[OP-F4] A Night to Remember [Limit: Reached] (Closed)

[Azide 0]

"Is that so?" asked Azide, laughing a bit. "In that case, I guess I'd better have a change of plans." He was, of course, joking. He set the snowball aside, then leaned all the way back, until his head rested against the snow. He brought his arms up to cradle the back of his head. "The sky looks even bigger like this," he found himself thinking. Without an trace of the ground to be seen, the night sky filled his entire field of view from here, save for the occasional branch that'd snuck its way in. "That was a joke, by the way, so don't go drawing your sword on me or anything." For a moment, he was quiet, taking in her last comments. "I asked before, but I had the feeling you were holding out on me, so I'd like to ask you again- if you don't mind. What brought you here to the glade, Rebekah?"

Snow continued to fall gently from the sky, dusting his hair with small specks of shimmering white. He blinked, keeping out a flake as it made a move toward his eyes. He didn't want anything to disrupt his view right now.

[Rebekah 0]

What brought her up here? That was something that she did not even have an answer for, well, not that one that would satisfy his probing. Rebekah thought about it for a little bit longer, but nothing logical came to her head. She knew that it was dangerous for a girl such as her to visit places by herself at night, even if she was part of the mid-higher level players that are still active in this game. In the end it escaped her mouth, "This was a nice escape from reality, isn't it? The illusion of peace and quiet, which is rare to find, even if this was a place where couples would typically go." Nothing burned her out more than grinding out the extra few monsters for a few extra mats to sustain her cooking. Everything other than that, she had been fine with, the same routine daily. But this place was something different, even if it was her first time up here. She had looked for places to escape once in a while, but often never stayed long before a monster would walk by, or it would be noisy since a lot of players would be near by.

[Azide 0]

The stars shimmered above unobstructed, except for the occasional swaying of branches in and out of his frame of view. As the snowflakes came slowly drifting down, it looked as if the stars themselves were falling towards him. The occasional speckled leaf swept by overhead, only to quietly shatter and dissolve into a burst of blue particles before fading away.

He stayed still, enjoying the moment here in the snow, resting at the edge of the glade. It wasn't often that he took some time to relax, after all. And yet in spite of the relaxing aspects of this place, he found himself wishing to stay awake, rather than fall asleep. It had that sort of mesmerizing effect on him.

He listened as the girl spoke, considering his response for a moment. "So you came here for a bit of peace and quiet?" he asked. It was more of a statement, rather than a proper question. "I totally get that. As it turns out, that's exactly the reason I'm here tonight." He paused, watching as another delinquent flake made its slow descent from the night sky, then blew it away softly as it drifted above his face. "You know, I haven't been active for very long, but this is probably the longest I've talked to somebody in this world without being interrupted by a monster of some sort." He closed his eyes. "Even though I came here looking for silence, I can't say that I regret what I got instead. Funny how things work out sometimes."

[Rebekah 0]

That was true as well, she did not regret coming up to the glaze tonight. Rebekah knew it could have been a lot worst, if she came up here and there were more people around. That would have made her trip a waste of time. She did not know the mechanics of this area, but she knew that there were certain areas that monsters do not go, towns, and maybe places like these as well, or it was that they decided not to bother them up here, as they were higher level. However, she was thinking it was more of the former, as she had never seen that happen, monsters avoiding players on purpose since they were a lot stronger.

 

She looked up, even though there weren't any shooting stars, this was the closest she would get to wishing for something here, so she made a wish. It was not something that she was going say out. She wondered how long they been here, as the snow kept falling around them. She stopped caring as much these days, "For some reason, most things do eventually work itself out in this game." Rebekah looked at Azide, for some reason she had just noticed those brown eyes, it was brown right? They looked beautiful. She laughed when she realized that, as she can be good and bad at being observant at the same time.

[Azide 0]

The girl laughed, and he found himself smiling for some reason. For him, smiling was something to be perfected, just like any other skill. His own had often been described best as a politician's smile— one that won people over, and was likely to have been rehearsed a thousand times before seeing use. But this was not that smile. Rather, it was one of a different sort. "God, I wonder if I'm smiling like a fool right now," he thought. Something about it all felt surreal, like it was a dream he'd wake up from, and maybe think about the next day.

He opened an eye and tilted his head to look up at her. "What's so funny? Come on, I wanna know." And for the moment, he'd taken his eyes off of the night sky, but that didn't seem to matter. The stars were so much further away, anyway. He blinked and opened both eyes this time around, then laughed. But rather than sit up, he was content with continuing to lie against the snow for the time being. "And is that right?" he asked, responding to her insight. "So if it were up to you, how would things work out?"

[Rebekah 0]

That was weird. Rebekah thought about how she was spontaneously started laughing just thinking about herself. It was not really funny to anyone, but she did find herself quite amusing at times, especially when she could somehow be good and bad at something at the same time. "Well, nothing ever goes according to plan. For example, we both came to find peace and quiet up here, yet we run into each other. However, this outcome is more desirable to us than the former?" That sounded confusing, but she continued. "This is not the first time things just happen like this."

 

However, she decided to switch topics, "So, Azide, which part of the world did you come from?" The whole idea of coming up here was for her to escape from the game, even though she was still open to talking about the game, she wanted to keep her mind off. With the last boss raid claiming 2 lives, it was the first time in quite a while since that had happened, and knew that they needed to take extra precautions in the future. She knew even though in the grand scope of things, there will be casualties but after fighting with them, it was just a different feeling. Even though she did not know either of them on a personal level, it was a lot different hearing the words, be careful out there, there is a chance one might die, and seeing it in person.

[Azide 0]

"As much as I love a little peace and quiet every now and then, I can agree with that," said Azide. And it was true. He really had come to this place with the intention of some peace and quiet. "Actually, it's still quite peaceful here, and she's pretty quiet." So in a way, he did get what he'd been looking for after all. That is, if one were willing to play fast and loose with the semantics. He'd noticed the sudden shift in conversation following his remark, though he didn't call her out on it.

"Where I come from?" he repeated. "I'm from this little place up north by the name of Canada," he said, sitting back up. He brushed the snow off of his coat and out of his hair, then stretched his arms. "If you've never been there, it's actually very similar to this floor, but with a few more french people every so often. Or at least, that's how it is where I live." He paused, then corrected himself. "Lived, I mean." He turned to the girl that'd been sitting beside him for quite some time now. "And how about you? What country did you happen to call home?"

[Rebekah 0]

By the way he spoke, she could tell that there was a slight accent, perhaps not acadian but it was close enough. She thought back to her life, as her parents had moved their entire family over from Europe to the East Coast of America. She had lived all throughout some of Canada and most of the United States, as she had been born there. She remembered a bit of french from her time living there, but it was not enough to make feel completely comfortable speaking in French. Thus that was a difficult answer, even for herself to say out, in the end she spoke, "The East Coast." Since she moved around quite a bit as a child, she did not associate a single location as her home, but rather a much larger region. "But I do understand a tiny bit of French," she spoke.

 

She had been sitting for quite a while, and decided to lay down with her back and look at the stars above. She had been wondering all along how close was the "sky" to them, because the stairs in between the floors did not seem to be that long, but the sky does look rather realistic being out of reach. She had been wondering about that, but it was too complex for her, she knew that the floor beyond this was the scorching desert.

[Azide 0]

He couldn't help but laugh at her answer, not that there was anything inherently funny about it. He looked over at Rebekah, who'd now decided to lie down against the powdery snow. "There's an awfully large amount of east coasts in the world, don't you think?" he remarked. "But judging from how you omitted the actual country altogether, I'm going to assume you must be American." He threw his hands out defensively. "Not that there's anything wrong with that. They're usually a friendly enough bunch. Maybe a bit loud sometimes, but you seem to be defying that stereotype so far." He brought his hands back down, letting his palms rest against the frosty ground.

"Tu fais bonne compagnie, Rebekah." He cleared his throat. "French definitely isn't my strongest language, but you pick it up after a while. I know enough to get around, but not enough to feel at ease in a meaningful conversation with it, if you catch my drift." True, he did happen to be half French, though he'd never identified too much with that half. He certainly didn't resent it. After all, the French had done a great deal for the scientific community in all fields, from chemistry to aerodynamics. "Although I probably could've paid a little more attention during my French lessons growing up," he thought.

[Rebekah 0]

Rebekah wanted to reply something in french, but her command of the language was also quite lacking, particularly in the vocabulary compartment. She was better at understanding a language, rather than communicating a different idea in it. While the word American did stick, she did not consider herself to be American at all, that was something that she had never felt patriotic to. "Why don't we stick with English?" seeing that both of their French were not the best, while they could both have a simple conversation, neither of them were good enough to carry a conversation for an extended period of time.

 

She was still lying down on the soft fluffy snow, which was nice. She thought about making a snow angel, but decided against it, she wanted to get up, but this position was quite comfortable as well. She was wondering, "were you a casual gamer growing up, or were you interested in gaming?" as the both of them as well as many others are stuck inside this virtual reality game, which carried around a lot of hype as it was released.

[Azide 0]

"Oh, believe me, I wasn't planning to continue with the whole French thing. Just consider it as testing the waters," he remarked. "Anyway, my accent might sound passable, but I'd only feel limited by the language had we kept it up." He was reminded of how it felt to have to converse on somebody else's terms. "It's a cheap shot switching a disagreement to another language. Like conversational hijacking, almost," he thought. Even if he'd had another ten years of experience with that language, he would never truly be able to fully express himself in it. Still, those days had long since passed. Nowadays, he was free to talk his way out of pretty much an situation he needed to. In English, mostly.

He looked down at Rebekah, noticing that she seemed quite content with continuing to lie against the snow. "Someone sure looks comfy over there," he noted. He also noticed the way the snow landed and settled in her hair and on her face, sprinkling it with white flakes here and there. He felt an odd compulsion to offer her a parasol or something of the sort, though he definitely didn't carry around something as frivolous as that. Tossing the thought aside, he scooped up another handful of snow from the small mound beside him and began to give it shape. "Actually, I wasn't a gamer at all– growing up or otherwise. It's just dumb luck that I happen to be here right now."

[Rebekah 0]

She looked over to him starting to mold another shape with the snow, but this time she didn't care if he was going to throw it. It just was not worth the effort to get up, and put effort into making a snowball that could rival the size of his, especially with the headstart that he would received. However, that line had caught her at the very end, dumb luck,  and she decided to inquire further into it. "Then how did you end up playing this game?" she asked, as it was common knowledge to everyone that this game had been sold out, and there was actually a lot more demand to get a copy of the game, but only 10,000 players were able to receive the game right away. We later knew that we were the only 10,000 players that had to be counted on to make it all the way to the end.

[Azide 0]

He packed the material together until it'd reached the basic shape that he'd desired. From there, he'd slowly whittled away at the structure until each side had become level and smooth. By the time he'd finished refining his little sculpture, he'd been left with a white rectangular prism, resembling your standard crystal in both size and shape. He held it gingerly in front of him between the tips of his finger, raising it up to the moonlight before bringing it back down.

Hearing another question from the girl, he rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. "Funny story about that, actually. Remember how I told you earlier that I'd never made a snowball before today?" He glanced at the little snow crystal in his hand and squinted at it for a moment before smoothing out a slight imperfection. "Before all of this, I'd never actually played a video game before, and I'd never actually planned to start. But as fate would have it, my roommate happened to be a fanatic for this new VMMORPG stuff, and he wouldn't shut up about Sword Art Online."

He raised his fingers slowly from his nape up through his hair, then returned his palms to frosty ground. "So one night, while I was busy studying away, the guy comes up to me raving about how 'cool' this game was. As it turned out, he'd just picked up the nerve gear, and had already given it a try. When he saw how uninterested I was, he must've made up his mind about convincing me, because he didn't take no for an answer. So after a bit of grumbling, I slipped on the helmet and made my character, hoping he'd leave me be for a while afterward. It took a pretty decent amount of time, considering I'd never done anything like that before, but when I'd finished, the log out feature had already been disabled." He stopped to take a deep breath, then breathed out slowly. "So to make a long story slightly less long, that's what happened in a nutshell."

[Rebekah 0]

Rebekah was a bit surprised when she heard the word snowball, and that it was his first time. That was really strange, as living in Canada, there was no way, one could avoid interacting with snow at all, maybe unless they lived specifically in Vancouver. Well, she knew more about Canada than what most people thought off, the myth of polar bears and igloos might be a reality on floor 4, but not in most of Canada. "How would you avoid a snowball fight in Canada growing up?" Rebekah asked, as that was a more interesting topic than asking about how his roommate forced him to try out this new game, that got them stuck here.

 

Rebekah added, "Well, he must have been interested to see your reaction to the game, more than himself." as it was Azide who ended up stuck in this game, and not his roommate, who had bought the game. There were only few explanations why he would let someone else try out the game first, perhaps he was a beta tester? But that was a question for another time, as nobody could 'log out' of this game unless they clear the final floor at the very end.

[Azide 0]

"Believe me, I'm aware how ridiculous that probably sounds. After all, where I come from, people live in igloos and ride polar bears to work. And I'm even willing to admit that my family's igloo was the biggest in the entire neighborhood, although the whole global warming thing pretty much meant the end of both of those things." He kept a straight face as he spoke, but something told him that the girl wouldn't be buying his tale. He shook his head softly and softened his expression.

"But to answer your question, I had one of those families, growing up. You know, uptight parents and high expectations. Pretty much the whole package. I guess you could say that I'm lucky not to have ended up just like them," he answered. He chuckled, but a look of weariness had rolled past his eyes as he made the comment. "But it wasn't like we thought we were above things like snowball making. No, that wasn't it. Sometimes those things just don't occur to you when you're so out of touch." He looked at the snow crystal again and noted the way it caught the light when he turned it a certain way. "There's a lot you miss when you're in a hurry," he thought.

He set his little sculpture down down beside him. "Yeah, that probably sounds like a questionable reaction to us, but I'm sure he didn't think his little toy would be stuck to my head indefinitely. I mean, I'm just glad the cheapskate didn't try to forcibly remove it," he remarked.

[Rebekah 0]

Well, it was not the answer that she had been expecting but she knew that he had just contradicted himself with two separate statements. There was no real way for someone to be outside to build an igloo without making anything with snow, that was just impossible. She could infer from him that he had an interesting childhood growing up, as he was probably the type to go completely into studying with parents who controlled much of their life. Even while lying down, she could see the ice crystal landing softly on his hand, and it stayed there for quite a while.

 

She knew that he had really meant what he had just said, especially since he was cherishing the moment of snow being stuck to his hand. "Did you ever meet those lofty expectations?" she wondered as she knew it must be tough when all the expectations were on their shoulders, especially growing up.

[Azide 0]

At first, her question had caught him off guard, and for a while he was quiet. Not a long while, per say, but it was the longest silence since they'd started talking tonight. "Did I meet them?" It was a simple thought, and a simple question, and yet no easy answer came to him. To an observer, it probably looked as if he were simply watching the way the snowflakes fell against his gloves. They might've even noticed the slight twinkle that came about in his eyes each time a flake melted away. And to be fair, these things did interest and captivate him, though they were only the tip of the iceberg.

Finally, he spoke up, having arrived at an answer coherent enough to satisfy him. "In my readings, I once came across the story of a certain man. In fact, this man was an American, and I'll refer to him as Joe." Even as he began to speak, he continued to stare at the flakes that continued to adorn his gloves. "Joe was respected, above all. But not the sort of respect you'd give to a dean or even your boss, mind you. He was a powerful man, and respected was practically commanded by him. He was a graduate of Harvard University, and later went on to become one of the most powerful men in his entire nation. As the American Ambassador to Britain, he was a success, by all means." He paused for a moment, then continued.

"But Joe had a dark side to him. Of his nine children, eight of them went on to have wildly successful lives for themselves. In fact, you're probably even familiar with a son of his," he noted. He'd chuckled, but it'd only sounded hollow. "But that's beside the point. Joe's eighth child was a girl by the name of Rosemary, and she receives the distinct gift of having been born with something of a mental defect. By pure chance, she'd been born with an IQ of around 65. Did this low IQ make her a vegetable, you ask?" He shook his head. "No. But as she grew up, Joe had realized that she wouldn't be nearly as easy to control as the others. Not one to let family get in the way of his aspirations, he eventually made things right."

Azide raked the fingers of his free hand through the snow beside him before squeezing them them against his palm, so that the snow packed together in his grip. "That is to say, Joe had his own daughter lobotomized, so as to prevent her from becoming a stain on the family's good name." He sighed, then turned to Rebekah. "At first, I didn't know why that story had stuck out to me. The story of Joseph Kennedy, whose wish of putting a son in the White House would later to go on to be fulfilled. It was a haunting story, but then again, history offers plenty of those. So of course I'd wondered, 'Why this one?' And then one night, while I lay awake in bed, the connection finally became clear to me." His eyes shifted to the view granted to him by the cliffside, but he continued to speak. "If I'd been a Rosemary, maybe then same thing would've happened to me." With this, came another silence from him, which lasted nearly as long as the first.

"Sometimes people expect a lot from others, and my parents were no special exception. So to answer your question, I don't believe I ever truly reached their expectations, but perhaps I'd been able to approach them. My parents weren't bad people by any stretch, but their flaws ran deep. Maybe even deeper than most. But like they say, there's just no satisfying some people." He looked back at the girl, not quite sure of how long it was that he'd been speaking.

[Rebekah 0]

That was a long explanation, as she could tell from the pause that he took at the very beginning. Also, she was not expecting a direct answer from Azide at this point, judging by the conversation, she knew this was going to be a long story. Truth be told, she did not exactly know what a lobotomy was, but she could infer from the context of the story. However, the question that had sunk into her mind was, would it really happen if he was a few ticks lower on the IQ scale? Rebekah had this assumption that most people were 'normal' by most standards in society, and that was what she had use whenever she were to think about others. That was why she did not think some would go great lengths to do this procedure. She knew that 'lobotomy' idea was something that would have some side effects.

 

She had met a few people throughout her life that would go to extremes to make sure something that does not happen. Personally, she detest those people, while predictable at times, do not have a sense that enough is enough. They will continue to plow through regardless, to achieve their goal, in this case, protect the honour of their family. While this was not as extreme as others, going through great lengths to achieve it was in fact potentially dangerous for everyone. She asked, "So, were you an only child? or did you have brothers and sisters at all?"

[Azide 0]

Her next question was considerably easier to respond to, which was certainly a welcome change. Unlike the last, there was no hesitation, and the words came back to him naturally. "I still am," he remarked, offering a faint smile. "An only child, that is. I used to imagine that having a brother or sister might've lightened the pressure I felt, but eventually I came to conclude that it's never as simple in practice as it is on paper. I'm sure their expectations would've only been grander, had that been the case."

He was all too aware of how much of their conversation had been focused on his own life. Although he didn't have any misgivings about sharing certain aspects of it, he'd rather not be alone in the spotlight. After all, how much did he know about Rebekah, really? "I know she's a little quiet, and comes from the east coast of... somewhere. She knows a little French, and apparently enjoys nice views, because obviously nobody else enjoys that sort of thing." As he'd figured, it wasn't very much at the moment.

"And what about you?" he asked. "What's your family like?" He knew he'd have to start from somewhere, if he wanted to learn anything about the girl. Although there was no use in trying to draw blood from a stone, he got the feeling that his attempts were not in vein. Or at least, they wouldn't be, with the right questions.

[Rebekah 0]

She did not want to talk about her family, as she could go on and on about everything that hated from her life. Truthfully, she was not the only girl in her family, as her oldest sibling was a girl who 'died' before she any of her other siblings were born, so that would have made it 7, but it was really 6 in her mind. "Well, I was the only girl in the family, which was tough growing up, as my brothers tried to shelter me from everything. That reminds me, I had heard that someone who looks like one of my older brothers is in the game now, but I have not confirmed if that is true or not," Rebekah spoke. She had decided not to check whether it was true or not, but she knew that her life would turn upside down the moment he would appear.

 

There were a lot of family issues growing up, and among her brothers there was the rebellious one, the mother's boy, the noble one, and finally the violent one. She knew that she had only remembered four, as one of them also died. There was a lot of family dynamic, but she knew that most of them had always looked after her, perhaps a little too much. When they would intervene with every aspect of your life that was a problem that cause her to resent them.