trans_9 | Second Life -- Welcome to Fairplay [Stage 1]

Vita blinked into the light of the sun, momentarily dazed.

What a strange dream, she thought, but as she thought so, the details already faded. Spaceships, really. How weird.

Groaning, the little delinquent stretched herself, then jumped off the small wall she had been napping on. Sheesh, this day sure was going to be as boring as the last few ones had been...

For a moment, she wondered where the others were. That stupid Nantoka, or whatever her name was. Hayate... How dare Nantoka get along better with Hayate than Vita did!

Growling, Vita shook her head. She was already getting annoyed. She'd just...

What had she been doing? It had been something important. Riiight. Important. Like skipping classes. Sure was important. The delinquent ignored the nagging feeling that there was something else that had been important.

After all, she was just another resident of Fairplay, Iowa, and had never been anything else than a normal person on a normal world.

Edited 2010-12-12 17:37 (UTC)

Nanoha never stayed around after school, and today was no exception - the girl quickly ducked into one of the school restrooms to change into her uniform (really, just a pink shirt and an apron) and quickly headed downtown to her family's bakery. She warmly greeted her mother and father as she situated herself behind the cash register, relieving her dad of the duty.

It was her part-time job, and it was an important one. But she'd had some very strange dreams last night, hadn't she?

Fate was having one of those dreams where you just didn't want to wake up.

She was flying, as free as a bird, through a clear blue sky. The city was far below her, and even the skyscrapers looked no bigger than anthills. She had never felt so free... and she hadn't felt this happy since the time before her beloved sister died.

She wasn't alone, either. Not too far off to her right was a streak of pink, but when she tried to move close to see who the person was, a loud buzzing sound interrupted her.

... And she woke up.

With a sigh, she rolled out of bed, grabbed a set of fresh clothes, and went about her daily morning rituals, with one addition; taking care to cover up the dark bruise blooming just under her left eye. No need to draw attention to herself and get asked unwanted questions, right?

After freshening up and eating, Fate grabbed her schoolbag and her house keys, locked the front door behind her, and began making her way to school.

Edited 2010-12-11 21:06 (UTC)

The white noise of the students was like a heavy robe clinging to Jayne as he shuffled around the large open area with a broom that was just a little too short for the broad shouldered janitor. Like most of his tools they were imperfect and in this sense he hand to stoop a little to use it with the dustpan to catch stray peas, french fries, scraps of paper and whatever else the ungrateful and dismissive student body would drop.

The Teachers were just as bad. It seemed that everyone had long since decided that as the Janitor was paid to clean up after them, they would make him earn every cent of his paycheck.

Like so many days in the past and likely thousands more in the future Jayne's mind was not on his work, but unlike most days he was focused on something else instead of shuffling through his day to day like a zombie.

It had been a dream, that's all it had been and even now the details were fading from memory. All he remembered clearly was waking up with a surge of heat in his limbs and strong urge to break something.

But that's all it was. A dream nothing more. So long as he kept his head down and did his job he would live on to have many more dreams in his alcohol infused slumbers.

He'd dreamed of flying, of the wind sweeping through his hair, and the sky spread out before him, orange and cotton-candy pink, spread wide open like a new book with an ending he hadn't read yet.

The part he liked most was that he was never alone in these dreams. Someone was with him, a friend, flying with him, but he never saw them. He just knew they had to be there for him to be flying at all. Other times, there was a third person, sitting behind him, their strong, slender arms wrapped around his chest. It never mattered where he was going, it never mattered where he'd been, all that mattered was he was up in the sky and he was free, and at the same time, never alone, and somehow he knew there was someplace to go back to when he was done, someplace that felt like home.

It was a nice dream, but the problem with dreams was that he always had to wake up, and that's what he did, started awake in his bed. What had woken him up was the loud pounding on his bedroom door.

"Harold! Wake up." His father's curt voice was on the other side. "Harold! Only lazy asses sleep like this in the middle of the day! Wake up!"

"I'm awake! I'm awake," Hiccup--no, Harold Stenson muttered, pushing himself up in his bed, and kicking the blanket off with his foot. Reaching down, his hand scrambled around on the floor for one of his stump socks, until he found one.

The pounding continued. "Harold!"

"I said I'm up, dad." He didn't raise his voice. It was never a good idea to raise his voice at his father. "Don't have my leg on. You know it takes a minute."

That got him a reprieve, at least.

"Well, hurry it up and come downstairs. We're going to the Barber. You need to cut your damn hair--it's gotten too long."

He heard his father leave, and put his hand up to his hair, which was slightly mussy, and not really that long. It was at that perfect length where it was long, but didn't look like an emo haircut or anything.

It didn't matter, though. It never mattered what he liked or what he wanted.

Sighing quietly, Hiccup strapped his prosthetic on.

Gonna be a bit late coming home tonight, 'licia.

Kang sighed and rested the back of his head on the wall behind him, flipping his phone open and shut. His parents had been on his case especially hard that day, going on about how he never had time for them anymore, and had stopped helping them out in the restaurant; he'd stayed after school a little bit later than usual to talk to one of the bullied students. Practically no one else on campus gave a shit about them, and it bothered him.

Parents? How late?

Yeah. Any later than ten, I'll call you.

The next message took a little longer. His wife knew how stressed he'd been lately, and understood that sometimes he needed a bit of time to himself.

Alright. Love you.

You too.

He put his phone away and took a deep breath before reaching for his jacket and telling his parents he was leaving for the night in Korean. Bundled up against the cold, he began the short walk to one of the local bars he was fond of. He used to love winter, but ever since that mortar in Iraq and the surgery, his knee had a tendency to ache in the cold weather. Kang gritted his teeth and pressed on, though, having grown used to the pain.

For a moment, Father Carl Thomas' mind drifted a bit. It happened a lot, lately. He was, after all, one of the oldest people in Fairplay.

But a moment passed, and his the sharpness of mind that characterized the aging priest returned to him.

Ah, that was right. He was in the middle of a sermon. Though he couldn't see them--shrapnel from the war so many years ago took his sight from him--he knew his congregation was giving him an odd look for having spaced out in that moment.

Ah well, no matter.

"The holidays are coming up soon," he said as he resumed speaking. "And I hope, as tired a sentiment as it may sound, that you remember the true meaning behind Christ's birth. In this age where the idea of 'self first, others second' reigns highly in people's mind, it's become difficult to see the teachings of our Lord. To love your neighbor, and respect your fellow man. To love the sinner but revile the sin."

"I hate to say it, but you don't see much of any of that these days. No one takes the time to be decent to one another, to provide for those in greater need. Of course, during the Christmas season, we buy each other material goods, and feel a bit better about ourselves."

"But that alone isn't what He would have wanted. Materialism? That isn't His plan. If you want to feel better about yourself, go out and really help someone. Give to the homeless, help someone less fortunate. Just do something to actually make the world a better place. That is what our Lord would want."

After his speech was over, he began to feel weak again. He decided this was as good a place as any to end mass.

"Go in peace to love and serve the Lord," he said, more out of habit now than actual meaning. It wasn't like anyone here would actually listen to what he was saying.

As usual, he stood at the door as his congregation left. As they made their way out, he could hear some of them speaking about him.

"Who does he think he is, talking to us like that?" one whispered. "Old freak," said another.

His heart sank. Even after all of these years, his words couldn't reach these people. They only came because they fear hell more than they believe in God.

Once more, he felt like nothing more than a useless old man.

"Pass it, pass it!"

Ed received the basketball as he wheeled circles around his opponents, sweat-matted jocks playing through the lunch break. This was the life, no distractions, no weird dreams, no terrifying pus oozing sin against God: just him and his basketball.

Firing a shot like a cannon, it hit nothing but net. "Whoo!"

"Lightning Elric strikes again," remarked one of his classmates, someone who he couldn't, for the life of him, remember his name right now.

Ed smirked as he shrugged. "I'm just good at what I do." And with that, he rolled to the side and picked up his drink, taking a long sip of it.

Yeah, no weird dreams.

As soon as the school bell rang, he could be seen rushing out of his classroom, pulling a stack of reusable grocery bags out of his backpack, and setting to work cleaning up all the garbage along the street.

He stepped dutifully out of the way of cars trying to park in the gutter, waving hello to the drivers before picking up the crushed beverage cups and crumpled hamburger wrappers from the shadows of the vehicles. He pulled toilet paper out of a tree (with help from a nearby newspaper dispenser) and carefully separated the recyclables into their own separate bags. Two hours later, he'd made it all the way down the street, just in time to watch a garbage truck bouncing through a rain gutter, stray bits of litter tumbling out of the back and all over the street again.

Junior's eyes glazed over as he read the familiar old logo on the side of the truck-- KING WASTE DISPOSAL AND RECYCLING.

"Just you wait, Papa. I'll make you proud someday!"

Then he went back to picking up trash.

If he was old enough to be this morbidly depressed, Jamie thought, he ought to be old enough to get drunk in order to forget it.

The law did not share his sentiments, however, so since the option of hard liquor was closed to him, he'd found less orthodox means of self-medication. Such as sitting in an abandoned car after school, letting his mind wander as he breathed in the scents of musty decay and worn vinyl and cigarette smoke.

The latter was entirely his doing; he hadn't been smoking long enough for the odor to permeate his clothes, but he'd lit up in the car enough for there to be a faint but appreciable scent in its decrepit confines. He'd planned on smoking now, in fact, but at present he was simply sitting there with the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, thumb idly flicking the wheel of the plastic lighter in his hand.

He'd hidden this new habit from his dad, though how long it would remain a secret was anyone's guess. Those things'll give you cancer, he'd say with that sad, tired smile that he'd had as long as Jamie could remember. That's not how you wanna go, is it?

Huh. A creeping black sickness that ate you alive, a little more each day, until you were a shrivelled-up husk waiting for death? Sounded a lot like life in Fairplay, actually. Jamie's hatred for this town had been much more intense, once, a driving force that had propelled him to find some means of escape - college, work, the army - but all these avenues had, one way or another, been closed off to him, leaving him to drown in the apathy that choked the entire town. It would have infuriated him if impotent rage hadn't required more energy than he had to give.

All he could do anymore - aside from drifting through classes that offered no challenge but had frowned so fiercely on his attempts to wrest any sort of satisfaction out of them that he'd finally given up trying - was sit in this car, wondering where it'd come from, who'd left it here, why they'd abandoned it. He felt a connection with the thing that he couldn't explain, as though they were kindred spirits; if the car were alive Jamie was sure it would rather have been racing down the highway, putting as much distance between itself and Fairplay as it possibly could.

He stared dully out the driver's side window at the train tracks a hundred yards away, eyes dulling. And then refocusing, sharply - for a split second he could have sworn his reflection in the foggy glass had been surrounded by panels of multicolored lights, that the sound of his own breathing had been joined by the faint hum of electronics, that the scent of the car had shifted to something new and warm and alive.

He blinked, and it was all gone. There was nothing but a depressed teenager sitting in a rusting blue car in an empty lot overgrown with weeds.

Jamie pinched the bridge of his nose, gave the lighter a more purposeful flick, and lifted the flame to the cigarette clenched in his teeth.

McCrimmon Music was a tiny little shop, tucked in so that you would almost miss it if you walked on by. Only the large harp on the sign outside saved it from being swallowed up entirely by the other shops on Main Street.

Inside, it was a fairly cozy little place, with various instruments hung up for display on the walls and a small area for people to sit and try them out. Jamie worked here with his father, Donald. Well...at least he did when Donald actually bothered to show his face in the main part of the store. Most of the time, his father stayed in the back room, letting Jamie deal with the day to day running of the shop.

This, unfortunately, included trying to handle the books and try and juggle things to keep the bills paid. It seemed every day it was getting harder and harder to do that, and Jamie found himself staring down at a stack of paperwork that all seemed to say the same thing. Past due. Remit payment immediately. Final Warning.

Maybe today would be one of the okay days, though. One where he could sell something, and use the money to stretch things out just a little longer. It would all depend on who happened to wander by.

Location: Somewhere in the town

Location: Takamachi Family Bakery / Main Street

Location: Somewhere in the residential area

Location: Lunch Room / Fairplay High School

Home - At each character's home

Main Street - Dae Soung Shik Dang/local bar

Location: Church of St. Michael