paixaorpg | Another New Arrival (Active/Open)

Entry tags:

Another New Arrival (Active/Open)

Character(s): Jess Aarons, anyone else who happens to stumble upon him.
Content: Jess arrives in Paixao
Setting: Joutenheim Gate
Time: Late Afternoon
Warnings: None for now.

The last few months had developed Jess Aarons' imagination in ways he never thought possible. He had created a world, liberated it from darkness, become its king, and faced his fears.He owed a lot of his new creativity to Leslie Burke, but somewhere in his head he had started to acknowledge that Leslie had only tapped into something dormant. Everything he created and conjured up in his head - all of that had been there all along. But as he started up at two giants with crossed clubs forming a spectacular gate to a city of light and domes, Jess knew that this was something far beyond his imagination - and maybe even Leslie's.

Awestruck at the city before him, Jess only barely noticed the shuffling of feet toward the gates, unconsciously entering into line with his neck craned upward. His stupor faded as he began to look at the people around him, and he noted that the whole situation reminded him of a waiting room. A waiting room to a magnificent city.

Wait...was he dead?

The color drained from the boy's face. He couldn't be dead! He was only twelve! He hadn't been doing anything dangerous! (Well, too dangerous anyway.) He thought back to Lark Creek, leaving Terabithia and getting soaked by the rain with Leslie and P.T. He remembered how she smiled when she walked back to her house. He had went home after that...and then what?

"Your name?" That the voice was calm did nothing to keep Jess from jumping as he was jostled from his own thoughts. He was now at the end of the line, standing in front of a booth manned by a stranger with a smile . Now they wanted his name? Maybe he was dead. Was he about to be judged? Oh Lord, he should have been nicer to May Belle...

"J-Jesse Oliver Aarons, Jr." It seemed best to the boy that he be as specific as possible with this sort of thing.

The man smiled, seemed to write the name down somewhere, and then handed Jess a brochure and an electronic journal. "Welcome to Paixao! Please take a complementary journal and brochure about the city."

Jess gave the man a blank expression before slowly taking the journal and brochure. He had never heard of Heaven being called ...something he wasn't even sure he knew how to say, or to be a place one would need a brochure for. However, those lingering questions seemed far less interesting than the journal. Jess had never seen anything like it - his family couldn't even afford a desktop. Jess stepped further into the city, eyes transfixed on the journal and the pamphlet. The dome, the people, the journal, the line, even the name, it all seemed too much to process.

"Where am I?"

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Between the sudden outbursts of monsters (both shadowy and not) and assorted minor annoyances of the city (read: ShinRa) Cid had been almost inclined to shut himself up in shop for good. Or at least until he'd remembered that Shera would have chewed him out pretty good for becoming more of a recluse than he already was even if he had 'working on an airship' as an excuse. A damned flimsy excuse, sure but it was something and having the skies even in some form would make the hellhole of a city better.

But it wasn't like that couldn't wait for a bit. He'd probably need some more odds and ends first anyway. Which didn't have a damned thing to do with why he was at one of the gates, but hell, anyone would end up know one of them if they wandered enough. And just in time for another arrival, it looked like.

"It's called Paixao," he answered, knowing full well that answer was most likely going to be horribly unhelpful. He wasn't feeling like being helpful anyway, so that was the best he was going to give just now.

Jess spun around and looked up at Cid Highwind. He almost blurted out that he knew that already, but fortunately he was better mannered than to be so rude to a stranger. While he still had someone's attention, he might as well get one pressing question out of the way, "...But I'm...still alive, right?"

The Prince scanned the crowd of people gathering outside the strange gate he had passed through earlier distractedly. His mind was on other things: specifically, the device in his hand he had been given by one of the gate-keepers and that seemed to function as a kind of journal. It reminded him of Azad, and the elevator he had found there: it was the same kind of absurdly advanced science that intrigued and mystified him, similar to and yet different from the magic of the Dagger.

As he looked around, however, he saw something that jolted him from his thoughts: the very thing he'd been looking for--a recent arrival. It was a boy, dressed in a fashion the Prince had never seen before in his life, but one that was also distinctly different from most of the surrounding crowd. More than that, however, it was the bewilderment on his face that marked him apart from the others.

The Prince approached slowly, one hand on the hilt of his Dagger. As he got closer, he dropped his arm to his side: the boy appeared younger than he'd initially guessed, and ostensibly weaponless.

"Ex-excuse me!" he called, slightly hesitant. "Have you...are you a stranger here?"

"Why the hell wouldn't you be alive?"

Sure, the city had a damned annoying tendency to bring back from being dead but if someone hadn't died it seemed perfectly obvious to him that they wouldn't be dead now. Of course the city was fucking bizarre at best but why in the hell should it mean you were dead? He'd heard some strange things about what you saw when you dead but this... wasn't really any of them.

As for the second stranger's comment, it was ignored, given that it didn't seem to be directed at him.

The boy seemed to subconsciously straighten at Cid's words. The fact that this man found the idea utterly ridiculous seemed convincing enough for Jess to believe he must be alive, though it still did nothing to explain where Paixao was or how he found himself here.

Before he could attempt to formulate a more intelligent question, however, he heard the Prince address him and glanced his way...and kept glancing his way with a fair amount of interest. It seemed like this man could have walked out of a storybook.

It took him a moment before he remembered to reply, "...Yeah, I have no idea how I got here."

As the boy turned to address him, the Prince abruptly noticed the man standing near by. For a moment, the Prince took him for a native of Paixao, and grabbed for his dagger-hilt again before noticing the man's dirty clothing and the gruff expression on his face. Curiosity assuaged, the Prince turned back to the boy who was now looking at him with something like fascination and attempted to appear non-threatening.

He remembered, of course, that he'd promised to meet the stranger he had spoken to with the strange Paixao-n device he'd been given, but he'd finally found another new-arrival to Paixao, and the man would have to wait. This was too important.

Although disappointed to hear the boy had no recollection of his coming to Paixao, the Prince pressed on: "What is the last thing you remember? What were you doing when you were transported?"

Needless to say, the Prince's reach for his weapon didn't go unnoticed. Cid had been following trigger-happy swordsman around for too long to not notice, really. He had no damned idea why the guy'd go for it when he wasn't armed. If he'd had Venus Gospel with him, sure, but he'd left that back at the shop. Nothing really to fight out here at the moment at it was a damned pain in the ass to carry around all the time. Couldn't even swing it over his shoulder like Strife had done with that giant bar of metal he called a sword.

"The hell does it matter?" he asked the other man. "Not like the place gives us the damned courtesy of telling us how we got here after all. It's like some Ifrit-damned pit trap or something."

Pit trap? So both of them had woken up here too? Where had they come from?

"The last thing I remember? ...It was raining and I was going home, Leslie waved to me, and I went to go into my house." Jess paused and started to frown. The more he tried to straighten his thoughts of what happened that day, the foggier his memories seemed to be. He couldn't remember anything after saying goodbye to Leslie.

"Then I was at the gate. But that happened to you too? You're not from here either are you?"

Disappointment and frustration made the Prince clench his fist. Automatically, he turned towards the first man who had spoken, whose rough answer had done little to calm the Prince's jingling nerves.

"Is there no pattern, then?" he demanded. "I do not understand. There must be some reason, some logic to our coming!"

After a moment he turned to face the boy, and, struggling to use a softer tone, explained: "No, I am not from this land, and I assure you, my arrival here is as mysterious as yours. That is why I am asking these questions--you remember nothing, then, that is--significant--about the moment before you were brought here? And nothing of how?"

"Ain't none of us really from this place," Cid grumbled. "Unless you mean the boring blonds everywhere." By which, of course, he meant the natives of the place, such as the were. Blond and blue-eyed and utterly boring to the last man, woman and child.

Again, it was the other man's comment (demand, really) that got the worst of Cid's annoyance. "Why the hell does there have to be a damned pattern? It just pulls people in, that's all."

Maybe there was someone pulling the strings and maybe there wasn't but without any goddamned answers what the hell could any of them do? It wasn't like there was a way out that anyone had found. It was just an Ifrit-blasted city, and that was all there was to it.

The tension between the two strangers quieted Jess before he could answer the Prince. The fact that he may be alone in this city was at last dawning on him. More than that, Cid had said that the city "pulls people in." What in the world could it want with him? He was no one extraordinary. The idea of being torn from his home by some enigmatic force drained the color form Jess' face.

But, this gruff man seemed to have been here longer than the warrior, who claimed to also be a newcomer. If he had lived here, then maybe there was no reason to be afraid of the city. After all, the whole subject only seemed to agitate him.

Jess looked up again to answer the Prince, "I honest don't remember nothing. Not even getting to my house." Lord, were his parents looking for him? What if they thought he was hurt? He couldn't imagine Ellie and Brenda being too upset over him - even if they were his big sisters. Joyce Ann was just a baby. Oh heaven help poor May Belle, she'd be hysterical. So would Momma, though she'd probably be mad as flies too. Now Dad would be madder - he'd catch hell from Dad.

He frowned and glanced toward Cid with a fair degree of sheepishness, "Uh, sir? How long have you been in the city?"

Before the boy could even begin speaking, the Prince had already guessed he had no answers. Even so, he listened in silence, hoping to be proved wrong. Whatever the other man said, the Prince could not believe there was no pattern to what he was beginning to understand was a constant stream of arrivals to this place, Paixao. It must have something to do with the Sands, although he did not, as of yet, see how.

"Clearly I seek answers from the wrong place!" It was more a comment to himself, but realizing he had spoken aloud, he added to the youth, "I apologize. I see now you have no more information than I." The boy was looking past him, at the other man, and Prince backed away slightly. Time was short and his thoughts were turning constantly to Babylon and all that might be happening in his absence.

But the man he had spoken to earlier, using the strange communications device, had nigh promised information, and the Prince did not know how long he would wait. With this renewed sense of urgency, therefore, he turned away from the two and strode back towards the gate with determination. Now, to find this café...

[OOC: Kindly excuse poorly-written exit?]

It wasn't really the topic that was annoying Cid. Or at least, not much more than usual. What was annoying him were all the assumptions the other guy had been making. It was like everything had to have a purpose. Life wasn't some some sort of damned linear ... thing. It just was.

"Too damned long." Too long without a sky and with the tentative alliance with the ShinRa hanging over his head liking an oncoming storm. "Don't really want to think about the exact number."

Who would, really, given his situation?

"Too damned long" was an exact enough answer for Jess. What could he do on his own? Well, he had been doing chores for as long as he could remember, so he wasn't useless. Even then, could he really look after himself in a strange city on his own? The paleness the boy had exhibited earlier began to return, but he managed to force composure on himself. Being scared wouldn't do him any good.

"...If I can't go home, where should I go?" He looked up at Cid. The boy was doing his best to appear self-reliant, or as self-reliant as a twelve-year-old could look.

Where should he go? Why in the hell would he know? He wasn't going to be able to tell what sort of place the kid would or wouldn't like. Not that he expected anyone would like a city like this.

"There's places to stay around here," he answered. "Not sure if any of 'em would be up to whatever you're used but hell, a place to stay's a place to stay."

Even a place as strange as this one.

Jess nodded in agreement, "Definitely not like home..."

Checking himself over he prepared to head off into the city, but when he eyed the journal he glanced back at Cid. "Oh, one more thing, why did they give me this? I mean, do people just...write in diaries here?"

"It ain't a diary," Cid answered. Which technically didn't answer the question, but whatever. "It's a journal."

Which wasn't terribly different from a diary. Or at leas most of the time, but it sounded a hell of a lot better than admitting to to writing in a damned diary. Or at least it did in Cid's book anyway.

Jess wasn't convinced there was much difference between a diary and a journal either, though he did prefer the word 'journal'.

"Right. Journal. Never seen one like this before." Not that Jess had seen very many journals to begin with. "Well, thanks for your help, Mister...uh." The boy scratched his head, it was rude of him to have waited this long before asking for the man's name.

"Sorry, I never introduced myself. I'm Jess Aarons. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction." The boy smiled a bit. Something about Cid's demeanor made him cautious, but he was sincerely thankful.

"Cid," he answered simply. It wasn't a fancy introduction, but he was never big on fancy in the first place. "Cid Highwind."

As for the fact about not having seen a journal like that one, it wasn't terribly surprising. After all, if someone wasn't used to seeing electronics every damned day then the journal'd just look like... a thing. "It's like a miniature computer," he explained, hoping that meant something to the kid. You could never tell in this Ifrit-blasted place. Damned pain if you asked him.

Then again, the whole city was something he considered a damned pain so there really wasn't much difference in the end.

Jess looked at the electronic journal and smiled to himself. It would be pretty cool to have his own computer - even if it wasn't one of those fancy laptops some of the teachers at school had. More than he would ever have expected to get, anyway.

"I'll figure it out. Thanks again, Mr. Highwind." For the first time since he'd arrived, Jess was feeling comfortable with his situation.

"I ain't a 'Mr.'," Cid grumped. "Makes me feel old."

That and he'd never really been inclined to the simpler terms of respect. Even in his days at ShinRa he'd never been a 'Mr.'. A surprising assortment of other things, yes. But never 'Mr.'

"If you need to call me something other then Cid, 'Captain' works fine."

Jess' eyes lit up at the title. A captain? He had never met a captain before, and his excitement betrayed that. "You sail ships, Captain?"

Well, 'sail' might not be the proper word for Cid's ships, given that they were airships, but other than that yes, he did.

"Of course I do," he answered with a slight grin. "Best damned pilot in the world."

Cid's grin was infectious, though the one on Jess' face extended from ear-to-ear. Here he was on his own, god knows how far from home, but he had managed to meet a ship captain. The only adults he know that seemed at all extraordinary were Leslie's parents and Ms. Edmunds, and while Jess was greatly impressed by a pair of writers and an often mesmerizing music teacher, this was different somehow. More like part of story Leslie would tell him, be it something she was fortunate enough to experience or invented entirely.

"That is so cool. You're really the best in the world?" Just as Jess had blurted the question out, he realized that something about what Cid said had seemed peculiar. "Wait, a pilot? I thought pilots flew planes, not ships."

"What the hell else is an airship going to have?" Cid asked. The question was mostly rhetorical but that didn't mean he wasn't going to ask it anyway. "You ain't gonna get far without someone to keep her flying."

There was a pause and then Cid returned to Jess' first question. "Course I am." Admittedly, he might have been just a bit biased but there was something to be said for having as much experience flying as he did and building his own ships certainly didn't hurt in the long run.

"Airship?" It took a minute for the boy to process this, but the realization that Cid flew planes (or something similar) translated to further awe and reverence. This might have contributed to the fact that he no longer held any doubt regarding Cid's rather large claim. In a city like this, so incredible and new, was meeting the greatest pilot in the world so unlikely? Even then, maybe so, but for one with an imagination like Jess Aarons, it seemed all too plausible.

"That must- ...wow..." He struggled for the right words, "The sky - everything must be amazing from up there."

"Best damned sight in the world," Cid answered without missing a beat. Of course, there was still the fact that he didn't have any of his ships here much less an actual sky, but he didn't need to unload his continuing issues with the place on the kid when he'd only just arrived (let it never be said that Cid was totally without tact, under the right circumstances).

But he couldn't entirely keep his thoughts off his face all the same, or keep a slight hint of annoyance from creeping into his voice.

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Another New Arrival (Active/Open)

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