raisetheearth | Entry #A-1: "A" [Video/Action] [Shepherd's Haven]

[Lazarus checks in looking thoroughly displeased. He's standing in the largest building in Shepherd's Haven, most commonly used for forums and meetings. Today, he's surrounded by fabulous, artistic and delectable patries and sweets. Some are on the tables, set out as if for a banquet, but others are on the floor or in odd, unexected places, like on chairs and sticking to the walls.]

It's the one-year anniversary of our move to Shepherd's Haven. I was going to tell you that in spite of the slime, you're all still welcome to come celebrate and eat some of the food prepared for the occasion in the town hall. You know, in a valiant effort to maintain some semblance of community and normalcy, and to reject sensationalist panic and obsession.

[A green blob drops onto his shoulder. He brushes it off with clear distaste, but from the time he touches it to the time it lands on the floor, it transforms into a platter of cream puffs that land with a resounding clatter.]

...disregard that. If you do decide to come, don't eat anything until you confirm with me that it isn't slime. Right now, that's everything over here.

[He turns the feed over so it's in view of a far less enticing display of healthier and plainer options. Much of it was probably canned or frozen previously.]

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[Lazarus blinks. It elicits nothing on his part; the "second L" means no more to him than it did a few moments ago, aside from the general notion that his Other had successors.]

It's you, that was being spoken of? "The second L?" As L's successor, that would make sense, wouldn't it?

[He shakes his head.] No. Near said it.

[Which is the confusing part. He knows that he eventually took on L's name; he'd gotten an Echo to that effect over the past year. But this one effectively says that there had been someone else before him.]

[It's clearly not an answer that Lazarus expects, and his brows raise quickly in response to the statement.]

Oh, I... see. Was there anything else? Or just those words? Was there another successor we're not aware of you could have been addressing? What was the tone of the exchange?

[He realizes it's probably no good asking Near about things like tone.]

Edited 2015-08-11 03:15 (UTC)

I only have those words. The tone . . . there wasn't one. [Somebody else might have been bothered by hearing their own voice so detached of emotion, but it is something not uncommon for Nathan to do himself. When he gets too overwhelmed, he instinctively falls back on that affect.] I don't know who he was speaking to.

[No tone, more than usual given Nathan's typical monotone? That's both difficult and strange to think of, and more than a little bit disconcerting. Lazarus knows that L was callous and unemotional, but just as Nathan is an extreme version of certain aspects of Lazarus, it seems that Near was like L that way as well.]

I'm sorry now for getting back a cake. How useless when there are so many questions we're still so far from answering.

[Nathan has thoughts on that matter, has had them ever since he'd realized his sudden interest in toys had been cause by an Echo. The toys help calm him when he is stressed, and some part of him wonders if it might have been the same for Near. But he could just as easily have been projecting, hoping that perhaps Near hadn't been quite so callous as he seemed.

[He just cannot tell.]

Getting such small pieces is rather frustrating.

[What Nathan says borders on stating the obvious, but Lazarus doesn't comment on it. How can he when it's exactly what he's feeling stated concisely enough to feel both comforting and redundant?]

I'm almost to 50, you know. The more pieces I get back, the bigger the puzzle turns out to be after all.

This was my . . . twentieth, and it manages to feel like relatively little.

[There is still so much about all of this that he does not understand. He gets such tiny pieces all the time, in combination with things that are intensely personal and hardly seem to offer insight into the bigger picture.] Near did take on L's name eventually; I have an Echo that confirms this. But it seems that it was not immediately following L's death.

We know that L died, likely before he thought he would.

[No one thinks that they're going to die young unless they've committed to doing it at their own hand. Seven years ago now, Lazarus was at that point, and he's been at the opposite extreme a couple times since, faced with the likely possibility of his death and wanting desperately to live. Was his Other somewhere in between those extremes?]

Is it possible that Near wasn't ready at this point, that he was too young? Or that there was someone who had seniority and was more qualified? Even though from everything we've remembered, it seems like he was the front runner, doesn't it?

Edited 2015-08-12 14:35 (UTC)

I suppose it is possible. We do not know that the gap in their ages was the same as ours; it could have been greater. [Near could have been quite young, still, when it had happened. Unable to take on the responsibility at the time.

[But Nathan frowns thoughtfully. Because what Lazarus has pointed out is true.] It did seem that way, however, yes.

That's true... I think that at this point I'm older than my other, but... not by much, just enough that he would ultimately be in the same phase of life at least. The older a person gets, the less gaps matter, I think...

[And age means less than experience, of course. He's always been one to treat children with respect even if the number of their years is pretty green; prodigies never quite forget what it was like to be inconveniently short and cherub-featured and Nathan still hasn't grown out of that even though he's actually a literal adult now.]

You don't remember anything about other successors? I know of a few, but it seems... dubious, at best, that they would outstrip Near in the running for the title.

[But how much experience would Near have had at such a young age? Unless the children were given test cases of some sort . . .

[That is not a very comforting idea.]

The only one I remember with any specificity is Mello. [Who, from what they had gleaned before, had been behind Near in the running.] I know there had to have been other children there, but no one else comes to mind.

[The more they learn about the elusive Wammy's House and they way they raised their genius orphans, the less comforting it all seems. Lazarus is disquieted to think that his one-time goal, back before they knew more, was to work toward recreating something like it.

He had the best of intentions, but perhaps Watari did, too.]

So... that means you don't know anything about Beyond Birthday? He was Numbered once, one Ban Ueno. You probably wouldn't have met him, the timing's wrong, but... he was one of the first successors, and his legacy is that he went crazy and became a serial killer. It's probably good that he lost his echoes, and I doubt that someone like that could have been your predecessor.

[He hadn't before, but hearing the name -- such a strange name -- brings him up short for a few seconds. The telltale signs of an Echo are brief, but visible.]

... Generations. Beyond Birthday was first generation. Near and Mello were fourth.

[But what about the generations in between? What became of the children who weren't "good enough"?]

[Their world was full of strange names, it seems like, and Beyond Birthday is hardly the strangest of them. He pauses as Nathan's bearing betrays what's happening to him, waiting patiently, wondering if this is the start of another train.]

Four?

[Lazarus finds that disquieting, largely for the same reasons.]

I... wonder what, of the second and third.

[He shakes his head, more than a little uncomfortable himself.]

I don't know.

I wish I could shed some light on it. But what I know about Beyond Birthday isn't encouraging. Are you aware of anything else?