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

[topgun_textiles]

He wanted to leave, and keep running until he couldn't anymore. He couldn't go home and have his parents yell at him, and he couldn't go back to the classroom to deal with more of what was happening more and more every day. Maybe he could go to the river, wait things out, and then try going home before his folks called the cops-

His shirt stopped moving and his heart leaped into his throat. He turned and realized he hadn't snagged his shirt on something.

"Lemme go! He started it!" He balled his blood-dotted fists.

"I'll- I'll fight you, too! I'll fight the whole damn school!"

[studdedcouncilprez]

Makoto could understand this boy's anger and and confusion. In all honesty she had to keep her own emotions in check. Fortunately setting a good example for the boy was more important than letting out her own frustrations, so its not a hard task.

Instead she focused her efforts on the boy. First, he needs to calm down. "I don't want to fight you. I just want to help. Those children are being terrible to you."

[topgun_textiles]

"You're LYING!" He roared. But his breath hitched, high and panicky, as his eyes searched Makoto's face. There was no sign of recognition, just the tears welling in his eyes as frustration rolled off his shoulders.

"NOBODY helps! I've told everybody and they don't wanna do anything! They... they..." He hiccuped and grit his teeth.

"They call me a baby..."

[studdedcouncilprez]

Makoto's eyes drooped at the accusation. That... explained a lot. There was more to her recognition, though: doubt had also started to take hold. Was she going to be able to help Kanji? She wasn't the best at handling raw emotion and had to work hard to keep hers bottled in. Were she with the thieves now she would have let Ryuji or Ann to this task since they were more honest with themselves.

But that was not going to get them anywhere.

"And so you yell and you scream and you wonder why..." It was the only thing she could do, really. Reflect what he was feeling and see where this conversation could end up.

[topgun_textiles]

"It's all I can do...!" He fought to breathe normally, but the panic of what he'd done had finally caught up to him. As the tears streamed down his face, he clutched his chest. It was hard to breathe, but it was hard to stomach just how good it felt to hit him. He stopped. Hitting him made him stop.

"M-mom's gonna kill me... I can't go home. I can't go home!" The last part a sob, he put his face in his dirtied hands.

"I... I can't stay here. I have to leave. I need my bike. Then I'll go away." He was hyperventilating, stuttering his speech.

[studdedcouncilprez]

Okay... you can do this, Makoto. All you have to do is just keep him calm and try to prevent him from running off on his own. Though she wasn't sure why, a hunch told her that the moment would end the instant he left the door. If she was going to do something, she was going to have to do it soon.

Though try as she might, the only thing that came to her was the frank and candid truth. "And then what? Where would you go?" While those were the questions on her mind, there was something else there. Something... she herself remembered from a long time ago. "And even if you did, I know your mother will be worried sick when you aren't home."

"Do you want her to worry?" Makoto's hand awkwardly reaches for Kanji's shoulder to try to give him a conciliatory pat.

[topgun_textiles]

"N-... n-nuh... no..." He hiccuped, but from one touch it was clear he was still stiff from head to toe, primed in something of a fight-or-flight response that wasn't sure whether to trigger again or not.

"B-but she'll be mad! I had to fight! I had to make it stop... it wasn't gonna stop...!"

It wasn't. Not when he'd endured it for a few years now. He hated school and everyone in it, and wished he could have just stayed home and helped with the shop. None of the customers made fun of them for what they did.