caughtinanetwork | First promise; Video transmission

Entry tags:

First promise; Video transmission

[When the feed turns on, the video shows a soaked, annoyed Rinoa. She looks something akin to a half-drowned, blue rat as she pushes back her hair. Her attempts only lead it to fall back into place, so she frowns as she grabs it and wrings it out to the side.]

One sec...

[As the water drains from her strands, her eyes dart back to the device. Now it has her full attention.]

I'm not really sure what to make of all of this. I can't decide if this is a bad prank or if the Sorceress did something to us. Who'd have thought that she'd send us to an underwater city... place in retribution? I mean, who does that?

Right. [With her hair sufficiently wrung, she tosses it over her shoulder.] My name's Rinoa. I was with my friends when we attacked a certain sorceress. I thought we had won, but... I think I fell over or something. Then I woke up here. So if anyone has seen or heard of Squall, Zell, Irvine, Quistis, or Selphie, could you maybe let me know? I'd appreciate it.

[She pauses, her brow puckered before she decides to add something.] If mentioned friends are here... would you guys meet me by this fountain thing and tell me what's going on?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Checking the SFC network is something Squall didn't do often for his first month in Vatheon. He had little interest in the daily doings of people's lives and if someone really needed to reach him, they could just send him a message.

But ever since he became a part of the Defense Force, he's taken to looking at it more frequently, skipping over the things he just doesn't care about. You can learn some valuable things about the state of Vatheon by looking at the network.

It's about the time when new arrivals start coming in, so he's not surprised to posts from arrivals, some new, others returning from an absence.

And then, one of them captures his complete attention and Squall is completely silent as he watches the recording.

He almost doesn't believe what he's seeing and hearing, but the SFC tells him that yes, Rinoa Heartilly is in Vatheon.

He doesn't leave a reply. No video, no voice, no text. He simply gets up, goes out the door of his apartment, and he takes a direct path to the Plaza. He grabs a towel from a local's stand and heads straight for the fountain he saw in the video.

Yeah. That's her all right.]

Rinoa.

[Squall is fortunate enough to come upon Rinoa just as she's gracefully dumping water trapped in her boot into the fountain. It's as she's shaking it to get out every stray droplet that she hears Squall's voice. For a moment she stares at the fountain behind her, completely shocked before she turns around.

Although she had tried to address her friends, she honestly had never expected them to be here. She hadn't wanted to get her hopes up, especially with having no clue where she was or what had happened.

But Squall was here. Somehow he was here with her; he had found her and now he was standing there. She couldn't be happier to see him.]

Squall!

[She stands up, boot in hand, possibly with the intent to tackle or hug him. However, she is reminded as soon as she's on her feet that she is soaked and not even she could blame Squall for being cranky if she came at him and made him equally as wet. Instead, she stands there (still holding the boot) and smiling.]

You're here, too. Wherever here is. And - hey, why aren't you soaked, too? [No fair. Why does she have to be wet?]

[Graceful and dignified, that's Rinoa for you. Just like old times. Squall holds out the towel to her.]

That's because I got here before you did. Four months ago, to be exact.

[She probably would have gotten a huge kick out of seeing him soaked. She would have teased him and made fun of him and annoyed the hell out of him.]

Selphie's here too. She's been here even longer. And she's from the future or something like that.

[He just rolls with it. Speaking of time shenanigans...]

You said the last thing you did was fight Ma...the Sorceress?

[Just because she is called Princess does not mean she acts like one. Quite the opposite, in fact, and she's rather proud of that.

She gleefully takes the towel, dropping her boot to the ground as she runs the towel over her hair and face.]

It's so fuzzy.

[Her version of thanks. But as Squall begins to talk, more than is even normal for him, she stops her ministrations with the towel and peers from beneath it. His words make no sense to her, and her expression tells it all. But she trusts him, so for now, she bites back on her own questions to answer his.]

Um, yeah. Sorceress Edea, your Matron. [His little slip hadn't gone unnoticed.] We were in Galbadia Garden and we went to fight her. Why, don't you remember that? [Honestly, recalling what happened afterwards is unnerving, because she can't clearly remember, and what little she does makes no sense. And it scares her. Bone deep, primal fear kind of scary. Because she gets the feeling that something went wrong, but she can't place just what it is.]

[Other people have been picking up the get-Squall-to-socialize slack, and he's had to talk a lot lately! When you repeatedly have to talk about where you come from, talking in general becomes a lot easier.]

The last thing I can remember is we were about to attack Galbadia Garden.

[And Selphie comes from way after that, or so she says. She won't tell him anything that happens afterward.

Though she did let slip that Laguna was his dad.

Life was cruel sometimes.]

[She will have to find these people and write them hand-written thank you cards. Regardless, she will forever spear-head this movement.

Back to the conversation at hand: Rinoa is giving Squall a huge, completely blank face as she tries to understand what he just told her.]

But... you were - when we fought her, you were there. How can you not...?

[So confused.

~~Oh Hyne, of all the things she let slip, it was THAT?~~]

[He doesn't know how to explain this to her because he doesn't understand it himself. So he goes to the standard Squall response.

That is, the three step movement of first sighing, crossing his arms, then putting a palm to his forehead.]

I believe you. I probably was there. It's just...it hasn't happened yet. For me.

[Selphie's been here longer. She could probably explain this better than he could. Where is she? She better not have fallen into another coma or something.

~~Being Squall Leonhart is suffering.~~]

[Her face right now. There are just - there are hardly proper words for how befuddled she is.]

So... you came here, four months ago. Your last memory is of the battle beginning. I come here now, four months later, and I last remember the end of that battle. Is this one of those weird "time flows in different places" sort of thing?

[She's read enough sci-fi books in her lifetime so it's possible, right?]

But wait, you said Selphie is here, too, right? And from the future? So... okay, maybe that's not it.

[~~And now his suffering is going to increase threefold with Rinoa here.~~]

I've stopped trying to understand it.

[And he highly recommends that you do too, Rinoa. She hasn't asked where she is yet, so he's just going to answer that question preemptively.]

This place is called Vatheon. It's a city underwater on a whole different world and it brought us and other people here using magic.

[Why didn't he bring one of those brochures with him? Then he could just give it to her.]

[Because she's been too busy trying to work out the kinks in the other details, namely the time flow thing. But yeah, she'll probably leave it to rest. Eventually.]

...It's times like this where I really wish you were the type to joke.

[Because if it were Zell or Irvine, she could just laugh it off and say, "Nice one. Now really, where are we?" But noooo, nothing was that simple with Squall.]

I guess this isn't the work of the Sorceress then, is it?

[They're on the same wavelength right now, because man he wishes he was joking too.

Also he realizes that what he's about to say is going to sound incredibly stupid.]

No. Coral.

[And he gestures to the huge coral in question.]

...Coral?

[She follows the direction of his gesture and notices for the first time that, yes, there is a huge ass coral outside the dome. Fancy that.]

That thing brought us here?

That's what I've been told. It's apparently what keeps that-

[He points up. That sure is the ocean not flooding the whole city, yep.]

-from submerging the city. It does so by using people from other worlds as power sources. In other words, us. It has healing properties and can heal even serious injuries. Touch it once a month unless you like being miserable.

[He didn't know about that his first month and...yeah. Not fun.]

It's turned us into batteries, basically. [Not amused.] Seems a bit extreme, if you ask me.

[As she wraps the towel around her arms, she drags the tip of her foot against the ground. The more she's learning about this place, the more uneasy she feels.] What does touching it once a month have to do with us being miserable?

It restores your energy. Otherwise you're just going to be exhausted all the time.

[He's getting pretty tired of this infodumping. Rinoa can learn about curses later. They just had one, so it's safe to say there won't be one for a while, right?]

Most things are free to us foreigners here. Food, housing, all the basic essentials. I think that's their way of trying to make up for keeping us here and using us. There's a tattoo somewhere on your body. Just show them that.

That's the basic stuff.

[And now he realizes that now that Rinoa's here, what is he supposed to do with her? He can protect her from harm and he can help her carry out attacks on trains.

But right now, Vatheon is currently in a state of relative peace. There's no one to fight.]

[Mental note: touch coral once a month. The last thing she needs to be is exhausted.]

Oh, this thing? [She lifts up her hand, showcasing the tattoo embedded on the top of her hand.] I was wondering what that was. But free food and shelter? I can live with that.

[If the basics were done, then that just left... well, not a whole lot. She was hungry, but more than that, she was curious about this place. It was rather like the feeling she had when she realized she had to live at Garden: overwhelmed but excited.

Speaking of that time...]

Well, I was thinking that maybe you could give me one of your world-renowned tours of this place, but, uh... [One glance at her and it's obvious she's not quite fit for that yet.] Maybe I should dry and get a change of clothes first?

[Rinoa is taking this pretty well, he has to say. Better than Squall himself did. Anyway yes, it's probably a good idea to get her dry.]

We should find Selphie too. She'll be thrilled to see you.

[Even someone like Squall can see that Selphie got lonely sometimes. The time when many of her friends left Vatheon was particularly rough and while he tried to make her feel better...ha ha Squall cheering someone up. That's a good one.]

[It helps immensely that Squall is here and she knows that Selphie is, too. If she was alone, it'd be a much, much different story.]

I want to see her, too! Someone on this thing [She wiggles the SFC] said to try looking at the chocobo stables?

["A" for effort, man. Rinoa would be thrilled just to hear he tried. Since she'll probably be glued to Squall and or Selphie's side for the next few days or so, hopefully Selphie's loneliness will be abolished in the process.]

[Selphie knows so many people here.]

She works there, so it's a good place to start.

[Now all they need is Quistis, Zell, and Irvine and they could have a full group.]

No surprise. Although I didn't expect there to be chocobos here.

[Yes, and then utter insanity could ensue.]

I didn't either. You're going to have to ask her about where they came from.

[Right. Getting Rinoa into dry clothes.]

There's a few clothing stores over this way.

[He's going to lead her over to them and Rinoa will probably notice his Vatheon tattoo on the back of his neck. Not the most convenient place for it to be, but since when has Squall ever had it easy?

GO WILD, RINOA, it's all free. He'll just wait for you outside.]

[She does in fact notice it and makes a mental note. It's a rather cool spot, at least for a tattoo. Of course, it probably isn't convenient, either...

Oh hey, clothing store!]

And clothes here are free, too, right?

[But she doesn't wait for an answer as she hurries her way inside and her eyes just widen. LOOK AT ALL THE CLOTHES.

You're going to be out there for awhile, Squall.]

[Like any 17 year old girl who remotely likes fashion, and has something even better than a credit card with no limit, she takes her merry sweet time in the store, picking out clothes. It would have taken longer had she not been wet and therefore unable to try them on. For now she was content to just eyeball them.

When she finally comes out, she's got three bags slung on her arms.]

For stuff that's free, they have a pretty nice selection.

[Squall has no problem with waiting. He doesn't have anywhere else to be, though having some time to himself reminds him that he needs to get some orange paint. But he can do that later, when he's not helping Rinoa get settled into the city.

...

Although she seems to be doing fine by herself. Rinoa's gotten much more independent since he first met her. ~~Please don't ask him to carry the bags.~~]

Are you done?

[Hanging out with SeeDs will do that to a person.]

For now. I didn't want to make you wait forever.

[She won't ask. She's hoping he'll offer. Shouldering one of the bags, she pretends to struggle a bit with lifting them, hoping he'll notice and volunteer to carry one or two. ~~This will backfire wonderfully.~~]

[It was worth a shot, Rinoa. Squall just simply things that if she can't lift those (and he thinks she can; her arms aren't that flimsy) then she should get less next time.]

Let's go find Selphie then.

[The chocobo farm is this way.]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

Re: [action]

Re: [action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

Re: [action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]