Let The Games Begin

[magicademymods]

February Event and Intro Log Orientation Week/Magic Mayhem The campus of Diatu Magicademy stretches out before you, confused and chaotic and surging with energy. Where are you headed? To your dorm or suite, to get settled? Maybe you need some food now? Wherever you head off to as your first stop, you have to deal with the snow. Helpful or proud students are passing out various magical remedies to get you where you need to be -- umbrellas with a nasty tendency to dump snow directly onto other people nearby, an iron tube that projects fire but appears to have no off switch, snowshoes that keep you slightly too high off the snow and thus provide no friction for stopping... Familiar Follies Familiars do not harass or harm each other as a rule -- but that doesn't mean they have no pecking order, and the week of Orientation finds them all jockeying for status and position as suits them. This can take the form of pranks, displays, competitions, or simple physical assertiveness towards each other. The goal is simply to be seen as superior by the student body. New wizards especially may find themselves surprised at this behavior of their familiars... 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 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.) Furthermore, they request to perform a few spells on you for testing purposes. It is, quite regrettably, possible that if you consent to this testing, you will come away with a temporary side effect -- a slight change of hair color, traveling two steps for every one you take, one hand moving about a second behind the arm it should be attached to, or being ridden by a penguin. No need to worry, these changes won't last more than a day! Wonders Await Diatu Magicademy is open to you in all its glory. Have fun!

Comments

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Yeah! Now you're talking! [Shove it all behind and forget it! And really hope that nothing happened here to cause him to become the core of an all-powerful world-breaking monster! Yeah! Eh heh... ]

[darkenedmoon]

[Well, the Kojin mirror is not here, so she figures her chances of summoning Tsukuyomi are...about nil. For which she is somewhat thankful.]

I think I shall always be more serious than you, however. Someone has to be!

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

[Jecht chuckles, a low and rough noise.] And I sure as hell don't wanna be. So you keep that title.

[darkenedmoon]

You should at least try to think, though. Even the silliest of mummers may have a brain, you know. And I do not believe, though I expect you to say so, that you have taken so many blows to your head that it has wasted away!

[Yotsuyu sniffs at that, delicately. If he needs someone to make him think, well. She's up to that particular challenge, as well.]

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Thinking's overrated! Gettin' out there in the blitz sphere, you don't spend all your time thinking! You act! Go with your gut!

[That's the image he cultivates, after all, or part of it -- like his knack for the game's so good he doesn't need to plan or calculate or train. Part of the mystique and all.]

[darkenedmoon]

We are not there all the time now. Do not be foolish! [Yotsuyu's voice is like a whipcrack, now, and her visage somewhat stern. He's cultivated a bit of fondness in her, and she knows all too well what arrogance brings.]

Or the...what, Bala-Inlota pitch, either? Damned if I know the proper term. I trust that your instincts serve you well in your games, but do not think it translates everywhere. You do not want to die again, do you?

[That last is a low-voiced hiss. Because she's fairly certain he doesn't want it bandied about; neither does she. She doesn't want to die again so soon either, thank you, so it's as much for her own preservation as his.]

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Hey, I got good instincts! [Jecht holds up his hands, both to forestall her and to protest her claims.] And I know how to fight too, so don't think I'm just gonna keel over out of nowhere tomorrow!

[darkenedmoon]

Instincts are not everything. [She turns away from him, now, annoyed. Why are all men so stupid, in the end? Ugh.]

But I suppose now you will tell me they have carried you this far, and so you shall just be fine. As you will, then.

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Well... they ain't been perfect. Things kinda worked out all right in the end, though. [Jecht chuckles without much humor, fingers working on the back of his head through his hair.] But parents're supposed to raise their kids better than they were, so I guess I got that right. Somehow. Luckily.

[darkenedmoon]

What is ever perfect? Even the plans that seem perfect can go awry. [Boy, didn't she know that to be the truth. Hers certainly had gone straight to the seven hells. Yotsuyu raised a brow at Jecht, then.]

You had a child? [Yes, perhaps a bit incredulous.]

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Yep. Crybaby of a kid, some days I wondered how he was mine. [But Jecht's smile and the unusual softness in his voice spoil his harsh words.] Still crying at the end, too. Didn't suit him. He got all big, but didn't put on any muscle at all!

[darkenedmoon]

Mayhap his mother had a more soft heart than you. And he inherited that. [Her brow remained arched. Still more than a bit incredulous, there. But his tone, well. There was no mistaking it.]

Did you not have much of a hand in raising him?

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

We got separated, ten years ago. I... ended up somewhere he couldn't go. Not back then, anyway. It wasn't my choice! [Don't think for a second he wanted that, lady!]

[darkenedmoon]

Calm yourself, did I say it was?! [He earns a slight scowl at that, but Yotsuyu shakes her head. And her next words are by no means hesitant.]

No. You are full of yourself, but...I do not think you would willingly abandon your own child. If there was a way you could have gotten back to him...I think you would have taken it.

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Yeah, that's what I thought I was doing for a while. [Jecht shakes his head himself.] Till I figured it out. Saw him again at the end, though. He made me proud.

[darkenedmoon]

The...end? [She blinks at that, but Yotsuyu is not sure she wants to press. But she tilts her head curiously at him, and her next words hold not a hint of mockery.]

I do not think I would expect less, from your son.

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Me neither. He's my son. [Which is egotistical and self-centered, but also the highest praise Jecht can offer, really.]

Uh, I should mention I'm 'bout ten years older than I look. In case you were wonderin'.

[darkenedmoon]

I...was not. I mean. You did seem old enough to have a child...[But one who was a warrior of sorts? Even in the provinces, they did not start them that early.]

I confess to being a bit more confused now than before! [It embarrassed her, but getting angry would solve nothing, so Yotsuyu did her best to ignore that.]

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

[Jecht folds his arms, frowning down at them as he wonders how to explain.]

I'm sort of dead? And sort of not real. And sort of a monster. I told ya it was complicated!

[darkenedmoon]

You did, you did! [Yotsuyu lifts her hands at him, a gesture of mollification.] You perhaps were not clear about it, but you did say your...situation was, indeed, complicated. And it definitely sounds as if it is, with what you have said. [Not that she cannot comprehend both 'dead' and 'sort of a monster' quite well. Though the latter she might have a slight misunderstanding with.]

But what do you mean, sort of 'not real'?

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Zanarkand... the Zanarkand I knew, grew up in and lived in, it wasn't real. It was a dream of the fayth, an old one. A place that was being summoned forever. So I was too, at least to start with. Something about getting pulled into the real Spira makes you real enough, I guess.

'Cept when the dream ended, so did we.

[darkenedmoon]

So that was a kind of death, then. You were not slain as...this monster you speak so lightly of?

[In truth, her tone was not accusing by any means. It was not as if she had not had the Warrior of Light in her face and doing the honors when she had transformed. But she had deserved it, every blistering second.]

I do...not think I understand the how of it, but I... [There is a look of distaste on her face, now, though her brow is also furrowed in confusion. But surprisingly, perhaps, Yotsuyu does manage to spit it out, petulant as a child.]

I do not want you to not exist!

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Whoa, hey. [That bit of petulant enthusiasm startles him, has him lifting his hands to calm her down.] I'm here, aren't I? Not sure why, since there's ten or twelve different reasons why not, but for whatever reason, I'm real enough here!

[darkenedmoon]

But will you stay that way? [Perhaps to his surprise, the look on her face is probably the first truly unhappy one he's seen out of Yotsuyu. It has managed to cut through the usual arrogant air, even.]

There has to be a way to make certain...

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

So long as I stay here? Yeah, probably, since -- well, here I am. [He shrugged, palms up. How did he describe it better?]