Castle of Dreams
First Appearance: KINGDOM HEARTS Birth by Sleep (2010)
Origin: Cinderella (1950)
"Could it be?"
After traveling through the Realm of Darkness and fighting off vicious enemies, Aqua found herself looking upon a familiar site, the Castle of Dreams.
This was bad. For the castle to be down in the Dark World with her, then the world must have fallen into darkness. Time doesn't flow in the Realm of Darkness, so just how much time had passed in the Realm of Light since she fell down into the dark abyss. It was clear something wasn't right in the realm above.
Walking into the town, Aqua's heart began to stir. She lamented how much she took for granted, how she felt she had nothing to lose when she was in the Realm of Light. Thinking about the people she met and the connections she made when she traveled the worlds, Aqua turned her mind to how the denizens of the Castle of Dreams also took life for granted, how they all thought they were safe. Not just the people, but the dog waiting for his owner and the cat curled up in her nook. So much life. Trees and flowers... There's no deeper sadness than discovering all that you knew is gone. The grief in the long-forgotten world was too much for Aqua to fathom.
Aqua walked closer towards the castle. Out of nowhere the road forward began to collapse as the clock on the castle tower advanced. Remember how odd it was for time to have progressed in this world, she notes a mysterious glowing gear that appeared out of nowhere. Aqua gave it a whack with the Master's Defender and the gear began to levitate and transform into a ball of light, which floated up towards the castle. The clock hands moved backwards from 'V' to 'IIII', and the road began to repair itself.
Aqua searched for four other gears around the town. Each time she hit the gears, they floated back to the clock and more of the road was repaired. On her way back towards the castle, Aqua is ambushed by a Demon Wave. Fighting for her life, Aqua used every ability and magic spell she knew to take down the flurry of Darkness.
As she approached the staircase where she once watched Cinderella lose a glass slipper, Aqua began to wish for the ability to really turn back time, to spend one more night beneath the stars with her best friends.
"Aqua."
The man's voice rang out and startled Aqua. Turning around, she saw someone she wasn't expecting to see.
It was Terra.
"It can't be. What are you doing here? You should be in the realm of light," Aqua panicked. The Castle of Dreams had been taken into Darkness and Terra was down there as well. Could the Realm of Light--?
Terra didn't say another word. Aqua reached out for his hand, but she went right through him. It was clear to Aqua. Terra wasn't actually there. Aqua took Terra's appearance as a memory among the shadows, a memory to try and tell her to not lose heart.
Terra vanished and Aqua was alone once more.
She proceeded to walk up the Castle steps, but turned back and looked towards the town once more. Where did the people who lived in the town go, once their world was taken away? Aqua took solace in the fact that those people weren't in the Realm of Darkness with her, sharing her fate.
