testing_the_box | TEST DRIVE MEME

Starting now, we'll put up a new one of these very month! Feel free to use the current setting of Pandora (Christmas in July) or make up your own! You can also use the following scenarios if you'd prefer:

1. Mushroom Kingdom

Have you ever wanted to be a fairy? Well now you are, even if the answer was no! The City is a big, big place, all of a sudden. Houses are roomy affairs inside giant mushrooms, there are colorful flowers everywhere you look, and the animals are always friendly! Unfortunately, the only food items being sold in the market this month are fruit, fruit, and.... more fruit.

2. School Town

You may be too old to attend the academy, but that doesn't seem to matter; your attendance is mandatory anyway. Or perhaps you're there to teach, because you're the only resident of Pandora that possesses a certain skill. It doesn't matter if it can't be learned; you have to come up with a lesson plan anyway. At least the uniforms aren't some god awful color, right?

3. Zombie Apocalypse.

There's no coming back from death in Pandora, so you'd better do all you can to survive. Three quarters of the city are already infected, and this is the last stand. Are you going to pool your resources and try to make it together, or is it time to stop trusting others and go it alone until the month is over?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[My Diarmuid... Not 'my Lancer.' Not 'my Servant.' 'My Diarmuid.' It confuses Diarmuid just how gently and fondly Waver speaks of the servant he must have summoned for his version of the war. Honestly, it's hard for Diarmuid to imagine any master caring so much for their servant as Waver seems to. Did..did that actually happen? Might there be wars were being summoned wasn't all an exercise in pain and hopelessness?

The embrace surprises him. As does the shaking, but Diarmuid isn't a cruel man. No matter how many times he is hurt, that will not change. As a result, he doesn't pull away from Waver. In fact, his hand comes up to unconsciously return the embrace.]

Hey... It's all right... I don't think I am going anywhere anytime soon.

I probably seem crazy to you, don't I? [He laughed bitterly, head leaning against the knight's shoulder.] I'm not usually this pathetic, honestly.

[But he didn't know how to react. Ten years had been spent carefully collecting that terrible sense of loneliness and vulnerability; locking it away where no one would ever see a shred of it. That was how he'd come to terms with being separated permanently from the most important person he'd ever met. And now ten years of secret unhappiness was threatening to come out at a moment's notice.]

No, I don't think those things at all. I may be a little confused, but that is hardly your fault.

[Diarmuid pauses a moment. Actually, there is something he is feeling because of Waver right now, but that's not really the other man's fault either. He knows it's not the other man's intent, but the more he talks and makes Diarmuid realize just how close he had to have been to his servant, the more jealous Diarmuid becomes.

That bond with a master. That had been what he wanted. It had been his simple wish. Why did he do wrong that he had been doomed to suffer another betrayal when this other version of him had gotten everything he wanted?]

You...cared for him a great deal. You were both very lucky...

I was the lucky one. He--you got stuck with some kid that didn't know what he was doing.

[Waver pulled back slightly, hands resting on Diarmuid's shoulders.]

I'm sorry. There's no world where you'd deserve someone like him as your Master.

No, you're wrong!

[Diarmuid shakes his head, shutting his eyes for a moment. He remembers all too clearly the boy who had stood--or at least tried--to stand at Rider's side. Even though he had been scared and overwhelmed so much of the time it seemed, he still stood there. And by the time they faced Caster on the river bank it had been obvious that not only had he stood there, he had grown. He was stronger, braver.

There was no way any version of that boy could be a worse master than Kayneth had been.]

I...would have loved to have him as my master. Even if he didn't know what he was doing... Even if...

[Even if they had not won the war, Diarmuid knows the ending would have been better than what he had faced.]

...

[The sudden reaction had been surprising, but the reasoning behind it less so. Yes, that definitely sounded like the Diarmuid he'd known. Of course logically Waver realized now they weren't the same, but...well, it was an odd gray area.]

[Features sharpened and hardened by a decade of hard work and harder circumstances softened considerably as Waver spoke next, hold on Diarmuid's shoulders turning a little more secure.]

...you've had a terribly rough time, haven't you? I'm sorry--I wish you hadn't been stuck with such a difficult Master.

[Diarmuid's head drops and he shakes it slowly.]

It's not your fault. I should have realized it would come to what it did. He never trusted me. I wasn't what he wanted anyway. I was just a second rate replacement...

I hoped, though. I really hoped there might be a way I could prove to him I would bring him victory in the end if he would just trust me--if he would just let me fight the way I knew how to fight.

I was a fool... I shouldn't have been surprised that he chose his life over my own when things became rough.

...That's not your fault either. Look--I know how hard he was to deal with. And I know you well enough to say you would have tried your best. Everyone was second-rate to him.

The best of magical aristocracy are stupid, self-absorbed and cowardly at worst. It's no failing of yours that caused him to be an idiot.

Yes, I suppose you are correct. I just...

[He sighs.]

I wish it had not played out so close to what happened the first time I was betrayed. Even more, I wish it had not happened in front of her. She should not have had to bear witness to that.

TEST DRIVE MEME

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