Memory Scavenger Hunt with Nick

[dramatispersonae]

[Once everyone has gathered, Nick addresses the crowd:]

Ah, hello! I apologize if I have called you away from your dinner, or caused you any other inconvenience! Please feel free to leave if you would prefer to do so! However, if you have the time, I believe I have a game for you to play. I am not entirely certain that it will work, but it came to me somehow that it could be done, and . . . it feels to me as if it were . . . right and proper and perhaps necessary . . . oh, I am making a muddle of this. But I am wasting your time! I would not waste your time! Let us begin, if you are willing.

[He stands, and proceeds to hand each person who has arrived a feather -- when you take them, they change to your team colour]

So much here is lost, lost, but you are all able to recover it, a little at a time. Such is your power! Still, memories are fragile, I think, and bits of them slip through the cracks every day. It is so troubling! But a memory can be strengthened, perhaps, if it is shared; if it is told and lived over and not-- forgotten! And so I ask that you find for each other, in your memories, certain things; these tokens will allow you to share them freely amongst yourselves, if I have the right of it. It should be simple -- merely hold your feather and think of the memory you wish to share, then give it to whoever you choose, and they will see it. Er, I have made a list of things for you to find in each other's pasts . . . whether you wish to share what happened in your own worlds or this world or a mix of the two I leave to your discretion!

If there is something you wish to share in your own way, through your speech, I believe that will do as well -- though as it is not so accurate nor so immediate, it will be worth less. And if you are not honest with it. . . if you wish to lose your past in falsehood. . . it will not do. It will not do!

I promise you also, that although these memories will come to you full of life and feeling, they will not harm you, if there is pain in them, nor madden you, if there is madness in them; they will be as dreams, and leave you unscathed. Now, please! Begin your work! I am afraid that this magic will not last for very long at all.

Comments

[brotagonist]

I don't think they had different times or anything, but they were held way apart from each other by the summon spirits. The seed of the tree you saw was giving them a little bit of life, so they had to switch off which one was getting it, and the other world would decline while that happened till another Chosen could complete their journey and switch it back.

[prosight]

I wonder if Pulse and Cocoon were ever like that . . .

So, when the world were united, they didn't have to trade off. But why were they separated to begin with?

[brotagonist]

There was a war between Tethe'alla and Sylvarant that went on for hundreds of years. They used up so much mana, the old tree was going to die and destroy the world when it went! The first plan was to revive the tree and use its mana to make the new seed grow, too, but instead the world got split in two and that sort of system was put into place.

[prosight]

They couldn't work together to revive it, could they?

[brotagonist]

I think they were too busy being at war... and then being separated. I gotta tell you, according to Emil they started really eyeing each other again once the worlds were united. Aselia's got a lot of problems and a bad history.

[prosight]

[getting a feather and passing with this]

Oerba is on Pulse where Vanille came from. Lightning and I are from Cocoon, the shell in the sky. When they're separated, by worlds or thoughts, people are dangerous to each other.

[brotagonist]

[...thinks about that memory for a long time, turning the feather over in his hands.]

[prosight]

There were so many wars and battles. The War of Transgression, the war that wiped out almost all life on Pulse, the fight on Cocoon to wipe out the Pulse l'cie . . . [covering her arm] Too many people get caught up in it and end up dying without really knowing why.

[brotagonist]

...what happened to Vanille and Fang?

[prosight]

[shaking her head]

I don't know. Vanille and Fang were with Lightning, but that timeline may not truly exist . . . In another, they're trapped in crystal, supporting Cocoon.

[brotagonist]

Do you know when time starts branching off?

[prosight]

No, not at all. It's hard to know when a memory definitely connects with another one. Even Lightning's memories, they might all be of another time, a time where I turned to crystal . . . And stayed like that.

[brotagonist]

All the threads going in different directions... geez.

[prosight]

Mm, time gets crazy. People end up disappearing like they weren't there.

[brotagonist]

Can you keep track of all of it without getting a little crazy, too?

[prosight]

Well, I write it all down, so I can figure out what's connected to what. And I keep track of how people change, where they are in each memory, so that helps me out.

The part that drives me most crazy is not knowing what's real. But I sort of treat it all like it was . . . At some time, at some place, I made those memories. So, I can't discard any of them.

[brotagonist]

...yeah, I don't think things happen any less 'cause you took it back later.

[prosight]

[nods] Because I got a second or third chance doesn't erase those other timelines, doesn't stop them . . .

[brotagonist]

Anyway, you're still the person who remembers those things.

[prosight]

Mm, but I'll be happy as long as it all worked out somewhere—That everyone was safe and happy in some time.

[brotagonist]

...d'you think it happened?

[prosight]

I wouldn't have stopped til it did, but I know there are seven, maybe eight, times where it didn't. It's a lot . . .

[brotagonist]

[shakes his head...]

I guess I'm no good at thinking like that. "It could be different somewhere else"...

[prosight]

Somewhen else, yeah.

[brotagonist]

I'm too worried about the time I'm in, I guess.