lucetilogs | School Log!

Entry tags:

School Log!

Who: OPEN! Anyone! Teachers, Students, anyone dropping in for the open classes, anyone at the battledome (from about 1-3 pm), newcomers with questions, etc!
What: Catchall school days
When: March! (You can vary the dates if you'd like, if you want something from last week or on the 17th and onward, it's fairly open there.)
(Classes run from 9 AM-roughly 2:30 PM, and the log can include before and after-school activities)
Where: School / Battle Dome
Summary: It's been a quiet few weeks in Luceti, but school is still in session!
Rating: A+

[For some sense of guidelines:

- Anyone joining for the first time is allowed to poke around and ask questions and (possibly) take or have handwaved taking a test so they can join in immediately!

- The playground is open for after school or lunch break interactions. The cafeteria is also open. Also, random classrooms are available for students wanting to use it for private tutoring/study hall sessions/club meetings whatnot.

- World Sharing and Magic lessons are held at the battle dome, so non-attendees can observe if they like.

- You're not limited to the headers! Just do what you want--these are just some suggestions as to what's going on, but they aren't the be-all-and-end-all of what can be played with! Chat with each other, set up things! It's meant to be for CR!]

As always, please add your character to the roster here and update if there are any changes! Also, students/magic class participants, please respond here when you have a chance! Thank you!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He's surprised; after the last reaction, he hadn't expected to get anything out of her.]

... "That person"?

[He's not sure exactly what she means, though he has suspicions. Better to be sure with this sort of thing.]

[Once she starts down the road, it's harder and harder to stop.]

A- A terrible one.

[...Ah. Geez.

Billy glances up - the class seems thoroughly distracted with whatever's being taught at the moment, and it's stuff he knows already, anyway. This is serious, that much is obvious, and it isn't really the place for it.]

...Hey, can we talk in the hall? It's kind of loud in here, and I don't want to start shouting at you over the noise.

[No no no no no.]

Won't someone notice? [But yes. Some piece of this older boy understands.]

[Probably more than she knows.]

Maybe. Does it matter?

[He stands, offering his hand out to her. Is this important enough that it doesn't matter?]

[He offered his hand.

Rue catches herself biting her lip, sees her hand reach for his without her permission, but with it, too, like it's the start or the end of a dance.

And she moves away from the chairs, to follow him.]

[Billy loosens his hold once she's upright so as not to pull her along, though he lets it be her choice whether or not to break contact. Sometimes people just need that connection, he knows- Teddy taught him that plenty of times, with how tactile he was, and how much comfort he gained from it. For Billy it was more hit and miss, but he doesn't know this girl, and he doesn't know what would help her here, so he leaves the choice up to her.

Either way, he'll lead the way right out of the classroom, shutting the door behind them and glancing around for any other prying eyes. The hallway can be pretty deserted during class time.]

Come on, walk with me.

[No, she lets go of his hand. Too many wrong ideas get tied up in contact.]

Where are we going?

[She follows him despite the question. An empty hallway does not feel safe, it's too open.]

Around this time of day there's a couple of empty classrooms. I used to hide out there during magic class while I waited for Teddy to finish up for the day. It was nicer than walking home alone.

[He stops by a door, opening it up and peering inside before stepping away to hold it for her. It's small, but blissfully empty, and the size will help prevent noise from carrying much.]

This'll work.

[Following a boy into an empty classroom without a soul in sight. This is the material for a different sort of story. Rue's confidence, her projection of confidence, usually lets her smirk or stare through any such thoughts, but Billy rattled her and she stays rattled.

She doesn't know why she chose to follow him. Rue waits, just inside near the door, not fidgeting but looking like she might want to.]

[He puts some space between them, hoping to lower her discomfort as much as possible by not crowding her, and sits down on the nearest desk, fingers drumming on his knees. How to begin, how to begin...]

I used to think I was a terrible person. I did some really, really terrible things. It was a bad situation, and whether or not I could control it didn't change how I felt about myself.

[He glances sidelong at her.]

I needed the people who care about me to help me realize that I could do better. That I could be better. And if I can do that, then anyone can.

[She hears herself in the words he says. I'm a terrible person, I did really terrible things. Choices, many of them, that she made on her own - outside influences or no. A tiny strain of music inside her head whispers Duck said your story has a happy ending but she can't believe that anymore. This world, this story, is different and open and she doesn't know how to be anyone else.]

You get to decide who you are. We don't all have that privilege. [She says privilege like she wants it as far from her as possible.]

What's stopping you from deciding?

[It's not accusing or demanding, his tone- it's quiet, calm, and simply asking because he doesn't understand. There's pretty clearly more to this than he's aware of, especially since he knows literally nothing about this girl. In a world like this - with infinite universes and possibilities and people from any number of them - it could be some deeply-ingrained issues or hell, even a physiological or biological... programming, for lack of a better term. He's the soul-kid of a robot, he knows there's all kinds of potential for problems here.]

[Here? In this town? Nothing but herself.]

I just...I can't. My story only has one possible ending.

[No matter what she tries, she is doomed to have no love at all outside of that which she demands from Mytho - as she can't give his back to him and let him choose. It will destroy him.]

I don't believe that it's possible for a story to only have one ending when it isn't written yet. When it hasn't happened.

[He's a reality bender by nature, even if not by practice anymore. Changing things as they happen is something he has to believe in to live; it used to come to him as simply as breathing.]

But it has, and it will. Duck- she was from later on, and she knew. And...

[Why are you telling him?

Maybe because no one ever asked before.]

...I just- hurt people. Even when I want to make them happy.

[He frowns at that. It's familiar, those words; he's said them himself, not that long ago. It's why he's only coming back to magic class now, after months of avoiding it. It's why he's still feeling the ache of guilt just by thinking about it.]

You can't... let yourself fall into that line of thinking. If you've hurt people, or... you've heard that you're going to hurt people... then accept it, and learn from it. But after that, you have to work on making up for what you did to hurt those people. Use what you know to prevent it from happening again.

[Without telling him everything, cover to cover, Rue believes there is no way he'll really understand. She still can't wrap her head around why he wants to try.

Now that she knows what it's like to live a life with love in it, not the kind she has to force and declare but that someone would just give her, because they thought she should have it...it's even harder to face the world she has to return to someday.]

It's too late. There isn't anything I can do now.

[That, he can't believe. It just feels wrong.]

You said... your story only has one ending. Doesn't that mean it isn't over yet? Why isn't there anything you can do?

I've already done it!

[Forgetting Billy doesn't know the whole story at all, forgetting he's basically a stranger. That he shouldn't care - at least that one she can argue with, because it seems he does - and that he shouldn't get involved with someone like her. It can't end well for him.]

Everything I tried just destroyed him! I couldn't make him happy and I couldn't make him love me.

[Even without knowing the whole story, the more she gives him, the more he's starting to understand. Piece by piece, the puzzle becomes a picture.

This helps. God, his mother's been right all along.]

See, that... you're just setting yourself up to fail right from the start. You can't make someone be happy, and you can't make someone love you. It's impossible to control the emotions of another person.

He didn't have any until this started.

[The Prince is the only person who could ever love someone as ugly as you.

Rue swallows hard; the truth about who she is brushes against her father's words and pulls him out of the possibility of loving her. Not too long ago she realized he never did.

It's easier to talk about Mytho's missing heart than to admit out loud that she'll be alone forever if Billy is right and she loses him.]

[It's too vague; too many missing pieces, now. Her conflict is full of references to people and experiences he has no knowledge of, and he can't do much else but helplessly listen.

Sometimes it's better to be direct. So, quietly-]

Maybe... you should start at the beginning. Will you tell me?

[Something terrible has obviously happened to her. Hiding it or dodging around the issue isn't going to help anyone.]

[There's too much to tell. Most of it happened inside her head, or in the Raven's domain, or in a past she still holds tenuously like the string tying her to herself might break if she reaches for the best parts.

The best parts are few and years between.

Rue only knows one way of recounting something in summary.]

Once upon a time, there was a prince who fought a monster raven and gave up his heart so the raven could be sealed away forever. The raven had a daughter, a raven princess trapped in a human body, and it was her fate that she could only find love with the prince himself. But in shattering his heart, he lost himself, his emotions and feelings, becoming an empty shell in life.

So he could never really love the raven's daughter, no matter how much she tried to please him and make him happy. When in the course of the story he recovered some shards of his heart, he began to find the seeds of love for another, instead.

[The whole time she looks Billy in the eye, as if daring him to stop her, to comment and pass judgment on how obvious it all was.]

When the raven princess discovered the shard that contained his love, she vowed to make him hers and hers alone, using a raven's dark and terrible power.

[The hardest part about this - and this place, really - is knowing when something is a metaphor or a literal story. He's the magically-made son of a witch and a robot dating a dual-alien shapeshifter. He's friends with immortal demigods. A raven girl isn't that farfetched.

He listens intently, taking it all in and trying to decipher it based on what he already knows.

Still not enough, though.]

What did the princess do?

[There's no judgment. Not now. He's done too much himself to be able to do that to her. But he doesn't know, and he wants to. This is important.]

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