will face the long darkness. The next time someone wanders into the realm of darkness, I'll be here. A light to cut through all the shadows. I will be their wayfinder. And one day, I'll return to Terra and Ven. I am Master Aqua. And that's a promise."

Somewhere behind her and out of her sight, the door was shut.

She was lying on her back on the sand by then, because she had stopped being able to stand up and had not particularly minded.

"It's beautiful. The stars are out. Terra, Ven. Just me again."

Then something changed in the sky and she read it.

"They did it. The worlds are being restored."

Her hands were empty.

The Master's Defender was not in them and had not been for a while.

The sand gave under her and she went down through it, and she said the phrase he had given her, to somebody who was no longer in the world with her.

"'May our hearts be our guiding key.' You'll know where I am."