[MINGLE] One-Man Show

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: Inari Shrine and elsewhere
WHEN: 25 January 2019 through ?
OPEN TO: All opted in characters
WARNINGS: Please warn in the subject line of your comment as needed, and remember to move anything turning adult to a new post.
IMPORTANT NOTES: Final reminders and informational links are here. Please label all top-levels clearly so that there is no confusion who they are open to and what they are for, and DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR TAG!
Have fun and ask questions here!

Comments

[aguidingkey]

Aqua can imagine it, if only distantly. Terra hadn't betrayed her the way it seems Anders had. Yet Aqua had fought him, clashed against him, because of everything Xehanort had done. Xehanort was supposed to be someone who was protecting the light, someone who was supposed to be a mentor to the keyblade masters in training. But he had been the source of the darkness, Aqua is sure of it, and what he had wedged between all three of them, what he had done to the worlds, was unforgivable. She closes her eyes for a moment, taking a slow, deep breath.

"Betrayal by someone you care about is the hardest thing to deal with," she says with the tone of someone who understands. "But you shouldn't blame yourself for not seeing the darkness in him."

[championofsnark]

In hindsight, Hawke can see all the mistakes she made, but her shock in that moment was genuine. She could never imagine that would happen. If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, if he hadn't admitted in front of her it was his plan, she would have argued. No, no, no, Anders wouldn't do that. Not to her, not to Kirkwall. It was such a giant weakness, a giant blindness, and he used it to exploit her.

"I don't know how long ... if he always planned to use me as a cheating card in his pocket." Hawke sighs, running her hands over her face. "I don't know how much of what was between us was real, but we were together for years, it couldn't be the whole time." Could it?

[aguidingkey]

Aqua doesn't know the situation. She doesn't know the world politics or anything other than exactly what she saw. But to someone who has stared down the heart of darkness itself...

She shakes her head. "I don't know either of you and I've never met him. But nothing I could see in that moment suggested it was like that. It takes a special kind of darkness to trick someone for a long time. Especially someone you love. I know what that looks like. It's smiles and lies and when it's all over... they're triumphant. This... your friend wasn't that."

He wasn't like Xehanort. Aqua would never forget the smile on Xehanort's face as he told them about the Keyblade War and his plans, how he had made Terra and Ven feel, how protective Aqua had felt as a result. Nothing in Anders had suggested he was anything like Xehanort.

[championofsnark]

Hawke agrees, overall, but she has that insecurity. It's hard not to see someone who was supposed to love you betraying you and not wonder how long it was. Was she always so much a fool? "It took him some time to get to that point. Our lives became more desperate ...." There was a time, when they were first together, when they thought maybe things were getting better. And for a time they did.

That reassurance was helpful, and it let her reframe her thoughts. Hawke wasn't easily shaken, and she finds that strength in her, to coat her over with armor again. She nods firmly at Aqua, in thanks. "You're right. Thank you."

They will have a bigger picture problem in a second as the other memories come fast, and their stranded status comes into play. But at least she'll be stronger when she has to face that.

[And wrap here if that's okay, trying to catch up to now things!]