milliways_bar

Entry tags:

EP

Days in Castle Oblivion have a tendency toward the featureless. Vexen's view rarely changes; if he emerges from the stark and sterile world of his laboratory, it is to wander the stark and sterile halls of the upper levels, or at other times the darker but similarly repetitive - if convoluted - hallways of the basements. The neophytes rarely visit the realm that the Chilly Academic calls his domain, and he does his best to avoid theirs when at all possible.

Mixing the neophytes with the founding members of Organization XIII has been, in Vexen's experience, not dissimilar to dropping a chunk of pure caesium into a bowl of water with the lights off.

But aside from the occasional explosion, run-ins with the neophytes, and visits from his Superior, Vexen's non-existence is relatively quite and undisturbed. He's left to his own devices and spends his days in blessed quiet and solitude.

It's no wonder that when he steps into the bar, he looks... surprised, to say the least. It's crowded, it's far darker than he's used to, it's loud, and it's warm. All things that are immediate strikes against the place in the Academic's book. But in the past decade, he's seen stranger things and been to far more unusual worlds.

Which means that he's pulled his mantle of unflappability back around him within short order as he presses further into this strange new 'world', or whatever it is.

A scientist must never turn away from an opportunity for the acquisition of new knowledge.

[OOC: Mun has to leave at 12:30AM MST, but feel free to tag and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. X3)

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Mia was actually much the same when she was younger: naive, but also sweet and good-natured, if obsessed with her work. Only the "naive" and the "obsessed with her work" flicker now and then.

Mia has endured much from and for her friends. And she's eager to see what Vexen will be like when he has his heart, for she knows that Xaldin was not the same as Dilan when he received his heart, so she's not assuming anything.

Well, except correctly assuming that this is Vexen.

"If I have this right, and correct me if I don't, then this place is most likely a multiverse because there are some single collective universal entities that have different underlying principles than others. So I know for certain, the underlying principles you're talking about have to do with physical and magical laws, right? The restrictions of a world such as gravity and magic limitations?"

She brings her hands together, shaping and folding something in her fingers that Vexen has likely already figured out before she reveals it to be a flower shaped from ice.

"Like the rules that say I can't keep this up forever without some rest, a starlight, or an ether."

Even was sweet, but not as consistently as people tended to believe. He had been just as capable of experiencing negative emotions, and he did on a fairly routine basis; he simply had developed the habit of keeping them to himself out of courtesy and a sense that they were his own responsibility, not burdens to make others shoulder. And while Vexen may not ever be exactly like Even again – he may be fortunate enough to obtain a heart someday, but it won’t be the one that Even had lost when the Darkness consumed him – he won’t have lost all of that sweetness.

And certainly not all of that naivety. Even and Vexen are both intelligent, but they are also very young by the standards of their own people, and have not fully developed wisdom to guide that knowledge and, at least in Even’s case, temper emotional responses.

‘Physical laws in particular,’ Vexen replies. ‘Even within my own worlds, where things like magic have the potential for practical application universally, it may not be a natural part of life for one world or one race, or the dynamic of it will vary.’ Magic is probably something waved off as superstitious nonsense by most inhabitants of Big Island, for example, while Atlanteans draw power from the Heart to perform feats of healing and attribute their abilities to gifts from the gods and Kings of old.

‘Consider as well, whether or not those here come from places where constants such as gravity do not exist, meaning that in their universe an object with mass does not possess the inherent property of attracting other objects with mass to it, regardless of the scale, or whether they have simply developed the ability ot compensate for it. I have the capacity for levitation, but that does not mean that gravity is a law that can be broken. Merely overcome for short periods of time, during which constant struggle against it is necessary.’

Vexen watches Mia fold the flower; as soon as she begins he’s well aware of what it’s made from. He is, after all, a natural Ice elemental, not simply one who wields the element’s power electively. When she is finished, he looks at the flower before brushing his fingertips over the tabletop. Jagged, lethal-looking spires of ice – small ones, naturally, given their location and the fact that the Academic isn’t actively trying to exterminate anyone – suddenly erupt upward from the smooth surface.

Except where the plate of cookies is, of course. Even had possessed an incurable sweet tooth.

‘Perhaps. But magic operates on a different level than things such as gravity. I have read of societies where more than one form of magic may exist in the same place, with the choice of which to learn being left to the individual. It may also have much to do with an individual’s race or capacity for magic. You require rest, but I am not bound by such considerations. Not because of where I come from, certainly those from other worlds need it, but because of what I am. I am fully capable of maintaining this for as long as I choose, unless a greater opposing force acts against me. An equal force would require active expenditure of energy on my part, but maintainence would not be impossible.’

Fire.

"That does make sense. Magic is a fickle thing while physical laws are more solid in comparison. As far as what you can do compared to what I can do and what I can do compared to other mages, well, a lot of things come into play. I can do this without focus items like magic wands and the idea has come about that this requires more concentration. World makes a difference, too, as my Earthling husband excels in wandless magic on Lunar but finds it a struggle in his old home."

She sets the ice flower down with the spires, letting it spread and bloom amongst them.

"And we are both quite different. I can regulate things in ways you can't, but, while ice is mine, it can still hurt me if it's not my own. In a way, you are my teacher when it comes to ice, if you don't mind the mantle."

She gives him a little smile.

"You are Vexen, aren't you? Xaldin has told me about you."

‘Indeed. Much magic where I am from must be learned, one spell or branch at a time. And further, one must possess the magical power and strength to use it; once that is depleted, it must be rebuilt before the person can use any magic again.’ He gives an elegant shrug. ‘I do not need any amplifiers or focusing tools to do this, nor do I deplete any magic reserves. But if I elected to learn another form of magic, then I would need to expend magical energy.’

He’s toyed with the idea of learning something else, if only to see what his potential for it might be. But with a full elemental range within the Organization, and the fact that Vexen can not only call Ice but heal and create replicas, he can also think of more worthwhile uses of his time and energy. He watches as the delicate ice flowers bloom amongst the harsher spires; he, too, has the capacity to create beauty, but it rarely has any purpose in situations where his abilities are necessary.

‘All ice is mine,’ he says simply, and at the words both forms on the table disintegrate into a cloud of tiny, glittering, crystalline fragments. They settle and then disappear, leaving no sign that they were ever there, save for the faint chill and crisp smell of snow. But those tend to follow the Academic everywhere. ‘It heals, it does not hurt.’ A small, tight smile stretches his lips; he is not as accustomed to the expression as he once was. ‘And I have been called worse things than “teacher”.’

The mention of his immediate superior, along with his own name, brings a momentary flash of surprise to the Scholar’s face. He is not the only one, then; if Xaldin is here then Xigbar cannot be far behind, which means that there are very probably other members of the Organization who have found their way to this place. Which ones, it remains to be seen.

‘Yes, I am,’ he says slowly and carefully, unsure what else Xaldin may have said.

Mia giggles a little.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were worried. Xaldin has said nothing but kind things about you. And it's you and Xigbar that he talks about the most, or at least it was the last time we spoke."

She breathes in the scent of the snow.

"Memories..." she murmurs before taking another cookie. "I'll never forget how I love ice."

She and Draco had an ice magic competition when they first met.

"Do you have the same goal as the others?"

‘I do not have the capacity,’ Vexen replies promptly. Genuine worry, after all, implies emotional attachment. ‘Nor does Xaldin have the capacity for kindness.’

At least, not the Xaldin that he remembers, with a chest as empty as his own. He doesn’t even want to contemplate the man talking about Xigbar; Dilan had hardly seemed to shut up about Braig, oblivious to Even’s distaste for the subject. That had been the blessing of being sent to Castle Oblivion, upon the completion of his role in Number XIII’s training. It had no longer been a constant thing, the suppression of remembered jealousy over those that should never want for companionship.

He may be the lowest of the Castle’s inhabitants in spite of having the highest number (he wonders when Xemnas forgot that his ‘missions’ do not carry the same capacity for routine success as those assigned to the others), he might chafe under Zexion’s micromanagement of every little thing that goes on and bristle at the utter disdain of the neophytes who cannot even begin to appreciate the complexity of his work, but at least he can work without the distraction of memories. It is an almost perfect solitude.

‘Memories,’ he adds flatly, ‘are something I find to be more trouble than they are worth, ninety-nine percent of the time.’ They drive him to regain completion, and that is their sole useful purpose. Once a source of limitless fascination, they are now an oppressive weight but, at the same time, all he has to cling to. The only things that can make him feel just a little bit closer to human.

‘As for my goals, you will have to tell me what aim the others possess, before I may tell you whether or not mine is in accord.’ There is, after all, the greater goal, but there are also personal goals of advancement, held by those who have different views on how the Organization should run and progress, and who would gladly advance over the bodies of their superiors.

"Which is why I said, 'If I didn't know better.' I forget sometimes in the middle of conversation, but I do know better."

Her smile is sadder when she brings this up. It can pain her sometimes to see those without. And it gets worse when Xaldin is mentioned.

"He didn't..." she corrects quietly.

"Memories...are not something my family takes lightly," she says. "It's amazing, what a person becomes without them."

But she is not here to talk too much of her family, as he didn't ask about that.

"All that I've met have had the goal of obtaining hearts. And I've helped all that I've met as much as I can."

She points to her chest.

"My heart is part of the blueprints for the first one successfully crafted."

Vexen might not want to hear who got that heart, or why Mia was an excellent candidate for it.

It is apparent that Vexen cannot quite believe Mia, when she says that the Nobodies she has met here have all found hearts. It would probably be best that she does not spent too much effort trying to convince him of the truth of it; Vexen has never been one to simply assume that because someone says something it is true. He needs to receive satisfactory proof, placed before him such that he cannot deny its reality.

And he probably doesn’t want to hear, no. There are a few advantages to not having a heart. One is being unable to experience any pain but the physical. That doesn’t mean he has any particular desire to have his thoughts disrupted by certain information. The mere potential that those who he once called friend and comrade have left him behind for whatever reason, be it his distance from them or his disgrace within the order, is unsettling enough. The neophytes he can understand, there is nothing lost between Vexen and them, but he had thought that those who began this together would also end it together.

‘Then you already know my purpose.’

And the fact that he has failed in it, thus far.

"Yes."

Really, it hurts Mia to see the lack of emotion in a case like this.

"I will help you," she offers. "There's not much I can do, and I won't do anything that would put my child at risk, but I want to help. I can at least shield with my ice."

She remembers well from the first heart ceremony that such a shield can be crucial. She kept it up for six hours and was thoroughly exhausted afterward.

Then it will probably come as an even greater sadness to her that his first request after fulfilling that goal will probably be for the heart to be taken back. Even had been a man of deep and powerful emotions, the good and the bad, even if it was generally only the good ones that were put on public display. Having all of those suddenly crash down on him after so long will be a profound shock on his mind, to say the very least.

‘What makes you believe that I cannot do this myself, and that I will require assistance of any sort from you? You assume much about me.’

Pride demands that he ask that; it’s not that he’s trying to be insulting. For the past ten years, the only one he’s been able to count on has been himself, though that has led him nowhere but downward. But at least it has been consistent, a comforting pattern of regularity. He probably wouldn’t know what to do anymore, if met with complete success.

More than the others, Vexen has a need to prove his own worth and ability, as much as he has a need to be complete again. His dignity may be a battered shield, but this point, but it has yet to crack enough that he’ll ask a complete stranger for help. Someone will either have to break it, or convince him to put it aside for long enough for something to be done.

Mia's seen several different reactions to getting hearts back. Most of them involve hugging, though not always for the same reasons. She remembers comforting Demyx after he had gotten his heart, holding him as he cried.

This is why Xaldin is working on a place for those like Vexen, who won't know what to do with themselves when they do have their hearts back.

"I don't doubt that you can do it on your own if you wish," she says. "You're clearly intelligent and powerful. I'm offering my help because I want to help, not because I think you'll need it."

For Vexen, it will probably involve pleading to undo whatever had just been done, followed by lashing out at anyone who gets too close, at least until he's exhausted.

Even then, he'd probably be hard-pressed to accept any charity from Xaldin. Dilan had always been especially protective of Even, and while it had been welcome sometimes, at others it had been oppressive and smothering. The last thing he'll want is to be locked up somewhere for his own good; the burden of 'you don't know what to do with yourself' can be as good as shackles and a barred door. It's another layer of isolation.

The Academic gives a quiet grunt, indication that while he's not particularly impressed with Mia's backpedaling, he's willing to let it go for the time being. Asking him to forget it would be too much.

What backpedaling?

Mia does think Vexen is intelligent and powerful. He's already talked about concepts that are, for the most part, over her head and he's dispelled her magic with his own. If that's not proof enough, she's not sure what is.

And offering to help someone is not a definite sign of thinking one is incapable of doing it alone. Mia also offers to help Draco with his shop or his cooking, even though he's better than her with both.

But we're protesting too much. It is what it is. And in any case, Mia's not offended by the grunt.

"Whatever you believe my offer to be, it's your choice whether to take it or not. If you say no, I won't take the offer back, but I'll not force my help upon you when it isn't wanted."

She takes another cookie.

"I just like to do what I can for those I care for and those I wish to befriend."

As far as Vexen is concerned, yes. It is backpedaling. Telepathy is not one of his abilities, after all, and things such as empathy, the capacity to feel and understand any respect and admiration that Mia might experience for him, are completely out of his grasp with things being as they are. He only knows that, to his way of thinking, it was implied that he needed help. When that viewpoint was challenged, a less offensive alternative was hastily offered. A classic reversal of opinion.

Of course, she cannot be expected to understand. Favours are not offered freely to the Academic; for years now he has seen them only as an unstable system of barter. To accept help is to make yourself open to compensating your benefactor, often without warning or any say as to whether you’re willing to undertake what they ask of you. Nobodies do not offer to help out of kindness. They offer to help because they see an opportunity for personal advancement or profit. Vexen hasn’t offered to help Kida develop an agricultural plan for Atlantis because he cares. He can’t right now, even though she’s his princess and was Even’s closest friend. It’s because he hopes that doing so will make things easier for him later on.

‘And why should you wish to befriend me?’

That, at least, is a question borne of geuine confusion. He was an exile in his last life, and branded with disgrace in his current non-existence. There is little, if anything, for Mia to gain by associating with him. Vexen may look human, but he isn’t, and cannot be expected to display the same understanding of genuine friendship, or care, or concern, things he hasn’t experienced for a decade.

To a Nobody like Vexen, there are no friendships or friends. Only alliances and allies, and conversely enemies. He cannot decide which Mia might be. She has not acted as an enemy might, but alliances are usually formed only when both parties have something to gain, but neither has the strength to obtain it alone. Right now, it looks like he would be coming out on top.

It would seem less suspicious, were he being asked for something in return.

"Do I need a reason?" she asks with a shrug. "I can try to come up with one, but I can't guarantee it will be any good. When Xaldin asked me a similar question not long after we had first met, I told him it was because he calls me 'babe'."

But there was more confusion to Xaldin's question than Vexen's, as he was aware that Mia is friends with Axel at the time. Xaldin had already informed her that he was going to have nothing to do with the traitor. Somehow, this arrangement has worked out well and Xaldin is quite sweet to her now. To the point of giving her hugs and kisses and offering to babysit Mia's son.

"Friendship is unconditional, a gift to be given."

The perplexed look on Vexen’s face suggests that he himself has never been called ‘babe’, or called anybody that, and doesn’t understand why it should be the cornerstone of a friendship. Of course, the closest thing he’s ever had to a relationship where such a term would have meaning has been with a replica of himself, and that’s naturally never been anything but physical. It’s practicality, not narcissism.

He also doesn’t know that Mia is friends with Axel, or even that Axel has found his way here. But once he does learn, he certainly won’t be having anything to do with the man – not only a traitor, but the one who will execute him if he isn’t careful – and will be far less willing to be open with Mia. Xaldin may have the freedom to do so, but for Vexen, she might as well be Axel’s agent.

Just one more thing for the Lancer to outstrip the Academic in, really, though even Vexen knows that it’s not intentional or meant with any maliciousness. That was what had allowed Even to still care unconditionally for Dilan in spite of everything, no matter how slighted, jealous, alone, and inconsequential he felt.

‘From what I understand of the idea, it is expected that the receiving party will reciprocate. I cannot do that,’ he says. Vexen is not comfortable with the idea of gifts right now. To give without the expectation of something in return is a very human idea, and it’s going to take time and repetitive exposure for the Scholar to really begin warming to the idea, as it were.

‘It is expected to be a road that goes both ways, as they say.’

Yeah, there are a few modern colloquialisms and turns of phrase that he never managed to get the hang of.

Mia is honestly not sure how she feels about Axel right now, as it really wasn't all that long ago that she learned of what he did. She certainly won't be happy if the event repeats with this Vexen, that's for sure. But she was friends with Axel with that already in his past. She didn't ask and he didn't tell her; she learned instead from Xaldin.

Mia, however, has an amazing capacity to forgive, even though she isn't the person to properly give it in this case.

"That doesn't seem fair, asking something from you that you can't give me. And if you could, who knows if you would want to?"

She puts her chin in her hand.

"Would you prefer it if I desired something in return?"

Vexen had felt uneasy about him from the start. But his resolve to get a heart will only be strengthened when he learns from Zexion and Xaldin what is going to happen, if he does not take action to prevent it.

He certainly will not be forgiving Axel, though, once he has the capacity to do so. Even if he manages to avoid that fate, the intent will have been enough. He's also bound to be rather insulted and upset that no one who claimed to have cared for his Somebody bothered to avenge his extermination, in their timeline.

'It would make things... less complicated,' he admits after a moment of silence. 'I prefer to pay my debts at the outset, rather than have them collected later.'

"But you don't owe me anything yet. And I don't know what I want."

After all, he hasn't taken up any of her offers yet.

But there are things Mia wants, but she doesn't think they count because those are related to her inevitable motherhood. She's not going to ask someone she just met to buy her a crib or a glider. The very nerve!

"If you think, for whatever reason, that you will be in my debt, simply give me what you think is fair to give me."

But she has offered friendship. And as difficult as it is for Vexen to accept anything, he also knows that it is considered the height of rudeness to refuse such things. It is quite a dilemma, given that he prides himself on maintaining a level of public decorum and politeness where the neophytes seem to fail on a routine basis.

'I do not know what is considered appropriate, in your culture,' he says a bit uncertainly. 'It is not my wish to offer something that would offend.' Were they both Atlanteans, he might extend an invitation to dinner, or offer her fish that he'd caught or a storage container that he had made. Life had been far simpler there. But he knows that in other cultures, including the one he'd adapted to living in before he made his way to Radiant Garden, such things would be considered inappropriate. Munny might be insulting, and in any case he's not certain whether she would be able to use it. But aside from that and his books and laboratory equipment, he doesn't have much that he can call his own to give.

He'd probably be relieved if she asked for a crib or a glider. At least those are things that he can construct with what he has at his disposal. Even if all she wanted was to see was more of his ice magic, or have him answer questions about himself, that would be something to provide in exchange.

"That's hard to say," she replies. "In my culture, I'm the ruler of my city-state. A queen, as my husband romantically puts it. Pretty much everything I need or want is provided for me."

So the only reason she wants a crib and a glider is because she and Draco haven't picked them up yet, essentially. The Magic Guild would be more than happy to get them for her.

"The only things that would offend me are fairies since they are taboo to capture and roast ant since I can't stand eating it."

And while Mia is the curious sort, she doesn't ask questions all the time when she meets a new person. Sometimes it's easier for them to tell her in their own time.

She'd like to think, if and when Vexen gets his heart, that he'll want to tell her.

'Then I have already been disrespectful, Majesty. I apologise.' Even may have been nobility where he was born, but he wasn't royalty, even if he was good friends with the royal heir. Vexen's display of respect toward his own superiors and insistence upon receiving the same from his inferiors is a holdover from those days. And the answers he gives, whether sooner or in time, if he regains his lost humanity, will depend on how comfortable he becomes around her.

And the whole Axel issue.

But it's not long before his curiosity gets the better of him, because he can't help asking, 'Are ants unusually large, where you come from?'

The biggest things in Atlantis had been the lava whales, but no one would ever have imagined trying to eat one.

"No," she says when he apologizes, holding up a hand. "Please, don't. In fact, I know what I want from you now. I don't want you to call me Majesty. Please, call me by Mia. I like it when I'm Mia."

Mia has been Majesty Mia for as long as she can remember. She didn't really know a lot of people who just called her Mia until she was sixteen. She also didn't really have a lot of friends until she was sixteen.

As far as the Axel issue goes, Mia does what she can to minimize it when she's with those that she knows will be offended. Other than that, she'll probably try to handle it the way she handled her husband and her brother, who used to utterly despise each other.

"No, it's just a difference in dialect. Roast ant the common name in Katarina for roast antlion. The antlions at home come up to-"

As she's gesturing, her holds her hand to her stomach, which briefly surprises her since she simply did it without thinking.

"-my waist when I am standing and they are on all sixes."

It is a small request, but it seems to satisfy Vexen's need to exchange favours. Certainly it's a peculiar one - though at least it's not like Kida back when they were kids, telling him to use her nickname in front of both their fathers - but one that is well within his abilities and willingness to grant. And once granted, the exchange is complete; neither party can demand more, or claim that it was uneven.

'If that is what you want, then I will do as you ask.'

There's a comical look of half-disgust, half-surprise on Vexen's face when Mia explains that she was talking about antlions. That's somehow even worse; Atlanteans aren't even part time insectivores, but Vexen has seen enough small antlions to know that he wouldn't even want to entertain the idea of eating one, especially not one that came up to his waist. Or anyone else's, for that matter.

'We did not eat insects, unless the fish had gotten them first. The most prevalent sort were our guardians, in any case.' Literal fireflies.

"Thank you. I appreciate that a lot, Vexen."

More than many know, otherwise the people at home would stop as well.

"I've eaten roast ant in survival situations, but I don't care for it. But a number of women at home think that roast ant is something I need to eat as long as I'm with child. I'd rather have grog loaf or fresh fish from Lann."

Oh, now she's smiling as she's imagining those dishes.

"I think I'm the only person here who orders the grog loaf, but most of my friends agree that fish from Lann is divine."

They'll have to have fish together someday so they can compare and contrast.

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