rakuen | [Round 4 | Day...Today?] [OPEN LOG]

Entry tags:

[Round 4 | Day...Today?] [OPEN LOG]

Characters: Theta and YOU
Format: Prose or action, whichever is fine.
This log is: Open
Location: Several (See Inside)
Summary: Theta's in a few different places, just let me know in the comment title which you're replying to.

So far, classes have been utterly boring to Theta. She's made a few contacts, some might call that friends, and some of them she's quite keen on seeing more of. She's got a note of permission from her player to use all of the school facilities, so she is out and about in several places:

1. Theta is at the library, limping around and looking over nearly everything. One section gives her the creeping fog in the back of her mind, and she pauses, staring at the books and trying to figure out which one is doing it. Old plays, apparently? Or perhaps she's in the music section, having a look at nearly everything and trying to find music that either pleases her or reminds her of what Sherlock had played on the violin for her.

2. A few things from the library tucked under her arm, Theta limps along to the cafeteria next. Though she has permission for dessert, she skips it, choosing healthy food in smallish portions. She also makes a point of getting a portion of something she doesn't recognise, though once she's at a table, she's only picking at it.

3. Of course, with her being out and about, there's always the possibility of running into her as she's going from place to place. She has to take her time, limping along and even having a sit every here and there. Of course, sometimes she also gets distracted staring at the greenery around the school.

4. And of course she's at the dormitory, before or after her trek out around the school. She might be polishing the brass armour plates she'd been wearing when she came to school, she might be holding them up with her uniform, silently wondering if she can get away with it. Or she might be reading the books she brought from the library, quietly humming to herself as she does.

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Are you troubled?

[Saber doesn't mean to be rude as she stands near the other, wearing her school uniform. Surprisingly, she's chosen to wear the pants with this instead of the shorts or skirt, despite the warm weather.]

[[Theta's school uniform trousers are cut oddly--they flare out at the knees, almost as if disguising something underneath before they tuck into her tall boots. She blinks, then turns to look at the other blonde.]]

Mm? No, I'm just admiring the plants... We don't have any where I'm from, not for many miles.

Grenn hadn't meant to run into anyone, but so far, no one tended to be in this part of the library, so she'd been unprepared for the body around this particular stack of shelves.

"Fra--I mean... Sorry! Are--- uh... are you okay?" Grenn winced, hoping she hadn't hurt the other young woman by bumping into her legs with the right wheel of the wheelchair. "I didn't... There's usually no one here..." That was such a sucky excuse. She really ought to be more careful.

Grenn wasn't usually one for plays, really, and would have been also one of the 'studen population' to not frequent this part of the library, but she'd (in a sort of round-about way) found a collection of plays from one of her favourite authors, which was why she was here in trhe first case.

Theta barely managed to stay standing. Though it was a light bump, the wheel had hit her good leg, and that had destabilised all of her balance. She dropped her cane, and clung onto the shelf to keep herself from going down, though she swallowed down the urge to yell at the one that had knocked into her.

"I'm...I'm all right... I don't think the mechanism is damaged... Can you get my cane?" She gulped down a few breaths of air, still clinging to the bookcase, and utterly frightened. This school was battle themed, and this was all it took to put her in quite a state... If she was ever a player...

Grenn gave the cane a considering look, but since she'd been the one who caused the other to drop it, she'd try. At least there were no legs in the way?

"... I'll try," she said with a nod, made sure to put the brake in, and gripped one armrest while she leaned down over her thighs. Her fingers brushed the cane, just barely out of reach, and not for the first time, Grenn wished they would have let her keep her hover chair. She wouldn't have had this sort of problem then. She wouldn't even mistakenly have bumped into the young woman, since there was a proximity brake to at least slow down if a large, non-accounted for object suddenly appeared in the trajectory.

With a sigh that evolved into a grunt, Grenn leaned forward a bit more, tensing her thighs to lean up a bit, and finally got a slight, but enough grip on the cane to haul it up back with her.

"Sorry," Grenn mumbled as she handed the cane over, unhappy. This was the first time she'd almost actually hurt anyone with the chair. She wanted to ask about the mention of 'mechanism' (did she have some sort of prostethics, too?), but her brain couldn't come up with anything, and she was embarrassed enough that nothing else came out.

Theta nodded weakly, looking over the woman for the first time as she took a hold of her cane. She was much more stable with it, and her hammering heart started to slow down, almost as if the cane filled a secondary purpose as a comfort item.

"It's quite all right, I'm sure it was unintentional," she answered, trying to be conversational but unaware of how snippy she inadvertently sounded. "Is this a favourite section of yours, I take it?"

The unintentional snippiness confused Grenn, who briefly looked around the area and then shrugged, before turning back.

"Not... uh, not exactly? Plays... aren't really my thing, at least not to read, but... I found a collection of one author I like... Mostly what I've been able to find is either from the past, or..." Grenn trailed off, uncertain what and how much the other had actually picked up in these past few days since round start, because she was quite obviously new.

"Or from other... er. Places." Grenn finally settled on that, after a bit of floundering. Maybe she should just have said sorry again and excused herself and left, because that whole sentence wasn't any better...

"I... um, assume you, on the other hand, like to read as well as watch plays?" Since she'd assumed (not wrongly, usually you weren't in a particular section of a library if you didn't like it) that Grenn was here because she liked the literature, maybe she actually was here because she enjoyed the plays in themselves.

Theta was relaxing again slowly, so the snippiness faded out of her voice. Perhaps she was just keeping tighter reign on an inherent snippy nature. "Plays from the past are just as relevant as modern ones, if they're good ones. There's one from my home here..."

The fingers of her free hand ran along the titles, and she pulled out a thin book which she offered out. It was entitled "The Doctor's Wife". "It was written in 1898, but I think it still matters even in the modern world."

She looked over the shelf again and sighed, shaking her head. What was causing the fog? Some of these plays had to be important, but which? And why?

1898... Grenn tried to, like before, scrounge up her knowledge of the old Gregorian calendar so she'd be able to compare, but came up empty. So she just smiled faintly a nodded.

"Relevant, sure... Human nature after all. But..." Grenn shook her head and grimaced. "There's so little here from where I'm from, so what little I can find... Well, I'd like to read that."

She knew she was threading thin ground again (even with knowing this was a simulation, she wasn't ready to go spouting the future at people who potentially came from her - or a close enough - past), considering she knew there were various authors in the library from periods of India's history (for a few permutations, even, which had been interesting). But this was as close she could come to the truth without lying, which let her speak with confidence.

"... Oh. Something... A memory related to these gone?" Grenn may have been slightly obtuse to some facial expressions and tones of voice, but she'd certainly been here long enough to recognize the look of Utopia-induced memory loss.

"Honestly, I don't know," she answered, sighing softly as she looked over the books. "Obviously, I suppose, but I wonder what. I can't even track down which one is causing it. Obviously I recognised that one, it's my favourite, but..." She shook her head again, running her fingers over the books.

"It's hard to tell if something is not from my home or if I simply don't recognise it because of this fog in my mind." She shook her head again, repeating the action as if it would clear her thoughts and reveal her memories to her.

"So tell me about your world, then?" she asked curiously, interested in learning about all the different worlds represented at the academy. She certainly wasn't taking the idea of being 'trapped' very seriously, and regarded her missing memories as an annoyance rather than a serious issue. She couldn't fathom why anyone else would feel differently.

Okay, so at least she was aware of 'different worlds', no matter how seriously she was taking that as fact... But she was at least starting to get her thoughts (and words) in order when it came to what to say about this little matter, so at least that didn't take too long.

"I'm... not sure I should be telling you much. I mean... I think most people'll think it's stupid, but I'm afraid that if I say too much to someone from what could reasonably be my past, I could change something..." Grenn grimaced and shrugged.

"Maybe... tell me something from yours and I'll try to remember enough history to know if they match up or not?" Grenn didn't actually mind explaining where she came from (Yuki and Gino's expressions had been amusing, after all), she just really didn't want to chance even remotely influencing anything if--- when they all went back home.

Theta appreciated that logic. She believed in the idea of alternate universes and temporal anomalies, she just didn't think being caught in one was cause for terrible alarm. Perhaps that was arrogance on her part, perhaps she was just highly relaxed. So she nodded understandingly.

"I come from the year 2008. It's the one hundred seventy first year of Her Majesty Queen Victoria's reign, ergaleomancy is the most important technological discovery of the past two hundred years, discovered in the 1880s... I think that's the most basic framework I can give..."

She could have gone on and on, but realistically from what she'd seen of the other people present, she thought that would be enough to either rule out her world or get a look of shocked recognition.

Grenn, blinked, stared and shook her head slowly. While, once again, the date didn't tell her much, the rest of the information was clear enough. That was certainly not her past. And what was ergaleomancy, anyway?

"Ahh... No. Not my past." She shook her head again, and her brain caught up with something else the woman had said--- 171 year of the one and the same Queen Victoria? Had they somehow managed to find a way to extend life?

"Um... It's year 326 where I'm from..." She paused, a small, nearly unconcious smile slipping across her face. "That is, three hundred and twenty six years since the first permanent expedition landed on Mars. Only the rich live on Earth now... Most of us live out in space," Grenn said with a shrug, and glaced down at her thighs with a frown.

What was so horrible about letting her keep her stupid hoverchair? This wheelchair wasn't just clumsy, it was beyond ancient!

"No, I seem to be from a vastly different world to...most everyone, really." She sighed and shook her head, torn between being grateful to be so unique and saddened that she was the only one there to represent her world. Ah well, she supposed that just meant that she would have to represent it well!

"But space travel? Really? Oh, that sounds amazing~. Right when we thought we've explored the whole world, humankind opens up the stars to advancement~? That's magnificent~! Tell me more~?" She does start edging away, though, trying to lead the other over towards a table where she could sit while they talked.

Usually, Grenn would probably not have caught the inching away, or have assumed that despite the question, the other may have been tired of the conversation, but due to her bumping into Theta earlier and the cane, she followed.

"Oh... eh..." Grenn stammered a bit, because such an open-ended question didn't make it easy at all to find what to say. "Well... Earth is a natural reserve, more or less, with only the rich or very important living there. I... suppose Mars is more like Earth was in the past? A planet to actually live on?"

There were of course the other two terraforming projects; a planet and a moon, but only the moon was comfortable to live on, and Mars was mostly for the resources...
"Not that everybody lives on Mars... A lot of people live on space stations, which circle planets or moons... But," Grenn paused to look at the other to ask what she'd earlier caught, and then resisted the urge to facepalm.

"Frag. Er. I'm Grenn Atair. What's your name?" How come it was so hard to remember to introduce yourself?

Why introduce one's self when the direct conversation was so much more stimulating? Theta grinned at the question, though. "Elizabeθ Buckley. A pleasure to meet you, Miss Atair~."

She paused in her moving to offer out her hand to the other, palm up, and if Grenn took her hand, she would bring her knuckles to her lips and kiss them. Theta was a gentleman, despite what she looked like.

"Where are you from, then? A space station?" She'd said most people lived there, so that was the obvious choice. "What about transportation? How long is a journey from Earth to Mars? Or to a space station? How many are there?" She asked many questions, but stopped herself short to laugh softly and shake her head. "If you know. I'm asking too much, aren't I?"

That was a strange way of offering your hand to shake. Not that she was exactly sure that was what Theta was doing, since she was only familiar with English-style greetings from Lyra. In school, they mostly stuck with the shallow bow. Hesitantly, Grenn took Theta's hand, angling it like she was rather sure you were supposed to do, and shook it.

"Was... that right?" Grenn frowned and shook her head, stalling to try and not just figure out if she'd done it right, but also the flood of questions.

"Um, yes... I live on a space station. Never seen a planet in my whole life yet, but... well, I might, perhaps, since I'm soon finished to be a pilot." Another unconcious, this time proud, grin. "Uh... Let's see... a month between Earth and Mars, I think, if I remember right. Space stations... depends."

With any luck, the 'cheat drive' research would pan out soon, and you wouldn't have to spend more than a month in space between any two destinations...

"I... um, could answer more questions, if you want to, but I was wondering... What's ergaleomancy? And when you said your Queen had reigned for 127 years, you really mean it's the same person?"

Theta shifted her hand to a proper handshake when Grenn took her hand that way. At the question, she smirked amusedly. "That depends on whether or not you're a lady or a gentleman. As a gentleman, I would kiss a lady's hand, but shake hands with another gentleman. Is that how it is in your home?"

She was trying to scale back the number of questions she launched at the other, but that did seem to be a relatively difficult task as Grenn was so very interesting, as was her world. Nonetheless, there was a question for her to answer, and she supposed it was only fair. That and she loved to talk about herself.

"Ergaleomancy is a technological field that's likened to magic--there's actually a debate going on now about whether it is truly magical or if we've simply stumbled upon a science ahead of its time that we lack the means to quantify. I lean towards the latter. An ergaleomancer can create clockworks with artificial intelligence, even personalities, likes, and dislikes, though the personality itself is out of the ergaleomancer's control. We can also create devices that violate the known laws of physics, or that 'jump' what they ought to be capable of."

"No... Not really. Mostly the English-speaking territories, or the ones where the population comes from what... I think... was called the Western world, use a hand-shake, so I only learned that when I started spending time with Lyra. Most greet as the Chinese do, since that's the culture and language that's the most wide-spread." Grenn shrugged, having never had a problem with that part of the not-her-own culture; it was close enough to what she was used to.

"... Huh... I'd... say it was the latter, too, but true artificial intelligence isn't something that's been achieved yet. But since you say they violate the laws of physics... maybe it's both?" Grenn shook her head, amazed. Though a few, scattered things in the universe could yet still be considered to hover on the edge of 'magic', few were the scientists who wanted to stoop to calling it that, stubbornly clinging to the hope that they just hadn't found the right explanation.

She shrugged as well, finally leading them to a table and sliding into a seat. She tries not to let out a deep relieved sigh, but a little bit of one does escape. She turns the chair to face the other, since there's not room at the table. Theta would have moved a chair away for her, but she really, really needed to sit down.

"I think magic exists, but in scientific terms. The soul, the metaphysical, it's there, we just don't have the means to measure it yet. And then, 'magicians' are those with the innate physical and psychological capabilities to tap into something that exists in a form that those without the ability cannot access."

Here, she had no idea, really. While she didn't disbelieve, she wasn't exactly religious enough to take that understanding of 'the soul', and philosophy could not prove anything.

"Maybe... Considering we... well, have proof of different worlds, I'd say magic at least undeniably would exist somewhere, energy obeying its own laws if anything, if not in every world," Grenn mused, gently tugging on hair that fell within reach against her cheek.

"I... suppose to some, the ability to make artificial nerves and connecting them to the body's natural ones would be close enough to magic..." Faulty magic, at that.

"I think," she began, and almost immediately paused after, still sifting through her thoughts to say precisely what she means. "The issue is that you're still thinking of magic as something genuinely esoteric. I am speaking of... There are forces at play that science has not yet tapped into. For example, germs. We know what they are, we know what they cause, how to get rid of them. But before that was discovered, plagues and blights were considered 'magical', with no known source other than the 'evil eye' and other such superstitious nonsense."

She took a breath, enjoying having a chance to speak at length about something. Any topic would do, really, as long as she had a chance to exercise her voice.

"Now, when I say 'magic'...it's more similar to germs prior to their discovery than wizards waving wands. Advanced technology...no, I wouldn't call that magic. Science can explain it already, so the title isn't necessary. Does that make sense?"

She'd never thought she'd have a discussion about the realities of what magic was, and as to whether it had been discovered or not.

"Well, yes... It does," Grenn paused, tapping a finger against the armrest of her wheelchair.

"But considering 'magic' always is defined as what can be considered 'energy', I'd think that some worlds would have some sort of energy in relative abundance to be used as 'magic', and some worlds don't," another paused to shake her head slowly, considering her next words.

"Or it's all a question of converting said energy, and it's then a universal... multiversal? factor, just that... some hasn't found a way to tap into and convert it..." Finally looking back at Theta from staring out over the library so she could think better, Grenn shrugged. That had made sense in her head, but she wasn't sure it had made sense to the other.

Theta considered the other's words, then nodded quickly. "Yes, yes, that makes perfect sense. For example, whatever powers the technology here, the base energy in this world was quickly discovered and put to technological use. Whereas the energy in mine, we've been able to harness it in clockworks, but they're also considered a form of magic because none of us know how it's done. Even those of us that do it."

She grinned excitedly, glad that she'd found someone who she could speak with on her own level. She wasn't actually used to that, and it surprised her that she could trade ideas with someone without having to dumb things down and be patronising.

Grenn nodded in agreement, again tugging on a bit of hair against the side of her face as she listened and thought.

"Something like that, yes... Wherever here is," Grenn said with a grimace, privately thinking that this wasn't a proper world... Well, it was, but it was a computer generated one. Perfectly contained, the only thing to disrupt the algorithms if you managed to hack into their database and mess things up...

"I'd... think that even low-key 'magic', like telekinesis, pyrokinesis, such things that could be driven only by the human mind could probably be tied to something like this, too..."
Because those things were cropping up here and there in her own world, though severely hushed each time by the various governments. But there was just no way of stopping things from leaking out. Especially freak fires that, for example, didn't burn anything at all in a military base during the oppression rebellions except for all personnel.

She nodded again, glad that they seemed to be on the same page still. "Yes, the mind as a mechanism to tap into a free-floating energy, akin perhaps to the earth's magnetic field--invisible, undetectable save with specific technology, but nonetheless present. And, just as some minds are pre-disposed towards mathematics or towards music, some minds are pre-disposed to tapping into such a field, while others aren't."

Such a field, then, was likely what powered ergaleomancy, and her mind was one of the ones with the 'predisposition' necessary to work her craft. It made sense, and if she'd cared to, she supposed she could have looked into studying to find a way to identify that 'field', to learn how to harness it outside of a pre-disposed mind. But that wasn't her field of specialisation, and she didn't really think she needed to be the one to look into it. Someone else could, she had other things to work on. Other things like....that fog again! She had been working on something, but she couldn't remember the details.

Grenn hummed in agreement, because that sounded what she'd thought as well, is with an added possibility of becoming detectable... or being such, since those able to use it would know it was there, but, it hardly mattered.

Then she caught Theta's second flicker of memory-loss fog, and grimaced in sympathy.

"Annoying, isn't it? Do you know what it's you've forgotten, or is that also still blank?" Grenn shook her head as she spoke, looking annoyed. "I have one thing that was obvious from the beginning it had been taken... due to the context of the surrounding memories..." Grenn snorted and crossed her arms.

Yes, let her keep all other intimate moments, but let's remove all the kisses. Not obvious at all, noo.

She sighed frustratedly. "I was working on making a blood purifier, but I can't for the life of me recall why. It's not as though that's something simple to research, either. Who knows, perhaps it was my last project before leaving and I wasn't able to finish it..." She didn't take the idea of important memories being taken very seriously.

"Blood... purifier..?" Grenn muttered, mostly confused over where the connection was to what basically seemed to be clockwork robots and the like. Then she shook her head and frowned.

"You... don't seem too upset at the memory being gone? More... annoyed?" Grenn questioned, waving a hand vaguely in the air, as she wasn't sure 'annoyed' was the right word, or if she'd interpreted it wrong.

"That's what it is, isn't it? An annoyance. It's not as if they could actually take anything important. I'd notice if they did, surely." She was smugly confident in her logic, convinced she was right, and in for a terrible shock when she found out the hard way that she wasn't.

"And a blood purifier, it's a medical device. I'm specialising in medical ergaleomancy." She was proud of that. She was following in her father's footsteps, and she liked that.

Did she really... Grenn shook her head, managing to keep her face schooled.

"Someone lost their ability to navigate the school. She can be lost for hours despite this place not being overly huge. Someone else the knowledge of what the sky is..." Grenn trailed off and shook her head. Poor Mei.

"Names, people, language..." She spread her hands, trying to metaphorically encompass the scope of loss. "And what if it actually was important in some way? Life-and-death important, that you remember this thing? I know... I'm not sure what it is, exactly, one of the things they took, but I know it affects people. Lives. Somebody is..." Frustrated at herself, and the school (and the nightmares, which still popped up, intermittently), Grenn trailed off with a frown.

Theta frowned deeply at that. Though she didn't want to let on about it, she was deeply troubled by the possibility of it actually being something serious. Then again, she didn't want to look weak, either. She put on her best arrogant face, nose in the air.

"I'm sure it's nothing truly important. Those sound like minor frustrations, and whatever you're missing is your own insecurities and the memory loss messing with your mind. Pay it no mind, don't let it hold you back~!"

She--- What... Grenn stared, unaware her jaw had dropped slightly as the arrogant tone and words brought on memories.

'Come on, calm down. Ignore it for now! Promise me you'll do nothing!' That's what... How could Lyra have made her...

"I don't think," Grenn hissed, leaned forward in the wheelchair. "That the government experimenting on unassuming students and turning them into the living core of ships is a minor frustration or my ins---" Grenn suddenly snapped her mouth closed, and stared vaguely off into the distance. Score one for Utopia's memory wipe.

What... had she just been so angry about? She knew it would have to do something with a memory she'd lost, but it was all gone. For the moment, it was hard to even keep hold of the anger Theta's words had caused, which had sparked... whatever she'd just lost, again.

Theta just stared at her for a moment, not sure what to even say to her after that outburst. So it seemed memories could indeed be important things, that was a bother. More than a bother, but she was relegating it to a lower status in her mind, trying to convince herself that it wasn't as big a deal as it most certainly, certainly was.

"There's no need to get so riled up, certainly," though she wasn't as confident as she would have liked. She wanted to be convincing, but she wasn't even convinced herself. It was harder than she wanted to admit.

"Really?" Grenn was quite unable to articulate anything else but that, the word encompassing her incredulity. Grenn grimaced and sighed. She'd used up too much energy in that outburst, and felt quite hollow from being so thwarted at fully expressing it.

"If you want to be philosophical about it... I'd argue anything forcefully taken, anything not naturally lost, is integral to us as people. They've basically taken bits of your personality, your brain, out? That's not something to be 'riled up' about?" There was no heat left in her voice as she spoke, however. She was tired now.

Theta gritted her teeth. She was chatty, but she didn't want to think about things that were genuinely upsetting her in public, didn't want to have to deal with it at that point. She tightened her hand on her cane, trying to will away the frustration. "Of course it's integral. But getting angry about it will only add to the fog in the mind. It's already foggy, no sense clogging it with emotionality as well."

That was a strange way of looking at it. Grenn wasn't sure she liked the implication that emotions were only in the way of a reasoned argument. Some areas still held to this, and it was, frankly, a strange idea to her; emotion, or rather passion, was the basis of all your opinions and likes and dislikes, why would it be undesireable?

"If you say so," Grenn couldn't suppress the tiny snort; she was trying to be diplomatic, really, but disquiet from earlier still clung, and she was tired. Maybe she needed to train her mental fortitude as well as her physical one...

"Sorry... I think this made me tired. If you want to, we can talk more another time?" Grenn managed to get some sort of excuse out; she'd started to feel the creeping want to simply leave as that would be the easiest, but she could behave.

"Mm," she hummed in agreement. "I think that would be good. I suppose I shall see you around, then?" It was a polite offer, but she, too, wanted to be done with the conversation. She had a lot to think on now, and it wasn't all very pleasant.

"the school isn't big enough to easily hide in," Grenn said with a small, though tired smile, gave Theta and nod and wheeled away. Time to actually go and do what she'd planned to before she accidentally bumped into Theta, read the book of plays she'd found.

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[Round 4 | Day...Today?] [OPEN LOG]

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