Mission: Burying the Past in Zompania

[lucetimods]

Who: Anyone who volunteered
What: A very special mission that will bring you honor. Or maybe just traumatic memories. Whatever.
When: July 20th - July 24th
Where: Zompania, or what's left of it
Summary: Mission detailed here. There are graves to dig and buildings to raze, and plenty more for the volunteers to stay busy with.
Rating: PG-13 for probable mentions of gore and other sad things

Direct further questions here!

Comments

[musubi]

That is one of the dumbest things you've ever said to me.

First of all, I worry about you all the time. Secondly, you're very much worth anyone worrying about you and if anyone ever says otherwise I'll knock them upside the head.

[He shakes his head but doesn't approach again. Richard needs to agree ot being comforted.]

Now come here.

[wipesfaith]

So it's our job to put their comrades to rest.

[While it's a pretty sentiment - and something he believes in, valuing life and feeling the empty spaces left by death as he does, and knowing too well that all who fall in battle are not granted the same honor - it seems coldly impersonal to draft others to do it on your behalf.]

[wipesfaith]

If it didn't matter, you wouldn't be getting upset about it. [He sighs, letting it go.] But suit yourself.

[It's none of his business, how she feels about it. He doesn't turn to go - he'd come here to pay his respects, after all. He doesn't really believe in any god, and he only ever prays in the pounding heart of battle, where heat and pressure can transform even the staunchest atheist, but that doesn't mean he can't spare a few thoughts to the dead.]

[endgames]

[A snort.] If we can find them. The bodies we've collected so far have mostly been villagers.

[It's only as he says it he realizes the validity of the statement. It slows his progress, the tip of the shovel coming to rest at the edge of the grave and stirring loose dirt as he looks out, away from the city. They're just outside of it. There's a lot of ground to cover from here.]

Until the cavalry showed up, we were the only ones who could get into the city after all. Not all of their men were able to get this close to it before they bit the dust.

[endgames]

As long as a feather doesn't come along to knock it over, I think we'll be okay.

[He puts his hands on his hips, looking about.]

It might be more effective to just brute force it, actually. We can save your energy for a block that's still stable enough to give us real trouble.

[endgames]

[He shrugs, roping the scroll onto his back.] You wanted an answer. I'm not spouting this off to everybody.

[He knows what the response would be. :T]

[musubi]

You really know how to bring an optimistic slant to things.

[Says the pot to the kettle. Isamu frowns at the wreck they'd stepped into.]

If we're gonna do that, might be best to do it from the outside.

[ledbythewind]

[Slowly, slowly, Richard relaxes an almost imperceptible amount, though he still hesitates to move any closer, torn on whether or not to listen to Isamu's words.]

I'm just fine. Whether you worry about me at other points or not is irrelevant; there's nothing wrong with me right now.

[musubi]

You know our definitions of things differ a lot of the time, man.

[He spreads his arms out at his side.]

I'm saying I want you to relax and let me help you. I don't give a shit if you think you need it or not.

[disastergirl]

I'm not upset, I'm fine. [That was an awful lie. She knew that the moment it came out of her mouth. Even so, her stubbornness had prevailed, and she wasn't about to show any more weakness, especially not to someone she didn't really know. It was all about the principle of the thing.

...This probably wasn't the best time to be proud, though.]

Don't misunderstand me, okay?

really sorry for the late response

[pokeboy]

[ The easy way out? ]

Easy way out for you? Or for everyone?

[ Because he imagines it first to mean the latter when the man says it, and that doesn't sit well in Red though he's never thought about it before. But he'll see what he says. ]

[pokeboy]

[ Hmm... ]

I guess so... but people can always relate or understand people even if they've never been through the same things. Or people go through similar things.

[ He steps over a piece of rubble by his feet, looking around for any more in the way while speaking- ] Even if me and Ash are really like the same person and we've met some of the same people, I don't know if we'd really understand each other completely. We're still really different. [ and he looks to Jane ] You know?

[ And he looks back away. ] I don't think it'd be as comforting as you make it sound.

[endgames]

We can wait. [He shuffles a bit, before making to sit with one knee drawn up. Better not to lean on anything.] You said you needed a break. Take the chance while you got it.

[endgames]

[Shikamaru finds it in him to smirk, and the dark covers up that it's without humor. He wasn't expecting an argument.

Quietly he goes about patting Davis down, making sure they're not dragging anything less pleasant than maggots along with them.]

His glasses are missing. Must've lost them in the battle...

[musubi]

Sure.

[He sits down on the ground, not trusting anything here to hold his weight.]

But if it falls on us I'm blaming you.

it's all good man

[wipesfaith]

For me. It ain't my business what anyone else chooses to do. You have to make these kinds of decisions on your own.

I mean... [His shovel strikes the earth again, and he pauses for just a second before scooping the dirt out. His eyes stay on his work.] It'd be easy to never come back here. It's not like I was forced into this, this time. But it wouldn't feel right, leaving all this unfinished.

[justdid]

[... While Wan would really like to continue the pokemon conversation, he has to pause it. Because even though he has heard of different worlds, and different times in the same world, he' never heard of different worlds that are identical to each other.]

If they are identical to each other, wouldn't they be the same world?

[He is going off the assumption that Red meant different time, but just worded it in a really odd way.]

[pokeboy]

No? [ His mouth pulls at the side -- not that it can really be seen. ] They're the same in ways, but they're still different.

Did you know there's more than one world with pokémon in it? Me and Ash are from the same town, but we're not from the same one.

[justdid]

[ ... ]

So there are different worlds where the only thing that's different about them is the people who live in them?

[He did say "same town" and everything. This is well, exactly as incomprehensible for him as anything else in luceti. He'll learn to roll with it eventually. But given that this is a new concept to him now Red get's to deal with his confusion first hand.

and he is trying very hard to get it, but it's a lot like a cat trying to paw at a doorknob.]

[pokeboy]

I don't know if it's just people. We know some of the same people too and our cities and towns are called the same, but I don't know about anything else. But there's two of the same guy here with the same name running around, so it's not like it's a big joke.

[ Imagining everything being exactly the same with different people? Naahh, even that sounds weird to Red.

And it's ok Wan, Red was exactly the same way at the beginning. ]

[wipesfaith]

...Right. Guess they'd all be out there somewhere. [He looks over his shoulder, past the crooked rows of graves buffeting the city, and wonders how far out bodies can be found. The slog toward the city had seemed to stretch endlessly.]

It'd be easiest to bury them where they are.

[pokeboy]

[ The answer makes him blink, and to stop for a moment. It's actually an answer he likes, and everything that follows it. Words he could relate to -- in some ways, anyway. ]

...It was horrible out there. [ there, here - the two were so different, though still the same in their own ways ] I didn't wanna come - part of me anyway. But I thought it'd help. [ at least digging in the shovel for longer helps loosen the ground. maybe ] Help when we get sent out again.

[ His shovel rests still in the ground when it could dig in his silence, but there's something else. ]

I want me and my pokémon to be ready.

[ He says that with more voice -- then, finally, he digs in. ]

[endgames]

I'll get you a written apology. Give it a week after you kill me for sneezing and knocking the place over.

[endgames]

Probably would, yeah. Depending on how far they're out.

[It's several seconds before he remembers he's supposed to be working, looking away from the landscape and stirring like a deer that's just heard a twig snap. The head of the shovel is buried in dirt again, and he gets back to work.]

I wonder if they're keeping track of who's left to pick up.

[Davis.]

[wipesfaith]

You think they have the name of every soldier they sent out here?

[He hears Shikamaru's shovel go back to work, and his eyes sweep back to the graves, some gaping wide, some half dug, and some recently filled in, discernible from the surrounding field by the soft mound of disturbed dirt capping off the hole. He shifts, his legs growing tired in his squatted position.]