fandomhigh | Fandom High Graduation Ceremony, Class of 2012, Early Saturday Evening (Part 2)

Were you all enjoying your graduation, children? Ingvar certainly hoped you were. It was so much fun, after all! Though... it could be a little more fun, couldn't it? It felt as if something was missing somehow. Something to really make it... fun.

Ingvar knew what it was.

And so, while the graduates were still on and around the stage, the earth began to rumble. Large black clouds of smoke pushed out of Ingvar's volcano and into the air, obscuring the sky and the moon. Soon, the air was covered in a thick black blanket of darkness.

The tune of the rumbling shifted.

Around the stage, clear protective walls sprung up. This was not Fandom's first tango on graduation day, thank you. She knew how to take care of what was hers.

Unfortunately, Ingvar knew its mother well. Moments later, it began to rain: a thick downpour of familiar plastic poppets in varying levels of creepiness, but also nice, brown, fluffy ...red-eyed, sharp-clawed teddy bears. And leading the charge, teeth-first--

"DROP BEARS!"

[OCD is up! Have at it! Audience | Grads: Fight! | Grads: Hide! | Aftermath | OOC 1 | OOC 2]

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Caraway gave his underling the coldest stare he could.

"You have raised neither of your children," he said. "What makes you believe you have the least insight about fatherhood?"

Even as he said it, he knew it to be over the line.

Laguna hadn't been Caraway's underling for decades, but that stare still cut right through him. And what Caraway had said was cruel, and he had to know it. "I didn't get the chance," Laguna answered sadly. "It's my own fault, and every day I regret the decisions I made. I didn't get to be there when my son was a child." He looked up at Caraway very deliberately, and his voice firmed as he pointed beyond the invisible wall. "But I also know that I could take those monsters with one hand tied behind my back, and I know that my son is TWICE the soldier I'll ever be. And your daughter? Has more power than HYNE."

Caraway had felt sympathy for the man, until he had returned the insult, and with interest. It was possible that it wasn't what Laguna had meant, but it was another of Caraway's deeply-held fears, too painful to push away now that it had risen to the surface.

"I know," Caraway said. "More power than Hyne. Some day, she might use that power. And then I'll have a decision to make, and so will you."

Left unspoken was that Laguna's son would be at ground zero for that war.

Laguna facepalmed. "Yes, I know. And if if comes to it, I can make that decision, with a clear conscience. Can you say the same?"

Losing a son and a daughter-in-law would rip his heart out, but Laguna had firsthand experience with what a Sorceress could do. On the other hand, he liked to believe the best of people.

"Now, I'm counting on your daughter to stay sane so that I don't have to make that choice, so don't piss her off."

"Yes," Caraway answered, without hesitation. "I can make that decision, too."

He wouldn't vocalize his answer. Loire didn't have a right to hear it, and Loire wouldn't like it. But he was not living his life to please Laguna Loire, or Esthar, or Galbadia, either.

He turned back to the furor of drop bears and bloodshed.

"She trusts your son with her life," he said. "And with her heart, which may well be the same thing. The whole world had better pray that her trust isn't misguided."

Fandom High Graduation Ceremony, Class of 2012, Early Saturday Evening (Part 2)

Re: Audience: Oh boy, here we go again...

Re: Audience: Oh boy, here we go again...

Re: Audience: Oh boy, here we go again...

Re: Audience: Oh boy, here we go again...

Re: Audience: Oh boy, here we go again...