A/N: First of all, happy 2018, year of Kingdom Hearts! :D Second of all, I'm going to apologize for not letting you find out what happened to Aqua in this chapter. Sorry. Story flow calls for a Terrella chapter here, but the next one will definitely focus on Vanitas and Aqua!
Also, here we get to have Cinderella's POV! :D It was a little tough to write, that's part of what made this chapter take so long. The other part was that I both played through Terra's story on BbS and watched the animated Cinderella movie in the interim to try and get their characters right (or at least know what parts I'm purposely messing up *sweatdrop*). Anyway, hope you enjoy!
Cinderella felt a strange, uncomfortable shudder run through her right before the sudden noise pierced the silence.
GONG.
Midnight. Midnight already? She gasped, shrugging off Terra's arm and standing up to stare at the clocktower. The realization pushed aside the strange physical fear that had overcome her the moment before.
GONG.
She spun to Terra, who was gaping at her in shock. "I'm sorry. I have to go," she breathed, then gathered her skirts, which were already beginning to fade into magical glitter.
GONG.
"Wait, what? Cinderella!" He jumped up from their fountainside seat, but she was already making a break for the carriage. It was linked to her fairy godmother's spell too; if she didn't get there soon, she would have no way of making it home, and then her family would catch her for certain.
GONG.
Terra's hand grabbed her wrist as the fourth bell sounded. She instinctively pulled away, but his grip was too strong. Panic flashed through her.
"Please, Terra, really, I must go," she pleaded. By that point he finally noticed that her dress was dissolving. Before long she would be clad in glorified rags again.
He nodded and loosened his grip with an apologetic wince. "Sorry. How long before…?"
GONG.
"Before the spell is completely gone?" She finished for him. "The last stroke of midnight. I must be home by then."
"You'll never make it," he said quickly. "It took us more than twelve seconds to get here."
GONG, the clocktower agreed. Her sleeves and gloves dissolved into sparkles; the autumn night air suddenly felt freezing to her bare arms.
Oh, I never should have stayed out this late. Even if it was wonderful…
"I'll have to try," she said, still rushing for the carriage. She could see it at the gate of the courtyard; it had already shrunk to half its size, as had the "horses." The white stallions squeaked in fear as they morphed back into her mice friends.
GONG.
"Wait." Terra stopped her again. Maybe if he hadn't stopped her the first time, she could have made it to the carriage and at least had a head start on her stepmother and stepsisters. Now even she had to admit the carriage was undrivable. "I have an idea."
She turned back to him, hugging herself to keep out the cold as well as to hide the shreds of her homemade pink dress. Terra had seen her like this before, and he had helped her anyway. She had no reason to be ashamed, but still… He was so handsome and important, and while she'd been able to pretend to be a princess for one night, it hurt to remember that underneath the magic, this was who she truly was.
GONG.
Terra summoned his strange key-shaped sword in a flash of translucent shapes and blue lightning. As she had the first time she had seen the magical weapon, she wondered if he was connected to her mysterious fairy godmother somehow. He claimed to be an ordinary knight, and didn't question him aloud, but what ordinary knight could use spells, or would show up at the exact moment she most needed protection?
He tossed the weapon far into the air, and at the next GONG, it came flying back… quite literally, to Cinderella's surprise. The blade had somehow morphed into… she didn't even have a name for it.
She gasped. "Terra, what is that?"
"Glider," he replied quickly, leaping onto the large turquoise-and-bronze device as it swooped back around. "Hop on."
Hop on? She took a step back. Trusting him to protect her from the monsters was one thing, but riding some sort of strange flying machine?
GONG, the clock urged her on. She shuddered again, feeling something… dark, was the only way she could describe it. Coming from further in the castle's gardens. Was that shouting she heard too? She couldn't believe it would have anything to do with her, but she didn't want to find out.
Terra was holding out his hand, his smile weak with worry. For what reason would he be worried? He wasn't the one who would be punished and humiliated if her family found them.
GONG.
She swallowed and made her decision.
As soon as her hand clasped his, he pulled her up behind him as if she weighed nothing. "Hold on tight," he said as she adjusted her dress around the odd seat, trying to keep some degree of decency.
"Wait, the mice," she said before he could fly them away. "I need them."
"What?" He craned his neck around to give her a funny look, and she blushed.
"They're my friends," she explained, knowing he would find it silly, which was why she hadn't mentioned it earlier.
To her relief, he didn't argue or ask questions, or even waste time with another odd look. He just propelled the 'Glider' forward, bent down to scoop up the four mice, and then took to the sky.
"Cinderelly! Cinderelly!" Jaq cried, scrambling up Terra's arm and onto her shoulder. "What is it? Whatsa goin' on?"
"Yeah, uh, what's goin' on?" Gus echoed.
She didn't have time to answer, only to hold on to Terra's waist as the night sky rushed up to embrace them.
GONG. The last stroke of midnight. The final sparkles fell from her, taking the remnants of her beautiful ensemble with them. Well, not all of them, she realized, wiggling her toes and smiling. The glass slippers still remained for some reason.
The thought was swept from her mind in a gust of wind, and she clung to Terra's waist as tightly as she could, propriety forgotten for the moment. She should have been terrified at their impossible height, held aloft only by an impossible device. Maybe part of her was terrified, but it was quickly overshadowed by a mixture of giddiness and awe.
Her head was pressed against Terra's back, but she could still crane her neck enough to see the countryside sprawling below. The castle protruded from the evergreen forests like a giant crystal. She picked out her own home, Tremaine Manor, among the trees too. Her home, her prison. From their height, it could have been proportioned for one of her mouse friends.
"Oh…" She didn't know what else to say. As she gaped openly, Jaq and Gus struggled to climb down her arms and take shelter in Terra's pockets, where the two other mice had already hidden. If Terra noticed, he didn't seem to mind.
He slowed the glider, so they hung at the eye level of a couple of high-flying sparrows. They tweeted at her in surprise, and their words translated in her mind: "Cinderella? Is that you? What in worms' name are you doing up here?"
"Well, it's quite a long story…" she chuckled.
"Twee twee tweet?" One sparrow asked. "Who's the man?"
"He's, um… a friend," she answered, hoping Terra couldn't see her blush from this angle.
"Tweeeet tweet twee-tweet! Tweet twee!" "Ohh, we get it. You better tell us about him when you get back on the ground where you belong!"
Her face heated. "Oh, yes. Um, if you could just give us a moment…"
They laughed a chirpy little laugh, fluttered about her head, and then glided off. By that point, Terra was twisting around to raise his eyebrow at her.
"I don't suppose it's normal to be able to understand birds and mice, is it?" She asked, half hoping he would say it was. It certainly seemed more normal than creating some kind of flying machine out of thin air.
"...I wouldn't know," he finally answered. "I don't guess flying's normal for you though, huh."
She laughed a little at his echo of her thoughts. "Not particularly normal, no. But it is wonderful."
He smiled, and it lit up his dark blue eyes. "I hoped it would be. I guess it could've looked like I was kidnapping you, flying off without warning like that." He chuckled sheepishly and took a hand off the handlebars to ruffle his hair.
"Well, it isn't like you threw me over your shoulder and dragged me into the sky kicking and screaming," she replied. "Quite the opposite, in fact."
"Heh. I guess we're all good then. We should probably get you home, before your family beats us to it."
"Yes," she agreed, though regret tinged her voice. Her eyes again found the prison she called home. It seemed so small, so insignificant from up here.
If only it were so small. I would have no trouble finishing my chores at all.
"Terra?" she asked as he began to urge the glider forward.
"Yeah?" He kept their speed slow, so she could hear him over the wind.
"With magic like this, you must be able to go anywhere. Around the whole world, perhaps. What brought you here tonight?" What brought you to me?
"Huh," he grunted, as if he hadn't thought about it. "I guess the universe thought it owed me a break."
She wasn't quite sure what to make of that. A shiver shook her - while her front was warm, close to Terra as she was, her back felt the full chill of the night wind. It wove through her already-matted hair, but she still found it too exhilarating to mind.
She forgot her questions for the moment and just took it in. She was flying. If that wasn't a dream come true, she didn't know what would be.
She turned her gaze upward, to the stars they had been watching together before the clocktower had so rudely interrupted. A gasp escaped her lips; the lights seemed so much closer than they had from the ground.
"It's almost as if I could reach out and touch them," she breathed.
"You could," she thought she heard Terra whisper, but maybe it was just the wind.
For all his haste to get them into the air, he took his time on the way down. Watching to make sure they weren't being watched, he said. She didn't mind. However quickly her stepmother and stepsisters' carriage was, it couldn't possibly beat flying.
Finally the glider hovered just a few feet from the ground in that same clearing by the fountain where he had first found her crying. In spite of that first impression, he had stayed - she had had the courage to ask him to stay. And she hadn't let those monsters scare her from her chance to go to the ball. Perhaps she was more brave than she'd thought.
He dismounted the glider first, then extended a hand up to her. Glad her blush shouldn't be too visible in the pale starlight, she accepted his help down. She hadn't meant to guilt him into the gesture earlier; she had made the apparently unwarranted assumption that all knights wanted the opportunity to be chivalrous, but he had seemed confused by her pause. It had been adorable, really. Regardless, he now seemed to be putting in extra effort to right his supposed mistake.
"Thank you," she said as her glass-slippered feet touched the ground. The truly magical thing was that that those beautiful but impractical shoes hadn't given her blisters. The mice scrambled out of Terra's pockets, making him chuckle, and after a look from her they took off towards the manor.
"No problem." He shrugged with a smile that quickly faded. "So, uh… I guess this is goodbye."
The heavy finality of his words hit her like another gong of the clocktower. "Yes… I suppose it is." She swallowed. "Thank you for the lovely night, Terra."
He bowed from the waist, the way he had when leading her into the ballroom. "The pleasure was all mine."
That should have been all. She should have turned, walked back through the muddy garden in her glass shoes, and let this night fade into the dream that it already was. Instead she found herself unable to move, unable to turn away from this handsome stranger's starlit eyes.
"Terra… will I ever see you again?" She asked earnestly.
He grimaced, and her heart sank. "I don't know. I'm still supposed to be investigating those monsters, and I need to find Master Xehanort. I meant to ask around at the ball…"
Oh. So that was why he had been going - and she had distracted him from his mission. "I'm sorry."
"No! Cinderella, it's not your fault. I just…" He shook his head, searching for words that didn't reach his voice. Then he took her hand and squeezed it softly. "I hope my search takes me back here. But in case it doesn't…"
She felt the cool metal charm he had pressed into her palm. Her fingers uncurled around it, and its orange surface glowed with a warm light. She stared, mesmerized, until Terra carefully took it back.
"Now we're connected," he explained. "If you ever need me, I'll know. And I'll be here."
She blinked up at him, not bothering to fight the tears prickling at the edge of her eyes. "You can do that?"
"Yep. One of my special knight powers." He smiled.
You would do that? Would have been the more accurate question. But apparently he already had. Twin droplets of water streaked down her already-disheveled face, but she didn't care. She threw her arms around him, around this man she barely knew, but who for whatever reason seemed determined to protect her.
"You are wonderful, Terra. Are you certain my fairy godmother didn't send you?" She asked.
"Uhh… I don't think so." After a moment of hesitation, he hugged her back. It was a wonderful feeling, being held by someone strong and warm and kind. Really, it might have been wonderful to be held by anyone at all; it had been so long… since her father's passing. How had she managed? In that moment, she felt the same small, scared child she had been then.
No. Not scared. Strong, she told herself. He believed in her strength. Maybe that would be enough for her to believe, too.
Finally he let her go. She thought he was going to say something, with that look on his face, but it took him a while to find the words. "Before you go, can I ask you something?"
"Of course," she replied without hesitation. His voice became serious; his cobalt eyes grazed the ground.
"...Is there anything else I can do to help you?" He asked. It was the last thing she'd expected.
"Oh. Um…" You can take me with you, wherever it is you're going. "No. You have done more than enough, Terra."
He met her eyes again and smiled, but she couldn't help feeling that something was missing.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" She asked in return. It was silly, she realized; what could a girl like her offer a knight? But it felt the right thing to say.
He shook his head, jostling his strange but handsome brown spikes of hair - but then he stopped. "Actually, there is one thing. Just…
"Believe in me."
They were the last words she would hear him say. Then he slammed his fist against the piece of metal on his shoulder, and the magical armor engulfed him. With barely another nod, he jumped onto his glider and rose into the sky.
"Goodbye, Terra," Cinderella whispered as he streaked into the night, like another shooting star. On a whim, she made another wish. "Please, don't forget me. And may your journey bring you back someday soon."
Her dreams had come true once. She could only believe they would come true again.
Until then, she would keep believing in him.
XXX
"Before you go, can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"If I weren't a knight - if I'm not the hero - would you still have wanted me to stay?"
Those weren't the right words. He couldn't find the right words. So he hadn't asked. The regret settled in his chest as he jetted away, pausing only a moment to look back and make sure she got inside safely.
It was the right thing to do, he told himself. I had to leave eventually. She'll be alright. She's strong.
She had more light in her than he could ever hope to have. What could he offer her? He wasn't even a hundred percent confident that his D-Link with her would work in reverse; he would be able to contact her, but he didn't know if she could really contact him.
It was the most I could do. And if I fail, she has a fairy godmother, apparently. Though the fairy hadn't appeared in time to save Cinderella from the Unversed…
I can't protect everyone. Finding a way to stop the Unversed for good will go farther than saving one girl in one world. Even if it was the one girl who made the darkness is in his heart feel so distant...
He opened a portal to the Lanes Between, resolving to talk to Yen Sid himself. Surely the older Master would have more answers. Or at least, a warm bed to spend the night in. He liked camping, but not with the Unversed lurking around and waking him up every couple of hours. As he thought of it, his body suddenly felt the fatigue he had been repressing; it was a miracle he had stayed awake until midnight.
In spite of his exhaustion, hunger, and knowledge that he had a long way to go yet, he smiled. He'd helped a dream come true tonight.
And maybe that dream didn't only belong to her.
XXX
"Ven-Ven! Flurry! Wake up, wake up!"
"Hngh?" Ven snorted awake and blinked the crustiness out of his eyes. "Wagh!" He scrambled back from the mouse looming over him.
"Come, come! Your friend is here!"
It came back to him like a smack in the face. Getting shrunk, helping out the mice, and asking if they'd seen- "Terra!"
He leapt out of the makeshift bed - a fabric-scrap lined matchbox - and rushed to follow Jaq, who was already taking off through the maze of woodwork. His limbs were still heavy with sleep, but his mind was wide awake now.
"Flurry, Flurry! Cinderelly is saying goodbye!"
"Cinderella? She met Terra?" Ven asked while panting. He was always faster than Terra and Aqua, but this little mouse was making him push it. He blamed the fact that he just woke up.
"Yes, yes! Now flurry!" Jaq didn't pause as he jumped down a tall step, leaving his red hat to flutter down after him.
Ven didn't need to be told twice, or well, as many times as Jaq repeated himself. He "flurried." Terra…
"He's leaving you behind. And by the time you catch up… he'll be a different person."
Ven shook the thought off like a dust cloud. Whoever that boy was, he didn't know the first thing about Terra. Terra never changed. He was just as steady as the earth he was named for, and just as strong too.
"There, zugk-zugk!" Jaq called, pointing to the light at the end of the tunnel.
Ven came barreling out of the mousehole, only to crash into Jaq as the mouse skidded to a stop.
"Oh!" The giant Cinderella was standing there in the hall, but she knelt down when she saw them. "What's this fuss about? It's late; I thought you would want to get some rest."
"Terra - Jaq said you met him. Is he here?" Ven jumped straight to the point. Jaq had said to hurry.
"You know Terra? He can talk to…? Well, I did think you looked too strange to be a normal mouse." She chuckled. "I was too busy to ask questions earlier, and after tonight I'm hardly surprised anymore…"
"Strange! I'm not-" Ven protested, fists clenched, but then slumped with a sigh. "Nevermind. Please, tell me where I can find Terra."
She sighed, a gust of wind that nearly knocked him backwards. "I'm sorry, Ven. He just left after taking me home from the ball. I don't know where he left to… or if I'll ever see him again."
"Ball?" He looked her over, which was pretty hard to do at his size. There was just so much her to look at. "Did Unversed attack you there?" She looked horrible. Her pink dress was in shreds, and hair was swept in enough different directions that it almost looked like his.
"Oh, this?" She tugged at a loose scrap of fabric with a sad laugh. "No, this was… well, it's a long story, and it's quite late. I'll need to get some rest; I'm sure Stepmother will have plenty of work for me tomorrow…"
She held out her hand, and Jaq scampered up onto it. Reluctantly Ven followed. Being held up so high wasn't a problem - he liked heights - but it was embarrassing enough being so small without being carried on top of it. It was nice not to have to scramble back up those tall flights of stairs, though.
"So you said Terra was with you at a ball?" Ven asked, trying to glue all the pieces together. "And there weren't Unversed there?"
"There were plenty along the way, but he took care of them for me. He was very brave." Her cheeks got pink at that, for some reason.
"Of course he was! Terra's the bravest person I know," Ven replied.
"It sounds like you know him pretty well." She smiled. "Do you know where he's from?"
"Sure! We're both from- uh-" Whoops, I'm not supposed to talk about other worlds! "Uh… it's… it's a secret." He finally finished with a nod. There. Nailed it!
Cinderella covered her mouth with her free hand and giggled. "Of course it is. Well, it was worth a try."
"If there weren't Unversed there, then why was Terra at the ball? Isn't that a thing where there's dancing and fancy people and stuff?" That sounded like the last place he'd find Terra.
She quietly opened the door to her room and set him and Jaq on the dresser. "Yes, there was dancing… and he was so wonderful to dance with…" She spun gracefully in the center of the room. "And talking with him under the stars… and flying on his strange Glider… it was truly a dream come true."
Ven choked. "He took you on his Glider?" The Master would kill him for that! Why would he… why would he…? Oh. He slapped his face. "Terra likes her, doesn't he?" He whispered to Jaq, who grinned.
"We hope-a so, zugk-zugk. Cinderelly not been this happy in…" He paused to think, his little hand rubbing his chin. "Ever?"
Ven sat down. Terra, liking a girl? If he was going to make a move with someone, he would've thought for sure it would be Aqua. But he'd never really talked to Terra about anything like that.
"But tomorrow everything will be back to normal," Cinderella sighed and fell back onto her bed. "The same old clock waking me up… same old Stepmother and Stepsisters demanding breakfast, and the sewing, and the laundry, and… then tonight will be nothing more than a dream.
"But it was such a beautiful dream…" She slid off her shoes - were those made of glass? Ouch - and set them on her lap. "A dream I will never forget."
"You say that like he's never coming back," Ven piped up, startling her.
"He may come back, eventually," she said. "But he is so busy with his quest, I don't know when that will be. I couldn't ask him to stay, even if his magic works."
"Magic?"
She nodded. "Yes. He placed this star-shaped charm in my hand and used some kind of spell, one he said would let him know if I need him. Only I wish he had explained how it would work..."
"The Wayfinder!" Ven leapt to his feet. Whoa, Terra, how serious are you about this girl? Well, it seemed enough that Ven had a responsibility to help her. For Terra. "I know how it works!"
"You do?" She asked in surprise.
"Yeah! I'll be right back!" He dashed into a crack in the wall behind the dresser, and he didn't have to wait long before Unversed appeared in the mice's secret passage. A few swipes of his keyblade later, he was back on top of the dresser, arms full of D-Link Crystals. He had to be careful to keep them from absorbing into his skin.
"What are those?" Cinderella asked, looming over him. Man, he wished he was big again. Well, as big as he ever was, anyway.
"They're called D-Link Crystals! They let us connect with people from- uh, people we care about. Anyway, I'll let you try it with me to make sure it works." He set down the crystals, dug the green Wayfinder out of his pocket, and held it up to her. It looked so tiny in her giant hand; he hoped she wouldn't crush it by accident. So far it had survived him getting beat up by Unversed, though, so Aqua's magic on it must've been pretty good.
"Alright, what should I do?"
"Um… well…" The charm had formed a D-Link with Snow White by accident; he'd hoped it would just figure itself out.
As it turned out, it did. At least, the Wayfinder glowed with a fuzzy green light, so he assumed it had worked. When she carefully passed it back to him, he felt it hum with a new energy. Another friend.
"Okay! So now you need these." Jaq helped him gather up the D-Link Crystals again. "You just gotta let them, uh, melt on your hand. You don't have to think about it too much."
"Alright then, let's try it." She held out her hand again, and when he dropped the armful of crystals into it, they dissolved into happy-looking sparkles. "Oh!"
"You feel something?" Ven grinned. He hadn't known if it would work, with her not having a Wayfinder and all, but it was looking good so far.
"Yes, it feels… tingly." She scrunched her nose.
"Good, I think that's what it's supposed to do." He nodded. "Okay. Now here's the last part. You gotta think of me really hard. Like, picture me in your head."
"Is that all?" She asked a little skeptically.
"Yep! Just that!"
She closed her eyes tightly; she sure looked like she was thinking really hard. As the seconds passed though, Ven began to get impatient. Was it going to work or not?
"I'm not sure-" Cinderella began, only to be surrounded with a faint green halo, like she'd had Cure cast on her. "Oh!"
"Cinderelly light up!" Jaq laughed. "Now she bright on-a outside, too!"
"Yes!" Ven cheered, throwing his fists in the air. "Looks like you did it!" A second later he could feel it too, the fuzzy warmth of someone touching his heart.
"And that… that will let me reach Terra?" She asked with a hopeful smile.
"Sure will!" He grinned as her glow faded; the mini D-Link Crystals hadn't been enough to last long. "I'll just get you some more of those crystals before I go!"
"Go? You're leaving too?"
"Well…" He thought about it. He was going to look for Terra, but Cinderella could call him now. Ven couldn't do it with his own D-Link; if he used it, Terra would just think he was training. This might be his best shot of finding his friend and getting some answers about what that masked boy said. "I guess I could stay a little longer."
"Oh, thank you, Ven." Cinderella picked him up in one hand and hugged him to her cheek. It was weird to get hugged by a giant, but at least she didn't squeeze too hard. "This means so much to me."
"Hey, no problem! A friend of Terra's is a friend of mine!"
Ven grinned. He was going to have fun teasing his friend about this when they met again.
A/N: Yep, Unplanner, Terra's comment in the first chapter about inhaling D-Link Crystals was user error. Even Ven figured it out. XD
Bet you weren't expecting to see Ven! :D I don't know that he will show up often, but he's definitely around and may be important later.
I'm realizing this fic is going to be way longer and more involved than I was expecting (big surprise there ^^;). There may be some big clues about that and in what ways the plot will continue to diverge from canon in the next Terra chapter.