#// hmmm i should probably think of a tag for your vash hmm

[typhoonvash]

@goldendivinewrath

The glaring gravestones continue to make Canary uncomfortable. They remind him far too much about that fateful day when the ships fell, and then he ran. Ran as fast as he could while crying. Faster than he ever had.

Even then, he hadn't escaped the rotting hands that wanted to pull him under the sand for vengeance. Eventually he did give in, did want to die, but...

They reach the imposing cast iron gate after he lets the silence hang; he ponders the meaning of this Vash's words—has he always been this frustrating to get an answer from? He supposes that he does it on purpose, so yes. Canary reaches for the oversized padlock and chain dangling unlocked from one end of the partially opened gate and takes it into his hand to analyze it.

"I was running too," Canary eventually mumbles, "I let him get too close. He found me and reminded me who I was and then I just... bolted." There's no need to address who 'he' is, they both know. "I thought, maybe... if I did that then no one would have to get hurt. He wouldn't get hurt. He could... focus on other, more important things. Protecting them, I mean."

It's selfish to want anything more from Wolfwood. It's selfish to want him to find Canary, lost in the desert somewhere, not causing trouble... it's selfish to want—

He drops the chain and lock, allowing them to hang where they were. Stepping outside, Canary's able to see the details of the gate. There are... what appear to be letters, but not from any language he knows. They're almost uncanny—he's not sure the alphabet they draw from is real.

There's an announcement on a poster near the entrance, so Canary takes a look at that next. It seems to be a warning of some kind, but again, the language isn't anything he knows. The words may as well be blurs on the page.

"I'm not sure what I was doing right before finding you. Maybe I was resting...?"

Yearning.

The bell continues to toll in the distance. The silent black birds watch them from wires and rooftops with cocked heads and open beaks. They are the audience, while the Vashes are the actors. A sudden breeze stirs and Canary is almost sure he recognizes the voices it carries to his ears in a whispered hush.

"I can't stop running," he continues, as if it's a response to the hisses in his ears, "If I do then—"

Something cracks underneath steel-plated boots. Canary draws his foot back, terrified to look down but does so anyway. Whatever words he was about to say die in a breath as he stares at a shattered pair of sunglasses, cracked in half at the bridge.

@typhoonvash

Graveyard. The word spoken aloud makes it real. Not that it hasn't been real the entire time (as real as anything else around them, he supposes), but it feels inescapable when it's a word. Seen and heard and felt.

No, not inescapable; that's the point. They need to escape. Leave. Move on. Not words he wants to think about at the moment.

The crows make almost no noise. That's the eeriest thing, as far as Vash is concerned; there's a rush of indistinct movement but the appearance of crows, already moving, startles him slightly. He knows what they are. He can even recite some of what they've supposedly been known to represent, but--

He'd rather not. Really. He gets the same sort of unsettled weight in his stomach when he looks back to Canary, sees him looking around and follows his gaze to the gravestones. All of them facing toward the... visitors? Intruders? (There's another word. He doesn't know it yet. "Prisoner" is to strong, isn't it?) Yeah, that's... not supposed to happen. He's pretty sure. Graveyards are supposed to be peaceful, wound up being sad, but not... accusatory.

Right, yeah, time to go. "The sooner the better." He agrees, keeping pace a bit closer than he normally would. It's only paranoia, right? The horror that he'd very unwisely decided he was more than old enough to read or watch was just making him twitchy. Making them twitchy. Still, exiting feels like the best plan, and definitely not thinking about any ways in which it could get far worse outside. No, no possibilities, no imagining, straight up nope. He can distract himself for hours when he needs to, right?

Which does not specifically mean getting distracted by his other self, though he'd have taken it gladly if the question wasn't... that. What was he doing? What... was he doing... And how does he explain without giving up too much detail? "I was just deciding to move on again. To... leave a place I'd been for a while." Almost too vague to be an answer, but that's more truth than he admitted to himself at the time. Disappearing into the night once more if he could. It should have been a positive thing, full of hope, full of promise, but his thoughts had turned to blank tickets claimed alone.

"Maybe I--" He stops then. Stops speaking, not walking. He knows, doesn't he? Hadn't he known details only moments ago? "I probably... tried to leave at night so no one would follow me." He... can't remember. "Or I-- I was sure no one would mind me leaving in the middle of the day..?" Stop talking, he needs to stop talking.

Does it have anything to do with why he's here? He doesn't know. He can't know. But there's a very significant portion of him racing to say yes.

Had he finally decided to leave without giving thought to returning?