Erised
CkyKing's prompt:
Tales of Vesperia/HP X-over
"Harry as a male!Rita Mordio taking her place in Tales of Vesperia's story. I really want to see him using magic and just being a badass genius spellcaster. It would also be very nice to see his interactions with the rest of the team."
0o0o0
The thing Harry Potter never wondered about was what mirrors reflected – the truth? – What you wanted and desired most? Or more, that they stole souls and switched them, just maybe. There is after all, truth in old stories, for what is Harry Potter without being also a wizard? Magic has its mysteries tied to life and lies.
Rita Mordio now ponders that very question everyday – what is a mirror, really, and how to work one. They say eyes are the windows to the soul, but no one ever said what might happen when Erised let you see what you most desired – and you looked into that smiling mirror-self's eyes, and wanted – and Erised swallowed you up and spat you out, somewhere, some when.
Harry doesn't know who Rita was before he was her, he thinks of mirrors and how you can see yourself once in them, but if you have another mirror, the refection of yourself goes on and on endlessly, the same looking person with small changes that you aren't supposed to notice because of how far away and small that repeating refection gets. Most people won't look for how eerie it is. For when you see the mirror's refection of yourself going away, how can you doubt how many worlds you might see if you looked?
Rita Mordio is –was – a girl of eleven, just like him, she had his eyes, and his mother's red hair. She's an orphan just like Harry, and he knows her name, but he knows nothing else about her; he tries to make a life for himself in the caves of Aspio, a city within a cave, a city of scholars. If anywhere on the world of Terca Lumireis may have the answers of how it happened and if Harry can ever get his own world, his own body back – it is here. He likes to think he didn't kill her when he went into her, because there is no one's mind but his own within this body that isn't his own, but is. He likes to think, maybe, they just traded places, and somewhere where his world is, she's working this out just like he is.
It's a hope to hold to, despite everything – and everyone – and it nearly costs Rita dearly, a fame grudgingly given by other mages is nearly taken by a thief that leads a boy, a noble, and a knight into her locked house.
They, in the end, hold the key to everything Rita lacks – friends, family – a home where the heart is, that's what Rita didn't have, lacked all along, was shunned for – not caring about her heart in the face of the trinity of aer and blastia and magic.
They save her, when she didn't know she needed or wanted the saving. So she saves them, and keeps saving them, because that's just who she is and will always be. No matter the body.
0o0o0
Repede isn't a dog, not really, in the same way that Rita Mordio isn't just an ordinary human who uses blastia. Repede uses daggers and bodhi bastia – not his teeth and claws, to attack – he carries about a pipe, and has a scar, and is wary of just about everyone. Everyone except Yuri, of course – but also, also Rita – and she can admit she doesn't like dogs who are almost as big as she is without jumping up on her shoulders and biting her face off.
So she decides she doesn't like him, when it's obvious Repede likes her. She won't get to know him, won't encourage his liking of her with touch as Estelle yearns to.
Rita Mordio sits under a tree and studies scrolls pretending she doesn't enjoy the warmth and light and the way it makes her skin sweat. She feels she's forgotten sunlight and dawn and dusk beneath the yawning mouth of the earth. She felt safe there; like it was a womb, but this…this is outside. Where no one dares go, for fear of monsters and more dangerous things, no one dares it – because those who dare, they disappear.
Rita doesn't notice it, as Repede sneaks closer and closer, crawling up to her on his belly, until his head is on her knee and her absentminded stroking of his fur is like her rubbing her fingers over the hard cover of her book, thinking. Of where they go – where the Rita who was born to this body went – and what happened to his body, his world, if that Rita isn't in it.
"Finally getting your way, huh, Repede?" Yuri laughs to see them there, and Rita yelps and yanks her hand back, crawling away from Repede as he whines and looks at her with big brown eyes, human eyes.
But, Repede isn't a human, isn't a dog, Repede is Repede, and in being that he teaches Rita little by little, that it doesn't matter what name or what body, Rita Mordio is a sorcerer, and so was Harry Potter.
0o0o0
Estelle is noble, not only by the blood in her body, or in the clothes and manners she carries, but in her heart – she has the heart of a healer, and a lover. It's noble and good and Rita wants to protect that about Estelle with everything she is.
She cares about everyone and everything, and can't see how people can be bad or evil, because she isn't like that. She was content to be tucked away in a castle, to live her life that way because she knew no other – and sometimes, sometimes Rita hates Yuri and Flynn for Estelle's sake, because Estelle barely knows what hate is and couldn't hate them even if she tried.
Estelle loves, and Rita can't help but love her back, it's not like being in love, or in lust, or desire or longing, it's…it's a bond, a friendship, that kind of innocent love. Estelle gives it to everyone, just about, and she doesn't expect to be given anything back. But that love…It's there about Rita's heart and soul, tying her to Estelle and her compassion and kindness before Rita can help it, that's not to say Rita can't break that frail golden chain, she can break anything – but she doesn't want to.
So Rita gives Estelle books of every kind, because Estelle loves them too, and it's something that they share.
Rita never expects to be given anything in return, but she accepts it, wordless and a bit weepy, when Estelle gives her a book for her birthday – a day that no one in Aspio had ever heeded, for Rita had no one, needed no one – until now.
0o0o0
Yuri will never strike Karol, he's a boy, a child, but Rita is a girl (for now) and so she does, because Rita recognizes what kind of boy Karol might become, and she wants him to be better – better than Yuri who wields cynicism and sarcasm like blastia, a defense against hurt and bitterness, it's a brittle defense in this world, their world – Rita's world. In any world.
"Why do you keep hitting me?" Karol yells, and Rita laughs. She thinks, one day, he might fight back – but that day isn't today. Too bad, because what Yuri doesn't know about blastia Rita would teach Karol freely - to see this boy become bigger, better than Yuri, than Flynn – yes, even better than Harry Potter might have been.
"You're angry and afraid aren't you?" Rita sees it in his eyes, the fear that one day they will reject him, just like anyone else he's tried to join. Rita wants to tell him that they never will – Estelle could do that in a breath, would do it too – but Estelle is blind to this fault of Karol and Yuri doesn't know what to do about it other than to do what Flynn does and be his brother.
Rita knows it's up to her, to address Karol's growing pains - because it is a pain to grow up, to live, and to keep living. But, it's also worth it.
"They never solved anything!" And that's it, right there. Rita, like a cat, pounces upon it.
"Ah, but if they're bottled up and kept under the surface, like a sore, it festers and blisters and hurts – hurts so much, until you don't know if you might die, if you might be better off or not with fear and fury cut off. They are a part of you, not a limb – so express them why don't you?" Karol looks at Rita as if he's never quite seen her before. He listens to her then, as much as he listens to Yuri, and that's all that Rita could have asked for – but wouldn't – and more.
It's the last day Rita hits Karol with more than words, and she couldn't be prouder.
0o0o0
Rita often likes people, or hates them on first sight, not based on anything like looks, or power, or temper, but because it's her instinct. Judith though, Rita doesn't know what to think of Judith at first. She seems to come out of legend, a knight upon its dragon, destroying and taking and pillaging the blastia. In the world, the blastia are the only things Rita understood – and now…now she's not so sure she didn't have everything wrong from the start.
Ba'ul and Judith have a purpose, a reason, and Rita can learn the hard way to like someone. It's a very, very good reason, a reason that might end with the world ending if Judith gives it up.
Judith will watch over Estelle until she does something wrong – and then Judith will end her life, but Rita will watch over Estelle until Judith kills her – because that's the only way Judith will get to Estelle. Rita's made that clear to Judith, though no one else might know it.
"Not on my life." Rita whispers to the dragon-like Ba'ul and Judith, whips in both hands and blastia burning brightly. None but the Kritya girl and Entelexeia hear her, and each time Judith's answer is humbled silence. They understand the bond that Rita has for Estelle, for their partnership is much the same.
For a while, any meeting between Rita and Judith is like the rock and the hard place, the frying pan and the fire, but it's Estelle who teaches Judith too, and their meetings become kinder in turn, slowly the word forms in the back of Rita's tongue for what Judith is to her, and it is friend.
"You remind me of my father, Hermes." Judith says out of the blue one day, and Rita chokes on it. So it is a good thing they are alone, and Rita thinks that may have been Judith's reasoning.
"How so..?" Rita has heard of him, Hermes – and Aspio has more pages written about him and his work than Judith ever says.
"Brilliant, but blind when it come to what harm blastia can do. I have Ba'ul to lead me, but who do you have?" Judith's glance is measuring, and pitying, but there is an offer there.
"You, I suspect." Rita mutters, not without some respect.
Judith smiles, shy and slight- and it's how they work, in the end, Ba'ul finds the blastia that distort aer, and Rita does her research to test them, and hopefully produce a result that doesn't end in the blastia being destroyed – but if it does have to be that way, Judith does it.
Rita doesn't envy her, because of what Hermes was – what Rita is – Judith fears that one day, Rita will die, and only Judith and Ba'ul will remember them, and for that memory, destroy what made them be called geniuses.
Rita takes Judith for a friend, and forgives her.
0o0o0
Flynn is Empire born and raised, noble by blood, but his best friend is Yuri, a commoner – Yuri never says outright how he feels about Flynn, but because Rita meets Flynn first – she knows, and wonders if Yuri denies their friendship, but he never says, and that's more than half the problem with Yuri – he keeps too much of himself to himself for it to be healthy. Rita knows all about that.
Flynn sees the corruption of the Imperial Knights – how can he not? – but he also sees their great potential, so he sticks with them, he makes himself into a ideal – and he changes them from the inside out. It's slow, painful, but a change that takes courage and unbending strength.
Rita admires it.
"You know what you are." Flynn says one day to her, when she goes to the ruins without her research, intent to see them without the need to study. Flynn has heard all about Mordio, she's sure – and what's more, knows her on sight, the genius, revered and reviled.
"Of course I do, as much as you do Imperial Knight." Flynn nods in acceptance of that fact that Rita sees. Most people, if you told them that so point blank, they'd back off, be scared away. Flynn isn't like that though, he stays, he sits beside her and offers apple slices and tells her about Yuri – who's never far from his thoughts – and about what he's going to do to change the world.
Yuri and Flynn are so much like Rita and Judith in the end, they fit together willingly, or the world makes them- because it needs them.
0o0o0
Raven is Karol all grown up wrong, is the worst of Yuri and a broken Flynn. He's much more than what meets the eye, Rita is sure – but she's equally sure that what she sees is only the tip of the iceberg of what he is, what's wrong with him and his story. Raven prefers to act the part of a jester - joking the world away.
Rita won't have it, and every time he tries it – she shows that.
Raven admires her for that, tests her, teases her, and in her own way she cares for him as much as he doesn't care about his own past and it's cost.
"It still hurts." Raven says to her in the dark, and he isn't talking about the bruises on his body – one of which Rita gave to him, he isn't talking about his blastia heart. He is talking about hurt, and loss, and the past that is his story to tell, his history which he never will.
"It always does, Raven - that's life, it hurts, it lies, and you live with it if your lucky." Raven turns to look at her, black eyes gleaming with curiosity. Rita knows her body, how young it is – what she looks like with her lithe form and red hair and green eyes, and she knows that Raven loves that show of beauty and strength – like he likes Judith. Rita though, isn't for the likes of his lusts.
"I always thought pain would fade, given time enough." She shakes her head, cradled by her hands behind it.
"It never does, but you might forget – but you shouldn't." Raven yawns, pretending that he isn't paying a lot of attention to what he says and what she says. Just the way that Rita had seen Raven for what he was, he sees her for more than a cranky genius with bad people skills. She can't be so bad at it, if she's managed friends like these – it's just she never tried, never thought she needed them.
If Raven can see that folly of hers, the question is:
"Why? Why didn't you ever try to get along with people, instead of pushing them away?" They could have helped you, is the unspoken statement, even when people hadn't been able to help Raven simply because he couldn't trust them for more than laughing at his jokes.
"I was trying not to forget." Raven knows what that's like, so he falls as silent as the night – which is never really silent, full of bugs and people snoring and speaking in their sleep and things awake and wandering.
Forget what? Raven must wonder, but he never says it, because he knows how much it would hurt.
0o0o0
Rita Mordio must wonder, sometimes, what Harry Potter would be like in his own body, because sometimes you do forget that feeling of being under your own skin – and what Rita was like in her body, and he wonders too – if Patty Fleur would be it. Trying to find treasure, in the wrong body, a mind without memory…
In the face of that, Rita can't really complain.
"What do you most desire?" It jars Rita, how close to all the truth of her existence bottles down to Patty's words. Rita's never been good with children, or with people, it doesn't matter if they are her age or older, or younger, if she likes someone she likes someone, if she doesn't she tries not to dwell on it.
With Patty, Rita…just doesn't, she doesn't feel either way – like it was with Judith when she was hiding who she was – Patty's not hiding it, she can't help it – and Rita tries not to hold it against her.
"I have it, what more could I want?" Rita looks around at them, her friends, her family, and wonders if Patty will always be among them. She can hope so, and watch out for her, but Patty might not be Patty when she gets her treasure. Patty watches her look them over, and thinks about it, doesn't dismiss what Rita says and wants.
"What's lost, of course?" She can't be happy with what she has until she has what she lost, even if it's not good for her.
Rita hopes, one day, that Patty will be who she wants to be, and will be happy – because Patty looks at her, and wants just the same for Rita.
0o0o0
Yuri Lowell is a hero, bitter about the blood of common and noble, but a hero – and everyone knows it, but Yuri doesn't want it. He's like Rita was, once, long ago, only no one but Flynn saw it and protected him. He'd take the weight of the world until it broke his back bloody. Rita takes it upon herself to show him that he isn't the only hard-ass, and being tough is nothing compared to being kind.
Some people can have completely normal, healthy conversation, completely free of insults, slurs, and slights – somewhere, Rita is sure. But that's boring, and Yuri knows it as well as Rita does, so they talk, and others call it bickering; it's not really about what you say, in the end, its how you say it.
Yuri isn't sorry, he isn't "okay", he never will be – but that's okay, Rita won't be either.
In the end, what they have is that bitter-sweet knowledge that they aren't alone- and never will be.
0o0o0
(So, uh, I watched someone play the game on Youtube until they got to Aspio and met Rita after getting this prompt – I know there is a Tales of Vesperia: First Strike movie, but I didn't see it like I planed to and most of the rest of it I based on Aselia the Tales Wiki so I can only cross my fingers and hope I didn't screw up with it. )