A breathtaking castle; such grandeur, such prominence.

The land; breathtaking beauty, knowing no rival elsewhere in the realm, fresh, salt air riding the ocean’s breezes. Clear as crystal, accompanied with greens and blues, fragmenting together with the sun’s rays to form a cerulean sea.
The people; embracing formalities, chivalrous spirits, wonderful emotions dancing in the air.
Perfection.
Aria’s world, his reality.
Dancing, music; leaving the listeners entrenched in the echoes of its melody.
Gowns and tuxedos, crystals refracting a soft, warm, sunset pink light, a picturesque scene with such an appealing serenity.
Aria danced with those who sought his attention, talked of literature and musical pieces of interest, joined the chorus of other’s soft laughter, and relished in the delight of people’s congratulations on his coming of age to office.
“Aria, when shall the Elders begin to guide you with the knowledge of our people and the government?”
“My lady Naminé, hasn’t the boy only just turned of age last eve? The Elders most likely have yet to contact him.”
Aria gives a polite laugh, “Forgive me, sir, but in fact, the Elders have contacted me and asked for me to join them during the banquet later this eve.”
“Lovely,” exclaimed the lady. “Due to you being free all evening tonight, as it appears would you care to join me in regarding the entertainers, they’re quite beautiful in their movements I’ve heard.”
“Of course,” Aria gave a polite smile, nodding towards the noblemen he was engaged with in conversation to before he took the lady’s arm in his as they began their walk towards the performers in the gardens outside the ballroom. The crisp air greeted the two as the doors opened to their approach. The scent of the garden carried with the wind, giving the pair an array of scents to trigger a calm serenity within them.
Taking a deep breath Naminé voiced Aria’s thoughts. “The flowers are so lovely, how do the engineers get them to bloom all year and have such powerful scents, even through the winter months?”
A couple of steps go by before Aria answers, having collected his thoughts. “I believe they genetically build each flower, taking only the necessary genes and then adding more of their own creation to give each their own long life and powerful scent.”
Continuing their walk and without much thought, Naminé dismisses the subject, bored of the talk of science. “Aria! I forgot to ask your opinion of my gown! Do you like it? It’s the best fashion of the year yet!”
Aria regarded her attire. The colour of it was the shading of the sky before the sun has even breached the horizon. Pinks and purples that have been muted to give a peaceful appeal. Surrounding the gown was a hyaline silk, almost transparent, of the same colours, adorning and emphasizing the gown, decorated with diamonds to reflect the light. The silk shifted and moved on it's own, never leaving Naminé dress but always appearing where it would look most elegant in the lighting.  Giving the appearance of the night sky turning to dawn with a river of stars going along the current of night into day.
Giving a smile Aria replies, “It’s lovely, Naminé. Although, wasn’t the purpose of this walk to regard the entertainers? It would be such a shame if we were to both be too caught up in the moment about your beauty to not give the performers our acknowledgement, especially when they worked so hard and programmed all their designs into their equipment and apparel.”
“Oh! Of course, how rude of me.”  Naminé stopped to look at the performers. Leaning on Aria’s shoulder, everything was perfect in her world. They watched the dancers, their body moving in perfect time with the music, the flags they spun seemed to portray the feelings she got while watching in their silk. The other dancers with equipment spun sabres, looking as elegant as the sword they twirled, constantly doing something new and exciting. Then there were the dancers with the bulky piece of wood. What were those? The image on the side of it facing the crowd went more with the rhythm then the melody but the dancers still looked ethereal, portraying the music.”Aria, what are those...things that appear to be wooden?”
“Those?” He pointed at one. “Those are something from antiquity. I believe they were called guns, a rifle to be exact. An archaic tool of battles from hundreds of years ago.” He looked at Naminé’s face and saw her pale, “Of course they’re not real though, they are meant for dancing and spinning and throwing, not...death.”
Turning back towards the performers, a grim expression crossed her face. “I dislike that word greatly. Death. How could the ancients live with such a thing? To imagine loved ones leaving you for eternity...that’s so melancholy.” Turning towards Aria she adds with plea to her voice, “Promise you won’t leave me.”
With a friendly smile Aria replies, “I would never dream of it, not even in all my worse nightmare. You're a part of the reason my whole world is perfect.”
Blush strikes her cheeks, looking away from his face, towards the ground, “Aria… I think I lo-”
“Aria!”
They both turn to sound of a boy’s voice. Aria giving no second thought of what she was about to say and Naminé mortified of what she was about to do. “I finally found you,” The boy pants as he pushes his way through the crowd. “The Elders have requested you! It’s finally happening!” Aria laughed at his energy, always so excited and happy.
“Ventus, what a pleasure that They sent you to go fetch me.”
“Ya, ya, ya, formalities later, future now! we have to go!” the short boy, who was actually only a year younger than Aria, attempted to drag him by his arm but was failing, Aria, being who he is let himself be jerked with little resistance.
“Thank you for the accompaniment, Naminé. It was a pleasure.” Aria called as he and Ventus left her to watch the entertainment, she happily gave a smile to ventus and waved him off though to her, she could tell it was forced.
They worked their way through the crowd trying to leave the elegance of the show and the captivated people behind.
“Hey Aria, I saw her face when we left. Did she try to tell you again?” Ventus asked as they began their way into the castle corridors, alone.
“Yes, I believe so. Although she knows the Elders would never allow it, especially because they named the both of us to be together due to our genetic match-up,” He talked as they passed through another corridor, edging closer and closer towards the Elders. “I believe someone quite literally told her we’re made for and perfect for eachother. Your genes having been changed to compliment mine perfectly.... I meant.” Aria quickly amended.
Smiling Ventus said,
“Well both of our names due roughly translate to wind or air, although yours is much more of a stretch.” playfully jabbed Ventus.
At this point Ventus was walking backwards so he could see Aria’s face while he would tease him, Aria smiled along, laughing at the comments and sometimes giving a smart retort in reply.
This is perfect… My life is perfect, because of him, because of the people, my people, and also because of the many joys in not just mine but all of our lives. Anything we dream of we can make come true with our technology. It’s simply so...Perfect.
“-a...Aria!” Breaking the fog that clouded in Aria’s mind
“Sorry, my apologies, I was off in a daze.”
Smiling with a slight tilt to his head, Ventus replied, “No worries, and what did I tell you about being overly formal with me? You really don’t need to be, not with me.”
“My apo-...Okay.” Aria said with a smile.
“Aaand, just incase you didn’t notice from your little day dream there, we are, officially,  here!” Ventus said with a little kids excitement in his voice.
Standing in front of two large, obsidian black doors they marveled at them. The whole corridor had been made into a grand hall with massive pillars, evenly spaced, on either side of the rug lining the center of the room.
“Well, this is as far as I go…” Ventus said in a small voice still regarding the doors. He then quickly spun upon his heel and looked at Aria. “You’re gonna have so much to learn in their for everyone’s sake of a perfect world. No pressure or anything but good luck in there, I’ve gotta go and get back to delivering messages for the Elders.” With a giant wave of his hand over his head, Ventus ran off into the corridor they just came through.
Turning back towards the doors, Aria let out a sigh
This is it.
Aria takes a few steps towards the doors. As he gets close to them they swing open with nothing more than the sound of displaced air. When Aria looks past the doors he sees a short hallway, pure white with bright light. and another set of doors beyond them. these one matching the colour of the light illuminating the passage instead of being obsidian in colour such as the previous doors. Continuing down the passage, once again the doors swing open, and, inside those doors Aria finds a circular chamber, with a circular depression in the middle of the room. The room is accompanied by several people, all appearing...aged. Not many people allow their true age to show when there are simple procedures to make people look as if they’re in the height of their youth.  Holographic screens portray data everywhere along the walls and in front of the people containing images of the castle, the world, and then there are the pictures that look as if they came out of a nightmare. Aria can’t even understand what he’s looking at in those images so he turns away, with some feeling in his heart, something he never felt before.
“Aria,” an older man with grey hair said, probably just realising his presence. “I see you finally came. Come, child, there is much for you to discover.” He beckoned with his hand.
Aria walked into the room, past a few holograms and down the steps into the center of the room.
“What are these images, Elder?”
“Patience, everything will be explained shortly.” The Elder led Aria to the back of the room. “Turn around now, child, you are about to see the history of our world.” Aria noticed the Elder let out a sigh as he said this, in contained so much emotion but none of it sounded good to Aria.
What is this going to be? Can it really be awful enough that the Elder doesn’t sound happy about it when whatever it is brought our perfect world into being?
With a resounding voice, echoing through the room the Elder said, “Everyone, please close your screens we are going to show Aria what he must do for his people.” With that all the people in the room stopped what they were doing and let their screens turn dark, someone, assumably, began projecting a massive hologram against the wall, the wall  with the exit that Aria just came through. “Watch carefully Aria, this is forbidden knowledge that you must embrace for your people.”
Aria sat in a chair and looked towards the screen, nothing was showing yet but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to see it. He didn’t know what this feeling in his chest was but at that moment all he wanted to do was go back through that door and into his perfect world.
The first image of the video began to appear, it looked old, it didn’t even look as if it was originally from a hologram but something much older. The first thing Aria noticed was the background, obviously a city but the whole skyline was filled with black smoke and red lights illuminating the smoke, probably from a fire, beyond that the rest of the sky was a pure muddy brown color, and there was a ruined building in the distance of the men but it was hard to tell what it had originally looked like, the only bit Aria could gleam from it is that it had once stood tall and proud and was immensely big. The focus of the video was of a several men, all wearing something similar to tuxedos but slightly different, their clothes were torn to shreds. it showed all of them tied to each their own pole and on top of those poles were what appeared to be flags, each flag as different from each others but they all had some design to them that clearly held a meaning, but whatever those meaning were, they escaped Aria. There were people surrounding those men, some carrying signs and others were carrying what looked like miniature rifles from the performance he saw, once again none of the signs held the same sort of writing. Aria could make out a words from the signs because some had the same letters, and were possibly even the root language of his. The words he could make out were ‘War’, ‘Greed’, ‘Hungry’, ‘Justice’, ‘Peace’, ‘Nature’, ‘Destroyed’, ‘Money’, ‘Power’, and ‘Why?’.
The people were screaming at the men with their strange languages. Some even started to throw small pebbles, picked up from the road around them. Then several men and women walked forward and stood in front of the broken men, a person in the center came forward, Aria couldn’t tell what gender they were but that thought quickly escaped him as the person raised a hand as if asking for silence then they began to yell with a booming voice. Once again, Aria could only catch some of what the person was saying, their voice sounded angry but final. The few words Aria managed to translate were ‘World’, ‘Leaders’, and ‘Failures’.
The mystery person moved out of the way, along with the men and women that had come along with them. The person raised his arm once more with an open palm then brought it down in an arc to their waist. Loud pops filled the air and some of the men tied to the poles spasmed with each sound until finaly, finaly, the person who had dropped their arm raised it again but in a fist. The pops stopped and the men tied to the poles slumped downwards. A red liquid coming from their body, from the holes in them that weren’t there before, decorating their torn attire with a rich crimson.
“Aria, clear your eyes of those tears, I would assume you don’t even know what happened.” The Elder said with that strange emotion in his voice again. Aria didn’t even realise that he had begun to cry looking at what he was just shown. “Before we go on let me explain what happened.”
“The people of many lands from the ancient past came together and went against, rebelled,  against the leaders of their respective countries. Death is no longer a reality in our world but in the past it was still very much real. I would wager that you’ve never seen anyone die before but that's what it looks like. The leaders were corrupted in some way or another or just ignored the cries and pleas of morality within their people, of course some of the people were also corrupted but it’s only from a historian's view that we can judge both sides equally and we can see that they were both in the wrong with how to deal with their personal problems and in what way they should have solved the bigger problems, the world’s problems, something that affected them all. What’s done is done though and from the ashes the people discovered a world beyond repair. I’ll spare you the details and the descriptions of words that you never learned from your perfect dream in your world but simply put, the world was on the brink of death. and now in our era, what was the future to those people, it has finally died.”
“But how could that be so, when our world is filled with beauty, such perfection, the land is very much alive, isn’t it? The marvelous sunsets and the flowers, the clothes, the...Everything! How can it be dead? How is it a dream as you had said?” Aria Cried
With a sigh the Elder replied, “That brings us to our next topic, look back towards the screen, this is how we all see the world around us.” To Aria’s relief, it was the world he knew, majestic and perfect, just as he had known it to be. “And now, this is how it truly appears.” continued the Elder in a grim voice.
Aria was unaware of what he was looking at, He saw a castle in ruin, the towers crumbling, all the colour faded from the world, The sky was once again filled with no colour but the brown he had saw in the video. There were no flowers surrounding the castle in a vast array of colours, no forests in the distance, the ocean was almost the same colour as the sky. Finally Aria saw the people. They still looked the same, most never looked older than thirty but their clothes...They were completely not what anyone would ever wear. They were torn, muddied, and some even made from mismatch fibers that weren’t appealing together. None were the magnificent gowns and tuxedos that he saw earlier in the day.
Why are they smiling? Why are they so happy? Why can’t they see the world around them?
The Elder was looking at the boy with that look in his eyes, he still didn’t know what emotion it was, but it was the same one he was feeling looking at all these things.
“The people don’t know, only those of us in this room do.” He said as if he knew the questions burning in Aria’s heart.
“Why don’t they see it?” Aria gave in a small voice
“Because we make them see other wise. In this room, with all the technology in it, we can scan every and any object and then make it appear as it does. We affect everything about it, the smell, the taste, the look, even the sound and feel of it. In a way, we are manipulating all five senses of everyone in our fragment of this planet.”
Aria looked past the things he was seeing, hearing in this room. His eyes were unfocused, clearly trying to comprehend all of what he has just learned. “It can’t be true… IT CAN’T BE TRUE!” Aria screamed. he clutched his hair, curling himself downward from his sitting position, tears strolling down his eyes.
The Elder placed a hand on Aria’s shoulder. “I’m sorry Aria, this is what the people of the past have left us. They thought that this would be the best way for people to live. by hiding it. Just as the leaders of that time hid the problems from the people, those same people decided to ignore their problems and hide within a fantasy. A perfect world... I’m sincerely sorry, Aria, but this is our world. Our reality. Our Illusion.”

~Fin~