nomans_land | the universe's sandbox

the universe's sandbox

i July

In the dark of the just-set suns, the vast gaping chasm where there was once a city seems to moan, a low and mournful note as the still hot wind sweeps over its edge and down into the blackness below. It wasn't always there. Sometimes it was ruins, sometimes it was light and noise and life. Right now, it's a hole, and the steady breeze plays notes along its broken, ragged edges like a half-forgotten dirge.

It shouldn't be there. It should be ruins, he's certain of it, crumbling outlines of homes and businesses and lives. There still were ruins, just a little further out, the tumbled broken brick and stucco he expected, but this? This is so bewildering he doesn't know what to think about it, he just pulls his long heavy cloak tighter around himself to keep the sand-strewn wind out and stares. He too shouldn't be there, and he strikes a figure that is at once familiar and strange, the shrouding wrap of fabric hiding most but not all of the violently red coat below, or the vague outline of more limbs than there should be. At its hem on one side right along the ground, long protrusions almost like feathery blades or sharpened fingers curl against a brick long separated from its home, absently digging a little furrow into it. More proper feathers trail almost like a peacock's train in the dust, occasionally looping loosely around whatever's nearest. The closer anyone gets, the more tangible his presence is alone, an oppressive weight like a sandstorm on the horizon. It wasn't every day he didn't know how to feel about something. Usually it was feeling too much about something.

Maybe he shouldn't have listened to the message on the radio and set out to investigate it. He picks up the brick with the longer of his arms, strangely articulated blade-fingers finding easy purchase in the stone's surface, and flicks it into the pit, listening for the sound of impact and quietly counting under his breath.

ii Desert, A Lost Steamer

There's no point in hanging around mystery holes! Especially ones that didn't stay holes and profoundly disturbed him on so many levels that he's going elsewhere for a while, scrunching across the sand towards.. whatever was in that general direction. It should be a town or city sooner or later, if the stars weren't also completely screwed up and likely to point him in the wrong direction, a place he could pick up a few supplies, put the mask back on and hopefully get in and out before he had to think about it too much.

But there's the wreck of a sand steamer sitting in the sand, far displaced from its proper routes, half torn open from some kind of internal explosion and by the looks of it thoroughly abandoned. The suns would be up in another hour.

Free shelter! Maybe free supplies!

It's almost with a bounce in his step that he heads for the wreck, humming a little under his breath, train of feathers and sharp edges held at a jaunty, strangely optimistic seeming angle like a rooster's tail.

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The slight crick in his neck when he wakes up was worth not having to move once he'd sat down. Sure, the mattresses were right there, but the floor is smooth and more or less level, the temperature's fine, nobody's shooting at him... all told, he wakes up just over two hours later feeling much better! With the mattress, he really might have slept until the suns went down, so it all worked out in the end.

He doesn't jolt awake, just a short, sharp inhale, a second or two pause as he listens all around the room for any trouble, and then a showy yawn and stretch once he's sure everything's fine. More than fine, once he spots the food left out for him!

Wherever in the room Tim is, he's getting beamed at. Full-force Smile of Hope and Delight, in technicolor.

"You made me lunch?"

Seriously. Favorite alternate self ever.

"All that walking around makes for a hungry stomach," is the prompt answer. Anyone who's put in a lot of miles knows it, too! Fuel for the journey is good, load up whenever possible, and free food is the best food!

He's relocated to a swivel chair, back in his blanket burrito but still without his boots on. He won't go anywhere until dark, the cold was easier to deal with than the heat. This steamer was just FULL of handy things, like swivel chairs, though he's pretty sure it once belonged to the captain. "I tried to find another can of pears so you can experience them but I guess it was the only one. Sorry!"

He's already got half the sandwich in his face by the time Tim gets to the apology. Cheeks full, he shakes his head hard. No sorry needed! Thumbs up and nodding means it's great, thank you!

"Dat..." Sorry, let him swallow that giant mouthful first. "No, that's fine, this is just what I needed!" And much fresher than he'd have expected, given their location. "Protein bars might travel well, but do they really need to taste so much like wet paper?"

He remembers the comment about a July-related reveal, he's just going to eat first before bringing it up again. For all that he told a story about July before passing out, it's still a tender subject, and grief has a way of making him lose his appetite. No need to ruin the enjoyment of a good sandwich, right?

"And the chocolate ones are even worse, yuck."

Given the steamer's been sitting abandoned in the sand for possibly months, it's not a good idea to wonder too much exactly where he found even remotely fresh ingredients. "I dropped one once, out by the cave system near New Utah. Found it again a year later on accident, and it tasted exactly the same as one brand new off the shelf." Meal bars did what they needed to do, keep a body alive. FLAVOR was optional.

But by the sound of it that's a memory to be mourned. He'd heard twinkies were nearly as indestructible, but those were much harder to get. And less healthy. "One day I'm going to get the nerve to actually find out what's IN those things, but it might also scar me for life." They may be better off not knowing. He's faced countless tragedies and horrors, but the possibility of a protein bar likely being ninety percent sawdust or something is not something he's prepared for!

He wiggles socked toes thoughtfully. No, maybe he WOULDN'T ask one day. "Probably worm powder or something. Sawdust. The sludge that comes up from a mostly dry well."

It tastes great and the texture isn't concerning, and that's all he cares about! It's all going to disappear into his face just as fast as he can chew, and the drink -- which is a little strange, but he's not going to object to that either! -- will follow it in due course.

"Clay." Watered down ale isn't warm water that's been sitting in a canteen for the better part of a week, which puts it just a step or two below actual manna from heaven at this point. Delicious, friend, thank you so much. "Clay and toma scat, I'd bet money on it." No wonder so many folks outside of the towns prefer to hunt for their meals!

Sandwich inhaled and drink drunk, Vash leans back against the wall with a contented sigh. "You're a hero for that. Thank you again." He'll pay the favor back -- or forward, as the case may be -- as soon as he's got the opportunity. "Was there something you wanted to show me?"

"You ever get the impression there are some things we should never, ever really look too much into?" It's been a pleasantly surreal day, he'll take it. It's not every day he gets to sit around in a wrecked sand steamer talking to a part of himself without being completely drunk. "Protein bars are probably up there on the list. Especially since every manufacturer probably has their own 'recipe'."

And unlike those forays into unsobriety, there's no arguing with himself going on! It's great! It's almost enough to truly relax. Almost. That would mean shedding the burrito and not putting so much concentration into looking as human as he can, and he's not quite ready to inflict that on the unsuspecting just yet.

He looks a bit startled when reminded he was going to show off something, straightening up a bit. "Oh, right! Here, take a look back July's way, and tell me what you think." He holds out a pair of ordinary looking binoculars with his right hand - always the right. The left is still thoroughly under wraps. There's nothing at all wrong with the binoculars, they show sand, sand and more sand!

And beyond that, the ruins of July. Or at least, some of the ruins, the blasted walls and broken crumbling architecture of its outskirts are certainly there but the rest is dominated by the absolutely towering shape of a massive ship split in half and lodged bow and stern in the ground. Growing out of its shattered midsection and reaching towards the sky in numberless glittering spires of metal and glass is what can only be called a city.

But not a city as he'd ever come across, in all his years of wandering; that was simply beyond the architecture of No Man's Land as he knows it. He'd only seen it in old pictures of Earth, in its own cities full of skyscrapers and teeming with people. At this time of day the city casts a short shadow on the ground, a sharp-edged black thing that shades the very ruins of the city he was more familiar with and had destroyed (or instigated the destruction of, he wasn't sure. Maybe both), and sand and sun can be seen peeking beneath it where the hull of the split ship didn't quite reach sand in the middle. Something about those distant gleaming edifices suggest it would be, in the dark of night, magnificent to see.

Were they any sharper, maybe a little radio tower can be made out, and a certain residence, but it was quite some distance, so perhaps not.

That city growing out of the wreckage of an ancient ship wasn't there three hours ago. It hasn't made its appearance in about a week now, but there it was.

There's nothing suspicious about any version of himself hiding his left arm. If Vash notices that Tim is carefully keeping that limb under wraps, it's not obvious at all. He doesn't look at it, wouldn't reach for it, isn't even thinking about it too much -- whatever he's got under there, however rough Tim's journey has been to get to this point, that's entirely his business. Vash has sympathy ready to go if any when there's any kind of reveal, but until then? Tim only needs one hand to hold binoculars, so that's all there is to that!

"I didn't realize we were so close," he says, taking the binoculars and heading over to the porthole. Sure, he'd been heading in that direction, but he'd thought he had at least another day's walking ahead of him. For once, the rogue portals left over from their journey here -- if that's what they are! Their sisters in Octovern hadn't known what to make of them, anyway -- have done some good! "What am I...?"

The words looking for die in his throat as he sees exactly what Tim wanted to show him. He can just barely make out the ruins of July, the familiar mess of blasted brick and sand drifts that have collected over the years, but the sight is almost entirely obscured by a city that's like nothing Vash has ever seen. He's seen hundreds of cities built around the ruins of one piece of ship or another, hundreds of towns that have stripped every last bit of technology out of those nearly impenetrable hulls and repurposed it into everything from home appliances to bizarre body modifications to weaponry. Mostly, it's been a lot of weaponry.

But this? There's no city on Noman's that looks like this, nothing that tall! Nothing that amazing!

"He said it was a hole." He's not entirely aware that he's speaking aloud, the words mostly meant for himself. Knives had warned him -- there's a hole out by July, he'd said, but this is no hole! This is something else entirely. This is new.

There's a bit of a shrug from the burrito. "Distances are hard to gauge when everything's flat, there's a good thirty miles plus between us and there by my guess." And on foot, a day or so of walking, maybe a bit more thanks to all the sand making travel harder. Half that time with a tomas or even less time flying. Flying didn't happen often, but thirty miles through the sand on foot was an all-day venture.

And then he waits, bouncing just a little in place, keenly interested on an external perspective.

"I've never seen a city like that outside pictures. But that's supposed to be July. A July." Even through the tumult of emotions the ruins brought to the fore, this is so unexpected that he could put it all aside and feel nothing but maddening curiosity. "It was a hole when I arrived last night. Does it look like the one you knew, with the fruit trees?"

So he's not as far off course as he'd thought. That's a relief. It's the only relief here, though... duplicates of people is one thing, but duplicates of cities?

"No." He can't look away from the amazing city. The towers! The lights! That Vash he'd met with the beautiful green arm... was this his July? He'll have to ask, next time they meet, if he can. "No, the July I..." Destroyed. "...remember is there, just past the lit up one. The ruins." So sometimes there's one July, and sometimes there's two, a gleaming city, and a hole.

And this July has people.

He has to go check it out. Finally turning away from the porthole, Vash offers the binoculars back, although his gaze keeps getting drawn back to the wonder outside.

"I'm feeling like a brisk thirty mile walk. Any interest in coming with me?"

So likely, this Vash the Stampede is more familiar with the July he reduced to rubble. Rubble ... not a hole. Where did the HOLE come from?

He hasn't spent enough time in the vicinity to know. Or asking around about what happened to the split-ship city to begin with, maybe in some world or other those glittering towers never were destroyed at all. He takes the binoculars back and sets them beside him for later. It was probably going to be much neater looking after dark. "I can only guess, but I think this July built upwards instead of outwards. I'm ... used to the outwards one." Sandy tan buildings, dusty streets and happy people.

He turns to glance at the porthole, and the suspiciously sunlike light pooling through it. It's still daylight, did he REALLY want to go out in the sun, wearing multiple layers, knowing it'll take a day to get there on foot?

"If you're willing to wait til sundown, I can get us there in about an hour or so." Or they CAN go now, but he's reluctant, as curious as he is.

Oh it's miserably hot outside! But Vash has slept, some, and eaten, more than some! It wouldn't be the first time he'd walked all day in direct sunlight -- it wouldn't even be the first time this week.

But he still wouldn't make it to that new July until nearly sundown, so if Tim has a way to make that trip happen faster, then he's all ears! "Oh, you have a vehicle! That's a much better option that walking." He doesn't understand why that vehicle can't transport them now, but it's Tim's car, and therefore Tim's call. With a self-deprecating laugh, Vash leans against the wall of the ship again, gazing out the porthole at the glimmering city beyond.

"You think it'll still be there later tonight?" If it's vanishing, then shouldn't they go see it while it's here? And what about Rem, and the kids, and everyone else staying in the station at the edge of the... the first July, maybe? Lost July.

"It's ... better than walking," he agrees, without clarifying that he had no intention of trying to drive ANYTHING. Him? Drive? He could manage an automatic if he really had to but otherwise, no luck!

Flying had its risks too but he was sure he could mitigate those with the comfort of nightfall and perhaps a blindfold. As much as he was pretty sure Vash wouldn't recoil in disgust or call him an abomination or something, there was still a fair bit of unease in revealing any of it to someone else. "I did a little bit of asking. If the hole or the ruins last a few days, there's no reason to think this won't either."

Probably. He's willing to wait and find out because six layers under the desert suns was not something he wanted to do even more than he /did/ want to go see the city himself. "It's ... it's silly, but I can't help but wonder, if ..." He leans back too, propped mostly on blankets and mattresses, expression a touch wistful. "Anyone there might be familiar." Probably not. July didn't exactly disappear recently. ..Did it?

Only a few days? It's true, Vash has to admit, that he wouldn't know if the city was disappearing or not. He's spent less than an hour in that part of the world since they were all brought here, just long enough to see Rem, and say what he'd thought was goodbye to his littlest brother. July had just been the backdrop, the universe's sick idea of a joke, so many of his mistakes clustered together. He hadn't given it much thought -- in fact, he'd tried hard not to look at the ruins at all.

But first Knives and now Tim have pointed out that the city is shifting, and Vash can't help but wonder if it has something to do with the form of its destruction. Is it just a quirk of their sisters' efforts to save the Red Brother, just another piece of strangeness that they all not get to adapt to? Or did he break more than he'd imagined when he'd destroyed July and undone all her residents?

"Only ghosts," he quips, his tone less dry and more melancholy than he intended, whoops. With an embarrassed clearing of his throat, he tries that again: "I mean, no. I didn't recognize any of the people I could see just now."

Still leaning against the wall so he can see July out of the corner of his eye, he smiles sympathetically at the burrito next to him. "Are you looking for anyone in particular?"

"Ghosts, really?" He sounds so utterly, guilelessly interested that it's going to be a disappointment when it's proven to be a dark joke and not reality. He wouldn't put it past life to .. figure out how to generate ghosts, he's still pretty sure a hundred and fifty years on that Tessla's ghost had visited him when he was both small. "Ah well."

Just the lingering memories of people long gone, then. It didn't quite bother him as much as it once did; certainly it was sad, and he had plenty of painful memories attached, but wrenching grief was harder to generate these days.

But if it was appearing, in some other form, that was a live population. A live population could theoretically be evacuated. Could the world in the shape it was in, absorb its refugees? "....Sometimes, a bit. I have a pair of companions I'm keeping an eye out for, and they'd be drawn to such strangeness like flies to vinegar. And then meddle in everything."

Vash just half-shrugs -- they're basically ghosts down there, aren't they? If that city's gone, if they're just seeing an image of the past, then those people are all dead. Maybe that's not the case, maybe that's a whole live real city, pulled wholecloth from another dimension and pasted atop the material of this one! But if it's been vanishing and reappearing, if it's not static in this universe, then... then can it be real? Can those people really be alive?

If it is, then they have to get those people out of there, and quickly. Tim is right -- it'll take him all day to walk there, so waiting until evening to drive makes sense, but the waiting isn't easy. He's never been very good at staying still.

The talking helps. "Ha ha, I know some people like that!" More than a few, if he's being honest -- he seems to attract folks who are, as Tim says, drawn to strangeness. "They're a pair of insurance agents, and they're just about the bravest people I've ever met. I've never seen anyone run towards trouble like they do."

"Meryl and Millie!" He's already been pretty content, but the reminder of the insurance girls just lights him up with delight. "They're reporters now, in my world! Travel around with a microphone and camera, getting into everything and recording it all. You're right, they really do run towards trouble. They had an interview with the Nebraska family a couple months back, it was all over the news." For a moment, he looks thoughtful. "I promised them an interview at some point. I should. Eventually. Maybe."

They'll catch him sooner or later, and then give him hell for making them wait. But he'd been sorting out how he even felt about humans for a while, and didn't want to take the chance of impulsively hurting them.

That danger's past now. So why was he reluctant? "But I know you know one of the ones I did mean, if things are the same everywhere. Nick, and another you might not know yet, Elendira. They're--" Obviously he was going to say 'good people', but he looks thoughtful again, and a bit amused. That might not exactly apply, one has a foul mouth and a tendency to spray bullets everywhere, the other was perfectly proper but tended to lob nails. "Well, they're. They're something, when they're not fighting like cats and dogs. But if Elendira's about, she's not very good at keeping the nihilism at bay without something to keep her occupied, so I'm keeping a feeler out in case she turns up."

By the way he talks about them both, his tone says they're both considered friends, and that he cares about them. Equally? That's harder to tell. But Elendira is no enemy, and Wolfwood qualifies as 'Nick'.

He knows Millie and Meryl! And Wolfwood! ...And Elendira?

"Sorry, are we talking about the same Elendira?" Because sure, everyone he counts as a friend is a little chaotic, in one way or another: Wolfwood's violent, Meryl's bossy, and Millie...

Well. Millie's perfect and wonderful and kind, and he really hopes she's doing well. But Elendira doesn't fit his description of a friend in any universe! "Tall, a little bit kill-happy, has a suitcase full of nails that are way bigger than nails ever should be?"

Elendira was one of Knives's crew, and while he'll allow for a lot of differences between worlds, he's having a hard time picturing a version of himself who would count Crimsonnail in the same category as Wolfwood and the girls. He hates to think it, but it's honestly suspicious; for the first time since they've met, Vash lets himself wonder about the blanket 'Tim' has wrapped himself up in... and about the twin moles on his face. What world does he come from, where Crimsonnail is a friend?

"Not any more than Nick is, but it sounds like you've met." His smile is thoughtful, but still warm. They WERE friends; did he still think of her that way when she was a servant only? "She's not as bad as she puts on, but it takes time to get through her shell. I guess I like having tough nuts to crack around."

He waves one hand as if to ward off arguments with a brief chuckle. "She belongs on a different world, somewhere where her fashion and ambition could build her a design empire. Without anything to build on here, she gets lost, like so many others. Who on this planet cares about high fashion, elegance and all that? Who can afford or get food to support a chef of epicurean tastes? But she won't talk about any of that to a stranger. Give her a chance, if you run into her again. She's ferocious but that's not all. Nick can come off like a monster at first if he wants to, too."

And between her and Wolfwood, they kept him alive, then kept him stable, then remained long after they had to. Long enough to learn the bitter and long broken dreams they'd dreamed and given up on. "You're missing out on the best cocktail maker this side of New Miami if you don't."

She goes on murder sprees because she's fancy and bored doesn't sound like a reasonable argument to Vash, but he has to admit that Tim isn't wrong about Wolfwood. How much of their time together had been rehashing the same fight, over and over, about killing versus not taking lives? If he spent as much time with Elendira as he did with Wolfwood, if they had ever talked someplace other than his cell on his brother's ark, would he see the good person beneath her cruel persona? It's possible, he supposes. There's really no such thing as a bad person, just people in bad situations, and that has to go for his enemies as well as for his friends. He knows this. It's just harder to believe in for some people.

"I do like a good cocktail," he admits, turning finally from the window to take a seat below it. "And okay, okay, you're right, it's not as if I've ever talked to her except one time, and that wasn't really a friendly talk." To put it mildly.

A world where Wolfwood -- where Nick -- and Elendira were his friends. Nope, it's still hard to picture it! "But if you know those two, and the insurance girls, then our worlds must be pretty similar! Aside from..." He taps his mole -- only one on this face! "...a couple things."

Something in all of that draws a sharp toothed grin. "Imagine for a moment if you met our favorite preacher as a stone cold killer first, and you were his target." It's a bit of an assumption that this Vash KNOWS about that, but the dark locks of hair suggested the time for some secrets was long past. "It'd be a hard sell then too, I bet, no chance to see beyond the show. I won't say it didn't take a while, but it was worth it."

They still didn't qualify as good people. But Wolfwood definitely meant well, for at least some people and especially children, and Elendira was similarly disposed to a few. They deserved better than the problems this world handed to them.

There's more differences than a couple things, but he merely kicks his feet idly, as if none of this was a problem. It wouldn't be, so long as he was careful, he knew he could be frightening on appearances alone. "Ahh, little differences make all the fun, I for example obviously have way better outfits." It's, from what can be seen, pretty much a very standard outfit for any Vash The Stampede. "Must be the benefits of having a fashionista as a friend. Oh! I bet I have one difference. Humans turning up from earth in all kinds of fancy spaceships!"

He's already imagined it before! About what it would have been like to come across signs of Knives's presence and find Chapel waiting for him, instead of any of the other Gung Ho Guns. About what it would have taken to bring Wolfwood down without either of them dying. About how far he would have gotten, without Wolfwood at his side. If that's one of the possible worlds out there, he's really grateful that he didn't end up in it.

Instead, he ended up in a world with a couple brave and friendly insurance agents, a fearsome traveling companion who became more than a friend, and an outfit that was both attractive and functional! The man in the blanket doesn't have any room to talk about his outfit, thank you very much!

"Oh, that's happening here too, out in Octovern. Ships from Earth, independent plants, a whole war finally finished..." He waves a hand, dismissing all that, because what's more important is the previous topic! "...and this coat was custom made, thank you very much! I get a lot of compliments on this coat!"

To be honest... he draws a lot of attention, yes, but that's not really the same thing.

"Aw, I thought I had something new." War though, he heard only rumors about a war. There had been no war in his time. Maybe there would have been later, had things gone differently.. "How about televisions? Do you have those yet?"

Movies had been a thing back on the ships when they were very young and in comparison modern television was primitive indeed, but it would at least provide some entertainment. And it was kind of nice to get the news without having to wait weeks via newspaper!

He eyes Vash's coat, expression skeptical. Did it matter that his own was very similar? Not at all. "It's okay I guess. But it could be better. Boots too." Now the boots definitely are identical, his might be a bit more worn but that's about it. "It's alright, I'll find you something nicer eventually." Now he's certainly just doing it on purpose.

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