Day 51: Breakfast

[thatdamnedninja.livejournal.com]

Yuffie Kisaragi, indomitable bouncing ball of sunshine and unfathomable ebullience, was tired. It'd been a long night full of gibberish and getting nowhere fast.

"Can't I—"

Plucky, who had been busily loading a plate full of French toast and bacon, tittered. "I'm afraid not, Hanna, darling. A chat over a nice, hearty breakfast would do you a world of good, don't you think?"

"Aaaaactually—"

"Come on, let's find you a seat. Plenty to choose from this morning!"

For a long moment, Yuffie seriously considered doing something—anything—to act out. Punch her nurse, rub jam in an orderly's face, climb a wall and hang off the ceiling, jump on a table and parody Loveless… A ruckus like that would definitely jolt her back into gear, right? Sedation aside. And it'd turn Plucky's good day right on its head, which was always a bonus worth shooting for.

But, by the time she'd reached a decision—and it was an epic decision, a really awesome one; everybody'd appreciate the genius, she was sure—she was already alone. Her breakfast tray had been set down neatly by the nurse, who had left with an infuriatingly winsome smile.

"Wow," Yuffie muttered. Shaking her head, she picked a chair at random and threw herself into it. She kicked back, one arm slung across her eyes, to wait. For what, she wasn't totally sure. Some moron to decide that she looked like good company? That was how it usually went.

Comments

[mugenreppa.livejournal.com]

"That's a weird question to ask." Mele tilted her head as she thought. "It'd be like a legend, right? You hear a legend, and suddenly, you're living it?" That was the closest parallel that she could think of, except the legend had been...stars. And there hadn't really been a story behind them.

But what Scarecrow was talking about was a bit different. "I'd...wonder how they knew the story." It was different for Mele, who'd been revived after some hundred years, but if there had been a story about her, Mele wouldn't really have thought much about it, except maybe to flaunt her awesomeness. There had been occasional stories of the Geki-Rin Uprising, but there was never an 'official' version or record of that that she'd seen, and all the stories were personal accounts from those who had been revived, anyway—and they only told those to each other, to brag.

"Is that what happened? Someone...made a movie?" Come to think of it, that did sound a little disconcerting. Someone who only looked like Mele, projecting Mele's life onto a screen? Sounded like some kind of bizarre dream.

[scarefaux]

The Scarecrow nodded. "It seems so. I saw it last night- or enough of it, anyway. My friend Dorothy was in it, and the Tin Man and the Lion, and even the Wicked Witch of the West." His brow furrowed. "Well, it looked just like them, and sounded like them, but Sangamon- he was with me last night- seemed so sure it wasn't really us. Just look-alikes."

He paused and finally took a bite of the bread he'd been prodding with his fork for the past several minutes. "It's strange enough thinkin' that someone else not only knew about Oz, but brought the story of Dorothy's defeat of the Wicked Witch back to wherever they came from and made this movie about it. Or maybe Dorothy told someone when she finally got back to Kansas, and they made the movie. Either way, I'm pretty sure we don't have anything like those where I come from." Having once been the wisest man in Oz, he was quite sure of that.

"And apparently, people do look at it as some sort of make-believe," the Scarecrow continued, feeling that worried look creeping onto his face. "I guess it's hard for some folks to believe something they can't see with their own two eyes."

[mugenreppa.livejournal.com]

"Slow down," Mele mumbled. Okay, so...a bunch of names (?), a battle, a...transfer? Moving from one place to another, it sounded like, and...make-believe. Well, was any of that important? Uh, maybe the transfer thing.

"Maybe you come from their past." Mele had talked to some people about when they'd come from, in the hope that someone from the future would know what had happened in the battle she'd died in. She still didn't know. And, well, Scarecrow's world didn't have movies; maybe it wasn't a question of his world but his time. "Your story got famous and now people know about it?"

[scarefaux]

[No worries! I kept his shower thread vague because that's how I roll. I hope this doesn't screw up any of your future shifts. D:]

"Come from their past?" he asked incredulously. Now there was something the Scarecrow hadn't thought of before- he vaguely recalled mention of such theories on the bulletin board, but had never taken much stock in the idea that everyone at the Institution came from very, very different places, so different that they didn't even exist in the same world at all. He'd always pictured Oz as simply being located far, far away from Kansas- after all, Dorothy managed to get there by twister, and as far as he knew, it wasn't as though they were magical in any way. Then again, she'd had to return to Kansas by magic (that did raise the question of what happened to the Wizard and how he could have initially arrived in Oz, given that he wasn't much of a wizard in the first place and his balloon certainly wouldn't have had the sort of sorcery as the Ruby Slippers).

Now, traveling to Oz from a star was one thing, but was it possible, even with magic, to travel from an earlier time? He shook his head as he thought- surely not. And even if it could be done, why would anyone do it?

Of course, this was the Wizard Landel he was thinking about- the same man who had enough power to not only bring people to his Institution across great distances without their knowing, but also change their bodies at whim. He used his magic to bewitch his patients, pushing friends to fight one another as he saw fit. He was a powerful and terrible wizard indeed, and already had plenty of questions surrounding his reasoning-

Oh, there he was thinking too much again.

"I... suppose that could have happened," the Scarecrow said after a long while. He'd have to put more thought into this later. "If the Wizard Landel is capable of putting those of us who weren't human before into these forms and has tricked who knows how many people into believing his lies, there's no telling what else he could have done to bring us here."

[mugenreppa.livejournal.com]

"And a bunch of other stuff, too," Mele muttered darkly, remembering the feel of genki through her veins. It was supposed to have been impossible, but there it was. "He can do impossible things," she said. "It's probably not—"

She paused, then leaned her head on an arm, staring at Scarecrow, considering. "...Is it...really bothering you?" Even after the Airi fiasco, Mele believed that what was real was real. The fake memories augmented that belief even more, in fact; Mele was Mele, without any doubts or rationalizations, even if a few tidbits of Airi's knowledge and abilities were still floating around in Mele's head. And that was because Mele had a reason to live for, to fight for, even if he was nowhere to be found.

That probably wouldn't comfort Scarecrow, though, who asked a lot of thinky questions...and he didn't seem receptive to love-warrior mentality, in any case. Would it work if she told him to not think so much about it, to just...deal with whatever he had to? No...that was what he was doing. It wasn't what Mele would do, so she was, once again, at a loss.

[scarefaux]

The Scarecrow nodded wordlessly, not sure how to express exactly how he felt about the entire situation. He took a second bite of bread, giving himself another moment to think as he chewed. "Between my friend Dorothy bein' out there somewhere, tricked into believing the Wizard Landel's lies, and this movie about Oz and all of my friends- myself, too- I just have a lot to think about." He hated to admit it, but there were times where the story that he really had been human all along seemed to make an awful lot of sense.

"I know I shouldn't let it get to me so much, but it is frustrating to not have the answers," he continued, his brow furrowing, "and it seems no amount of thinking is doing me any good in finding them."

Something clicked in the Scarecrow's mind, realization suddenly hitting him. "Why, that's the answer right there, isn't it?" he asked excitedly, more to himself than to Mele. "I'm probably thinking about this too much- far too much for someone without a good set of brains in him. I never thought I'd be the one sayin' this, but I ought to be doing less thinking and more doing. I need to try to find my brains. They've got to be here- after all, I know I didn't just lose them. Landel took them and is keeping them somewhere, and I'm going to find out where that is."