mykidisthebest

[no don't stop making faces they're cute

does not say that out loud, but it's written all over his face]

Please pick a suitable conversation topic, then, Mr. Silverberg.

[he huffs a tiny little bit, expression mostly smoothing but warmth in his eyes still]

How does it feel? Just…having them back.

[ He has to consider that for a long moment ]

I dunno . . . I can't say I was ever really attached to it that much. Or at least, I never really thought about it.

[ Tacking "the Stampede" onto the end has some Complicated Emotion he isn't accounting for, something they get a vague sense of simply from sitting in the middle of his mindscape right now. But he doesn't dwell on it. ]

More than having it, it feels "right" to be able to share it with you two.

[nods in agreement]

I like being able to share it. In my country, people from the same family in the same generation have similar names. So my name is similar to my brother's. That's special to me. But I'd still be me even if I never remembered my name.

[a little smile]

I would have had to give up my given name shortly, anyway, had I not come here instead.

But I’ll always be a Silverberg. Having blankness where my house was is something I could live with, but the hole was always…felt.

Give it up . . . ? Why?

[keeps quiet; he knows the bare bones of it, could guess it without Charon ever saying it outright. but he does want to hear him say it, too, in the simple way one wants to hear about the lives and plans of their loved ones]

I think I mentioned it…? I’m a traitor and a political exile. Blossom caught me a couple of days out from leaving the country by ship.

[ BLANK LOOK FROM VASH THE STAMPEDE, HUMANOID TYPHOON, GOD'S RIGHT HAND OF DESTRUCTION, MOST WANTED MAN ON THE PLA-- ]

Well, yeah, but why give up your name?

[raises an eyebrow at Extremely Wanted Man]

If you're trying to avoid being caught, taking on a new name is one of the easiest ways to do it.

That’s it in a nutshell. Also, it’s a good polite fiction to keep the country I’m escaping from making an international incident out of the country I’m escaping to knowingly sheltering a wanted criminal.

I suppose No Man’s Land literally doesn’t have that sort of separation of jurisdiction, though.

[ ??? PSYDUCK ]

Uh... no. We don't have countries.... or laws, to be honest.

Is it just...anarchy? With guns?

No Man’s Land was far more literal than I thought…

Anarchy with guns is exactly what it is.

[dang can't believe No Man's Land already went through the apocalypse]

Do you want us to set up a democracy or anything? Your Earth people will probably set something up once they finish terraforming, but the anarchy and guns has me concerned.

[mumbles something about ‘just move them all without the guns’ but like, very quietly]

A little democracy would be nice...

We've got a whole lot of world-saving stuff on the agenda, huh.

[elbows Charon, but like, lightly. you can't move a whole population, Charon]

World-saving stuff has always been on the agenda. Nothing gets fixed overnight, so it'll all take a few years.

[gives him a look like yes I can??? what do you think magic and army-size logistics are for, I move hundreds of thousands of people around all the time]

Changing the world tends to be decisive. But the buildup beforehand and the restoration afterwards are slow.

We gotta make sure we build in vacations.

Traveling to your world is the vacation. Or any world, really. When I'm at home I have to work.

Working vacations…do not count.

What Charon said.

My world would be a real shitty vacation. Lethe'll definitely get shot at any time he opens his mouth to say anything.

Terraforming does sound like a vacation, though! I won't be doing any of the work. I can't make oceans or mountains or anything like that. I'll be relaxing.

And I don't care if anyone tries to shoot at me once I have Eunhye back, but my brother will kill them. So you should ask them to behave in advance or it'll cause problems.

Re: day 9?, into the mist after moonrise

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Re: day 9?, into the mist after moonrise