nexus_crossings | Some Reassembly Required

Some Reassembly Required

There’s an open, grassy area on the edge of the Wilds, some distance from the most popular Nexus parks where people are enjoying their picnics and centaur polo and so forth. It’s a good place to go if you want slightly more peace and quiet - or in Blaze’s case, a good open space in which to make a lot of noise. The robot soldier has a few small crates out on the grass. One of them she’s sitting on; the others are being used as tables which hold a small array of tools and components and blocks of metal. She’s working on modifying a pair of heavy armored boots much like the pair she’s wearing, refitting the soles and reinforcing their structure. Her Ghost hovers beside her, inspecting a blueprint spread out atop one of the boxes. The little bot is spinning his pointy shell back and forth as if concerned, but Blaze pays him no heed.

“So,” she says, speaking up while she works. “People change. Some of us change more than others. Sometimes we don’t notice how it happens. Sometimes,” she yanks out a component and chucks it down beside her, “we don’t get a say. So what part of yourself would you want make sure you held on to? What’s the part you’d want to be remembered?” She pauses, then looks up at the nearest people. “And, hey, anyone got some spare explosives?"

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Alec's first response is Don't. He has no regrets about his bio-restorative formula, the ability to quickly regrow plants would have saved humanity, would have ushered in a reality unlike anything they'd ever seen before. He just never expected that it would have made him the thing he was now.

Except...Except it turned out that he had no other option but to become the thing that sits before her. That he was predestined to do so and that if someone hadn't tried to kill him the green would have tried to claim him one way or another to fulfill his so called destiny.

"Do you feel...drawn to it? Does it speak to you? If it does..."

He stares down at the earth, "Does it frighten you? Those are all normal responses."

"Yes." Surprise in her voice again. "I've only caught glimpses of it, but it's like- like a memory you can't quite bring to mind and can't let go of either. I want to know what it's like up close. I don't know if I'm scared of it. I'm scared of letting something change me again, but it almost feels like fear doesn't matter. I'm not sure I could turn my back on it now anyway. You think that's normal, too?"

Insofar as anything about this subject is normal. But it's funny how fast your sense of mundanity can alter. Or atrophy, depending who you talk to.

He knows that feeling. Oh how he knows it. She's speaking words he knows too well. I've given too much to the Green. I'm just not your guy. I'm sorry.

The feeling of being ripped apart again. The feeling of becoming something different, giving up his outward humanity for the last time after being given a second chance...

The world around him has blossomed. strong displays of emotion manifested in brilliant swirls of color and flowers, strange perfumes fill the air and the creature looks at her and then looks down at his hands.

"Yes. Almost like it's your destiny. Almost like it's calling your name. When you wake up it's there, when you sleep it's in your dreams."

And the vines crawl down your throat.

It's not in her dreams, she thinks, but the fire can have them if it wants. It's a small thought though, because in all other respects it's obvious this guy knows exactly what she means. It's in much more than his voice. She looks around at the blooms spilling out around him and though Blaze doesn't understand what it means, exactly,s he doesn't think she can keep sitting up there on her little box.

She gets up and comes over, hopping back half a step when a clump of flowers blossoms unexpectedly where she's about to tread. That's about as careful as she gets though- not understanding the plants' significance, she's not especially mindful of where she steps before she kneels down in front of him and asks, "What happened to you?"

"I made a mistake. It opened me up to incredible power. I was a scientist."

He pauses, "A human scientist. I got a second chance to be a human again but I chose. I chose the power. The destiny. The green."

The flowers are always sympathetic. They lean up toward his touch and he ignores them, studying her instead.

"I had to chose. Or maybe I didn't. I don't know anymore."

"The green." Blaze looks down at the flowers. They seem so visibly, obviously alive and it seems obvious that it's his presence. The scent of them alone is startling, every time she opens her mouth and the air sweeps over her chemoreceptors. Like the jungle in bloom... must have been long ago. She says, "You mean this?"

It doesn't look so powerful. But then, it occurs to her that she only knows one other being that's capable of sparking life itself. And the Traveler reshaped worlds...

"What are you now?" She looks back up, optics narrowed slightly in a frown. "Do you think you aren't human at all, any more?"

That same weary exhaustion hits him again and he sighs, "I'm not. I'm the avatar of the green. I speak for the parliament of trees."

He pauses, "In my world, every element is governed by a parliament. Old souls chosen to protect them and work in concert with...the world. To oversee humans. To protect their elements."

A creeper pulls itself out of the grass and wraps itself around his wrist.

"I was born a human. I lived as a man, and then I died and gave myself to this. It sometimes helps...to think of it like that. That I'm dead."

The creeper might look almost...gentle.

Blaze has met spirits and been touched by strange powers, here. She's learned that the universe- the many universes, that is, are full of things bigger and more unfathomable than her younger iterations might have believed. And yet. Just try to imagine that. All those stretching forests and grasslands, the gardens spilling out and reclaiming empty cities, the strange jungles on Venus- she tries to imagine that some part of them notices the people hiding and hunting in them. Imagine it paying attention.

"That's- Light. That's an awesome thought. Hard to get my processors around, but-" But just think of it. She's frowning intently, looking between him and the foliage spilling out around him. The other part of it, well, the various shades of death are something she grasps much better.

"I guess being dead is kinda easier than being transformed. Cleaner-cut." Her gaze tracks to the creeper twining itself around him. "You remember who you were, though. You ever miss it?"

"Well it started with transformation. That's ...a longer story."

Does he miss it?

"It's very disconnected for me. Like watching a movie. I remember grad school, I remember professors names. My father's Mardi Gras deliveries. Gumbo. Music. Waiting in line for hours to see Star Wars."

They're such normal human things and he's glad he can't feel connected to them anymore since they'd break his heart.

"My first marriage. My research project. I'm fully connected to the green now though and it all just seems so...trivial."

Pause, "i do try to think about them though. To remember. Unrestrained nature is not...pleasant. it doesn't want to be."

It shouldn't be.

"Wouldn't be. Not with all that survival drive cut loose. But keeping a grip on our instincts is one of humanity's defining traits." She doesn't know if it's a compassionate plan, at least for the man chosen, but the idea makes sense to her.

She thinks it over, asks more quietly, "So if you didn't need that to keep you, uh, kind- do you think you'd still want to remember?"

He studies his hands, his big green hands, and remembers them smaller. He remembers them human, holding abby's hand, taking Linda's, saying his wedding vows. Doing science, shaking hands, holding things.

"...Yes."

He's surprised at himself, "I was a man. I am still a man. I am still me, I have done good things, and I lived a life and I will keep living. But I would want to remember. If only to spite those who want me to fully embrace what I am."

"Really?" She truly expected the opposite answer, and it shows in the flare of light from her optics. The smaller floating robot has crept closer, hiding in his Guardian's shadow while he listens and darts down to scan the flowers. Blaze is vaguely aware of his presence, but she's preoccupied with their green friend's words, a faint crawl of uneasy static pricking over her armor and earthing where her fingers dig into the ground.

She can comprehend what he's saying, his line of thought. It sounds right, and sure, and pleasingly determined. She just can't quite imagine ever feeling that way.

Or can't bring herself to imagine it.

"You think... think it would matter to the man you were before? That you hold on to his memories?"

"...The man I-I. I chose to become this. I was terrified.I had to though. Even if I barely remembered..."

Abby. With her short hair and the memories that aren't his. A twisted parting gift from the creature that used his memories as a way to create it's...his own reality. The real love that filled his chest. The big green creature looks confused and hurt, staring at her before he stares at his hands again.

"I became this to save the woman I love. She'd...she'd want me to hold onto it."

It's such a small reason but it's his. The flowers around him take on a grayish tinge for a moment before he calms them with a quiet mental word.

"I want to hold onto it. I chose this. To sacrifice my humanity for her and to...become fully of the green."

No matter how much it hurts.

"I gather that might not make sense. She...she was a hell of a woman."

"It makes sense." A lot of sense. He looks so lost, though. Blaze fumbles for something to say that'll ease his sorrow, and blurts out hopefully, "What happened to her?"

"Blaze!" Her little companion scolds her a fraction of a second too late.

I carried them through the darkness.

Two bodies. His, looking like something tossed aside, like a toy. Pale and unnatural in death, missing an arm (when did that happen?) the memory fading from him of his heart beating. His chest aching. Muscles, blood, sinew. The kingdom of the red, crossing over to the green.

She is pale as well, her white hair somehow ethereal, like moonlight, like foxfire glow over the swamp at night. She was always a ghost and now she truly is. The three holes in her body from where a tree marked her place to rest.

She is regal now, majestic, in a body like his possessing all of the abilities of her parliament. Cold, pale, a goddess made flesh. Death. Looking at him, already distancing herself from the form on the ground.

"Then let us..." burying his humanity with finality might have been the only way, "Let us let them rest."

He buries them in wild flowers and returns them to the swamp, to the green, to the place they met - if they ever truly had.

"She and I serve different parliaments. Different elements. I am...life." He might look slightly embarrassed, "She is death. We can't be together without annihilating either of us."

"Oh." Not exactly the hopeful reminder she was aiming for. "I'm sorry, big guy. Opposing elements or not, that's harsh."

It puts some heavy context on his earlier words about death, too. The whole story sounds like some kind of children's tale - except if she's learned anything since she was raised, it's that those old tales are far too truthful for comfort... and all too painful for the real people who've lived through them. Light and Darkness, nightmares and heroes, victory and slaughter. Life and death. On impulse she leans forward to touch one of his hands. She has no idea how you comfort a being of elemental flora, but she can reach out all the same.

"Are there others like you? Serving the- uh, the green?"

Touch

He hasn't been touched in a long time. Staring down at her hand he shakes his head and doesn't move.

"Not quite. Not currently. There is the parliament. A collection of former avatars who govern the green, just as there are others that govern the red, the gray...

Truth be told I'm still learning. There's such a complex web beyond humanity that none of them understand. I was so..." naive sounds wrong, "I was so unprepared. Yet also prepared. I mean I've died twice you'd think I'd be used to it."

He pulls his hand away and stares at the grass, "My predecessor was a plant who thought he was me. Now I'm a man trying to be him. A plant. And if nothing changes I'll take my place among them one day."

"Heh. Takes practice to get used to dying." The Exo settles back, giving him back his space. "Maybe your predecessors can guide you, then. Hnh. Even if you don't necessarily listen to them. I wouldn't have made it this far without those who taught me, but when it comes down to it, you've got to use your own judgment.

Use your own judgement.

Easier said then done, "...When I was young, I nearly drowned in a local lake. My father fished me out, I was gasping and sputtering and I'd nearly blacked out but. My mother gave him hell for it, but I was terrified of the sheer oppression of the water. Sometimes-"

The big creature stops, a hand raised, before he shakes his head.

"Never mind. Have I answered your questions?"

She looks puzzled by this last story, but she's willing enough to listen until he cuts it short. Then she blinks, gives him a nod.

"Ah. Yes, you have. I'll have to think it all over some more to understand, but thank you. I- uh. Some of those things... they aren't easy to talk about. I'm grateful."

He pauses. The grass always grows around him. Always.

"You've given me a lot to think about certainly. If what you seek happens to...change you or hurt you I know a few things about that."

heh

He rises to his feet, "It's a pleasure."

Edited 2018-07-04 01:53 (UTC)

She almost salutes as she stands- but that gesture doesn't feel right, not for this being, so she checks herself a little awkwardly. Bows her head to him instead. Whatever changes lie ahead of her, they feel kind of small compared to what he's been through. He's become much more than one little Guardian. Besides, the Light has already reforged her. Different aspect or not, how much more can it demand of her?

"Likewise. I'm sure we'll speak again."

"Agreed."

His features soften, "...You've given me a lot to think about. For that, I thank you."

Don't mind him. AS he lumbers away a patch of daisys grow in the space he left behind.

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Some Reassembly Required

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