A Heartbreaking Illusion

[turntodarkness]

Who: turntodarkness, earth_bonds and watersacrificed (and any Eraqus we might be able to recruit ; ; )
When: Does it matter?
Where: Disney Academy universe, inside
Style: Prose, please.
Warnings: Mentions of horrific experimentation and possibly other very graphic things. Some may not even be mentions, but outright graphic stuff.

Comments

[watersacrificed]

Aqua doesn't know why she's doing this. Why she's risking her life to save someone who managed to do more harm than good. Because he's Terra's brother.. That reason doesn't seem valid anymore. He has Terra's face, but his heart doesn't seem to be found. Every reason she thinks of leads back to Terra. Nothing Xehanort has done to her makes her want to save him.

Yet here she is, standing before a beautiful cottage. It reminds her of the ones she's read as a child in story books. A beautiful cottage that has a wonderful family...until tragedy strikes. ...This is what could've been.. Just like Zexion's dream, but it's just that. A dream. She forces herself to take one step and then another before calling out his name.

"Xehanort? Xehanort, where are you?"

[earth_bonds]

This... this was one thing he had feared to face. The all-too-familiar forest clearing, the cottage right from a fairy tale, the coziness of the illusion. It brought back so many memories, and all of them stung because even though the scene was peaceful, the Elder Twin could see, in his mind's eye another, more grave scene.

Burning ruins, the scent of burning wood and insulation, an explosion-

But there stood the beautiful illusion. Terra hung his head and for a moment, wanted this to be real. It's Aqua's voice that snaps him out of that train of thought, and he winced. If this were real, he wouldn't have met her nor Ventus; they wouldn't have become like family to him. It's with this in mind that he spoke up.

"...More than likely inside; he always was the bookworm."

[watersacrificed]

Her eyes move to study Terra's form. Her heart goes out to him for this must be a painful reminder of something he could've had. She wordlessly moves to his side to place a comforting hand on his shoulder. To remind him he wasn't alone in this fake reality.

"...we'll get him out of this..." she murmurs. The sooner the better in her opinion. She didn't want Terra to suffer and she wanted to go back to ignoring Xehanort.

Another comforting squeeze before she takes the first step towards the cottage.