nomans_land | In Which Problems Begin: Intro

In Which Problems Begin: Intro

There's energy building around July's ruins. It's tangible even to humans as a bit of static in the air, enough to give a little shock if one touches metal, but it's enough that worms have fled the area entirely, not a wing to be seen. The occasional bird no longer lingers, either.

Sometimes, it is the sprawling city of July, in brick and desert mortar and adobe and scraps. Sometimes, it's the shining glittering spires of JuLai, a modern city sprouting out of a wrecked hull like a strange technological mushroom.

Sometimes it's ruins, or a giant hole. It used to switch seemingly at random, with no real rhyme or reason, though people only have ever left July, in the occasional vehicle or on tomases, oblivious until the switch happens with them on the outside. More people are leaving now, in families packed onto vehicles, nervous and apprehensive - there's something wrong with their plants, is the only thing they can say before they quickly vacate the area, heading anywhere, anywhere but near where a plant might unexpectedly blow. Watching their city flicker out and be replaced by another is a shock.

Nobody ever leaves JuLai. Nobody enters either, by the heavily armed trucks and guards at every normal point of entry. Sometimes someone makes a run for it, but they disappear like smoke in the wind as soon as they hit the edge of the city.

And the switch is increasing in speed. Weeks, sometimes, has now become days, occasionally mere hours.

A small camp of July's escapees has begun a few iles outside the city, in the lee of a sheltering rock, arguments frequent over whether or not they should try to get back and save their neighbors and friends, or if the only chance is heading for another big city.

The sense of power in the air is growing with every flicker of exchanging cities.

[OOC Note: This is an open prompt, even characters not joining directly in the later bits can interact with it as they please.]

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He doesn't recognize any of the stuff in that pile, but he doesn't really expect to, either -- unless it's one of the consoles that he used for schoolwork, or watching media, then there's no reason he'd know what it is. The ship was full of consoles and panels and blinking lights and switches, but he never bothered to learn what most of them did. If he needed to know, there were manuals, instructional videos, and Rem.

Rem, who was apparently Shardik's mom too?

But before he can challenge that statement -- the older Vashes might be afraid of asking too many questions sometimes, but the little one doesn't have that problem -- the electrical feeling in the air gets worse, like there's a wire loose in the universe. He looks at Shardik with surprise -- is he really excited about the city disappearing? Isn't it a bad thing? -- but it's not like he can do anything to stop it, right?

"Um..." He peers over the edge, looking for Red Moustache, but the man's long since disappeared from view. Shame. "The hole."

He hasn't figured out the connection between the cities and the hole, but he's pretty sure that the rubble they first moved in next to and the other city are the same place. A city of white brick, and a rubble field of white brick? It's not a hard association to figure out. Does that mean that this city, with all its lights and colors, turns into a hole at some point? Or are these places even related to each other at all -- are they just four random locations that keep showing up in the same place?

Could be he'll never know. "What do you think it'll be?"

He is VERY interested in the city's coming and going! There isn't a thing he's going to directly do to stop it, but he can popcorn with enthusiasm from the sidelines, it's like living in a movie.

It's apparently obvious enough even to human senses that something's about to happen, given the very distant, faint clamor going over at the campsite. The air wavers, like the desert tended to do under intense heat, but this doesn't feel like a heat mirage. "Going to guess the other city. Sometimes they just swap back and forth a bit." And he wants to see if any others are ready to escape!

But as the energy in the air reaches a crescendo that buzzes in the teeth in a really irritating way and the gleaming spires of JuLai blur in a strange, twisting and almost nauseating to look at vista, the city seems to fade out, as it has countless other times before.

Rubble remains. Pale bricks and spackle. He rubs the side of his face, as if that could get rid of the vibrationy feeling faster even as it fades from the air.

"...Ah, fffff...damn it." Wrong again! "I'm going to get it right one day."

Vash, meanwhile, has his hands clamped tightly over his ears, as though that'll make the pressure feeling stop. It doesn't, but he can't just sit there and let his head feel like it's getting vibrated.

It's not the other city. It's the destroyed one, the place he's most familiar with. Shardik might be disappointed, but Vash breathes a sigh of relief. That's what's supposed to be there! July, but crossed out, just like on the maps.

Huh. There's a question!

"How'd it get smashed up like that anyway, do you know?" Now that he's seen what July in its prime looked like, he's got a better appreciation for how big a disaster it must have been to wreck the place. Was it just time, an abandoned city giving in to the wind and sand? Or was there an earthquake, maybe? "It was such a big city!"

That feeling is going to get worse, the longer these swaps happen. It's been gradually escalating. What was causing it? Part of him wanted to go find out in person, the rest of him was pretty sure he didn't want to get caught in it directly.

He runs his tongue over his teeth, as if by doing so he could banish the rest of that feeling. It doesn't help. "I know what happened. I blew it up. Didn't mean to, not really." He did do it, and he had accepted that. Part of him pulled the trigger, part of him was the trigger. "Didn't really have a lot of control over what I could do, then. Didn't understand what could go wrong."

Not all of him did it. Just two fifths of him. His tone is distant, detached, almost like he's retelling something he read out of a book and not something he'd experienced firsthand. It's not things he should be telling a child, things Vashes would almost CERTAINLY never breathe a word of so casually. "It was one of the biggest at the time, only December, the second city to be founded, was bigger. Some ... two hundred thousand people or so died. Not in the initial blast, but with the city ruined around them, well. Humans don't last long without food, water or shelter." The distant tone increases, matching his blank expression. A tiny line of bladelike feathers forms along one arm, sharp and small, as his fingers unconsciously clench to tight white-knuckled grips. "It's kind of nice, seeing it intact, people getting out. I had many good friends there, I think. I hope some of the people fleeing are them, somehow."

Okay, of all the things that Shardik might have said, of all the possible answers Vash was expecting, I blew it up was in no way one of the options! I don't know, maybe, or that ever-infuriating adult it was bad, I'll tell you when you're older. But the casual way he claims responsibility for it, talking like a video instructor giving a math lecture, isn't something Vash even knows how to respond to.

And then the feathers appear, and with them comes the fear.

He's not afraid of Shardik, to be clear. It's the fear he feels every time he learns something else horrible that a Vash has done -- it's the fear of becoming Shardik that's got his heart pounding and mouth dry. But fear is fear, and the look Vash is giving Shardik is definitely frightened. To his credit, however, his voice doesn't waver when he finally speaks -- he's getting better at this being brave thing!

"We could blow up a city?" Clenching his fist hard, Vash can force one tiny little feather to appear, a downy fluff at the inside of his wrist. Nothing at all like the sharp things running down Shardik's arm. "Tell me how? So I don't do it too."

What's the point of having all these older selves -- and not-selves -- running around if he can't learn from their mistakes?

There's a ripple of fear in the air, and it seems to startle him, blinking several times owlishly before reorienting on Vash, fingers springing free of their tight grip on his own palms. "Oh. Oh, right, I'm sorry, I'm .. not used to talking to people anymore, that was probably a lot."

There's emotion finally, and he does seem genuinely apologetic! But the little pointy feathers are still there, he might not realize they're out. "Every plant can. All of us have tremendous power inside of us, and if it goes out of control somehow, the results can be .. very bad." He taps the side of his head, right hand again. "All of us have an instinct inside our heads that tell us 'don't do this!' when there's a real risk of using that much power all at once. We know it's dangerous, and we try to stop automatically, but sometimes, when we're really stupid we ignore that voice and do it anyway. Or the humans force us to, in the bulbs." The Last Run definitely qualified, in his book. His entire bearing is still apologetic, but these? These are facts of life for a plant.

Vash needed to know. He gestures to the little feather, a smile crossing his face. "That kind of thing might help, in the long run. I was inexperienced, I didn't know what I was doing and thought I knew everything. And when it happened, I was so .." There's a twitch, a brief shudder that sends more tiny feathers bristling, but he doesn't seem to notice it. "..Afraid. Of what I was, of what I could do, that I didn't try to control it later either. A little knife isn't scary, a sword isn't scary, they're precise, they're easy, but .. a whole city? Just like that? No control over what got hit, and what didn't? I was stupid then too."

He turns pale eyes on Vash, the wrong shade for any exact twin of the small blond, expression worried. "Don't be afraid of what you are, little buddy. Fear makes it a monster instead of just a part of you, and monsters are always hard to control. Just because I was an idiot over and over doesn't mean you're going to be, you seem a lot smarter about it than I was already."

That's a lot to take in, even for a clever little plant. Vash just nods, wide-eyed, clearly still processing everything he just heard. He'll know when to stop... but how will he know what's going too far, and what's just a level he needs to push through? Sometimes he's tired, or frustrated, and then even making one feather appear feels like too much... and he knows Nai is training even harder. Nai's training all the time.

What if Nai goes too far? Can Vash convince him to keep it small, for now? To practice little things, instead of trying for big ones?

"All Vashes are idiots," he mutters, his attention more on Shardik's feathers than on what he's saying. He realizes his mistake a second later, and shakes his head -- sorry. "Except you're not a Vash." He's not a Knives either, is he? He's really like both of them, friendly but also smart. Even his moles are like both of them! That's really weird.

He holds up his hand, the tiny feather waving in the breeze. "So if I don't try to get too big too fast, it'll be okay?" He's not going to be afraid of himself, or what he can do, but there's value in caution, right?

"...Yeah, you're not wrong about that either." He scrubs a hand through his hair with a quiet chuckle. "On either part." Vashes are idiots, and he's not a Vash, not entirely. "You and ... uh, not Knives. Nai?" Rem told him, he should have remembered the first time! "If you decide to practice, both of you on anything more than some feathers or knives, it's best if you do it around an adult you trust so if something goes wrong they can help. Even an idiot Vash can probably help out a lot, and you don't have to trust him in everything, just trust him enough to help you get a grip. And of course there's always Rem. Might as well take advantage of all these resources you've got, and avoid big stuff til you're at least chest height on me."

Man. If he'd had someone.. Well, no he did have Conrad later, but that was still different. "But when I say big, I mean big. It's not like creating a feather or even a hundred feathers, or wings, or a sword big enough to cut up a whole house. You'll have to think really big. City big. Hole in the moon big. The rest of that, that's little, and it's always going to be safe to think feathers and work on feathers." One little feather won't do it, nor will countless feathers, feathers are not guns. It's a different thought, a different intent.

He turns a little to study the ruins below the cliff, spread out in a tumult of lives ruined. "That little stuff will never do something like this even if you slip up, so keep working on feathers all you want, no worries. At worst, where you are now, the age you are now, if you mess up you're going to turn into a ball of fluff." Well maybe a little more than that, a little worse than that, but that could instill fear and not caution and the feather ball may well actually happen.

Feathers.

He has feathers out. He jerks a hand up to smooth the bristling fluff down, and they disappear as his hand passes over them. Control is important, control is necessary, he must remain as human looking as he can--

That... that sounds okay. So long as he and Nai don't try to blow up a city, they won't blow up a city? That sure makes him wonder what in the heck Shardik was doing (and whether than comment about a hole in the moon really does refer to the big crater in that one big moon!)... but okay. He can keep making feathers, keep trying to learn how to fly, keep working on defense, and it'll be okay.

This is good. This is important. It's a really good thing he met this weirdo! Shardik wipes his feathers away with a gesture, and Vash can't help but be impressed at his level of control. He's got a long ways to go before he can make his own appear and disappear that readily! He raises his own hand again, and tries brushing over that little feather, willing it to disappear, but it stays stuck in his wrist. Crap.

"Even just feathers is hard. I guess I don't ever have to worry about blowing things up, huh?" He says it like a joke, but it's honestly frustrating! Nai is so much better at being a plant than he is -- and he's proud of Nai! He is! He just wants to be good at this stuff too, you know?

He can't help but laugh. "You're really young yet. I was--" Eight. A hundred and forty-eight. His fingers twitch. "A lot older before I could do much that might look impressive, but I was working it out on my own. With all these siblings around you might manage a lot sooner. Even one little feather might not be much to you, but remember, you made it out of nothing at all except the desire to have a feather." It's still pretty impressive, over here violating physics casually.

Hopefully it won't end in more holes in the moons. Or in the planet. In theory it should never be an issue, except..

"..Well, actually. You do have to worry a little bit. See, people who know how to make a plant do things can force you to do those things even if you don't want to." This is pretty somber, there's no laugh or chuckle. This .. little Nai was unlikely to try surrounded by everyone, but he himself had done it before, and there were surely Knives..es.. about. Stupid ones that didn't know as much as they thought they did. "Usually I'd say it's just humans, all the plant techs who know the mysteries of us better than we do. But we plants are a lot like humans, and ... eventually, a bad one might come along, the odds will catch up eventually. And if they know how to force plants to do things, then they could try to make you do whatever they want."

Humans are dangerous, even humans who study plants makes sense to him, but the idea that another plant might try to use his powers to blow things up is a whole new kind of scary thought! It wouldn't even have occurred to him to think that another plant might do that to him, or to Nai...

..Or to Shardik? What was that he'd said, he didn't really have a lot of control over what he was doing? Vash thought he'd just meant that he'd been trying to be big for bigness sake, just showing off, but maybe that's not what he meant?

"Was that what happened to you?"

"That's a complicated question." He's honest about that, at least, he's not weighing how to disguise the truth, just how to say it in a way that's going to make sense with the limited knowledge a child has. "But in a way, yes."

He both forced it, and was the victim of it. Lesson learned, either way: don't put big holes in things, it shaves off entire centuries. "Chances are pretty good it'll never be an issue. You've got a whole army of brothers out there, by the way I hear it, and they'll all be ready to tear a new one into anyone who tries."

He and Nai are well protected, it's true. The chances of anyone trying to take advantage of them the way Shardik was are pretty slim, especially now that they know what can happen. Or some of what can happen anyway -- Vash is pretty sure that that's a complicated question just means that Shardik doesn't want to talk about it, and that's fine. If he'd been made to blow up a whole city, of -- what did he say? Two hundred thousand people, and some were his friends? -- he wouldn't want to talk about it either.

Every other older self he's met has been a hugger so far. Hopefully Shardik won't mind having a little plant wrapped around him. "I'm sorry."

It spares him from explaining what happens when things get super non-consenting between plants, at least, so there's no protest when he's suddenly ... hugged.

It's been a while since he's had a hug. A long while.

After a long moment of surprised bewilderment, he returns the hug, but ever so carefully. He wouldn't feel right either, under close inspection, but the tight buckles, leather and straps kept most of it hidden, and he can probably manage this much safely. He's pretty sure this is how a hug works, anyway; there's an awkwardness to it but no outright rejection, it's ... kind of nice. People are warm. Even small people. "It's ... alright. It was a long time ago." Not that long, really, but it sounded better this way. "And who knows. Maybe one day the city will stay instead of disappearing, and all I have to do then is make sure nothing happens to it."

So long as nothing sharp pokes him, or wiggles in a tentacle-y manner, Vash won't even notice if the shape under Shardik's cloak is strange. It's not okay that bad things happened, even if they happened a long time ago, but it's okay is just something people say about bad stuff, so Vash isn't going to argue the point.

Letting go with a final squeeze, he steps back, and looks out again at the rubble, trying to see the shape of the city in the ruins. "Maybe it'll stay, yeah," he agrees, although he doesn't really believe it. This world is strange, with first people and now whole cities popping in and out of existence... there's no reason to assume it'll stop, is there?

And if it's not going to stop, if the cities are going to keep appearing and disappearing like people have been doing, then maybe there's a reason why it's happening?

"Every time I've disappeared," he says, clearly thinking through the problem as he's speaking, "it's taken me someplace I needed to be. Maybe July keeps coming back because you're supposed to go find your friends?"

He doesn't mean it as the situation had been acceptable - just that this little Vash need not be sorry about it or the pain it caused him. That pain was dull now, it was okay to keep feeling it as it was.

A little harder to accept, the idea of letting go of a warm, friendly touch. But he does. "You disappear a lot?"

Just because it didn't happen to him doesn't mean it didn't happen to other people. "Maybe you're a little right. I don't think it's .. about me or just my friends." There's too many of the parts of him around. Who's to say this was the one he destroyed? "Not if the whole city appears.. and then there's the other one I don't even recognize. Maybe ... it's about them. Two whole cities of people, and our kin keep trying to put them here and save everyone." He's not sure either, that's obvious, he's working through it in pretty much the same fashion. "But putting two entire populated cities on one spot isn't really going to work."

Does he disappear a lot? Vash just shrugs -- maybe? He disappeared a whole bunch when he first met Tessla -- that's even how he found her, by disappearing from the place he'd been to the place she was at! -- and he'd found big brother Knives and that nice Mr Livio the same way. Nai's disappeared, and Vash is pretty sure that he's found his brother, or at least somebody really important to him, so important that he didn't want Vash talking to them. That part still hurts, but he's trying hard not to let it. He should be happy for Nai, no matter what happens. Either way, the disappearances took them places they needed to be, to people they needed to meet. Maybe it's the same for these cities?

"How can we move a city though?" Shardik's right -- the cities, whole and destroyed both -- are appearing and disappearing in the same place, and they can't all be in that spot! Vash can't even imagine what that would look like (well, he can, but a tiny person pushing a floating city out of the way only happens in cartoons). He looks back at the cart full of electronics, wondering. Shardik just showed up with a whole bunch of equipment, and Rem's super smart about all kinds of things. They were all brought here to help that one Vash in a fight, right? But that fight's over, so maybe their sisters found another problem for them to solve!

Too bad they didn't send instructions on how to solve it, huh?

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In Which Problems Begin: Intro

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