milliways_bar | //001// stop me if you've heard this one already.

"Oh that...will be there. Always, I fear."

"And...where you're from? What is that like? You're not from here, either." He's guessing, but thinking about how and why he's here is distressing.

Trowa shakes his head slightly.

(And doesn't react visibly to the mech's response. Internally: he knows the feeling. Or a feeling like it, anyway. Trowa tries not to project overmuch; it blinds you to what the other person's really thinking.)

"We had war." Wars. "But it's been over for a few years."

The other pilot hasn't gotten out yet. Which is certainly not unprecedented, when your suit's speakers and pick-ups work fine, but kind of at odds with his general attitude. It's still entirely possible that he's just feeling insecure about getting out or about leaving his mobile suit standing in a room, but Trowa is also remembering Quatre and Duo's mentions of Cybertronians.

"Then your kind is wiser than mine, to have found a way to peace." Because in Wing's mind, the end of war meant 'peace'. What else?

It's accurate, in this case.

The other's assumption might be telling, but it might just be observation of Trowa's body language and tone, neither of which are indicating 'one side totally annihilated the other, it's a sore spot and/or triumph' or 'we found a bigger common enemy and acquired a new war instead.' Too soon to say. The latter seems more probable, though.

Trowa shrugs slightly. "It took a while."

Understatement!

Wing can only think in terms of the war he knows, and the very fragile peace his City holds, only through its remaining hidden.

"Ours has raged for millions of years." He frowns. "And all they've accomplished is to get better at killing. I don't even know if they remember why they're fighting."

. . .

"That's a long time," Trowa agrees.

"Are the same people still fighting?"

Any war that's raged for millions of years is well beyond a human's timescale, which makes this a reasonable question to Trowa's mind.

There's no reason non-humans couldn't be piloting mecha suits, of course -- so far as Trowa's concerned, giant humanoid battle robots are a perfectly reasonable way to wage war -- but the Cybertronian possibility just got a lot stronger, he thinks.

"It is. Time enough to destroy our planet."

Wing nods. "Many of them, yes. Megatron began the war, and he is still active." At least if Drift was any indication. "I remember the war's beginning. We all do." Because if there was a way to make more of his kind, the Matrix held its secrets well.

Okay, yeah, definitely not human.

Which is weird, even after so long at Milliways, but Trowa can roll with weird. (Bland pragmatism is a useful life skill.)

"That makes it harder to stop," Trowa acknowledges.

He doesn't say I'm sorry, because Trowa is not one for platitudes. And his compassion is very rarely verbal.

"At least you've got a break here."

If Wing weren't brand new, and this weren't a minute after they'd met, Trowa might ask more oblique questions about Megatron, and this war that's stretched for millions of years, and what his world is like. But it doesn't seem the time.

"Yes. Grudges build up over time, the war seeming to sustain itself, like a wheel down a slope." Gaining speed, out of control.

"I do...but my friends may not." He casts a worried look at the wall behind him where there had been a door.

Wing is more than curious about this one, as well, who seemed to know about war, more than Wing wished anyone should.

It's a pretty good analogy.

Trowa remembers very well what it felt like to be unable to imagine any other life, any other way of the world. It can be hard to see beyond the situation you're living with.

He doesn't say that. It seems unnecessary.

Instead, he inclines his head slightly, in acknowledgment. Not much you can do about the people who can't come to Milliways, but a lot of people seem to find that fact a burden. (Trowa's too pragmatic to, by and large. He takes the chances he finds, and figures that everyone else will do the same.)

"If it helps," he says, "most people find that time's subjectively stopped while they're here. You might get back the moment you left, or pretty close."

Trowa's doesn't outright stop, but the time differential's dramatic enough that a day in Milliways is just about an hour outside it. Close enough, most of the time.

Wing shrugs. "I fear that I died in my world. I don't think I can go back. But still...I would like to know." He gives a guilty sort of wince, at his own curiosity. He should have faith. In Drift. In the others.

Ah.

"That happens," Trowa agrees, matter-of-factly.

Privately he still finds it a little weird -- and the idea of a dead mech is differently strange -- but Trowa believes in taking things in stride, even if you have to ignore emotions to do it. Ignoring his emotions is a lifelong hobby anyway.

"Maybe if someone else comes here you can find out."

He shrugs, very slightly. "You never know what will be a catalyst to make people rethink things."

After millions of years of the same people warring, Trowa kind of thinks they probably would have already given war up if they were going to. But there's no reason to be pessimistic at the dead guy.

"It is...unusual in my world." Maybe not in the human's, though.

"I don't know how likely that is. I've heard there have been Cybertronians here, but none from my world." And two, suddenly? He's holding hope.

He laughs. "More true than you know. I'd thought I was getting through to Drift his way. But it turns out...," he shakes his head. "That wasn't what changed him."

Trowa tilts his head slightly in question.

He's not going to pursue the inquiry into what might be a sensitive subject, but Trowa is hardly ever inclined to stop somebody who wants to talk at him.

And he's curious. (Subtly, patiently, and categorically.)

A long cycle of air.

"Drift. He was a Decepticon. One of the two factions. He came to my planet. I...it was my fault he got injured, so I brought him to our city. I tried to show him our ways, the peace that we had. I tried by fighting him, every day. If he won, he could leave."

A sad smile at the memory. "He never won."

"But he told us of the danger, the Decepticons coming for us. We had a chance to prepare. And a number of us fought with him, for him. And...I fell."

His hands grab at each other, as though to remind himself he's still alive. Still here.

Trowa doesn't understand every nuance here, but he gets enough of the gist.

(And, sadly, I tried to show him our peaceful ways by fighting him every day is logic that makes perfect sense to him.)

It's strange, to see such human gestures from a mecha -- his own world's mobile suits were never made to have that level of idle gesticulation ability, nor would any pilot bother to do that with the controls -- but intuitive, too.

"Maybe that's a start," he says, quietly.

Not necessarily. There are a lot of temporary armistices and individual changes of heart that never got anywhere, in human history.

But you never know. And already, this guy seems the kind of person who wants to have hope.

"It is a start, and with Drift, any step is a large one. But he should be free to make his own decision. I have no right to question, or even worry."

Not that it stops him. Drift had betrayed them, but had freely told them afterwards, given them a chance to prepare. And what choice had Drift had after all? The bounty hunter had discovered Drift was on the planet. It was the best decision in an awful situation, a kind of decision the Circle hadn't had to make themselves in centuries.

The wingpanels behind his back rustle, as though he's physically shaking off the thought. "But I apologize for my rudeness. I am Wing."

Trowa had been going to say something deadpan and dry about how rights don't usually stop people from worrying. (Unlike repression! Er.)

He's been kind of derailed, though.

Wing? Seriously?

It's not the same, of course -- he knows very what Wing looked like, before it was destroyed, not to mention the fact that that Wing was no more sentient than any good mobile suit -- but all the same the coincidence is enough to keep him still for an instant.

Then: "Trowa Barton," he says.

He doesn't offer a hand, because: logistics.

Wing blinks, startled by the other's reaction. The human seemed confused.

Whatever it is seems to pass, and he nods, hesitantly, retreating into a shy formality. "Trowa Barton. I have taken too much of your time."

Trowa doesn't smile, because Trowa . . . basically doesn't smile.

If he were someone who believed in normal social cues instead of impassivity he might, though.

(A blinking mech with moving facial features: still kind of disconcerting. If he's right, Wing was surprised by something, but he's not totally sure what. That makes two of them, anyway.)

"I came over," he points out.

"You're fine."

"Oh. True." The pinions of his shoulder engines flick, embarrassed. "I'm sorry. This is all a bit...disorienting. Dying. Being here. Being alone."

Sorry, Wing. Trowa's being nice, in his way, but the fact remains that Trowa tends to blithely ignore awkwardness in all its forms. Even when he's deliberately causing it.

"Milliways does that."

Not that he has experience with dying, or with being surprised by being alone, but -- yeah.

"I can try to answer questions. If you have any."

Wing manages something like a chuckle. "Well, I suppose there is some comfort in the fact that at least I am not alone in my confusion."

He considers. "I suppose my main question is...what next?"

Pick an easy question, Wing.

Luckily, Trowa is very pragmatic about basically everything in life. He shrugs slightly.

"Whatever you want."

Yep.

"There are rooms upstairs, but I don't know if they have any to fit your size. There's a garage downstairs." He turns slightly to indicate an elevator, well-hidden on one wall. "And an outdoors through that door. Bar can give you whatever else you need. It runs a tab, but there are funds for Bound or dead people."

"Tab." Oh dear. "I...is there anything I can do? I would rather work than live on charity."

Who knew that being dead was this complicated?

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3nanashi - 2012-04-01 04:39 (UTC) - Expand