Memoria: Fondest Memory - Group 2

[intobrightness]

Characters: Relm, Percy and Vanille
Progress: In-Progress
Summary: More Memoria
Location: ???
Date: MEMORIATIME. IDK.
Warnings: Moustaches.

Comments

[intobrightness]

"...I think this place is mine. This is- this is like what Kefka did."

Sure enough, just as she finished speaking she seemed to forget that Vanille and the warrior were there at all, bursting into giggles.

The ground below her feet was dead, infertile as the rest of the world, killed by Kefka's magic. But Relm didn't care about the ground any more. It was just dirt. Just earth. The people around her were alive and that was all that mattered.

And the dog helped.

Interceptor leapt up, knocking her down and licking her face and she laughed, trying to wrestle him down so she could rub his belly. She almost succeeded until Gau decided to join in, leaping on top of Interceptor with a beastlike cry and startling the dog. It was only Relm's presence that kept Interceptor from attacking immediately. But her presence did keep him from attacking and Gau laughed while she yelled insults and threatened violence if he didn't stop crushing her, idiot.

Some way away, the adults where talking. Battle plans were being made. But every now and then they would turn to see what the noise was about and laugh or roll their eyes.

“Thou!” Gau demanded. “Thou! Thou! Thou!” Relm just pushed him off her, standing and dushing herself off before looking through her bags, sorting through paints and brushes and gum tape and paper before she finally produced a horse hair joke moustache attached to a circle of elastic. Gau nodded enthusiastically as she put it on. “Thou!”

“Yeah, yeah. Thou thou th-aaaaagh!” She started before being unceremoniously lifted by Gau, who started imitating a set of magitek armour so brilliantly it was hard to remember that he was a small boy and not, in fact, a large metal monstrosity. She yelled at him a little more because bursting out laughing again, shouting more 'Thou! Thou! Thou!'s as Interceptor chased Gau around in an attempt to retrieve his spare person.

Cyan looked distinctly unamused.

Relm didn't care. There was still life left in the dead world, even if it was only in the people. And she was going to enjoy every last breath of it.

[for_cosmos]

"You were one of those who fought Kefka?" The warrior asked, but it was too late- Relm was already swept up by the memory, and not responding. Perhaps she had not even been able to hear the question, and it would have to be ignored until they were out of this place.

Perhaps it had been telling that Relm had not tried to hide behind any of them when they had found themselves in this place. Once the memory began, though, it became much more obvious that it was much different from the last, and happier than the last, even if he could not see the others who were involved in it.

Still, the appearance of what appeared to be a fake mustache was unexpected, and rather confusing without the context of the memory. "Do you understand this?" he asked Vanille.

[tosavecocoon]

Vanille didn't say anything. She just watched what was going on. She couldn't see any more of this one than the last, but with all of Relm's laughing and giggling, she couldn't help but think it must've been a good memory, whatever it was. The redhead cracked the smallest of smiles, even as she shook her head in response to Warrior's question.

"No. Maybe it's like the last ones we all saw. Those... they had to be memories, right? Maybe this one is, too."

At least it looked happy. They could all use some happiness.

[intobrightness]

Gau tripped, dropping Relm to the ground. She seemed unhurt, at least in good enough condition to shout at him for it. Interceptor knocked her back down at she tried to stand, licking her face as Gau just stood, continuing to point and shout 'thou's. She laughed until Interceptor's weight faded, looking around to see Vanille and the warrior again.

"...it happened again, huh." She said, standing up and attempting to act like a grownup again and regain her dignity. She felt her face but the moustache had vanished with everything else. "...This place is dumb."

[for_cosmos]

"It seems that it must be." he answered, watching Relm's progress. Unless something changed, it seemed that this memory would as a whole be much more positive than the other one they were shown.

When she finally stood as the memory faded, the warrior nodded to Relm. Fortunately for her dignity, the Warrior was willing enough to move beyond the memory that they had been shown. "It did. It was another memory?" He did not mention the last part of Relm's comment. That was becoming rather obvious to him through the others reactions to their own memories, though not entirely through his own- he was still puzzling over the memory he had gone through, and discovering the meaning of it.

[tosavecocoon]

Vanille nodded in response to Relm, the smile on her face sliding off to be replaced with worry again. She really didn't like this place at all. It was starting to remind her of Barthandelus and the fal'Cie, using people for their own means. Why was all of this happening? It made no sense to her.

Neither did the sudden shift in scenery. Vanille blinked and suddenly she found herself looking at Oerba again... Oerba, the way it should have been. Her tears forgotten, Vanille gasped, hurrying forward through the fields, breathing deeply of the nature smell. This was her home... this was the way it was supposed to be.

And there... off in the distance.

"Fang!" she cried and ran off again, trying to reach her friend.

[intobrightness]

Relm, on the other hand, was a little less angry as the world changed again. She still didn't like the place. But she'd missed Interceptor. It was nice having another chance to play with him, fake or not.

And then she stopped thinking. Because Oerba was beautiful. Almost immediately, she pulled a folded piece of paper from her pockets - her lesson timetable, but that wasn't too important, and a pencil from behind her ear and started to draw on the back of it, not paying all that much attention to the memory.

[for_cosmos]

And once again, it seemed that they were following Vanille. The name she shouted was not one that the warrior was familiar with, but at least it was an indication of why she had run off.

"Perhaps it would be best if we were to follow her. We would not want to get separated in this place." He couldn't see what Relm was doing, but it seemed to him that it would be rather irrelevant in a situation like this.

[tosavecocoon]

Fang turned and grinned down at Vanille. At least she hadn't run very far away from Warrior and Relm, even if she was unaware of their presence again. Leaning in to get a quick hug from Fang, she looked out over the fields, watching the village. Their home was just a tiny dot in the distance... well not tiny but it was small enough to not be able to see easily.

Their errand that day was simple: have fun. Vanille had killed her first bear the day before and now she was wearing the pelt. Today, she was just enjoying playing around with Fang outside. A pack of creatures howled off in the distance. Vanille shaded her eyes to watch them, but didn't chase them. She wanted to enjoy the nature around them, not destroy it. Her priority was just having fun.

"Hey, Fang?"

"Hm?" Fang glanced down at her, cocking an eyebrow in her direction.

"What's the one thing you want most of all, more than anything else?" Vanille took a few steps further, spreading her arms to emphasize her point.

"Hmm... what's the one thing I want more than anything?" Fang echoed, taking a few steps forward, too.

"Yeah!" Vanille answered, a bright smile on her face as she watched Fang.

"You really have to ask that?"

Vanille tilted her head. "Well... yeah!"

Fang turned around and placed her hands on her hips, leaning over a little. "Guess you don't know me that well."

"Huh?" Vanille blinked, smile sliding a little.

"What I want most of all..." Fang let her arms fall back to her sides. "Is to see you laugh."

Vanille didn't see the noogie coming. She squealed, laughing as she tried to fend Fang off. She only succeeded by nearly rolling down the hill, falling to her knees with a thud as the memory faded, her laughter ringing out over everything.

[intobrightness]

Luckily, Relm was fairly good by now at drawing while running around. Her pictures were simply sketches for her own reference, so she could paint this place later. It would be worthless to draw something like this without colour. Once Vanille slowed down it was easy enough to catch up

She said something that wasn't quite coherent, holding the pencil in her mouth, and watched. After seeing her so upset it was nice seeing Vanille so happy again.

[for_cosmos]

At least Relm wasn't being stubborn about sketching the place, or staying where she was. It made it easier to catch up with Vanille, and he was able to hear most of the one-sided conversation.

Whatever emotion was held in Vanille's memories always seemed to carry through into everything else. The first time, it had been tears... now, it was laughter. This was much more of an improvement than the previous memory, of course, even if it ended with her almost tumbling down the hill.

[tosavecocoon]

Eventually, Vanille realized she wasn't in Oerba and her smile faded a little. She could still see Fang's presence and smell the smells of Gran Pulse, even though she wasn't there anymore. Pulling herself to her feet again, she blushed a little.

"Sorry. I got a little carried away."

The sketchbook and pencil were taken note of and Vanille tilted her head. "What're you doing?"

[intobrightness]

Relm held her lesson timetable up to Vanille.

"I like it here. I wanna paint it when I get back home, so I was making reference sketches." She nodded as she spoke. "They're not that great but they don't really need to be. They're just kinda like- kinda like reminders. So I can look at it and remember how everything here looked."

She looked around at the fading Oerba.

"D'you live here? It's super super pretty. There's nothing like this back home anymore."

[for_cosmos]

"It is nothing to apologize for. You cannot control the memory." he told her decisively.

"You are a painter, then." he observed of Relm. It wasn't hard to tell. She was covered with the proof of it, and had been from the moment she arrived in this place with them. From the way the paint was splattered on her, he almost wondered if it could ever truly come off.

"It is a very beautiful place." He agreed, even as the last remnants of Oerba disappeared, to replaced by what appeared to be the inside of a temple, decorated in blue and gold.

[tosavecocoon]

Vanille nodded in response to Relm. "Yeah. That was Oerba, the way it was supposed to look. It's here, on Gaia now, but it doesn't look like that anymore." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to draw upon that memory again. "It was all trees and flowers, color as far as you could see."

But not anymore.

"Thanks." Vanille's eyes opened again and she smiled, trying not to show how much it hurt to have seen Oerba the way it should have been. "So you're going to paint it? To preserve the memory?"

[intobrightness]

"Sure am!" Relm said, nodding to the warrior. "Best artist in the ruined world! People said so and everything."

She took the paper back, folding it up and putting it in her pocket again as she looked around at the temple, thinking.

"Mmhmm! That's okay, right? It was so nice, I wanna be able to look at it forever- Hey, big guy, this place yours? I've never been here before."