Watch And Learn So You Can Get It Right

[missrecalled_mods]

 Every now and again Doctor F remembered that this was actually a school and not a multi-roomed holding cell. The influx of new students reminded him, this time around. So he went and poked at the other teachers to remind them to do their jobs. 

Well, he had to prod Lady Tremaine and Mother Gothel. Yen Sid, it seems, has been teaching all along, whenever someone wanted to come in for a lesson. Unlike the others he was accessible and available. Well, now all of them were. How long that might last, however....  

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[nobodys_puppet]

"You... are supposed to... feel someone with you...?" she asked, inching a little closer.

[seacub]

"I don't know if it's a 'supposed'... ...but...I could, out there," he admits, letting Xion move as close as she dares. "And because of that, now I...know 'better', I guess..."

[nobodys_puppet]

"Am... Am I more broken... because I can't... can't feel anything when Axel is there...?" she asked in a whisper.

[seacub]

"What-"

Immediately, he shakes his head. "No- No, it's..."

He sighs. "It's different. Axel's soul is in Axel's body, right? ...Weather...I guess another way to put it is that his heart is...in my body, instead of his own. He left that part of himself behind, and now it's in me... ...So you're not broken. The only reason you can't 'feel' that is because he's got his soul for himself, okay?"

[nobodys_puppet]

"You have... more than one Heart?"

[seacub]

"I-"

He wants to say no. He almost says no, but then he pauses, the words stuck in his throat. Because it's not a heart as in a literal heart, that much he knows. Talk to Xion long enough and you know what it means when she says Heart, and just like that it feels as if something breaks in him.

For all the times he came close seeing ghosts of the past, hearing voices of villains he long destroyed, it is this that has his eyes water, spill, and overflow within moments. "...Yes," he says, because he's realizing it in that moment. What else can he call it? Even without memory, even without body, what else can 'Weather Report' be except the Heart of the man who was practically his father?

"I do, and I never wanted... ...I never asked h..."

He curls on the spot, and can't bring himself to say more.

(He never had a chance to tell them all how he felt about them, and now he never will.)

[nobodys_puppet]

She shifted a bit closer. "It's... bad to have more than one heart?" she asked in a whisper.

CW: mentions of character death

[seacub]

"It's not...bad, exactly," he sniffles, the sobbing still causing his words to shake. "...But Weather... ...The one who had Weather, he's gone..H... He's dead, and it took all of that to realize how important he was to me, h... I can't tell him anything I wanted him to know, anymore, even with a part of him right here..."

CW: KH angst

[nobodys_puppet]

She stared at him as she came to the wrong conclusion. She's Xion, was anyone surprised about that?

"You... You're like me?" she whispered. "They... have to take you apart to bring someone back too?" She shuddered, pale under her hood.

xion, my beloved,,,,, [cries here in KH]

[seacub]

"I-" He sniffs, but looks up. "...I don't think...they could bring him back. But-"

But with those words, he looks to Xion seriously. "...Did...did someone try to do that to you...?" he asks in quiet horror, fighting the urge to pull her close for some attempt at a shielding hug on the spot.

Re: xion, my beloved,,,,, [cries here in KH]

[nobodys_puppet]

She nodded a bit, looking at her gloves. "I have to be taken apart... to bring Sora back..." she said softly, hunching in on herself. "Everyone who came here from... from after... says I come back but... that I never mentioned being on the Train... or Diatu... or...." tears were falling now. She sunk to her knees. "So that... that's some other Xion..." she whispered. "When I go back... I'll be taken apart. This me... will end...." She was shaking so badly now. "Like I'm supposed to..." the last words hardly had sound to them.

She didn't want to go back, she didn't want to lose this her. But her chance to fix things was gone, with the Train. And now she was here, with even more to lose.

But if she didn't go back at some point... Sora wouldn't wake up. And then... would Axel and Roxas be okay...? Without Sora?

[seacub]

"....what if you don't go back then?"

And of course that's his first thought. The first thing he says. "...what if... ...I can't believe that someone's just...'Supposed' to die. I was told the same thing, but I'm here now..! So..."

He doesn't think about how his planet might also just be gone. He doesn't.

...That wouldn't happen, he's sure.

[nobodys_puppet]

"Because... If I don't go back... Sora doesn't wake up... And everything Roxas and Axel remember... might have broken..." she mumbled, dropping into a crouch, curling up.

[seacub]

"...What if you just didn't tell anyone about those other adventures at the time?" He's going somewhere with this, he promises.

"...If...if you're worried about breaking someone's memories...then hearing that you didn't say anything in the future would guarantee you make sure not to say it- right? What if the entire time...it's been 'you', you were just keeping a secret to keep them safe until the time was right."

[nobodys_puppet]

"Ke...keep a secret... from Axel and Roxas?" But... why would she have done that? "Why...?"

[seacub]

"Because you knew they didn't know," he says with a small smile.

"They're your friends- you don't want them to hurt...so if you know something would make it confusing, or hard, of course you wouldn't tell them. But now this way...you don't have to keep anything secret while they're here right?"

[nobodys_puppet]

"They would be hurt... if I told them something they didn't already know?" she asked, sounding horrified. She'd told them things before! Had she been hurting her friends this whole time without realizing it?

[seacub]

"Not necessarily..!" He quickly exclaims, before she gets the wrong idea.

"...Just in this case, or I guess...just after you go back, for that time. Sometimes we have to hold things back until the time is right; it's hard to judge...but I think that's what you did...or, will do, in a way."

[nobodys_puppet]

"But... why would I have done that...?" she asked, confused. But... But maybe he was right? Maybe? But why wouldn't she tell Axel and Roxas about Taiki and El and everyone so they could go and rescue them too?

[seacub]

"I guess...it wasn't the right time. ...Has there ever been a time where that thought came?" he asks, carefully avoiding 'feel' as a word. "...Where you thought, 'I shouldn't say this right now' about anything?"

[nobodys_puppet]

"You mean not speaking in front of someone who wants to destroy me?"

If so, then all the time.

[seacub]

He has to think about that.

"That's a good example of it, yeah. Obviously the hope here is different though; it's not about trying not to get hurt- it's to keep someone else from being hurt, even if it's just their feelings."

[nobodys_puppet]

"I.... don't want to hurt my friends... but... That means... I shouldn't talk to them? In case I say the wrong thing?"

But Axel said she should talk more, so he knew what was wrong...

[seacub]

Erk-

"That's definitely not it...!" he protests, shaking his head. "It's alright- talking to them is fine; and here in this place, you definitely don't have to hide anything... ...but I think right now the best thing to do is...not think about what you should or shouldn't say. The you that you are now, isn't the 'you' they meet at your home yet. One day you'll be that version of you, and that version will know what not to say; but until then, until you know, for sure, talking...talking should be fine."

Ah, so talking more is a thing Emporio supports then.

That's good.

[nobodys_puppet]

"But... what if that isn't this me? And that I never talked about these Worlds because I didn't remember them! That this me... the me that went all these places... really does cease to exist?" she was shaking now.