Aquarella

Aquarella is the femslash ship between Aqua and Cinderella from the Kingdom Hearts fandom.

Canon
Shortly after Aqua arrives on Castle of Dreams she catches a small glimpse of Cinderella leaving, before Terra gets her attention. He tells Aqua that it was Cinderella who helped him to keep believing and to understand that the light from a dream can fight off the darkness, in which delights Aqua as it meant that her friend hasn't let go of his light. Aqua's path crosses with Cinderella again, after she sensed the darkness emanating from her step-family and later helped Cinderella's Fairy Godmother and friend Jaq to reunite her with the Prince. When Aqua felt that Jaq was taking too long in freeing Cinderella from the locked room and was restored to her true size, she buys them some time by asking the Gran Duke if she can try on the glass slipper; in which worked. As Cinderella asks the Duke she can try it on, Aqua lets Cinderella take her place before escorting her to the chair; and as they waited for the slipper to be brought to Cinderella Aqua thanks her for helping Terra.

When it looked like that Cinderella is going to have her happy ever after as the Duke brings her back to the castle, her step-family attack them with the help of a pumpkin carriage Unversed, to which the Gran Duke alerts Aqua of before she goes to Cinderella's rescue. Aqua uses her body to shield Cinderella before she gets her to safety, so she can defeat the Unversed without putting Cinderella's life in danger. Once the battle was over, Aqua watches Cinderella from afar as she and the Prince embrace each other.

Similarities and comparisons
Both Aqua and Cinderella have blue as their signature colour, as it is the colour of Cinderella's signature Disney Princess gown, along with it being the colour of Aqua's hair, parts of her clothes, Keyblade and the colour of the Wayfinder good luck charm she made for herself. The two are also kind hearted, have faced their own kind of hardships, like the loss of a father or a father-like figure, and get along with animals, like Jaq the mouse, who is friends with both of them in the Kingdom Hearts universe.

Moments
Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep
 * Aqua helps Cinderella down a few steps of stairs in the game, as helpers of royalty would.
 * Aqua thinks about Cinderella, as she reflects on the many people she met before ending up in the Realm of Darkness.

Fanon
Like Terrella, Aquarella is a rather popular Kingdom Hearts ship. It is one of the most popular ships involving a Disney character with a non-Disney character. Even though it was known from the start that Cinderella would eventually end up with Prince Charming, some find her to be kind, grateful and even amazed with Aqua; when she mentioned Terra and thanked the Disney Princess for helping him. Despite the fact that Aqua's time with Cinderella was very brief, while Terra had a bit more time with her, Cinderella's home world is the first one that Aqua visits in her side of the story in Birth by Sleep and had stumbled across its castle within the Realm of Darkness, along with both of their main seen colors being blue and Aqua ensuring that the darkness don't interfere with Cinderella's happy ever after. Aquarella most commonly rivals the Terraqua, Cindercharming and even Terrella ships.

Some fans have Aqua spending a lot more time with Cinderella in fanon, so they could have a proper chance to get to know one another, like Terra did with the classic Disney Princess, or have her searching for Cinderella after she uncovers her castle in the Realm of Darkness. There have even been a few Terraqua fans who have cast Aqua as Cinderella, to reference both of their encounters with her. Just as a few fans in fanon have Cinderella as a Keyblade wielder, like Aqua, as she is sometimes given the Cinderella-theme Keyblade to wield or a fan-made one before her second appearance in Birth by Sleep.

Aquarella is one of a few Kingdom Hearts ships that involves a Disney character with a non-Disney character, following Terrella and Sorariel. Most of these kind of ships in the Kingdom Hearts fandom are het ships, while Aquarella is a femslash ship that has a resemble size of fan support. The same with the slash ship, SoHiro. They aren't very common in the fandom, however, since many prefer to ship the Kingdom Hearts characters with each other than with any of the Disney, Final Fantasy or The World Ends with You cameo characters, that they appear close with.

On AO3, the ship has over 30 pieces of written work on it. The ship also has a reasonable size fanbase on Tumblr.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

TUMBLR

Trivia

 * Cinderella is originally from the 1950 Disney film of the same name.