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Heartless was not buried alive.
When he was buried he was a completely different person than he was now. Younger, less magical, eerily still, and breathless. At least, that’s how Heartless imagines it went down. It’s not as if he can remember anything before he woke up and there isn’t another explanation he can think of for waking up underground other than that there must have been a funeral of some sort.
Or maybe he’d just been buried. Maybe there hadn’t been a funeral. Maybe no one had truly cared about him before and that was why he hadn’t had a gravestone or a coffin. Maybe-
Either way, Heartless is thankful that he doesn’t truly need to breathe to stay alive. If he had, then he would have suffocated under the earth the second he’d woken up. Thanks to the magic coursing through his veins and chest though he’d survived and slowly clawed his way to the surface, shocking an unsuspecting Moira who’d been on her way to do some odd job or other.
Heartless truly does owe everything to Moira. Without her, he’s unsure of what would have happened to him after he clawed his way to the surface. Would one of the other townspeople have taken him in? The Magistratum? The Jury? Or would he have been forced to walk the earth alone, unsure of who he was or where he was going?
The idea of things going differently scares him, not exactly because of whatever outcome he’d face but because in those hypotheticals he’d likely never meet his friends. Would never get to see Alchemy perform or Flint win tournaments. Would never get to pull pranks with Doppel and Glass or see Eira begin to accept who he was. Would never get to see River grow into so much more than she ever believed she could be.
If things had gone differently, Heartless’ life would likely be much more lonely. An empty sort of thing that matched the hollowness of his chest.
‘I’ll have to thank Moira someday,’ Heartless thinks to himself, staring up at the bright stars glittering above. They’re camping out for the night, traveling between two cities, and everyone else had already gone to sleep. Heartless as usual takes watch, being the only one of them who doesn’t need sleep to survive (it helps replenish his power of course, but considering he hadn’t used his magic for much of anything lately that wasn’t a concern). ‘I’ll do it once we go back to the Mojo. She should know how much I appreciate the opportunity she’s given me.’
Heartless does not have parents (as far as he’s aware) but he thinks Moira is about as close as he’ll get.