kingdoms_of_auradon | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Open/locked?: Open!
Who: Vexen/Even/Whatever nickname you give him
What: A new arrival!
Warnings: Copious amounts of sass and sarcasm? Nothing serious to start with, will tag individual threads if the Traumatic Backstory comes up.
It's a lovely, frost-trimmed morning in Auradon, blades of glass glittering in the sunlight, and...a dismayed looking scientist staring at a castle that very definitely isn't the one he lives in? There's no shock or confusion on his face as he takes in his decidedly unfamiliar surroundings, but just a tired sense of annoyance-tinged dread.

"Oh, Darkness take me, not again..."

Darkness take him home, he means. Whatever this is, he doesn't have time for it! An aura of inky purple-black rises from the ground to envelop him...and deposit him a mere ten feet away. That's obviously not where he meant for it to take him, as he scowls and tries again, this time stepping out of a darkened portal on a nearby wall. Increasingly frustrated, he digs a crown-themed smartphone from a pocket and checks the screen, before shooting it a glare that would be able to peel paint even if his eyes weren't an uncannily vibrant, acidic-looking green.

"What..." It comes out a tired sounding mutter, as he pinches the bridge of his nose with his free hand. "Is the point of a phone that functions across worlds if the signal cannot reach those worlds I must actually call for assistance from?"

Alright, worlds so utterly cut off from the rest that even the Darkness can't reach out from it are most certainly outside the scope of what the designers had in mind, but the fact remains, his phone is useless. So he supposes...all that's left is to try to learn what he can about where he is. And that means recon.

While he's not making active effort to go unseen, he doubts he'll have any reason to need to operate in secrecy, he still isn't quite in the habit of simply approaching people and asking them to explain things to him. He still has some pride left, after all, and it demands that he at least make some notes of his own, first. So, if someone didn't catch him complaining to himself, they might instead spot the scientist simply observing, with an expression of curiosity mixed with concern. It doesn't, after all, take him look to note that the area is oddly deserted, even for what must be the fringes of winter.

He's going to try not to think about what that reminds him of. If the corridors can't reach this place, after all, then neither can they.

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Well...he wasn't sure if that was coincidence, or destiny. He chuckled, and instead of a verbal answer, simply unclipped a Fire Chain from his belt. Scratches and scuffs showed that he had worn it through some violent ordeals, of the sort the scientist preferred to avoid whenever practical.

"Have we not learned by now never to presume the odds are as they seem? It's no wonder your debt to Luxord rivals Dilan's."

"Hey, I'll have you know I paid him off, so we're even now," he said. What he would not have Vexen know was how many extra Heartless he had to clobber and random treasure chests he had to raid to get enough munny to do so. "And I learned my lesson, which is more than can be said for Dilan." The lesson being 'don't play poker with Luxord'.

Lea grinned though. "Anyway, good to see you again, Vexen," he said. "I take it you just got here and are wondering where 'here' is?"

A lesson Vexen never had to learn. Partially because he'd been too devoted to his work to spare time for Luxord's frivolities, but he'd also been quick to pick up on the gambler's subtle calculating streak. The odds he offered were never as simple as they seemed.

"Dilan's competitive streak has often clouded his judgment that way. I once even had to scold him for attempting to leave his post to follow a Keyblade wielder in pursuit of an Unversed."

Okay, so Dilan probably didn't have keen enough magical senses to be able to 'see' a stowed Keyblade, but Ventus had most assuredly not looked like he was in over his head at the time.

"But, in this case, your presumption is not ill founded. And it is good to see you as well, provided I shan't have to suffer through yet more apologies for something I have already forgiven."

"Ventus, I'm guessing?", Lea said. Vexen hadn't mentioned meeting Aqua or Terra back then, after all, and both of them had been basically adults at the time. Not someone Dilan would likely feel the need to charge off and rescue. "To be fair to him, Ventus was a kid, and he had no way of knowing he was tougher than most adults. I know I sure didn't." And had thoroughly gotten his butt kicked because of it.

"As for where we are, this is Auradon. More specifically, we're on the grounds of Auradon Prep, high school for the kids of the kingdom's elites. The people who designed the place were not shy in the slightest about going 'hi, look how much richer and better than you we are', but the few locals who are actually still around here are alright."

"We actually set up a little information booth for new arrivals in the school lobby." He gestured for Vexen to follow him. "C'mon. I'll show you."

"Indeed, and Ventus most certainly did not have the air of an ordinary, lost child about him. To say nothing of how easily a Keyblade can be sensed, even whilst stored. One look at the boy was all it took for me to recognize his power, and Dilan was far from incapable with magic."

But, perhaps, less prone to examining everything around him than Even had always been. He shrugged and fell into step alongside Lea, with a distasteful glance at their surroundings.

"More to the present point, I see we have yet more proof that all worlds harbor bastions of poor taste."

"Well, I mean, even a really fancy high school is still a school," Lea said with a shrug. "And far as I know, schools don't start to really worry about looking sophisticated until you get to the college level. But at least it looks fairly normal now instead of almost creepily perfect like it was when I first got here. I'm talking home and garden magazine photoshoot levels of perfect here. Like, not even a stray leaf on any of the paths or anything; that level of perfect. I kept half expecting someone to yell at me for moving the books in the library because they'd just gotten them how they wanted and I was ruining their picture or something."

He wrinkled his nose at that description, even as he cast a glance around the lawn. It was beautiful at the moment, at least to him, and he couldn't imagine why anyone would think it needed to be tidier. Not that he was prone to caring about such things, as he was sure Ienzo would attest to at length, but this honestly reminded him of Radiant Garden at its prime.

"Even Dilan has never been that particular about the gardens...and I doubt I could have stood it, if he was. As for the bookshelves...books exist to be read, and the idea of arranging them so carefully as to seem like a display seems simply absurd."

"Yeah, the whole thing just felt... well it felt a little bit fake, honestly," he said. "Like it was a part of a theme park or something instead a place where people actually lived. It probably wouldn't have been as weird if there were more people around, but as it was..."

He sighed, then continued a bit more seriously. "...I also think it might have reminded me a bit too much of both Castle Oblivion and The Castle That Never Was. Not appearance wise, obviously, just the general vibe of the place. It all just.... felt a little too hollow. It's a lot better now."

"Even now, I admit the sparse habitation is...unnerving. I am not surprised it doesn't come readily to your mind, given your youth at the time, but the appearance of abrupt abandonment reminds me far too much of Radiant Garden by the time that witch ran us out."

The epithet comes with a distinctly displeased curl of his lip, a decade old grudge that had managed to fester even when he barely had enough of a heart to hold it. But even more than the anger, is the sense of shame and regret. The emptiness reminds him not just of loss, but of his own sins.

"Structures and plant life, obviously, held no interest for either the Heartless or we who were studying them, and so much of it was still intact until she chose to remodel."

"Yeah thankfully there's nothing sinister behind what happened to the population here," he said. "Not that that makes it any less of a problem to fix though. In fact, two attempts to fix it clashing are why we're here instead of the people who're supposed to be here."

He'd wondered why everything had been something of a wreck when people had returned to Radiant Garden. True, over a decade of neglect explained at least part of it, but not the outright destruction. "You can say her name you know," he said. "Not like she's gonna pop out of the bushes or something if you do."

"We cannot be sure of that!"

Unnerved as he is, it came out as a snap, though he quickly realized his mistake. He took a deep breath and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"I apologize. But the last time Xigbar said her name, she heard him from several worlds away. While it is true that this world appears to be inaccessible by the Corridors, whether or not she could reach it with a beacon of that sort is a theory I would rather not test. Besides which..."

His expression turned grim, lips set in a tight line.

"I am...concerned about the potential origin of something I have heard about on the Isle. Tangled thorn bushes that appear to be dead, yet remain durable, and are clearly of no mundane origin."

Lea was a little surprised by Vexen's reaction, but waved off the following apology. He shook his head however, at the rest. "I'm not going to give Malificent any more power than she already has by treating her like some kind of boogieman or tonberry," he said. "Is she a dangerous opponent? Sure. But so am I. So are you. So are like... half the people we know at this point. Her flair for the dramatic aside, she's a powerful sorceress, nothing more, nothing less."

"You're not wrong about the resemblance those thorns have to her MO though. I know for a fact that it is just a resemblance, but whatever did cause them probably took a cue from her signature tactic, given that she- among a lot of other villains- used to be imprisoned on the Isle. Well, this world's version of her was anyway."

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