I'm not trying to do any ships here, but you're free to see things however you want.
Where the Sacred River Ran
Chapter One: First Contact
The dulcimer's haunting melody rapt Aqua's every frenzied whim even in the remotest confines of her room, and so, eyes bloodshot, complexion paled, she set ink quill to paper and confessed her mind to no one in particular.
I've seen Heaven. I've seen Hell. And I've seen everything in-between.
It's been that way ever since I was poisoned where the secret river ran.
I can still see it all now. Impossible to describe visions of Light and Darkness—entire worlds now open to me!
There are now images in my mind I don't think anyone in this realm has ever seen or dared to imagine, yet I can see it all perfectly: entire peoples and worlds of Light and Dark all existing in planes just beside us, or occupying the same space but trapped in alternate frequencies. I think they see me too—it's plain on their faces—and they're just as shocked to see me as I am to see them.
Creatures and species so impossibly different from our own, yet they've been beside us this whole time. I'm trying to make sense of this, but the information flowing into me is just too overwhelming! I can barely focus on what's in front of me, let alone any tethers linking me to my own dimension!—how can I fathom everything I'm seeing and not go insane?
Her pen-strokes became more rapid and less composed as she desperately tried to record everything she saw.
There!—in one dimension stands a king—majestic and terrible—overseeing construction of a magnificent palace.
In another frequency swirls a forest ancient in appearance, yet alive and vibrant.
There's an endless chasm lit by hellish fire—occupied only by a woman wailing for a misshapen beast who scales the treacherous rocks to reach her. He answers her calls with passionate cries of his own demon tongue. Lovers, perhaps?—fire is gathering, the crevasse erupting!
Angels singing by a river that vanishes into a cavern—an ephemeral light shines from its mouth.
On the edge of a cliff by a sea is a shepherd boy, visited by ghosts of kings prophesying war.
Heavy beads of sweat dropped fast as her fever and heart-rate rose, splotching the paper and coagulating the ink.
I see them all at once and they're all aware of me. And there's more! So much more! I can't—I can't make sense of it all! There's too much—but I can't stop!
The door to her room opened and there entered Eraqus, followed by Terra carrying a tray of freshly-synthesized medicines. They both froze in horror at what they saw.
"Aqua!" The Master cried in authority and concern. He ran to her and seized her shoulders, trying to call her back to their reality. "Don't you realize what you're doing? Come back to your senses!"
In haste, Terra had set the tray on a dresser and rushed to his friend's side to aid his master. "Aqua snap out of it! You're killing yourself!"
The young woman snapped back to her native reality, petrified in a cold sweat, slowly recollecting her surroundings. The Master and Terra loomed beside her, aghast at the state of their sickly friend.
Aqua didn't understand their terror until she felt a thick wetness flowing from her stomach and she looked down to find blood coursing from a reopened wound in her abdomen, leaking through her bandages and nightshirt so that it pooled across her lap and spilled onto the floor. When the shock finally processed, she was too weak to scream.
[Hours ago…]
A sizeable wave toppled Ventus where he stood in the waist-high river, and before he could recover, Aqua pounced and dunked him further still into the water, laughing at her victory. Ven barely broke through the surface with Aqua's weight pressing down on him, attempting to retreat but helpless in her hold. So they splashed and they played in the secret river they found together that led into an unforeseeably deep cavern. They stayed outside the caves, surrounded instead by the green banks where they left their outer layers of clothing and under the sun's rays filtered by shade from the trees.
Ventus squirmed free, splashing back as he fled, and Aqua only continued to laugh.
"I'll get you for that," he said, readying himself for the counterstrike.
"You forget, Ven: we're in my element here. You can't beat a water-master in her own niche."
Ven smirked back. "Oh yeah? Well, just wait until we start exploring clouds! You won't stand a chance against me then!"
Aqua placed her hands on her hips, an amused smile adorning her face. "There's water in clouds too, dingus."
Ven gagged, at a loss for words. "Well…uh…I'll just drink it all, then."
"You'll drink a cloud? Man, I gotta see that."
"Just try an' stop me! I'll drink all your clouds!"
Then they returned to their skirmish in the river, unaware of the savage eyes that watched them.
It was the first time Aqua and Ven had seen each other in their underwear or even undressed in near proximity. What they silently feared would be an awkward situation despite both wanting to swim was instantly defused when Aqua pushed Ven into the river when he wasn't looking. It had all been innocent fun after that.
Fatigue caught up with them a half-hour later, when strenuous water sport subsided to sitting side-by-side against the earthen wall of the riverbank as the gentle waters flowed against the pair. They panted heavily, Ven's head resting on Aqua's shoulder and her head atop his, until they caught their breath only to remain as they were, enjoying their rare adventure and taking in the beautiful scenery it yielded.
"We need to go exploring more often," Ven said with a content smile.
"Yeah," Aqua replied, equally enchanted. "This really has been great. And to think all this was here the whole time, waiting for us to find it."
"We need to bring Terra next time. He'd love this…" Ven's voice trailed off as he caught sight of a small yet brilliant glow emanating from the cave where the river ran. His youthful eyes were entranced at once and he leaned forward for a better view, the shift unintentionally stealing his friend's headrest. "Hey, Aqua," he started, his mind half-absent, "do you see that?"
She did. And she could hardly believe it.
A will-o'-the-wisp?
Ven was already standing up, walking forward with the river current for a better view of the luminescent phenomenon.
Aqua rose from her seat, concerned for her friend. "Ven, wait. We don't know what it is."
But the boy was already so near the cave and fixated on the gaseous sphere. And as he approached nearer, several more of the dancing marvel's kind appeared and Ven was purely enraptured. He reached out to touch one…
…before Aqua pulled him back and defensively placed herself between the boy and the lights.
"Ven, I agree they're beautiful, but until we know what they are, we really shouldn't take any chances."
Ven could only smile innocently, still fixated on the lights. "How can they be bad, Aqua? This is the Land of Departure. No Dark forces have ever been able to reach here."
"That may be," she replied, facing him with heavy maternal concern, "but this area is still uncharted. There are things in this world not even the Master fully understands, and until we know what we're dealing with, we should be more careful. We don't need Darkness to threaten us: only a predator or a lethal plant would be enough, and frankly, I don't think you'd survive against those things all on your own just yet. You're too inexperienced."
"But I'm not on my own," he protested back. "I've got one of the greatest Keyblade wielders ever with me."
The compliment surprised her, but even as her voice softened, she held firm in her convictions. "There's things even I'm scared of, Ven. I'd rather not take any chances if I don't have to, especially if that means putting you at risk."
Then the melody of a dulcimer caught her ear. She turned sharply to the cavern's mouth and stood astounded at the cave's unpredictable properties. But what struck her most was the familiarity of the tune.
I haven't heard this song since…
She remembered days of infancy and looking out at the world from a cradle as she passed through a park, and there was the song. She remembered early steps through a grain field under golden sunsets, and there was the player: a man in a sun hat and country attire who always gave her the time of day. Yet for as nostalgic as the song and the sights were, she questioned if any of it really happened.
"Ven," she started in a low voice, worried for what she was about to say, "those lights we saw…have you ever seen them before?"
The boy didn't know what to say, but his eyes said it all.
"Something about them lured you in right away," she pressed, visibly worried, "and I don't think it's just because they looked pretty. Think back—back to whatever scraps of memory you have left before you came here—have you ever seen these lights before?"
"Aqua…" his eyes reflected the same worry Aqua felt, "…you're right. I do remember them. I—I don't know how, but I do! I remember being a little kid in a swamp or something, and there were these lights dancing around just like these. I followed them and…but it doesn't make sense! I shouldn't have any memories before four years ago, and how can I even be sure that really happened?"
"Exactly," Aqua replied. "And that music we're hearing, that's familiar to me, but I don't think I've ever heard it before. It's like memories are being implanted in us."
"Or reminding us of things we forgot." Ven almost seemed desperate in his counter. "What if that's what it is and this can help me get my memories back?"
Aqua squeezed Ven's shoulders, still very much worried. "In any case, isn't it suspicious that we're being reminded of these things at the same time and they're actually manifesting at this cave?" Ven started to understand her angle. She continued, her voice softer, "Like I said, we should probably leave. We can come back with Terra and the Master for backup and investigate more then."
Ven nodded and turned back for the riverbank to re-dress. Aqua followed behind, always keeping an eye on the abysmal cave which since gave up in producing either apparition or melody and returned to eerie silence.
When Ven left the river and approached the broad tree where he left his clothes, he had to stop and consider whether to dress now or wait until he dried off some. But while he contemplated this, Aqua, still some yards behind in the river, caught a slight rustling in a branch's leaves overhead. She looked up at once and thought she saw an obscured form hiding in the late summer greenery. And the closer she observed, the more vivid appeared the sight of two hungry sallow eyes. She screamed, "Ven! Look out!"
The boy jolted at once at the call, and looking up, found a shrieking carnivorous form descending towards him from above, a jagged spear clutched in its hands and poised down for the kill. Aqua erected a magic barrier at once mere inches over Ven, dumbfounding the hunter as it was repelled on contact and landed some feet away. But it quickly returned to its feet, eyes alert and teeth bared as it found Aqua now standing between it and Ventus, the temporary magic barrier now dissipating. She held her Keyblade, Rainfell, in her grasp, daring her enemy to make the first move.
In the stare-down, she found the hunter wasn't quite the nonhuman monster it seemed in the initial attack, but was rather a startlingly humanoid form—sullied by extra layers of hair on his body, longer and sharper teeth, and other less formed or mildly warped features—covered in an almost permanent layer of dirt and wearing the heavy skin of a werepanther. He growled at them in animal tones, no doubt a scare tactic among his people, and appeared ready to attack again at any moment.
When he made a sudden step forward, Aqua poised the Keyblade forward and charged it with an overwhelming surge of lightning, never firing but instead leaving the volatile energy to violently crackle as a miniature storm under her control. The hunter in the werepanther skin backed down at once, intimidated by the display, and Aqua pondered what to do with him.
He meant to kill Ven and no doubt would've done the same to me. I really don't want to just let him go. But he also seems powerless before me—wouldn't killing him now be murder? …Maybe, but if I let him go, he'll only return to his people, tell them about us, and then we'll have an entire hunting party after us for God-knows-how-long. And if they follow Ven and me back to the castle, we'd also put Terra and the Master in danger. Still, this is a first contact situation with a new species. We can't afford to end this violently…
"Who are you?" she asked the hunter. "Why did you attack us?"
Wary though he was at the bottled lightning, the crouched hunter only continued his predatory sounds and motions, still intent on claiming this foreign prey. Aqua glowered at the silent spear-carrier who drifted to and fro under her watch, and everywhere he went, the Keyblade's aim always followed, earning spiteful snarls from him.
"Can you understand me?" she urged, but he only growled in response. She could only wonder what thoughts coursed through his mind, aside from bloodlust. Where did he come from? What were his people like? And how long had they been in the Land of Departure?
Their deadlock lasted for another few minutes, neither one making an advance. Then, Aqua let the surging energy fade away and lowered her weapon, surprising worried Ven, who remained behind her. "I'm going to take a chance with you," she said in a controlled, adamant tone. "My friend and I are leaving. We will never come to this place again. And in return, we trust you and those like you to not pursue us. Don't bother us and we won't bother you." She kept her eyes on the hunter. "Come on, Ven. Let's get out of here."
The boy nodded, still visibly anxious, and handed Aqua her clothes as they slowly backed away, the pair never taking their eyes off the hungry-eyed predator. Yet as they slowly retreated, the hunter advanced, either not heeding or not understanding the Keybearer's warning. Aqua recalled Rainfell and the hunter slowed, but didn't stop.
"Hey!" she called, "Didn't you understand me? We may not speak the same language, but my actions must've been clear. Back off before we both regret this!"
He stopped, but Aqua wasn't convinced it was for peaceful purposes.
With Aqua watching the front, Ven suddenly had the cautious mind to check the rest of their surroundings, and in his survey, he spied another of the hunter's kind—an archer: silver-haired, red-eyed, and tan-skinned—perched in a tree across the river with an arrow drawn on a bowstring bent for the kill.
"Aqua!" he cried moments before the arrow flew. She at once turned to his warning and used her power to raise a mass of water from the brook, catching the arrow and then freezing it in a wall of ice.
The first hunter jumped at the opportunity and Aqua was still exposed from the stealth attack. Ven swerved in front of her, calling Wayward Wind to his grasp, and discharged a bolt of fire and lightning at the hunter moments before he could drive his spear into either of them, blasting the man in the werepanther skin pointblank and incinerating much of his upper torso, killing him instantly.
When the charred remains of his body struck the ground, Aqua gaped in horror at her friend's actions. "Ven…what have you done?"
"What do you mean? I—I saved us, didn't I?" Ven was hardly defensive, but only frightened and confused under his friend's scrutiny.
There was no anger in her voice—only dread. "You could've cast 'Stop' on him, blown him away with a gust of wind, or anything besides killing him!"
Ven jabbered back, "But—but you—!"
"I was only trying to scare him so he could tell his people to leave us alone, but now that we've killed one of them, we might've started a war!"
Ven wanted to argue back, say it was only self-defense, but that was beside the point. There was still a vengeful archer on the other side of the waterway who watched them kill his tribesman and the ice wall Aqua erected would only protect them until he circumnavigated it. And who could tell how many others there were in the area?
In the urgency of the moment, Aqua seized Ven's wrist and told him, "Never mind that now—run!" and they fled into the forest knowing it was only a matter of time before more pursued them.