(Untitled)

[marrymarajade]

Characters:  Ben (marrymarajade ), Paladin (mythgravenblade ), Reed (heretic_hamlet ), and Rain (notpissedoff )
Date/Time: April 29
Location: The Fourth Floor
Rating: PG-13? I'll edit it as needed.
Summary: These four are each shown something.

Comments

[marrymarajade]

It was a lot to take in.

Ben found his hand going to his ribs. He'd thought - well, not really consciously thought, more assumed - that maybe his mentor had been his father. Apparently not. He closed his eyes.

Annie - Anakin. Tatooine. Skyhoppers. Breathing exercises. His mentor telling him something that he suspected wasn't entirely true. He'd lived with his aunt and uncle on a moisture farm. He had a twin sister. So much that he was determined to remember.

And yet, when he opened his eyes again, he was smiling, faintly. These were good things to know, and he was happy to have seen his mentor, the desert, his... father? It was good.

[notpissedoff]

That was... a memory? Ben's - the man had been quite a bit younger, but still recognizable even without that name having been spoken clearly. The scene seemed more akin to a dream than a memory though, from Rain's perspective, with the voices in the wind and two suns in the sky and the convenient bubble of calmer air around the boys. It felt too surreal.

A very vivid hallucination, perhaps. The result of 'dust fever' or whatever it had been called. Ben had wandered out into the desert in a delirium, his mind fried by the heat, had hallucinated the whole thing, and had been found by the other Ben; that was the explanation that made the most sense to Rain, and so it was what he settled on.

As the scene - and the oppressive heat - faded away, he shifted slightly and glanced at Ben out of the corner of his eye. The man didn't seem bothered by any of what they'd all just seen... was he smiling?

Rain hmph-ed softly. "No wonder you wanted to leave that place." It was his imagination, he knew, but he felt the compulsion to brush

[marrymarajade]

"I did," Ben said quietly. He remembered his dream. "Very badly. I thought I was trapped there."

He exhaled slowly, looking out at the static without really seeing it. "But it was good to see it again, even like this."

[heretic_hamlet]

What a miserable way of life... and for children, no less. The strangeness of what they had seen- what looked like ancient technology, the voices on the wind- had struck Reed as well, made him almost mistake it for some matter of hallucination; but in the last memory he'd seen on the fourth floor he'd crossed swords with wizards and been struck by magical lightning. Who was he to disbelieve this?

Nonetheless he was glad to be out of the scene once it had faded. To Reed it had been as inscrutable and confusing as the desert itself; but Ben seemed satisfied by what he'd seen. He could count himself fortunate; most of the memories Reed had bore witness to on the fourth floor didn't end in smiles.

"You seem pleased," he eventually spoke.

[notpissedoff]

The static that separated the memories cleared abruptly, and now the fourth floor displayed a wide, well-trodden dirt road lined with storefronts of wooden construction. There was a crowd of people milling about in front of one of the shops; aside from curious dark-haired, kimono-clad onlookers, there were several men tied up with rope, their arms bound behind them, and others in blue and white uniforms with swords at their hips. More swords lay scattered on the ground. Some of the uniformed men were leading the tied-up ones out of the store and away, while the rest spoke amongst themselves or directed others. The many voices blended together into an indistinct background noise. Souji could be glimpsed within a cluster of other uniformed men, but only for a moment, as the scene focused in on an attractive young woman standing quietly just beyond the edge of the crowd, a cloth draped over her arms in front of her, facing away and seemingly paying the proceedings little mind

[notpissedoff]

Rain knew it was his memory immediately, even before it focused in on him, even before he saw Daitou - Souji - in the crowd. Everything about the place, the people, those uniforms... it all felt familiar. But when it quickly became clear that it was one of those memories, a 'Sen' memory... it was all he could do to restrain a groan.

It figured. He should have known that this place wouldn't allow him to keep his secrets to himself. His identity as a spy had now been made fairly obvious; his cover was well and truly blown. It shouldn't be a big deal, he told himself, he wasn't actively a spy in Edensphere... but if word of this ever got out, well, Lin would kill him.

His annoyance at being so blatantly outed and at being helpless to prevent it was tinged with some measure of relief, then, that at least she hadn't been here to see this.

Still... could he trust those who had seen it to keep their mouths shut? Everything else - what the boy had said, 'Ayu-nee,' his name - was important, and he mentally filed it all away to think

[marrymarajade]

Ben looked steadily back at Rain, wondering at what he heard in the other's sense.

He... didn't actually realize that the memory involved crossdressing. Or even pretending to be someone else. He didn't even wonder why Rain wasn't dressed like that now - people could decorate themselves differently for different reasons.

The blood and the talk of someone being... beaten rather badly, it seemed, though not killed... was more important. But, Ben reminded himself, he knew nothing of the context. Probably Rain didn't know, either.

When Rain's eyes flicked back to his for a second, he shrugged.

[notpissedoff]

Ben didn't seem particularly concerned. Good. Maybe men dressed up like women all the time where he was from, who could say? Rain held his gaze for a moment, long enough to give him a slight nod. He appreciated the man's silence. The fewer questions he had to field, the better.

He turned away, slightly more at ease. He didn't think Ben would say anything he shouldn't.

(1/2)

[heretic_hamlet]

"----, wait

(2/2)

[heretic_hamlet]

And, this time, it was Reed left fighting disbelief- "Are you mad? That's out of the question!" "I want to help you prove the truth of your words!" -and the girl left undaunted. Yet he remained firm. "No. Not like this

Re: (2/2)

[heretic_hamlet]

Reed was left stunned even after the image had lifted; leave it to the fourth floor to rub salt into the wounds that lingered from his first trip. Even now-- even then, whenever 'then' could have been-- he couldn't escape the loss of Tietra on that cold, snowy night, nor the scorn of the brother that survived her. And even in his own 'remembered' face, he could see the time that had passed.

And, apparently, he'd been busy. Heresy. Murder. Even Reed had to admit that he did not have the look of an innocent man when confronted; in what twisted plots had he surrounded himself? Yet, even in the onslaught of questions he was faced with, one rose fast to the top.

That girl. Who was she?

Even through the loss of memory he could feel the gravity of seeing her tugging at his heart... A deep guilt at having not seen her sooner; and a deeper guilt still, perhaps, at having ever forgotten.

"What was I..." Reed murmured, staring low into the distance. These revelations always left him with more questions than answers.

Re: (2/2)

[mythgravenblade]

...What was this?

It was impossible to follow precisely what they discussed--so many blurred names, and ones he'd recognize not in any case--but it was clear some sort of deep intrigue was involved, and clearly one that endangered Reed's life. Probably as well the life of his compatriots, and this other woman--this woman barely out of girlhood. Who was she? Dear to Reed, very, very dear, but beyond that...

And then came the other man, the "Confessor" and his troops, and the joke of justice they offered turned his face to an expression of contempt. Even if Reed hadn't looked cornered--perhaps he had killed this Cardinal Delacroix--"There is an explanation," Paladin said, at the end.

(1/2)

[mythgravenblade]

The memory opened onto a beautiful countryside--lush and green, with the faint smell of the sea in the air. The sky was clear and sunny, and there was a settlement quite close, a small village, buildings clustered around a large edifice--too indefensible to be a castle or fortress, perhaps a temple...?

There was no time for the watchers to wonder that for long, though: a drone in the background grew into a great roar, and the sky was filled with five--five ships, precisely like sailing vessels, but outfitted with propellers and wings. The largest vessel landed, its red paint striking against the green grass it crushed underneath. A long gangplank unfolded from the side, and down it marched a company of soldiers--of knights, their armor painted predominantly red. The man that led them, though

(2/2)

[mythgravenblade]

Few did, fortunate for all of Mysidia--in fact, it was almost perversely quiet. Everyone--women, children, the elderly--fled before them, either for the safety of their brick homes, for those who could not run far, to the fields outside the village--that was restricted to the youths. The older and weaker took what shelter they could behind buildings and stalls, mothers hushing their children. The few that did resist usually did so via their magic spells, casting while from a distance--but none of them were completed, for Paladin's eyes were sharp, and now at his side one of his knights marched with bow out and strung

Re: (2/2)

[mythgravenblade]

He had been curious at the start of the memory--now that three had been seen, the last must have been his...before he remembered the town, the one he had seen on the Fourth Floor, full of hostile mannequins. From there, dread began building in the pit of his stomach, even more when the procession was led by a man in armor identical to that of his evil twin...

When the man in armor spoke with his voice, Paladin went cold all through.

He watched the rest of the memory without flinching--without moving at all, eyes wide and firmly on what unfolded before them. A building numbness filled him; the only thing he felt was the distant knowledge that when the numbness faded away, the hurt would be...

When the memory faded, his hand shakily came to rest against a wall--he needed support, his legs were not up to the task anymore.

Re: (2/2)

[heretic_hamlet]

Reed couldn't forget that wretched figure; but it took him a moment to fully grasp the magnitude of what he was seeing. Paladin's 'evil twin'... was, at one point, Paladin. Right down to the horrifying deeds he was willing to commit. Even he had difficulty being forced to stand and watch it all take place.

His own mysteries and miseries quite quickly left the scope of his concern as the bedlam faded from view; he sought out Paladin's figure within the mist- gods have mercy, even more pallid than usual. Reed was quick to catch his weight before his legs gave out entirely.

"Paladin--" He pushed his voice back into a whisper. There was a lot he wished he could say, but the words died in his throat. "--I'm sorry--"