goldenglasses | [Voice]

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[Voice]

[Vash has been putting this off. Someone he doesn’t trust, taking him, and poking at him leaves a bad taste in his mouth; but with Knives here…]

[Filtered to John // 100% Unhackable]

I need to speak to you.

[Filtered to Wolfwood and Meryl // 100% Unhackable]

Where are you? I need to talk to you.

[Filtered to Knives // 100% Unhackable]

…

[Yeah? What were you going to say to him? Behave while I’m gone?]

[End Filter]

[After business has been taken care of and he’s talked to those he needed to, Vash heads out into the forest aiming for a river. It’s long past time to intensify his training with the spirits. For those who have gotten to know happy and laid back Vash - this is not him. He’s taking this training with Sona very serious right now and isn’t very chatty. His glasses are on.]

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More that you'd expect. [quietly, almost dryly.

There's another question there, but it stays down, for now.]

Well... that's a good thing, isn't it?

Is it? [raising an eyebrow at the water]

Well, don't people smile when they're happy? [You know... other people.]

Hmm. Sometimes.

A smile is signal-- the signs we send to each other. [his gaze lifts to the trees] Not so different from birds. [the difference is that people tell lies.]

A signal that someone is happy, isn't it? [Now, is he playing dumb, or did he really just not get it?]

Well, that's the signal. [he adds, in either case-] But people have been known to send false ones.

[pause, still looking forward] Not that there's anything very wrong with that.

Sometimes it makes things easier to bear.

[Sometimes is right, but his well practiced smile never falters. Just changes into one of confusion.] Oh. They do?

[a sidelong glance] I'd think you've been around them long enough to learn that.

[You have no idea how long. But Vash doesn't say that. Instead he just shrugs with an innocent smile. Who me?]

[Yes. About that.]

You said you grew faster, than humans do. But that can't really be all of it, can it?

Eh? [Oh crap. He just HAD to run his mouth didn't he?]

-- because you're a Plant. [as calmly matter-of-fact as if you had had this conversation twenty times before]

Wouldn't make much sense for your brother to hate humans, if he was one.

Hey! He could have been adopted! [Notice how he's steering the conversation away from things you don't already know if he can.]

[he indulges it, for a second-- absently remarking] Could be. You did imply that Rem was not your biological mother.

[But even if it belongs to a younger mind, Ginko's memory has always been sharp, out of sheer necessity. And his impulse to pry is at about the same levels.

This is different, too. Because it's already clear that Knives' appearance is going to change things. And not everyone will be content with half an explanation why. So he turns-]

But you're the one who said you were a Plant.

...and you seemed the kind of kid to grow into lying. Not out of it.

I didn't lie about what I was. No one asked and it's not that important what I am, right? [As that's how Vash is. You have to ask the right question. He's also at least hoping what he's learned here in Luceti, that what he is doesn't matter, because back home it did.] I just didn't want people to think they had to treat me differently because of what I was.

That wasn't the lie I was talking about. [a long, green-eyed stare will just let that settle in, for a moment.]

And in this place? Why would anyone treat you differently? I don't really think that's what it is-- even if it is the case in your own world.

[a deep inhale, and exhale-- sidetracked briefly from his own line of questioning. Firmly, but without judgment in the tone]

I think that withholding information from people is the way you carry things. Because people can't be held responsible for something they don't know anything about. [his glance flicks to the side] Because worry is a weight, too.

And if no one knows the details, all the more reason for you to hold yourself solely responsible.

[No one besides Wolfwood has looked past all of Vash's misdirections and barriers to strike so close to the truth. For a second all he can do is stare in surprised. Don't suppose you'll break the mood by asking him to confess in a mini confessional would you?]

[Sorry, Vash ~~Ginko's canon was seinen from the start~~. But at least, after a moment, the strangely fixed blue-green gaze shifts away from him.]

[He's been observing you for a long time, you know. What you said to Xion, that made Sanji so angry. What he heard about the draft battles. Not to mention what anyone can hear, on the journal pages. The same insistence over and over and--

So instead of pressing forward-- a quiet mutter] -- it's like what they ask the gods to do.

Gods?

[quietly, watching this river and thinking of another one]

The role of a mountain god in my world-- is to be the heart, connected by the nerves to every living thing that makes it up. The insects, the trees-- fishes, birds, plants. Animals large and small. The rivers and the weather.

The god feels and experiences every part of this; living and dying [a slight pause, before he repeats her words, exactly] in ways that cannot be taught.

[The implication is clear.

And it reminds him of you.]

[Legato had called him a Superior Being and it had always left a bad taste in his mouth. When he catches the implication he quickly shakes his head.] I could never do anything like that. It must be very difficult to be a God.

[quietly]... I've met more than one mountain-master, in my travels.

One of them was a human girl. Just fourteen years old...

[superior and inferior don't apply to his world or his worldview. Everything is just... life.]

What she had to do doesn't sound so different from what you've been doing already. [but in the end she...]

Her life must be very hard.

But I'm no- [WAIT! Hold up!] She had? [WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE HAPPY STORIES?!]

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