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Many live under the misconception that sides have always existed in their centres’ minds. That the second a person was born into this world, their aspects opened their eyes right as they did.
In reality, the process was slow and delicate, with it sometimes taking multiple years (or even decades) for sides to fully form.
And even when they did finish their formation, that didn’t necessarily mean they had to reveal themselves.
- - - - - -
The first thing the cyan one saw after he enthusiastically threw his door open, ready to face the world with a beaming smile and open arms, was a purple door directly across from his own.
Delighted that he wasn’t alone, he bounded over and rapped his knuckles against it whilst rocking back and forth on his heels.
“Hi! Hello, anyone in there?”
Silence.
“Sorry to disrupt you if you were sleeping,” he continued, “but I really want to meet you! The mindscape is so ginormous, and I’d love to explore it with someone!”
He waited awhile for a response, and his smile faltered a tiny bit when none came.
“Hm, maybe you’re shy-” he barely caught the sound of something — or someone — shifting from far off in the room, and he rushed to continue “- a–and that’s alright! You don’t have to come out yet if you don’t want to! I’ll be here whenever you’re ready.”
As he stopped for breath, he felt something deep in his chest loosen a little, and his smile returned to its full brightness.
“Great! I’m gonna go and try out Tommy’s mom’s cookie recipe in our kitchen, I’ll leave some out if you want any!”
He began to skip away down the hall, but paused just before turning the corner.
“Oh, and I’m Feelings, by the way!”
Seconds later, into the stillness of the hallway, a second voice rasped out.
“C-Caution…”
- - - - - -
There was no quiet tranquility to be had when Creativity arrived.
Loudly proclaiming himself to be the king of the only half-finished Imagination and naming himself Romulus, he danced around the common room with his crayons and costumes. Feelings’ eyes were bright with wonder as he watched, and Caution lived up to his name from behind his bedroom door.
Creativity would rant for hours on end to Feelings about all his stories and drawings, explaining every little detail no matter its size.
One day, he sat back with a sigh, “why does Caution never come out of his room? Surely my storytelling is enough to draw anyone out of seclusion!”
“I think he just likes time alone to think,” Feelings had tried to explain softly.
“That doesn't make sense,” the other huffed, before standing up, sword in hand, and running off to the Imagination to go and dissect the Dragon Witch again.
Feelings had witnessed firsthand the way Romulus would slice open the poor eldritch creature’s stomach and play with its organs with such fascination in his eyes, though he had only needed to see it once, and made no move to follow the king.
- - - - - -
The chaos of an almost entirely right-brained mindscape only lasted for a couple months until Reasoning finally appeared.
Romulus had taken over almost the entire mindscape with his borderline delusional aspirations for Thomas's future, going on for hours about how he could become a real life Disney prince, or an A-list actor, or one of the billion other careers he had made half-baked life plans centred around, when a freezing boney finger had tap-tap-tapped on his shoulder, paired with an exhausted tiny voice informing him of his lack of realism.
“And who are you?” he quipped as he turned around, hands on hips and lips pursed in a way not dissimilar to the main mean girl in a Disney Channel movie.
He was faced with another Thomas-esque boy a good few inches shorter than himself, who almost looked like a child who was trying on his parents’ clothes and pretending to be a grown up.
Before the new indigo side could respond, Morality had practically flown across the room and pulled the newly formed facet into a giant bear hug, spinning him around and cheering from the pure elation of a brand new friend.
The moment that the emotional trait let him go, however, Reasoning and Romulus had already begun a heated debate on whether or not Thomas should go to university to get a PHD in astrophysics or star in every R-Rated horror film he could audition for.
Noticing a familiar knot beginning to tighten in his stomach and chest, he slipped away before he could get caught in the crossfire.
- - - - - -
“Hey Caution,” he murmured as he leaned against the facet’s door, “someone else just formed today. I, um-” he stumbled over himself, “-he seems like someone you might get along with? Focuses on reality and stuff?”
He didn't bother to wait for a response, instead letting his voice pick up the very next thought that appeared in his mind.
“I have to confess, buddy, I'm… worried. About Creativity, I mean. Usually I try to encourage the variety in his ideas, a-and I want to celebrate all the features he's put into the Imagination, but… all of the, um, the… blood, and violence, i-it isn't right, y'know?”
Morality leaned his back against the gray wood — wait, he could've sworn it was some other colour the last time he took notice of it, how long ago had that been…? — and let out a sigh through his nose.
“I don't like forcing anyone to change, but maybe there's a way to… to… huh?”
His voice trailed off as his eyes wandered towards the end of the hallway that he had known didn't lead anywhere after walking down it for hours on the day he first appeared.
In the shadows, he was sure — unless the stress and worry had made him hallucinate — that a pair of golden eyes were looking right back at him…
… Before they disappeared into the darkness.
“Hey!” He perked up and had to forcefully stop himself from sprinting over. Two sides forming in one day? Was that even possible?
“Don't run away, please, I'm not angry, o-or scared of you or anything!”
Not getting a response — much like another side he was partially acquainted with, he grumbled internally — he took one stop forward, which was more like him sliding his socked foot across the smooth wooden floor.
“Wait, wait… are you Caution? Have I been talking to an empty room this whole time?!” he let out a breathy laugh at how stupid the idea made him seem.
The only thing he could hear was the humming of the AC unit and the distant sound of Reasoning and Romulus still yelling at each other.
“...No. Fear and I do have similar… objectives, though.”
The voice was low, a whisper, but it was the smoothest and silkiest he had ever heard Thomas's voice go. It pulled his heart in two different directions, strongly enough that he completely missed the use of the wrong name.
“Oh? Like what?”
“We both keep Thomas… safe.”
“Well that's amazing! Did you form today with the dark blue one?”
“...No.”
“Okay,” he nodded to himself and took a few more hesitant steps forward until he was about a foot away from the corner, “so when did you?”
“... Let's just say it's been awhile.”
“What's your name?” Morality questioned, tilting his head to the side like a curious puppy.
Slowly, a figure emerged from the shadows, taking some of the darkness with it in the form of a long, hooded cloak which covered its entire body and trailed a little across the floor. It slowly tilted its head up, letting Morality see the shy face underneath.
“...Defence.”
- - - - - -
For a while Patton had tried to ignore the more… unsavoury parts of the royal side he shared a home with.
It was easy at first, the worst things he daydreamed about being slaying Disney villains with perhaps slightly more than the regular amount of excitement at watching them die.
Then, over time, as Thomas grew from a child into an adolescent, the heart had decided that their centre wouldn't be able to healthily complete his adultery (he had no idea why Logan scrunched his face up like that whenever he mentioned it) with some of the thoughts that began to circulate his mind.
Sometimes, when talking about his heroic escapades in the Imagination, Romulus would slip into completely unrelated, and frankly, worrying tangents.
It was when King started rambling on about hurting Thomas's family that he had reached a breaking point.
“Hey Rommy?”
Said side seemed to almost instantaneously snap out of whatever unbecoming reverie he had fallen into, his head jerking towards the other, “yeah?”
“C-could we talk? Please?”
- - - - - -
“What do you mean it's wrong?! I was just thinking out loud, he hasn't done any of the things I said!”
“I know buddy, I know, and I'm not saying that it makes you bad! I-I just think that it's something you might need to…”
“To what? Just tell me already!”
“Just...Stop? Like, maybe if you try and force it away enough it'll be like it isn't there, y'know?”
Romulus was as stiff as the floorboards beneath their feet, and Patton was wringing his shaking fingers as sweat rolled down his brow.
There was probably — definitely — a better way to have phrased that.
“...Fine.”
- - - - - -
That day, Patton learned that, under the right circumstances, two sides could appear at once.
Everyone was there after they heard his cries, down the hallway that apparently led nowhere to a place that was, in fact, there.
He was at one end of the room, Logan by his side, both knelt in front of a side clad in a red tunic.
At the other end stood two others, one clad in a cape and the other gripping their hands onto its fabric, hidden behind them, staring down at the one in green.
Two voices rang out: one fluffier than the clouds that hung above their centre's head as he stared up into the sky, unaware of the conflict raging on inside his own mind, and the other as silky as the fabric hanging over his shoulders, yet tinged with the soft worry emanating from the one hiding behind him.
“What's your name?”
Two royals responded.
“Creativity.”