Over the palisade, morning will break

[callada]

characters: Rosinante, Mary, Will, but OTA also really
location: The Invincible
date/time: Nov. 30
content: Spirits go home, comas come to an end. This is a catchall for anyone who wants to talk to Rosi on the 30th after the Sandman event.
warnings: Mentions of violence/injury/etc plus whatever the dreamers got up to, will edit as needed.

For the last two weeks, The Invincible has turned from a pleasant tavern to a fortified bunker. People are spread out across the floor, some injured, some very asleep. They've tried to keep the place clean but with injured defenders dragging themselves in and out and with at least one temporary clinic for treating more serious problems, the room has seen its share of blood.

In one corner sits an exhausted, bruised, stitched and bandaged, makeup-free Rosinante, head and shoulders slumped low over Mary, who he has kept close in his bag of supplies the whole time out of sheer paranoia. It's a good thing he's well-practiced at getting around rugged landscapes while porting a child with him. Beside the two of them is Will, set carefully along the wall with a blanket and pillow, glasses set inside a drinking glass on the table above so they don't get stepped on by anyone.

As he's just moving to reach for his cigarettes, he notices movement. Whether you've just woken up or are walking over with injuries comparable to his own, you have his attention.

Comments

[donttalktome]

Waking up is very disorienting when you haven't slept in over a year. At first, Will isn't even sure what just happened. Did he pass out? Did someone hit him over the head? Oh god, did he die?

But he's not in the church, he's in the bar. He thinks. Everything's a little indistinct, but he's been here long enough that he can recognize it from hazy shapes. He's already sitting up straight, instinctive panic having taken over before he was even fully conscious. His fingers search the floor for his glasses while he tries to puzzle out what in the world just happened.

Before he can make much headway on that particular problem, there's another one: someone is sitting right next to him, and he didn't even notice. But even without being able to see clearly, there's no mistaking the huge blonde man with the tattered feathers.

"What's going on?"

God, his voice is hoarse, and there's more caution in it than he would've preferred. He trusts Rosinante more than most people here, but more than "not at all" still isn't that much. He doesn't know where he's been or why he would've fallen asleep in the first place. It just makes sense to be wary, doesn't it?

[callada]

One by one, people are starting to wake up, and now it's less of a shock when Will finally sits up - but still unexpected. Still an enormous, welcome relief. His eyes look the shorter man up and down, and despite his injuries and exhaustion and the stress of everything that has happened over the past two weeks, he lets out a breath. Smiles, almost, for a second. Reaches slowly, instead, for the glass on the table nearby with those glasses in it and offers them to Will.

"Welcome back. You missed two weeks. Slept through another near-massacre, but I think it's finally over." Okay but as soon as that glass is out of his hand he's going for a cigarette, and then tips the pack toward Will in case he wants one. He's never seen the man smoke, but if there's ever been a time, it's now.

"Had to drag you off the table. Something in the food, I think."

[donttalktome]

Two weeks. Two weeks. He'd almost believe it was his body suddenly rebelling and forcing him to make up some of the sleep he's been avoiding, but that's never happened to anyone before. Although, he supposes, he doesn't know of anyone else that's held off as long as he has.

Will reaches out to take his glasses, trying to process the rest of that statement through the fog of prolonged unconsciousness. Another near-massacre. Something in the food. Oh, of course it would be the one time in his nearly two years in this place that he trusted the god-damned food. Lesson firmly learned.

Of course, the near-massacre concerns him, too, and not just because of the obvious. This is the second time the spirits have tried to murder them all outside of a reset. The first time could be chalked up to their attempt to reach the lighthouse. This time? Not so much. Is whatever holds the spirits back from their murderous programming falling apart? Is someone or something else gaining access to the controls that cause the resets?

This definitely calls for a cigarette, and he will absolutely take one, assuming Rosi has a light. He'll also get a better look at him finally.

"You look like hell. How many people are dead?"

[callada]

"Hard to say," he replies as he sets his lantern between them and unscrews the top to expose the flame. He's always got a light. Wouldn't survive this place if he had to go without for too long.

After a deep inhale of the smoke, he continues. "People got spread out so some of the missing might still be out there. Maybe eight, ten dead. Fewer than last time but a lot of close calls. Might still lose some to their injuries. We did everything we could."

And it wasn't enough, but it was something. Organization needs improving on but he's too worn out to keep beating himself up over it for the moment.

"Are you okay?" By whatever metric of okay seems reasonable after two weeks of sleep. Mary had struggled to walk at first, had trouble seeing, but Will seems more alert already.

AT LAST I didn't make this icon for nothing

[donttalktome]

Not everyone's willing to just uncover their lantern for others, but sure, it works. Will takes a long drag off the cigarette and manages not to cough, despite it having been a long time since he's had one of these. It's useful for calming the nerves, and he needs it.

His level of awareness is probably unusual, but adrenaline is a hell of a drug. There are reasons he refuses to sleep, old fears he can't let go of, and wouldn't even know how to if he tried. Though now that he thinks about it, nothing especially unpleasant happened while he was asleep (to him, anyway). There were no nightmares, just a very boring dream about the town having sunlight.

He sort of takes in Rosi's words as background noise while he's thinking.

"Shouldn't have spread out." It's a useless suggestion now, but he's rarely good at keeping his thoughts to himself. And then that last question reaches him and he looks over in mild surprise.

Are you okay? When was the last time someone asked him that?

"I'll be fine." He says it dismissively. "Did you drag me all the way in here?" And then, thinking better of that question, "You're not one of the dying ones, are you?"

good, you came prepared for the inevitable nicotine future

[callada]

Shouldn't have spread out is right, but in fairness, the village is far from the bonfire and those who were already there would expose themselves to greater danger making the hike to the bar. What they need next time is better communication between the two ends of town. And then there were the people who went to neither place - what were they thinking?

About to answer, he lets Will instead interrupt himself, and that faint smile resurfaces. Hard to do much more than that given the weight of the last two weeks, but he can show he appreciates being asked. For likewise, he's not used to being cared about by anyone. This place is changing that, slowly. A few of these people have shown him kindness like he never received at home. Maybe he just never fit in there.

Okay, not that Will's choice of wording sounds particularly kind, but it's an expression of concern. He understands the intent. And he shakes his head.

"No. Got roughed up in a few spots but nothing I can't handle." A pause, then, "Strange question, but do you remember dreaming anything?"

He's still not sure what to make of Mary's story. She's imaginative, creative, so maybe it's nothing.

[donttalktome]

He'll ignore that smile for now. Rosinante has, of course, seen through his attempt to cover his tracks, but Will's not very fond of that whole "terrifying ordeal of being known" thing.

And anyway, no one does anything out of the sheer goodness of their heart. If Rosi saved him, it was only because he needed him. Will would've done the same if he were able, as their continued success currently depends on one another. That's really all relationships ever amount to, when you get down to it; each person is either getting something out of it, or unable to leave.

This place hasn't changed that. In fact, the situation's more dire. Sure it's all cooperation and flower crowns now, but if the past is any indication at all, when the chips are down, it'll be every man for himself.

... Although apparently that wasn't the case for the past two weeks. Whatever. They're still in the "we need each other to survive" stage.

With all that lovely pessimism slogging around in his head, Will's grateful that Rosi turns out not to be injured enough to warrant medical attention. He'll be fine, and that's the end of it.

"I do, actually. Just the town square, but it was daylight. There were only a few other people around, and aside from that, nothing."

And it certainly didn't feel like it lasted two weeks.

[callada]

An interesting point in common, even if Will's dream sounds far less eventful. "When Mary woke up, she told me the light was too bright. Something about seeing the town in daylight as well, but it was blinding."

And more, but he'll keep the rest to himself for now. See what others recall. If the spirits went through the work of putting as many as they could to sleep, could there have been a reason behind it that wasn't simply to make the stragglers easier to pick off? Some hold the power of hallucination and illusion. Do they have the ability to implant those images into people who are asleep and not just awake? It doesn't seem out of the question.

"Could be coincidence. We'll see." He's too tired to unravel it all right now. Maybe after some real sleep, a shower, a shave. "Just glad you're all right," he adds.

Because yeah. Obviously he has practical reasons for protecting Will. As one of the people who's been here the longest, he's an invaluable resource. He knows his way around the tablets and the network better than anyone. He knows how to survive a reset, seemingly - a fact which Rosinante still doesn't intend to bring up with him directly just yet, but it's something they simply can't risk losing knowledge of.

But none of that is the entire reason, even if he'd like it to be. Somewhere along the way he came to actually like Will as a person, even if he's abrasive. Everyone has their redeeming qualities. Everyone has their hopes for the future. Talk of starships and visions of spaceflight struck a chord with him. They're both stranded, aren't they? Neither of them really belong on land. He wants Will to see the stars again.

[donttalktome]

"Well after a year and a half in the darkness, it certainly wasn't pleasant to look at."

Though it's a bit strange that a dream would be consistent on that point. Will exhales smoke in a long sigh.

"Nothing's coincidence in this place. It defies all logic, but that's dying and going to another dimension for you." In other words, it makes as much sense that this whole dream thing would mean something as it does that they exist at all. What exactly that "something" is, however, is a puzzle for another time. Rosinante is absolutely right on that front.

That last part is harder to formulate a response to.

This is the second time in as many minutes that Rosi's tossed him a curveball. First asking if he was alright, and now being genuinely glad that the answer is yes, and even expressing it. Will realizes this would be nothing for most people, just a formality, good manners. But people don't unthinkingly waste their good manners on him. The usual response to his survival and well-being is annoyance or exasperation. Of course you survived; you would, wouldn't you? Like it's a personal affront.

Rosinante doesn't strike him as the sort of person to be naive, especially about other people. He knows what kind of person Will is. So does that make this genuine, or does it make it a lie? And how is he supposed to respond to this either way?

"Of course I am." With dismissal, apparently. "This place hasn't managed to kill me yet, and I don't intend to let it anytime soon."

Why does he feel like that was a bit harsh? And since when does he care?

[callada]

He sits on that for a moment as he savors the cigarette. Of course, he is. Naturally. As if he'd had any control over his ability to survive during the last two weeks. But Rosinante absolutely does know what kind of person Will is and doesn't expect gratitude. He knows not just from being around him regularly, but from experiencing his final moments, and from the realization that Will, when armed with the ability to save people from the reset with him chose to let them die instead. Maybe that's pure practicality, but it's obvious that Will just doesn't like people much. Doesn't trust them. Was probably very badly hurt by some of them. Will reminds him, more than a little, of some people he's known who had been drawn to his brother in search of revenge on the world that had wronged them.

But that was still a sort of community and those people still supported each other. Will combines their frustrations with Rosinante's own personal reaction to having experienced hell at the hands of humanity at far too young an age. Isolation, mistrust, fear. The feeling that nobody cares about you and nobody ever will so why even try? He's spent most of his adult life trying to move past those feelings. Mostly succeeded, he likes to tell himself, while knowing that's just another one of his lies. But if nobody can care about him, at least he'll find other people to care about and give them something he has rarely been given himself.

"Good," he sighs. "I'm here to help, if you ever need a hand." Some tiny, backstabbing part of him, the part that hates himself, wonders if this attachment is purely out of his own desire for survival but he squashes it. He's allowed to have friends, damnit.

Wait, shit, speaking of survival. "Um, bad news though," he recalls suddenly with a frown as he reaches for his bag and withdraws the battered, broken pieces of what he presumes was Will's tablet. "Came back from a patrol and found this. Pretty sure it was yours."

[donttalktome]

I'm here to help. Another formality, more good manners. He knows Rosi actually means it, but why? No one's ever offered him support without wanting something in return or having ulterior motives. Or both. Will can't quite figure out Rosi's angle yet, but he's sure it's there.

It'll come out sooner or later. It always does.

But for the moment, he's got bigger things to worry about.

"Ah, fuck." Will groans and reaches out for the remains of his device. "Yes, it's mine." He can tell by the fact that there's too much material here to be a regular one. "Or it was."

This is going to take ages to fix. Actually, no, he'll probably need to start over. It looks like something's been trying to eat it, and partially succeeding. There's very little that's salvageable.

"At least I know how to do it already. Shouldn't take as long. Though I'll need to stumble on a large number of unused tablets."

Unless everyone feels like getting reset again, he won't have another convenient cache.

[callada]

Presumably that means the other tablets, the ones in various pieces Will had accumulated already, have been stripped of whatever parts were useful and have nothing more to give. They're probably swept aside somewhere in here still, but the whole tavern area is a mess with bedding and supplies and people.

"I'll keep an eye out," he offers, though he's not hopeful. If a previous group had made somewhere else, now swallowed up by the forest, their primary place of residence then maybe he or someone else will come across it eventually, but he's not sure what the chances of that are - or of finding it in all the darkness. Still, getting Will set back up with whatever he needs to keep developing apps and providing other useful support is something they could all benefit from.

"Is there anything else that would help? I'm out there in the woods a lot, when I'm not in here." Though with it getting colder every day, that might have to slow down. Walking is hard enough in clear weather with his damned clumsiness. He can handle snow fine until it gets more than shin-deep, at which point he may as well just accept the faceplant and stay down in defeat.

[donttalktome]

If the snow is shin-deep for Rosinante, then no one else will be able to go out into it either.

Will sighs, more in exhaustion and defeat than anything else. He runs a hand through his hair. "Not unless you can find a goddamn computer."

They had to have had those at some point here, right? They wouldn't start with handheld tablets. Actually—

"Or anything that might have one inside it. Larger machines, vehicles, communication devices. Are you familiar with what computer components look like?"

He's already reaching into the guts of his destroyed tablet to pick out some choice pieces for demonstration.

[callada]

Ah. That word again. He watches with curiosity as he slides the glass toward him that had once held Will's glasses, and taps ash off the end of his cigarette into it for lack of an ashtray. Smiles a little, sheepishly, at the question.

"No. I've been meaning to ask, actually, because I keep hearing that word here lately. What is a computer?"

Through context, he's made several guesses. It has something to do with storing information and issuing commands. Some sort of communication system. But how is that different from a tablet? More important, more widespread, bigger?

[donttalktome]

Good on you, Rosi, Will's just been using the floor next to him.

"You don't know what a computer is?" There's a part of him that's far more impressed than horrified. He's still horrified, though.

"You've got one on you at all times; there's a computer in the tablet. It's... it's—" How do you explain something that you've just known since you were capable of knowing? Start with the basics, maybe. Start from the beginning.

"At its simplest, a computer is a device that makes calculations. But while that may sound very simple, it's also capable of rendering these calculations as visual data, and of communicating them to others of its kind. If you strip it down, if you look at it from the inside, it's all symbols and numbers. But those symbols tell the computer what to show you on the screen and what to do when you interact with it."

Is this too simple?

"It's like a cell. The DNA tells the cell what proteins to make. The numbers you program it with tell the computer what to do and how to do it. On a larger scale, we use these to interface with other machines, to tell those what to do. We use them to communicate over vast distances." Much less vast here in Beacon, but whatever.

"They enable us to do things we could never hope to do without them. Perform calculations it would take a human years, or even lifetimes, to do. Compile data too large for a library. To oversee multiple functions at once, taking the place of numerous people."

Listen he's not a teacher.

[callada]

Not a teacher, but still pretty effective at describing in general terms the vastness of what computers are capable of. The cell analogy goes a little over his head, for he's never heard of DNA either and doesn't know the first thing about protein outside of eating it, but the overall idea helps him figure out why tablets are one thing and computers are another - it's the square and rectangle analogy. Tablets are one use of computer technology, and there are more.

He'll hold off on asking what DNA is.

"Huh. And so components, the pieces of computers, like that broken tablet there - you can find those in all sorts of things?"

[donttalktome]

He's a biologist, at least, so the DNA question he could answer in-depth. Not that he didn't try with this one.

"Yes, exactly. Anything that might've had a computer in it to make it work more efficiently or to make it easier to use. They might not be as complex as the ones in the tablets, but the way computers are built, you can often repurpose the components even if they're not quite at the same level."

He holds up what was essentially a hard drive, though now it's been broken in the middle. It's a slim, flat, plastic rectangle, black and green. Gold tabs stick out one end, and the surface is covered with metal dots and delicate, geometrical lines. To someone from a world without computers, it probably looks about as alien as the tablets themselves.

"This stores most of the data and programming. All of the information the computer knows is kept here. And this—" He holds up another piece, much like the first but smaller and square. There's a lot more gold on this one.

"This is the processor. It's the most important part, the brains of the machine. This is what I'll need the most of."

[callada]

That's helpful for sure, and he holds out an open palm to take those things so he can look at them up close. "I'm amazed at how technology has become incorporated into things so completely. At home, I think we were just barely getting started at investigating how to do things like this. A lot of it was government research. Don't know how long they'll take to perfect it."

Probably a long time. They'll probably keep it locked up within research labs as long as they can to keep it out of the hands of pirates. But the little he knows about is more along the lines of biotechnology anyway, not computers. And then there's the underground research his brother is starting to invest in - drugs, poisons, engineering. Devil fruits. Pirates have their own ways of fighting back, after all.

"What did you do before you were brought here?" he asks. "I know you lived among the stars, but what were you doing up there?"

[donttalktome]

Will hands them over. He doesn't need broken ones anyway, there's nothing here to use to fix them. He could theoretically get those tools from Rastus, but he's got very little experience repairing things this old.

"Governments where I'm from typically pour all of their funding into military endeavors more than anything else. Most of our major advances came from universities, funded by the private sector."

As if Rosi can just go home and guide his world along that path. It's useless information, really. Will takes a moment to just quietly smoke before answering the questions.

What were you doing up there? Living, he supposes. He spent all of his 32 years out there, barring a few months toward the middle and a day or two here and there. But then, well, he didn't actually do all that much living outside of his work, did he? Suddenly he wonders what's going to happen to all of that money he never spent. It's not as if there's anyone to inherit it. He really should've spoiled himself more.

"This will require further explanation, just as a preface. Do you know what it is that makes it possible for humans to live on a particular planet?"

[callada]

A question he's never once considered in his life, but he'll do so now and not just to humor Will. He knows the basics of survival, of course; drilled into him from a young age out of sheer necessity and then later during training. You need water, shelter, and food, in roughly that order depending on where you find yourself. And air, since it sounds like the moon and perhaps space itself don't have that. The ocean certainly doesn't.

"I never had reason to think about other planets, really. Humans must have found themselves to lots of them though, if this place is any indication. You need clean food and water, you need somewhere to shelter from the elements, you need to be able to breathe. You need land, or something to float on, because even when water's calm and warm, if you're in it for too long you get sick."

He looks over at Will, hopeful he's at least on something like the right track, as he spins the cigarette in his fingers. He drops it of course, but quickly picks it back up and puts it back in his mouth before he loses it again. Floor's clean enough anyway. Five second rule.

[donttalktome]

It's fine Rosi, Will won't mention the fumble. Instead he'll do something he doesn't do very often: give validation. A little, at least.

"All of that's true, but on a large scale. Remember we're talking worlds here, not individuals."

They're talking about life as a whole, not a single person's survival. The needs are the same, maybe, but the means are not.

"Yes, you need landmasses, yes, you need water. But the most important parts are the air and the shelter. There's no oxygen on most planets, which makes it impossible to breathe if you're human. And you can't simply put oxygen down there, because even if gravity would hold it, the solar winds would strip it away. In addition to that, you need a form of protection against the radiation from your star. So you need something to keep air in and dangerous things out. In other words, you need a proper atmosphere."

And all of that was just the preface. He still hasn't answered the original question yet. He takes a quick smoke break before continuing.

"An atmosphere is like a shell around a planet. It's made of various gasses and water vapor, and it shields the world from radiation and traps oxygen and heat inside. A few planets already have one that works well enough, but most don't. And that's usually my job." He snuffs out the cigarette on the floor next to him. After all the remodeling the defenders have done, no one will notice one tiny burn mark.

"I'm in charge of introducing the chemical processes needed to create that planetary shell. A lot of the calculations can be done by AI, but the situation can get volatile quickly if it's not monitored. It's a very long process. And then outside of that there's landmass alteration, jumpstarting the ecosystem; I make planets habitable, that's the short version. We call it terraforming."

[callada]

It's simply crazy to think of all of this being someone's reality. Rosinante listens as he works through what's left of the cigarette, trying to picture all of this in his mind and not completely failing. To Will's credit, he's not bad at reducing the concepts to something simple enough, even if Rosinante doesn't know all of the associated vocabulary.

But so what, if he doesn't fully understand radiation and its dangers, has never heard of AI and couldn't even guess what those letters mean, and doesn't have a clue how someone could just change entire landmasses? He understands enough, and decides it's kind of beautiful.

"So you take dead worlds and make them fit for life," he summarizes, smiling, as he snuffs out the end of his own cigarette in the glass and leaves the butt there. "People have homes, and families, and everything else because of the work you do. Helping make way for life to spread out there in the sky. That's incredible. I keep thinking of people as coming from distinct worlds, but you're..."

What would one call that? A civilization? A universe? An analogy leaps to mind suddenly that doesn't quite give him the word he wants, but suddenly Will's home makes a sort of sense to him.

"It's like how I, we - on my world, some of us say we come from a sea. Not one island, because there are thousands. Those worlds you're terraforming, those are like our islands. How many have you worked on?"

[donttalktome]

His knee-jerk reaction is to say it's only a job. This is just something he gets paid to do, it's nothing so noble as spreading people across the stars— it's what he does for money.

But then, he doesn't really do it for the money, does he? He doesn't need to. Will has never scrutinized his own motives, but if he's being honest, that's on purpose. He could've done just about anything he wanted to, so why this? He'll continue not to think about it too hard, thank you very much.

He decides just not to mention it for now.

"These are multi-year projects. Like I said, a very long process. Between the ones I've been in charge of and the ones I've only consulted for, I've worked on about a dozen. Only a few of those will have been colonized already. That part isn't my responsibility."

For good reason, of course.

"But you aren't wrong with the analogy. Most of us who aren't from Earth, or Mars, or any of the established planets, we don't say we came from any specific colony. We're just from the void of space, nowhere in particular."

[callada]

It's strange how something can sound both so foreign and yet so familiar. He doesn't understand space and can barely imagine what it's like. The brief glimpse of Will's memories is the only way he has to picture it, and recalling that means recalling a lot of pain and anger at the same time. A lot more cold metal and blood than stars and planets. But space being akin to the sea will be close enough for now. Unfathomably vast, occasionally dangerous, but wide open, connecting everyone who can see it from their various distant shores. Maybe some day the people of his world will expand their fleets from the water out to the void.

Subduing space pirates sounds like a nightmare, though.

"I think it's amazing, what you do. Even if it makes me feel kind of small. Islands are pretty insignificant compared to what you've seen," he says with a chuckle, not entirely minding. A number of people in his world could stand to be reminded of their own lack of individual importance compared to the greater, vaster universe.

"If we make it through this, if we stop the World Eaters and we have the freedom we're used to, do you think you'll go back to it? Terraforming?"

[donttalktome]

Will shrugs. "That's probably a matter of perspective."

He imagines that his ancestors, thousands and thousands of years ago, used to look out at the oceans of Earth and see infinity. They used to stand in a desert and not see the edge, and wonder if it went on forever. Then they looked out and saw the galaxy, impossibly wide, and now they look out on the whole universe.

To an ant, an acre is a whole world. There's always something larger just beyond what you can see.

"I suppose I would, yes." It doesn't take him long to get to that conclusion. "I made a mistake doing something else for a change. But you know what they say about curiosity and cats."

Those terraforming projects had been safe, in a way. Long periods spent alone, away from other people. A routine, a sense of purpose. He should never have given that up, even for the promise of entirely new knowledge. Lesson learned, though a bit late.