kingdoms_of_auradon | Getting Down To Business

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Getting Down To Business

Who: Lea and Aqua in one thread, Lea and anyone in the others
When: After the memory event, but before the next Isle trip
Where: Various places, see thread prompts
What: Now that the days are getting longer and the possibility of not being stuck inside any more looks imminent, Lea is feeling motivated. Time to get things done, some of which he's been putting off for awhile.
Warnings: Feels probably in the thread with Aqua. Otherwise, we'll see.

Fire And Water- Closed to Aqua

Another training session in the gym, virtually indistinguishable from most of the others since they'd been stuck inside. Though, this time, Lea hung back afterwards, looking thoughtful. "Aqua?", he said. "If you've got a few minutes, there's some things I want to talk to you about."

Magitek For Fun And Profit

Lea reading isn't that rare of a sight, but when one does spot him, he's usually curled up in one of the library's comfy chairs or stretched out the common room sofa with a cup of tea and either a stack of comic books or a YA novel or two. But today, Lea's seated at one of the library's tables. The cup of tea is still present nearby but his attitude is different, as is his choice of reading material. The book open in front of him looks more like a textbook or other nonfiction title than anything else, and he has a open notebook and pen right at hand, occasionally pausing in his reading to note things down. What is it that could have given Lea of all people the urge to study?

Let The Sun Shine In

Lea was walking through the greenhouse, but at present, his focus wasn't on any of the plants. Instead, he was looking up, carefully directing his magic to melt any lingering patches of snow on the roof. He knew his way around well enough to avoid stepping on any flowerbeds or bumping into tables, planters, or equipment racks. Most of the time, the only interruption might be if the ent got a little too curious about his hair, but that had mostly been solved by a few well placed colorful bangles hung from the ceiling on strings. But looking up does tend to make it easy to run into people or other non-stationary obstacles that might be on the walkways. Assuming you're not just trying to figure out what he's looking at.

Let There Be Light

Lea was rummaging through one of the supply closets, apparently looking for something. And without much success, by the sound of it. "Come on, they've gotta be here someplace," he said. "You'd think a school like this would have a whole crate or something of spares sitting around, but nooo..."

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He frowned. "I think so. It's definitely a little bit strange, but... I think I get it. Sounds kinda like zombies." He shook his head.

"You said take... How do you take someone's- Heart? How does that happen?" Maybe more importantly why would you take someone's heart, but he wasn't sure he even wanted to know that.

He was a little bit apprehensive where Lea was going with this. Explaining something from his own world that likened to MTs... But he would here the guy out.

"There's a certain type of weapon that can do it," Lea said, "but those are pretty rare, and people that know how to use them to do that are even rarer. More often it's because of Heartless; again, with a capital 'H'. They're likely sort of similar to you world's deamons, but they don't really have blood or anything; they're mostly incorporeal. They're sort of like... darkness made solid and those that don't form naturally in the Realm of Darkness are formed when a person's heart is completely consumed by darkness."

"Unlike Nobodies, they can't really think or plan, and with very few exceptions just act on instinct, like wild animals. Unfortunately, that instinct is to make more Heartless. They're drawn to people's hearts, or more accurately, the darkness in people hearts. Pretty much everyone has at least a little, and a little is all a Heartless needs. They attack people and tear out their Hearts. The Hearts are consumed by darkness, and become new Heartless, which go on to attack more people, and it just goes on from there if they're not stopped. It's part of why it's darn near impossible to completely eliminate them once they've got a foothold on a world; wherever there's people, they can potentially replicate."

"Heartless aren't really supposed to be able to get out of the Realm of Darkness, and them being a major problem in our world is a relatively recent development, like in the last decade or so. But when they become a problem they become a big problem, and Nobodies along with them. Nobodies something that wasn't ever supposed to exist. And technically, according to my world's physical laws, they don't properly exist, because without a heart, they can't contain either light or darkness. But they're also very sold mostly physical entities and... yeah, safe to say, they're weird. Most of them look the part too, looking kind of like whiteish or grayish empty suits of clothes that can more on their own. But the strongest ones maintain roughly the same form they had when they were human, along with their memories, so they can sort of act like their old selves if they want to."

"But it is just an act, at least at first; Nobodies are born without hearts, and so they can't feel anything. And we used to think that they were pretty much stuck like that too. But relatively recently, we learned that wasn't the case. Nature abhors a vacuum, as the saying goes, and it turns out that Nobodies can sort of... grow a new heart over time. It happens faster if they interact with people and make an effort to form connections, but at least for the strongest ones it's likely to happen eventually regardless. Plus, if both the Heartless and Nobody are destroyed in a specific way, the whole person can be recompleted, though best not to try that unless you know what you're doing."

"So in a way, Nobodies could be considered a type of zombie, I guess, but they're not gonna be shuffling around looking for brains or anything. In fact, there're actually two Nobodies here in Auradon now: Roxas and Vexen. Both of them are pretty far along in developing new hearts, so it's hard to tell, but neither of them is technically human. Which I figured was better to tell you now, with an explanation, rather than have it come out later and maybe have it cause an unnecessary panic. Neither of them is gonna hurt anybody; as it stands, they're just... people in a really weird life situation, I guess is the best way to put it."

And if Prompto had witnessed Lea or others interacting with either of them, or even interacted with them himself, he'd know that was true. Especially for Roxas, who Lea spent a good deal of time with and clearly considered a friend.

"Heartless definitely sound similar to Daemons. They can only form at night, and they burn in sunlight or bright enough light, so in a way you could say they're made of darkness too. A couple of the more powerful kinds of Daemons are sorta sentient. Some of them are even known to lure people away from safety by mimicking human voices." Prompto shuddered. "Most of them are like animals though. They just want to kill."

He might have chosen to mention the likeness between Heartless and Daemons to buy himself some time to process the other part of what Lea said. Maybe. Sue him.

He'd seen Vexen around, though he hadn't talked to him much. He was a bit strange, but he'd never struck Prompto as dangerous. As for Roxas... every conversation he'd had with the kid had just made Prompto think he had a very sheltered childhood or something. It kinda reminded him of Noct honestly. But again, aside from his weird holes in what he knew, he'd never come across as anything other than just that; a kid. (And any uncomfortable likenesses to how Prompto himself remembered acting back when he'd first gotten to Insomnia... well, that was rather intentionally ignored.)

"I get it. Again, can't say it's not a bit of a strange concept, but it's not like it's their fault. They're fine in my book." Whether the point was actually lost on him, or if he was being intentionally obtuse was unclear. But what was clear was that if Lea wanted his point to be heard he'd probably have to be more direct about it.

"Yeah, not gonna deny it's weird," he said. "The whole business is a big, complicated existential mess even once you get used to the idea. And like with what we discovered about Nobodies, just when you think you understand everything, you find out something new that completely throws you for a loop. But we'd be here all day if I tried to go into every random tangent and exception, and unlike Vexen, I don't particularly enjoy lectures for their own sake, whichever side of them I'm on."

It seemed that subtle wasn't really the way to go here, as the point he was getting at seemed to go right over Prompto's head. Whether that was deliberate or whether he was just a bit dense in that sense, Lea didn't know, but time to be a bit more direct about it. Though maybe not so blunt as to come right out and say he'd figured it out just yet.

"Anyway, good to know there wont be a problem. I always kinda figured the same thing. No one in the history of ever has had any choice as to where and how they were born, so holding that against them would be kinda silly, right?" The last bit was accompanied by a bit of a pointed look. He'd spell it out if he had to, but he hoped that Prompto would realize and speak up on his own.

Prompto felt like he'd swallowed a mouth full of rocks. "Right. Totally. Especially if someone stole your heart and forced you to face crazy existential questions." He laughed, though it came out choppy and wrong.

"Definitely worth the benefit of the doubt." Why was Lea looking at him like that? Had the guy figured something out? Prompto's shoulders were tight with tension, his fingers twitched, going to cover the band on his wrist. He would not bring the matter up of his own volition actually, though it was becoming clearer he did catch what Lea was trying to be subtle about.

And there it was. Clearly, Prompto had picked up on the hints this time, though he didn't seem inclined to speak up about it on his own. Alright, straight to the point it was.

"Exactly," he said gently. "And that goes for you too, buddy, in case you missed the point I was trying to make earlier. I'm not about to tell anyone what I put together, so no need to worry about that, but still... no one here's gonna hold your origins against you, ya know. Least of all me. There's nothing wrong with you. You're just... a person in a really weird life situation."

Prompto was shaking his head before Lea finished. "No, it's not- whatever you're thinking, it's not like that." Maybe it was, but he didn't want Lea to know that. Besides, Lea wouldn't understand why it wasn't the same, and Prompto didn't want to have to explain it.

"What I'm thinking," Lea said, "is that when you were born, it was in a lab somewhere in the Niflheim Empire. Those who created you intended you to become one of those MTs, so you started training and being forced to get treated with Daemon blood. You might've thought about running away once or twice, but officially, you were nobody, with nothing; where could you even go? So you stayed, got more training and 'treatments'. Maybe were even forced to do a few icky jobs for your old bosses."

"But obviously something happened, and instead of becoming an MT, you ended up in Insomnia, eventually becoming friends with Noct, Ignis, and the others. And ever since then you've lived in fear that someone would find out where you cam from, and not only would you have an angry mob coming after you with torches and pitchforks, but your friends world abandon you. Because how dare you suffer horribly at the hands of their enemy due to circumstances you had no control over? That about sum it up?"

"So now that we've got that covered, why don't you tell me why you don't think you deserve the same kind of compassion and understanding that you were willing to offer others just a minute ago? Because here I am, a friend who's figured it out, and shockingly, isn't about to abandon you, and I really want to know."

Prompto stared at him for a long moment, eyes wide, mouth parted in stunned silence. "You-"

He shook his head, eyes flicking to the door, before he sighed and pulled his feet up onto the couch cushions. He wrapped his arms around his knees. "I never tried to run away. I'd have never even thought of leaving. In fact, I spent a lot of time trying to get back there after Cor took me away. What does that say about me?"

He took an even breath through his teeth. "It's different because I'm not human, I was never human. I don't know what I am, and I don't know if one day I'm going to wake up and find out the Daemon blood they put in me is still in there. Waiting. I could transform. I could hurt someone. I wouldn't be able to stop myself. I'm a danger to everyone, even if I-" He cut that train of thought off viciously. It didn't matter what he wanted. It never had. It never would. Lea had to understand that.

"It says that you were a kid," Lea said gently. "And that you were scared. And something you know is always less scary than something you don't, even if what you know is horrible." Which was honestly probably a good chunk o Xion's problem too, but that wasn't what this was about.

"And you know someone else here who isn't and never was human? My friend Xion. She's what's called a Replica; they're sort of a life size doll or puppet, brought to life via magiscience. She was created in a lab and intended to be nothing more than a weapon for an evil Organization. There was never supposed to be a person there, but obviously that's not how it turned out. And it's no exaggeration to say that if not for her and Roxas I wouldn't be who I am today."

"Both Vexen and I were part of that evil Organization at the time. We were both pretty horrible people back then, and did a lot of harm; I'm the reason Vexen is terrified of fire, among other things. That's also why you might hear Xion or Roxas call me 'Axel'; that was my name when I was a Nobody in the Organization, and it's how they first knew me. And Vexen was actually the one who created Xion. He feels a lot different about her now than he did then, obviously, but it still doesn't change what happened or how he treated her or the other Replica that he made."

"We both got lucky. We were recompleted and have a chance to be better people and try to make up for what we did. Vexen even went through having his heart taken again, on purpose, so he could act as a spy for those working to stop the Organization, and man, I never would have believed he had that in him. Dude's a lot braver than he gives himself credit for."

"So take it from someone who was a monster, in the truest sense of the word; you're not one. You're a good guy who went through some horrible stuff that left you with a potentially serious medical issue. And yeah, that issue definitely complicates matters, and may have to be dealt with down the line. But it doesn't mean that you don't deserve compassion. Or friendship."

Edited 2025-05-07 05:24 (UTC)

Prompto dropped his head onto his arms as Lea spoke. His eyes felt wet, and every breath felt shaky in his lungs. "Fried chocobo feathers..." The words were damp where they pressed into his knees, muttered on a long exhale. "This whole world hopping magical kidnapping thing is too much sometimes."

He shook his head against his arms. As a response to what, he wasn't sure. It was in his bones to deny Lea's words. He wished he could stop crying. "I bet Cor would really like you. I'm not as great as you seem to think I am... but I appreciate it."

"It is that," Lea said gently, smiling a little. The tears he took to be a good thing; the fact that they kept coming probably meant that Prompto had needed this cry for quite awhile, so releasing some of that emotion could only be helpful in the long run.

His expression became more serious as he continued, but the gentleness remained. "And you're not as terrible as you think you are either. You didn't- and don't- deserve any of what happened to you. None of it was you fault, got it memorized? You were born into and forced to endure a horrible, messed up situation because some people in the Niflheim government were amoral, power-hungry jerks. You were an innocent kid who was abused in a bunch of different ways, not some kind of monster or abomination."

"No one should have to endure that kind of situation. Ever. You don't treat people as less-than-people. It's stupid, it's harmful, and it's wrong, always. People deserve to be treated with basic decency, respect, and care, not used as tools or weapons. And that goes double for kids."

"You know, I used to find that word so confusing. Cor never wanted to use my- oh." He sighed, he was going to have to explain that now. If there was one thing this conversation with Lea had shown him about the man, it was that he was persistent. He wouldn't let that slip go by without explanation.

"MT units don't have names. When Cor took me from the facility, I wasn't Prompto yet. I had a designation like any other MT." It was strange talking so openly about this. "Anyway, point is, Cor never liked using it much, or he couldn't remember all the numbers, I don't really know. He always used to just call me kid. And I remember thinking it was a mistake, or a- a test of some kind. But it didn't matter how many times I corrected him, he always just called me kid."

Lea nodded his understanding. He had a feeling Prompto was trying to evade the bulk of what he'd said. "Most Nobodies- the ones who look like the empty shells they are- don't even get that," he said. "At least, not that I'm aware of. We never really kept track of them that closely; as long as they came when the member of the Organization in charge of them summoned them and did what they were ordered, it didn't really matter."

"The Organization members all got numbers and titles though. The numbers were based on their order of joining; I was number VIII, The Flurry of Dancing Flames. Vexen, meanwhile, was Number IV, The Chilly Academic. Our names, such as they were, were just our human names with the letters scrambled up and an 'X' added." Here he frowned. "Xehanort, the guy behind both the Organization and a lot of the other major problems in my world currently, liked to mark what he considered 'his'."

"Because Xion never had a human name though, they had to come up with something else for her. It was actually kind of a mean joke in a couple different ways; her name is the 'X', plus 'no. i'. It comes from 'number i'; an imaginary number. At least that was the way Vexen intended it. But given that the Organization liked to use numerals rather than digits, and I in that case means one, it could also literally be just 'no one'. Either way, really shows you how the Organization thought about her. I'd suggest Xion change it, but she doesn't even wanna try on a different outfit, never mind a new name."

"As for Cor, if I had to guess, I'd say it was because he wanted you to know that you were a kid. Not a monster or a weapon, just a kid, and that that was how he was going to treat you. Like a person, rather than a thing. Some people are just more awkward about expressing that sort of thing than others." Lea, however, clearly wasn't. Hopefully his more direct approach would be helpful.

He'd always just figured Xion was really, really shy. Not that she had a Terrible Backstory too. Though, more and more it seemed like maybe that was the requirement to end up here, not so much the whole 'good or evil' thing. But maybe he was reading too far into it. He shook his head and finally looked up from his arms. He took a second to wipe his hands over his face, and tried not to worry about how bedraggled he might look.

"That seems like a lot of thought for a name for someone they wouldn't even acknowledge as a person. MT designations are basically a serial number, not as malicious as all that, just practical." Honestly, the nameless Nobodies seemed more like MTs to Prompto.

"But yeah, Cor never treated me like I expected. And he was always real awkward about it all. Still can be, honestly." Prompto smiled a bit, soft. "He's always been an actions over words type."

"Actually..." He hesitated. "I had a gift idea for everybody back when we did that holiday celebration, but I chickened out of actually doing it. Could I give you the ones for you and Roxas and Xion? I think... I hope, she might like it."

"The Organization didn't acknowledge themselves as people either," he said. "At least not while they were Nobodies. Which of course Xemnas- Xehanort's Nobody- leaned into to keep the rest of us obedient."

"But yeah they were- and still kinda are- way into seeming as mysterious and dramatic as possible. Like, their headquarters is called 'The Castle That Never Was', and is full of rooms with names like 'Naught's Skyway' and 'The Hall of Empty Melodies'. At the time I just kinda went a long with it, but looking back now it seems really pretentious and over the top. Don't know if that was Xehanort's idea or if was just a consequence of the first six members all being our King's apprentices who were probably more used to dealing with a lot of pomp and ceremony."

"As for the presents, sure; presents are always good, and it wouldn't be the first time I picked up stuff for Roxas and Xion. Whatcha got?"

"Definitely sounds like names out of a book or something. If everything you've told me about wasn't so fluffed up I'd almost say it was funny..." He shook his head. "Hard to laugh when the silly names are covering all that though."

His ears were turning a light pink. "It's nothing much, really. I just- I have my camera here, and I've always taken pictures of everything ever since Cor gave me my first camera. I was gonna see if I could print out some of the ones I think you guys might like." He couldn't quite meet Lea's eyes. "Anyway, I only brought it up now because, well, I think I have some that Xion might like to see especially. It really isn't much though."

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Getting Down To Business

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