knifesedge

04

[Knives had been quiet and elusive since things went weird with the enclosure. The best way to not get arrested: not getting found. And when things had returned to more or less normal, he hadn't seen fit to STOP being elusive, just in case. Give it a couple weeks, had been the intention. Make sure the strangeness is over, then make sure the person who mattered was still okay.

Such was the intention. Up until robots came hunting in the night. A short explosion of violence and blinding rage later, impeded by his sheer lack of power since his hair had turned black, and Knives Millions went missing.

And returned a day later, a hundred and fifty years younger.

He's left where he arrived the first time, on the shoreline of the sea that had taken over the desert. Thin white pants, journal - not the clothes he'd left in, but at least he's left the book. Not that it does him much good; waking up where he doesn't even remotely expect it, without the two people he's never been without right there or within sensing range is ... uniquely alarming. Knives Millions spent most of his adult life alone. His childhood however was another matter. And being alone in a strange place with no idea of where he is or how he got there (or why he has tiny wings) isn't something the one-year-old plant is prepared for.

For a little while he roams up and down the beach, anxious, but certain that sooner or later Rem or Vash will find him and tell him it's all a joke and someone just changed the environmental settings or something. But as time ticks past and nothing of the sort happens, anxiousness begins bleeding into outright fear. He knows he should stay put.

He doesn't. Instead he picks up the book with part of his name on it and clutching it to his narrow chest, heads further down the beach, following the water line, hoping for something like people. Something safer then out alone. Alone was scary. He could if he tried focus his thoughts and project them to try to find his brother, but far too uncertain, unhappy and afraid, he simply projects emotions in a steady wave of nauseating apprehension.

In Luceti, seeing a boy of perhaps ten years old roaming alone might not be all that unusual. Nor the visible apprehension. But he might look a little familiar..

Lost. Afraid. Alone. Lost.]

[Summary: there is a very young, very frightened plant roaming loose on the beach.]

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Okay.

[With that settled, Knives ... goes right back to the sand. It was profoundly reassuring to know that someone was coming to get him, even if that someone was a stranger, which left him free to think about other things.

And do other things. Like begin digging. And he's pretty quick at it.

Which means by the time Vash actually gets there, it's pretty likely Knives will have managed a hole in the ground deep enough for him to stand in at hip-deep.. and still digging. Who knows what's down there!]

[When Vash finally arrives dressed in a pair of brown slacks, a light long sleeved shirt, and sneakers on his feet he shouldn't have felt surprised to see Knives down in a hole of his own making. He pushes a strained of his long hair out of his face as the wind plays with it.]

Glad you found yourself some entertainment while you waited. Find any bury treasure yet?

[As an adult, and with his hair not in the almost-signature style Rem had combed it into so long ago, Vash's resemblance to anyone at all that Knives knows is pretty much nil. Knives spots him a little ways off and keeps an eye on him as he approaches, but there was still the sense that they were the same kind, and that was all the reassurance he really needed.

Sometimes instinct is actually beneficial.

As Vash actually arrives he stops his determined digging and wipes his hands on his pants, leaving sand streaks on them. They'd been clean, but now they're more a shade of tan than white, and a little soggy around the ankles; at some point he struck the water table.]

Hello. Um. I found water. And this shell. And a bunch of sparkly rocks..

[The shell and rocks are neatly set at the edge of the hole.]

[Vash smiles as Knives goes over what he found. Pushing back the thought that in less then a year this is the kid that was going to nearly wipe out the human race.]

Yeah, sometimes there's hidden water under the ground. You've probably hit some really sticky and hard dirt too, haven't you? The clay?

I'm not sure exactly how much you've studied yet on the ship, but the ocean water is full of salt, so you can't drink it.

[Vash isn't in any real hurry and he's guessing he has this smaller version of his brother for the next couple weeks anyway. He squats down close to the hole, debating if he wants to sit and get dirty still or not.]

Would you like to keep digging? Or are you starting to get cold and hungry? I have a place back in town and you can stay with me if you'd like.

[Only a handful of months at best. Had he stayed on the SEEDs ship, within hours he and his brother would have stumbled across Tessla. And then the inevitable would follow. But for now, oblivious to the horrific fate that would await, he's content with his hole.

Less content with the way sand kept sliding back into it.]

It's like there was another type of ground here before the sand came. Getting down much more than this is really hard, and the dirt's a lot darker. Is that clay?

[Probably he should get out of his hole. It's hard to go anywhere when hip deep in sand.]

I think it got mentioned before. If you drink salty water you just get thirstier. Dehydration. Um.

[Leaving sounded okay. That meant he'd have to meet a whole bunch of other people though and that sounded kind of overwhelming. Maybe it would be nice but he didn't expect to ever meet a lot of other people in just a pair of pants.]

It is a little cold, I guess. If..

[Brave! He can do it! Even if his brother was nowhere around and neither was Rem, it'd be okay.]

.. If I'm going to have to meet other people, could. .. Um. I don't have a shirt.

[He's a little uneasy about the idea of People, but there's no sense he's actually afraid, just a bit intimidated and possibly alarmingly shy of strangers.]

[For a moment Vash almost offers his shrunken brother his own shirt. Then thinks better about that and not show Knives the road map that is his body.]

Afraid I don't have anything that will fit you, but there's a clothing shop in town that I can pick something up that will fit. A lot of people around here show up in white pants when they first wake up so don't feel bad about that, but when we get closer you could wait just outside of town until I can pick something up for you. If it would make you feel better.

Hehe. I guess I should have thought to bring you something before I came to meet you.

[It's probably for the best, as children are as easily led to curiosity as they are stark horror, and all of Vash's scars would need an explanation. An explanation that an alarmingly intelligent telepathic boy would accept.

..Definitely for the best. As Vash decides there's no shirts anywhere in the vicinity, Knives scrambles gracelessly out of the hole in the sand, and begins collecting his rocks and shell by piling them on the now-closed journal. Sand gets all over in the process.]

It's okay. I never mentioned what I was wearing, so you wouldn't know it's just pants anyway. Is the shirt going to have holes in it?

[If Vash was LYING about everyone having wings, of course the shirts won't have holes. But if they did all have wings, well, shirt holes would be needed right?]

Some shirts do, some don't. As a lot of people like to hide their wings under their shirts. [As Vash is currently doing, but there's still a clear bulge under his shirt where his own set are wings are hiding.]

But I've gotten pretty good at putting holes in shirts if I can't find a shirt with holes in it yet. [He waits for Knives to pick up all his new collection of treasures before he gets ready to head back up the beach.]

Do you want help carrying any of those?

Why? If everyone has them, there isn't anything bad about it is there?

[He has a lot of questions beyond that, but Knives will wait til this one gets answered. ...Did everyone have red wings? He couldn't see what color Vash's were.]

Oh. ..No, there's not a lot. I think I'd need more time if I really wanted to get a collection going. A couple hours at least.

[Knives would dust himself off a bit but his hands are otherwise occupied.]

How far away is everyone else? ...How old are you?

[Clearly these questions belong together.]

Well, some people like to forget they have wings. They're also very sensitive and sometimes having them under a shirt helps keep them from being bumped or caught on things.

[Vash stuffs his hands into his pockets when Knives says he doesn't need any help and hums at the boy's next set of questions.]

Not too far away. There's a teleporter up the beach a little ways it will get us pretty close to where they are without having to walk the whole way. As for my age?

[He grins a bit shyly. He doesn't usually just blurt out his age to just anyone.]

Ah, I'm actually over a hundred and thirty now.

[He's just... going to let that sink in a little.]

If they were very sensitive, the constant friction of a shirt would be a lot worse than possibly snagging them on things, since the most likely thing to snag on /that/ close to your own body is ..well, your clothing.

[Even that small, Knives is a good analyst. He twists a little, carefully spreading one wing; it's not exactly /easy/, it doesn't really want to respond, but eventually it does.]

Nor are they really large enough to bump into things when folded, unless people make it a habit to back into things, but if they do that the shirt won't be much help anyway. What's a 'teleporter'? I know what it sounds like but that's science fiction isn't it?

[He's also good at changing subjects at random, but keeping up with the answers seems considerably easier. Doubt creeps back in when Vash claims to be over a century.]

Are you sure?

[Vash just shrugs at all of Knives's complaints about the shirt being over the wings. He himself had just been a bit too lazy to put holes in his current shirt.] Well, they're sensitive. If they get hurt they can make you sick. Most people here are pretty nice and friendly, but some people aren't so trusting and want to hide away a weak point.

[It was the truth for the most part. Who could really blame someone showing up in a strange land to not want to hide their wings? Even if most of the real danger comes from those outside the barrier than within he doesn't mind admitting this to Knives.]

It does sound like science fiction, doesn't it? But it's real! Just as you think it might work! You step on it and are instantly sent to it's matching teleporter on the other side! It kinda tickles!

[Vash can't help but to grin at Knives's skepticism at his age. It's not exactly easy to believe you might live for so long.]

I'm pretty sure at least! I've kept pretty good track of the years and if you're about to call me old, I'll have you know we're exactly the same age from the time I'm from!

[Knives preferred things to operate on the basis of common sense. And it looks like he very much wants to point out that a shirt won't help if someone wants to hurt you either, but after a moment he ... decides not to.

He wasn't certain Vash would supply an answer that would align with his own sense of what made sense and what didn't.]

I guess we'll find out when we get there.

[Teleporters! If those DID work, that'd be pretty neat.]

I don't really think it's going to take me that long to get that big. And it is really old. Super-old. Humans live only half that long!

[...Which means if Vash was Vash and wasn't lying through his teeth, which Knives hadn't decided on yet, then Rem would likely.. be long gone. It's a very, very unsettling thought.]

If you're really Vash and not just someone lying - lying's bad you know - then ... how old was Rem, when she..

[If Vash is a future Vash, then.. then maybe knowing how long they had with her would be a good thing. Then they could prepare.]

[Vash sighs. That name again. Knives had enough to take in at the moment then trying to explain alternate realities right now. Even not having any face to put with the name it's not hard to figure out that whoever this was they were important to Knives.]

I'm not sure that's something I should answer. [Even if he knew the answer.] Sometimes, it's best not to know how the future will go. [There's a brief pause. Well, he should probably be told sometime. Vash takes a breath and decides to give explaining alternate realities a try.] There have been times of people from alternate realities from each other showing up here too. People who know each other, but something in their past was slightly different the caused them to remember things differently or have different futures.

It's-- kind of hard to explain, but just because something happened in my past it could be different to your future. I wouldn't want to accidentally tell you something that wouldn't be true. [On purpose, well, he's never been very good about lying anyway. Truth he had found usually works a bit better. More so when the truth is something people don't tend to believe anyway.]

Edited 2013-08-25 04:59 (UTC)

[There were only two people that mattered in his young life. His brother, and the woman that cared for them. That was it. There simply wasn't anyone else involved.

Which might be why the look the young Knives turns on Vash is incredulous.]

'Slightly different'? How different? If some things get changed, then we wouldn't have lasted very long.

Yeah? Why don't you think we would have lasted very long? I don't mean something major like a breech in the haul happened or anything.

Well. [Knives would make a gesture here, and actually tries to - and nearly drops his journal and small collection of things. It takes a bit of sudden mad scrambling to keep anything from hitting the ground.] A pair of babies at the bottom of a bulb are pretty defenseless, and not exactly safe and secure. If for example, a different crewman was set to watch for that year instead of just Rem, who knows when they might have checked the plants?

Well, that's just it, isn't it? It's impossible to know just how even the one smallest difference could change everything or nothing at all. That's part of the mystery of it all.

Mysteries aren't always good things though.

[He frowns, brow furrowing a little, shifting his grip on his book and small assortment of shells.]

Especially if they might not be good mysteries. [His faintly worried frown disappears after a moment] I guess it can't be helped. So if you're from the future, and not making it all up. Is the world we finally find a really nice one? Are there fjords? I really want to see a fjord.

Ah, well, not too many fjords I'm afraid, but there are some pretty places to check out.

[If you like rocks and sand. It can look pretty sometimes.] Interesting animals too. We have these big odd furry creatures called Thomases. They're a bit like horses, except they only have two legs and have really long faces!

[Vash is just happy when he finally spot the transporter up ahead.] Ah! See that up ahead? That's the transporter!

...That's too bad. You're supposed to be able to get a really good yodel off a fjord, I think you need to have both for either to work.

[He doesn't sound too clear on that, but Rem hadn't been too clear on it either and he was content to wait and see. Or had been, up until the future apparently had a glaring lack of fjords.

Maybe they could make some. With a geoplant.]

Horses are the ... ..big thing with hooves and swishy tails, right?

[Knives' life has been sheltered and primarily without exposure to anything that wasn't a book or hologram or educational video. He perks up a little and looks for a transporter when Vash says it's there, but since he's really not sure what he's even looking for it.. isn't as impressive as he expected.]

[The picture of Knives yodeling brings a smile to his face.]

Exactly! Or at least, it's the closest animal I can think of from the pictures of animals from Earth. As for the yodeling, there are some mountains around here, maybe tomorrow we can take a hike up there and give it a try if you really want to. [Seeing Knives attempt to yodel isn't exactly something he wants to miss out on.] I've never tired it before, but it might work there.

[Unfortunately the teleporter doesn't look impressive at all. Just a piece of unassuming metal that a man could stand on. Really it's rather boring to look at. It's when you step up onto it that it becomes impressive.]

You'll like this next part. We're going to come out into a forest.

If I still had the ship's computers I could look up what it's most like! .. ..Though you'd have to be there too because I really don't know.

[What DID a thomas look like? The matter of yodeling draws instant interest. Knives has NO IDEA how to do it, but it sounded neat!

..The good part about it for Vash's amusement purposes is when you're a year old and basically clueless you'll give just about anything a go. Not so much a hundred and fifty years later.]

I don't know how to yodel though. I THINK it's just a sort of yelling but the whole details of it are.. uh, I don't know.

[Forest.]

A real one?

[Maybe it's a hologram.]

A completely real one. Even bigger then the rec room on the ship. Of course, just seeing this ocean should have told you that. Actually, maybe when we get to the clothing store we'll have to grab you something to give swimming a try too.

[Vash stops in front of the teleporter and smiles down at his young brother.] Now all you have to do is step on it and you'll be teleported to the other one. Do you want to go first? Or watch me?

..Yeah. It didn't seem to have an end. It was kind of scary actually. Really, really pretty but it just.. makes.. [He hesitates a moment, fidgeting. Words could be difficult sometimes. But instead of actually finishing his sentence, he shifts his grip on his books and reaches out to actually grab Vash - by his real arm incidentally - and supply a sense of exactly what he meant. Contact made communication easier.

The profound feeling of being a very small thing amidst an unimaginably vast world. It's intimidating, and awe inspiring and to someone his size, more than a little scary. ..Probably thankfully he lets go a moment later and the sense of insignificance breaks.]

O-oh. Swimming. That's not too hard I don't think. Haven't done it but.. ... ..Um, you could go first.

[He wants to make sure it won't explode or something.]

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Now with less work exhaustion.

Good! 8D

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