diatu | So go downtown, things'll be great when you're

So go downtown, things'll be great when you're

Who: Lea and people!
When: Mid-May
Where: Various places in the city
What: In between schoolwork, Lea has some errands to run and other things to do in town. Care to join him?
Notes: Sub threads for Xion and Eleven are closed, but otherwise, have at him! :3

[For Xion]

Over the past couple months it had become rather painfully clear that there were a great many things about normal life in a school and city that Xion just didn't know about. Up til this point, Lea had been explaining things as they went, but he'd begin to realize that this was somewhat impractical long term. Thus, having heard about a more general library in the city, he'd opted to take Xion there to see if they had some books that she could refer to that might help.

Hopefully they had a children's section somewhere because he didn't think any other books would explain the kinds of basic concepts Xion needed to learn...

[For Eleven]

Having discovered through conversation that Eleven had never had ice cream before, Lea had taken it upon himself to correct this unfortunate oversight. And he knew just where to take Eleven for his introduction to frozen deliciousness: the Ice Creamatorium.

"Now I gotta warn you," he said as they approached the unusual ice cream shop, "the themeing of this place is a little off the wall. But trust me, you'll like it."

[For anyone]

Having a little money in his pocket now opened up a great many more possibilities for things to do in the city, both in terms of errands and in terms of leisure activities. And Lea needed to get to know the city a bit better anyway. Thus he could frequently be found out and about on weekends (and occasionally when he should have been doing other things), running errands or taking in the sights and wouldn't mind having some company.

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"That's not quite...", Lea said, before trailing off and then trying to start again. Ugh... how to explain this in a way that wouldn't just lead them in circles? "It's not that you know the exact things that are right and wrong, it's more that.... you're able to have that debate with yourself. You're able to think deeply about whether something is right or wrong, and then make decisions based on what you come up with. It might take a lot of effort, but you can do it."

"Little kids can't necessarily do that," he said. "They're a lot more reliant on the adults around them to help guide them and interpret complex things like that for them. So information directed at them tends to be framed in simpler ways. Like say, talking about what someone does or what something is, more than why someone does something or why things are a certain way. They learn the simple things first, then, when they develop more, they have the knowledge they need to learn and understand more complex things." That made sense right? Please let that have made sense.

"That's what I want to try and help you with here," he said. "Because the Organization was... well... basically terrible, you kinda had to learn things in reverse, and missed out on a lot of basic information that would give you context for things. I thought maybe these books might help with that a bit."

"But isn't that what you and Riku were doing? Trying to help me figure out which choice was the right one to make?" That said, Axel wanted her to read these books, she would read these books.

"I can't really say what Riku was trying to do," Lea said. "He still doesn't remember you in the time I'm from, so I couldn't really ask him even if I'd remembered that I should."

"As for me... frankly I didn't much care about right or wrong at the time," he said. "I wanted you and Roxas with me. Even when I knew deep down that that was impossible, even it wasn't what either of you wanted, even if I also knew deep down that the Organization wasn't the best place for you. All I wanted was you and Roxas. I didn't care about Sora, or even what might happen to the rest of the worlds. Right then, I was willing to let it all burn if it meant I could have what I wanted for even a little while longer."

"I learned better later, but that doesn't make it right," he said. "Part of friendship is respecting each other, and I failed at that part pretty hard. I didn't respect you or Roxas' choices, even after I told you to make your own, and that only ended up making things worse."

"So no, I wasn't trying to help you make the right choice," he said. "I was trying to get you to make the choice I wanted, and there's a big difference between that and wanting you to do what's right."

"Riku was doing the same thing as you were, he wanted his friend back. But isn't wanting your friends to be with you, part of what is right?"she asked, softly. "I wanted to stay with you," she said quietly, looking at her gloves. "That was what I wanted most. Why I was so afraid of becoming a Dusk. Because if I was a Dusk, or if I went with Riku and you stopped remembering me, I couldn't stay with you and Roxas."

She looked up at him. "I don't know what you mean by respecting, but..." she frowned a bit, thinking, "it sounds like a heart thing. And if it is a heart thing, then it wasn't something you could have done anyway, right?"

"Wanting to be with your friends is fine," Lea said. "It only natural, and it's a good thing, for the most part. But becoming so obsessed with it that you don't care who else gets hurt as long as you get what you want? That's pretty much always wrong. And that was the difference between me and Riku. He wasn't willing to sacrifice the rest of the world just to have Sora, like I was with you and Roxas."

"And respect isn't necessarily a heart thing," he said. "It's more... treating others the way you'd want to be treated. Not being a jerk to them, and treating them, their opinions, and their ideas like they have as much value as your own, even if you don't necessarily agree with them. Respect is an important part of friendship, and one that I didn't show nearly enough of to you or Roxas."

She studied Axel for a long moment. "Doesn't that mean that you wanted us with you more than he wanted Sora with him?" she asked, thinking. Besides, destroying her and Roxas was pretty extreme as far as she was concerned, from their point of veiw. But then Riku was a Somebody. So maybe destroying a few Nobodies really seemed like nothing to him, after all. But she still... really had no way to know which one had been right. Axel or Riku. The way it turned out, by Axel's time... they were looking for a way to get Roxas back. Maybe they'd get her back too. If she had stayed, would they have been able to find some other way to get Sora back? She wasn't sure.

Then there was what Riku said, about choosing the answer that was best for everyone. Not just her and her friends. But she still didn't know what made Sora that best, except that he had a heart and they didn't. Again it came down to Somebodies being that much more important than Nobodies like her. But Axel was a somebody now. He was Lea, even if he still seemed the same. He had a heart. He mattered now. But... he still wanted to be best friends with her, and that was confusing. And at the same time not. But it was though.

Her head was starting to hurt. Again. So she focused on the rest of what he said. "But my opinions and ideas don't have any real value, and I'm the only Nobody who is still a Nobody, here. If I treated people like they had the same worth as me, I'd treat them as badly as.." she choked on the next few words and edited them carefully, for his sake. "As I was treated, by some," she said softly. "I don't... want to do that. And for a Nobody to even think of treating a Somebody like that...."

"Honestly? No idea," Lea said. "I mean there's really no way to compare things like that and get a definite answer, even if I were to ask him. That's not the important difference though. The important difference is that Riku wasn't just thinking of what he wanted to the exclusion of everyone and everything else, like I was."

"That and to a certain extent the reason he wanted him back. I wanted you and Roxas pretty much just so I could have you with me; because I didn't want to be alone. Riku wanted Sora around for that reason too, but he also knew that Sora had a lot of people in a lot of worlds who were counting on him, and that that was just as important a reason to help him. See?"

And he couldn't help a bit of a wry smile at Xion's sidestepping of Siax's name. "You can say his name you know," he said. "I mean, it's not like I'm not gonna know who you mean anyway. I was there; I know how much of a jerk he was at the time."

"Anyway, the way Siax treated you was a pretty strong example of dis-respect," he said. "So respect? It's basically the total opposite of that."

"But there were others around, even without us, you wouldn't have been alone." Right? "People... counting on him?" so much of this was still confusing.

She looked down at her gloves. "Sorry. But I was trying not to..." she trailed off and changed what she was going to say. "I still don't understand."

"There's a difference between being around other people and not being alone," Lea said. "I'm pretty sure you noticed it before I turned up."

"Something that makes Sora unique is that he can connect his heart to anyone, and do it really easily," he said. "Without even trying, in fact. He managed to connect himself to mine, even before I had a proper heart again. And because he spent so much time travelling the worlds, he met, helped, and connected to a lot of people. And there were even more people out there who needed his help. Riku knew that."

He sighed a bit as she said she still didn't understand respect though. "I'm honestly not sure how else to explain it," he confessed. "I mean, I know what it is, but I don't know how to put it into words. It's like trying to explain a color or something."

"I guess... basically think how you would like to be treated in any given situation," he said. "Not how you think you deserve to be treated, but how you want to be treated. Then you treat other people that way. That, basically, is respect."

"Hearts... can... connect?" she asked, tilting her head, confused.

"And... doesn't everyone want to be treated differently?" Or did everyone else want to just be left alone by anyone who wasn't a friend?

"Yeah," Lea said. "That's pretty much what friendship is, when you get right down to it; two people's hearts connecting. Other than that, I don't think it's really a thing that can be explained, and maybe that it's one of those things that really shouldn't be. It's something too essential to try and boil it down to some dry words."

"And, most people do," he said. "But until you get to know them, you don't really know the specifics. So treating others they way you'd want people to treat you is a good rule to follow until that happens." Though what she had in mind wasn't quite what he meant.

"But we became friends without hearts," she pointed out.

But she nodded to the other. "So... I should just leave everyone alone then, and that is... respect?"

"Frankly I think both of us were probably developing hearts already by the time we really started getting to know each other," Lea said.

He chuckled at her assertion of what 'respect' was. "Not quite," he said. "It's more... being considerate to others and not acting like a jerk. Like for an example, take what we're doing right now. When you're talking to me, you're paying attention, being asking questions politely, and not interrupting me when I'm talking or trying to talk over me; that's respectful. Likewise, I'm paying attention and not interrupting you, giving you time to ask the questions that you want, and trying to give you the best answers that I can; that's respectful too. And we're both being respectful to the other people here by not hogging the whole reading nook and talking quietly so we don't disturb them. Understand?"

She wasn't fully sure about that, but let it go.

"Maybe....?" she admitted. She was unsure, but she thought she mostly got it. Probably.

"Good," Lea said, chuckling slightly. "Because I've honestly run out of ways to try and explain it. And I'm sure if you look for those sorts of things and put them into practice, it'll clear things up eventually. It just sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is."

"Alright, Axel, she said, softly.

"Right," Lea said. "Now, before we got sidetracked, I think we were here to get some books, so we should probably get back to that, huh?" Before they went off on another tangent.

She nodded. "Alright."

Lea nodded, handing the few he'd already gathered to Xion as he returned to scanning the shelves there were probably a few more they could snag before they sat down.

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So go downtown, things'll be great when you're

Re: Down On Skid Row

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She is letting that go mostly to not break things that come later if I have timing correct.

OK. XD

Figure this one is near about wrapped?

Yep, just about.

Re: Yep, just about.

And wrapped!