[Closed] Catch-all

[silentnarration]

WHO: Squall, misc
WHAT: Catch-all for the month
WHERE: Here and there
WHEN: January
WARNING: Mentions of mind control, child soldiers, other warnings pending.

[Closed starters within. Hit me up if you'd like to plan something. I'm available on Discord: Shirochu#4072 and shirobiro]

Comments

:||||||| *lineface intensifies*

[blitzcheer]

[ He gives a small hum to that information, thinks to speak a little quieter. Just to be considerate. ]

I've been tryin' to look into it. What used to be around, like old landmarks, photos and that, in and out of the city. I found some mention of mines, but anything else -- there's nothing. No pictures, no anything.

That's... not normal, right? Normal cities would have those?

[ He doesn't entirely sound sure. ]

That's Squall's job!!

[silentnarration]

It's not normal. [He gives Tidus a quizzical look for his tone. Why does he sound unsure?]

But there was the plague that wiped out the people here. The Head probably erased all irrelevant information to make sure we follow his rules for a year.

[Dictatorships are great, really.]

I didn't find anything at the mines. It's still active.

tidus's full time job now

[blitzcheer]

Right, so the mines are useful to it, so it can't cover that up.

[ But as for everything else out there.... What was everything else? He fiddles with the grilled sandwich in hand, turning it this way and that a few times as he thinks. ]

I've been thinking... everything in this city changes 'cept a few things, and we don't know what we could be missing right in front of us. And outside the city, we know less.

But...cities on land, you have other places out there. You have towns and villages, or -- that's what I found out back home. [ That might sound weird, but sounding weird doesn't matter at the moment. He looks over at Squall. ] Everyone got wiped out, but what got left behind, you know? What if there's stuff out there?

[ Just. Gonna take a nom of sandwich now. ]

[silentnarration]

[Definitely weird. If they weren't talking about something more serious, he kind of wants to ask about it.]

Do you want to find out?

[Are they side questing?]

/takes squall out of the trash, dusts off

[blitzcheer]

Maybe. [ He shrugs, arms raising with the motion. ] There's nothing to lose. Every day feels like our last, so the only time limit we have is checking off what we can we can sooner before later.

But you're the soldier guy. [ He leans a hand back onto the table. ] You decide if it's worth it. But we're just sitting around anyway, right?

[ You decide, but also here's an extra incentive. ]

wow

[silentnarration]

[Maybe he's sitting around-- okay sometimes Squall is just sitting around moping. He folds his arms, thinking.]

Let's do it. I'll bring Boko.

[As a cover? Does that count as a cover?]

[blitzcheer]

Alright! [ Hey, Tidus won't argue about the chocobo being around. ] He looked like he could do with the exercise. Has he ever gone outside the city?

[ He's so chubby... ]

[silentnarration]

Sometimes but not for exercise. He's spoiled. [Extremely so.]

Cloud says he'll need it or his legs won't be strong enough to support his own weight.

[Which is a thing he never thought they had to worry about...]

[blitzcheer]

If he's not moving around much? Probably. [ And if he's being spoilt. ]

But I bet he'll like it once he gets used to it. Chocobos are born to run. First time I saw them, they were being used to power a boat! They were in these wheels they made go round and round.

[ He makes a spinning motion with a finger. ]

[silentnarration]

[Have an incredulous look. That sounds really inefficient.]

Don't you have engines in your world?

[blitzcheer]

Uhhh... [ Do they now? ] People back there weren't all that fond of machina -- machinery. [ Because he's not heard the word machina in any translated form. ]

They thought it was the reason all the bad stuff was happening. Really though, it had nothing to do with that. Things are probably a lot different there now.

[silentnarration]

[At least machina is easily inferred. He just raises his eyebrows. Why does it feel like Tidus just skipped a bunch of story in between.]

Were they attracting monsters from the moon?

[And he is not helping at all.]

[blitzcheer]

The moon? [ The moon? Tidus just looks at Squall, eyes slowly narrowing....



until-- ] Oh, wait! [ He snaps his fingers and points at him. ] You know Nida?

[ The normal follow-up question to that. ]

[silentnarration]

[He blinks. Touche.]

He's a friend from home.

[Acquaintance. Subordinate. It's complicated.]

He told you about the moon?

[blitzcheer]

Yeah, back at the NAPs I arrived around. That and about ... a port town.

[ And ships, but he couldn't get into that, exactly. ]

It's not like that though -- or wasn't. ...Sorta? [ Well, now that he thinks about it... ] Everyone was led to believe that using too much technology in the past was why something called "Sin" existed. It was a giant ... monster. [ To use Squall's term. ] They had a way of getting rid of it, but never completely.

That's over now though. It's gone, and we know that was all a lie. [ Oh, but- ] Nothing to do with the moon though.

[silentnarration]

[Port town? Balamb? Probably FH if it's Nida. Not that Squall is that curious.

Also giant monster that's impossible to get rid of sounds about right. Explanation accepted.]

Guess big lies like that happen everywhere.

[Depressing, really. Cause someone has to pick up the pieces in the end.]

[blitzcheer]

You too, huh? [ Did he hear anything like that from Nida...? Not from what he can recall, but it doesn't sound that out there. What he does know about Nida's -- and Squall's, apparently -- world, anything could be possible.

He shrugs, lifting his food to his mouth, remarks before taking a bite: ]

Guess it's not that different from here either.

[ As poor of a lie it is -- it was all lies meant to deceive and control people. ]

[silentnarration]

[He shrugs.]

I was supposed to save the world but no one told me until it was too late.

[Stupidest protag life ever.]

Maybe it's the kind of thing adults and megalomaniacs like doing.

[blitzcheer]

What, so your world is...?

[ Gone? is what he's leaving unsaid here. Kind of what 'until it was too late' implies, but he also doesn't want to jump straight into that either.

Not when they're talking about a world, here. ]

[silentnarration]

Huh?

[What did he say-- oh.]

No. My world's fine. They didn't tell me they 'knew' I'd defeat the sorceress from the future. Nobody at school knew we were training to fight sorceresses either.

[He frowns. He's still mad about it sometimes.]

But they still pushed all their problems on me.

[blitzcheer]

[ He frowns at that, though not at the previous confusion. Maybe he should ask about this whole sorceress thing, but first-- ]

Why'd they keep it from you? Did they tell you?

[ Well, at some point. The 'end' of the ordeal, apparently. ]

[silentnarration]

[Squall shrugs.]

He was... a coward. Cid's the headmaster of Balamb Garden. His wife - our matron - is a sorceress. She told Cid to start the school because of me.

[It sounds self-important but he glosses over that like it's a minor detail.]

When the time came to fight, he ran. Left the school in my command because he couldn't fight his wife. She raised us in her orphanage before she was possessed. We didn't remember who she was until it was time to fight.

... He knew and he left it to us anyway. [To Squall. So he can lead his friends into murdering the closest thing to a mom they had.

The sandwich is getting abandoned now. Too annoyed to eat at the moment.]

[blitzcheer]

... Eesh, I'm sorry. That sounds like it was a rough time.

[ Being trained to battle the woman who once raised you... he knew what Auron was doing by never simply telling him or anyone anything, but this was something else.

Half of his own sandwich still sits on the plate next to him, but he lets his arms fold over his legs for now, hunching some. ]

Is a sorceress something bad in your world? What do they do?

[silentnarration]

[Squall just shakes his head. It ended well, complicated though the whole thing was. But becoming favored and respected placed him in an awkward position that he still struggles to deal with sometimes. All while he's still working on figuring himself out.]

They're the only people in my world who can use magic naturally. Normal humans like me have to rely on summons or limit breaks. Sorceresses are very powerful and have the power to take over the world on their own. Not all sorceresses are bad but they tend to be feared.

Sorceress Adel took over Esthar and started a world war with Galbadia. Many died and a lot of kids were orphaned. 17 years after it ended, Sorceress Ultimecia tried to compress time. She's the one my friends and I defeated.

[Though he also fought Adel. He's fought a lot of sorceresses okay.]

A knight can keep a sorceress from becoming evil. Edea, matron's knight is Cid. And I'm Rinoa's. She's my girlfriend...

[blitzcheer]

Dating someone keeps a sorceress from turning evil?

[ Wait. No. That's not what he's saying obviously, not with this Cid guy and Edea.

...Maybe? The confusion flickers from realisation and straight back to confusion as Tidus tries to work out the sense in this. ]

Uhh...

[ Please explain. ]