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midnighthero) wrote2015-06-01 10:17 am
{ eachdraidh info post }
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Seelie, Kingdom Hearts “Yeah. I wanna be strong one day. Like that kid who left. He went to the outside world—I bet he's really strong now. I know it's out there somewhere —the strength that I need.” “Strength for what?” “To protect the things that matter. You know, like my friends.” Strength to protect one's friends. The drive to never falter in one's beliefs or promises. The freedom to live unbound by any limits, to see everything that's out there and not limit one's own growth. A journey to see new things and discover new worlds, marred by an opened door, a witch's words, and a boy's insecurities. A Key to protect the worlds, passing over its intended owner. A fall into darkness, led by jealousy and negativity, abandonment and finally despair. A sacrifice made to make amends. “But that's a formality, right? I already proved myself. Me and the king, and Riku—we can take on anything. Right, Riku?” “I don't know. I think that in my heart, darkness still has a hold. Walking that path changed me. I'm not sure if I'm ready to wield a Keyblade. Maybe I do need to be tested.” A burden that can never fully be relieved, a mistake that can never be erased. Stains of the heart, where darkness lurks and waits. The struggle to master one's own darkness, to make it fully one's own and to control it before it can control you. Fallen from grace, the climb back into the light. Acknowledging and accepting one's own hubris, and that you were struck down by it. Wanting, and wanting, but never trusting one's own desires. Confidence broken is slow to be rebuilt. A boy that's made mistakes. A boy who erred, who fought, who learned from his struggles. A boy that refuses to be controlled any longer by those around him or the darkness in his heart.
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AGE 16/17
HOMEWORLD Destiny Islands SPECIES Human FRIENDS Sora & Kairi, King Mickey, Naminé, a number of other acquaintances OCCUPATION Keyblade Master COURT Seelie RESIDENCE Caer Glaem INFLUENCE ★★★☆☆ TITLES Fireheart, Key Listener
CLOSEST ♥︎
INVENTORY
KEYBLADE
KEYBLADE ARMOR
WAYFINDER
KOMORY BAT
SHANG
CLOTHING
POTIONS (2x)
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SORA
Best friends since they were kids on the Destiny Islands, when the adults rowed them
to and from the play island.
_KH3D.png/300px-Komory_Bat_(Spirit)_KH3D.png){kind=link}
| ( base code by whambam; edited slightly by player for format ) |
NARRATION BITS
no subject
The last thing Riku's expecting is to hear the happy trill of one of his Dream Eaters. He'd left them behind when he'd left his own batch of worlds, and it makes little sense for them to show up here, of all places.
Yet one morning he wakes, curled into the safe protection of a giant tree's roots, and there it is--the trilling chirrup that almost, almost sounds like his name.
Riku's awake instantly, sitting bolt upright in shock, but no; no, he hasn't imagined it, Komory Bat is right in front of him, flapping its wings and eyes bright as usual. It chitters at him, the sound almost scolding, for for just a split second he can't react because Komory, how did you get here?
But then a smile crosses his face, and he reaches out to grab the little guy into his arms, scratching its head and rubbing that spot along the ridge of its wings. "Yeah, yeah, I know. It wasn't my fault I left you behind."
It may not mean much to the monarchs, to have brought one of his Dream Eaters here for him. But as Riku packs up to go, Komory fluttering around him and alighting on his shoulders from time to time...
He feels a little less alone.
QUEST LOG
With the death of the Pyrrii and the loss of fire magic, a new God was born into the world - but he's still a baby and needs a little bit of support! Go around areas in Glaschu setting up a handful of shrines for Kaio and leaving offerings for him in order to give him a little more strength and support.
REWARD: A war hound to be trained by the castle guard for Riku's protection!
➤ Quest assignment from HermioneRESULT: SUCCESS!
➤ Shrine-building and offering advice from Leo
➤ Building shrines to Kaio throughout Glaschu
➤ Quest completion with Hermione
People sure love to gossip about things on the Road, and the University's fair game! There's a magician there - Malichides - that can apparently do some weird things with the Void. It sounds fantastical, so Korra wants to know if this guy's just showing off or if there's some actual truth to it. Snoop around! Find out what he can do, if indeed he can do anything at all and isn't just telling stories.
REWARD: 10 silver coins, a pair of leather and metal wristguards, and a medicinal kit from Mako: anesthetics, bruise balm, antiseptics, etc.
➤ Hermione asks for Riku's help and Riku contacts Korra to let her know he's inRESULT: SUCCESS!
➤ Meeting up with Hermione
➤ Riku's investigation into Malichides
➤ Quest completion with Korra
A Seelie spy is travelling south from Caer Scima with information on the Unseelie plans that she hopes to bring to the Citadel as soon as possible. Unfortunately, there have been rumours of the Unseelie discovering the spy and sending others out to capture her before she manages to make it back to Caer Glaem...
REWARD: 10 gold marks. If successful, you will also receive a commission for a weapon of your choice from the Seelie Armoury, a trained war hound for battle and a bracelet with runes for protection and magic amplification.
➤ LINKRESULT: ??????
➤ LINK
➤ LINK
➤ LINK
MONTHLY EVENTS
As Riku sets out on his quest, he runs into Joshua, who tells him of a sickness that's affecting shardbearers. In Leathann, he meets Katsa, who is struggling with the sickness herself, and tries to help her–but in the process becomes afflicted himself. The next day he meets Jason, who tries to help him find the remedy to the sickness, but in the end it isn't until Aslan literally washes the silver away that Riku is healed.
➤ Katsa
➤ Jason
➤ Aslan
RELEVANT WORD COUNT: 3,066
The banshees have lost their screams, and the shardbearers are ordered by the Black Shuck (via the monarchs) to help them regain them. Riku accompanies Korra, Merida, Nico, Mako, and Xion to Quendi in search of the Shuck, then meets Hiro at the Station and Elizabeth of York near Mair.
➤ Xion 1
➤ Dick & Xion
➤ Xion 2
➤ Hiro
➤ Elizabeth of York
RELEVANT WORD COUNT: 4,865
Upon waking up from his sleep and finding that Solais has called for battle preparations to begin, Riku sets to. He begins learning shard magic from Lancelot, spars with the other Keyblade wielders, and talks to Leo in Cothromach about making a Keychain for the Keyblade to bolster its power. At the Cathraon, he meets up with both Lagertha and Nico di Angelo, and tries his hand at teaching Jason how to activate his shard.
➤ Terra
➤ Leo
➤ Lagertha
➤ Jason
RELEVANT WORD COUNT: 3,052
Description of stuff going on~
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RELEVANT WORD COUNT: ----
no subject
[ The darkness surges all around him.
Riku almost gasps as he feels the darkness in his heart reacting, almost painful as it contracts, simultaneously pulling toward and recoiling rom the source of the darkness just in front of him. A dark figure, a Nightmare, stands from out of the darkness, armor inky black outlined by wisps of grey and white. It seems to Riku as though all the darkness in the world is pulling in toward this one spot, the Nightmare sigil splashed across the armor's helm.
He fights. For everything he's worth Riku fights, knowing that it's integral that he defeats this enemy but not fully remembering why. But the armor is tough, fast and difficult to see in the dark realm they're fighting in.
"This isn't right," Riku realizes suddenly, and he puts his Keyblade up in a block as the Nightmare strikes a blow that makes his arms shake to ward away. "This wasn't where we fought!"
But the n/Nightmare doesn't listen to words, and his memory of what really happened is nothing against an enemy that can strike you down to the ground. Riku melts into the darkness himself, whipping around behind the armored figure, but before he can strike it whirls, and thrusts out a gauntleted hand, and Riku feels the spell take hold of him, strong winds throwing him across their shadowed arena.
He shouts, trying to flip himself around to land and rush again, but the winds that have him are too strong and unfaltering. He loses sight of the Nightmare to the darkness, thrown from their battle altogether, and an unprecedented panic rises in his throat. Sora!
Riku struggles, striking out against the darkness almost like he would against the ocean's waves, and he feels the wind against him lessen just a touch. He swings his arm forward again, turning his struggle into an attempt to swim into the headwind, but as he strokes the air becomes more and more humid until its literal water he's swimming through, briny and somehow familiar in a way the ocean's water shouldn't be. Because how can he know that the water he swims through is that of Destiny Islands? But he does, and as his feet touch sandy ground and he can stand, he looks up to see the island he grew up on, just the same as always.
He throws himself forward--this isn't the first time he's unexpectedly found himself home. But this time there's no Kairi waiting for them on the beach, no message in a bottle that's opened up the way.
But wait.
There is someone on the beach, someone standing and waiting for him to struggle up and out of the water. Riku redoubles his efforts to get to shore, out of breath as he drags himself up and onto the beach.
"Riku."
Xion?
He lifts his eyes, looking into her blue ones--familiar, he'd thought when he first met her, and now he remembers why.
"What do you wish?" He says it at the same time as she does, reliving the memory, and in an instant he's her, looking at him, and Xion/Riku smiles--for a heartbeat.
And in the span of that heartbeat, his entire world turns upside-down. He's himself again, looking at Xion, and the ground under his feet seems to shake, throwing him off-balance in a way he can't recover from. He overbalances, tipping backward, hands reaching desperately for something to catch him before he lands on his back in the ocean water, but he's too far gone.
Only it's not the ocean water he falls through. He sees Xion standing above him, looking down, but his vision ripples and he's falling through the blackness again, impenetrable and full and there's nothing he can do about it so he relaxes and lets himself fall...
Right back into his own body. Riku slams into consciousness, his entire body thrashing in one motion as he jerks awake. His eyes fly open and he understands, he knows where he's seen Xion before.
But why was she in Sora's heart?
Riku sits up, draping an arm over a knee, remembering those moments after he'd fought the phantom that had imprisoned Sora. He'd come to the Destiny Islands, and he'd met three "young people," as DiZ had called them. One of them had been Roxas. The other two, though... he hadn't known them then, but now he knows. The third one was Xion.
Roxas was Sora's Nobody, so it made a strange sort of sense that he'd still be within Sora. But the other two... he's not sure who the second boy, the one who looks so much like Roxas, is; and isn't Xion a member of Organization XIII? If she's a Nobody too, then who is it she'd originally come from? Why was she in Sora's heart?
Riku doesn't return to sleep that night, sitting unmoving as the pre-dawn light filters through the trees, lost in his thoughts. ]
no subject
Warnings: spiders
By the time the request reaches him, Riku is in need of a victory. After losing the spy to the Unseelie and being unable to locate Malichides at the University, he's feeling frustrated in a way he hasn't for a while--not the same sort of frustration that had led to his initial fall to darkness, but a frustration nonetheless that stems from what seems to him an inability to do anything.
It's enough that when he receives a message from the man that had approached him about the Red Hand before, offering a job should he be willing to take it, Riku doesn't hesitate before accepting.
"An infestation of giant spiders has cropped up near the Southwood Ring. Clear them out."
Riku takes the time only to find out what he might need to know about the giant spiders before he heads toward the Southwood Ring. There's a part of him that knows he should check in with the others, to let them know where he's off to, but something about the idea still feels strange. He hasn't been with them for the past couple of weeks; why should he tell them he'd be still gone from the Seelie strongholds? Terra's in Leathann, after all, and (as far as he's known) the others are where he left them. There's no need to tell them and make them worry. Sora in particular might have demanded to come along, and Riku's adamant that he'll protect his friend when he can (and, he admits to himself, this Sora doesn't have the same experience as the Sora he'd left behind. He remembers that the Sora that shut the door to darkness was strong, but...).
So it's by himself, with Shang at his side and Komory at his shoulder, that Riku comes out of the fairy ring and begins his search.
He wears the armor Solais had given him, growing accustomed to it as he hunts the spiders. But in the end, it's his companions that sense the spiders first.
He notices Shang's hackles rising, the hound drawing his lips back into a quiet snarl. "What is it, boy?" Riku asks him in an undertone. "Something coming?"
A moment later he can sense it as well, his dark powers filling in the scene that his eyes cannot see: spiders, many of them, moving soundlessly through the trees around them. "Tch." Riku shakes his head, flexing his hands. His Keyblade doesn't appear in his hand as it should, but it's been long enough that the reach back to draw his blade from its sheath is fluid.
Riku closes his eyes, letting his power course through him, waiting as the spiders set up their attack. With the darkness he can see them as though the trees aren't even there, hiding them--and as the first spider comes out of the trees to a screech of warning from Komory Bat, Riku's running forward, slipping into the shadows to reappear behind it.
It feels different than fighting against the Heartless. The legs that cleave beneath his sword feel more real, heavier as they fall to the ground, the spider screeching itself as it tips to the side. The rest of the spiders must take this as some sort of signal, because Riku senses them all on the move at once, and he shouts to Shang: "Shang, lindengi! Let's go!"
He hears the hound barking as he races into the fray, and senses Komory swooping up and out of it. Good; Komory had been a good friend and ally when he'd been in the Sleeping Worlds, but in this real world the bat can't do much against these giant spiders.
Riku loses count of the spiders he fights, rending limbs from abdomens, dodging fangs, driving his Keyblade home into eight-eyed faces and slicing the heads of the spiders right off, when he can. A shot of web hits him at one point, tangling him up in its sticky fibers, and his shard glows muted beneath his armor as Riku taps into its power to shoot fire racing along it to its producer, burning the web away from himself in the process. There's a part of him constantly focused on his dog's battles too, and when a spider manages to sink its fangs into Shang, Riku's slipping into the shadows to reach him almost before the pup's cry sounds.
He comes out of the darkness with a fire spell on his lips, the fire entwined with darkness as it shoots at the spider that's bitten Shang. Riku can't do much for him right now, not with a few spiders left coming after them and certainly not when they've got the scent of prey on their mind, but he thrusts his blade into the air, casting Esuna. "Heal!"
There's a bark from Shang as the spell takes hold, and Riku can only hope that any traces of poison have been wiped from the dog's system. "Now, maji," he tells him, activating a barrier to halt the next spider in its attack and retaliating with a counterwave of dark magic. "Magi and tunggu!" He jabs his finger in the direction they'd come from, hoping that Shang will listen. "Komory, watch over him!"
There's a chirruping affirmation as Komory Bat swoops down, and though he hears Shang whine he senses when the two of them head for safety. Riku takes a defensive stance, watching the remaining few spiders regroup before coming after him all at once. As they begin to spread apart, he throws himself forward, the power of darkness speeding him so that he reaches the spiders before they're more than a few meters apart. "Stop!" he shouts, using his Keyblade to mark the boundaries of his spell. Obedient to his words, the spiders freeze in place, and it's easy to behead all three of them before the spell releases them.
It's a far different scene than it would have been if he'd been fighting the Heartless: spider corpses and gore all over, some of them still twitching even in death. It's not a great sight, and it makes Riku think of the battle between the Seelie and Unseelie that's ahead.
Still, these spiders would be responsible for more deaths if he'd left them. Riku cleans his Keyblade as best he can before resheathing it, dismissing his armor with a grimace (he sure hopes that the gore on it doesn't reappear the next time he summons it...!). Then he sees to Shang, casting a low-level healing spell on the hound's wounds before they all return to the hunt. Riku doesn't intend on leaving behind any more spiders to try and avenge these ones he's killed.
Finally, he sends a message back to the man that had approached him.
"The spiders near the Southwood Ring are gone. —R."