damned_institute | Day 28; Bus 3

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Day 28; Bus 3

There was, Naomi decided, some sort of cosmic irony in all of this. Not that she was trapped in a deranged and possibly other-worldly asylum with a man she'd idolized for years and a boy who was being investigated for - among other things - the murder of her fiance. No, at this point, those were perfectly normal occurrences. Rather it was the soft, pretty, feminine pink sweater dress she'd been stuffed into in the morning. A chance to wear normal clothes, and she looked like a soccer mom. The white blazer and white boots only made her look like a soccer mom who maybe hadn't given up gogo boots.

It was humiliating. Why couldn't she have jeans and a sweater? And sneakers? Something she would conceivably wear? Not this damned pink monstrosity. And her nurse kept saying how pretty she was.

She didn't care if she looked pretty.

Grumbling to herself, and taking it out on her muffin, Naomi was shoved onto an empty bus and told to 'sit tight'. Oh, she'd sit tight alright....

At least she was relatively certain L was alright. She'd spent the whole night with him, and other than falling on his ass, nothing had happened to him. And hopefully nothing would happen to him in town, either....

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Artemis looked happy to see him, which made Sora relax a good deal. He didn't sit down just yet (and the bus didn't seem to be moving yet, so standing wasn't a problem), but glanced over at the other boy as he was introduced.

The name "Harry Potter" didn't mean anything to Sora, and no sign of recognition flooded over his face as it might have with so many others. He merely smiled at the older boy. "I'm Sora. It's nice to meet you."

Still, if these two had planned out a talk, maybe it was a private one. He wasn't going to invite himself into the conversation without being sure that it was okay. "Well, should I leave you guys to that, then, or...?" Hopefully one of them would pick up on what he was saying.

"Nice to meet you," Harry countered the greeting with a small smile on his face. Artemis seemed happier with Sora around so Harry shook his head. "No," he said. "Maybe I should move. You two seem to be friends."

"Absolutely not," Artemis replied, frowning at the two. "Just how exactly do you both suppose we'll come together to defeat the head doctor if we don't know anything about each other?

"Sora come sit down and we'll all converse--it's what civilized people do, after all." Artemis internally sighed--hero-types. Always quick to sacrifice their own comfort for someone else. It was annoying, but not enough to make the boy throw up his hands in frustration and stomp away.

"Why don't we all talk about where we came from?" He said with a smile. Ugh, why did he feel like one of those group-therapy nurses?

At Artemis' insistence, Sora saw no reason to argue. He didn't want to step on any toes or shove himself into a conversation where he wasn't wanted, but that didn't seem to be the case here.

He moved over and sat on the edge of the aisle seat, smiling over at the other two patients. While he wasn't sure why Artemis suddenly brought up the subject of where they were from, he wasn't about to argue the point. He had brought himself into this chat, after all.

"I'm from a place called Destiny Islands," he explained, figuring he could take the lead so long as he kept things simple. "It's kind of like a tropical paradise. It's always sunny weather and clear water, but it can get boring sometimes." He still missed it, of course, but he had barely gotten to enjoy his time back before he was brought here.

Harry listened to Sora and couldn't help but smile at the description. "I've never been any place tropical," he admitted. "It sounds lovely." He frowned slightly. "I'm from England," he said. "But I've spent the last year traveling all over the UK. The weather is not nearly as nice as what you've said," he added with a smile. "And I'm looking forward to being bored."

That was the simple answer anyway, and even if all this talk of 'other worlds' it still seemed that people should know what England was at least.

It was difficult for Harry to think over the last year. Not for the first time he wondered where Ron and Hermione were and what was happening to them.

"Destiny Islands... sounds dramatic," Artemis said with a grin. "I can't say that I've heard of it before, though. But I've been to quite a few tropical islands. On business usually. I don't spend much time in the sun, really," He smirked at his own joke. "I can't imagine why such a calm place would be boring though.

"And Mr. Potter is from England, which is very close to where I'm from," Artemis explained, mostly for Sora's benefit. "I come from a country called Ireland--you should know where that is, Harry--where everyone's accent is even thicker than mine," He chuckled. "It's no tropical paradise, but it's very green. I enjoy coming home to it.

"But I'm curious, Harry," Artemis began, stabbing the juice box with his straw, "Where did you travel and for what purpose?"

While Artemis and Harry had both heard where the other was from, neither of them recognized Destiny Islands -- and Sora didn't recognize the places they mentioned, either. He wasn't that surprised that they hadn't heard of his home, though. There was nothing too remarkable about those islands unless they were home to you.

It was nice to hear a little more about Artemis, though. Even though they had gotten to know each other over the days, Sora hadn't gotten much background on the other boy. Sora was just glad that the focus was away from him, since it would take a lot of effort to explain anything beyond what he'd already provided.

"I haven't heard of those places, but I'd love to hear about them," Sora said with a smile as he leaned toward the other two, figuring he should tune in to Harry's answer.

"My friends and I had to keep on the move in order to avoid some evil men," he said carefully, thinking about the wording and then figuring he might as well explain it so that Sora could understand. "I, uh, have been fighting a very evil wizard for the last seven years, the fight finally came to an end this year, but before we could actually face him, we had to search for a way to defeat him while avoiding his followers."

He frowned at the memories and at what Sora was saying. "You've never heard of England?" he asked, shocked at the idea. "Never?" He tried to think of icons that normal people would know. "London? Buckingham Palace? Big Ben?" And might as well try for a wizarding place too. "Diagon Alley?"

"Ah, on the run, as it were," Artemis smiled appreciatively. He could sympathize--however his version of 'on the run' was merely holing himself inside the fortress that was Fowl Manor. "Well, it's good to hear you finally defeated that... dark wizard," Artemis couldn't remember the name of the dreaded antagonist, so he settled on a more general term.

"Don't be too surprised, Harry," Artemis grinned at the teen, "Many people here haven't heard of Ireland either. Although," His eyes flashed with interest, "I've never heard of Diagon Alley. Where and what is that?"

Sora listened intently as Harry went into what he had been doing before he arrived. He knew what it was like to move around a lot, but he hadn't been on the run. There was always some evil force involved, though, and he was glad to hear that the other boy had been successful in defeating the wizard who had been causing problem. He wondered if that wizard was anything like Maleficent...

When Harry listed off what Sora assumed to be places, he could only stare blankly back. He paused for a moment, letting Artemis speak, before responding. "Sorry, I haven't. But there are people from all sorts of different worlds here, so I just haven't been to yours." Not yet, at least. He wouldn't be surprised if he ended up traveling to some of the places he'd heard about in the future.

Harry sighed and shook his head. He smiled slightly. "Never mind, it's not important," he said after a moment. He glanced at Artemis. "That's the wizard market place in London."

"Wizard market place... how fascinating," Artemis looked honestly interested. "I had no idea that there were so many humans who possessed magic! Are you able to do any at the Institute?" If Artemis had kept his own magic, perhaps Harry had kept some of his as well. Or, even more fascinating, perhaps the mechanics of Harry's magic were completely different from Artemis' own.

"And Sora--you've been to different worlds as well?" So much information! So many fascinating things! Artemis was in heaven on this dingy little bus.

Wizard market place... That certainly sounded interesting! Sora wouldn't mind checking out a place like that, though he got the feeling that Donald would have just protested that it was a waste of the time. The duck was the closest to a wizard that they had, and yet he likely would have shot the idea down anyway.

But Sora missed him, and Goofy as well. At least Kairi and Riku were around to make sure he didn't get too homesick.

He was about to ask a few questions and respond to Artemis' when the bus jolted into movement. Sora grabbed hold of the seat in front of him for support and then grinned over at the other two. This was sort of exciting! While there wasn't much to see, they were at least getting to go out for the day and that would help with the cabin fever a bit.

"Yeah, I've been to lots of different worlds. But both of you can do magic, huh?" He had seen Artemis do something that he had suspected was magic that one night, but he had never gotten the chance to ask about it until now. Sora could technically do magic as well, but it wasn't his field of expertise, and he was completely cut off from it at Landel's.

Harry didn't answer Artmeis' question right away. Harry wasn't sure what he could, he didn't have a wand. That was not a fact he wanted a lot of people to know.

"I can. My... world..." he was still getting used to the idea. "As two different worlds, but not like this. More like two different cultures. The magical world and then the Muggle world."

Artemis smiled, his expression a little taut, "Yes, you most likely saw it during the fight two nights ago. Unlike you and Harry, I... can't control my magic very well. If I sustain injury, it heals me whether I will it or no. It's easier to control when I'm more focused, but if I'm unconscious or--" Upset. No, wrong word. Artemis didn't use that word to describe himself. "Not thinking clearly, it's difficult if not impossible."

His smile became a bit wider, "But I would appreciate it if you kept that little bit of information to yourselves. I'm not a reliable magic-user, and I wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea."

He fell silent on the subject, listening to the bus rattle. How he wished he was in the backseat of his Benz. It was so much quieter, and less cramped to boot.

"My world is much the same, Harry," Artemis explained after listening to the teen speak on his own world's structure, "There are humans, who do not possess magic, and there are fairies, who do. Fairies go to a lot of trouble to make sure that humans don't find out about their 'culture' as you put it. I've had my mind wiped at least once that I know of."

Sora nodded as Artemis explained how his magic worked and then asked that it be kept quiet. He knew what it was like to keep secrets, and it seemed that in the places that Harry and Artemis were from, that was common practice. Two different cultures functioning separate from the other, but in the same place...

The mind wiping caused the boy's eyes to widen, and he was about to comment about how horrible that was until he realized that he'd been a victim of the same treatment. It was so easy to forget that he had forgotten. As far as he knew, he had just been sleeping for a very long time.

"Well, for me... Since I went traveling from world to world a lot, I couldn't tell the people I was helping that I was from a different world. It's called keeping 'world order.' Most people don't realize that there are any other worlds, and telling them about it could cause problems." Mr. Landel had seriously broken world order by bringing so many people from so many worlds into once place. They were bound to find out that their stories didn't match up, right?

Harry nodded at Artemis. He understood what it was like to not be able to control his magic because he wasn't 'thinking clearly'. It happened too many times at this aunt and uncle's house.

"My world has something like that," he said to Sora's explanation. "It's a law that basically says the magic and Muggle, er, non-magic, worlds have to stay separate." He felt himself feeling inpatient as they neared the town. He would have to find out if the place had a bookstore and visit it first thing. He still wasn't sure just how much people really knew about him.

"Well, I suppose it's for the best that magic and non-magic beings are separated, and that those who don't know about world and dimension travel are separated from those who do. If humans knew about magic," Artemis said in a mock-horrified tone, "They'd find some way to take advantage!" He chuckled a little at his own joke--he was rather fond of doing that. "And, as I'm sure many have realized, including you, Harry, finding out that one is part of a separate time line or parallel world can be psychologically challenging."

He thought of Obi-Wan, and a small crease formed between his eyes. He'd been trying so hard to keep the words "just a movie" from the jedi, but it was hard. Obviously, the number of people who realized this type of insensitivity could cause psychological problems was small, if not non-existent. It worried the boy. But not to the point of caring. Of course not...

The bus stopped and Artemis looked out the window. The town seemed nice enough--but everything in this damned place seemed nice enough at first glance. He had business to attend to. Whatever that was. He still hadn't decided yet.

"I suppose this is our cue to disembark?"

So many worlds functioned on the idea of keeping secrets. Sora didn't really feel like Destiny Islands was that way, but there was always the possibility that he was being biased. Still, his home was too small and contained to really be able to hide anything.

While he didn't know what Artemis' comment toward Harry meant, Sora knew he couldn't just come out and ask about it. Artemis would have filled him in had he wanted to -- besides, it looked like they had reached the town.

When Sora could tell that the bus was slowing, he pulling himself up from his seat and peered out the window. It was a really nice, quiet-looking place. Kind of like Traverse Town, except that there was actual sunlight, and Traverse Town probably got a lot more traffic than this place did.

"Yep," he said with a nod toward Artemis. "I'll see you guys later." He needed to go explore!

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Day 28; Bus 3

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