Tiny Little Fractures; Open

[Rinoa Heartilly]

The girl had gone back to the place she felt was home. The struggle not to keep looking, travelling around the world in search of her friends...in search of him was almost too great to ignore. But she dismissed it into the back of her mind; she wasn’t sure how the world today was, whether they were here in this mess or in another time. This place, Balamb Garden, at least had not changed, if only by the way it looked to her as upon arrival she did not speak to anyone at all. Be it the students and faculty, they would ask her about him and about their departure and return but she would only remind them he hadn’t come back and they would have to wait to see him again.

Rinoa Heartilly would wait for him here, she didn’t want to leave until he came she didn’t want to keep moving and lose him again. Perhaps it was wrong, she asked to meet him in the flower fields near the old orphanage but he wasn’t there, it was just like her dream. She rose from the bed and looked around; she’d fallen asleep in his old dorm which had been untouched since their departure. The same things lay around haphazardly and she daren’t touch or move a thing in case he came back to it and complained she’d moved or broken anything.

Her legs dangled from the side of the bed and she squinted as rays of light appeared through the curtains. The sorceress hadn’t slept well at all and was grumpy from the tossing and turning and disrupted sleep she did get. A groan escaped her and she stretched her arms into the air, glancing to her clothes. “I better get dressed and go for a walk.” she thought to herself and began to slowly pull herself together, to stop thinking about everything, “You shouldn’t think too much.” she would remember telling him.

“Oh i’m turning into Squall...” She’d whisper, “He would be doing just this, sat here thinking and not doing anything, but what am I supposed to do?” She needed a plan, she needed change.

[Scara Roshinto]

[atrb=cellSpacing,20,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 450px; background: url(http://i53.tinypic.com/fucq5g.jpg); border-style: dotted; border-width: 1px; border-color: #f1ca97, bTable] HOPE IS BEAUTY, personified She didn't think she had come here ever. No, maybe once but...maybe her memory was fogging up again. This place seemed so familiar. However, Scara dismissed the thought as she looked around. It was like an...academy of sorts? She needed to gain some information. But first, she just wanted to take it all in. It wasn't the same breath-tasking places such as Besaid or Gran Pulse but... It held a charm like no other place she had visited. Though, the students seemed relatively okay with her around; they obviously knew she wasn't a student and left her alone, and even as she was entering the place, she wasn't disturbed. 'Open Campus, maybe.' She had heard of schools but, really, she was 'home-schooled' by, who else, Akira? ...Probably not the best education she could get, but traveling around the world gave her the best education she could get. As she entered the place, she let her eyes tell her what she thought rather than disturbing the students. Then she saw her...she was coming out of one of the dorm rooms, or at least the place of the dorms, and she looked... Well, she looked concerned. "U-Um excuse me? Are you alright?" The ever-so-kind girl could never back down from possibly helping someone out.

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[Rinoa Heartilly]

She’d managed to get changed pretty quickly and headed to the bathroom to freshen up. Her hands dove into the sink and splashed water to her face; she looked in the mirror and sighed. It was another day in this crazy world and she’d have to go on alone, well, alone in the sense that her closest friends were nowhere to be seen. Grabbing a towel she dabbed it to her face gently and threw it to the floor, she knew no one would be here to tell her off...in fact she kind of wished there were.

Rinoa walked out from his room into the corridor, her right hand reached over and grabbed her left arm as she looked around and watched all the students with their friends. She was trying to stay positive but it was hard with no word from anyone, she didn’t know where to go from here or what to do. Usually she’d have ideas and places to go but without knowing anything at all, without any frame work it was proving difficult to pull anything together.

She twisted on the balls of her feet and began walking slowly towards the centre of the building’s structure. The library was a place she used to enjoy, maybe she’d go there, people always said it was good to keep busy to take your mind off things and perhaps there was something there to help...

God she was pulling at strands here. She scrunched her face at her ideas and looked up as a voice came clear to her. There was a short girl in front of her and clearly addressing her kindly, her soft voice made her calm and she smiled back in return. She wore ordinary clothes, no uniform which made her wonder if she were even a student; she just seemed too young to be SeeD...

“I-erm, i’m fine,” She began and looked down to her, it wasn’t often she were taller than another person, “Are you a student here? Shouldn’t you be in your uniform?”

[Ouranus Nova]

"Let's see..."

Though Ouranus had her worked cut out for her, she still was working on understanding the technology of the building. She had made some progress. At the very least she had been able to get the elevator figured out. It did make transport considerably easy here. The design was advanced, but it was clear that the elevator was using a sophisticated pulley system. As she wrote down notes, she then turned her head to see Scara. A kind smile formed on her face and saw her talking to a new person. She listened to both of them, seeing that the black haired girl seemed to be lost. Ouranus knew the feeling all too well with being lost and unsure what to do. She had been like that when her family was separated. Ouranus walked over to the two as she smiled at Scara first before looking to the black haired girl. "I know it is a lot to take in, sometimes in cases like this you need to get something to keep your mind and hands busy. That's why I have been taking notes on everything I encounter."

[Scara Roshinto]

[atrb=cellSpacing,20,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 450px; background: url(http://i53.tinypic.com/fucq5g.jpg); border-style: dotted; border-width: 1px; border-color: #f1ca97, bTable] HOPE IS BEAUTY, personified Scara blinked. Oh...she was fine. Scara seemed slightly alarmed that she asked her why she wasn't in uniform. "I...um. I'm not a student here sorry...so I-I hope that explains why I don't wear a uniform..." Did guests have to wear uniforms too? She didn't seem like she was in any kind of uniform either...but she came from the dorms... But it wasn't like Scara to pry. But Ouranus seemed to come out of nowhere. She saw her and smiled. They had been bumping into each other fairly recently. Oh? Rinoa seemed to be trying to take everything in? Then it hit her; she actually didn't know the woman's name. "O-Oh I'm sorry! My name's Scara. It's nice to meet you miss." Hopefully, the 'miss' wouldn't offend her, especially since she looked around her age. She noticed that calling people 'miss', especially when they are young, sometimes offended people...but she didn't know what else to call them without being impolite. So the title stood until Rinoa revealed her name or some sort of alias.

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[Rinoa Heartilly]

“Ah...” Rinoa smiled and stood up straight, “So just a visitor, that’s okay we get a lot of those too.” She wondered whether the girl was visiting someone here or was just looking around, she seemed innocent enough so she wasn’t too bothered about this. Though she didn’t want to pry either, the girl was in a military school pretty much, it wasn’t exactly a great problem for strangers to come in and everyone was training for some battle. Against the sorceresses she remembered...

It was then that another girl approached, she mentioned ‘taking things all in’ and she wondered what she meant but before she could piece all of that together the previous girl introduced herself. Rinoa stayed quiet for a few seconds and glanced to both of them before she subconsciously took her left arm in her right hand, old habit but one she didn’t need to think about. “Well, my name is Rinoa and I...guess I pretty much live here in Balamb Garden, pleased to meet you. Erm...but what do you mean ‘a lot to take in’...?”

Her dark eyes squinted in confusion as she waited for her answer, these two girls were perhaps foreign and from the way the stranger wandered over to them both it seemed like they knew each other. There were no signs of hostility or awkwardness between the two so she assumed them to be friends, she wondered whether they’d come together and had picked her out of the crowd, this all just seemed so weird to her right now.

[Ouranus Nova]

"This is a school?"

Ouranus blinked a couple of times as she looked around. Granted the school that she had been much more simplistic, but still this place didn't feel like a school. From what she had gathered in the beginning she had thought that this place was actually a very advanced fortress of some kind. But she was surprised that there were plenty of visitors coming into the school. It seemed that this place would be considered like an outpost with many people coming and going with a variety of gear. But the building didn't seem like an outpost. But for now it was clear that Rinoa needed some answers. As she asked the question, the silver haired warrior smiled as she nodded her head in respect. "It is nice to meet you Rinoa, my name is Ouranus Nova. And I am from the kingdom Alexandria." As she said that, she opened up her book to show Rinoa what she had been talking about. "You probably had the feeling that I am not from your world. The short answer to this is that you are correct. This is my home." She flipped through the pages, showing Rinoa descriptions of her kingdom.

[Scara Roshinto]

[atrb=cellSpacing,20,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 450px; background: url(http://i53.tinypic.com/fucq5g.jpg); border-style: dotted; border-width: 1px; border-color: #f1ca97, bTable] HOPE IS BEAUTY, personified "Oh. Okay." Visitors were good, but she remembered Akira mentioning how schools usually didn't let strangers waltz into schools for child safety, even teenage ones. However, this school seemed more to be like a...mercenary? No, she didn't know what kind of school but she got the vibe it wasn't...normal. "It's nice to meet you Rinoa! I'm from Gran Pulse. So we're all from different places? It's great to meet people of different places!" Scara had grown. She met many on her journey and she knew Ouranus, making her more comfortable, and the other seemed so nice. "It's a different setting compared to Balamb Garden or Alexandria. There's very little human life...mostly monsters." But that didn't deter Scara. "Uh-huh. Seems that way. I think...it's some sort of mercenary school...or a fighting school...? It didn't seem like a normal school...b-but I never actually went to a school before. I was all home-schooled." Her mother taught her many things and, when she died, Akira took that parenting role.

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[Rinoa Heartilly]

Rinoa blinked in surprise to their answers, she was taken aback by their knowledge of this place – which was none. She raised a hand subconsciously and pressed a finger to her lips in thought “They don’t know this is a school.” She thought and glanced from one to the other, neither of them seemed phased at all by this really, they just seemed to be travellers that stumbled upon Garden. She wondered whether this was actually believable or whether they had ulterior motives, it was hard to say, perhaps if you were trained as a SeeD you might know but at the moment there weren’t many students around them.

There was a silence between them as she debated this, she hummed to herself in thought as she considered the time-warp they’d all experience. It might have been that this ‘Alexandria’ were real and this ‘Gran-Pulse’ but how could she ever know for sure? To her this place wasn’t real also but she didn’t want to bring it up to anyone, it was clear things had changed and yet everyone was carrying on, if there were something different Squall would have returned here and would be setting out a plan...right?

She’d realised she was being rude to them both and quickly dropped her hand, she wasn’t used to going off on a tangent in her mind – that was probably Squall’s influence. “I hadn’t even thought there would be anyone from a different world. I am so confused...” She raised her hand and grabbed her necklace as she watched Ouranus flick through the book, the place didn’t seem to be anything like her own world which was pretty advanced in technology. Listening the Scara she leant back up from the book and dropped her gaze for a second imagining a place overrun with monsters – ah, Esthar.

“Yeah this is a Military school, though it isn’t some sort of Army Base, there’s a library and a Quad. I can show you around if you’d like, the Commander here is a guy called Squall – actually do you know him?!” She paused and imagined his face...it was so blurry. “He has a really big scar across his face and is very moody – hasn’t been around here for a while you see.” Hopefully they’d have seen him but she knew it was a long shot.

[Ouranus Nova]

"Squall...Squall..."

Ouranus opened her book up again as she scanned through the pages of her book to try and figure out if she had seen anyone with that name. After flipping through the pages, she shook her head. She wouldn't really notice the personality since it could have been someone's way to try and understand what was going on. But having a recognizable scar on their body is always a landmark for a person's description."Sorry Rinoa, I have not encountered Squall." She then looked around again as she looked at the school again skeptically. To her, this didn't seem like a school. To her, it felt much more like what would the castle of Alexandria would be if it were about the level of technology she had encountered so far. But still the prospect of knowing more about this building always was something she wanted to do. Rinoa would be able to give a much better explanation whearas Ouranus would have been using considerable trial and error to understand what she is doing.

[Rinoa Heartilly]

“No...well, that’s okay.”

Rinoa didn’t believe they would have, she’d been shown so much good luck in the past that she had to try though. Instead of feeling too down she tried to concentrate on the positives, Squall was strong and he’d look after himself and...well, and no news was good news. The other girl was quiet and hadn’t yet made a comment but Rinoa didn’t want to hear any more about it yet, it was clear to her neither of them knew him.

Putting her hands on her hips, Rinoa blew out the breath she was holding, she didn’t realise she’d become so tense. “Well, how about I take you both for a tour of Garden?” She asked and smiled at them both, the girl with the journal looked as though she’d appreciate some more notes it seemed. “It depends on what you’re interested in but I think I know the best bits!” Turning on her heels she began to walk away, “Follow me!”

If they wanted to come then they would, she wouldn’t need to wait for them really. It was perhaps a little hasty but Rinoa wasn’t their leader, she wasn’t their guide either really...but she made a good friend. She walked left from the corridor and around the huge circular dome like area. “This in the centre is a lift, or elevator.” She added and turned to Ouranus, “You have these in Alexandria? Look it goes right up to the classrooms and the headmasters office!” She said pointing into the air where a bridge ran off from the lift to another part of the building and so forth.

“And through there is the car park where SeeD sometimes leave for their missions, nothing too exciting – unless you like vehicles. Then through here is the training center where the students battle real monsters!” Hurrying on ahead she managed to get to the library, “We won’t go there just yet!” She called as she jogged along, “But you must see the library!” Rinoa was excited for company now, and she was about to head into her favourite part of Garden. She loved to read plays and novels, for some it was a little boring but for her well – she loved the romantic stories.

[Ouranus Nova]

"I would like to know as much as I can, thank you so much Rinoa."

Ouranus' smile was genuine as she nodded her head happily. To her, she found this place to be something to behold with the utmost respect. She found this place as the equivalent of her own kingdom. In a way, this whole building was a kingdom that was put in a capsule of sorts. She looked at the lift and then shook her head. "I have never seen technology like this. If I needed to do something like this then I would need to use a rope and a pulley," she said while watching the lift. She continued to walk behind Rinoa, taking notes about as much as she could. But she did have some trouble understanding things. Though she had put in her book that whoever SeeD were must have been the knights who defended the building, the notion of cars eluded her. The only thing she had ever seen that was advanced were the airships. But when she heard about the library, her eyes lit up happily and nodded her head. "Of course, I would love to see the library."

[Rinoa Heartilly]

The girl seemed genuinely happy with Rinoa giving her a tour, and Rinoa was happy enough to have a little fun with it. Only, she didn’t quite realise how basic Ouranus’ world was in terms of technology and had to be patient as she took more interest in the way the machinery worked. To Rinoa, it didn’t bother her how it worked, she was just happy it did and unlike Zell, wouldn’t know where to start if she had to fix any of it either. “A rope and a what-now?” Rinoa was clueless to the other world, she didn’t understand how anything would work without electricity, did it mean they had to do more work? Did they not have cars in her city?

The brunette was glad to know she wanted to see the Library, it was one place she spent the most time here. Though recently she couldn’t concentrate enough to read, she still tried to even though most days she were there it ended up with her just staring off into space. Rinoa wandered in and nodded politely to the students and waved to the Library Committee. “You like to read right? There are books on just about anything here!” She exclaimed before covering her mouth with a hand, “oops, you’re supposed to be quiet though while the others study.” She leant in and whispered to the stranger.

“There are books on our history, technology and well...just about everything here. It might be useful to you...I don’t think I can answer as many questions as you have but I can try.” She pointed to the desk, “If you choose any, just give the books to them and they can register them with me okay? Any questions!?” She asked brightly and waited for a reply.

[Sorry it's short!]