paixaorpg | Foundation Day Festival: At the Entrance

Character(s): everyone entering the festival by the gate
Content: weapons confiscation, greetings, etc.
Setting: Joco da Crianca Fairgrounds, entrance
Time: all day~
Warnings: Multithreaded posting format (please include time of day and sub-location in your comment's subject line)

For the festival, the Jogo da Crianca fairgrounds have been ringed by a modular eight-foot-tall iron-bar fence. Signs all around the vicinity point to the entrance, which is the only large gap in the fence. Because this is Paixao, there is a line to get in, but it moves quickly.

At the front of the line is a small security team; as people enter, they are asked to check their weapons or dangerous items with festival staff. Once unarmed, they are given a receipt to pick up their items on the way out, as well as one complimentary raffle ticket, and are allowed to proceed into the fairgrounds.

Just inside the entrance are two tents, one labeled "SECURITY / LOST AND FOUND," and the other labeled with "FIRST AID" and a large red cross.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Piers was mildly impressed with the efforts undertaken by the security forces to remove everyone's weapons. Too bad some people had weapons in their minds that couldn't be confiscated so easily. He handed over Levantine without a second's thought, showed the guards who asked that there was nothing hidden under his coat or headdress (now that would be an interesting place to hide a weapon, come to think of it), recieved a reciept showing that he could retrieve the powerful sword when he left the festival, and walked in at the gate.

He wondered if he'd changed enough to warrant comments from Ivan or the Proxian girl (Again with the names. Why could he never remember names?!), and whether that would be a good or a bad thing. He knew he was more tanned than he had been. He knew that he should look a little older, and--

Was that a brown ponytail some distance ahead of him? The green tunic, the cape, the way he moved as if slightly baffled by everything, these were things Piers remembered as if from some far-off dream. The question was, was it really Felix? Or perhaps some distant descendent, explaining why he was so confused now, where the Felix he remembered had grown into a confident and self-assured young man (and then an older man, and then...).

The Proxian stood out-- that kind always did-- and quite the contrast she made, red and black and accents of purple against the golden city's backdrop. She'd made an effort to look her best, and by this attempt to be imposing Piers knew she'd lost her nerve. What was she doing here?

What were any of them doing here, those that he'd known and since lost? If this was a land of the dead, Ivan and maybe!Felix would be old and gray as they had been when they'd died (or so Piers presumed, seeing as how he'd never actually been to the lands of the dead), and the Proxian girl would be battered and distant like she'd been when she'd told Felix to light the Mars Lighthouse in her place. They couldn't be dead, and that meant that they were alive, but he knew they were dead. He'd seen them die.

It was starting to feel more and more like a paradox. A mystery. An adventure.

While Piers may have recognized the brown-haired teen, the same couldn't be said for Felix. He hadn't noticed the man at all, actually, and if he did, he wouldn't have recognized him.

The first familiar face he saw when passing through the gate was Karst. She looked...something other than calm. Nervous, or impatient, or something. Felix really couldn't tell. Either way, at least she was someone familiar, and they had already planned to meet. He raised a hand in greeting as he moved towards her through the crowd.

Homesickness struck the sailor like a knife, and without a word to either Karst (who might never have noticed him) or Felix (who didn't know him anyway), Piers walked back to the festival entrance, gave back the ticket and retrieved Levantine, and made his way out of the city.

---
(OOC: Dropping Piers; muse died. By the way, Kestrel, can you not skip Karst next time? D:)

[[Er...sorry? I'm not used to this. ^^;]]

Karst saw the raised hand from Felix and replied with a small wave of her own. She also saw the Lemurian bolt, and made a note to attempt contact with him through the journals later, to see whether the festival had disagreed with him or he had simply vanished like so many other people had. (Ed and Al Elric, Ash-- she should probably ask Marona if she's still okay-- the people Ivan had asked about...)

"What else did you wish to ask me about?" she asked the brown-haired Earth Adept. She knew he wanted to meet her mostly because he had questions to ask, but if the questions through the journals had been any indication, the questions he wanted to ask weren't questions she wanted to answer. She had seen him in Isaac's company, and she knew that they'd been friends in their younger days, and it worried her-- no, it frightened her, and even among the Fire Clan she had a reputation for not spooking easily-- that Felix apparently knew nothing of how he'd betrayed her, despite being told some of it by Ivan.

"Well..." When it came right down to it, he wasn't quite sure what to ask. There were a lot of things he was confused about, and there was probably even more that he didn't know. "...Maybe you could tell me what happened after the Venus lighthouse was lit. You and Ivan seem to know more than I do."

What could she say? Sheba said that... No. I had the murderer and his cohorts cornered at Jupiter Lighthouse, and then you came along and... No. Who do you care about-- No. Can I trust you? No. No, she couldn't. But she couldn't afford not to trust him, either. She didn't know why Felix had betrayed her at Jupiter Lighthouse. She wanted to know why Felix had betrayed her.

"I don't know. I wasn't there. I heard that those I cared about were defeated from Sheba when we encountered at Madra, and I didn't ask her for the details. I was..." I was filled with rage, enough to be blinded by it. "I was upset by the loss of a loved one, and infuriated." Her hands moved, and she remembered a moment too late that she'd given up her scythe at the entrance to the festival. She felt so bare and helpless without it.

She seemed upset. Of course she was upset. Maybe he shouldn't have asked? No, he already had and there was no real way around that. "...Sorry. I..." There really was nothing for him to say. He'd actually tried to fight Saturos and Menardi himself, when they'd said they were going to keep Sheba. The thought was a painful one; he was weak, so weak he couldn't even begin to protect the people he cared about. "I feel so useless." He muttered to himself, clenching his fists as he stared down at the ground.

Karst was most distressed. She'd thought she'd seen Ivan, had turned to flag him down, saw it wasn't him, and turned back to find Felix gone. After a moment of scanning the mostly-blonde crowd for a dark brown head of hair (she had a height advantage on most of the locals), she gave up and accepted that he had vanished like so many of the others.

She took the time necessary to note that in her journal so Ivan would see, and finally put up a notice that she would be open to talking with others at this time... she'd already shared what she knew with Ivan, and it would be worth comparing notes with some new people.

Foundation Day Festival: At the Entrance

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