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Aqua walked along a misty path and hugged her arms around herself. She looked at the gray sky, hoping to escape the rain that would imminently be upon her. She sighed and quickened her pace. If she did not get to where she was going soon, she might catch a cold.After defeating Xehanort, Aqua, Terra, and Ventus returned to the land of departure after nearly a twelve year absence. Aqua was glad to be back, but she missed her family terribly. She did not know if they would remember her or if they were still living in the same place. Her brothers and sisters were surely grown by now. Aqua could have flown home quickly, but fear kept her pace at a walk. What if they were angry with her for disappearing twelve years ago? No, they must think she’s dead. There is no anger. Only grief.Aqua looked behind her at where the castle stood at the Land of Departure. She lived in the next town over and would frequently visit her family on the weekends. When she traversed the worlds fighting the Unversed, she could no longer see her family, nor did she tell them where she went. There hadn’t been any time.She sighed and continued walking down the path. She could see her village from where she stood and stopped in her tracks. The houses and shops, all with similar architecture to the castle, looked exactly as she remembered. The only exception was the people. Children she didn’t recognize played in the streets as adults bartered for goods with various vendors in the town square. She might recognize them if she talked to them, but she doubted they would remember her. People forget after twelve years. She treaded slowly through the streets, capturing no one’s attention, being similarly garbed as they were. Her blue hair didn’t stand out amongst the rainbow of heads, either. As she wove her way through the square, a merchant with bright orange hair stopped her. “Would the young lady be interested in some jewels,” he said, flashing a toothy grin.Aqua shook her head. “No thank you, but,” she turned to look down the road and pointed at the biggest, grandest house in the village, “could you tell me who lives in that manor?”“Ah, that would be the Wielder family,” he said. No one in her simple village had Surnames, so they often took on the name of whatever their occupation was. Aqua’s family had been so proud when she became a Keyblade wielder that they asked everyone in the village to call them that from then on.“The Wielder family,” Aqua repeated, “That’s an interesting name.”“Yes, one of their daughters became a Keyblade wielder and they insisted on everyone calling them that, even after the poor girl died.”Aqua’s heart fell. “She died? How?” she asked quietly, gazing at her home.“No one knows. She just disappeared one day and never came back. They mourned for an entire year—the whole village did. But they’re doing alright now. If you want to pay the young lady respects, her shrine is over there.” The merchant pointed to something in the square that Aqua had never seen before: a statue cut out of lapis lazuli stuck in a fountain that depicted Aqua’s very own Keyblade pointing towards the sky. A jet of water sprayed out of the tip. Aqua thanked the merchant and walked over to the fountain.Inside the fountain, was a mosaic depicting various aspects of her life, from her birth, to her endeavors to help the homeless and feed the hungry of neighboring villages alongside her family and friends, all the way to her becoming a wielder and fighting monsters. The mosaic circled the statue in the middle, ending with a depiction of Kingdom Hearts before it got back to her birth. She stared at the blue heart on the fountain floor. My death, she thought. They thought she was in Kingdom Hearts now.People came and went, tossing pieces of munny into the fountain, but, even though the subject of the shrine was standing right there, no one recognized her.A little girl with pink hair looked into the fountain, gripping the edges with her hands. “Mommy, who’s that?” she said, pointing at the picture of Aqua as a newborn.“That’s the Keyblade warrior, Aqua,” the mother said, giving a piece of munny to her daughter. The girl took the piece and held it in her hands.“Why are her eyes closed? It looks like she’s sleeping,” she said.“Do you remember when little brother was born? He cried and cried and cried,” the woman knelt down next to her, “but Aqua was asleep when she was born. Her parents were sad when she wouldn’t wake up, so they took her to Master Eraqus, a great Keyblade master. He performed a special spell on her called the Power of Waking, and then she woke up and started crying.”Aqua’s eyes began to prickle as she listened to the story of own her birth by sleep. It was a story she had heard many times, but to hear it spoken with such reverence made her kind of emotional.“I bet her parents wished she stayed asleep,” the little girl said naively. Aqua and the mother laughed.“If she stayed asleep,” Aqua said, “then she wouldn’t be able to have fought all those monsters.”“I guess you’re right,” the girl said, throwing the munny into the fountain. She and her mother walked away.Aqua sighed and stepped away from the fountain, walking up the street to the manor where her family lived. She swallowed as she knocked on the door, wanting to barge right in and throw herself into her mother’s and father’s arms, but that would have been a bit rude.The door opened, answered by a young girl who looked about ten. “Hello, how can I help you?” she said.“I was wondering if I could see Cerulean,” Aqua said, clasping her hands in front of her. The girl smiled brightly.“Sure, come on in,” she said, beckoning Aqua into the house. She walked into the grand foyer, that looked very similar to the castle, and remarked to her self that her home looked exactly as it did twelve years ago. The only difference was that toys littered the ground, presumably belonging to her nieces and nephews. Aqua looked at the girl leading her through the hall to the dining room. This is my niece, she thought with a smile, wishing she knew the girl’s name.“Everyone is sat down to dinner, but you’re more than welcome to join us,” the girl said, glancing back at Aqua. “There’s plenty to go around.” She pushed open the dining room door and announced to the group of predominantly blue haired people that sat at a long table, “Grandma, this woman is here to see you.” She sat down at her seat with the other kids at the table.Aqua stepped fully into the room as the adults looked up to see who was there. On the right side of the room, at the head of the table, Cerulean, Aqua’s mother, sat as the matriarch over the family. To her right sat Aqua’s brother Azure, and her sister Sapphire. They each sat next to people Aqua vaguely recalled from her time in school, and aqua presumed they were their spouses. To Cerulean’s left sat her other brother Indigo, and her sister Cyan. The other end of the table was full of children. Aqua’s father was not among the group, his chair at the other end of the table empty.When Cerulean’s eyes fell upon her daughter she gasped loudly and covered her mouth with her hands. Tears began to well up in her eyes. Sapphire’s jaw dropped and Azure’s fork fell to his plate with a clatter, shock apparent in his eyes. Indigo and Cyan turned around in their seats to see who would elicit such a response. Cyan gasped and mirrored her mother, and Indigo stared at Aqua, dumbfounded.Aqua stared at her little brothers and sisters for a moment, now not so little. She had missed twelve years of watching them grow, but now she was here with them again. A bittersweet tear slid down her cheek. Aqua looked at her mother, looking much older than Aqua remembered, but still just as beautiful.“Hi, mom,” Aqua said quietly.Everyone, including the children, looked at Cerulean, waiting for her response. Sobs escaped from between her hands before she burst into tears, jumping up to hug her long-lost child.“Oh, Aqua!” she said, weeping on Aqua’s shoulder as they hugged. Aqua’s siblings, not wanting to be left out, exited their seats and wrapped their arms around the pair. Her sisters just cried, but her brother’s had a few things to say about her return.“Where have you been, Aqua?!” Azure said, choking back tears. “We missed you.” Indigo was not nearly as emotional.“I’m taller than you now,” he said with a grin. Aqua laughed and grabbed her baby brother with one arm, pulling him closer to her.“I bet I could still beat you up, though,” Aqua joked as she wiped tears from her eyes.“Wait, that’s Aqua?” one of her nieces said.“Can we see you Keyblade?” said a nephew. One of her in-laws shushed them.After her siblings squeezed her as tight as they possibly could, they pulled away, leaving Aqua in her mother’s arms again.“Where’s dad,” Aqua asked, thinking she already knew the answer. Her mother pulled away, resting her hands on Aqua’s shoulders, and sighed.“He passed away five years ago,” she said.“Oh,” Aqua said simply. She loved her father dearly, but had just barely missed seeing him again. Tears threatened to spill once more.“He wanted you to know that he loved you so much.” Aqua nodded at her mother’s words and let the tears flow.As Aqua had been hugging her family, one of her three-year-old nieces sat wondering who she was and why everyone was so sad to see her. She pushed herself off her chair and ran to who mother, who sat watching the scene with tears in her eyes.“Mommy, why is that lady sad?” she asked.“She’s not quite sad,” her mother said, “she’s happy that she gets to see her family again. That’s your aunt Aqua.”“Really?” The girl had never seen this woman before. If she was family, why didn’t she visit more often? The girl looked back at Aqua as her grandmother took her hands off her shoulders. She ran up to Aqua, sticking her arms in the air, asking to be picked up. Aqua complied, setting the girl on her hip. “Are you my aunt?” the little girl said.Aqua smiled. “Yes, I am. What’s your name?”“Marine,” the little girl said, “and you’re Aqua.” Aqua nodded. “Are you the lady in the fountain?”“Yes, that’s me,” Aqua replied.“Why did you go away?” Everyone held their breath, awaiting her answer.Aqua looked at the floor. “I was trying to help my friends, but I got lost in a very dark place.” Cerulean guided Aqua to her father’s chair, and she sat down, settling Marine in her lap.Telling her story wasn’t easy. Aqua cried several times, but Marine was there to comfort her, wrapping her arms around her neck until she could speak again. Aqua told them about fighting the Unversed, her fight with Master Xehanort and Vanitas, and her twelve years in the Realm of Darkness.“Eventually,” she said quietly, “I was completely overcome by Darkness.” She paused.“How did you get better?” Marine asked.“Do you remember the little boys, Sora and Riku? Well, they got big and strong and came to save me. Sora banished the Darkness inside me and brought me back to the Realm of Light. It’s thanks to him that Xehanort is defeated.” Aqua stared at the table, fresh tears falling as she recalled Sora’s fate. She may have returned home, but Sora was still missing. Aqua told her family the rest of what had happened, right up to when she made the decision to see them the day before.“That is…quite a story, Aqua,” Cerulean said. She took a breath to say something else, but her grandson had grown impatient.“Can we see your Keyblade?!” he blurted. Several adults at the table gave him the look, but Aqua smiled.She held her hand out in front of her, summoning Rainfell. She held it up for the children to see and they oohed and awed over it. Marine reached out to touch the handle of the Keyblade, but Aqua dismissed it before the young girl could do so. She didn’t want what happened to Kairi to happen to her niece. Wielding a Keyblade was too big a burden to bear.Aqua stayed with her family for a week before Terra and Ven came to visit them. Aqua’s nephews had so many questions and hardly gave them a moment’s peace. Her nieces wanted to talk to them too, but only gave the two boys bashful and coy smiles. All except for Marine that is.She had taken to Ven immediately, later telling Aqua that he was “Handsome like daddy.” Aqua supposed that her little niece had her very first crush. It took longer for her to warm up to Terra, but Ven insisted that he was a fun guy. His insistence was good enough for Marine. Over the week that the boys stayed with Aqua’s family, Marine wanted them to play with her every second of the day and became inconsolably upset when they couldn’t. Ven finally found someone to rival his energy and Terra finally got to see what it would be like to have a daughter of his own, as Marine wanted him to read her to sleep instead of her own mother.Two weeks after her arrival, Aqua sat on the back porch with her friends, talking about the visit.“It’s been so great to see your family again, Aqua. But everyone is older than me now,” Ven said with a pout. Aqua laughed.“They’re older than me too, Ven,” she replied.“It’s a shame they couldn’t all become Keyblade wielders like us,” Terra said. Aqua and Ven agreed with them. “Last night, when I was reading Marine to sleep, she said that she wanted to be a Keyblade wielder just like you.” He gave Aqua a loving smile.Aqua sighed. “If she holds onto her light…then maybe that could be a good thing.” The three friends looked up at the stars, gazing at the worlds they had visited as Aqua thought about her niece. Maybe someday, Marine could be a great Keyblade Master. Aqua smiled. When she was old enough, perhaps Aqua would bestow upon her a Keyblade of her very own.