Terra | Ruby City

[earthshards]

PLAYER
Name: Ranko
Personal Journal: weavingbalance
E-mail: xicexmagicianx4@hotmail.com
AIM/MSN/etc: Rainykoi on AIM

CHARACTER
Name: Terra
Canon: Kingdom Hearts
Timeline: Post-KH2/Re:Coded

Personality: At first glance, Terra would seem like a distant, tired, and intense young man, one who almost constantly seems to be lost in thought and radiating a sense of guilt for some unknown action. After eleven years of being trapped in an internal struggle against the darkness of Master Xehanort's heart, and the power of his motives and memories overriding his own (even in his own body after the loss of his Heart), that first impression is hardly inaccurate.

Terra has changed much over his eleven-year ordeal. He has had to learn how to be patient, as the struggle for control of his Heart and Body have left him weary and worn down. However, his will is strong, and he is determined to not let Xehanort keep him from his friends forever. To that end, he has been forced to concentrate on not letting any more of his memories and personality drift away. These memories surfaced in Xemnas, who kept secret the whereabouts of Aqua's abandoned armor and Keyblade in a hidden room in Radiant Garden, and even would visit the armor and speak at length with it, calling it an 'old friend'. It is more than likely that this was Xemnas somehow confusing himself with the remnants of Terra in his memory, which continued to fight for supremacy over control over his own body.

This stubborn refusal to give up the fight shows a fierce determination that Terra has always exhibited, first in his determination to prove his worth of earning the Mark of Mastery, and then in his willingness to do anything to protect his friends from the machinations of Master Xehanort's plan--even if it meant giving in and accepting the darkness that rests in his Heart. Even during the years of bondage in his own Heart, it was his determination to put things right again with his friends and fix not only his mistakes, but the damage wrought upon the many worlds by Master Xehanort, that kept him somewhat sane. "No matter the cost, I'm willing to pay it."

This determination only plays into just how stubbornly goal-oriented Terra could and can be. With his life-long goal of becoming a Keyblade Master, and then his goals of stopping the threat of the Unversed, finding Master Xehanort, stopping Vanitas, and then finally to stop Master Xehanort from harming his friends, Terra is goal-oriented to the point where sometimes, he sees the bigger picture first. This is shown by how he acted in several worlds he visited--the Dwarf Woodlands, where after defending Snow White from the sudden appearance of Unversed, he heads back to the castle instead of chasing after her into the woods to make sure she's all right, and again in Enchanted Dominion, where instead of trying to find where Aurora's Heart has gone and immediately right the wrong committed by Maleficent, he instead leaves the world to continue his search for Master Xehanort, vowing to return someday and put right the wrong he had been forced to commit.

Even though he has changed dramatically, there is a great deal about Terra that has remained the same. Terra is, has, and always will be fiercely loyal to the memories of his Master and his two best friends, Aqua and Ventus. The connection that he had with Aqua and Ven was a very strong one--strong enough that their bond is all but unbreakable. He is protective of his friends--not so much as to be overly so, as it was Terra that told Aqua that Ven would be all right when danger suddenly broke out during their Mark of Mastery exam, as Ven had been out there on the training grounds practicing just as long and as hard as Terra and Aqua had.

The core of who he is--an honorable warrior who strives to follow his Heart, protect those that are important to him, and stubbornly follow the path that he thinks is right is still there, as well as the good-natured big-brother figure that Ven would remember, but those parts of him are buried. It will take considerable effort and patience to bring those parts back out of him, but with time Terra will be able to open up and relax, letting the good-natured young man he is at heart out. However, he will never be as care-free as he once was.

It is possible to make him smile again, and all he needs is a reminder on how to be himself again to do it. It's Terra's inherent good nature that leads him to try and comfort those in need, or offer helpful advice where he feels it is necessary. Almost on instinct, Terra knows just what to say or what gesture to make that will lift the spirits or resolve of those he is trying to help, as evidence by his words to Cinderella--"Strength of Heart will carry you through the toughest of trials"--or by his gesture to the disheartened Ven, who was bummed over always losing his sparring matches with Terra. Terra's 'Inheritence Ceremony' of passing on his training Keyblade to Ven, as well as the affirmation that he, Aqua and Ven all share the same dream, served to cheer up his friend and encourage him to keep trying.

First Person: [Video]

[A figure can be seen looking down at the watch, the lower-half of his face covered in the shadow cast by the leather hood drawn low over his face. A slight movement down and to the left indicative of a slight tilting of the head, and what can be seen of the person's face looks somewhat confused.] ... not just a watch, then.

[The voice sounds like that of a young man, probably in his early to mid-twenties. While the volume is soft, it's audible enough that there's a clear echo of something contemplative in his voice. There's a small frown visible on what can be seen of his face, and tufts of brown hair are easily visible as they fall past the opening of the hood.] An empty train... and a watch that isn't a watch.

[He looks up, presumably looking at the city beyond the train station.] ... what is this place?

Third Person: The subtle shaking and rattling of metal moving at a fast pace. A comfortable seat. Light, and movement, barely registering under closed eyelids. There was a thick fog in his mind that thinned around the edges as he slowly became more aware.

'Where... am I?' He felt his eyes open, and had to suppress a wince. Even as blurry as his sight was, the light filtering in through the window next to him was far brighter than he was used to anymore, and he was able to make out the basics of his surroundings.

To his right, the window that was letting in that light. Beyond it, fields of grass, rocky outcroppings, and hills, with a sky covered by thick, gray clouds. Looking to his left... two empty seats, an aisle, and another row of empty chairs. In front of him, chairs facing him, and a wall, with what looked like luggage racks near the ceiling.

'This is... a train? How did I wind up here?' He blinked away some of the blur and frowned, trying to remember how and why he had boarded a train, and where he could be going that required taking the slow route. He could always just--

He paused, the train of thought abruptly cutting off. 'Just, what?' Under the hood of his heavy black coat, he frowned thoughtfully. 'I've... traveled in other ways before?' It certainly felt as if he should know what he was thinking about. Why hadn't he used that method, and instead decided to travel by train?

'I should still have the ticket. That can tell me where I'm going.' There was a slight chance, after all, that those other methods of travel (and why he couldn't recall exactly what those were still bothered him) were incapable of bringing him to whatever his final destination was. If that were the case, then retracing his steps and figuring out why he was here and where he was going was most important. Checking the pockets of his coat (and seeing that it went down to his ankles--why was he wearing something like this), he found and pulled out a small assortment of objects: a few glass vials corked and filled with some sort of glowing green liquid ('Elixers?'), strange blue and yellow crystals that his mind told him were 'munny', several shards of some unknown crystal-like material that also glowed with their own inner light, and...

His eyes went wide, and he felt his heart begin to beat faster in his chest as he looked at the object in his hand. A glass and metal charm, shaped like a star. He knew what this item was. He knew, deep down in his heart, what this was. 'My Wayfinder?'

Wayfinder. The word brought about a warm feeling and a smile to his face. The charm had clearly seen better days; the orange glass was scratched and dirty, the silver tarnished and in need of a good buff, and the gold insignia in the center in desperate need of a shine. But it was still intact; still whole.

That alone warmed his heart.

Side Notes: The circumstances surrounding Terra's ten-year possession and subsequent rebirth are full of so many twists and turns that it's a miracle that he's managed to hang on to what makes him who he is as a person. However, he didn't come away from that experience entirely unscathed. What does this mean for him?

For one, it means that Terra's memory is full of more holes than swiss cheese. He, for the moment, is unable to recall his name, the names of his closest friends, or any of the abilities he learned over the course of his life under Master Eraqus's tutelage. Regaining of these memories will take time and interaction with others, though they can come with almost no warning, and with debilatating pain depending on the importance of the memory.

Second, Terra will inadvertantly have access to the memories of the person that held his body, heart and mind hostage for ten years, or at least the memories made while Xehanort was in possession of his body. These memories will be even more fragmented than his own, and will have very subtle, passive effects on Terra's mental capabilites

Thirdly, as a Somebody can only be reborn when both the Heartless and Nobody are defeated by a Keybearer, an additional side-effect of Terra's rebirth will be the unwanted 'inheritence' of most of Xemnas's powers. At the start, these abilities will surplant his own, though they will gradually grow weaker as he retrains himself and regains the memories and powers he learned as Eraqus's apprentice, eventually fading away almost entirely.

Finally, as an unexpected side-effect of Eraqus's heart being merged with his own and granting him the strength needed to actually retain his sense of 'self' as Xehanort suppressed his Heart and Mind, Terra has the passive abilility known as 'Synchblade', which allows a Keybearer to wield two Keyblades at once. Only a Keybearer whose heart is merged or connected to the Heart of another Keybearer is capable of gaining this passive ability. While he is unaware that he is even capable of it, should a desperate-enough situation ever arise, he will be able to call a second Keyblade to his hand.