hadriel_logs | In your hand, take this key

Entry tags:

aqua

In your hand, take this key

Who: Aqua and Alphys
What: Aqua chooses a succesor
Where: The Lab
When: /vague hand motion
Warnings: Disney-ass sincerity

[Aqua isn't sure in her head that this is the right thing to do. The power of the Keyblade is an important responsibility, and more than that, it can be a burden. Aqua doesn't regret her life or the path she's taken, but she would never force the trials she's faced onto someone else. Even now, knowing what the people in this world must face, she's hesitant..

But when she closes her eyes, shuts out the doubts, and listens to her heart...she knows what is true. Alphys has a strong heart, and a great deal of light. She could wield it. But is it right, to make this offer?

How did you know, Terra, when you met that boy? Did you think about what it meant? Did you trust yourself more than I trust myself?

In the end, she finds herself walking to Alphys' lab regardless, and knocking on the door. She's here. The decision will be Alphys' in the end.]

Alphys, are you there? I'd like to talk.

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[For once, Alphys has absolutely no idea what's coming. Or really, not for once- for most of the time, if she's being honest. Her life has been rolling with the punches, correcting on the fly, and being horribly overprepared while feeling like she knows absolutely nothing. Listening to her heart never came naturally, but Hadriel's taught her a lot of things.

It's about to teach her more.

She's a little further back in the Lab when the knock comes through, and she doesn't hear much of the voice, just yelling to the door from her desk.]

You can come in!!

[When Aqua enters, she's just peeking up from under her desk, organizing papers on top.]

Oh! Aqua, h-hey-- is everything okay?

Yes, of course.

[Aqua smiles at her in a way that hides her own nervousness. It's easy, because Alphys is easy to like. The rest of this will be harder, but she won't turn back now.]

I was wondering if I could speak with you about something important, though. If I'm not interrupting anything.

[It's hard to imagine Aqua ever being nervous, even if their previous conversations would indicate otherwise. She's just the kind of cool, idol type person Alphys can't help but adore. It's a lot sometimes.

Still, as soon as Aqua says it's important, she abruptly stops, finishing her pile in a hurried shuffle so she can clasp her hands together and look up at the other woman.]

Oh! O-Of course, I-- I did invite you, uhm, after all, and, I'm not really doing anything right now anyway so...

[Hmm, it's a little weird to have her on one side of a desk like she's some professor. Alphys pushes back, sliding out of her chair and coming around the other side pulling hers, leaving it there to grab another one for Aqua.]

What's uhm, what's going on?

[Her anxiety makes her want to barf up her SOUL at the idea of a serious conversation with her about 'something important', but she's trying not to completely die.]

[She's glad that Alphys immediately gives her her full attention, even if it doesn't fully settle her nerves. This isn't how it was when the Master chose her and Terra, it isn't even how Terra apparently chose that boy. Aqua is winging it.]

It has to do with you, actually. And the...situation we're in. And much more than that, really.

[She's rambling. Aqua takes a breath, and calls her Keyblade in a shimmer of sparkles. This is no time for battle, though; she holds it gently, pointed toward the ground.]

And it has to do with this.

[Alphys sort of feels like her entire life has been winging it up to this point, and that's not likely to stop anytime soon. She's still lost as Aqua starts, but the key appearing makes her gasp an involuntary breath. She can just summon that?? You can just, people just do that????

She forces herself to stop from staring, open-mouthed, so she can actually speak.]

I, uh-- oh. Ohmygod. That's, is that a sword??

[This is just like that video game she'd seen things about, with the swords that looked like guns but shot magic... what was that called, oh damn.]

Did I, uh... did I do s-something...?

[Aqua isn't attacking her, that would be stupid. But now she's certainly not following.]

[She ignores the second question—bypasses, really. Just for a minute or so.]

It's called a Keyblade. It is a weapon, but it's capable of more than being used in a fight. It can channel magic, lock worlds against the darkness...it's very powerful, but that power was passed down to me, master to apprentice. Where I come from, only a few are chosen to bear it, if they have the strength of heart to do so.

[After a moment, she bends to one knee, holding the Keyblade before her but not offering it, not yet.]

The strength of heart that you possess.

[Did she trip and fall into a video game? Alphys considered that sort of thing once upon a time, when she was brand new here, that this was unreal enough to assume she had been digitized and tossed into some sort of fantasy. Everything had seemed too real for that to be the truth, but-- now it's feeling a lot, lot more plausible.

She hangs on every word until Aqua drops the last bombshell, and can't stop herself from gasping and putting her hands over her mouth the moment the words hit her.]

Me?? You-- you think-- me??

[Oh my god. Oh my god oh my god ohmygod this is happening. Someone is here to give her magic powers. This cannot be actually occurring right in front of her, can it?? Can it??????]

You-- I-- you really think I can do? That? I mean, what you said, to be... y-you know.

I do.

[Her voice is steady and sincere. She means it with all her heart. But there's a weight to it as well—this is more than just an offering of power.]

We may not have known each other long, but I feel as though we're connected. I've seen you, and how you care for others—you have the strength of a Keyblade wielder, I know it.

[If only it were as simple as that. Kneeling here, Aqua feels as though she's two people: a Master, making a Master's decision and knowing it's right, and a tactician that may be taking terrible advantage of someone to gain an advantage for them all.]

But it comes with a burden. A....duty, to others and to ourselves. I would never want to put that on your shoulders without you understanding that. It's your choice.

[Hey, here's a thought, what if she just passes out right now? Something in Alphys' brain is fighting really hard for that option, and it's a little bit of a miracle she stays standing. Still, she takes a few unsteady steps before she manages to stay upright, eyes fixated on the key with a completely dry mouth.]

I... I... this-- this is r-real, you, you swear it is?? It's real??

[Aqua is out here saying real ass words and Alphys knows she must sound incomprehensible by now, but man this is all she's got. She looks between the blade and Aqua, trying to listen to the words and just getting overwhelmed by the fact that this could actually be happening to her.]

I'm, I, uh-- I should warn you, uhm, I'm not really that, uhh-- athletic? Or strong. I mean, I can talk and, I want to reach out to people and I know that's not nothing but you can do flips? And stuff? Am I gonna need to know flips??

[Why is it that she's dreamed of this her whole life and it's so hard to say yes when she has it in her grasp?]

[It's not an irrelevant question, and Aqua has to fight off anything more than a smile—the last thing she wants is for Alphys to think that she's laughing at her.]

Flips aren't required. And I don't expect you to be an expert at anything, but I'd teach you what you need to know, and be with you every step of the way.

[A Master with her first student. She just wishes they had more time.]

The duty of wielding the Keyblade doesn't end when all this is done. It'll be with you forever, in any world.

If you don't want to accept it, I understand.

[Alphys figures people have been laughing at her pretty constantly since she was little, but right now her mind is just swimming too fast to process any ill feelings. All she knows Aqua is talking, and offering to teach her, and this doesn't end here it'd be forever, and she barely hears the last bit before she almost shouts her response.]

No! I mean! Not no as in I don't want it no as in p-please don't go I do want this I just don't know how to say... words.

[Oh god, how is it Aqua trusts her to be some composed magical warrior of light when she's like this? She breathes, trying to center herself, just trying to think of a way to explain all this.]

What I mean is, uhm, in... in m-my world, stuff like this only happens in stories. Someone showing up and saying you're the chosen one, or that you have special powers, or that you're a missing princess... it's never happened to real people. And...

[If Aqua is giving her this chance, Alphys figures she owes her as much of an explanation as she can give. She wants this, of course she wants this, but she could never handle it if this was something she was promised and it was never supposed to be hers. Better to have never loved at all, or something.]

I used to dream about those stories. They were my favorite ones, because, I-I never thought I could be anything special like them, and I've spent my whole life trying to tell myself something like this was never going to happen to me.

[Finally, she drops her hands from grasping each other, keeping herself enclosed.]

You... you really think. Out of everyone here, it's... it's really me?

[Aqua remembers those kinds of stories--not fairy tales or imaginary adventures dreamed up by writers to entertain children at bedtime, but real accounts from Keyblade wielders that preceded her, shelved in the castle library going back to ancient times, or as good as such to two wielders in training. They had been no less thrilling to Aqua, and instead of lulling her off to sleep, she'd lain in her bed, holding out the arm that might one day summon the fabled weapon and take her to the stars that twinkled outside her window. Master Eraqus' teachings meant that her waking dreams could become real, but in the moment it had been difficult to believe.

In this moment, she feels that she understands Alphys perfectly. And she's never been more sure of her decision.]

It's you.

[For a moment, she bows her head, and then she turns the Keyblade so that it's held vertically, reverence writ in her every movement. The hilt is between them now, exactly halfway from each of their hearts, waiting for Alphys' touch.]

In your hand, take this key.

[She feels like her SOUL is about to leap from her chest, rattle so hard that all of her turns to dust from the ground up. It's really happening. She was kind to the right person, a hidden master who deemed her worthy, its...

Well, it wasn't the way she expected. Maybe she had to stop looking for these stories for one to finally appear. Isn't that how it always goes, the people who expect it the least?

She's been on an incredible journey so far. But for the first time, it feels like something is going to come after, too.

So Alphys looks up, meets her eyes. And nods.]

Okay.

[Her whole body feels like it's shaking, but externally, her hands are resolute and her mind pushed forward. It's something she hasn't felt in a long time-- it's determination.

So she takes it. Wraps her scaled claws around the handle and holds it as tightly as she can.]

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In your hand, take this key

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