revenance_rpg | 4. Party Rock Anthem

Entry tags:

4. Party Rock Anthem

Characters: Party People
Content: Bolin hosts a block party in Twilight Town. Food, fun, and partying! Whoo!
Location (including world): Twilight Town, The Sandlot
Time of Day: Late afternoon and into the night
Warnings: Excessive partying?
Notes: Feel free to start your own sub-threads, thread-jack, and just have fun. Open free for all is the style for threading.

Bolin, with the help of Spirits, Moogles, and various other people had finally finished setting up the party. There were tables laden with different kinds of food of course and decorations everywhere. They'd made sure to clear a space for dancing and Perry the Platypus had volunteered to DJ with some equipment borrowed from the moogles for the night. Bolin wished there could be more people so they could have games and stuff like a proper street festival...but for what he had he felt it was pretty good.

Now they just needed people to show up for the fun.

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He noted the frown, but wasn't sure how to respond to it, if at all. What he said was true, but he didn't intend to elaborate on it unless asked directly, especially in a party setting. And even then, considering what had happened to him, he felt like he didn't quite have all of the pieces anymore.

"No, I'm sure it's not coincidence." Things in a Keybearer's line of work rarely were. "As for the spaceship, if any Keybearer has visited it, it's no one that I've heard of," he commented. "But it may not be necessary for any to have visited it for it to end up here, with this realm being as it is."

"Indeed. It is more tied to the others, the ones commonly in armor, as I understand." Though again, she was being kept out of the loop, even by her own sister, and she knew that. Though Celestia never begrudged that deliberate secrecy, convinced there was a good reason behind it, she still worried about what she didn't know and what it would tell her.

"I would not be surprised if Equestria, or some region of it, appeared to us soon. My sister and two of my subjects are here, as well as myself."

Eraqus definitely got the sense he was being kept out of the loop in regards to the Freelancer's home world, too. And considering some of his conversations with Wash, North and the others, he wasn't terribly pleased about that. "Yes, although it doesn't seem they are quite as fond of the place as most are of their homes."

"For your own sake, I hope not," he said with a small frown. As much as he was sure that the ponies would like to see their home world again, having it end up here would mean it had fallen into sleep, and that wouldn't be good for any of their friends.

He paused for a moment, thinking. "...Although if it did, it may or may not have some interesting effects on anyone visiting it."

"Perhaps... but if you have not heard, my sister and I are from two distinctly different times. She has fallen into the dream worlds much earlier than I have, and yet I never noted her missing. Falling into dreams like this appears to be not only harmless, but instantaneous, or at least very brief. So I do not fear any harm coming to Equestria, if it appears here. If it helps us helps others, I would be grateful for its aid."

Her wings had unconsciously spread a little during this monologue; now she folded them back up a little, without a hint of self-consciousness. "But what do you mean, interesting effects?"

He had both heard of it happening, and experienced some of it himself, what with Aqua and Ventus both arriving from times after his had ended. However, his situation was different compared to most everyone else. "I've heard of it happening, yes. However, as long as that world is here, it would mean that everyone in it is also asleep...and would stay that way until we were able to free the world and ourselves from the realm."

"Well, the rules of some worlds are such that outsiders cannot visit them without undergoing a change to better suit them to it," he mused. He'd encountered one world where he'd had to take on a different form to navigate it. "And if you've never encountered humans before coming here, I wouldn't be surprised a change was necessary for your world."

"The promise of any world falling asleep until freedom is not tolerable to me," Celestia said equitably, "so as long as any one of them is so, I will work to free it. From that perspective, in a way, it doesn't matter how many succumb to sleep, so long as they are all freed in the end."

True, she didn't like the idea of Equestria falling into dreams... but if was necessary to solve the problem, so be it, just as her own presence here might be.

"It is true we have not," Celestia continued, a little more wonderingly. "That would necessitate a change?"

Eraqus nodded. "And I think, once we get to the bottom of what is causing it in the first place, it should help all of the worlds stuck here." At least, he certainly hoped so.

"Perhaps, and perhaps not," he said. It would be impossible to know for sure unless someone visited it. But if a Keybearer had visited it, then the ponies likely wouldn't have even known about it if that Keybearer had had to become a pony themselves. "It depends on the individual laws of that world. But to me it seems more likely, since yours sounds particular about it."

"I would have thought up till now that I had a certain amount of say in the laws of Equestria," Celestia said with mild amusement that covered up her surprise. "Why is this necessary?"

There was a bit of amusement in Eraqus's voice as well. "I meant more natural law than political law," he said. Even though he did understand that some of that world's natural law seemed to fall under 'political' law, too. "In this case, it would be things even outside of any individual's say."

He glanced out towards the partygoers again, noting their wide variety. "It depends on the world. For some, it's impossible for an outsider to survive the environment without a change. In other situations, the world seeks to maintain balance by 'adjusting' anyone that obviously doesn't belong there, both for the sake of the visitor and those already living there.

"I would imagine that everything in your world is best suited to accomodate quadrupeds without fingers or thumbs, for example." He saw Celestia certainly did okay without them, for starters. "So any visitor would need to be able to handle such an environment, too."

Celestia laughed brightly. "To my understandings, the movements of the heavenly bodies, the weather, even the turning of the seasons are considered 'natural law' on other worlds, but for the most part, we Equestrian ponies take care of such things when they are needed. So I am not certain the analogy applies.

"But while it is true that Equestria is a land of ponies, we have other beings present as well. Griffons and dragons, for example, have claws with as much dexterity in them as human hands, and they have little problem navigating Equestria. Your physical height, on the other hand, might occasionally pose a problem."

She followed his look to the party, which raised another question in her mind. "But that principle has not operated here, in reverse. My sister and I, as well as Rarity, can use our magic to easily manipulate anything that would be difficult to use a hoof on, but Pinkie Pie cannot. She is here unchanged nonetheless."

Eraqus had to admit that that sort of power was new to him. But if there was anything constant about the worlds, it was their ability to surprise people. "Maybe not. I couldn't say for sure unless I or anyone else had visited, and I haven't heard of the world before. I just speculate that that would be the case based on prior experience.

"Again, I think it depends on the world involved. I do know Traverse Town is specifically designed to take in all sorts from different worlds, so it wouldn't be necessary for any adjustments. Twilight Town is likely similar." Most worlds seemed to operate that way, but not all of them did.

"Designed, as your home world was designed," she said calmly, though she was becoming more and more perturbed by the implications. What force, what power, or what person set down rules for entire worlds to follow? Created them to a purpose, even?

"In a way." Celestia sounded a little bit disturbed at the thought, although he wasn't sure why. He'd never seen anything malicious in the world order; a world just was as it was. "There is little that can be done about them being as they are. The worlds were intended to be separate."

Celestia's smile was genuine, but also wry. "Whoever or whatever intended them to be so seems to have underestimated the residents of the worlds quite spectacularly then."

"I don't know if anyone intended as such..." Unless one wanted to suggest Kingdom Hearts, but that could lead to little more than wild speculation, and was a difficult enough concept for Keybearers to grasp without having to explain it all to those who didn't know it. "But it is that way for the purposes of safety. Of course there are many residents who can find ways around it, though."

"Entirely so. Can we be certain that the worlds ought to be separate? When so many ways exist to cross them, it seems more likely that the worlds were ultimately intended to interconnect, once their residents became capable of doing so." Though another, darker possibility had struck her as well, which she hesitated to voice no matter how she feared it might be true...

This was getting into the territory of legends about Kingdom Hearts and the Keyblade War...all very heavy stuff no matter where and when it was said. He never discussed it too much with his own students, let alone with others from different worlds.

"In this manner, it's difficult to say what ought to be and not..." He said, trying to choose his words carefully. "But now, as it has been for awhile, I believe their purpose in remaining separate is to prevent a quick spread of darkness."

If all the worlds were interconnected, a force of great darkness like the Heartless -or worse- would overcome everything instead of just select worlds.

"Darkness?" She put a great deal of question into that one word. After all, there was 'darkness', the night after the day, the other half of light, her sister's domain and an entirely benign thing... and then there was 'darkness', eternal night, malice willfully inflicted, the negation of light which denied life. And the line between the two could be thin.

In this case, Eraqus did mean more the malicious force that sought to overtake life as they knew it. Most Keybearers understood the difference between that and normal nighttime...even if they did share far too many similarities. There was always the issue of balance between light and darkness.

"Yes. Darkness that seeks out hearts and tries to consume them. Such things come in many forms, but the kind most common don't appear to have any kind of presence in the dream world."

"Darkness in the form of Xehanort, whose deeds are reviled by those who bear the Keyblades," Celestia said with calm patience. Eraqus might not wish to discuss it, but the Princess had picked up plenty through patient investigation and listening -- enough to know how much she didn't know. She had decided to treat the secrecy as an entrenched enemy, one she couldn't move against directly without too much harm -- but this was a test of those defenses, a demonstration of strength, to see what would come.

Eraqus's tone became grim. He was starting to get used to the idea that even when he wanted to avoid it most, he could never truly get away from reminders of Xehanort, and all the horrible histories that accompanied him. "Yes...yes, like Xehanort. He is anything but common, though." And he was not yet convinced that all this wasn't somehow Xehanort's doing...

Defenses probed, no ground given. Celestia was starting to think that these people would sooner condemn the worlds to darkness than actually share information with somepony not part of their circle...

But, she admitted to herself with a mental sigh and a slight relaxation, that might very well just be the ego of a princess who had ruled a world reasonably well, and thought that entitled her to interfere wheresoever she chose. "Equestria is not free of such darkness either, though I believe it has no connection."

Truthfully, Eraqus was not all that certain what Celestia wanted from him in terms of information, considering even he didn't have the whole picture. But he was much more likely to give a direct answer to a more direct question.

"What sort of darkness do you find there, then?" He doubted Xehanort had visited such a world (although not outside the realm of possibility), but that didn't mean there hadn't been Heartless there, too.

The truth was, she had no idea what to ask. She only knew that she didn't know enough... not what she didn't know. All she could do was chisel away patiently at the wall of silence, waiting for cracks to form and information to drain her way.

"I am told Xehanort took over the body of a Keyblade wielder, and now uses it for his own. In a similar fashion, on our world, a force of darkness inhabited a pony and, while we have some debate on what exactly occurred there, I believe it functioned in much the same way -- the pony was overtaken by a personality within the darkness, or one was shaped from it, which from then on controlled her actions until it was banished from her."

Eraqus started, and didn't respond for a bit. It was more than obvious that the mention of such was causing him anguish. He didn't want to think of that happening to his student...not to mention the lingering belief that he was at least partially responsible.

"Yes...that's what I've heard, too. Although I haven't seen it myself." No doubt Aqua had told some of her other friends here.

It was easier now to focus on a different -if related- problem. "But not one of Xehanort?" If it was, then Celestia would likely already know who he was, anyway. "How did you manage to banish it from her?" He didn't think that any Keybearers had visited such a world, but maybe he was wrong.

4. Party Rock Anthem

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Good place to stop?

Works for me!