fandomhigh | Powers, Identity, and The World; Embracing the Real You

Once again, Jono and Rinoa's class were going to find themselves meeting in a classroom. And once again, they'd find their teachers standing at the front of the room, looking… about as ready as anybody could possibly look, while teaching this particular pack of students.

//Hello again,// Jono said, nodding once it looked as though everyone had taken their seats. //And welcome back. Good to see we didn't scare you off last week, because this week, we're going to talk about more of the same… you. Last week, we discussed a bit about who you are. This week, we're going to stretch things a little, to talk about who it is you might become.//

There weren't any clairvoyants in the room, were there? Not that it mattered, but that could be an interesting insight to have at one's disposal for this lesson.

“For some people, you’ve got this whole life mapped out until one day, bam, it all changes,” Rinoa said. “And then you’re left wondering whether you can still be what you want, while now having to be what you are. Other people have always been different, and so their dreams and hopes are built around that framework. I can’t play basketball, because I’m too short. I can’t be a general, because the Galbadian army only has men in it. I can’t be a doctor, because I keep failing anatomy.”

It wasn’t just people with powers who had that problem, and it wasn’t just powers that might keep students away from some of their dreams. Reality was messy.

//And me, I can't get people to stop bloody well calling me 'General,' and I would really rather they never do so again,// Jono added, wryly. //Spent half my life thinking I was going to be frontman for my own grunge band, that's sort of fallen through for, er, obvious reasons. But I wouldn't mind perhaps getting up to something over at the Boards - the theatre I used to run - again. Even if I can't sing, it's… a compromise. Sometimes, even if you can't have exactly what you want, at least there's that much.//

“I thought I’d be a librarian,” Rinoa said, shrugging her shoulders. “And now I’m the Sorceress, which makes me into an international diplomat whether I want to be or not. But I’m working on restoring the Great Library in Dollet, and I could pick up an extra shift working in a bookstore here if I wanted to.” Or if she had the free time, which, lately, she hadn’t.

“The point is that maybe you can’t have everything you want, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have some of it. Maybe you can start a basketball league for short people. Maybe you can work somewhere else in the medical field that has less strict grade requirements, but still lets you heal people. Maybe you can start your own army. Just because there are limitations doesn’t mean you’re stuck. It just means you need to get creative.”

//This week, we're opening the discussion floor to you lot again. We want to talk about your futures… where you see yourself after high school. Where you would like to see yourself after high school. Maybe your life has been set out for you from this point onward already. Maybe you had a game plan, but like myself and Rinoa, that didn't quite work out the way you would've liked, thanks to your powers, or thanks to some other factor in your life. Open discussion time, for those who care to share… What you want to do, what the probable reality is… and then we can talk possible compromises, or workarounds. Or just clap you on the shoulder and say well-done if things are working out as you'd like. And if you have any suggestions for your classmates for alternatives if what they want isn't shaping up to be what they're going to get, please, share. Maybe we can give some people something to strive for, today.//

[OOC: Open!]

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Celia actively avoided thinking about the challenge, these days -- now that she had concrete ideas of other paths she'd like to pursue, the knowledge that she didn't have the luxury ate away at her.

"I don't have a choice," she sighed, absently rubbing the scar on her right ring finger. "When I'm older, I'll be forced into a magical competition. I've been bound to it since I was a small child."

She darted a glance at Rinoa with a sad, small smile, and added, "I've tried to get out of it. Doesn't work. And I don't know what'll happen if I win or lose, but odds aren't really in my favor that I'll get to travel or attend university or anything, like I'd want to."

Jono's heart was bleeding a little for you, Celia.

//I'm sorry to hear that,// he replied, gently. //Sounds to me as though the best thing to be done now is to prepare for that competition as best as you're able. Is there anything to be done in the meantime along those lines? Travel now, perhaps?//

He didn't know much about the situation, of course. The best he could do was shoot suggestions into the void.

"I've thought about it," Celia said, brightening. "Traveling some this summer, maybe," after Ichabod graduated, and look, there was another thing she wasn't thinking about, "and I've been on all the trips the school's provided. And I've been working on my training here, and I am better than I was, when I started? But it's hard to prepare for something when you don't know the stakes, or what to expect...."

She shrugged. "My father brought me up to be the best at what I do, and I really think I might be, some days. But I still don't know what the challenge will entail -- only that my opponent was selected when I was, and has been working under the tutelage of an older magician for the last eleven -- oh, goodness, it's almost twelve now -- years, as well."

//While you have all of the experience that Fandom has to offer at your disposal,// Jono noted, tilting his head faintly in thought, //and everything that came along on the periphery, as well.//

Rapture, most notably. And she'd handled herself surprisingly well, there, all things considered.

//If there's anything I can do to help, let me know. I'm always happy to assist.//

"We only tried once," Rinoa reminded Celia. "I'm only reluctant to try again because of how dangerous it was. There might be other routes to breaking it."

Ones that didn't involve rituals that ended with Celia half-dead, preferably.

"How do you know you can't travel or attend university if you win?"

"I don't," Celia acquiesced, "but I also don't know that I can. I have no idea what winning will entail, or what'll happen if I lose. I have my -- suspicions, and they're not very nice, but...that's mostly just from knowing my tutor well."

Because he was also the man who raised her, and Hector Bowen didn't believe in happy endings. If she won this challenge, she'd just be vaulted into some new one, most likely.

Unless she was stronger than him, by then. And that, more than anything, was what kept her practicing.

"It seems as though first on the list ought to be separating you from your tutor," Rinoa suggested. "Can that be accomplished?"

Staying here on the island, perhaps. Or someone like Rinoa threatening the daylights out of him.

"I've -- I tried that, over Parents' Weekend," Celia said, not daring to look at her classmates as she tried to explain, carefully. "He's stronger than I am. He doesn't care for defiance. It's often...easier to acquiesce."

She was dancing around her words, but hopefully was understood.

"But I bought time until graduation, to train on my own. That's more than I've ever had before."

Powers, Identity, and The World; Embracing the Real You - Friday, Period One

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