Rocky Bits, Friday Morning

[moodyvagrant]

It was a cold morning, and Anders shivered inside his ragged jacket as he picked through the rubble on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. It wasn't a bad place to scavenge: Sometimes there was wire there, or glass, and once a plastic bag holding a precious half-full box of bandages

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[alreadyhollow]

Monster was really rather a relative term, wasn't it? There was one who lived out on the rocks who looked much like one, who even thought of himself as one, but the word didn't fit him quite the same way as it fit the rest.

He knew there were people here. He had a sense for that sort of thing, after all. And as those people moved through the fog, he watched, a massive, creature-shaped glow in the haze.

He considered, briefly, pointing Anders toward something that he might find useful, some flotsam that he'd noticed had washed up earlier in the week. But he remained silent. Yesterday had been... long. And there wasn't much left in him for any encounter that might be coloured more strongly by forgetfulness than old friendships. These days, he tended to let those who might yet forget approach him or avoid him at their own leisure.

[moodyvagrant]

Anders noticed the glow -- it was hard to miss, and anyhow, Starsmore's fondness for this place was hardly a secret.

He took a moment to make his decision, but finally lumbered over toward that hole in the haze.

"Are you doing all right?"

Not that he remembered why he cared, exactly.

[alreadyhollow]

//I can say I've been worse,// Jono replied, moving his head slowly to look Anders' way as he approached. It was good to see he still cared, still had enough of him left for that. //Been better, too.//

There was a mess of cracks and fractures spread out over his face, all spiderwebbing away from a central point that looked vaguely like a bullet hole.

//Met Alluka yesterday. Met her twice.//

Both times had been interesting in very different ways.

[moodyvagrant]

Anders didn't mind the way Jono looked. It was close to the way Justice looked, for one thing -- light breaking through flesh. Pure spirit scouring away humanity. His eyes flashed blue for an instant before he answered.

"I know her," he said, surprised by the sudden memory of a small girl with a stuffed animal in her hands. "I don't remember the last time I saw her. I keep to myself lately."

No one was pure enough for Justice.

[alreadyhollow]

//She's different,// Jono said softly. //If you hear childish giggling in the streets, that's her, and encounters with her are... not always pleasant.//

Hence the damage to his face. And much of the rest of his body, really, though it was difficult to tell. There was a lot going on, there, between molten stone and flame.

//But there was another. Younger. Whole.//

[moodyvagrant]

"Are you sure you weren't dreaming?" Anders asked, a modicum of humor in his voice. "Nobody's whole. Not anymore."

[alreadyhollow]

//I mean, I could be dreaming right now. Wish somebody would wake me up if I am,// Jono said, only half joking himself. He shook his head a little. //But no... no dream. The island is... it's more full. People we know, people we knew. Nobody's gotten better, but there are more minds about. More than I've felt in ages.//

It was intriguing. And worrisome. And Jonothon didn't think for a moment that they were going to last long out there.

After all, they hadn't, and it hadn't always been this bad.

[moodyvagrant]

Anders was cautious.

"I noticed more people last time I left the settlement," he admitted. "Some of them looked -- all right. I just wasn't sure what to believe."

[alreadyhollow]

//I've only met two of them so far myself,// Jono noted. //They're Fandom residents, alright. Alluka and Allie. But no sign of going hollow, no idea what's going on here. Just... them, clean and new. Allie seemed to be able to handle herself more or less as well as our own, so I left her go on her way. Alluka, I took back to the house. I would've taken her to the village, but... ah...//

Jono tended to avoid the village.

//There are bound to be more. I haven't counted or anything, but from the feel of it, we're going to have our hands full around here, saving people from... themselves, I suppose.//

[moodyvagrant]

Anders let out a high-picthed giggle.

"That's fantastic, seeing as how we're barely holding it together ourselves," he said, then frowned and stopped short. (Justice thought he was being selfish.)

[alreadyhollow]

It's okay, Anders. Jono sympathized. And rather would have thought Justice was blind, in this case.

//It's a new generation of island residents to watch die,// he said, grimly. //Hard to think of them as anything else, after all this time.//

Jono sure was an uplifting dude. Truly.

//Some part of me wants to think they're a second chance. But they're us. They don't even know what this is. What chance have they got that we don't?//

[moodyvagrant]

"None," Anders agreed, equally uplifting. "They're cannon fodder. Fish chow. May as well go around with targets on their foreheads. I'd say I would help them, but my help never seems to do much good these days."

[alreadyhollow]

//And mine isn't generally welcome even with the people who have been here all along,// Jono muttered. For a fifteen-foot molten rock monstrosity, it was impressive just what a good sulk he could work up. //Doesn't help most of them can't remember me, I suppose.//

That was basically exactly it, there.

//I don't want to be the person to note that at the very least, the hollows will be well-fed for a while...//

Jono, pack that little bit of Hannibal away in the corner of your brain where he belonged.

[moodyvagrant]

"If they ate their other selves," Anders mused, "would that still be cannibalism?"

And then he shook his head, eyes widening. "No. No. I -- I mustn't talk like that. They've done nothing to deserve that fate."

[alreadyhollow]

Jono very nearly replied with, "I believe the term is 'autocannibalism,'" but thought better of it. It was not actually a helpful reply. Funny, that.

//Neither have we,// he said instead, gently. //Nobody has. But here we are. And it looks like our lives have just gotten much more complicated.//

[moodyvagrant]

Under different circumstances, Anders would have greatly appreciated the vocabulary lesson. At the moment, however...

"It certainly does," he agreed instead. "Which is a funny thing to say when you're a rock monster and I have a spirit in my head, but here we are."

He sounded more lucid than normal. Worry did that.