Tai

I had to try and explain my anxiety and why it's sometimes so overwhelming to Franki. Franki's a wonderful person and I love him so much, but he's never had to deal with his brain rioting against him, the shortness of breath that comes with a panic attack, the fact that sometimes your vocal chords will just freeze and you won't be able to find a single word to say, even when you really, really have to. Why sometimes it feels so impossible to come to work, why sometimes you can't look anyone in the eye. This is the metaphor I found to explain it to him, and maybe it'll make sense to one or two of you as well.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Imagine you're holding a jar. It doesn't matter what the jar looks like, except for two factors: the size of the jar and the size of the hole in the bottom of it. Yes, there's a hole in the bottom, deliberately, so unless it gets plugged up it will eventually empty. The hole isn't very big, but it's still there, and it's still important.

Now imagine that everyone you interact with - in a day, a week, a month - every interaction you have with them, that interaction means they're putting a rock in your jar. The type of rock doesn't matter, but once again, the size does. Every time you interact with a person, they put in a rock, and the longer you interact with them, the more rocks they put in. Your jar gets fuller and fuller every time you see another person.

Some people's rocks are small, little fishtank pebbles, that don't take up much room in the jar, and you can hold a lot of them. Some of them will be so small they'll slip through the hole in the bottom, letting the jar empty itself so it never becomes full. A very few people's rocks will be tiny, almost miniscule, grains of sand and the beach in their hands, and you can accept a world of sand in your jar because it all eventually slips out the hole in the bottom and the dunes never get very high against the sides.

But some people have bigger rocks, maybe the size of circus peanuts or golf balls or even eggs, and some people have rocks so big you'd swear they were weapons. And those rocks fill up your jar faster, the jar holds less of them, and they don't fall through the bottom like the little pebbles and the sand. They just build and stack and pile inside the jar, not going anywhere else, while your arms get tired and you struggle to hold the jar up at proper height and not let it drop and break and shatter because you can't let it drop and break and shatter, it's not polite to let it drop and break and shatter, no one knows what to do if it drops and breaks and shatters, and if it does some people might be sympathetic but they won't know how to handle it and some people will look at you as if you're incapable of being a complete human being. How can you be a complete human being if you don't have a jar?

And when the jar is full, you have to find a way to empty it, and it's never an easy thing because it's a heavy jar of rocks that you've been lugging around and has been weighing you down, and usually the people with the largest rocks have a lot of trouble seeing that your jar is full and you just can't take any more rocks so they keep giving them to you, so at some point you're going to have rocks falling all around your feet as well and you're going to be tripping over them every which way you turn and most people get very offended when you trip over their rocks. After all, they're giving you their rocks, and you should be grateful to receive them, shouldn't you? And they don't see that you're struggling to hold your jar and that they've given you so many rocks that you're about to break your nose on one of them.

And eventually it has to stop. Something has to change. You have to figure out a way to turn the jar over and shake out all the rocks that won't fall through the hole on their own, and you have to do it without dropping the jar, because dropping and breaking and shattering the jar has very very very bad consequences. And it's more difficult than almost anything you can think of but you have to do it or no more jar. And no more you.

But when you get the jar emptied it's almost not a relief because sure, the weight's gone, but you can still feel the ache in your arms from holding all those rocks and juggling the ones people kept throwing at you and you know it's never over, it's only on pause. And you don't know when the next round will begin, but you can only hope that it will be a long time before the rocks won't fall through the hole in the bottom of the jar and that emptying it will be easier the next time it happens, that you'll be able to empty it faster than you did this time.

There's some relief, but also a certainty that it will happen again.

And you don't know when that will be.

Queen Minnie had asked him to deliver something to Merlin in Radiant Garden as he was leaving Disney Town, and of course Ven couldn't say no. She - and everyone else - in the town had treated him well; he considered all of them friends already, and he knew he'd be back to see them after this whole problem was wrapped up. Doing a favor for the Queen wasn't a problem at all, and even better it was to Radiant Garden, perhaps his favorite world he'd been to so far.

He had to be careful about landing, though - there were so many people in the town that observing the world barriers took more care there than any other world. The only place that was almost guaranteed to be safe was, ironically, the forecourt of the castle itself. Not in front of the doors, but the area was big enough and had so many out of the way nooks and crannies that it wasn't difficult to land his glider and dismiss his armor in one of them and then just wander out into the main flow of traffic. His armor disappearing back into the space it when when he didn't need it, Ven was about to step out from behind his cover when he heard a door slam very nearby. Ducking back behind the corner, he peeked around it to see where the noise came from.

Ven almost burst out laughing at the sight. There was one of the guards he remembered - he hadn't gotten his name, but it was the bigger one, with brown hair - walking steadily away from the door to the castle proper. Two teenaged boys dangled from his grasp, two teenaged boys that were entirely too familiar to Ven, and that he wasn't at all surprised to see in this situation. Lea was flailing and yelling, his words too indistinct for him to make out entirely, while Isa just hung there in resignation, arms folded over his chest. The big man reached the halfway point in the forecourt before swinging both arms and pitching the boys forward about six feet, making them bounce on the marble and land in completely undignified positions, Lea holding his rear and turning around to gripe behind them at the grown man while Isa just got to his feet a little stiffly. Whatever they'd been trying, it clearly hadn't left Isa in a good mood, as he bent down to grab Lea's arm and drag him mercilessly to his feet and away from the castle, Lea ignoring his best friend and continuing to curse behind them.

Ven just chuckled until they were on the stairs, out of sight, then jogged out of his hiding place after them.

They weren't all that far away; Isa hadn't managed to drag Lea any farther than the landing halfway down the stairs before the redhead revolted, now facing his friend with an earnest expression on his face and gesticulating wildly. "-can totally do this, Isa! We've just gotta-"

"Got to what?" In contract, Isa was more of a lineface than ever, his lips pressed thin as he watched the flailing redhead. "Distract them again? They're not going to fall for it. Face it, Lea, we're never getting in that castle unless we learn how to fly."

"I can do that."

Both boys turned to face the new voice, and Lea's face broke into a grin at the sight of the blond before him, rushing forward to snag him around the neck with his arm. "Ven! Man, it's good to see you, you just disappeared!" The Keyblade user managed to stop Lea from giving him a noogie, but it was a close thing.

Isa, though, was more focused on what Ven had said. "You can do what? Fly? That's impossible, no one can fly."

Popping Lea's arm off his neck, Ven raised a hand to try and fix his hair (and failing) as he responded. "Okay, I can't, but I can fly my glider. You guys should be able to ride it too, or at least hang on to it."

The wicked look in Lea's eyes was back full-tilt as he faced Isa, grinning almost manically. "See? We've got our way in. This'll be a cinch with Ven as a lookout. Wait a minute-" and his expression rapidly shifted to near-accusing as he turned to Ven again "-why didn't you tell us this last time we saw you?"

Ven shrugged. "It just never came up. But what are you guys trying to do? There's a lot of stuff I won't help you with, you know."

"Che, it's nothing bad, no matter what those sticks-in-the-mud up there say," Lea countered, waving off any objections. "We just want to get in there and look around! They say there's a great big room full of machines in there that are on all the time and no one we know's ever seen it. We want to be the first!"

"So you... don't want to steal stuff, right?"

"Hey, what's the-"

"No," Isa firmly interrupted with a deadpan look at Lea. "We just want to check it out."

Ven looked back at the castle behind them, studying it for a minute, checking for any windows. There weren't many - but a flash of light from nearly the top of the building caught his attention, and he smiled. "Okay - I'm in."

~~~~~

"Ow! Isa, quit kicking me!"

"If you would just stop wiggling-"

"Guys, be quiet, you're not helping here!" Ven was trying his best to maneuver the glider to the window and wasn't doing a horrible job at it, but the bickering Lea and Isa were getting into was more distracting than he cared to admit. The glider simply wasn't big enough to support three of them, so - after Ven reassured them that he could catch them if something went wrong - Lea and Isa had agreed to hang on to the front for the short time it took Ven to lift them straight up the wall to the window. Both of them had their entire torsos draped over the front of the glider and their arms tangled in the metalwork so they weren't in danger of falling unless they did something really stupid, but their legs dangling below were apparently more of a problem than they'd thought it would be.

"Almost there- five more feet-!"

And then they were there. Ven guided the glider up to the top edge of the open window to give them room, and Lea reacted first, swinging his legs through the opening and letting go of the transport in one fluid motion, landing on the floor with a soft bump. Isa wasn't quite as graceful, but he didn't hurt himself and didn't have a moment of nearly falling off. Once they were safely inside, Ven backed the glider up a few feet, then sent it running at the window in a suicide charge, his mental link with it dissolving just before it hit the stonework and sending him tumbling through it into a roll that brought him to his feet.

The room they'd landed in was bare except for a carpet on the stone floor; marks on the floor and walls showed where furniture and decorations had once been hung, but someone had cleared them out for some reason. Lea was already moving for the only door in the room to wrench it open as Isa straightened his jacket and followed. Ven shook his head briefly and went after them.

Only to bump into Isa.

Who bumped into Lea.

Who bumped into the same large, brown-haired man that had been guarding the door and no longer was. Instead he was standing in the hallway just outside the door, arms folded across his chest, plainly waiting for them to emerge.

"...Crap."

















The world was in ruins, the sky twisted and dark and all around them. Their home was physically broken, parts of the building gone and the windows broken, debris everywhere she looked. There was no way she could fix this - but Ven had led her here, so here she would leave him, until she could come back for him.

The Masters' thrones on the low dias in the Great Hall would be best. Her own room was gone entirely, and the path to Ven's was broken and shattered, unsafe to tread with an unfamiliar Keyblade in her hands and her little brother slung across her back. Leaning Master Keeper against the chair on the right, Aqua turned around and gently let Ven fall from her back into the chair, then turned around to settle him more comfortably. She folded his hands into his lap, straightened his posture - it wouldn't do for him to have a stiff back when he woke up-

It all hit her suddenly, so suddenly that she couldn't stop a half-strangled sob from escaping. ven wasn't supposed to be this lifeless doll; he was supposed to be filled with happiness and earnest intentions and grand yet humble dreams. Their master should be here, not dead with the attempted blood of one of his students on his hands, his blood on another of his students, his best friend and brother the culprit behind it all. He should be here, her partner, her best friend-

Terra.

What had happened to him?

Ven was well settled now, but Aqua hesitated after taking Master Keeper in her grasp once again. When she sealed the Keyhole, she didn't know what would happen to their world, whether it would survive intact, whether it would be fixed, whether it would change. This would be her last chance to find answers - if there were any left to find.

She had to see for herself. "Wait for me, Ven. I'll be back in a moment." Brushing her hand over his spiky hair once more time, Aqua left the Hall, moving slowly through the corridors, one eye always open for unsteady architecture.

Unlike her room and Ven's, Terra's was located in a section of the castle that was still standing and relatively undamaged. Even the Master's room hadn't been so lucky; it seemed to still be there, but a slab of alabaster had fallen in front of the corridor it was located on, and there was no way she could cut through it without using Keyblade moves that would have damaged the surrounding architechture even more. To reach Terra's room, she had to duck under a couple of columns and pick her way over a pile of debris from the ceiling crumbling, but it was still there when she reached it - and more importantly, steady enough to not fall to pieces when she set foot in it. The place was a mess, though. The window had blown in, leaving glass shards everywhere, and Aqua was very glad for her thick boots as she gingerly crossed the wooden floor. The room hadn't been safe from the shaking that had clearly ravaged the place and almost all of Terra's smaller possessions were on the floor, books out of the bookshelf, his lamp overturned, chair toppled, personal decorations tumbled off the walls. Papers were everywhere, and she began carefully and methodically gathering them up, spying the scribbled writing on them that was clearly Terra's signature. It had taken so long for her to learn how to read it...

She straightened the papers into a pile on the desk, then started to gather the books as well. Terra had never been as great a reader as her or the master, but all four of them had kept their own titles in a bookshelf (or three) in their room, along with the general castle library. She inspected each one carefully, wondering if one of them was more Darkness-themed than she was expecting - but no, every book that came to her hand was familiar, ones that she'd seen him read or given to him herself as gifts. Books of tales, mostly, and histories, legends of chivalry and valor. Stories a Keyblade Master should aspire to, helping the weak and protecting the defenseless. None of them had false jackets, and when she flipped through a couple of the more well-worn ones, there were no annotations on any page, no notes, and the wear was clearly because of how loved the book was rather than anything else. Her hands were trembling a little as she fought back tears, replacing the last book on the shelf and turning to the papers once more.

Aqua settled on Terra's bed, ignoring the plaster dust that had fallen there during the destruction as she turned page after page, looking for anything that could help. Terra learned mostly by doing, but he also seemed to remember basic facts better if he repeated them, which meant that much of what she was holding was his own notations of books the master had assigned them to study, place names and historical dates. More than one page had a crude diagram of a timeline or an interpersonal relationship chart; she paused to look at one of those, noting it seemed to be a web of people situated on a world - not one that was familiar to her, the names entirely foreign. She shuffled it to the back of the stack, eyes continuing to roam the words below her - and then she felt her heart stop, her breath hitch, her fingers tighten on the sheets as she read the words on the next page. She could barely believe what she was seeing.

"It's too soon. I've known her for years but it's still too soon. We grew up together, we trained together, we fell out of trees together - how do I tell her I want to change all that? We're so comfortable like we are, it's frightening to think about what could happen if I say something and she doesn't accept it. And what will Ven and Master Eraqus think? Would they be okay with this or would it be horrible to them? But Aqua's the important one here, she's just so perfect. She's beautiful and she doesn't even see it, she's so strong, and confident, and she's smart and caring. She's always there for you even when you don't want her to be. I can't imagine life without her around, even after we're Masters. It wouldn't be the same. Being a Master is my dream, but I want that dream with her in it, too. I know a world's only supposed to have one Master, but maybe this once it can be different. I'll talk to Master Eraqus and Master Yen Sid after the exam. I'll talk to Ven, too. And then maybe... maybe I can talk to her."

The rest of the pages slid from her numb fingers to flutter quietly to the floor, and Aqua was unable to care about catching them. Terra... cared for her? Like that? As more than a friend, and not as a sister? They'd been around each other so long, had had so many adventures together - she could clearly remember the time he wrote of, with them falling out of trees. Or really, he'd fallen out of the tree, and she had started screaming for the master when he didn't get up again. It was a good thing his head was so hard...

There was so much about him that was dear to her, so many things that she didn't want to comprehend how she would live without. His laugh, especially as he teased Ven. A good, intense training session where neither of them held back, both of them ending up sweaty and panting but extremely fulfilled. Studying together in the library, helping him make notes on facts while he made sure she took a break once every couple of hours. Making ridiculously sugary midnight snacks in the kitchen when they were younger, before the master found out and banned them from it on the principle that they ended up staying up until nearly dawn and then slept through their classes the next day.

That look in his eyes when their gazes met, hundreds of times a day, that never seemed to go away.

"Soon, Terra," she whispered, blinking her eyes rapidly to clear them of the filling tears that she wouldn't let fall. Not yet. "I'll be there for you soon - just let me make sure Ven's safe. And then... we can talk about this."

Reaching down to retrieve that one piece of paper, she folded it carefully into a little square, tucking it in her pouch as she moved to the door. Her hand found Master Keeper once more and Aqua stepped out of the room, ready to fulfill her promise to both her boys.

Title: Different Terms
Fandom: The Avengers (MCU)
Characters: Bruce, Darcy, Shanta, cameos by Tony, Clint, Pepper, Steve, Thor and Natasha
Pairings: None
Rating: K+ for slight mentions of bad backstory
Word Count: 1244
Beta'd: No
Notes: This one you can blame on The Avengers Headcanon tumblr blog. I have no idea how I started reading this - I think I clicked on a link from either Erica or Panda's plurk - but somehow I read the whole damn thing. Twice. One key piece of knowledge is right here, and you guys know me. I'm a sucker for family-through-adversity things. So that's where Shanta came from; she's not an OC, instead a minor character in the movie given a name. There have been lots of other headcanon submissions on that blog involving her since then, but the combination of fambly and adorable little girl made me want to fic about her, so here it is.

Oh yes, and the blog also decided that Darcy becomes Bruce's assistant and the image is hilarious.

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"Master?"

Looking up from the book he was perusing, Eraqus found his younger apprentice standing in the door to the library, watching him with a slightly puzzled expression as she clutched a string bag in her hands. "Did you finish the shopping, Aqua?"

"Yes, but... umm, I was told to ask you a question. Is that all right?"

"Of course, you can always ask me anything." He closed and set the book on the table, raising a hand to beckon the eleven-year-old girl into the room properly. She complied, leaving the bag by the door as she came to stand next to his chair, hands behind her back. She was getting bigger, he noticed - she now stood taller than him when he was sitting, when only two months before they'd been at eye level. And Terra was similarly growing... as his ever-expanding grocery budget proved. Time moved so quickly... "What is it?"

"Well... Sanna? The lady who sells the apples?" He nodded, waiting for her to go on. "Sanna wants to know if you want her to take me shopping for bras."

Eraqus felt all the blood drain from his face.

"Master, what's a bra?"

Time didn't need to move that quickly!

In truth, despite some... incidents in his past, Eraqus knew he was not the person to explain the process of life's developments to an impressionable pre-teen girl; he wasn't entirely sure he could manage it with a boy, despite having already had this same talk with Terra. The entire process would be far too awkward, and if he was truthful with himself he wouldn't know how to explain it properly. He'd read about it in biology books, of course, but he hadn't known any girls closely enough during that segment of their lives to know the particulars, and there would be questions and horror and Light above he was not ready for that.

"Master? Are you okay?"

Eraqus buried his face in his hand. "Y-Yes... I'm fine, Aqua. I... suggest you go look at some of the biology textbooks. And I will... accept Sanna's generous offer."

He could tell without looking that Aqua was not convinced about his well-being, but she was too respectful of his feelings to argue. "All right... Um, she said to let her know when you could spare me from lessons, so-"

"-I'll talk to her myself." Decision made, Eraqus quickly rose from the table, startling the girl into stepping back suddenly. "I'll go now. If you could put the fruit away while I'm gone?"

"Yes, Master."

Without glancing back, he strode from the library, leaving a very perplexed girl in his wake.

~~~~~

Aqua, however, did not stay perplexed for long.

Once the Master made a decision, nothing could stop it from being implemented, and three days later Aqua found herself once again in the town nestled in the base of the mountains below the castle, this time in the small home Sanna occupied with her husband and two children who hadn't yet married and moved out. The tea the apple seller had made remained untasted in her hands for almost two hours as Sanna very carefully yet very bluntly laid out everything in front of her about what the changes to her body meant, what was yet to come and what had already happened. The mere mention of some of the issues freaked her out completely; she hated not being in control of her body, and now to find out about all these things that she couldn't avoid? At one point Aqua couldn't help herself, standing completely out of her chair and declaring - loudly - that she was going to be a boy from then on.

Sanna could only laugh and pat her on the shoulder, remarking that if it were that easy, every girl would have changed already.

Once the monstrosity of puberty was explained, though, there was still more to get through - items that Aqua would need soon, if not already. Sanna's eyes lingered pointedly on her chest, and Aqua felt herself flush; that part of her had been growing lately, she'd recently noticed, but it hadn't seemed like that big a problem. If that was all this "puberty" entailed, that would have been fine - her shape was simply changing to be more like those of most of the adult women she'd seen in her life. It was all the talk of bleeding and pain and weight gain and boys and romance and marriage and babies and everything that came with it that freaked her out.

Eraqus had also arranged for Sanna to take her shopping and show her the locations to buy all these things herself, and Aqua could not blame her Master for chickening out on this one - if she had a choice in the matter, she would have as well. Sanna's calm demeanor and mothering personality had made the ordeal less of a problem than it could have been, but Aqua still wanted to die of embarrassment as the lady at the clothing store squealed and cooed over how amazing it was to celebrate a milestone in womanhood such as buying her very first bra! Sanna, easily able to tell that Aqua would much rather hide than jump around with joy, managed to calm the clerk down enough to actually do her job, but Aqua refused to meet her eyes for the rest of the visit. She turned a brilliant red when the woman made an offhanded comment that if she was lucky, she'd have a boyfriend any day now and her breasts would be at least a C-cup when they were done growing.

On her way back to the castle with yet another bag, this one filled with all sorts of supplies she would need as well as three bras in basic white and "one to grow into," she kept her gaze locked onto the ground in front of her feet as she followed the grass-covered path up the mountain. Her cheeks were still flaming, she could tell, and Aqua made a solemn promise to herself as she climbed.

Whatever happened, she would not let Terra know about this. Any of this.

~~~~~

Terra wandered down the hall, trying to read as he was walking and doing a rather terrible job of it. He wasn't one of those people that could move anywhere not paying attention to where he was going, as his having run into several walls in the past had proven. But the Master wanted this report on the principles of blizzard magic as soon as possible (or, more specifically, yesterday), so Terra was trying to force himself to work as often as he could.

It... wasn't going all that well.

His left arm hit another wall, jarring the book from his hands, and Terra quickly bent to retrieve it before any of the pages could be creased and the Master not be pleased with him. Harming a book, even on accident, was a forbidden thing in the Land of Departure, as both Master Eraqus and Aqua would come for his head if they caught even a hint of such clumsiness. Fortunately the volume, which was both big and old and already kind of falling apart seemed to have been spared any new damage at least, and Terra sighed with relief as he tucked it under his arm to finish reading when he wasn't actually on the move.

As he was straightening up, however, a flash of white caught the corner of his eye and he turned to look at it. White was nothing new in the castle, most of it was white, but there had been a memorable instance the year before where he'd accidentally caused part of the ceiling to collapse right along this stretch of hallway... Well, he just wanted to make sure it wasn't trying to fall apart again. A quick glance along the ceiling showed that all of the plaster was intact, thank goodness, and he took a few steps to see what the thing was.

He... honestly couldn't tell. It was made of fabric, basic white fabric that was probably cotton, and had two loops that he couldn't figure out and two kind of... were those pockets? Holsters? It didn't make any sense to him. Book forgotten, Terra bent down to pick up the strange thing, holding it up to dangle in front of him as it twisted slightly, letting him observe it from all angles. The thing wasn't ringing any word bells, but the long part of it seemed to be elastic and it kind of maybe reminded him of-

Terra's eyes widened as he made the mental connection, balling up the fabric in his hand and breaking into a flat run for his room. Oh man he finally had one!

~~~~~

Aqua had been putting a great deal of effort into pretending that all these bodily changes weren't happening, but the fact that she now had to put on one of her training bras every morning and the elastic kept digging into her ribcage all day made it very hard to ignore. She'd come to accept the inevitable in the situation at least but she couldn't help wish it gone every single day. That was probably why she didn't notice one of her new bras was missing for a couple of hours - the rule of the castle was that everyone had to do their own laundry and put it away as fast as possible, but she'd been ignoring the laundry basket for the afternoon while she periodically adjusted one of the straps over her shoulder and tried to concentrate on the math work the Master had set her. Her own sense of responsibility eventually caught up with her just before dinner, though, and she turned to the basket with a sigh, dumping it all onto her bed and starting to sort through it.

She froze when she realized the thing was missing.

Okay... Calm down... There's only a few places it could be. Retrace your steps- No matter how sane her inner voice was, in this one case Aqua wasn't all that willing to listen to it. She did follow its basic commands, but keeping herself calm was so much harder than it normally was. Terra and the Master were in the castle! They could run across it at any time! She had to find it, and quick.

The journey to the laundry room had never seemed longer but she knew she'd never covered the distance faster. Unfortunately, she didn't see the thing either in the room itself or the halls leading to it, so she reversed direction and headed back to her room after giving the laundry room a thorough search.

Title: Finding Comfort in Familiar Things
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep
Characters: Ventus, Aqua
Pairings: None
Rating: K+
Word Count: 1939
Beta'd: No
Notes: ...Yeah, this was totally inspired by Xigbar's line from the trailer about drowning his goldfish. It was supposed to be silly fluff, but OF COURSE it got more serious and became more about exploring Ven's past. WHY CAN'T I LEAVE THAT ALONE. IDK, but here it is!

Once again borrowing headcanon from Kia and Erica. Just assume I do that every single time Terra or Aqua's past is mentioned.

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Title: Sanctuary (Chapter One)
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts (entire series)
Characters: Ventus, Eraqus
Pairings: None
Rating: K+
Word Count: 4610
Beta'd: No
Notes: Okay, so this is the first part of what's been eating at my brain for... oh, awhile now. (Later we'll get to the thing that ate my attention from this, but I want to get this out first.) This story is set post-series, after the final, absolute defeat of Xehanort and eradication of every single tiny little particle of him from the very fabric of the universe as very well should happen to him. This is the story of my headcanon for Ven's past, and how he discovers it. As such, there will be a lot of headcanon assumptions being made for this story, the primary one being that all these guys get a happy ending once everything is over. I'll try to make my headcanon plain in the story itself about what happened and/or why it happened, but if it doesn't make any sense to you, just ask and I'll make it clearer either through a comment or revising a part of the story. Constructive criticism is always welcome, but please remember that this is my headcanon, and we don't know what's going to happen yet. At this point, my headcanon isn't any more wrong than your own. There's a slight reference in here to one of my previous stories and also one or two to Kia and Erica's shared Terra-history.

I'm not too happy with this one, but that's mainly because I'm unhappy with doing long thinking dumps at the beginning of stories and I always feel awkward writing them. However, it's necessary for this story, so I can set up the mood and motivations... I might come back and revise it once this is done. Also I'm apparently addicted to semi-colons.

One note: headings for each chapter will only count for that chapter, hence why Eraqus is listed here but not any of the other characters whom I know will show up eventually such as Sora and Roxas. The rating is also subject to change from chapter to chapter; the entire story will eventually be considered whatever the highest rating is when the story ends.

And now, onward!

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Title: Best of Intentions
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep
Characters: Ventus, Aqua
Pairings: None
Rating: K+
Word Count: 735
Beta'd: No
Notes: So here's the beginning of the "Ven gives horrible presents" idea XD He doesn't know what girls like! Original idea was formed by me and Scea together in random AIM banter one night, then fleshed out further in gameplay. Written for Erica because she was having a bad week. Turned out shorter than I was expecting it to, but it's only a vignette. Enjoy chica!

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( Worst Birthday Present Ever )