towerofanimus | (no subject)

Characters: Aqua, AU!Sora (

lamentless)
Setting: Floor 11 and Floor 20.
Format: Prose ~~i love you past-tense~~
Summary: Aqua takes up the reigns of Master, and breaks some bad news.
Warnings: Most probably angst. Spoilers for Birth by Sleep.

Floor Eleven//
She sat by the lake with her knees drawn up just enough to rest her arms and chin on them. Sora wasn't happy with her for giving him the Keyblade, she was sure. She had always known it would hurt him, even all those years ago on that beach. But now that she had connected the dots and seen the picture that they made, she was sure she hadn't made a mistake in bringing him closer to the light. It was going to hurt, and so was what she was going to tell him.

But whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Aqua just wished she didn't have to be the one to cause the pain.

Floor Twenty//
The magician waited, staring out into the distance beyond the tower. Master Keeper dangled at her side, held firmly in her right hand. It would be hard to teach Roxas all the intricacies of the Keyblade when she wasn't using her own, but she was pretty sure she had enough experience to explain it well enough. Plus, she could start on teaching him magic. Hopefully he would show as much of an aptitude (and enthusiasm) for it as she did when she was an apprentice.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

At the sound of footsteps, Aqua turned to greet Roxas with a smile. "You can if it would make you feel better," she answered in good humor. "But I'm not going to make you." She may have been a master in name, but she wouldn't consider herself Roxas' master. Maybe if he were to take a formal apprenticeship, she would teach him propriety and the whole nine yards. But, baby steps. They had the rudimentary knowledge to worry about first.

"We'll start with the most basic thing." She hefted Master Keeper. "Ven has my Keyblade, so I can't demonstrate, but I'm sure you'll know what I mean. Have you learned to summon your Keyblade yet?"

Bowing wasn't going to make him feel better, but he half-did it anyway, straightening with a short laugh. "There, so we met in the middle."

"I can...summon it." Rox frowned a bit as he said it, but held his hand out, concentrating until Kingdom Key came forth with a buncha light.

Aqua laughed softly at Roxas' response. "Fair enough," agreed the mage with amusement.

She watched, giggles tapered, as he summoned the blade to his hand. "Good. Now, has it ever come to you without you calling it? Like in times of danger?" Her Keyblade had always been sensitive to her fight-or-flight instinct, but she couldn't be confident that all Keyblades responded the same way. If Roxas' didn't take care of that for him, he was going to have a lot of work to do to make summoning it second nature.

"...I think it's a little loopy, actually." Roxas twisted his wrist, looking at either side of the key, before turning his attention back to Aqua. "It always showed up when those noodly monsters did, but sometimes it'd just appear for little reason."

Absent-mindedly, Rox twirled the keyblade, though he almost dropped it- at which point he hastily swapped it to his left hand.

Aqua would save her questions on the apparent "noodly monsters" for after the lesson. It didn't matter right now what they were, it just mattered that they were a danger. "Keyblades usually come when you need them," Aqua explained. "Even if you sometimes don't realize that you do."

She held up Master Keeper, resting the shaft of it in her opposite hand to glance at it briefly. "The most important thing is that it comes when you're in trouble, though. And if it responded to you encountering those monsters, then it seems like you mostly have that part."

Aqua lowered Eraqus' Keyblade after that. "Is it hard for you to summon it when you're not in danger?"