Terra Branford (wantstoknowlove) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-04-06 00:25:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, celes chere, terra branford |
Who: Celes and Terra
What: Having lunch
When: A couple of days ago
Where: Random cafe
Rating: G
Status: Complete
Celes felt oddly nervous as she sat down at the cafe. She didn't know if this was a good idea, but she was lonely and Terra made her feel a little like she was at home. A friend was something she hadn't had in a long time. Work and 'work' made that too difficult. She ordered some water while she waited.
Terra was settling in better than she thought she would. A good place to live, and a job and she was even helping people. Now she was making friends, and she really adored that. There was something missing, but she didn’t know what it was. When she saw Celes at the cafe, she smiled and sat down across from her. “Hey!”
“Hello.” Celes lifted her hand in greeting, then dropped it. “I’m glad you found the place. I wasn’t waiting long though. How is your volunteering going?”
“Oh good. I’m glad that I didn’t get lost,” Terra agreed, shaking her hand. She tended to get lost a lot lately. “It’s going quite well. I’m settling in. So far so good. How are you?”
“I’m good. It was a busy week at work, I’m looking forward to the weekend.” She smiled, trying to be warm. Terra made her want to be warm, and the way her dreams were going, warm was better than not.
“Me too. I have a .. a blind date? A woman at the shelter is setting me up. She said he’s a teacher.” Terra shrugged a little. “I’m a little nervous.” More than a little. “But looking forward to it.”
“Good luck. I have a sort of date as well, we just keep missing each other.” Celes smiled softly. “Maybe we can encourage each other.”
“That sounds like a good idea to me. I hope you get to have your date.” Terra meant that sincerely. “Are they nice?” Only she would ask something like that.
“She seems nice, if a bit standoffish. I don’t know how it’ll go. But I’m looking forward to it.” She actually flushed a little. “I think she’s nervous about the idea too.”
Terra smiled, looking genuinely pleased. “Well if you’re both nervous, then maybe it won’t be so bad.” She hoped anyway.
“Well, it might be a disaster, I guess we’ll see. I hope yours goes well though. Getting set up has the potential to be the absolute best or the absolute worse. At least that’s what I’ve been told.”
She nodded a bit, “That’s what I always hear. I’ve never been on a blind date before. I mean.. I’ve not been on a lot of dates period. And I’ve never been in a relationship. It’s odd.” Terra hoped it wasn’t awful though.
“I was in one once. It didn’t end up well, but you shouldn’t let that dissuade you.” Celes patted Terra’s hand. “But we should meet and talk about it!”
Terra shrugged a little. “Well they say that there’s only two outcomes to a relationship. Either you break up, or you stay together. So I guess it’s 50/50, right?” she tried not to look nervous. “That sounds good. We’ll have lunch and I’ll let you know how it went.”
“Yeah, but what if staying together is worse than breaking up?” She wasn’t thinking about relationships, but she couldn’t say out loud what was on her mind. “But I think we’re both a little overdue for happiness.”
She had to think about that one for a moment. Her eyebrows knitted. “That sounds awful. I suppose you just have to work on it, either way.” Terra smiled a little. “That we are.” she picked up her menu. “I hear that the soup here is actually pretty good.”
“Then I’ll try the soup.” Celes also decided on a fish sandwich. For the oddest reason she had a craving for seafood but she didn’t want anything too rich.
“I think I might too.” If there was a soup that she actually liked. Though she kind of wanted a sandwich too. “So do you like living here in California?” Terra asked. “Have you lived anywhere else?”
“I love it. The weather is really nice. It’s a lot better than some other places I’ve lived anyway. I was a contractor with a company for awhile and they had me all over the world. Mostly in the desert.”
Terra nodded in agreement. “I love the weather too. I’m an east coast girl. It seems like it’s always too cold or too hot. Here it’s just.. nice.” She looked impressed at Celes. “All over? What’s that like? What’s your favorite place you’ve been?”
“I really enjoyed it when I was in Kuwait. I was only there a few weeks, they needed someone to help with the local systems.” And yet now she worked in a bookstore.
“That sounds nice. I like helping people. I haven’t ever been out of the country though,” Terra admitted. “I’m sure lots of places over there need it.”
“It’s a little ridiculous how bad it is. You can’t go two feet without seeing something that makes you feel a little sick. But at the same time, there’s a lot of beauty, and the cultural differences are fascinating.”
“I can’t even imagine. They probably don’t portray it accurately on the news and things.” Perhaps one of these days, Terra would go to another country and help them out. She’d always wanted to.
“Not even a little.” But sometimes, Celes thought, being first hand inside everything means that you don’t see the forest for the trees.
She couldn’t imagine how difficult and complicated it all was. “Well.. shall we order? I am starving.” Terra looked over the menu again.
“Yes, lets order.” Celes checked her phone, then put it into her pocket. She had a feeling like there was going to be something terrible coming soon. She didn’t want her new friend hurt. She’d have to do something. “Uhm. Have you had any stranger than usual dreams?”
After looking through the menu for a while, she finally decided on something and ordered from the waitress. “Dreams? Uh.. well yeah actually. It’s kind of.. awful. I was.. a slave. And there was this guy.. anything he told me to do, I just obeyed. It was creepy.”
“I’m sorry. That sounds like a horrible dream. In mine I was...infused with some kind of magic.” She shook her head. It had been painful, but nothing like being a slave. “I had all this power, and they made me believe in this empire.”
“Infused with magic? Wow..” That was something. Terra wasn’t quite sure what to think of her dreams. She didn’t like them very much. “That sounds like brainwashing to me.” Not that she would know. “I was in this large.. piece of machinery. Like a robot, but a massive one that they used for war. It was odd.”
“It kind of was...not in the traditional sense, but I was young and impressionable and they showed me all of the good things and none of the bad things. It wasn’t until I was knee deep in doing bad things that I started questioning what was goind on.” Celes shuddered. It was far too much like her waking life. She wondered what kind of monster that made her.
“...Was it called Magitek?”
She nodded knowingly, listening to Celes talk about her dreams. Terra kind of understood that from her own dreams. Though she supposed she didn’t really have a choice either. “Well I suppose it’s good that you finally realized what was going on. I was invading this town with these two men to find this.. creature.” And she had no control over what she was doing.
Terra blinked a bit. “... Yeah.. it was called Magitek. I was in one, going to find an esper.”
“We totally wrecked a town called Maranda, and then I woke up while this horrid little man was talking about poisoning another town under siege,” Celes said, and frowned. “I’ve seen armor like that, I commanded soldiers who used it.”
“Wow.. I wonder what this means..” She couldn’t help but feel a little confused and yet elated at the same time. Not about the dreams though. They were kind of horrible. “Maybe our dreams are connected.”
“Shouldn’t that be impossible though? I mean, it’s not like I’m throwing ice bolts or anything like that.” She looked down at her hands. “Is it an empire? Enslaving you?”
Terra nodded a little. “Yeah it’s an empire. I don’t know what it’s called. Just.. the Empire. And it should be impossible.. but it’s a dream. I’m not sure they’re supposed to be realistic.”
“I don’t know. It’s probably nothing, but people like to talk about their dreams like they’re real.” It did feel real, all of it. The magic infusion had hurt so much.
She didn’t say anything for a moment and then finally nodded. “It did feel real. Really real. It’s very confusing. Maybe I’ll have to ask around to some people. See if that sort of thing happens.” It couldn’t hurt, right?
“I hope it’s just something like a lucid dream and not… a thing.” She’d heard of some strange things, when talking with other operatives. Most of it she just thought was gossip and nothing more. But...maybe it wasn’t. “How can people share?”
“I’m sure it’s going to be fine and it’s just a really lucid dream.” Though Terra was going to look into the water here or something. That dream was like nothing she’d ever had before. “I don’t know. I mean it’s not like we’re dreaming the same thing, but.. I don’t know.”
“Lets not worry about it, but maybe we should keep dream journals and compare?”
Terra nodded. “Good idea. I like that idea a lot actually. It’s a good one.” She wished she’d thought of that. “Thanks for coming out with me.”
“Anytime, Terra.” Celes smiled at her. It was good to have a friend.