May Event and Intro Log

[magicademymods]

May Event and Intro Log DAWN OF THE FIRST DAY May I Have This Dance? Though Diatu Magicademy has its share of social events, few capture the attention of the student body quite like the Twilight Ball -- that magical once-a-year dance that crosses the change of day into night and is given over entirely to the dance itself. The focus is not on political visitors, rival schools, local government, or hitting up alumni for money; it is entirely about the pleasure that comes from accompanying a charming and attractive person onto the dance floor and cutting the proverbial rug. It is entirely possible the Twilight Ball is beloved because the general student body is aggressively amorous, but no one admits that out loud. With the dance on the horizon, the mission of the day becomes finding a partner -- or asking the prettiest or nicest or most tsundere to the ball before anyone else does. The Sundered are particularly popular by virtue of being new, so students may find themselves fending off invitations or even crowds of people interested in being seen on their arms. Even the younger Sundered have a few people in their age group who'd like to pretend they're just as adult as the older students. To avoid the mob, one strategy is to find someone else in dire straits and agree to be their date, thus giving both of you protection now and then. Another, stranger, vastly more unorthodox strategy is to actually ask someone out legitimately... if you've got the guts. (The third strategy is to go with Headmaster Birony, who has been occasionally heard to bemoan loudly and publicly that she has nobody, HINT HINT. But who could possibly be THAT desperate?) Love Is In The Water Love potions are absolutely, positively, one hundred percent forbidden, on the grounds they tread far too close to the supremely black Curriculum of Dictation. This ultimate and unforgiving ban is every bit as effective as Anastara's rules limiting the speed of carts in the street to a horse's walk. So, yes, there's love potion in the water. Someone spilled an entire bucket in the river. These things happen. Luckily, as diluted as it is, the potion doesn't reach the levels of obsessive compulsion that the worst of them can; a person drinking a unfortunate draught instead simply finds themselves attracted in a weird and sharp sort of way to the first person they lay their eyes on, for a period of about thirty minutes. Diatu Magicademy is an inclusive and progressive institution, and consequently these potions affect and can target all manner of beings, from ducks and wolf-shifters to robots and dragons. They are pretty convenient about failing to bring about really skeevy pairings, though, so don't worry about being Hot For Professor. Special Delivery (aka the Least Embarrassing Prompt, which is a sad state of affairs) A quick, easy, profitable way to make some money this time of year is by delivering messages, packages, parcels, and treats to students who've caught the eye of another. Whether anonymous or gloriously identified, small token of esteem or bristling bundles of roses and chocolates, the population of the Magicademy takes particular delight in letting others know their feelings. Not always positive feelings, either -- glitter-bomb rejections have only recently begun to diminish in popularity, being replaced by Pie-To-The-Face spells. An enterprising student who adds their own spin to this hallowed ceremony of delivery can make bank; singing and performance are popular ways to enhance a message among Valhudor students, and a recent trend finds quartets delivering acapella harmonies to the recipients of love notes. But simple note hauling can still be worth your while... so long as you don't find yourself delivering a creepy confession from a weirdo to one of your dear friends. What are the odds of that happening, though? Research On the Sundered With the arrival of the Sundered come those wizards engaged in research on their presence here, now set to investigate what brought them here and how to get them home. All newly-arrived Sundered students are asked to meet with representatives of the research team, to introduce themselves and relate what they will of their homes. In addition, the team requests samples of blood, hair, and skin -- carefully magically collected, and the researchers will sign in the presence of the Sundered a Glyphed contract that forbids them from using the samples for a purpose they know will be harmful. (They quite understand your reasons to be suspicious of this collection! And they will not compel anyone who refuses even given these conditions.) This month, however, the research team informs its applicants that there is no magic being performed. Instead, they ask you to participate in partnered interviews, in which two Sundered compare their worlds and ask each other questions while the researchers take notes. They explain that they wish to find commonalities and differences between worlds, in the hopes that this will help them identify a larger pattern in how the Sundered were brought here. How is this bad enough to merit earning a reward this month? As it happens, the researchers who sit with the pair have an Intimation Crystal, which shines red every time someone speaks to deceive in its presence. Lie or omit information or cover with half-truths and the interviewer will ask you to go back and try again -- and they encourage you to speak on everything you can. You might end up venturing into dark or unpleasant territory in these interviews... DAWN OF THE SECOND DAY Welp, This Happened A quiet weekend morning is abruptly quiet no longer. With a tumultuous shuddering and an eerie, whistling roar, the first tendril of a far mightier being surges out of a wall on campus, venturing into the cloud-shadowed outdoors for the first time in its existence in this plane. Then, like a cloak shrugged off, the outbuilding it emerged from rises up only to crash to the ground as the Sundered creature rises up to claim it glory. It is a nightmare, a horror. A terrible, indescribable thing as large as a small building —a shapeless agglutination of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of light. For some inexplicable reason, it is colored in bands of purple, black, and gold, and several parts of it sprout white feathers. That's the bad news. The bad news is that this existential threat to reality does not go unnoticed, nor unchallenged. Mere moment after the Sundered creature makes it presence known, a cold wind begins to blow. The temperature abruptly drops thirty degrees, leaving those around in a clammy and miserable chill that feels like they've passed their whole body through one of the ghosts of Makerion Keep. This estimation is not too far wrong, for the pale off-white dragon that emerges from the clouds above is translucent and ethereal, save for the shining eyes of coldest blue that fix on the beast like pinpoints of fire. What a ghost dragon is doing here is anyone's guess, but when it opens its jaw to unleash a withering cone of necrotic energy at the Sundered creature, it demonstrates plainly that it will not brook this interloper on its domain. In other words, Diatu Magicademy is now home to a kaiju fight. That's the bad news. The BAD news is that both these creatures are, by their very nature, incredibly resistant to magic. So even as the professors spill out and split duties of getting students to safety and fending them off, the two beasts barely notice the arcane energy flashing through the air as they begin vigorously brawling. Thank goodness this is a weekend, or else you'd all have some serious trouble getting to class on time. Wonders Await? Diatu Magicademy is open to you in all its glory. But maybe you should deal with that mess first? We're just saying.

Comments

[noasark]

"As a computer, I was utterly assured of most things- 'doubt' was not so much 'doubt', as the realization that there could be a way to work around a current plan, and a necessity to rectify it. But when I acted? I was very sure of things." A bit too sure, which made for quite the wake up call when he briefly stole his younger stepbrother's body.

But enough of that.

"But if you're still so unsure- tell me. What would you rather? To have a heart, or to not?"

[nobodys_puppet]

She looked down at her hands, thinking about the answer to that question. Because it was a question that mattered.

"Back in the Organization... everyone except Roxas and I remembered having hearts, and they all worked so hard, counted on us so much, to get their hearts back," she said softly. "Roxas and I... we don't remember having hearts. We never understood why they were so desperate."

Her fingers laced together and her eyes closed.

"Axel has a heart now. But other than calling himself Lea and the look of his face... He's... exactly the same. He says that he isn't but.. he is. He;'s still Axel. Nothing that matters changed. He's still my best friend, still looking out for me, still... himself. The only real change that seems to matter is his magic, but... we all have to regain that here. And even without it, he's still him. Axel. Lea. Same person."

A deep breath as her eyes opened, hardened.

"Saïx however.... Axel says Saïx got his heart back, is Isa now. That he's different. He looks a little different, his ears and eyes, but..." She shook her head. "I don't know. I can't tell if he did change or... if he is playing some long game, if he is pretending to have changed for some reason. Because Axel is exactly the same but as Isa... he is acting and speaking so differently."

She pursed her lips, still giving this thought, even as she spoke. And... Axel and Roxas could tell him, this was a lot for her to say all at once. Xion was not exactly verbose most of the time.

"If he is lying, then a heart... doesn't seem to make a difference. So... it does not matter if I get one or not. But if he isn't lying..." In some ways that was as scary as Saïx still being Saïx....

She took a deep breath and looked up to him. "If he isn't lying, and having a heart made that much difference? Then... who would I be with a heart? Would... it be like Lea, and I'd still be what little of me there is? Or would it be Isa? And I'd be completely different? Would the part of me that my friends like... vanish? I am so little as it is. So much of me... has always been someone else. IF I change further, and so suddenly? What will be left?"

She swallowed hard, aware she was shaking, but not sure why. "If having a heart would cost everything that actually matters, would... erase what little of me there is.... then why would I want one?" she whispered, finding it hard to swallow suddenly.

[noasark]

"Hnnn... ...Alternatively, the 'long game' involved pretending to be someone he never was- lose a heart, pretend to have lost more than that..." In other words, she never knew the 'real' one. The 'real' Saix, or Isa, rather.

But that's not what he wants to focus on anyway.

"You've given it a lot of thought." He smirks.

"...You feel rather strongly about this, I would even say." There's a hint in there, one he's about to emphasize. "I don't think you have to worry about anything being erased- just about getting some more confidence, if anything... ...You absolutely have a heart. It would make sense that way as is, wouldn't it? If you're born, and told 'You don't have a heart', how would you know the difference? If you wake with no memories for that matter, how would you be able to argue? Everyone could tell you you're missing something, and without the knowledge of what that 'something' does or doesn't feel like..."

Noa trails off, and shrugs. "...Well without that, how would you be able to argue back then? Everyone else was already pretending."

[nobodys_puppet]

She had been about to argue with the word feel, filing away the "Saïx might be even sneakier and more dangerous than she thought" tidbit away for later. But he kept talking.

And by the end? Her head had snapped up, her hands were in fists on either side of her body. "Axel wasn't pretending. And he wouldn't like to Roxas and me about this." About other things, to keep them safe. Yes. Trying to lie and say they didn't have hearts when they did? NEVER. Axel would have known if we had hearts, and he WOULD have told us."

Defensive about her friends, isn't she? Well some of that was also that he might have terrified her with the assertion that she already had a heart. She would know. Wouldn't she? And Axel would have known for sure! Saïx she could believe lied to her. She knew Xemnas lied about pretty much everything ever. But what about the others? Most of them didn't bother thinking about her enough to have bothered lying to her. Or Roxas. No. She and Roxas weren't important enough for her to believe that everyone else in the Organization was in on some big conspiracy to keep her, Axel, and Roxas from the truth. No one gave her as much thought as something like that would require. Even with the Keyblade... she wasn't worth the effort.

[noasark]

"They were your words, not mine," he replies coldly.

"You were the one who told me they had no hearts, and acted on their memories. What do you call that, other than pretending? Would he have known you were, or weren't from there? Actually," Noa goes on with a bitter laugh, a small theory coming to mind, "Who did tell all of you that you were missing your hearts? I knew why my emotions were fake- I could trace the 'thoughts' to their emulation and code, until they were nothing but hard logic. What were all of your excuses for knowing somehow?"

[nobodys_puppet]

"I said their emotions were only emulations of emotions, memories of what it was like to feel. That didn't mean they were lying and pretending to trick me and Roxas, just because we lacked memories." And had Keyblades. "I don't know what you're talking about code or anything like that. But how does your knowing somehow differ from ours?" she asked. She got angry only rarely, but at the moment, she certainly seemed angry. Her hands were still in fists.

"And whatever lies Xemnas told to the others still have no bearings on ME. Nobodies are created when a heart is removed from a Somebody and they are too strong to fade away. So they split into a Heartless, a Nobody, and their removed heart. But that isn't how I was made," she said, thumping her chest with one fist. Forgetting to be quiet, forgetting they had been hiding. "Even if every other Nobody can get their heart back, I never can because I was never a Somebody. I never had one!" she stepped closer to him. "I was created. Out of memories and who knows what else. And those memories are gone now! I don't even have that anymore. I am a Nobody who can never be anything else. So it doesn't matter if I want a heart or not, I can't have one."

"And I didn't need to trust that I was told what I am, or that I'm different. And even if I did? EVERYONE told me that, not just Xemnas' puppets. Riku and Naminé and DiZ, they all knew what I was. A shell existing on stolen memories. Someone who shouldn't ever exist. Shouldn't have ever existed." Her chest was heaving now, and there was a small amount of pain, like she had gotten grazed in combat. For the most part this... was just the truth. And there was no reason for it to hurt. What little it did, she pushed aside.

And... really.... it didn't matter. None of it did. She had Axel. Roxas would show up at some point. What did it matter what this Somebody thought of her? he didn't matter. Not really. Not to her. And she knew she didn't matter to him.

She took a deep breath and spoke more quietly, but with the same conviction. "Every other Nobody is still themselves in some way, everyone who looks at Axel sees the same face, the same hair, the same everything. Everyone who looks at me? Sees what they expect to see. Axel and Roxas are the only people who just see me as me, and even they didn't always. Because there isn't enough of ME to even have a consistent face. When Saïx looks at me without the hood he doesn't even SEE a face. Riku thought I was Kairi. I do not have a heart. I can never have a heart. I never had a heart. And There was no big conspiracy to make me think that. Even with what I was built to do... I was never important enough for that much effort." And with that she turned on her heel, prepared to leave.

[noasark]

"Well you're awfully PASSIONATE for someone without feelings, I can say that much!" he attempts to interrupt, seething on the spot. Perhaps it's a simple matter of wanting to be right, but at this point he's too entrenched in just how much selfloathing is saturating the conversation to really give it up.

Even when she, apparently is.

"Then PROVE IT," he snaps to her back. "Because someone who doesn't have feelings wouldn't be so scared of that they'd hide it under a hood!"

[nobodys_puppet]

She turned to face him again. "I don't even know what that word means! And fear isn't an emotion! Anyone can be afraid! Even Heartless flee sometimes!" she snapped. Then seemed to calm rapidly. "And I already get beat up here enough without people seeing a blank face. And when I get beat up," a lot of the anger was leaving her, becoming more her usual self, even though this topic should probably make her madder, "Axel gets upset. And he has a heart, so it hurts him. So hiding protects him," she said, chin lifting. "And besides, I don't need to give Saïx anymore fodder to convince whoever he's working for now that I'm not worth keeping. Because if Axel has to fight him when he still thinks he's changed..." She shook her head. "I'll deal with this myself. Protecting Axel is not fear, it's not emotion. It's not anything. He's my friend. I will protect him. He protected me my whole existence. Now it is my turn." That was said far more calmly than it probably should have been, as though she had exhausted whatever had been keeping her going. Now she was just... herself again. What little that was.

[noasark]

"Not only is it an emotion," he grates, "CARING about someone enough to protect theirs is too! Are you truly this dedicated to having 'no heart' according to yourself?!"

There is the barest pause, and he adds- "And what am I going to do to beat Anyone up anyway, I'm PUNY!"

[nobodys_puppet]

She shook her head. "Axel protected us as a Nobody. I am just learning from him. And it doesn't take size to win a fight, especially when the other has no weapon anymore and knows that she will be Dusked if she fights back," she said, softly. Not sadly, just quietly.

[noasark]

"Well I don't know how any of those things work, or happen," he drawls, perhaps bitterly, "So trust me. I am not a threat. And besides, I'm the one asking for proof! If there's an empty face there's an empty face, I'm not going to suddenly shout at you about it," Noa grumbles. He certainly doesn't have any expectations on appearance that would Make a face after all, so if she's somehow right he can just be humbled.

Not to mention grouchy.

"Hnn. Learning. So you're just doing it because he would, and there's absolutely no other reason, you don't care about him at all?"

[nobodys_puppet]

"He's my best friend, him and Roxas," she said. Wasn't that obvious by now?

As to him being a threat, she shrugged. "I was only a threat because of my weapon." In other words, he can find something if he really wants to be scary. Though really, he's plenty scary as it is.

[noasark]

He rolls his eyes. "Fine then, we're both Not Threats- and I still don't believe you somehow lack a face," he adds with a huff.

"Mnn. So you totally don't care for people you call best friends is it then. Got it."

[nobodys_puppet]

With a small huff she pulled down her hood, eyes glaring a moment before she pulled it back up.

"Satisfied?"

[noasark]

Ohoh. He raises his brows a moment...and smiles.

"...Quite. I was right- and before you say I expected something, I can tell you right now I've never seen someone with your face, ever, not even as bits and pieces, so that's not possible. I have a very good memory. Besides, with all of your insisting, I had an image of a blank mannequin if anything... ...Which is not what your face is. Nose, eyes, mouth. And black hair. You have all of that."

He looks quite smug about this.

[nobodys_puppet]

Did he see... the same face that Roxas and Axel saw? Why? She wasn't sure. They were her friends, so they saw her. But this... him... he didn't like her. At all. Her hands closed around her hood as she tried to figure out what that meant.

[noasark]

He...almost says something.

Almost. It's pretty big a deal however, he's sure, and all at once it's trickling into mind that he may have gone about this a bit rudely.

She definitely needed to hear it though, he's certain. If that's what it took, then here he is for Devil's Advocate he supposes. "...Have you ever used a mirror?" He asks more quietly when he's had enough of the silence.

"...Perhaps, it would help to see for yourself. I tried to tell you earlier- the rules that applied for us- for everyone- are gone here. Whatever you thought was making you 'lesser' before...is gone. I'm certain."

He won't call after her if she leaves this time. It doesn't feel proper. But- "I'm Noa, by the way. ...You should probably have my name."

[nobodys_puppet]

"I've seen me before," she said softly. "The face Roxas and Axel see. It's the only face I've seen of myself. Though I knew when Roxas would see someone different." Would see Sora.

But as to her having his name, she looked confused. "Why?"

'you made friends with noa- NOA WILL NOW DIE FOR YOU,'

[noasark]

"Because as much as I'm still fairly certain Heartless and Nobodies don't exist in my home-world, the matter of emotional absence and 'puppetry' is a topic I'm a little too personally familiar with," he answers, lip curling in distaste as he looks to the ground and explains. "...Beside that, it's only fair. I saw your face, you get my name. ...I suppose if anything I still owe you something more, given your apparent attachment to that hood," he huffs, playing it off.

"In any case, I suppose the only way to prove it more concretely would be to let others see, but I'm not so cold as to ask that."

Don't die for her! She'll insist she isn't worth it!

[nobodys_puppet]

She frowned a bit, under her hood. "But I've seen your face..." So did that mean he felt like she owed him her name? Like she owed everyone her name?

2Late

[noasark]

"Exactly, it's something you can't have me reveal, so I owe you something else. This was a matter that upset you-" he explains with a shrug- quietly reminding himself about the kind of chatter that got them here to begin with.

She didn't exactly appear to have a firm grasp on vocabulary.

"I told you who I am- from here, I'll just have to pay the favor some other way." He won't say aloud that it's for his conscience's sake. Being mean just doesn't sit right for very long, it's rather distressing.

Nuuuuuuuuuuuu

[nobodys_puppet]

"You... do not owe me anything. No one does..." she was confused all over again.

:U

[noasark]

"Mnnh. No, I decided~ One day, I'm going to do you a favor. Something you ask for," he adds cheekily.

[nobodys_puppet]

"What? But... why?" This made no sense. He made no sense.

[noasark]

"Why not?" If he gives any other answer he suspects they'll go in circles again.

"It's hardly something to worry about anyway- I can't do any favors unless you've asked after all."