[Action]/[Voice]

[goldenglasses]

[Vash wakes up in the morning and eventually rolls himself out of bed. He dresses in whatever is on hand and clean. Today it's a pair of brown slacks and a white button up long sleeved shirt. His hair he pulls back into a pony tail before leaving his quiet and empty apartment.

The rest of the day is spent looking over the journal, a bit of people watching in the square, and then lunch at Seventh Heaven where he's careful to order nothing that could be considered a baked good. Thanks once again Malnosso for that new allergy. Then the day is ended once he enters Good Spirits and stays until he's drunk to the point that he feels numb enough that he can go home, sleep and start it all over again.

That has been his daily routine for nearly a month now. He use to sometimes stop to make sure the Flower Shop had enough help, but it seemed they had enough new people now to care for the place without him and he didn't have much interest now anyway. Once or twice he enters the woods and tries to make contact with Faeren once again, but for some reason that spirit has just gone quiet on him.

Today after a long day of nothing he's sitting at the bar with a bottle of Wild Turkey next to him that he's working on. He's looking over Katie's last message to Wolfwood. Apparently it was about him in some way, not that he could figure out the meaning behind it. He gives up on it for now instead to ask a question that he's been curious about.]

So, according to the Malnosso they're trying to find a way home for everyone. Say for just a second that is what they're doing and they managed to do it. Not only that, but you can pick when you could go home with your memories. Would you choose to go back and change something you did? Or are you afraid that what you did could change things too much?

Comments

[Written]

[merciless_savior]

[Neat, precise writing follows, easy to read though it leans more towards cursive than print.]

Time travel is a tricky thing. How do we know what we alter in the past will make for a better future? What if in our bumbling certainty that we can make a difference, we tragically make things far worse?

There are no actions that I have taken that I regret enough to wish to undo them. I have many regrets, enough to fill a thousand lifetimes, but each was a lesson I cherish deeply. Each led me to something I needed.

Even then, should these Malnosso choose to give me the opportunity to return to any place, at any time, I would do my very best to alter history. It's worth the risk, don't you think, if countless lives could be saved in the attempt? It is better to try and fail, then do nothing and succeed at doing nothing. In my hands I hold the record of three decades of natural disasters and wars. Most everyone could say the same. Armed with that knowledge, how many might be saved?

[Voice]

[goldenglasses]

[Vash, however, is too lazy to write.]

So you wouldn't change something you did, but you would try to stop natural disasters or at least warn people of them?

[Just making sure he has that straight.]

[Voice]

[merciless_savior]

[Still neat script. It seems the vocal response isn't a problem!]

If anything I did was on par with such a thing as a natural disaster, then perhaps I would wish to change my own actions! As it is, my home nation was ruined in such a catastrophe, had I the means to do so I would certainly try to save them. If I could save them, then why not try to save others too?

[Voice]

[goldenglasses]

Yeah, I suppose not many people are the cause of something as big as a natural disaster. [Himself not included.] You wouldn't be worried that something from your home nation would be the cause of some other war or something?

[Written]

[rather_be_surfing]

Tempting as it would be, I'd remind myself first that I'm not god--not the one I grew up being taught about, and not any other god either. The universe has its own mechanisms; me messing with them on the scale you're talking about could definitely have the potential to make the outcomes and consequences a lot worse than they were originally, even if I think I'm doing the right thing at the time.

There's an old theory in my world, the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world can ultimately cause a destructive storm in another. I always came away from that with the message of 'Whatever you do may feel right, but the chain effect from what you've done may end badly...very badly...somewhere else.

There's also the Law of Relativity: every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. So there will be responses to what you've done; a lot of them won't be any better than the things you changed to prevent.

And last, well, my world plays with the idea a lot in entertainment, and they always make the assumption that the person messing around is still there in the new reality, and still aware of what they've done. That's...a pretty big assumption to make. Not only that, but why would he or she remember in the first place if they'd just undone everything that got them to the point of deciding to mess with those things in the first place? If all those events that led up to that moment no longer exist...why would that person even be aware of the need to do it? Does that even mean you saved your version of that world, or that you just caused a branch off of reality where one keeps going the way you remember, and the new version goes on with the changes you made.

[Yes, Vash, he thinks way too much on things like this sometimes]

[Voice]

[goldenglasses]

[That was a lot more detailed then Vash was expecting and he's well on his way to being buzzed so it takes him a couple re-reads to get it all into his head. Eventually there's a voice response as he doesn't have a pen on him in the bar.]

I don't know, I guess I was assuming the memory thing would stick thanks to the Malnosso meddling. And I have to admit that I'd hate to live on that world that butterfly was destroying. Earth had a lot of butterflies flying around and a lot of flapping going on. [He did say 'had'. Also he is a little drunk. Maybe just just misspoke.]

[Voice]

[rather_be_surfing]

[Derek: (usually) relatively taciturn in verbal exchanges...frighteningly verbose on paper. Sorry, dude. He will realize that Vash sounds pretty damn drunk, though, and turn on the microphone.]

It's part of the theory that's used to illustrate the point. It's not the whole chain of theorized events, though. Just the start of it.

It might make sense later.

Earth, huh?

[Voice]

[goldenglasses]

It doesn't need to make sense I suppose. Just a bit of random thinking and daydreaming. [Because if he could have changed that one action, how much better would things have been? Something he's been rolling over in his head lately.]

Yeah, Earth. A lot of people seem to be from there. Are you not?

voice:

[shenevermisses]

I don't want to go back at all.

voice:

[goldenglasses]

Also a good choice I didn't think to put up there. Although if you had to go back, would you try to change anything?

[He's just a little drunk, and not thinking just how much of a loaded question that can really be for someone who doesn't want to go back home.]

voice:

[shenevermisses]

[Clove has to think about it. Finally, she decides:]

No.

[Because a world without the Hunger Games, even with the deaths that came, is better than one with them, in the end.]

voice:

[goldenglasses]

Hmm. [He admit he's getting a lot more nos then he thought he would.] That's good.

[And then he realizes just who he's talking with. If he hadn't been drinking he might have thought twice before bringing up a painful topic, but right now the filter between brain and mouth isn't so sturdy.]

So, you'd want to go back with your memories of this place? Even the bad ones?

[Voice]

[jamesbarnes]

...Wouldn't change a thing.

[Voice]

[goldenglasses]

No? Is it because you've had a very good life, or are you afraid of the things it would change if you don't mind me asking?

[Voice]

[jamesbarnes]

Neither, I suppose. There's just no other choice I coulda' made. Even knowing how things will turn out now doesn't change that.

So, what about you, stranger? Something back home you want to change?

[Voice]

[goldenglasses]

Yeah, a couple I guess.

voice;

[concasse]

What's done is done, for me. I've got nothing I wanna change that badly.

voice;

[goldenglasses]

Yeah? I suppose that's a good mindset to be in. [To be at peace with the choices you've made, it's got to be a pretty nice way to live.] If you're happy why risk making things worse, right?

voice;

[concasse]

Something like that, yeah. [Though Sanji can't imagine himself so willing to twist his fate and those of the people closest to him, even if his luck had been poorer than most]

What about you, Vash?

voice;

[goldenglasses]

[Vash is quiet for a moment. Mostly because he's finishing off his drink. He answers as he sets the glass down and refills it.]

There are a couple things, I've been wondering about lately. [More so than normal.]

[alabastajewel]

...if I could return home with my memories, that would be enough for me. There's nothing I'd want to change. [It's sort of a half-truth, because there are some thing she kind of wishes she could change, but...in the end, she also knows they're things she shouldn't. If she'd gone with the Strawhats, for example, as she sometimes wished she had, she knew she'd have regrets about that decision, too.]

[Vivi sighs lightly, lacing her fingers together and resting her chin on them.]

Why do you ask, Vash-san? Is there something you'd like to change?

[goldenglasses]

Mmmhmmmm... Some things I guess I've been thinking about.

I'm glad though, that you don't have any regrets like that.

[alabastajewel]

[She cants her head to the side slightly.] What sort of things?

[Vivi can't help but give a humorless laugh at his last statement.] And don't get me wrong, it's not as if there's nothing I regret.

[Voice]

[redhairedknight]

... There's one thing that I'd want to change, but if I changed it, I might not have met most of my friends, so it probably wouldn't be worth it. I'd just prefer not to risk it, and hope that things improve in the future.

[Voice]

[goldenglasses]

So you wouldn't risk it, even if it meant a better future for your friends?