paixaorpg | Foundation Day Festival: Stage Area

Not surprisingly, Luffy was very light on his feet, and he had every chance to show it off as he danced, skipped, and hopped about to the beat of the quick and lively music. As the latest act sounded out, plucking the strings of mandolins to a very speedy tempo, Luffy looked as if he were having the time of his life! He laughed and swung his arms about happily, swaying along to the rhythm as he kicked up his heels. There were some of the other party-goers who danced along with him, forming a wide and swinging circle of joyful, dancing souls, and even more watching from the sidelines, who Luffy beckoned to join in as well!

"Come on, join in the party!" he cried out giddily. "The point is to have fun and go wild, not sit there and sleep!"

For another hour or so more, Luffy continued on in the very same fashion, exuding an astonishing amount of energy and stamina, in that he never once stopped to rest or take a breather. Happy as ever, smiling, laughing, Luffy joined hands with the dozens of other party-goers and began to dance about in a circle, while the pulse of the rhythm seemed to electrify anyone and everyone around with a spring in their step.

Some of the dancers tired out, and retreated to the sidelines to sit and rest. Others from the seats hopped up and filled their places. The cycle was constant, and heartwarming. At one point, many of those drawn in by Luffy's boundless spirit gathered him into the center of the circle, dancing and cheering the young man in the straw hat on as he displayed his very 'unique' style of dancing (that is, having absolutely no style whatsoever). Still, there was no way not to love him, for all his bubbly spirit.

Finally, the current musical set ended, finishing with a lion's roar of applause. As the crowd lightly dispursed, some sparking new conversations and others finding their way to the seats, Luffy was free to go his own way as well, and did so, heading straight towards where both his nose and his stomach urged him to go: the food tent!
((Thread-jumping, likely to return later!))

as Zuko wondered in towards the stage, his ears caught the familiar strum of stringed music. It brought his mind back to the simpler times, trapped at seas with his Uncle, who was always trying to catch his interest in music. Though, back then, Zuko would have had none of it. Now, though, It was a peaceful reminder of the days he missed. Zuko found a chair and sat a moment and when confident no one was looking tapped his foot.

Vala was wandering. It was just something she tended to do. Occasionally her tendency to go meandering off wherever she pleased had caused the rest of her team some irritation and stress, especially when she ended up getting herself (or more commonly all of them) into some kind of serious trouble. However, in this case, capture by enemies bent on killing her really didn't seem to be a likely outcome of her curiosity. How much trouble could she get into? It was only a party!

She had exchanged brief greetings with a multitude of people, most of whom weren't interesting enough to spend much more time with, when she finally spotted someone she recognized. Or at least, thought she recognized. She'd only met him on the journals, but even with the tiny pictures those things provided, that scar was hard to mistake. She didn't remember the boy's name, but she did remember part of the conversation she'd had with him.

Vala grinned, trotting up beside him and sitting down without bothering to ask, "I'm going to do it, I swear." she told him. "I just haven't found the time to go clothes shopping yet, but I remember your advice, and I promise I'll get something in red as soon as I do."

Zuko swung his head around, his face cringing with shock and his right eye scanning.
He wasn't sure if He knew this girl, though he was glad she wasn't someone he knew too well, and after all she seemed to be addressing him in a friendly manner.
The prince scanned her face before ever so brilliantly assessing,
"I remember you."

“Oh good, I thought you might,” Vala said, flashing the banished prince with her most charming smile. “We did talk briefly on the message board a while ago, where you gave me a few fashion tips from your home country... although I don’t recall if we ever exchanged names or anything of that sort.” She held out her hand for him to shake, “I’m Vala.”

"U-" Zuko choked a little, catching himself to think. He decided that this was the moment of truth, no one had caused him any trouble and he was tired of hiding. So he decided to be who he was.

"I'm Zuko." he said awkwardly reaching his hand out to meet hers as he could only assume she had wanted. It probably didn't seem like much to her, but internally, it was a great triumph.

Vala gave the other's hand a brief shake, amused that the boy seemed to be just the slightest bit nervous. She wondered vainly if it was due to her incredible sex appeal. Probably not, but she could at least pretend it was. "I heard about this festival here and decided to just drop on by," she told him. "Originally, it was to cheer up a little furry friend of mine... but he seems to have wandered off somewhere, leaving me all alone to fend for myself. Not that I mind, of course. I do love a good party..."

Haruko managed to weasel her way through the line, acting as though she were a peanut seller at a baseball game, tugging her vespa behind her by rope, as on her ride over, it had died out not long into it. Figures. She was beginning to wonder if the city has a disease in it that broke her bike everytime she fixed it.

It could barely even fly anymore!

How annoying.

Securely attached to the seat was a crate she had swiped from a nearby building, filled with her curry that had been packed up when she realized about the festival (really, she should pay more attention to the message board instead of belatedly tearing down a flier). Her make-shift sign reading: CURRY FOR SALE - REAL MONEY ONLY hung on her back.

She called out, "curry for sale!" up until she managed to get through the front gate and the music made her come to a halt. She pulled out her Rickenbacker off the back of the vespa, then continued tugging it along until she was at the edge of the stage and left it behind to jump up onto it.

Backstage entrance? Psh, she went up-and-over right from the front, leaving her sign behind and weaseling her way around the gypsies, finding a spot somewhere on the ground, waving to the bulky-guard across the stage. If he really wanted to try and mess with her, she just may offer him curry first before beating him with her guitar.

And then she began to strum along, picking up the beat - or lack there of - and joining in with her own Haruhara Haruko twist!

This was the kind of thing that made Demyx reeeeeally glad he was in disguise.

It was a good thing the gypsies were unusually pale for gypsies to begin with, or he wouldn't have stood a chance of blending in. But he did his best, dressed like them and even wearing a scarf on his head to make his hair a little less distinctive. (It was too bad the locals' sense of style was so different from his.) He'd even picked up a different sitar, which, although it kind of lacked something in tone quality, at least wasn't seven feet long and blue.

So far it'd worked well enough; he'd been able to keep an eye on the festival during his group's act, and sneak around in between. But when a random - or not-so-random, he realized with a start, he knew exactly where he'd seen that guitar before - girl jumped up on stage and joined in, that tended to be a little distracting.

The real gypsies, whose dance she'd interrupted, began trying to shoo her off the stage, and Demyx himself scooted his chair back from its position dangerously close to where she was messing around. This wouldn't exactly be a good time to be recognized.

"Ahhh, shuddap! Keep on dancing, ya ravin' pixies!" she snapped, waving a hand through the air, then continuing playing. She growled under her breath, thinking that gypsies should be able to cope with her. She didn't need their moody attitudes. She should be happy enough playing on stage! Ha... well, if they really wanted to deal with her, she could give them a run for their money. She still had those frustrations built up from that gate incident; whoever the hell squealed about her presence. She had expected the police, not some black-cloaked thug.

Ah, the past is the past, right? Not like she'd hopefully run into the man again. She could only remember his eyes and voice. She skimmed the crowd, as if hto check that he wasn't going to be shooing her off the stage, thought she recognized this strange blonde... and her eyes held to him for a longer moment, but as it wasn't what she was looking for, her gazed move on.

That and it seemed like the ill-will against her was growing stronger.

Damn.

It was indeed. The burly fellow from the backstage entrance finally lumbered over, bodily picking Haruko up and tossing her off the stage, Rickenbacker and all.

Demyx kept playing kind of automatically, not missing a beat and just watching the offender get removed. There was one very good thing that could be said about the citizens here, and that was that they didn't take kindly to their nice orderly ways being mucked with.

((ooc: Sorry for the late!late!LATE!fail!tag...))

Haruko snorted when she righted herself again, brushing off her clothing and glancing up the the stage towards the burly man who tossed her off. Well... her luck certainly hadn't been improving since she got to this city. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she continued to curse Naota; as if the boy had placed a curse onto her when he set Atomsk free again.

Bugger.

She slunk along the crowd, eyes glinting and glaring at every Paixaoan and new arrival as she passed. She then stopped, eying the sky, guitar held over her shoulder, pondering. Slowly she glanced back, something sparking in her. Something familiar.

"You," she muttered, loud enough for the one particular person to hear. 'Bob Smith.' What a lame-ass cover name. Oh yes, she was addressing Demyx.

The malice there was pretty easy to hear even over the music. Man, and he'd been hoping she wouldn't recognize him, too! That might not end too well. At times like this, there was only one thing to do: play dumb.

Still playing, Demyx looked puzzledly from side to side, as if trying to figure out who she was talking to. Or look for a way out. Of course, given that he could teleport, he wasn't terribly worried about that, but all the better if he could just confuse her.

Braska was disappointed to find that he'd come to the stage area during a break between shows. It wasn't as though he couldn't wait for the next one, but he had been hoping for something to get his mind off of things.

He soon found that wondering what the next show would include was an excellent way of doing just that. What sort of plays did they have? What music? Of course, he could just grab a program or ask someone nearby, but where was the fun in that? It was entertaining enough to just imagine all of the possibilities.

Rikku was having a ton and a half of fun at this festival. The games here were fantastic, and the prizes, too! She and her friends were rolling in new stuff, which was awesome, of course. Less awesome was that she still hadn't seen Uncle Braska or that Auron fella like she'd been planning to, but she was sure they'd show up eventually.

After a while, when they were starting to have a hard time carrying all the stuff they'd won, Rikku had finally offered to poof it back to the room they'd been staying in, saying she'd be back in just a second. (No point just poofing the stuff there, or they'd never find it again!) But her aim wasn't perfect on the way back, and she'd reappeared in another part of the festival altogether.

"Oopsie." She looked around quickly. "Rakka? Stitch?" she called, but of course they would still be back at the games... well, she'd just head on back to -

Just then she was distracted by a funny hat a little ways off. Wasn't that what Uncle Braska had been wearing in his picture? IT WAS! Delighted, she zipped over and tackled him in the back of the head, without even seeming to notice that he was inexplicably six feet tall. "Uncle Braska!!" she exclaimed.

Braska had just recovered from being knocked in the head by... something, when he heard a voice behind him. However, as he spun around to see who had called his name--most likely Rikku, due to the inclusion of the word "uncle"--he encountered no one.

Had he simply been hearing things? She'd sounded so close, though... One plus one suddenly equaling two as he remembered being struck in the head, he took his headdress off, checking the back. Braska was consequently rendered speechless.

She... She... shrunk! he thought to himself incredulously. Was this really Rikku? She looked like she did in the picture he'd seen on the journals, but it was impossible for the Rikku he knew to be the size she was now. Was he happy to see her? Of course he was! She was his niece! But... "I don't... understand."

Rikku squeaked as the headdress started moving with her still holding on. She let go a second later, though, and righted herself in front of her uncle, grinning until she realized how confused he looked. It was about then that she realized she was pretty confused herself.

"Wow, and you said I'd grown," she said, eyeing him quizzically (and probably invading his personal space in the process). He'd been bigger than her the last time she'd seen him, of course, since she'd still been a kid, but definitely not by this much.

Braska shook his head and blinked a few times, but it didn't help; apparently he was seeing things correctly. Rikku was small. And flying. Well, Spira was gone now... maybe this had happened to her in the process?

Still, she was safe, and that was what mattered, as did the fact that he finally got the chance to speak with her again. That is, if he could pull himself together long enough to do so. After fumbling his words for a bit, he finally sighed and decided to start with something simple and work from there. "How have you been?" he asked, smiling. Had he asked her that before? He wasn't sure.

"Oh, pretty good, pretty good," Rikku replied happily. Braska's height didn't bother her nearly as much as hers bothered him, apparently. After all, she'd been hanging out with an angel and a little blue alien, not even to mention all the funny stuff she'd seen in Traverse Town. People growing five feet in ten years? No big deal, right? It could've easily been something he ate.

"Just been putzing around, y'know, waiting for you and Auron," she added. "We won a ton of stuff at the games! I'd show you, but I don't have it with me."

Auron? Right, he was coming here as well. Braska hoped there weren't any other stages around. On the journals, Auron had said there was someone he was going to meet, that Braska should probably meet them as well. Was this what the man had meant? It certainly seemed to be the most likely case.

"So you have talked to Auron?" he asked, it seemed a good way to continue the conversation, "You must have spoken with him before he spoke with me. He mentioned that he was going to be meeting someone here."

"Yep, that'd be me!" she exclaimed, sitting down in the chair next to him. It rather dwarfed her, of course, and she swung her feet back and forth over the edge as she talked. "I haven't seen him yet, though. Kind of weird, huh?" Then again, it was totally possible she just hadn't been looking hard enough. Carnival games required a lot of concentration, after all.

"So what about you? What've you been up to?" she asked excitedly, suddenly remembering. "Auron said something about you went on a pilgrimage, right? How was it? I wanna hear all the details!"

Braska nodded, "It is, but I believe he had just arrived when I got in contact with him earlier. Perhaps he wasn't expecting either of us for awhile?"

And now he dearly wished that Auron was here. Somehow he always knew just the right question to ask in order to deflect another question. Braska should have known that he'd be asked about his pilgrimage, but he was still taken rather off guard. "All the details?" he asked tentatively, but quickly gained more confidence, "That would take a little too long, I'm afraid. The short version might have to do for now."

Then Braska remembered Rikku's statements over the journals. She'd forgotten what the Guado were, she'd said something about "Gummi Ships"--whatever those were--and... Well, there were many things that made Braska wonder whether his niece's memory was all right. "You... do know what the pilgrimage is..."

Since by now Rikku was well and thoroughly sidetracked from looking for her new friends (temporarily, of course, she was bound to remember sooner or later), she was quite disappointed he couldn't tell her the long version. There was still plenty of daylight left, and she really did want to hear the whole thing - her uncle on a grand adventure! Who wouldn't be excited?

Despite that, she nodded eagerly. "Yeah, Auron told me about it. You had to defeat Sin, right? He said you guys won, too!"

Braska nodded. "Auron and Jecht were my guardians for the journey," he told her. After a little thought, he figured it would be best to explain that a little more. "They were to make sure I wasn't harmed along the journey. That isn't to say I can't handle myself, of course, but when you start to move off the roads and the fiends get more powerful, there's only so much one man can do."

"I don't think you've met Jecht, have you? He's a good man. Rough around the edges at times, very rough around the edges when I first met him, but he has a good heart in him," he said, smiling, "I must admit, I really am surprised you don't know much of this already. I thought that my pilgrimage was common knowledge back home."

Braska would be lying if he said he wasn't in the least happy that she didn't know. Beneath all of the confusion, there was at least a little bit of relief. He could make this easier on her, go in little steps. Maybe, if he was lucky, he wouldn't have to tell her about the very end. Or... maybe he'd only tell her if she asked. He hadn't decided yet.

Rikku listened with rapt attention, nodding. Naturally it was better to travel with friends than alone, so that made sense.

"Well, maybe the message just didn't get to our village," she offered, shrugging. "I wouldn't be surprised, people did accidentally-on-purpose lose our mail a lot." But that was neither here nor there, as Braska's story was way more interesting than the postal service.

"You'll just have to tell me now, I guess!" she giggled. "So how'd you do it? What's Sin? How big was it? Where'd it come from?"

Braska could easily believe that--or would in normal circumstances. But he had met many an Al Bhed who would easily express their views on a summoner's pilgrimage and why it should be stopped. He had many questions, but all they seemed to lead to was confusion. Perhaps he'd wait until a later time to ask them.

"Well, it all starts with training. Then you head to the temple nearest to your town, go through the cloister of trials, and make your way to the fayth. You pray to them, and if you are found worthy, they lend you their power. The pilgrimage takes you to other temples where you gain the power of other fayths until you reach Zanarkand, where you receive the Final Summoning. You use it to defeat Sin," he explained.

"Sin is a very large monster. If I remember correctly it was... was... Hm. See the stage in front of us? This is an estimation, but I believe Sin was at least thirty of it long, and fifteen to twenty high. I don't know how accurate I am, but not many people wanted to get close enough to measure Sin, for obvious reasons." He gave her a small smile before continuing, "It was the product of a war between two great cities, Zanarkand's last effort to preserve their city, although Sin got its name because we, not knowing that little detail, believed it to be a manifestation of our sins come to punish us."

"Wow..." The sheer scale of the monster made Rikku gape. Especially from her perspective, that was absolutely enormous! She'd never seen anything anywhere near that big, especially that wasn't a Heartless.

"And you and Auron and Jecht beat it all by yourselves! Wow." It was so cool! For a second she imagined Yuna and Paine and herself engaged in epic battle with a monster the size of the entire city (in her mind, Sin looked roughly like a gigantic albino centipede). The Gullwings in her imagination were, of course, kicking its butt, albeit mostly with powers they didn't actually have.

Although, that reminded her that she didn't actually have a clue where Yuna and Paine were, and that in turn reminded her that she had been on her way to find Rakka and Stitch again. "Oh!" she exclaimed, jumping up a foot or so into the air (and staying there). "Silly me, I almost forgot!" She turned to Braska, grinning widely. "You should totally come meet my new friends! They'd like you a lot," she added.

Braska couldn't help but smile a little as he saw Rikku gape. However big Sin had seemed to him, he could only imagine just how big it would seem to her.

He noticed the far away look in her eyes and wondered what she was thinking about. Perhaps imagining the battle for herself? What did she see in that fight? How were Auron, Jecht, and he portrayed? He quietly thought on it for awhile until she jumped, startling him.

"Well..." Braska wasn't sure how to answer for a moment. He had told Auron that he would be waiting here, and if he showed up while Braska wasn't there, the ex-guardian wasn't likely to be happy. But, on the other hand, Auron was supposed to have arrived at the festival before him and hadn't stopped by yet, and meeting a couple people wouldn't take too long. "All right."

The Winged Defender had wandered over to the outer-edges of the stage area in the hopes of snatching some of the gypsies involved in acts on the stage between shows to ask her questions.

Certainly, the gypsies would be the ones with the founding story that could be deemed closest to the truth--the closest blending of myths and truths about Paixao's creation. Though obviously, she had no idea what said truths and myths were....So she knew she would end up with very subjective views to muddle through...But it was a useful part of the history to know if she was going to be in the city for a while, considering her own roles.

Demyx left the backstage door as his act ended, having left the new sitar safely inside. He didn't play again for an hour, which was more than enough time to grab a sandwich and troll the grounds for anything else interesting to report. He didn't like working through his break any more than the next guy, but that was what you got, in the Organization.

But he was undercover, dressed like one of the gypsies, including a scarf on his head since he was sure as heck not getting a haircut just to blend in. He thought he was doing pretty well, anyway - maybe one or two people would have recognized him here and there, but that was where being a good liar came in handy, and probably nobody would pick him out of a crowd, right?

... Which was more than could be said for the ridiculously tall bird woman nearby. Now that was interesting.

Foundation Day Festival: Stage Area

In front of Center Stage - 9:30 o' clock(ish)

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a little after 11

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12:01pm! hahahaha...

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2:05 PM

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...let's say 12:30:50pm Paixao time

Re: ...let's say 12:30:50pm Paixao time