diatuooc | Test Drive #1

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Test Drive #1

Test Drive #1

The Airship There

By carriage or coach, spellwagon or ship, perhaps even on the wings of magic, the Sundered heed the call to gather at the Tenzin High Dock of Vulbaria. On this, the appointed day, a great passenger airship sits in the dock, the seals of the six Houses fluttering from flagpoles along her length and her wooden planks atremble as if it is eager to be off. At last, the gangplank descends, and the Hand of Diatu opens her doors to the Sundered so they can take their first step on the path towards protection and salvation.

Inside, you may choose from long comfortable couches, broad circular tables surrounded by straight-backed, cushioned chairs, or viewing seats at the glass front of the ship. Sundered who need special accommodations are quickly provided for, ensuring everyone travels in comfort. Trays drift through the air periodically, offering snacks and drinks to the passengers.

This may be the first chance you've had to truly relax since being swept to this strange world. Certainly it is the first chance you've had to meet your fellow Sundered. As the airship lifts gracefully off from the High Dock, your journey to Diatu begins. Excited? Nervous? Simply angry? Or perhaps searching among the crowd here for a familiar face or some sign of hope?

Rain, Rain...

Welcome to Diatu Magicademy. It's raining.

Seriously raining. One of those downpours that feels like a curtain has dropped on you, that soaks to the bone within a second of stepping into it. Obviously, this won't do, and a civic-minded cluster of Purifeul students has taken it upon themselves to solve this problem. No sooner do you step through the gates then you practically run into a giant and complex runic diagram being drawn out with long staffs by several students, all of them speaking seeming nonsense about derivatives, limits, and equations. Magic! In action right before your eyes!

And yet, just as their mathemagics wind towards the center of the diagram and they all make their final stroke -- one student slashes his line off on a weird tangent, speaking an equation that sounds nothing at all like what his fellows utter. The spell completes... weirdly, as the students look in horror at each other. The temperature abruptly drops seventy degrees, and a cold wind begins to blow.

Welcome to Diatu Magicademy. Please get out of the blizzard before you freeze.

Thaumaturgy 101

After some fifteen minutes of grumbling from Professor Loshakle, followed by half an hour of theory and basics, the grouchy old man finally gets to drawing a magical symbol on the board. "This is straight out of Fundamental Principles of Wizarding," he says, writing Sense Magic next to the symbol. "As is everything you'll learn here. I'll emphasize yet again, you MUST know the name of the spell and the proper gestures. You can't simply wave your wand in any old pattern and say any old words. That isn't how it works," he says, glaring around the class as if daring someone to question him.

But he gives no one the opportunity, instead producing a wand and making the gesture to trace the symbol he'd drawn in midair. "Sense Magic," he intones, and the air and his wand both shimmer.

"Now. You all try." Just like that. What the Professor doesn't mention is that this spell can produce some very interesting results if the symbol is off, or the timing...

Bala-inlota Practice

Bala-inlota is the main interaction the Magicademies have with each other -- the sport of wizards! Two teams take the field, with the goal of heaving a ball through their opponent's hoop. The rules primarily revolve around not inflicting lethal injury, because bala-inlota is a free-for-all at best, where each team relies on both physical and magical might to win the day.

You kind of wish someone had told you this BEFORE you got hauled onto the field so the coach could see if you've got what it takes.

Now half a dozen players are charging down the field at your ragtag group of semi-willing recruits, while another half-dozen are preparing spells that you've been absolutely assured aren't as nasty as the ones deployed in actual play. On your side: the ball, your wits, your physical ability, and maybe three classes's worth of magical education.

On the upside, magic is pretty good at healing.

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Parsee glanced over at the girl who was talking to her, her head cocking, and she was immediately jealous of her hair. It would have been impossible not to be. The youkai imagined that a lot of people were jealous of its volume and luster. She didn't dwell on it too long, though, snorting and grinning almost grimly while she took her jacket and shook the slush off.

"Oh, it's bound to get better for you instead of worse," she said. There was a bit of an acrid edge under the words. "I doubt it's going to be that great for me, but I'm used to that."

"Huh?"

Sunset frowned. What a strange thing to say---but it reminded her of someone she'd met recently. She didn't know enough to draw a conclusion yet, but she could try for now.

"Why? Do you think they won't like you?"

"Why would anyone like spending time around someone like me?" she said, cocking her head and looking at Sunset Shimmer out of the corner of her eye. She sounded both a little irritated, which could easily have been the cold and the wet talking, and a little confused. "Nobody likes spending time around me. I don't see why that would change."

Ok, the oni put up with her alright, but she wasn't going to count that inexplicable exception. Yuugi was weird.

Oh, that definitely sounded like someone she knew. Sunset exhaled softly, moving just a little closer, but not enough to encroach on her space.

"I know it's not easy to make friends. Especially when you've had bad experiences. But we're all just as lost and confused as each other right now, and no matter what's in your past...you get to start over here. Maybe there are people here who are more like you than anyone you've met before."

Oh man, there was a lot to think about in such a scant few sentences. The mere suggestion or thought of someone like her made her think 'what if there's another Hashihime here, what if the nearest bridge has a princess already?' Not that she wanted to be the princess of this bridge. She had her own bridge, but her natural jealousy of other Hashihime was so unavoidable that the mere possibility made her reach up to bite on her thumb, an irritated growl coming to her throat.

But no, no, this girl couldn't possibly mean that could she? She probably just meant someone pathetic like her. "You say it like it's so easy," she muttered softly.

But wait? She thought about it for a second longer, her thumb dropping from her mouth and eyes widening in a bit of shock. She didn't feel the green balls floating around her, the waves of jealousy that was her daily life washing outwards. The girl was right, in a way. She was a bridge princess here, but she was also a bridge princess without any of their powers, wasn't she? She didn't need to make other people miserable like her just because they were there.

But she couldn't stop being what she was. If she did, she knew that something somewhere would remind her where she belonged in the celestial order, back at the bottom. She grunted, giving Sunset a little hard look. "I'm kind of jealous of you, you should know. I wish I could be optimistic like that."

Sunset exhaled. Yes, this girl definitely reminded her of Wallflower. She gripped her geode, now just a harmless red necklace, and settled down.

"I know it's not as easy as I'm making it sound. I've struggled too---there were times when I thought no one would ever want to be my friend again. But that was because I'd spent the last three years tormenting them and only recently realized that bullying was wrong," she said, shaking her head.

"Anyway, my point is: No matter how bad it got before, and I'm positive you weren't as bad as me, or bad at all---you can start over. Going through that taught me that everyone's worth a chance."

The similarities were definitely there, though there were definitely differences. Parsee listened to her, her eyes narrowing more, though she didn't seem even that surprised to hear Sunset say she'd been a bully. Why shouldn't she have been a bully? She was pretty and probably popular without any effort. It was just to be expected, and now that she'd had a remorseful epiphany she could add 'contrite' and 'a good person' to all the reasons others should like her. It made her seethe a little, though she could only feel a perfectly normal jealousy. It wasn't supernatural, and somehow that felt ... nice, to not be pushed to insane loathing of others.

"You'd be surprised how bad a person can be," she said, her gaze narrowed. She didn't elaborate, though. "But are you saying that you're going to give a stranger you just met a chance?" There was definite suspicion there, in her tone.

Sunset shrugged, still keeping that tiny smile on her face despite the apprehension she sees. "Why not? Is there a reason I shouldn't?"

She looked at Sunset and the narrowed gaze softened. Well, fine, she wanted a reason, didn't she? "I'm a trash youkai. Lowest of the low. Nobody ever ends up happy by getting close to me," she muttered. "But if you're going to be stubborn about it, I can't stop you." A sigh followed and she reached up to rake her hand through her dirty blonde hair, closing her eyes.

This was always so much easier when she could just scare people off or make them feel bad like her with her powers, but that wasn't going to work for her right now, was it?

Sunset tried her best to understand, but the words weren't familiar to her. She spoke again, curious.

"I don't know what any of that means. And I don't think too many other people here will, either. So maybe it's not as bad as you think?"

"There's not much to understand. I'm a monster," she muttered before shrugging and reaching up to scratch the back of her neck uncomfortably. "But like I said, if you're going to be stubborn, I can't stop that. I'm just not responsible when you get disappointed or hurt. That's all."

She muttered something unintelligible and sighed, finally shivering a little bit. "But maybe we should get in out of the hallway. It's cold."

"You're right. Warmth. Good idea."

Sunset shook her head and ducked into the hall, gratefully accepting a blanket from a student and grabbing an extra, holding it out to the other girl.

"I've been a monster. The everyday life kind, and the horns and claws kind. All it takes is looking at things a little differently."

The youkai took a blanket with a suspicious look of her own but sighed and draped it over her shoulders while the two of them went to get somewhere to start warming up, murmuring words that might have been thanks. It was a little hard to tell at first glance.

"To be clear, I am the horns and claws kind. That didn't go away just because this place seems to have destroyed my powers," she said, finally dropping her jacket to the side to dry off, wrapping up and sitting down, looking over at Sunset quietly. "I am what I am. Looking at things differently doesn't change what I am, does it?"

Sunset sat beside her, mulling that over. No, what she'd said was wrong. She shook her head.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that horns and claws were bad! Having them doesn't make you bad. The only thing that's bad is hurting others...and being proud of it. Enjoying hurting them, and the power it gives you..."

Again, a trip down memory lane. "If that's not what you're trying to do, you'll be fine."

She sighed, pulling the blanket in around her closely before sighing and setting her chin on her knees while she looked over at the girl. Yep, definitely stubborn, though she felt like she could deflate that pretty easily if she was just a little more up front.

"I'm a spirit of jealousy. I feed on it by nature. You don't get that way by being nice or well liked, even if I can smile when I want to." And she wasn't soaked and dog tired in some strange place. "The person that I did it because of was worse, but they're long gone now. I've been this way for a very long time."

And that was something she understood too. She'd been the queen of jealous rage...even after reforming. She tapped on the ground, mulling over how best to discuss this.

"But it's not like you have to do it, right? I know old habits are hard to break. But it wasn't your fault."

She'd been about to say something when her jaw clicked shut. She was thinking about what the girl was saying. Admittedly, this was more than 'old habits,' considering she'd been this way for over 600 years by now. But the question did come up in her mind 'do I need to?' She wasn't sure if she'd ever bothered to ask herself that question. She simply was what she was. Fault probably didn't even enter into her mind that much as a rule. But she couldn't answer that question, not here, for reasons that were painfully obvious from the lack of her powers.

"I... don't actually know." That wasn't easy to admit, but somehow it felt right to admit it. "And it doesn't matter here. I don't have my powers, and I heard that powers like mine are forbidden in this place. So, I suppose I don't have to be jealous."

Her head turned, chin propped up on her knees as she looked over at Sunset. "Doesn't mean I'm not jealous of you right now, though."

"I'm sorry. I know that feeling hurts, no matter how much you try to pretend it doesn't."

Sunset isn't sure what else to offer right now. "But I really hope it gets easier. But...yeah. I know it's hard to have hope too, when things have been one way for a long time."

"Not as much as you seem to think. Forbidden powers, or left in old hell with the other detested scum. This's probably a better place to hang my head than the underside of my bridge," she started to say, though her eyes hardened. "Though it's my bridge, damnit, so nobody better get any ideas while I'm gone."

She snorted and chuckled a little. Nobody would. They knew better than to take that way from her. Besides, who really wanted to be the princess of a bridge in hell, honestly? "I envy that you still have hope, even if it's for me. I'll pass on it. I prefer certainties, but I remember what it felt like." Centuries gone by, but she remembered. It was part of the torture of what she'd made herself, even if she couldn't actually remember anyone's name from back then.

She looked off and sighed, managing a little smile. "I'm not going to stop you, just so you know, if you keep trying to cheer me up. But just don't say I didn't tell you so when it blows up in your face."

She really was that hopeless, huh? Sunset sighed, reaching up to squeeze her necklace in a silent prayer as she often did.

"I'll just say we'll see about it. I can be pretty stubborn when I want to be."

Absolutely, utterly hopeless, but not completely impossible. Stubbornness helped a lot at times. She closed her eyes and sighed, reaching up to scratch the back of her head. "Parsee. My name's Parsee. That's what you were going to ask next, wasn't it, Ms Stubborn?"

"It was! Good one." A part of her suddenly missed her ability to read minds, but it wasn't too big of a deal. She'd get by.

"Anyway, I'm Sunset Shimmer, pleased to meet you Parsee."

She offered a hand and a tiny smile.

"Just kind of figured you hadn't asked yet," she said, staring at the hand being offered. Westerners shook hands, but she'd never bothered to really get into the bowing or shaking hands things, regardless of culture.

She stared for a second, swallowed and then reached out. The hand-shake was pretty damned limp-wristed, but it was there. "We'll see about pleasure."

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Test Drive #1

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