Scene #6630: Late Knight Theater

Owner	Pose
Seifer Almasy	This is very possibly an excruciating experience. Seifer's favorite movie of all time - the thing he based his entire life around, the movie he never shuts up about - is The Sorceress's Knight, and it's...it's...kind of a mediocre film. It's not even very good. The lead actor is pretty okay, better at the action shots than the dramatic. The sorceress's actress is that sort of middle-of-the-road attractive-enough mediocre-talent no-stand-out sort of girl. The effects are practical, with an OK budget, except for one very stand-out scene where the lead actor fights a dragon with a gunblade that looks exactly like Seifer's. The plot is decent, kind of cut-out-ish. It's...firmly OK. Whatever Tamamo cooked is probably more engaging than the movie. Still, as people leave the wide grass field that Seifer had set up for Asterios, Seifer stops Stella. He waits until everyone else is gone. "...hey, so. Did you like the movie?"
Stella	"Movie?" Stella asks, puzzled. She showed no signs of the battle - she'd regrown fully, her sheen and color returned. She never bore a crack longer than a few minutes, and it held even now. "Were we not watching real events through cameras?" She hadn't paid much mind to the odd gaps in time or scene transitions, getting instead wrapped up in the fact there was a cool knight to watch, and she was sitting next to another. That was really all she cared about. "I do not understand."
Seifer Almasy	Seifer laughs. "What? I mean, kinda, yeah. But not really. It's a movie based on a true story." Seifer pulls up his knees. "That stuff really did happen a super long time ago, but the movie is just people acting out what happened according to a script. Like that guy with the gunblade, Zefer? In this version he's an actor named Laguna. The guy I based my life around." Seifer lays back on the grass, arms under his head. "But there's other versions of this story, too. Other movies. Most of the others don't feel as real, though. The dragon scene really feels, like, spot-on, you know? Like the actor is really fighting a dragon. Supposedly, he did, but that's just rumors as far as I know. I never met him so I never got a chance to ask him. If I did, it'd be like the third question outta my mouth." % "But that Laguna guy's not a knight. He's just pretending to be one." Seifer shrugs his shoulders. "Like us, I guess." The Moon Cell's artificial ceiling rotates. A few of the strange floating cubes pass by as day turns to night on a scheduled timer. Stars blossom like flowers. "...you didn't have to help me, you know." "Not...not that I mean I could've handled it all myself, or anything. Just, you didn't have to do that. There was a mission and you coulda just...gone and helped save the girl and let me eat my own stupid words."
Stella	"A reproduction. I see. A play." At least she knew that much. "If he is not a knight, he appears very skilled at pretending to be one." The dragon fight did stand out. Stella has trouble believing that dragon could have been fake. The shift of day to night draws her attention, largely because it's so radically different from the Sun setting. She keeps looking up, even as Seifer speaks and she answers. "I exist to assist and protect. If I did not do that, I would have no purpose. My life cannot be put at risk, so it is irrelevant. That aside, I possess neither flight nor speed, and cannot heal others. I had nothing to offer that situation. I was best placed in battle." She never lowers her head, continuing to look at the passing cubes in the sky. "I also wish to observe how knights battle. It was useful to fight alongside you again."
Seifer Almasy	"I heard he was a Galbadian soldier," Seifer says after a bit. "My ex-girlfriend, I think, her mom was a singer who had a thing for a Galbadian soldier, and her mom did a cover of the main theme in the most recent remake. I always kinda wondered." Seifer stares up at the whirling stars. "Yeah, well. I'm a pretend knight, too. I'm just some war orphan kid with a dream. King of the Moon, Sorceress to protect, but in the end, I can't do any better than I did, and I still got put in the ground." His fingers go to rub his brow. "Look, you shouldn't learn from me. I'm...I based everything I do on this movie. I'm a crazy person. I know I'm a crazy person, I've been told it a hundred times, but it's the way I live my life, yanno?" "And I don't want other people to think that I'm an example worth following when I overestimate myself so badly. Yeah, it all worked out in the end, and we managed to hold Ruler, but...I thought I could kill him. If I wasn't me, I'd probably have died. I don't..." Seifer hesitates. "I don't want my friends to get hurt on my behalf. Feels wrong. I'm supposed to be the guy who protects my wife, and if I can't even do that..." He shakes his head. He's quiet for a time. The stars draw constellations in the sky, lines of rippling magic and light coming together and dancing across the darkness. After a bit, he sighs, and says, "But...thanks, anyway." "It's nice of you to say." "And don't sell yourself short. Even if you didn't assist and protect, you could find your own purpose. Find your own dream, yanno?"
Stella	"I did not understand half of what you just said about singing," Stella admits openly, presumably mixed up by words like cover and theme. She only lowers her head when Seifer claims to be a fake. "I do not know what a real knight is, so I cannot be one to judge. I hope that by meeting many I can reach the undeniable truth. You claim to be a knight and exhibit great skill and power. Therefore you are suitable to determine what a knight is." Power. It always gravitates around that with her. "I am equally unable to determine what constitutes sanity or insanity. You behavior does not seem that far outside the norm." Purpose, though. She shakes her head. "I have tried. I have not found something else I "desire" to do. I find it easier to do what I was made to do and follow orders."
Seifer Almasy	Seifer laughs. "It's fine. Most people just kinda glaze their eyes over when I start talking about movie trivia. I'm pretty sure even Caster does, she's just too sweet to admit it, and-or I haven't hit the breaking point yet." Seifer waves his hand. The Moon Cell brings up one of its consoles in front of him. He taps around, and the stars fade, a rippling aurora spreading across the sky like crystals. He dismisses the terminal with a wave. "Huh, I feel like I'm kinda figuring this place out." The bathroom will be on the other side of the Capital next time he goes looking. "Suitable, huh." Seifer folds his arm back behind his head. "Everything I know about Knights is from that movie we just watched. And...the book, and the other book, and the remakes, and...you get the point. So..." Seifer looks up. "I guess that's what a Knight is to me. That's all. It's simple-minded, I guess, but I always thought that I could do anything like Zefer can. Like, that dragon, that fight is so incredible, because you can tell Zefer's on the back foot but he still pushes through, and I figured..." "I dunno. I wasn't born special like you or the boss lady or Caster or like nearly everybody in the Concord. I don't have any special powers I didn't struggle for. And for a while, I thought, you know, you keep struggling, you win. But...I guess not." He rubs his forehead. "So I figured that a Knight was somebody who could overcome any obstacles and was utterly devoted to his Sorceress. Somebody who didn't know how to lose, and never gave up, no matter how overwhelming the odds are." He grins at her. "So I guess now you know everything about Knights that I do." "So...I guess you're qualified now, huh?" He laughs and stretches, sitting up. "Well, you'll get there. You're getting there right now, y'know? You're more together than I was at your age." She's like three. That's an unfair comparison. "Ah, dang, I'm talking like an old man." "Look. Just because you haven't found what you desire doesn't mean you have no desires. And just because you find it easier to do what you were made for doesn't mean it's all you have to do. The best things in life are things we fight for and struggle to achieve. You'll get there."
Stella	"All I know about knights is from watching armies wage war. I know knights must serve kings, must wear armor and wield blades. I know knights fight monsters and defend their kingdom. I know knights defend the weak, but only the weak they deem worth defending." It's the only allowance she makes for power being absolute. "I was called a knight, but I never knew what it stood for. Katt said it is merely a title granted onto someone. But a title cannot be granted without qualifiers, can it?" Titles are usually rewards. She considers Seifer's definition. So a knight has to struggle and overcome any obstacle. "Perhaps it is not about overcoming any obstacle. Perhaps it is simply about trying to. You are looking at it from a perspective of success. And indeed, in situations of life and death, only your ability to succeed matters. But being a knight is not a matter of life or death. At least, nothing I have learned suggests it is." She doesn't respond to his facial expressions or anything; she's flat and monotone as ever. "I do not have a Sorceress, however. Therefore I cannot be a knight yet. Being "born" special does little to advance me in that regard. You have accomplished what many with power cannot. That is special, is it not?" Being crazy is probably special, too. "As for me, perhaps. I am learning new things every day. I might be able to learn to think the same way you all do, eventually."
Seifer Almasy	"Yeah, well," Seifer says, "You're in the right place for learning to think like us, at least. All the other groups got real bugs up their butts. Concord's basically family, I guess. I don't really have anything else to compare it to, so...y'know." He reaches over and pats Stella on the head. "I guess that basically makes you a little sister." "I feel like, if I did have a real little sister, she woulda been a lot more annoying than you, though." He sits up. "Yeah, you're right. Trying's the important thing. Ahhhh, I got myself all down 'cause I got beat up. Whatever, everybody gets beat up." He rolls his arm in the socket. "The point is...thanks. For stickin' out your neck. For tryin' to help me out. For tryin' to protect me from that guy, and from myself. I really appreciate it. It's not somethin' a lot of people have done for me but Caster."
Stella	"Family." Stella ponders. "By your definition of it, I have a brother. I do not know where he is. I will likely see him again, when we next investigate my kingdom." Or that's the hope, anyway. Maybe it's something she 'wants' to do, finally. Of course, Stella's hair doesn't feel anything like hair. It's just crystal in the shape of hair. Flexible, but not at all the same feeling. "I will take it as a compliment that I am less annoying," she even adds. Then she immediatly follows with: "I did not stick my neck out. My neck is still firmly attached to my body, and was still at the time." A pause. Then: "For most of the battle." That's more accurate. "But you do not need to thank me. Rather, I am the one who must thank you all for giving me purpose."
Seifer Almasy	"A brother, huh? Weird. What, is he like, metal or something?" Seifer's mild racism towards golems is born out of curiosity, not hate! "Well, maybe we'll go find him. Sounds like it's something you're interested in, so that's a step forward, right?" He grins. "Yeah, it was a compliment. You're not very annoying. -right, the literal thing. Sorry, I forgot." Seifer, forget a thing? No way. "I meant, thanks for putting yourself at risk." "People can both thank each other, dummy. You can thank somebody who's also thanking you. They're not, like, exclusive, thanks don't cancel themselves out."
Stella	"You fought him," Stella reminds Seifer. "He was the golem being created as my kingdom fell. He was still standing when you arrived. He was pulled back, wherever his king must be. Master. Queen. Boss. First. Who knows." She then corrects Seifer: "I cannot be put at risk. My body will mend itself from any injury. There was nothing he could have done to kill me." As far as she knows. "I will keep in mind that thanks are not like debts, however. We are both thanked, then." That probably makes it sound entirely too formal.