nomans_land | Near July, before all the chaos

Near July, before all the chaos

Nai's missing, the smashed-up city that Rem had put her house next to keeps changing, there's people nearby, human people, more and more of them all the time, gathering... it's been an eventful few days for a tiny plant!

It's not healthy to sit inside all day, hunched over the radio, waiting desperately for any sign of his brother, and so Vash is out wandering the dunes and cliffs near the station, a small two-way radio clipped to his belt that lets him keep listening to the radio inside, just in case Nai is able to call again. Some of his day is taken up training, working on focusing his plant powers to summon feathers that sprout in tiny downy tufts all along both his arms. Some of his day is just walking, exploring and re-exploring the space around the station, finding holes, bugs, interesting rocks. Some of his day is lying flat on a cliff, watching the human refugees below as they gather around the ever-changing city of July. Sometimes he finds a quiet space where nobody can see him, and cries for awhile. Sometimes, when Rem's been out late working hard, he's inside the station, cleaning and cooking and helping out as best he can. And, late at night when he can't sleep, he climbs up on the nearby ledge and watches the stars.

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Va decides to lick the boy's cheek - it didn't mean for him to worry! Feathers on a plantling just wasn't right! Instead the creature starts purring again, to calm them both down.

"Va. Vaaaa." It chirps, feather-tail going again. See, it's not scared!

Vash glances up at Mr Livio, jaw tight. He's being brave, but brave is hard!

"Nuh-uh." See? He's got a little radio clipped to his belt, like a walkie-talkie. "I have t'stay close by so I can hear if he calls." And also so Rem can find him if there's a problem, but... but it's mostly for Nai. "My brother. He disappeared."

If Vash knew what it was that upset little Va, he'd definitely argue the point! He can make feathers, so it's fine that he has them. It's part of being a plant!

But all he knows is that Va's tongue is ticklish, and that purr sounds happy. Forward to the station!

"I wonder what you eat? We've mostly just got worm." Which isn't awful, but he's definitely getting tired of it. "Do you like worm?" Hopefully Va eats meat! Otherwise, the options are kinda limited.

"Back on the ship, we had so much food! There was stuff in storage that had been dried a really long time, and the plants would make anything else we needed." He sounds wistful. It's hard, growing up with a varied diet, and then being stuck eating mostly the same thing. Ration bars and worm soup are food, but ugh they're not at all the same thing as stir fry, or spaghetti.

His--

That means Knives, then. Knives is missing. Livio tries not to let anything show on his face, besides the sad smile.

"How long ago? And you really think he's out here?"

He's not Knives yet! He's still Nai. He won't ever have to be Knives, because they're here now, and not on the ships.

Vash scowls up at Mr Livio, briefly furious at the idea that Nai might not be all right.

"He's out there! He called me, from..." He looks away, just for a moment. That palce is secret, and he can't talk about it, not with humans. "He called me, and he said he was coming back! He's gonna come back!"

And he'll fight anyone who says otherwise!

He sighs, lifting his hands in a calm down-- a surrender, gesture. this Knives-- Nai-- is still little. still sinless. a child.

Livio has to remember that.

"Okay, okay...so he told you he's nearby?"

Feathers mean fear and trauma! Va doesn't want to see Vash scared and hurt, that sounds awful. The purring kicks up and he snuggles closer to keep the boy nice and calm.

The plantling mentioning food does seem to make it a little excited, too. Va can eat anything! Meat is good, vegetables are good, catching a worm larvae and eating it raw is good. Hell, it has chewed on drywall a few times, it wasn't bad.

At least Va is really easy to talk to as Vash chats about the food back on the ship, making little curious chirps.

"Vaa."

Vash shakes his head, fiddling with the radio. The speaker hisses as he adjusts the volume and band, making sure that it's still set to the right channel. Waiting is hard. He already knew he wasn't very patient, but after this he's discovering that he actually hates it.

"He was a long ways away, but he called on the radio and said he was okay, and he was coming home as soon as he could." There's a lot more to it than that, but it's family business. Mr Livio is a good kind man, but, sorry, he's not family. He's not a plant. "But then the, um. The person he was with said he disappeared again, and I don't know where he is."

Vash rubs at his chest, over his heart, his gaze drawn again to the city in the distance. "I know he's okay, but..." But who knows where he's gone to now. Who knows when he can return.

It's almost like Va understands him! In old movies, the dog always seemed to know what the little boy was saying, so maybe that's just how pets work? Or maybe he's just lonely, and jumping at the chance to talk to anybody.

"You know what I miss?" He leans his head against Va's soft feathers, dropping his voice low like it's a secret. "I miss salad." Isn't that silly? "I never really liked it growing up, but now I think I could eat the whole bowl myself!" All those crunchy, fresh vegetables... "We're not supposed t'ask the plants for anything we don't need 'cause they're working so hard already, but I can still want it."

And sure, he could probably get a salad at one of the restaurants in Octovern, since after several months things are settling down, but when would he ever go into a human city? It's just not safe. "I guess maybe I could grow stuff to make a salad? But I don't know anything about growing food." He reaches up to pet Va's face. "Do you? Wanna help me make a garden?"

He reads between the lines-- there's got to be more. It's Vash-- there's always more. But Livio doesn't push it. He'll either tell him one day, or won't. Either way, he's gonna do what he can to help.

"But he'll probably get in contact with you again," he says, hoping his voice is reassuring. "He'll be back."

The creature really seems to be understanding some, at least - it chirps happily as Vash talks about salad and happily rubs its head against those fingers when the boy reaches up to pet it again.

Salad is delicious, but there's not a lot of green on Noman's Land. Maybe one day Vash gets to see Luida's garden and can eat all the salad he wants.

When they get closer to the station, Va stands up a bit more, the mess of wings fluttering a bit in curiosity.

Octovern! City where nobody wants to be!

Or well a lot of people do want to be there and some are even beginning to spread back out into small outlying towns, many people not willing to go that far from the last bastion of humanity AND the strongest concentration of plants on the planet. By the main road through Octovern, perched up on the top of an abandoned caravan once pulled by now missing tomases, Vash watches people come and go with alert interest, cross-legged and fairly comfortable. If the suns got unbearable he'd go inside for a while but for now, watching. Sooner or later someone would actually lay claim to the wagon, and he wouldn't put up a fuss, but for now it keeps him well above the crowd, which is content to ignore yet another stray dirty kid. He won't look anything like his posters for another several decades, and an utter lack of even a speck of telltale Stampedeish crimson means he could be anyone.

He'd spotted what he thought were other independents in the city but lost track of them a while ago. Just looking didn't help, smart independents would be wearing disguises, unlike himself, but usually he could tell when another plant was nearby. He just has to wait, right?

A lot of people want to be in Octovern, but the smallest of the plants isn’t one of those people! His sisters keep dropping him into towns away from the worst crush of humanity – this time it’s a stinky alleyway, full to bursting with garbage that somebody really should have burned weeks ago – but the fact that nobody sees him magically appear out of nowhere doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t want to keep appearing out of nowhere. Thankfully his clothes, while strange (and suspiciously clean) don’t attract too much attention, and he’s small enough that nobody thinks twice about the little blond kid wandering around.

He can hear his sisters singing their sleepy songs way out at the edge of town, but when he gets there, there’s too many fences and guards and people with guns to even think about sneaking through. No matter how loudly he shouts from the other side of the fence, none of his sisters respond – he’s too far away, he figures, finally giving up. They can’t hear him. They can’t help him.

He’s got to get home on his own then.

A shop advertising July-style noodles catches his eye (and makes his stomach growl, but he doesn’t have any money), so he ducks inside, asking how to get to July, spinning a more or less believable story about missing the caravan his family was on. There’s a sand steamer, they’d said, if you can pay. If not, your best bet is to try and hitch a ride with another caravan, but there aren’t many heading that way. There’s nothing in July, after all. Wouldn’t he rather stay here, in Octovern? He thanks them, but he can’t stay. He needs to find his family.

So the shop owner takes pity of him and sends him on his way with a refilled canteen, a well-wrapped bowl of noodles to eat later, and directions to the main road out of town. If there’s a caravan, they said, it’ll be there… but don’t hold your breath.

He’s not really sure what a caravan looks like when it’s not caravanning, but he figures he can just ask everybody with a vehicle outside the city gates if they’re heading for July, and see what happens. Maybe he’ll get lucky?

Vash couldn't get through either, and he had similar protection of just being a troublemaking brat looking to get into things; he'd been yelled at, chased a bit and once had a discarded shoe thrown at him but the guards hadn't ever actually drawn weapons on him, but getting in was as of yet beyond his skill level.

He's working on that, when he has time. He blends in better than the other little plant, his clothes are careworn and hardly pristine but they work well enough, and he probably hasn't had a bath in quite a while, but that's par the course for most. But a splotch of clean isn't as noticeable as the sense of another plant, and combining the two, clean AND plant, the smaller Vash sticks out like a sore thumb. The somewhat older Vash watches with interest, waiting to see if someone turns up for him, and when that doesn't happen, eels off his perch and heads in Vash's direction, or at least where he was seen last.

He still hasn't bothered to find shoes. He's still wearing a small array of scavenged weaponry and the gun he'd had since his rescue, but that's normal for Octovern! Well except for the shoeless part, most people at least had those. Whether this was another version of himself or Knives, or an entirely separate independent, he doesn't know yet. The powers and abilities his older selves use with impunity are still a long ways away thanks to a glaring lack of practice. But that's what accosting someone at random is for! To find out! "Hey!"

Vash realizes there’s another plant around just a second or two before somebody comes up behind him with a hey! that almost makes him drop his noodles. He spins around, clutching the bundle tight to his chest – whoever it is, they can’t have it! That’s his lunch! – and ready to run. But the person behind him isn’t a danger. The person behind him… is him?

“You!” He cycles through surprise, excitement, definitely some fear at the sight of that missing arm, and finally lands on relief. Squaring up to his older self, Vash narrows his eyes, and mentally sends a little wave to the other plant.

Can you hear me like this?

Around them, humans of every description (so long as that description includes dirty) swarm about, unmindful of two little blond kids. The converted delivery van that little Vash was about to inquire at is going to want to leave soon, so they’ll have to move before then, but for now, they’re fine where they are.

The lunch is very tempting, but he's not inclined to steal from people who actually need it. Thievery is firmly reserved for those who keep too much for just themselves. He reaches the same conclusion his counterpart does fairly quickly, the mole is really a giveaway, and he starts running guesses in his head as to exactly how old his one was. Before or after the tragedy that shaped their lives?

Before the Fall, or after it?

The way he startles a bit at telepathic contact suggests he's really, really not used to that, but to the casual eye it can be passed off as surprise at seeing what is very obviously a younger brother. "Yes, but don't ask me to do that too."

Things he doesn't know how to do yet: that. Talking to his sisters was different, that wasn't really ... talking. "And don't eye me like that either! I thought I saw someone around, but I didn't think it'd be someone so .... ..teeny." So smol. He's hardly grown himself but he's bigger! The method he seems to be using to keep human attention off as this being anything unusual is acting as if it isn't. People just ignore so much right in front of them that it can get a little ridiculous. "Are you okay? Are you alone?"

In the vast scale of Vashes, they're far closer to each other in size, sound and age than the scattered adults ever were. Did they worry about him suddenly, the way he worried about this little brother?

If you’re not a threat – or an easy mark – then most humans just didn’t care. Vash is learning this, slowly. He’d been so ready for every human he met to immediately clock him as a plant, but it turns out humans don’t pay very close attention to the other people around them. It’s a real relief.

“I’m alone.” And he’ll scowl if he wants to! “And I’m not teeny. You’re only a little bit bigger than me!”

Bigger than he is, but unable to talk like a plant? Vash considers the new plant – the new Vash, if the moles are always the same. He’s really dirty – and barefoot, gross -- but he doesn’t look like he’s starving. “Are you alone?” And, the most important question: “What happened to your arm?”

The other Vashes hurt themselves on purpose, big brother Knives had said. They’re covered in scars. He wouldn’t have hurt himself that badly though… would he?

"Huh." Alone isn't good. He at least had Knives for quite a while, and between the two of them they managed to eke out a living. Vash doesn't look underfed or ill at least, so Octovern is either treating him very kindly or he has someone looking out for him. "You're definitely teeny, short stuff." Like he is compared to the Vash he met!

Standing around thinking isn't really his strong suit though, so he waves one hand. "Come on, if you want to eat that you can't do it in the middle of the road." Where's he headed? That abandoned caravan wagon, because why the hell not, and also the rest of his meager belongings are in it. "I'm.. um."

He's definitely alone. In a few decades, hell even a few more years he might be better at mastering his own expressions, but now his heart's still on his sleeve and either the first question or the second is profoundly upsetting. "Yeah. I. ...Yeah, I am now." If he has other scars there's no sign of them, just that stump of an arm which is its own brand of wrongdoing. It had been fair retaliation, for what he did. But what happened to it? "Worms ate it."

And then he ate the worms. The circle of life, with him as the base of it.

You know what’s profoundly upsetting? Getting your arm eaten off by a worm. “Whoa.” Vash isn’t sure whether he’s more horrified or amazed. He pads after the older Vash, keeping close at his heels, but his attention is mostly on the humans surrounding them. They aren’t messing with the boys, but… but the second that changes, Vash wants to be ready to run, or fight, or… or something.

“You’re, uh. Me, right?” He knows better than to say this particular name out loud, especially around so many humans. You’re Vash. “I’m tryin’ to get home. Do you wanna come with me?” It’d be nice to have somebody else travelling with him, especially somebody a little older, and in exchange, he could make sure that no more worms tried to eat pieces of his new brother-self! Rem wouldn’t mind another Vash, surely. Assuming she came back.

No, he’s not thinking about that right now!

“It’s a long long ways. I was gonna try and get a ride, but I don’t have any money, and I don’t think anybody wants to hire somebody teeny to work.” Nervous chatter: check. “I bet they’d hire you though! And I could help!”

That's leaving out some massive important details but when it boils down to it that's definitely the truth: worms ate it. And he watched it happen, rotting beside him in the dust. He's not disregarding the people around him there's just nothing that stands out as a threat right now, they're not interesting the way their adult versions were. Nobody's going to look at a wanted poster and then decide that grown man must be this sixteen year old, or that twelve year old. Not even humans made those kind of logic jumps.

It's safety, after a fashion, and he's been abusing it for a few months. "Uhhhh, that sounds like philosophy, and it's not really my favorite, but I bet we share a name." Hey it's a different topic and one he's happy to pounce on. If he ever figured out that telepathy thing maybe it'd be easier to hold a conversation, but for now this'll have to do! And then he doesn't have to try to hide the image of rotting people in the desert from a mind too young to see it. "...Where's home?"

It's almost automatic, the glance skyward. Ship five was home. Ship five burned and fell, and almost everyone in it died. "... I mean where exactly, not in the vague way of 'home is where the heart is' or stuff like that. One of the outskirt towns?"

It's not philosophy, it's physics! ...But Vash didn't pay attention to those lessons either, so it's a moot point.

He follows Vash's look up at the sky, and immediately wishes he hadn't. That's not home anymore. "July." Home is supposed to be a vast humming city-ship, full of corridors to explore, plenty to eat, cool days and warm nights, with an eternity of stars streaking by outside every window, and a family that was his entire world.

But he's too big to cry about things like that anymore. He's two! He's practically grown. With a shake of his head, he slaps on a big grin -- he's got a new brother now! His family here gets bigger every day, and that's something to celebrate! A brother who might be the coolest person Vash has ever met. Look at all the weapons he's got! "There's lots of us there, but mostly it's me, and my brother, and, um. Mom." No names, just titles. "They're both, uh, away right now, so I've gotta get back before they return or they're gonna be worried."

Vash is eighty and still cries at the drop of a hat, it's going to be a long time before that habit's outgrown. "Isn't July a giant smoking crater courtesy of certain famous outlaws who shall not be named?" He can speak a little frivolously of it because it happened a long time before he arrived, and it hasn't happened to him yet. It's an abstract, like talking about ancient wars, and something he's pretty sure he'll never have to do himself. If it becomes possible, he'll just never go there!

...Is this little version of himself living in a crater.

Honestly, his own lifestyle of whatever bit of shelter he could find was better than that.

Further explanations! Knives is around, and he accepts that without so much as a blink, given little Vash's general good mood it had to be from before everything he knew burned out of the sky, so Knives was probably still okay too, or at least young enough to not be able to dice up towns. Probably. Maybe. He should find out just in case and try to ward off disaster if he can. There's somehow a more important bit tacked onto that, and his quick, easy stride slows. Stops.

A detached part of his mind pointed out that it's possible but not likely that this was implying the plant they were born from. The rest of him is certain otherwise. "Rem?" Hey guess who doesn't know that 'don't use names' thing. "Is she.." Away right now. "Is she really just 'away'?" The question is a breathy sort of squeak, as if it's a struggle to actually speak it.

...Oh. Vash smiles gently, and nods. Hey, should they sit? He's got all these noodles and he can't possibly eat them all himself!

(He could eat two bowls by himself, but it's polite to share.)

"She's alive." He's from a world where the ships crashed and she died, isn't he? "We're all from different places and times, I think, so she's not from my world, but..." But she's still Rem. "She's got a shuttle pod that's a house now, and there's room for you too, if you wanna come?"

He had accepted her loss, more or less, a long time ago. It still hurt, he still imagined her in his dreams, unchanged from childhood, but he accepted that even if she'd survived by now time would have caught up to her, and there was no going back. With multiples of people turning up, and sometimes people just being teleported around, it made sense that Rem could also turn up but he'd never allowed himself to think it.

There's room for you too, and shock and breathtaking joy that crosses his face war with the sudden surge of guilt that follows, his remaining hand creeping briefly towards the stump of his arm. "I.. I don't think that's a good idea." He doesn't deserve it, not when so many have died because of him. Not when he shot his own brother, and even now isn't sure he wasn't aiming to kill.

But oh how wonderful it would be to pretend otherwise, that the happy days he still remembered could come back, that Rem was somehow alive and ..

... and Knives, maybe, was not. Because of him. How could he go back alone, like nothing had happened? "But I'm glad, I really really am, I'm glad she's here. And that you have her, you and Knives both." It's obvious he's already even at this age learning to bury things quickly, dropping his arm and taking a brief steadying breath and then locking into place a smile that he didn't feel. "I bet we can get you back there in a couple days."

So that's what it looks like when he shoves his feelings down and puts on a smile, huh? Okay. Vash considers Vash for a moment, then reaches over and smacks him on his remaining arm.

"Stop that! Whatever you're thinkin', stop it!" He didn't miss the grip on that missing arm, and he's certainly made the connection already between this Vash's missing arm and the Vash back at the station house with the pretty green hand. Whatever happened there, they don't want to tell him and that's fine, but there's no way it's a good reason to stay away from Rem! She's Rem. She'll forgive anything. "You don't have to stay if you don't want to, but if you want to, an' you're just being stupid, then stop it."

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Near July, before all the chaos

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So I'm just hijacking this to use from when Vashlet pops up in Octovern.

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