Event || Once Upon A Dream

[eternitymods]

Who: All characters who signed-up!
When: May 31st - June 04th
Where: The Dream Width (+ Curti Center & Airships)
What: Event log for the Once Upon A Dream Event! Should your character have their own memory, start your own top-level with said memory. If not, then tag around in other characters's memories! Furthermore, feel free to use the Mingle threads at the Curti Center and in the Airships for non-memory related CR. Please refer to the OOC Post for details and plotting. Plot Memories and the second Airship Mingle will be unlocked on May 25th.
Warnings/Notes: Memories with specific warnings will be marked as such by their players.

Please use the following form for your memory's title line:
CHARACTER'S NAME | MEMORY TITLE | WARNINGS (IF ANY)
We will add links to your memories here as the event progresses!

Mingle: Curti Center | Airships #1 | Airships #2
Plot Memories: The Dream | The Nightmare | The Premonition
Holographic Messages

Adrien Agreste | Then and Now
Aqua | Thorny Pathway | cw: spoiler for kh 0.2
Castor | Lord of the Inferno | cw: fire, mind control
Ena | Zera Hamlet, Reprise | cw: mutilated corpses
Futaba Sakura | Early Days | cw: references to verbal abuse/neglect and auditory hallucinations
Ignis Scientia | For The Life of the Chosen | cw: spoilers, violence, death
Irhya Pendhula | The Parting Glass | cw: violence, amputation
Johnny D'Amico | United Earth Prisoner
Kanji Tatsumi | You're a BOY, you know! | cw: bullying, mild homophobia
Lelouch vi Britannia | Julius Kingsley
Monika | Just Monika | cw: spoilers, possible horror, possible deletion
Nanamo Ul Namo | A Good Memory
Noctis Lucis Caelum | Light of the Crystal | cw: chapter 13 spoilers
Okuyasu Nijimura | Lending a Hand | cw: blood/injuries
Prompto Argentum | I'm not one of your experiments! | cw: episode prompto spoilers
Selphie | The Answer | cw: gore/death
Takashi 'Shiro' Shirogane | The end of the beginning | cw: end of season 2 spoilers
Tidus | A Broken Dream | cw: death, bullying

Comments

[warpstriking]

The fact the memory changed as the attack was about to land should have told Shiro that some part of him heard him. Yet as they float there weightlessly, their voices don't so much resound audibly as they are heard in each other's heads. Both a blessing and a curse, as he briefly seems to stop shaking nearly as much. Just as their vision is overtaken by a scene they both knew: the two of them, staring up at a deactivated Black Lion.

It's only a flash, but it is there.

[spaceforged]

It brings a smile to his face. "So you can hear me." Good. Now that he thinks back Noctis had saved him when the memory shifted. It had been him right? "Thank you for saving me." He adds, just to cover his bases.

He tries to send an image back. The Black Lion floating in space before a ruined red planet and the view of within the cockpit clearing to reveal the sleek white and blue lines of a Lion Hangar.

"This space we're in isn't real." He follows and feeling weightless, he tries to turn and reach out to Noctis. "Memory."

[warpstriking]

Noctis looks to Shiro briefly, nodding solemnly before his gaze falls to the Ring. He wishes that it was anything but this place that he saw. His prison for the next who knows how long.

Deep down, he just wishes it was over already.

"Heard you from the start." He says, voice raspy even in this place. Who knew how long he was here in reality? Days? Weeks? Months? ...Years? "Lot less clear than in here."

There's not really much to stare at other than his own hands or Shiro, so he closes his eyes instead. "...That man. He's my uncle," he begins to explain, before suddenly the recollections start again. This time, though, there is an image of the Citadel's entrance. The four from earlier, younger by likely months—far less scarred physically and emotionally. Noctis stands with an elderly gentleman on the stairs leading to the entrance, his father, as the former king places a hand on Noct's shoulder—the very same Ring he now bore glimmering in the light of a midday sun on the hand that holds his walking cane.

It switches then to a meeting room of sorts,an even younger Noctis—somewhere in his teens—approaching a rapidly-aging Regis, his Shield standing guard beside him. Clarus shares a rare smile as Noctis' voice rings out, "Gladio, your dad... I'm grateful to him."

And lastly, it switches to a scene of Tenebrae set ablaze as the Empire attacks. An even younger Noctis—eight at the time—being carried by a much younger looking Regis past a screaming Ravus, yet the young prince only had eyes for the blond girl his dad was trying to lead away by the hand. A few years older, far more accepting of her fate as she lets go. 'Luna!'

Ignis, wishing him luck before they split up in a crowd, then turning to face him in a hotel room of sorts. Scarred. Blind.

"I've seen enough lives torn apart or stolen because of him. And just because it's a memory—"

—doesn't mean it's not real, is what he tries to say as he reaches out, too. When the memory resets and Noctis snaps a little as that very hand holds his father's sword again. No. Not again. He can't see this play out again from his own perspective—!

He's so upset that instead of simply fighting, he seems to almost glow with a white light as all of his ancestral weapons float about him. Using each one against a different daemon one-by-one. It's probably pretty terrifying, seeing what he's like in battle when unleashed. Yet he doesn't care to stop.

[spaceforged]

He had been about to answer when the memory shifts. It fills in pieces and gives him more reasons to feel that stab of determination to tear Noctis free of this world crafted from memory. If it were him having all these memories cobbled together and looping would drive him nuts. Then everything resets but this time he draws the bayard sword from the start.

He whips the sword and sends power screaming out just before all hell breaks loose. He stares in shock as the weapons tear into daemons and flow through the room with the precision of a swordsman's hand. Were he the sort to swear this would be the moment he'd breathe out a few words.

The level of responsibility for such power...power passed down from father to his first born on and on down a line that feels...ancient. The Uncle...betrayed and fallen. Shiro shakes his head and surges forward. He calls out. "Noctis! When I first came here your uncle interacted with me! He talked directly to me! We need to talk to him. See if he's the key to getting you out."

[warpstriking]

The weapons do not fade as he seems to short-range teleport every few steps, turn around, and slam a blade into the next. Over and over again as the others tell him to go it alone. Something inside him screams as the attacks grow ever stronger, eyes glowing just that little more.

That is, until he stops entirely. The thirteen weapons he'd collected brightly shining behind him in a white light before they shoot forth into the metal giant; or, more accurately, through them. He follows one into it, and then he disappears. Warping between weapon after weapon over and over again as each one strikes home. Until, at last, he hovers in midair with the Ultima Blade in his hand, gesturing for all the glaives to strike at once. Light forms in cracks on the ground where they strike beneath them, sings around his blade like fire, until he drops down and slams the blade through the daemon and into the ground.

The light erupts from the fissures, and quickly fades away as he dismisses the blade in his hands, shouting up at the ceiling as the giant and the daemons in close proximity fade in dark wisps of smoke. "Ardyn! I know you can see this!"

"Oh? So the boy believes himself a man simply because he's regained his borrowed toys?"

"That's not the point and you know it." Noctis seethes, but stands up straight despite phasing through attacks meant for him. He'll have to warp at some point to regain some energy, but the way he's phasing and blocking with his arsenal help somewhat. "You spoke with him. Speak to me."

Suddenly the storage hangar and his armiger fade from view, the Crystal glowing behind them. On the other end of the catwalk stands Ardyn, smiling that same, smug look in his eyes. "Did you enjoy seeing your dear friends the way you remember them?"

Noctis grits his teeth. Every fiber of his being is screaming to strike the bastard down where he stands, but he restrains himself.

Save the fact his eyes are about as crimson as Ardyn's hair.

[spaceforged]

The level of power coming from Noctis isn't the most worrying part of the whole situation. Noctis looks to be getting closer and closer to an enraged state. The moment he reaches it he'll be blinded by it. He doesn't know him well enough to snap him out of it.

Shiro transforms the bayard into a shield. It holds up to demonic assault a s the world fades out and fades back in. He lowers his weapon. Silver blue light washes over it shaping it into a sword over his right arm. He comes up to Noctis right side and touches his arm. "Easy. This is a memory and we need to talk to him to discern why you can't wake up."

He stares at the man unable to shake how he'd looked when blackness had oozed down his face. Shiro breathes in. "This world shaped from memory...What do you really represent in it? You're not in the next part. Yet you're conscious."

[warpstriking]

"Why, what awaits, of course." Ardyn's smug grin does not budge as he speaks, waving the arm with the black wing-like shield as though it were a dismissal. "After all, we are so very alike..."

Both were chosen, but one rejected and the other ordained. Noct's hands clench into fists. "I am nothing like you," he mutters darkly. "Unlike you, I still love our people. Knows what it's like... You are blinded by your own spite, a slave to the dark."

"And yet, it is you who are trapped." Ardyn points out, eyes glowing with malice despite his bored expression. "A prisoner of fate destined to die for the sake of thousands upon thousands... I wonder how many will be left by the time you are ready and- ah, but that would mean being capable of leaving, would it not? And you are so very trapped by more than the Draconian's game."

"Shut up!" Shiro may want to let go of his arm, so he doesn't get shocked. "Quit screwing with my head!"

...What was that little chirping noise that accompanied the groan from outside?

[spaceforged]

He narrows his eyes and takes a step forward. Shiro releases Noctis's arm as his voice cuts through the air with the ring of authority. "Alright, so you're just going to repeat something similar to last time. Good to know." His temper is set lower than his friend's but it's still there in his darkened eyes.

It would be a mistake to get close to someone that could stab him with their blades from a distance. Even with the bayard's protection.

He pauses, raising an eyebrow. "Did you hear that chirp?"

[warpstriking]

"That is up to Noct," he replies with a shrug. "After all, it is his-"

Noctis blinks, pulling out a phone from his pocket. Blinking at the screen a few times.

"What are you doing?" Ardyn inquires, but a tiny little growl and yip answer in response. A small fox...thing? appearing in front of the two of them, ruby lights forming around him as it yips again. "-'buncle?" Noctis' mouth opens slightly, but he looks at the phone screen again. Two more messages popping up on the screen.

I've got you, buddy!
Don't worry, Noct. You aren't alone.
You have friends here who will help where I can't.

"Carbuncle!" he cries out as the little devil charges and lunges at Ardyn's face, buying time for the Big Guy. It brings Noctis to his knees as he clutches his head with one hand, eyes glowing the same red-violet they always do when-

Little blue lights form in the air around them, separate from the light of the Crystal. Thunder resounds from outside, and with the speed of a lightning strike, a large staff with the head of a strange unicorn slams through the catwalk between Shiro and Ardyn. The resulting lightning storm seems to do nothing to either of them, but with a final chirp, the memories fade into space.

Let's play together again soon!

[spaceforged]

Things happen so fast Shiro barely has time to stuff his bayard back on his hip before it all goes to hell. He turns on the catwalk as something small appears. He puts it out of his head when Noctis sinks to his knees. He drops to his own, reaching out to brace him when...

there's really no way to describe it. One moment lights are rising around them like sparks. The next a staff so vast it could pin the Black Lion to the ground slams into the catwalk and cuts it half.

He breathes as they return to space, and is inwardly grateful for his armor. It will make what he has to do that much easier. He grabs for Noctis shoulders and shoves him back towards the ship in one fast motion.

He can feel the nebula forming already. He's worried what he'll see. What memory will rise up? But he still smiles. "Don't worry. Space pilot, remember?"

[warpstriking]

The moment they find themselves free of the nebula, he realizes the hand that held the phone now holds another, smaller item. Tiny and pale blue, red little crystal on its forehead.

"Carbuncle," he mutters quietly, but before he could bring it to his chest, he feels a pair of hands pushing him away. In an instant, he recalls what brought him into his memories in the first place.

Relief flashes in his eyes as Ignis opens his, smiling faintly. But, he knows it wouldn't work. That they could both die if they're exposed to the Dream Width too long without the protection of memories—

He'd pushed him to the safety of an airship, too. Told him he'd see him again soon... Panic sparks to life in his eyes as he sees the nebula reforming around his new friend, as he flails against the momentum to reach him. No... No!

"Damn, sonova-" He doesn't finish that thought, reaching out with his free hand as if to grab him from the nebula before it fully forms, but his fingers touch nothing but empty matter. Not again. Not again—! He can't see this again even if it's with someone he barely knows in comparison...!

His back soon hits the floor of the airlock on the airship. Noctis hisses, grimacing as he takes hold of the side as it automatically closes and begins to pressurize. "Shiro- Shiro!"