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    It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Rodadnuf
    Rodadnuf

    Player 
    Lineage : Anathema to Divinity
    Position : None
    Faction : The Ironheart Pact
    Posts : 248
    Guild : Silver Wolf
    Cosmic Coins : 100
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 2,561,089

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Rollins & Schwartz-Brand
    Second Skill: Heaven God Slayer
    Third Skill:

    It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 19th December 2022, 6:29 am

    It's a Wonderful Life
    Job Details: New Years Cheers

    Hargeon town was bustling for the holiday season. One reason being the winter season makes it more active around the seas, so the fishermen rarely head out unless they wanted to encounter winter monsters out in the open sea. But the real reason was Hargeon becomes a landing capital for tourists during the peak of midwinter. Being close to Magnolia definitely has its perks. As an effect, it hasn’t even the new year yet and the town and its people had already taken means to decorate itself for the last stretch of the season. Snow clouds were clumped together up above shining deep shades of grey and white, as if in agreement to the festival and is well prepared for a proper snowfall. Meanwhile, the people were up and about; the shops around the docks extended their tables further to accommodate new arrivals while others set up tents closer to the ports where they sell souvenirs and other trinkets, both mundane and magical. It was still midday and everyone was already celebrating, or was too busy hauling themselves to a hotel room so they too could join in.

    The park, especially, despite it being half destroyed because of an incident months ago during the Hallows’ eve, was heavily decorated for the season. The trees were lined with light lacrima that would soon make it glow a warm orange once the sun sets, the houses around the park were also in cahoots with the festivities, some of them even putting out decorations provided by the mayor. From stalls on the outside of the park proper to the people enjoying themselves walking around the grounds; it was already lively enough.

    But it had gotten distinctly livelier when a pack of built men and women came around and noisily prepared a stage on the further side of the park.

    “What do you think they’re building…oh! It’s a stage!”

    “Is there a band playing?”

    “They’re doing a play, I think.” Tim was sitting by a park bench when he overheard the couple wonder to themselves. “They’re called The Rabian’s Scheherazade troupe.”

    The two men turned to him. “You know about them?!”

    “I’ve never seen them perform, but sounds like they’ve been at this for a damn long while now.” Tim waved two pamphlets as he read from a third one, much to the disappointment from one of them. “What?”

    “It’s nothing.” One of them shrugs.

    “He’s gotten into these sorts of stuff lately,” The second smiled at him. “He probably thought you might be a theatre buff.”

    Tim huffed out a laugh. “Other than a bunch of books I’ve read as a kid, I’m in the dark about this sort of stuff too.”

    “What is the play going to be about?”

    “Let’s see here…” He flipped a page off the paper, reading it aloud. “The Dragon King Festival: a banquet of Dragons, humans and Demons…huh. It seems to be a recreation of an old event.”

    “It must be talking about the old war of the dragons.” The first supplied.

    “I don’t think so,” He narrowed his eyes at the pamphlet. “It says here it’s recreating the one that happened in the capital over a hundred years ago. It’s a reminder to the people of Ishgar how close history can always repeat itself should selfishness overcome an already corruptible soul. Right.”

    “Oh? That sounds a bit scandalous…”

    “Did the mayor approve of this?”

    “I think so…”

    “Well, regardless. If you two need tickets, they set up down by the booths. Between the shooting one and the whack a mole.”

    “Like the one they had in the Hollows’ eve festival?”

    “The very same.” He nodded.

    The two bid him farewell leaving Tim alone again.

    He heard the chime of the church’s belltower and counted along with it. “I wonder if she’ll actually show up…”

    The thought of him being stood up, for once, made him relax. In Tim’s life, his dating history was completely barren. He distinctly remembered having some crushes back in his old life, but considering what happened to him way back when, it was a good thing he never pursued it. Later in the neutral grounds he met someone he liked, but there was a little fact of him just having lost his family and him having fits of turning into a monster at night; romance was the least of his concerns. That mindset never truly left the young man, and it wasn’t until he finally became a Silver Wolf wizard had he fully saw his curse for what it truly was. And since then, he thought of the life he missed. He was far too old to act like some kid, of course, but there were some pleasures in his life he made a passing thought but never truly pursued.

    “Then again, she doesn’t seem like the type to flake out.” He leaned back over the bench’s metal rest. “Not that I have anything else to go on other than our short meet ups when we do jobs…”

    Tim didn’t really think munch into his invitation until he actually remembered it word for word:

    “Hey, Nita? I know we haven’t really kept in touch since we went to the moon, or close to it. But…Uh…anyways, I meant to call you for the town’s Hallows’ eve festival but I made plans. How about for the midwinter? There’ll be another festival down by the park. Want to hang around by then?

    Oh, you don’t have to call back if you’re busy though. Bet it’ll be a busy season for everyone—well, almost everyone.”


    Tim wanted to make it up to her. Their little impromptu job with Samsa wouldn't have gone half as smoothly as it would have if she wasn't there, and he wanted to be able to thank her properly. He failed to convey both of his intentions in that message all the while managed to sound even worse than a child half his age asking someone a night out. He’d been around cocktail parties when he was child where he was infinitely more composed, for crying out loud! He either lost his touch somewhere down the line, or he was just that nervous.

    Tim sighed hard just remembering that horrible attempt at asking someone out. “I’m not ask slick as I make myself out to be, huh…”

    Words:
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    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe
    Fraag
    Fraag

    Player 
    Lineage : Progeny of Arcanos
    Position : None
    Faction : The Luminous Covenant
    Posts : 1038
    Guild : Luminous Rose
    Cosmic Coins : 60
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 3,401,904

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Arcane Fate Magic
    Second Skill: Night God Slayer
    Third Skill: Relativity God Slayer

    It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Fraag 21st December 2022, 8:03 pm

    Hargeon was an interesting place. Situated by the sea, it naturally had all the trappings of a human seaside settlement. For some reason, humans seemed to love the sea, or somehow be involuntarily drawn towards it. It was, after all, a noted fact that most of the most populous human settlements existed with the ocean serving as a border for them. Of course, some could argue that the sea was such a strategically advantageous place to build a city, because situation beside the ocean facilitated trade, and many merchants liked to ply their trades on the high seas, making such coastal settlements the perfect hubs for commerce, seeing as they would be where these merchant vessel touched down after days, weeks or even months at sea. And yet, some seaside cities were not necessarily commercial hubs. For such ones, it was difficult to explain exactly why its inhabitants had chosen to settle beside the boundless ocean. Perhaps it was because of the unspoken mystery that the sea carried, and its strange ability to tug at the souls of people, leaving them with a longing difficult to be described. Even those who were easily given to the malady of seasickness, or those who never desired for once in their lives to be found on a ship, even these confessed that there was something enchanting about the sea, something that seemed to be calling out to them, stirring something within the unfathomable depths of their souls. Like attracts like, so the saying went. Was it any surprise then that an immensely deep entity such as the ocean would agitate a moving response in an equally immensely deep entity that was the human soul?

    But it wasn’t only the situational condition of Hargeon that made it quite a notable place. It was a town that had seen a great amount of adversity. Sometime ago, the town had been crushed by the rampage of a sea monster, and yet, it had managed to rebound even stronger. The buildings which had fallen had been replaced, and made even stronger, in an effort to prepare and defend against the recurrence of such a sad occasion. Looking at Hargeon now, one would never believe that it had been destroyed at some point in its past. Hargeon was a symbol of the indomitability of the Fiorean spirit, of the refusal to stay subdued, to stay crushed, to stay defeated. Hargeon was proof that despite adversity, one could always come back stronger. As long as one’s spirit refused to be broken, one could weather any storm or adversity that life threw their way. Perhaps even in this, Hargeon, in its own way, channeled the spirit of water. Calm and languid, water possessed incredible power. And most importantly, water, although it was pliant enough to take the shape of any container into which it was poured, could not be compressed. Water refused to yield, even though it seemed at the first consideration, to be extremely yielding. Water, though appearing weak, was immeasurably strong.

    And even as the festivities that saw off an old year and welcomed a new one began, and the streets and houses were draped with festive lights and decorations, for some like Nita Fortune, there was an undercurrent of foreboding. Her mind often turned to the war between Bellum and Pergrande, which had ensnared much of the other nations into taking sides, and the fact that even though Hargeon, as well as many other cities and towns in Fiore, were in festive spirits, they were actually at war. That one engaged in festivities did not mean one would celebrate without any heed of the present or the future. The news from the east had unsettled Nita; the realization that Bellum had been soundly defeated in the first full-scale battle with Pergrande. Even though on other fields of battle, the Luminous Covenant seemed to have had some relative degrees of success, they had been crushed where it mattered most. Many Fioreans probably had not heard the news, or did not understand the implications that this ominous news brought. If the way to Memoria was open to the Ironheart Pact, then the Luminous Covent could suffer an even more crushing defeat if the Pergranti forces took Bellum’s capital. Nita could not tell of anything that prevented the Pergranti from razing Bellum’s capital. And this made her afraid. Still, there was some reason to hope, and it was this hope that would keep the Luminous Covenant soldiers fighting. As long as they held on to hope, maybe they would prevail.

    Maybe.

    At any rate, even though thoughts of war filled her mind, it was not war that had brought Nita to Hargeon. She had received a message from none other than Timotheos Timson the 42nd, asking her to ‘hang around’. She was glad to take the offer, though she had not sent any reply that she had decided to honor his request. According to his message, he would be in Hargeon, so she was sure she would be able to find him. She knew his magical ‘scent’, and locating him in a place such as Hargeon would not be a difficult task for her. And so here she was, dressed in a strapless black dress, over which she wore a thick silver fur coat, which matched the color of her heels. It was a bit cold for her dressing, as far as normal people were concerned, but Nita wasn’t normal; she could manage the weather. She was after all quite resistant to physical trauma, and a little cold could be easily ignored. As the blonde mage wended her way among merrymakers, she soon caught a ‘whiff’ of a familiar magical aura. He was in the area. Following her acute senses, Nita began tracing the aura to its source, which seemed to be leading her to a park. There were quite a lot of people there, milling around, discussing and doing whatever it was that humans did in parks on cold days, though there was quite some attention focused on a group of people setting up a stage of sorts. And then she saw the dark haired mage, sitting on a park bench, a bunch of leaflets in his hands. Carefully approaching him from behind, Nita heard him mutter about how he wasn’t as ‘slick’ as he set himself forth as.

    ”Be careful,” she whispered, leaning on the back of the bench to put her lips close to his ear, ”slick people are known to be dastardly.” She let him turn, giving a soft smile as their eyes met. ”Hey you.”


    WC: 1100
    PWC: 1100
    TWC: 2155

    @Rodadnuf


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Rodadnuf
    Rodadnuf

    Player 
    Lineage : Anathema to Divinity
    Position : None
    Faction : The Ironheart Pact
    Posts : 248
    Guild : Silver Wolf
    Cosmic Coins : 100
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 2,561,089

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Rollins & Schwartz-Brand
    Second Skill: Heaven God Slayer
    Third Skill:

    It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 21st December 2022, 9:46 pm


    The man almost jumped from his seat when he heard Nita’s voice crawl against his ear. It took Tim every fiber of his being not to; instead, he sat up and made himself sound as composed as humanly possible.

    “Dastardly…because you haven’t called me that more than once?” But the childlike grin he had was a dead giveaway how he actually felt knowing she actually came.

    He turned to take a good look at Nita when he froze. She was completely dressed up from head to toe in a very elegant outfit. Tim have only seen people wear this when he was back in the Ivory Towers of his old life back in the Neutral Grounds. Tim always disliked how these outfits looked—how he always felt the people wearing them to be vain—but looking at Nita carry herself while she was wearing such an extravagant dress made him realize it was never the dresses he had problems with, wasn’t it? The problem was the people wearing them. Because looking at Nita right now? Tim’s heart would have skipped a beat if he could. There was not a single trance of false pride in her as she smiled softly at him.

    “Hey…you.” Tim absentmindedly parroted back; his eyes were still glued to hers as he stood up to face her.

    For once in his life, Tim actually felt underdressed compared to her.

    Having lived a life of luxury as a child, Tim never truly felt any difference on how people dressed. Even after living off the work houses and later in the docks of Hargeon he was numb to the idea of luxury in the way people dress. Other than uniforms and expected dress codes in certain events, he never really learned the intricacies of fashion. But looking at Nita right now, his shabby clothing felt slightly embarrassing. Tim was wearing the same outfit he had when he first set out to join Silver Wolf, the very same ensemble he wore when he worked for the docks: it was a dirty white dress shirt paired with a faded set of thick jeans, along them were a pair of rugged steel-toed shoes and an equally faded jacket bearing the ‘Rollins and Schwartz’ company logo. Tim must have looked like a menial, something he didn’t mind until now.

    “I…well, I should’ve dressed up more.” He finally said after a moment, but also added: “You look stunning, Nita.”

    Other than the excuses Tim admitted to himself earlier on why he invited Nita out, there was one other reason. After their misadventure in space, Nita became the only person—save for the deities directly involved—who knew about the worst of Tim’s life. He knew it might not be the most dramatic nor the worst secrets a person carried, but these secrets were the worst his life could offer. That meant something to him.

    “I don’t know if this is your first time being around, but welcome to Hargeon town.” Tim let out a breath, a nervous one, as he gestured around the park. “Before working for Silver Wolf, this town was my world. It’s infinitely smaller compared to how far we’ve been thrown across recently, definitely further from the war the rest of Ishgar plunged itself into. But it’s home.”

    “I invited you here ‘cause you’ve seen me at my worst back there, Nita.” He huffed out a laugh. “And I didn’t want your last memory of me being that thing.”

    Words:
    Post 575
    Player 1,630
    Total 2,730
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    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe
    Fraag
    Fraag

    Player 
    Lineage : Progeny of Arcanos
    Position : None
    Faction : The Luminous Covenant
    Posts : 1038
    Guild : Luminous Rose
    Cosmic Coins : 60
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 3,401,904

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Arcane Fate Magic
    Second Skill: Night God Slayer
    Third Skill: Relativity God Slayer

    It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Fraag 23rd December 2022, 8:22 pm

    There was a part of Nita that had been hoping that her sudden whispering in Tim’s ear would cause the dark haired mage to jump, or flinch, or at least show some other sigh that he had been taken by surprise. Sadly for her, that was not to be the case. Maybe next time, she would attempt something more physical. Like tugging at his ear, or poking him in the side. Then again, maybe that wasn’t a good idea, considering how ticklish she was. Tim seemed to be a relatively decent person, and would be unlikely to go poking her in the sides, but if she started the whole prodding war, in the unlikely (but not impossible) chance that he decided to retaliate in kind, Nita was sure she would not be the one winning. In consideration, it was shameful, in a humorous way, that someone like herself who was quite capable of withstanding a high amount of pain would probably flee without lasting five seconds in a tickling contest. In the end, even though she had partially hoped that he would have responded in a bit of alarm, Nita had to admit that one of Tim’s strong points, in her opinion, was his general calmness, as opposed to her own flighty and excitable personality. She wouldn’t tell him this yet, she thought with feelings of amusement, so as not to make his head puffed up. She had no idea if she was ever going to tell him, in any case.

    Tim’s response was a mock accusation, and Nita took it in happy stride. He deserved this well-executed comeback; she had after all called him a cad on a good number of occasions. ”Touché,” she conceded with an amused giggle, as her friend turned in his seated position to look at her. His brown eyes focused on her green and blue, and he seemed to freeze, as he just stared at her for what was most likely a moment, but felt much longer than that. While the sensations Nita felt were somewhat confusing, they were not unpleasant at all, as she stared back into Tim’s eyes. ”Oh me, oh my!” Maria chortled from somewhere within her head, ”someone seems to have swallowed butterflies.” In all honesty, Nita was grateful for her alternate soul’s interjection, as she wasn’t confident that she would not have embarrassed herself by starting to blush as the two mages stared into each other’s eyes. Still, she was unwilling to admit that she’d needed that interruption, even to Maria, and so responded defensively. ”Stop making incorrect exaggerations,” she replied in her mind. There was a pause. ”Thanks, Maria.”

    The goddess scoffed. ”For what? I was just making an observation that you in typical human obtuseness seem to be failing to notice.” Nita sighed inwardly. While having a goddess living in her head did come with all its advantages, Nita was not sure she would ever get to a point when she wouldn’t be exasperated by the goddess. Still, Maria was an ally, and that meant she would be well tolerated. Nita, after all, placed great emphasis on those she considered her friends, and she had been able to forge an acceptable bond with Maria, something she was quite pleased about and suspected Maria shared her sentiments, although the goddess was just too proud to admit that she was glad for her symbiosis with Nita, always trying, when and where she could, to inform Nita that the Pergrandian owed her practically everything. While Nita was always glad to argue about how this was incorrect, the truth was that what had started off as a relationship of fear and loathing had evolved into a begrudging friendship, of sorts. And on this, both Pergrandian maiden and erstwhile Primordial would have to agree, that they were each the stronger, and thus the better, for the evolution of their relationship.

    Tim had risen, by this time, repeating her greeting back to her. He was quite casually dressed, something that, though she noticed, she did not really place much import on. Tim seemed to notice this as well, commenting on how he should have been better dressed. Nita was about to inform him that she was not particularly disturbed by his present choice of clothing, but the words had to go on an indefinite leave when the Silver Wolf mage complimented her appearance. A rosy tint appeared on her cheeks, as she checked herself, realizing that she had just been about to give his praise a backhanded deflection, as she tended to do with him. While Tim had so far not seemed to mind the way they usually interacted, shooting barbs at each other (Nita suspected that she was the more energetic aggressor in their verbal spats), something made Nita decide to let him know that she really appreciated his words.

    ”Thank you.” A simple reply, but one very heartfelt, her feelings expressed better by the tone of her voice. Tim began speaking again, welcoming her to Hargeon, and explaining that Hargeon was home for him. There did seem to be something on his mind; something seemed to be weighing heavily on him, but she could not place what it was. ”I’ve been to Hargeon, if I remember correctly,” the Pergrandian mage answered, hoping to eventually get to the bottom of what was going on, ”and that was to get a passport. Aside that, I don’t think I’ve really been out and about in town.” As Tim spoke, a look of worry and mild alarm settled on her features. ‘Back there’ definitely meant the gigantic spaceship that had ‘kidnapped’ her, in which she had been witness to Tim facing what had been long thought to be the curse of his past, but what was actually borne of generations of misunderstanding of a power that probably should have been a boon. But what had alarmed the blonde mage was Tim’s use of words. ”My last memory of you?” she asked, a little tremor in her voice. ”I don’t understand, Tim-Tim. Is something wrong? Has something happened to you?”

    She reached for his hand and took it, and then gasped. It seemed too light, almost as if it was just treading the space between corporeality and insubstantiality. She lifted her eyes to meet his own. There was fear in her searching gaze. ”What’s going on?”


    WC: 1060
    PWC: 2160
    TWC: 3790

    @Rodadnuf


    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    Rodadnuf
    Rodadnuf

    Player 
    Lineage : Anathema to Divinity
    Position : None
    Faction : The Ironheart Pact
    Posts : 248
    Guild : Silver Wolf
    Cosmic Coins : 100
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 2,561,089

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Rollins & Schwartz-Brand
    Second Skill: Heaven God Slayer
    Third Skill:

    It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 24th December 2022, 12:29 pm


    The festive sounds of the park were amplified while the stage’s construction noises were blaring when Tim heard her question. He almost stumbled over when Nita suddenly reached for his hand and, when she finally looked at him, he knew his attempt at keeping it a secret had failed miserably.

    “The cat’s out of the bag now, then…” Tim tried to keep himself steady. “So much for my talent, eh? And here I thought I got the hang of this whole magic thing…in the end, I couldn’t even fool you for even a moment more.”

    He heard a horse’s neigh from the distance and hoped Nita hadn’t heard it too. But knowing her she might have, or worse, knew about what that meant. Keeping his hand over Nita’s, he led her down back by the bench.

    “I really wanted to fool you for a moment more, Nita.” He pursed his lips, trying to let go of her hand. “And maybe I’ll be able to do more in the end than just make people around me miserable.”

    He wanted to tell another joke, one that felt a lot closer their usual banter, but looking at her so afraid for him? He couldn’t do it. Instead, he clasped his other hand over the one Nita had holding his. He met her gaze with a tired one. Somehow, her realizing it made things easier. He couldn’t pretend being as much now; it was good, because keeping his slightly corporeal form was the toughest attempt at magic he had done in his short stint at being a wizard. But it was worth it, if it meant he could do it: he could live for a few minutes without being himself.

    “All my life, I was nothing but the sum of the cards I was dealt.” He laughed. “It’s a stupid though, I know. We’re all the sum of our parts. But I never got to understand the cards I have before they all go toppling down. Heh. I think Arle might have clued you in already, or did I accidentally do that back then? Regardless, I was born living a life in an ivory tower and was fed with a silver spoon. Truthfully though, it was my family’s fortune and, as empty that life was, it was the moment of my life where I still had my parents.”

    “That life died along with the birth of my connection with the family heirloom: my little curse. Thinking about it now, I could have understood this curse’s true nature back then—I don’t know; hindsight is always perfect, but never in the moment you want it to be.”

    “I think I was eight? When the Neutral Grounds’ slums became my new ivory tower.” Tim smiled as he sat. “The other kids with me there had it worse; most of them actually were already there all their lives. But to the rest we were all the same: urchins. I hopped from place to place, then later from workhouse to workhouse until I got fed up with the city. One thing led to another and I escaped, and that’s how I ended up here.”

    “You know why I left?” Tim looked down, chuckling to himself. “I don’t know how many people have seen that thing, but they reacted the same. I never blamed them, but it still hurt, especially the ones who shot at me.”

    “But then I actually found someone here who looked at me differently.” He smiled fondly at the memory of his first meeting with Dr. Schwartz. “He probably saw an unusual specimen for one of his experiments, but that led me to suppressing the curse; keeping it tame to the point where it only pops-up when I don’t suppress it hard enough.”

    “A lot happened between then and when I first headed out to join Silver Wolf. Nothing interesting, mind. It was a lot of work and little to no extra magical events.” He then sighed. “But my point being…well, the fact that nothing happened. I just wanted you to see the me that got to live a life here. I think I wanted to prove that I made something of myself that was not from deity ancestor I too proud to want, nor some family tied riches I was too young to need.”

    “I guess I don’t want to leave this world as Timόtheos the 42nd,” He looked at Nita again. “But just…Tim. I was Tim Watt here, for a while, before everyone found out. But even after, they still liked me.”

    Tim knew anyone would’ve been good enough to be the witness. But something in him felt compelled to have Nita be the one to see it. Nita was one of the few people Tim had the pleasure of being friends with after becoming a wizard. They had a rocky start, being pushed into working together in a murder investigation, and in the capital of all places too. There was working for a job he thought would only entail capturing and or eliminating wizards, and then there was being forced to work with someone who was clearly more experienced than him—not to mention more highly capable than he ever could. And Tim stood by that fact till the end, especially now that he couldn’t very well prove it otherwise.

    “Well, let’s just get it out there then.” He gave a defeated sigh. “I’m nothing but a ghost now, Nita. Most of me—my soul, or whatever represented as my individuality—was pulled by a Valkyrie; they’re Icebergian warrior maidens. Apparently, they do the bidding of an Icebergian god and also take warriors who died in battle who they deem worthy into…I don’t know where, but I guess what passes for the afterlife for them, I guess? That was about a month ago now.”

    “Remember that story about how I had defeated a corporeal form of a deity?” He smiled sardonically at the memory. “Well, he had children. The three basically made a magical barricade of sorts around the town during Hollows’ Eve while the fourth was the one who actually stepped in and killed me. We fought here in the park.”

    He gestured at the broken parts of the place, now having construction warning signs to keep anyone from having an accident. The memory then flashed like a bolt and Tim managed to muster enough of himself not to break down, but he flinched. “After they killed me, well, I’ll just ask you not to look up in the LacNet what they did. It’s…probably out there, but I wouldn’t want you to see me like that. I…barely looked human.”

    Tim paused, before leaning against the bench. “I think that was it?” He laughed. “The same Valkyrie who escorted the rest of me will be coming around back soon. After that? Off to the afterlife I go…”

    His hand visibly twitched, but he tried his best to hide it.

    “Sorry I dragged you out here for something slightly less jolly, Nita.” He confessed, closing his eyes. “I wanted us to watch that play once the stage was constructed and everything.” He pulled out a couple of pamphlets, and two small pieces of decorated paper. “I even brought tickets.”

    He smiled at her.

    Words:
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    Player 2,836
    Total 4,996
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    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe
    Fraag
    Fraag

    Player 
    Lineage : Progeny of Arcanos
    Position : None
    Faction : The Luminous Covenant
    Posts : 1038
    Guild : Luminous Rose
    Cosmic Coins : 60
    Dungeon Tokens : 0
    Experience : 3,401,904

    Character Sheet
    First Skill: Arcane Fate Magic
    Second Skill: Night God Slayer
    Third Skill: Relativity God Slayer

    It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Fraag 25th December 2022, 4:59 pm

    Yes, something was definitely wrong. All Tim’s talk about trying to hide things from her was proof of that. As he directed her to sit beside him on the bench, Nita kept her hand holding his weirdly insubstantial hand. Even when he tried to let go of her hand, she refused to let him go. At this point, she was silent, waiting for him to explain what was going on, what had happened. As he gave up trying to pull his hand free and clasped her hand with his other, Nita met his gaze again, noting the tiredness in his eyes. Something, a thought, began to form in her mind, but she pushed it away. She refused to think such a dismal thought. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t supposed to be. Yes, she had known that Tim had been born into a highly influential family, and one that had ties to a god; she’d been told some of this, as well as pieced the rest together from tidbits of information she’d been getting from time to time. She had known that for a while, Tim had had a rather enviable existence, and then his mother grew ill, or something, and eventually passed away, and that was when things had begun to change for him, and his family as well, or what remained of it. How he had gotten to be in the Neutral Grounds, that she didn’t know, but it had been his life there that had shaped him into the fellow that he was more recognizable as today, the poster image of the ‘working man’.

    That he had been shunned because of his ‘curse’ was something she could empathize with, although not fully. Though she had been ostracized as well for having magic, and had had to flee her homeland to avoid being slain by Pergrande’s fanatic mage killers, she had been lucky in the sense that when she had gained her magic, the amount of time she was ostracized was quite short, as she fled the country soon after, as the events which had changed her life forever had happened just miles off of the country’s border. And even though it had just been for a short time, Nita had felt like a knife had been driven into her heart, when the people she had formed bonds with saw her as a monster, instead of a person, even though she had managed to save them using her magic. For Tim, having to go through such a thing every day, Nita could only imagine the pain, both emotional, and physical (from the attacks made against him) that he must have felt. She said nothing still, as he talked about how he had met someone who didn’t fear his curse, and had begun to make friends, eventually finding himself in Silver Wolf. And he’d said all this to show her that he had made something of himself, the same way someone would present those special to them with news of their achievements. There was a question on her lips, but she didn’t ask yet. The time, she was sure, would come for that.

    The part she had feared came. He was a ghost. The Pergrandian involuntarily shuddered, a gasp of anguish emanating from her lips. Nita had heard legends of the valkyries, and they only associated with those slain in battle, so something, or someone had killed Tim. Why his shade had been allowed for a while to persist was something she didn’t know, nor was she sure she would have the time to figure out why. One other thing that made it all the more unsettling was that this had happened about a month ago. And it had been here. He had been killed in this same park. Tim gestured to the signs that persisted of that fateful battle, and Nita could no longer deny the dreadful thought that she had been pushing away. Timotheos Timson the 42nd had been slain.

    A sob escaped her, and she realized she had been looking down. When she lifted her gaze to meet his smile, tears were running down her face. ”If… perhaps if I had been there, things would have been different,” she cried, although she knew that her regrets were vain. There was absolutely nothing she could have done to have saved him, as she had not known what had happened. It was very likely that he hadn’t even been given a chance to try to call for aid; with the barrier created around the town, it was very likely that outside interference would have been unlikely. She tried to compose herself, but she failed miserably, and was presently weeping in full force. It hurt that she had been gaining renown as one of the more powerful mages in Fiore, and yet she could not even have known that a very close friend had possibly been in need of her help. She knew what death was; she had lost her parents and siblings at a young age, and she had felt the sting of loss. But it didn’t feel any better now she was older. It hurt perhaps even more, because back then, the fact that one had been helpless in the face of the war that had claimed her family made it possible for her, as a rational person, to realize that there was nothing she could have done to prevent their deaths. Now, even though she was no less rational, what hurt more was the realization that if she had even sensed that he had been in trouble, she would have come in a heartbeat. But she had not known, and so he had died.

    She sniffed, and looked into his tired eyes. ”But of all the people in Fiore, why me?” she asked. ”You have guildmates, and there was definitely the community of people you’d known here. Why choose this troublesome handful to spend your last moments with?” Was there something else? Even though Tim would be probably considered somewhere on the spectrum between average and good-looking, she’d found his silent calm and rugged looks rather attractive, and did enjoy flirting with him. And yet, she wasn’t sure if she had wanted to commit herself to anyone at the moment, not because she found commitments burdensome, but because death was a disturbing reality in the present world, and she had not wanted to have someone feeling heartbroken if she died. Perhaps like she felt now. Maybe in a more peaceful world….

    She pushed those regretful thoughts away, and something in her face changed. Even though she was still crying, there was something harder beneath the tears. ”And do me this last favor, I beg you: tell me the names and identities of the ones that did this.”


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    Rodadnuf
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    It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Rodadnuf 26th December 2022, 5:57 am


    Nita was flush, he could tell as much. While a small part of Tim felt happy his death meant so much to her, it was drowned by his regret by being the one to tell her. Her hands were tightly clasped around his, despite his attempts at letting her go. Tim used what little willpower he had to keep himself collected. Since their meeting, his body was slowly slipping into the other side. Even as Nita was sobbing from trying to take the news in, his legs were slowly disappearing. He had seen his fair share of the supernatural in his life, but being one was a new experience altogether. Not that he had the time to test its limits now, he was bust trying to console Nita.

    Nita tried to rationalize things. Had she been with him during that night, he might have lived. Part of him wanted to believe that. Nita was hardly a weak wizard. This had been proven time and time again when they worked together. But Tim knew what exactly would have happened if he had the option to call for her: he wouldn’t have dared to do it.

    “I had the opportunity to call my partner in the guild, you know? Ah! Don’t get jealous, she’s a wolf.” He confessed, but managed to slide a joke in. “One of the ethereal wolves, to be exact. I don’t know how we did it, but she was bonded well enough with me from what little time we spent knowing each other that I could just call her whenever. But that night, I didn’t. It wasn’t about whether she was strong enough or not to fend that thing off. There was a fraction of a chance of her getting hurt back then and I didn’t want that. So, in the end, I was alone against it.”

    “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt too,” He got closer to Nita. “If I had the means to summon you, I don’t think I would have used it.”

    But then the Nita’s focus slid into the reason why she was the one he wanted meet the most. Out of all the people he knew. Why was she the one.

    Tim froze.

    Leave it to Nita to ask the most loaded of questions without skipping a beat. He definitely wasn’t able to answer her questions as easily, as well. How the heck could he? It was practically a confession; one he didn’t want to outright blurt out knowing it was being said by a dead man! He never gotten himself the luxury to pursue romance when he was alive, what gave him the right to do so when he’s quite literally half the man he was now? He only had a sliver of a relationship with his parents before his old life toppled down in a hail of bullets and the rotted face of his long dead mother burning though his memory, afterwards he barely had a relationship with anyone else.

    Edna and Dr. Schwartz were the closest people he could call his second parents. But he was already too old when he met them, he could only call them his role-models in the end. His crew in the docks? They were the tightest when it came to any of his friendships—a motely fellowship of grizzly half-drunken men and women twice as gruff as the former—some of which ended up into a moonlit tryst or two, but never truly lasted. Tim treated them like they were made of glass, all of them. Which, looking back now, was not inaccurate. He never really placed an explanation how he saw them different; how he saw himself as different. Now, he could only remember the two people he knew gotten killed the fray on the night he died. The magic everyone has were fundamentally tamer than the magic wizards and their ilk deal with on a day-to-day basis. Wizard and their matters were a world away to the everyday problems of civilians and, mixing the two worlds together? It always led to death.

    Tim realized that, and it took him deaths—his death and of two innocents—to value that distinction.

    That also made him realize how he valued his time with Nita. She was horribly more competent, infinitely stronger, and not to mention more attuned to her magic than he could ever be; and Tim being himself around her? All they ended up arguing about was their views on the world and its connections to the divine at large. Around her? He was not the forty-second descendant of whatever, he was only Tim-Tim, the dastard flirt (which he still denied, but never gotten to truly despise; he had been called worse).

    Being so comfortable around someone did not go unnoticed by him. He never really noticed it until he had the time to think about it. Where his comments during his jobs often involved him being horribly dry, when he was with Nita he often made genuine attempts at making jokes. Where he would often disregard his own safety when dealing with threats, when he was with a job with her all of a sudden, his safety was not his own. It wasn’t a matter of teamwork as well, too. Her reprimands about his questionable strategy that never takes his own injuries into account was a far cry from his experiences with others, who often left him with ‘wish I was as monstrously sturdy as you’ or the like.

    It was ironic how being around the monstrously strong made him feel the most human.

    The question then remained: was this all there was to it? Was Nita only a means to make him feel human? Or his comfort around her was more than that?

    But his thoughts were shaken off by her last request: she wanted to know who killed him. And something in him knew her face didn’t feel like she was going to leave it be. With her still crying face laid a face of someone who was out for blood.

    “‘Revenge is a fool’s game’.” Tim muttered. “I read that once. I think it’s a load of bull, but I would rather believe a truth in those words than know you got hurt on my account, Nita.”

    “I guess time’s running out, Nita.” He let one hand go, letting it hold Nita’s damp cheeks and wipe one newly fallen tear while his other hand clasped her small fingers. Tim made one last look at himself, finally noticing his body was already half gone. He was only corporeal from his torso upwards. He made one final dry laugh, a laugh which slowly morphed into a sniffle, and finally into a sob.

    “Oh yeah, I remember my mother saying something about what to do when you see someone you care about getting hurt. She told me—” Tim leaned slightly down and placed his lips over Nita’s forehead. He let his disappearing body lay one last warm memory over her, before letting himself stare at her one last time. “…I could kiss it to make it better.”

    Tim waited, looking at Nita while holding her close, until his body finally disappeared leaving the wizard to her lonesome. From the distance, the sound of a horse’s hooves echoed.

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    It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim) M7VWYFe
    Fraag
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    It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim) Empty Re: It's a Wonderful Life (Ms. Fortune, Tim)

    Post by Fraag 26th December 2022, 7:16 pm

    From what the shade of the dark haired mage had said, Tim had faced his death alone. For the sole purpose of not wanting anyone near to him to get hurt. While Nita was sure that she probably would have done the same thing, if she had been in his shoes, she had to admit that it was that sort of mentality, of wanting to stand on one’s own feet without needing help from anyone else, that had brought them both to this place. In the end, the saying “no one is an island” was correct. No matter how powerful someone was, they could hardly go as far alone as they could with the aid of others of like minds. That, Nita was certain of, was why guilds had been formed: so that like-minded people would help one another to achieve their dreams, goals and desires. Even for people like herself who were considered to be quite powerful, others were still needed. It was quite foolish for someone to think that those who were considered to be weak were trash, which sadly, many dark mages seemed to think. What many people failed to realize was that even if someone was at the zenith of their power, there was something that made one fight harder, when one realized that there were people to fight for, when one heard the encouragements of their colleagues; it felt like the strength of many had been combined, and loaned to the one for whom their colleagues cheered.

    Nita wanted to tell Tim all this, but it was too late. There was no use crying over spilt milk. Despite her grief that he had not tried to call anyone to help him in his mortal battle, Nita could not help but realize that for him to have refused trying to call for her, meant that she was special to him somehow. That she was the one he had called to share the last moments of his time on Earthland with was more proof of this. But what did any of that matter? It seemed that what could have been had been snuffed out without a chance for any possibilities to manifest. Maybe that was how things were meant to be; maybe such romantic adventures were not for her. She was after all supposed to be carrying out the will of Arcanos, right? Where then did matters of the heart fit in?

    The Pergrandian noted, with some degree of bitterness, that much of her life had involved herself being pulled along by forces beyond her control. First, she had started off as an inconsequential peasant in the mountains of Pergrande, and war had pushed her into joining the military. As a member of Pergrande’s military, she, along with other soldiers and Bellian hostiles as well, had been abducted by a Primordial, and a twist of fate had pushed her into the acquisition of her powers. And then she had later realized that all of this seemed to have been the plan of a god who had chosen her as his champion, though for what purpose exactly, she could not say. In times like this, it was frustrating to realize that she could not be certain that she had any real agency over her life. But she had no option than to persevere. She always had.

    In the end, Tim still refused to tell her who was responsible for his demise. She looked up at him again, as he wiped a tear from her cheek, and felt her heart wrench as she realized that he seemed to be getting translucent. Not only that, the rest of his body, beginning from his feet, was slowly vanishing. He was crying too. For some reason, that hurt worse than whatever grief she had felt on realizing that he was dead. And then he kissed her forehead, their eyes met one last time, and Nita Fortune was alone. There was the sound of neighing again, and the clatter of horse hoofs, but the Pergrandian didn’t even bother looking around for any signs of horses. That was it, then. Tim was finally gone. It was funny how life was so uncertain; an hour ago, she had been in high spirits, eager to meet a friend and enjoy a party at the end of the year, only to realize that the ending year had passed with the life of her friend. She wondered whether the afterlife he had been taken to had any tabs placed on Earthland. Or how many afterlives there were, and if there was ever the possibility of seeing him again. For a moment, she sat in silence, allowing her tears to cease, and then she cleaned her face, rose up, and walked out of the park. She could easily teleport home, but a walk would perhaps help her sort her thoughts. ”In the end, you didn’t even answer my questions. You were always such a cad, Tim-Tim, playing with a gal’s feelings till the very end…. I’ll miss you, Tim….”


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