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[contempsi]

Choice A - Fisherman's Horizon
[For someone who isn't exactly used to setting foot in a town and having people actually stroll by - sometimes waving or offering a smile, other times a crotchety old glare and a mutter about "kids these days" - this place is rather unsettling for a kid who'd almost, bitter as it was, gotten accustomed to pretty much

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[adewdropbright]

[ By now Aerith's discovered some semblance of control over the spontaneously growing plants. Mostly, it's that her power seems to want to make everything prettier, and if she focuses on plants that are already there, they become healthier--sometimes dramatically so, but it's still less conspicuous than flowers springing up between the cobblestones.

So she's focusing on a hanging pot of wisteria (and it is looking radiant *shot*) while Hope is focusing on the panel. This isn't a recipe for disaster, no sir. It is, however, the reason they bump into each other, and Aerith's concentration is broken as she's thrown off-balance, her head turning to Hope. ]

Oh--oops!

[ There's a small bed of petunias spontaneously popping up around them; a nice way to break a fall. Of course, their sudden appearance might cause that fall... ]

[contempsi]

[Apparently his luck with bumping into strange people shows no signs of improving. Jerking in surprise, mouth opened to issue a sheepish apology, Hope's foot will instead be slipping over one of those very petunias.

And so he'll be tumbling down into that bed of flowers with a little yelp of surprise, hands automatically reaching to grasp at whatever he can. This results in little fingers twisting around several of the blooms, beheading some and yanking a few others out of the ground entirely.

He quickly scrambles to his feet again, embarrassed and annoyed all at once.]

... sorry.

[Hope winces in spite of himself, and rubs his palms together to try and clean them off, sending pollen and mangled bits of petals in the air.

This makes him sneeze.]

[adewdropbright]

[ There's a small frown of dismay as the flowers are beheaded and otherwise decimate, but she is more worried about the boy. ] Gesundheit. It's all right, I wasn't looking. [ And, well, the flowers that got in his way are hers, but she's not admitting that. She has no idea if he's a native or not.

...Maybe what he thinks about those will give her a hint. ] Are you okay? At least the flowers broke your fall. [ Drawing attention to them to take away attention from herself and the fact that she's doing strange magic. :|b ]

[contempsi]

Yeah, but... [He frowns, rubbing at one of his knees a bit and glancing over the ruined bed. His uniform pants are a little grass-stained now at the knee... thankfully they're dark enough that no one would notice except up close.]

I don't think these were here before. [Okay, that sounds pretty weird. Hope fidgets with his hands a little.] I-I mean, well... [A huff.] Nevermind. Um... forget I said that.

aha, uniform :)a

[adewdropbright]

Well, you know how it's been around Garden lately. Flowers aren't too unusual. [ She says that in a bit of an undertone because it's proooobably not wise to let FH know the Garden they already dislike is having strange magic flying around. But...yeah, the native cadets must be aware by now. ]

[contempsi]

Garden...?

[Oh, right. That weird floating academy he came out of.]

I'm... I'm sorry, it's actually my first day here.

[He's looking down at the flowers again. The fact that they seemingly rose up out of nowhere seems pretty unusual to him, but then again... they pale in comparison to the bigger picture.]

[adewdropbright]

Ah--so that's why I haven't seen you around before. Nothing to say sorry for. The flowers are... well, they're mine, but they have minds of their own. Still working on keeping them to where they should grow! [ For a few seconds she places her hands on her hips and looks down at them as if she'd lecture them for misbehaving before simply dropping the attitude, tucking her hands behind her back and looking at Hope with a pleasant smile again. ] I can't really explain it better because I don't understand it myself... It's something that's affected a few of the people from other worlds.

Anyway, I'm Aerith. I teach for Magic 101 and Sociology.

[contempsi]

Huh? What do you mean... other worlds?

[Hope finally turns his gaze on her, entirely perplexed. An expression he's been coming back to again and again since his arrival in this place, and probably one to shadow him all throughout the rest of the day if not longer. It does call to mind the interaction he had a little while ago with his roommate, however.

He won't even touch on the magic aspect, how it can't be taught, it's only a curse... no, better to know nothing than to know too much.]

[adewdropbright]

You've learned about Time Compression, haven't you?

[contempsi]

They... they mentioned that when I came here, I think. But I've never even heard of something like that before.

[adewdropbright]

Well... when you think of space, there's three dimensions, right? How wide something is, how long something is, how deep it is. [ Her hands gesture as she talks, as if measuring out an imaginary box. ]

Then there's time. Some think of it as a fourth dimension to space. We are always moving through it. Twenty years ago in this world, a sorceress tried to compress time into a single point that she could control. It would have been a disaster if she hadn't been stopped. And even though she was...there were side effects from her magic. It disrupted the order of the worlds, bringing people here from entirely different places. I'm from a world called Radiant Garden.

[contempsi]

[Hope presses fingers against his eyelids, trying to picture all this.]

So we're all here because we've been pulled through Time. But-

I'm sorry, I just... I can't conceive of anything like that. It doesn't make any sense. Time is something we can't change. You're right about how we're always moving through it, but... how can anyone even possibly touch something like that, let alone manipulate it? Not even the fal'Cie could do anything like that. [He frowns, rubbing at his temples a bit before letting his hand fall away again.]

It's not that I think you're lying, I just... [Trailing off there, he simply shakes his head.]

[adewdropbright]

This world's sorceresses are probably different from your world's magicians. [ Because that must be what fal'Cie are, right? Really strong magicians? 8|a Any crotchety old men with owls around? Dysley can't beat Merlin's pimpin' beard, just sayin'. ] I know they're different from the ones I knew.

I'm sorry. It's not easy to explain. I don't expect it to be easy to accept.

[contempsi]

[Well, the owl part is correct...]

M-... magicians? No, i-it's... how can you not know what a fal'Cie is? [He blinks at her. But then there's that bit about worlds again. Maybe it's true; maybe she really doesn't know.]

I guess... well, I've never heard of any of these places so far. So maybe it could be true. [Hope glances over at the mangled flowers beside him again.] Is Radiant Garden like that other Garden place?

[adewdropbright]

Hm... maybe I know them as something else? You'd have to tell me what they're like. But in the worlds I've known, the people most skilled in magic are called magicians, or wizards... there are fairy godmothers and genies too.

[ ...KH-verse is just weird okay. She follows his look and shakes her head. ] No--Radiant Garden is a beautiful world full of flowers. Maybe that's why flowers chose to follow me. This Garden is a military school. All they have in common is grumpy boys with gunblades, but I think that's just a coincidence.

[contempsi]

... gunblade?

[That has him looking toward her again. She did mention this place was a military school, after all...] Do you know about the Sanctum?