route_1065 | A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes

Entry tags:

lightning farron | final fantasy xiii

A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes

Who: The participants of the Dream Plot!
Where: A mysterious dream castle far away!
When: All day and night on April 19th!
Summary: The journey is over, and at last you've arrived. Looks as though there's a reception waiting for you, too; maybe it was worth the trouble, after all...
Rating: PG, and please warn for threads that may go higher!
Log:

[After a period of dreamlike travel, the journey has finally drawn to a close; at last, you've arrived at your destination for the next twenty-four hours...

...a Majestic Dream Castle™ filled with light and music, standing out like a gleaming jewel amid a light white mist.

And it looks as though you're just in time! There's a party underway, and when you look down you may just discover that you're dressed for the occasion as well. So go on in, have a ball, and dance the night away; there's no telling what lies beyond tomorrow morning, after all!]

~
THE VENUE

KEY:

• AREA A — the Fountain Garden.
The obvious object of note here is the pretty fountain bubbling merrily away, nestled in the center of this odd little patch of indoor flora; it's made of white marble and is your standard three-tier affair, surrounded by a modest "courtyard" of grass and wildflowers. Something of an oddity to come across in the middle of a castle, but if you're looking for a quiet place to unwind, to sit with someone you're fond of, or even just to cast P10 into the waters to make a wish, this is probably the place for you.

• AREA B — the Grand Ballroom.
While there's music audible all throughout the areas that fall within the boundaries of this dream, this is the part of the place that's going to look the most like a traditional ballroom. The floor is polished wood and the decor is classic; there are chandeliers overhead and plenty of room for mingling and making merry with your fellow dreamers. Good luck not chipping those glass slippers!

• AREA C — the Pristine Palace.
The least-defined and most freeform part of the dream, this wide expanse of the dream castle is consequently the most likely to become subject to the whims of the people wandering through it. Though the general size and shape won't change much, the way it looks may well vary from person to person. Is that grass beneath your feet, or is it concrete? Hardwood? Rose petals? The details are in the eye of the beholder; here's hoping that won't lead to too much confusion!

• AREA D — the Terrace.
Accessible solely by the not-so-secret passage marked on the map in brown, the Terrace is pretty much exactly that: a big open patio ringed with mist and fairy lights along the railings that run along its perimeter. Occasionally, a gentle breeze seems to waft by; though it's impossible to see further than a foot or two into the mist, this part of the castle feels more like it's legitimately outdoors than any of the others.

If you decide to hop the fence off the terrace, you will find yourself returned to the Fountain Garden in the blink of an eye. Don't you know it's impolite to go wandering off when there's party taking place?

• AREA E — the Banquet Hall.
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you...aren't likely to be here, anyway! This area of the castle is entirely dedicated to meeting its guests' demands for food and drink; it's filled with buffet tables piled high with just about anything you could dream up, and those platters never seem to empty no matter how much the guests take from them.

Oh, and there's no need to BYOB; age-appropriate characters in Route will be able to find alcoholic beverages, though underage characters cannot. If an over-age character attempts to give an alcoholic beverage to a minor, they'll quickly find that it's turned to water instead.

• AREA F — the Overgrown Bower.
Watch your head as you enter this room; the ceiling is surprisingly low, and the dangling vines might give you a fright if you walk into one without paying attention! There isn't much of note in this room, outside of the plants seeping through the cracks in the cool gray stone and the delicate scent of flowers lingering in the air; that said, if you're tired of all the merriment and are looking for a quiet place to wind down, this is a pretty little alcove that's just perfect for some solitude — or some quality time alone with a special someone.

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[Good thing nobody saw that.

Except someone did, a familiar someone just sitting there already. Yes, it's Maka, she's just a little more gussied up than usual in the interest of this dream world event. She doesn't laugh at Scar, though, just looks up as though his coming surprised her.]

...Are you okay?

[Drawing attention to what just happened isn't as bad, right?]

[Damn. Scar blinks once, twice to fight off the mild daze. He isn't as distinctly alert as he usually is, though it has little to do with bumping his head.]

Fine.

[As he draws closer, though, it quickly becomes evident that he's all wet.]

Dazed...

[He says as a slight afterthought, glancing over his shoulder with a hint of a frown.

It's been a strange night.]

Ah.

[A pause, Maka squints a little to see if she's actually seeing that he's wet.

Yes. He is.

Huh, it's just like how they first met except hopefully Scar's head injury isn't as bad.]

Come sit down, that should help.

[This time it's less head injury, more girls, or... one girl, but... he isn't going to mention that.

Scar gladly takes refuge sitting next to Maka, setting his damp jacket beside him.]

Did you get here well enough?

[Scar had more than his share of unpleasant experiences with the dreams.]

Well enough.

[The dreams were...well, the usual sort of thing for her.]

I have dreams like that almost every night, it's the magical palace in the middle of nowhere that stuck me in a dress that's new.

[And she shrugs, not minding that there was no context to "like that."]

[Scar finally catches a proper glimpse of Maka when she mentions her dress, and his frown tightens at the sight of her scars. She's even more decorated in them than he is, in that respect.]

Like how?

[His tone implies the "if you don't mind."]

Missions I've been on, monsters I've fought, things like that. They happen so much it's kinda mundane.

[What she won't say is that despite her technically being "used" to the events, it still puts her in the "life or death" state of mind she was in at the time.]

I'd rather not have dreams at all if that's what they're going to be.

[She'll admit that much at least.]

You're all wet. Why's that?

[Scar's eyes narrow as he watches her. What kind of missions would a young woman be going on? And what do they have to do with the marks all over her body?]

It was raining in one of the rooms and would not stop.

[Not entirely true; Scar had had a personal rain cloud of his own. He's just not going to admit it. Scar is silent for another moment before settling more comfortably on the bed.]

Sleep is often best kept dreamless.

Only if you're a soldier, I guess.

[The Maka then was even younger, something like 13 when she was on those missions. Seventeen year old Maka remembers them faintly, only reliving them through flashbacks and dreams.]

Or not a normal person in general. But that phrase pisses me off, what's "normal" anyway? I thought I was normal before I came here, but everyone else thinks I'm weird. You probably think I'm weird, too.

[That's an awful lot of baggage to be dropping off on Scar, Maka, are you sure you wanna do that.]

[Scar blinks, his expression unchanging as he speaks up in plain honesty.]

I never found you weird.

[His tone isn't even intended to be reassuring. He is just stating the simple truth.]

Your friend, perhaps, but not you.

[Scar has heard and seen plenty of Kirikou by now.]

Kirikou and I are the same.

[Not in personality, but--]

We attend the same school, we go on the same kind of missions, we're rewarded the exact same for the amount of targets we check off of Lord Death's list. We're the same age. We're companions and classmates on the battlefield.

[So not only is this an incident of herself being trained as a soldier, but she's illustrating that it's an entire academy full of children being trained as soldiers.]

Those similarities do not make you the same. They only mean that you have come from the same place.

[This school thing isn't just wrong, it's... bizarre. Who calls himself Lord Death? Trains children to take out marks?]

You went to school for this, then? This... soldier program?

[She nods, twisting her fingers together to distract herself. This hasn't been a subject that's been broached in a while, at least not with the seriousness it's being discussed at this moment.]

A long, long time ago, a Witch conducted experiments on human beings. She took the soul of another Witch, a weapon, and a person--combining them all together to create the very first Demon Weapon. That's a human with the ability to change their body into a weapon...experiments like this were an abomination to the laws of Lord Death, so Arachne was hunted down. Witches have always been in conflict with the order of the world, they like chaos and destruction, and refused to treat humans as anything more than things to toy with like Arachne did.

But...the Demon Weapons were still created, and since they were capable of reproducing the same way humans do, more were born. Things like that and the supernatural attacks from Witches and other monsters created a different kind of person--a sort of evolution which enhanced the ability to perceive things others couldn't and even wield these weapon people to their fullest potential. Those people were called "Meisters"--the masters of Demon Weapons. Lord Death decided to bring all of these people together at a young age into a school so they can be taught, control their abilities and use them in a constructive way. Some come voluntarily, others don't, but either way we all have a goal to defend the world against the monsters and creatures that would kill other humans.

[There's more than that, becoming even stronger by taking the souls of these monsters and feeding them to their Weapon partners, but that's going into technicalities and Scar wanted to hear the "what" and "why" of the "soldier program" that Maka was in.]

It's how it is in my world. I never thought about it any other way before coming here, people saying that it's wrong and it shouldn't have happened. How should I know? I'm a Meister, I was born a Meister, my mom was a Meister and my father was her Weapon. That's the world I was raised in, we have to start young, the jobs and the war itself is so risky...dying once we've graduated and started officially working for the school isn't unusual.

[It's a lot to take in, but Scar sits silently through Maka's explanation.]

But you are already put in danger before you've even graduated?

[Maka's been here a while, Scar doesn't suspect that she's old enough to have finished school in time to get all of those scars. It is wrong, and disturbing to think that Maka was put through this. There is no valid excuse for training any child in combat. It is nothing more than a brainwashing tactic.]

The teachers monitor us when we're on missions for the school, if it looks like we're about to die they intervene.

[But it's a very very slim time frame for when Lord Death decides to pull the plug on a mission. The adrenaline of life or death creates a more brutal kind of soldier.

Fight to the death.]

But we're always told, regardless, to fight like it only ends if you or your opponent is dead.

[Scar sighs quietly. There isn't much to be said on the matter. He isn't going to launch into some speech about the morality of training children in combat. Maka doesn't need to hear that. It wouldn't help anything, to make her feel worse about something that has happened in the past.]

I was thirteen, the first time I saw a soldier.

[He isn't sure why he's sharing this, or whose benefit it's for.]

They never used to cross into our land. Not before... certain things changed.

[Not before that bitch knew what had happened in his brother's home. It had all been downhill from there.]

I did not understand what was going on, at the time. I was in the custody of my master by then, but they were training all of the boys for something. I was about your age, when the tension snapped and the war began.

[There's only silence for a moment, she's thinking over what he's said--it's the first time anyone else has mentioned a war going on in their own world to her. At least, they've never called it a war, they've only described their conflict as one single antagonist. There's no such thing as that in war, the focal point of the conflict isn't focused, it's made up of several different entities. Beyond the Witches there was Asura, there was followers of Asura...actually, the Witches had very little involvement as time went on, they didn't want to involve themselves at all.]

The war's been happening since long before I was born. I was eleven when I enrolled at the Academy.

[Then Maka shifts, leaning against the man almost as if she's trying to hug him but--obviously--can't since she's much smaller than him.]

It's not like...even the gods were immune from it. It's just that only Lord Death cared enough to involve himself on the side of the humans, and his son was--is one of my companions. In my squad, actually. His...other son was the reason the whole damn thing started in the first place.

[It's still a struggle to think of--to even acknowledge that Kishin Asura was actually Lord Death's oldest son the entire time. Poor Kid, he didn't deserve to have that information revealed to him how it was.]

I've only known what I was taught in school most of my life, and even now I don't think I completely understand all of it, since I'm a human and it's the affairs of gods we've been thrown into.

[Scar's eyes narrow at her talk of gods, but he's distracted when he feels Maka's weight lightly against his side. It's a simple gesture, but it stands out to him. Rick would sometimes sit with him like this. Touching just because he was there. But physical contact is something he experiences very rarely with other people. He continues to sit still.]

I am glad that you can have something resembling peace here, then.

Yeah, but...now I don't know what to do with myself. I was never prepared for anything but keeping the peace, not living it.

[And there's where the whole root of the problem lies: what now? Almost like a high school graduate, except Maka wouldn't know anything about that part since "graduating" would have guaranteed her a career in the school's forces.]

I know it's dumb, you're supposed to figure out your own path in life and all that, but I don't know where to even start. It feels like I'd have to forget my old life to start a new one, and I don't really want that. I had good things in my old life too, even if it wasn't "normal."

[Scar's expression is distant and difficult to read. He understands that predicament easily.]

I had lived without a home for ten years, before I was brought here. There were no goals. There was no life to build for myself. It simply was not possible. All that was left was protecting what remained of my people.

Technically, I should have the opportunity to do anything with myself, now. But I can't even hold down a place to live, or connect with people like others do. For the first time in ten years, nobody is actively trying to kill me, and yet I still live as I did. Perhaps it is easier to turn forward when there was nothing good left behind, but I understand the predicament, at least.

[So they're both left feeling like outsiders in the wake of losing their former lives. Though Maka didn't find it difficult to make friends or find a place to settle, it's still not a place she feels like she belongs.]

Well...you connected with me, didn't you? You didn't have to, I'm just a stupid kid that dragged you in out of the rain.

[He's her friend, right? At least she feels like Scar's her friend, even if he thinks Kirikou's strange, nobody has to get on perfectly with everyone's friends.]

And you're welcome in my home, whenever you need it.

You aren't stupid. It was foolish to come after me, but I was the one outside in the first place. It takes a special sort of person, to take such a risk for a stranger.

[She's right, though. Scar has bonded with Maka much better than he's managed with most others. Young people in general are so much easier to speak to. Scar isn't sure what that implies about himself. Perhaps he simply has more patience for them. Conversation can be so damn tiring.

Or maybe it's just another way he's stunted himself. No, he wasn't as old as he appeared, but when was the last time he had shared an emotional connection? He lost everything when he was barely 18.]

Thank you, for your offer. But I do need to solve this for myself, now.

[If only because he now had people forcing him to take care of himself. He wouldn't, if he were alone.]

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A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes

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