Libra and Gemini
is a series of Kirby fanfiction written by ErinPrimette on Archive of Our Own. It is composed of Discovering Hearts and Smiles and Roche Aftermath, the latter of which is still ongoing.
Discovering Hearts and Smiles follows Vesa Krasniqi, a young woman suffering from a chronic illness, as she is admitted to Dream Discoveries in the hope that their research can provide a cure for her condition. While there, she meets Fecto Elfilis while they are imprisoned as a test subject, befriending the angelic alien in the process as both individuals interact with one another within the confines of Lab Discovera.
Roche Aftermath is set after the events of Kirby and the Forgotten Land as Elfilis and Vesa are brought back up to speed on the events that have happened in the years that have gone by, getting to know the inhabitants of Dream Land as they figure out what to do with their lives and their budding relationship.
Beware of unmarked spoilers for Kirby and the Forgotten Land!
Tropes displayed in the story:
Series-wide tropes
- Adaptational Heroism: Tying into Adaptational Nice Guy below, this version of Elfilis is a benevolent life-bringer who was driven mad by the torture they endured while trapped in Lab Discovera rather than an out-and-out Omnicidal Maniac.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: In general, Fecto Elfilis is portrayed in a much more sympathetic light compared to their canon counterpart, with greater emphasis placed on the trauma they went through while trapped in Lab Discovera.
- Ambiguous Gender: Very much Enforced throughout the series, with one of the tags for the fic explicitly stating that Fecto Elfilis is referred to with they and them pronouns to reflect their otherworldly nature.
- Beast and Beauty: Vesa and Fecto Elfilis are pretty much this.
- Decomposite Character: Fecto Elfilis and Elfilin remain separate characters in this story since Fecto Elfilis is not killed by Kirby.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Vesa's home country of the Forgotten Land, Ioskaria, is primarily inspired by Albania.
- Official Couple: Vesa Krasniqi and Fecto Elfilis are the main pairing of the story, though their relationship is more of a slow-burn type.
- Original Character: Vesa Krasniqi serves as Fecto Elfilis' only friend and possible love interest, something that never showed up in canon.
- Series Fic: One that currently contains two fanfics that takes place in the same continuity, but in very different points of time.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Fecto Elfilis is not killed by Kirby in this continuity.
Discovering Hearts and Smiles
- Admiring the Abomination: Vesa briefly admires Fecto Elfilis for their majestic appearance when she first meets the alien.
- All the Other Reindeer: Vesa was shunned by her peers for her illness, with the few friends she made also sick from the same illness Vesa had and dying as a result of their condition as time passed on.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Dr. Baldwin initially appears to be a man who's concerned about Vesa's health and how poorly the experiments is going ... until he reveals that he doesn't give a shit about her safety and gleefully confesses that he intends to administer the treatment to Vesa even if it kills her.
- Bittersweet Ending: Fecto Elfilis absorbs Vesa into their body so they can heal her and save her life, but it comes at the cost of losing the only person who actually saw them as a friend, even if it's implied that Vesa will eventually be fully healed.
- Body Horror: Shows up a lot whenever the experimental treatment made from Fecto Elfilis' cells is brought up, with test subjects that are given the drug straight-up melting into unrecognizable puddles of goo thanks to Elfilis' cells being incompatible with the cellular structure of said test subjects.
- Delicate and Sickly: Vesa Krasniqi suffers from Intermittent Physio-Forgo Sepsis, leaving her with a weak constitution and requiring her to use crutches to move about.
- Dirty Business: Dr. Michal doesn't like how Redgarica's government is subjecting Fecto Elfilis to so much pain with the experiments they are conducting on the alien, but knows that he can't do anything to help it since Redgarica's government would do their best to ruin his life.
- I'm Melting!:
- The tank that Fecto Elfilis is imprisoned in is filled with acid strong enough to affect their tough skin, causing them to gradually melt as the acid eats away at them.
- Anyone unfortunate enough to be administered the experimental treatment made from Elfilis' cells are instantly liquified from their bodies rejecting the alien's biomatter.
- Last Request: In her dying moments, Vesa requests that the Lab Discovera scientists let her see Fecto Elfilis for one last time so she can say goodbye to the alien. In reality, her true goal is to let Elfilis assimilate her so they can save her life and heal her body.
- Like Brother and Sister: Though not related, Elfilis and the Mage Sisters shared a tight bond as siblings and sparred with each other to keep each other sharp.
- Lonely Together: Vesa and Elfilis strike up a friendship over their shared experiences of being alone.
- Only Friend: Vesa is the only person Fecto Elfilis trusts in any capacity thanks to Vesa being the only human who showed Elfilis any empathy rather than seeing them as a mere test subject, something that Vesa reciprocates.
- Psychic Link: Elfilis establishes one between themself and Vesa after the young woman pets them, using said link to warn Vesa of what's really going on in Lab Discovera and have conversations with her.
- Related in the Adaptation: Fecto Elfilis is Hyness' child by virtue of Hyness using his DNA and magic to create Elfilis.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: After the conversation in the elevator in Chapter 5, Dr. Baldwin tells Vesa that Dr. Michal is "relieved of duty". Considering that Dr. Mical has told her that the Redgarican government would do its best to ruin him if he's discovered to sympathize with ID-F86 in any capacity, whatever that means could have horrifying possibilities.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Vesa's body begins to shut down after she suffers a sepsis episode that the doctors at Lab Discovera didn't detect and stop in time, leaving her with only three hours left to live by the time of Vesa and Elfilis' final meeting.
Roche Aftermath
- Angry Chef: Chef Osaka gets serious over anything that happens in the kitchen, going so far as to criticize the Waddle Dee chefs' kitchen habits in Castle Dedede.
- Ax-Crazy: Marx is still insane at times, even after his past attempt to control Popstar was thwarted by Kirby.
- Blowing a Raspberry: Marx does this twice in Chapter 49; once after Zan Partizanne refuses to answer his question about King Dedede's treasury room and the second time after Zan Partizanne insists that he wait for King Dedede to finish his conversation with his administration cabinet before Marx and Magolor can discuss with him about the venue of their wedding.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: After they learn that Kirby singlehandedly defeated Dark Matter, Elfilis begins searching for a way to make their life meaningful in the wake of that revelation making their old purpose of fighting Dark Matter moot.
- First Kiss: Vesa and Fecto Elfilis have their first kiss while they're exploring Bubbly Clouds.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Vesa wakes up to find that while she was inside Fecto Elfilis' pocket dimension, all the humans from her world up and left the place after the Lab Discovera scientists perfected interdimensional travel with Elfilis' teleportation powers, not to mention that Elfilis split into the kind, innocent Elfilin and the bitter, vengeful Forgo while they were stuck in their prison as an unwilling tourist attraction.
- Ghost Town: Ioskaria is practically an empty husk of its former self by the time Fecto Elfilis, Vesa, and Kirby decide to revisit Vesa's old home.
- Hell Is That Noise: The looping announcement from Lab Discovera manages to rattle Kirby with its not-quite-there tone and the fact that Elfilis had to listen to it on repeat while in captivity. They later nuke the place with powerful magic spells after evacuating all the creatures who took up residence there.
- Lethal Chef: Chef Kawasaki's decline of culinary skills is caused by a demonic possession that eats away his memories of what he's been taught under Chef Osaka. Fecto Elfilis performs an exorcism on him.
- Magical Accessory: Fecto Elfilis gives Vesa a bracelet she wears on her right wrist after their first visit to the Dreamstalk, which has a built-in pocket dimension.
- No Kill like Overkill: Vesa and Elfilis agree that Lab Discovera should be destroyed by orbital lasers to ensure that no one can use anything that the lab made for malicious purposes and put the ghosts of their past to rest in the process.
- Noodle Incident: Magolor explained the one time Marx tried to apply to be a court jester for King Dedede once, but after Marx turned the king's entire wardrobe pink and ran through the halls of the castle with a bucket of paint he enchanted to be endless, which created fluid that would disappear a while later, he got banned from setting foot into the castle ever again. Not even pleading the Jester's Privilege would help let him back in. It was even more awkward that Meta Knight had to drag Marx out.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: Fecto Elfilis' retrieval spell reveals that practically everything that the new world used was built from the biomatter Lab Discovera took from their body while they were imprisoned, with the resulting mass of biomatter forming a monolith the size of a skyscraper.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Zan Partizanne as she rebukes Marx's tantrum in Chapter 49:Zan Partizanne: "The answer is no. Wait...your...turn!"
- Reformed, but Not Tamed: Marx, who still retains a good amount of his sociopathic tendencies even after Kirby foiled his attempt to rule Popstar.
- Scavenger Hunt: Whispy Woods hosts one as an excuse to get Kirby, Elfilin, Vesa and Fecto Elfilis to clean the woods of machine remains from Star Dream. Elfilis receives a map locating more machine scraps after Kirby and Elfilin win the scavenger hunt.
- Shipper on Deck: Hyness seems really happy to see Fecto Elfilis in a relationship with Vesa, going so far as to snap photos of them together at any chance he gets for an album.
- Surprise Party: Fecto Elfilis and Vesa visit the Dreamstalk for most of the day before they show up at Waddle Dee Town just in the nick of time for Vesa to find out the Waddle Dees are hosting her 21st birthday party for her.
- Trauma Button: The phrase "And here we are!" which Fecto Elfilis constantly heard while trapped in the lab. They don't take well with mentions of Lab Discovera, as it causes them to replay the events of their captivity in their mind.
- White Magician Girl: Vesa's magic affinity identifies her as this.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Kirby panics when a Capiller falls onto his head in Chapter 16.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Magolor is not amused to find out how slapdash the Forgotten Land's Magitek is, going on an angry rant at how the Forgotten Land's technology is nothing but a piss-poor imitation of real magic-using tech after he discovers how it basically used Elfilis' magic-infused biomatter as a cheap stopgap for any gaps that Forgotten Land tech may have had.
