nomans_land | 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.

Threaded | Flat

He's really getting tired of thinking the phrase Knives was right. But after four days of walking from Octovern towards July, he has to admit it -- this trip would have been a lot better with a vehicle. Walking at night and finding shade to try and sleep during the day works more or less, but some days there's no shade, and so he hasn't slept for awhile.

The first sun is just coming over the horizon when he spots the wreck, a great hulking mass of broken metal that used to be an older generation sand steamer. With a relieved laugh he heads for it, feet sliding across the sands as he runs. Sleep. That wreck promises shade, and shade means sleep, and he's so tired! He doesn't even mind if it's full of worms (he'd mind a little bit) or bandits (he'd mind not at all, so long as they agreed to behave!). For a good night's -- day's -- rest, he'll make it work!

"Hello!" But hopefully his luck will hold out, and the wreck will be as abandoned as it looks. He approaches from the side with the most damage, looking for a way in. "Vash the Stampede to the USS Rusty Menace, requesting permission to come aboard!"

Now and then, Rem takes a few hours to head to the big crater-rubble-city, carrying supplies to leave at the site. Just some jugs of water and scavenged blankets, nothing fancy. The days the city is there, she also come home with things needed for the house, or fun things for the kids. It's a nice little outing, and she hopes it will at least help some lost soul out there.

This time, whoever, she sees the lost soul in person and pauses at a distance as she feels the overwhelming existence in her blood. She can see hanging things off of the person and her heart constrains in worry, thinking this is the broken Vash she was told about, the one full of vines and hatred of humanity.

...this isn't vines, though. It's something else.

"Hello?" Rem knows Vash told her to run if she saw him. But what mother would?

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