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

[nobodys_puppet]

What in the worlds? Nothing had really prepared Xion for this, and frankly, she wasn't even supposed to exist any more! Not that Nobodies really counted as existing.

She kept running. In some ways, the snow was like sand in how it moved under her feet. She was used to sand. In other ways, however, snow was nothing like sand. It clung more heavily, the cold made muscles weaker, and snow... covered tree roots.

Xion's boot snagged and down she went.

[woo_oo]

After a moment of awkward silence, Webby (after catching up) leans over Xion's body with a concerned expression.

"... Are you okay?"

[nobodys_puppet]

"Just go away," Xion said softly.

Please... just... just go away. Don't remember me....

[woo_oo]

"Why?" Webby asked offering a hand to help her up. "And how come you ran away? Was there something scary over there?"

[nobodys_puppet]

Xion ignored the hand. The scary thing was that she was here at all. That she was at all. "Forget you saw me and just go."

[woo_oo]

"No can do, I've got a nearly photographic memory." Again, Webby couldn't take the hint, pointing at her head. "I've been practicing to increase my memory reliability so I can become the best super-spy ever."

[nobodys_puppet]

Xion's shoulders slumped in defeat, her head hung. "Then it all meant nothing..." she whispered, despising herself. "None of it mattered." They would find her, and depending on which they it was either she or Roxas would be obliterated in such a way that they could not return to Sora. They could not undo the damage they had done. All the worlds destroyed, because Xion couldn't even cease to be properly.

She really was just a broken puppet, a shattered mirror, a failure.

[woo_oo]

Webby blinked. She didn't know what was going on in the girl's mind, but she sounded upset.

Well, if Xion wasn't going to get up... Webby decides to sit in the snow next to her. It's chilly, but it'll be fine.

"My name's Webby. What's yours?"

[nobodys_puppet]

What did her name even matter? She somehow messed up after Namine went to all that trouble to erase her.

"I am XIV," she said softly.

[woo_oo]

"XIV?" ... Well, why not? "It's nice to meet you, XIV! ... Kinda!" Sure, there were better circumstances they could've met under, but why point it out?

"I like your hoodie."

[nobodys_puppet]

"It is not a... hoodie. What is a hoodie?" Someone was confused. She shook her head. "It is the uniform assigned to all members of Organization XIII."

C'mon Webby, you can do it... Organization XIII and she is number XIV. To Xion, the logic behind her number makes sense now, though it didn't used to. She was the one who was never supposed to have existed.

[woo_oo]

Well, she came to one conclusion...

"... Oooh! You're the hidden member of a secret organization! That's one of my life goals."

Just not the entirely correct one.

[nobodys_puppet]

No, actually that was the right answer. Ish. "I am the failed experiment, the member that was never supposed to exist."

[woo_oo]

"... That's kind of unfair." Webby decides right away. "I mean, you're alive. No one can say that you're not allowed to exist or not. You're here, so you have to make the most of it."

Of course, it did help that this was resounding with issues from her own world. "Be your own person, and if they don't like it, who cares? They're not here."

[nobodys_puppet]

"I am not alive. I am a Nobody. We do not live, we do not really even exist."

[woo_oo]

"... But you're here right now." Webby even gives Xion's arm a poke to "prove" it. "See? You're existing."

[nobodys_puppet]

"I am not alive. Being present does not qualify one for having an existence."

[woo_oo]

This felt like it was going to go around in circles. "Then what does?"

[nobodys_puppet]

"Existing. Being alive. Having a heart." Mattering.

[woo_oo]

So, by that logic, did that mean Xion didn't have a heart? Was she missing a vital organ?

"Are you a zombie? It's cool if you are! No prejudice here. Just curious."

[nobodys_puppet]

"I.. have met a zombie, but I am not one. I am a Nobody."

[woo_oo]

"All right then. I'm a duck." In case Xion wanted to know. "Do Nobodies lay in the snow all day?"

[nobodys_puppet]

"IF you will leave, then I can do the same," she said. And she planned to, once she got her foot free. She had no clue what to do about how many people here now remembered her, however....

[woo_oo]

"Oh. Okay." She was a smidgen hurt, but it would heal within seconds.

She stood up straight, dusting the remains of snow off of her clothes. "I'll see you later!"

[nobodys_puppet]

"......................" She watched, to make sure she was leaving.,