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Post by Alma on Mar 18, 2018 19:29:23 GMT -5
"Of the thirteen Kingdoms, Stromburgh held in it the most accomplished scholars, mages and all the like. When the King's son fell ill, however, none of even the greatest chirurgeons could cure him. The King, lord Kinley, was left without an heir."
-Memoirs of Oasis. Author unknown.
...When she next awoke, the shuttle was gone, and she was somewhere she’d never seen. Through the lingering drowsiness that begged her eyes to stay closed, Alma could feel and see the brick of a road, half-lit in a strangely harsh light. Her cheek had been resting on it, and still stung from the contact. Otherwise, she was unharmed and unsullied. Only the dirt of the immediate ground tarnished her white garb, though it wasn't something she went to any lengths to confirm. She was much more concerned about where she was, and why she was there. When her head lifted from the ground to look about, it was plain to see that she'd been left in some sort of yard. Instead of any paths weaving through a garden, the whole area was paved over with brown and red brick. Electric lights, which were otherwise a rarity to her, were plastered everywhere, and many were bright enough that trying to look into them hurt her eyes. Another reason to close them was piled onto the first.
Resting in any sense was out of the question to her, and so she put her palms to the ground and pushed herself to her feet. Her boots met the ground, and from a standing vantage she could see that her cane had been left within a foot of her. All her other possessions, meanwhile, were gone- As was the bag she was carrying them in. To be taken and practically robbed of her things like this, then left in what must have been some kind of city confirmed all her fears from before. The person who had promised her learning, and had even supplied that strange shuttle- Kinley -was a liar. A charlatan and a deceiver, he was! If her legs were alive enough to move with the needed force, Alma would probably be kicking something, but instead she just took up her cane and moved aside to where a bench was rooted in the ground. As much light was coming down around her, it was clearly still nighttime. Her plan, as it was thus far, was as simple as waiting. Once morning arrived, there would be plenty of people milling through a city like this. All she had to do was find one who could point her home.
That was assuming she was still anywhere close. In reality, she wasn't in a place where she could just walk back, but she didn't know that just yet.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2018 15:33:02 GMT -5
ONE SKY, ONE DESTINY
Ambient lights illuminated the walls and streets while far off stars kept the sky glittering over the rooftops. This world of night wasn't asleep anymore. It was wide awake, prepared to serve its purpose once again as a refuge.
Many lost their worlds before stumbling here. So it was a mingling grounds of unfamiliar faces trying to cope with both grief of friends and family and the loss of one's home and all things kept within. It was all stolen by darkness. By listening around you could piece together the memories of all the lost worlds. Grand castles, alien space ships, and massive cities were once thriving with light and life.
For Sora he worked hard to reclaim his world a long time ago. Xehanort's heartless was responsible for its fall. With his defeat many people returned to their homes. It didn't save every world. The sad truth was that wherever there was darkness in people's hearts there would be monsters. So all anyone could do was continue to fight the hiding darkness.
The teen shuffled around Traverse Town, taking it all in again. He'd been there a bunch of times before. Once to seal its keyhole and another time to awaken it from the realm of sleep. Its role in catching the lost was renewed. It didn't hurt to go and check if anyone new was around in the absence of the normal traverse gang.
Then he caught site of someone walking without really knowing where to go. He was concerned so he moved closer. It was rare to see anyone walking alone because the heartless prayed upon them more easily.
"Hey! Are you alright?" He asked.
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Post by Alma on Mar 21, 2018 12:53:11 GMT -5
Not long after Alma took a seat on the bench to think did she hear someone else. The voice of a boy, nearby, who she hadn't seen before. His clothes were a sort she hadn't seen before. Rather than hand-woven fabric, it seemed to be mostly built from shining, polished black leather. Buttons and rivets adorned many parts, most predominantly the chest, and a number of straps held his baggy trousers close to his legs. His boots, though brightly-colored, were clearly just as sturdy as any set of working boots. In all, the outfit was meant to get something done, though it was far from the dirty garb a field worker would use. It was too neat, too dressy for that, so what was he dressed for?
"I'm just a bit lost, is all," she confessed, answering his question. His role wasn't really her business, was it? There were more important things to worry about at the time, like abandoning this absurd 'invitation' and getting back home. The machine that brought her here had looked swift, and she wasn't too sure how much time had passed, so it may have left her in any number of places. The journey home may turn out to be a long one indeed, and she'd have to start it somewhere. "I was dropped off here a while ago, but I don't quite know where here is..." What would be a good way to identify her home, she wondered? She wasn't sure what it would be known as by people in other lands. All she knew was the most general idea, so she decided to stick with that. "Tell me," she tried, "Are we still in the Red Queen's land?" It was more than general. It was vague, really, but she had never learned how to study maps or geography, so a political cue like this would be her best bet. Supposedly. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2018 14:16:31 GMT -5
ONE SKY, ONE DESTINY
"The Red Queen?" The boy wondered what she could mean. He remembered the queen of hearts from Wonderland but wondered why this girl didn't just call her world by its name. He tried to think harder but just exhausted his memory with untrained scrutiny. He shook his head.
"This is Traverse Town. It's a whole other world." He could say more but he remembered his own shock from the first time he'd shown up. This was where Leon and Yuffie told him the truth, where he learned about the keyblade and about the heartless. Sora could give this girl an explanation but he was not really good at that sort of thing. He'd do better just to help her.
"Hey, if you're lost then I can help you find the way back. The heartless aren't gunna make the trip easy but I'll stay with you for as long as you need! I'm Sora by the way." He said with his hand reached out, hoping to make a friend. He'd do just about anything, not that he was bored but because he was compelled by his own heart. It told him she needed a guiding light.
He had the gummi ship to fly to other worlds so it seemed right to help her home. There'd be no roadblocks to stop them. But then countering his ambition the teen remembered the usual pattern of people showing up in this world. Their own worlds were consumed by darkness and this world was normal refuge of the survivors. Many of those people lost hope to return home. It wasn't right and the boy wanted more than almost anything to help them all. So even if her world was lost Sora would stand by his offer and do as much as he could. It took the defeat of Xehanort's heartless to free his own world. So if there was someone new behind the loss of her world then Sora knew there a way to free it.
"Can you tell me about your home, the Red Queen's Land?"
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Post by Alma on Mar 24, 2018 10:20:08 GMT -5
Alma agreed wholeheartedly with his sentiment about this being like another world. There was nothing familiar at all about this 'Traverse Town' place, and all those lights were starting to make her eyes hurt. She'd never seen stuff like this before, even near the capital, but she wasn't eager to look into any of it. The young Conjurer would much prefer that she get home quickly. Thankfully, it seemed this stranger was plenty willing to help. He may not know what place she was talking about yet, but he could probably point her in the right direction eventually. He at least knew about the Heartless- Small, scurrying things that would seep in and out of walls, and make a nuisance of themselves whenever the chance arose. In fact, the very cane she carried had been used to bash a good number of them aside in the past. With the knowledge of how they worked, it wasn't too hard to get rid of them. They were bigger than most rats, sure, but they were no more than pests in the end.
Alma took his hand and pulled herself up from the bench, smiling at the kind offer. It was quite the dedicated promise, coming from a stranger, and she was glad to be given it even if it turned out to be a bluff later. Sora was his name. It sounded oddly simple, and even foreign. Eastern, maybe? "I'm Alma," she answered his introduction, giving her own. With hands still held from pulling herself up, she gave a small, formal shake before parting them. It felt like a good way to close the gesture out, though she wasn't quite sure what she was trying to say with it.
She thought of how else she could define her home, and decided to focus mostly on how it centered around the Queen. "The Red Queen of Hearts holds rule over the forest and fields where I live," she elaborated, using the Queen's full title. "My family owns a plantation there, and we collect fruit to sell to folk in the Capital. Then... Well, there are some of these cards, and..." Just like that, it was suddenly hard for her to explain. Did she really know that little of the place she'd lived all her life? Alma could swear that there was a some more to say, but she drew a blank on all of it. Maybe, in reading so much of someone else's history, she never thought to pay attention to her own. On her return, she'd have to pay more attention to things around her.
"..That's the jist of it, really," she finished without elaborating on the cards. If any of it was familiar to this person, then they'd likely already know it. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2018 18:25:19 GMT -5
ONE SKY, ONE DESTINY
"Cards? The teen contemplated that word with the full mental capacity he could muster. He dug deep into his brain which felt like a mess, a pile of 52 cards that where scattered everywhere all over a big open floor. It took him a moment of silence but he finally caught a picture in his brain of a red five of hearts. The gang of soldier cards that threatened the boy and his friends, including Alice a Princess of Heart.
"Wait a minute... cards, the Red Queen: Wonderland!" Sora connected the pivotal points of her story. It had to be that world.
"We can get there easy!" Sora could finally remember what went down last time he visited. There was a lot of collecting stuff and things from all the bizarre corners of the same central room then in a garden and a cat that could turn itself or just part of itself invisible. Wonderland was weird.
"I've been there a few times but it was a long time ago. And I guess that I didn't get to see everything. When we get there... could you show me around?" He asked, hoping to make a friend out of Alma.
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Post by Alma on Apr 1, 2018 9:11:05 GMT -5
Wonderland. It was a strange word, and one Alma was sure she'd never heard before. Believing that this was what her home was called was a challenge of its own, but if her description of it matched his memory of the place so well, then chances were that this really was the place she was looking for. Her eyes dug into the road as she pondered the chances, but eventually the young Conjurer looked back up with a more optimistic, smiling face than before. She opened her mouth to speak, probably to thank him, but paused. Something had caught her attention.
There, behind Sora, stood someone else. Alma didn't recognize them, thanks to their dark jacket and concealed face, but the way this person seemed to be looking straight at them meant they knew who the two were. They were standing a few feet back, quietly observing them, and Alma wasn't comfortable with it. Her lips parted once more, this time to question the stranger, but their arm shot forward in that moment. The hand at its end, covered with a glove of the same dark cloth as the rest, carried something broad and flimsy forward, sailing over Sora's shoulder with it and slapping it against her face. It was harmless, really- Just a sheet of paper, but the action surprised her enough that getting it off took a few moments once she'd gotten over the initial recoil.
When she'd succeeded in finding its edge, her fingers nearly tore it in half as she ripped it from her face. Her eyes darted to where the stranger had stood and she called out a, "What was that for!?" at them, but there was no one this time. The person who'd silently assaulted them in the span of a moment had left just as quickly as they'd come, and Alma was just as confused as she was frustrated. Looking around revealed nothing of who they were, where they had come from or where they had gone. "Who..?" She hadn't yet glanced at the colorful flyer that had been so forcefully planted against her face, though her eyes were drawn to it as the moments passed.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2018 14:57:36 GMT -5
ONE SKY, ONE DESTINY
"Huh? Hey! That was rude!" Sora drove his his heel into the ground during his pivot to turn and see a foe. His anger flash chilled at the unexpected gap between himself and the cold facades of Traverse Town's brick walls and empty buildings. Darting his attention to the rooftops, he tried to imagine the quick ways someone could escape. Whoever came by went away quickly.
"Alma, are you ok?" The boy whipped around again to observe the girl. She was physically fine but the boy wasn't sure what she was thinking about, the pain or the purpose of it. He felt a gulp of guilt for missing the mysterious messenger. The embedded feeling sat in the back of his head like a pebble in a shoe.
"That's a mean way of getting someone's attention." He stated as if to scold the ghost of the figure. Inside himself he tried to imagine why someone would do that. Emphasis? A grudge? Concluding that he was clueless, the promiser redirected his thoughts to the evidence left behind, a piece of paper.
"Oh, what's it say?" He asked, ducking his head over to get a better look at its face.
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Post by Alma on Apr 17, 2018 14:11:05 GMT -5
"I'm fine, just a bit off-balance," Alma assured him. Rude was definitely one word for it. Another was 'strange'. That unfamiliar person had said nothing, but they were obviously there for either her or Sora. So if they said nothing in words, then what message were they sending? The paper? Sora seemed interested as well, judging by how he leaned over to get a good look at it. Unlike the back, which was just as white as her garb, the front had a slate of purple as its base color. It curled sharply, wanting badly to form a scroll thanks to how much ink was spent into its printing. It seemed like a flyer of some sort, boasting some event or another in big, bold text with colorful emblems and imagery. Oddly enough, though, the event itself didn't have any name or schedule listed- Only events.
Two, specifically. One was for a machine that supposedly could do anything the best magicians could do. Magic tricks, then? Not something that she would deem so important to spread in such a rough manner. The second event was about some person, going by a stage name of 'Gefris the Invincible'. "This little lady can stop any falling object," the flyer boasted. "It's some kind of show," Alma concluded, "But I don't see what's so important about any of it." She held it up to the light as if some secret subtext might be revealed, but there was nothing. No date, or name for the event, or even any mention of what group was hosting it.
She was tempted to disregard the whole thing before something caught her eye. There, in one of the bottom corners, was a signature, a bit too neat to have been written on a whim, and far too fancy a script to be printed by press. The ink, though dark, had an unnatural sheen to it, and somehow she could feel a sort of liveliness in the flow of cursive. Alma could read, though not too well (In fact, it took some time to figure out what the flyer had been advertising), but she recognized this signature. She'd seen it once before, finishing off the same letter that had left her in this ordeal to begin with, and she knew exactly what it said: Richard Kinley. And just like that, she felt as if she knew exactly where she needed to go. The letter before never instructed her where the shuttle was, and yet she knew. This flyer said nothing of the event's name or schedule, and yet she knew. It was just a matter of getting there, now. "I'm not going home yet," she confessed aloud. "I know this name here. It's someone I'm trying to find, and I should try to talk to them first." |
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Post by Alma on Apr 17, 2018 23:22:19 GMT -5
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