towerofanimus | (no subject)

Characters: Vietnam

hoasen + You!
Setting: Dormitory Floor 1; Floors 1 (cafeteria), 3 & 19 (both libraries), 14 (media room); a Terminal
Format: Any!
Summary: Guess who just arrived? Yes, this one just did. She's exploring the floors as she goes. (Wow this is a lot of prompts)
Warnings: Nothing so far.

A: Dorm Floor 1; 1-13 and surrounding
[There's a chance that whatever message she was left with had been crumbled, re-flattened, and crumbled again. She would've then pawed at her neck in confusion, only to no avail.

A rescue? Surely not.

If there were any other in the dorm, she would try to get their attention. Similarly, if she walks out of the room, she would begin to search for someone nearby to ask more questions. All will start with:]

Excuse me, can I ask you something?

B: Floor 1
[It sure did take a long time, but Vietnam has tried to go to the first floor in order to see what it was like. But it doesn't seem to have a door at all, rather, it was just a cafeteria. She looks around nonetheless, to see what's on the menu.

Clearly this apparent apocalypse needed better food.]

C: Floors 3 or 19
[On Floor 3, after discovering that it is a library, she now tries to look up books, is there anything that documented the end of the world? However all she finds are books that hold nothing about the state of the world, or anything about here. Just a whole bunch of life style books.

Floor 19 would have her in much more distress as it is even harder to look through. This only occurs much later after she has traversed a few more floors, though, and after messing round with the next two floors (Prompt D & E).

Seeing any sign of life (basically, you), she would first falter, hiding herself just by the shelves, before seeing if it is safe to approach the other.]

D: Floor 14
[Now having reached this floor with a whole bunch of media, she messes around with it to see if she could find anything, news? Something?

However, after turning something off and moving onto the next, she would always have a feeling that something switched on again and is watching her. But only to turn around and see it switched off again.

That and she doesn't want to interrupt your viewing, if you are. She will patiently wait for you to be available.]

E: a Terminal
[On Floor 3, she would've discovered this, and would try to go in. There are many things which startle her; the posts, the clock counting down. What is going on?

She will go through this more thoroughly, however things aren't still making sense, but it is for sure that there are others here with her and they are suffering. She would put up something of her own too, but first, reading and watching.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Her deduction is impressive, but England figures quickly enough that he's not the first person she's run into. Someone else probably filled her in on the situation (though hopefully not his situation specifically, not that most of them know of it).]

...I'm as well as I can be, thank you.

[There's a pause as he considers whether to properly answer her about how long he's been here, illustrated by a minute pursing of his lips.

Eventually, he sets his hands on his hips, his gaze averted somewhere off to the side.] Two and a half years.

[That's not really that long, for a nation. But it's like being at war; while you're there, it feels like it's never going to end.]

[Was he really well, though, she wondered? He was always so prideful. They were always so prideful, with the weight of the world on their shoulders.

But how he moved, how he avoided eye contact, she knew he was not alright. And two and a half years maybe short, but with how his body communicated, it must've been long for him.]

Then I am sorry I am late. [She doesn't know.] I wish I could've been here sooner. [She really doesn't know.]

[He wants to say he's been through worse, in some attempt to deflect the sympathy he's not used to receiving, but he's not stupid enough to think that Vietnam would believe such a blatant lie. He doesn't expect her to buy that they've suffered worse things than the loss of their entire nations.]

That's not your burden to shoulder, I assure you. [It's not her fault she wasn't here, and honestly, even if she had been, there wouldn't have been much she could do for a long time, anyway.]

There are a few more of us here. Not exactly a world meeting, but— [He clears his throat and meets Vietnam's eyes again.] —well, they might be interested in seeing you. [Even France, and even America, who is still too young to have made Vietnam's acquaintance. Even though they still argue almost constantly, it's better than being the sole nation here.]

[Exactly, he knew where this one was coming from. Besides the fact that he was not denying anything did make it easier for her to understand his plight. Her plight. But mostly his suffering.]

We could've shared it. We are colleagues, no? ["You look tired." She wanted to say, but held it back. It was their job to help take care of the world, even if that meant their own individual homes. Somehow she managed to miss an entire two and a half years and he has been fighting, with others too.

Wait, how did she miss a good two and a half years, and where was she?

She made herself a memo in her head to ask him about this later. For now, she had more interest in him and the others he spoke of.] Who else is here? [And have they been here just as long? She felt pretty mad at herself right now. Only three months left and she wasn't able to help with anything.]

[Colleagues. Though England doesn't and never will require sympathy, he admires how duty-driven Vietnam is.

She's a good colleague to have.

This isn't about him, though; she's here now and she needs information far more than he needs any kind of ludicrous pity party.] France and Sealand are here. Prussia departed recently. [Judging by the addition to the graveyard, anyway.

England hesitates noticeably on the next one. Of course, there's one more. But he knows his weaknesses, even if he hates to admit to them, and it will probably become obvious to Vietnam very quickly that America is England's biggest point of weakness in the Tower. So naturally, he's not really enthusiastic about delivering on this information.

He does, but just because he knows she'll find out somehow if he's not the one to tell her.] ...America is here, as well. But he's— rather young. Very young. He wouldn't recognise you.

[He was very serious about this, in a way she wondered if he was trying to give her as much information as he could in whatever time they had. The way he spoke of Prussia, it was almost like he recently died.

It's confusing, from how she thought everyone was dead at first, then meeting England here, to hear that France and Sealand were also around. Part of her was relieved that France was actually alive (and hopefully well), but the other probably was unsurprised; he was like a cockroach, no matter how much he could've been stuffing up.] I...would like to meet them, if I can.

[But the news about America was definitely one that she couldn't comprehend. She wanted to look like she could understand, but she really couldn't.] While I would like to say it is probably easier for him that he does not recognise me, how is this even possible? For him to be young...how young, may I ask? [She wasn't even sure if these were the right questions. She still couldn't believe it.]

Edited 2014-03-06 09:57 (UTC)

I'm sure you'll run across them at some point. [As big as the Tower is, it's so contained that it's hard not to encounter most of the residents at least once.

But now he has to explain America. And truthfully, England doesn't fully understand the logistics of it, either — he's never been a man of science, and everything in the Tower is more advanced than anything he would have experience with, anyway.

As for America specifically...] ...I don't know exactly when he's from, but he looks exactly as he did when I first found him. He's at least old enough to have recognised France and I when he got here. [England isn't certain that America would be able to give him a year if he were to ask, truthfully. Keeping the date isn't exactly a priority of most baby nations.]

He and I aren't from the same universe. [A pause; another beat of hesitation. This is something that has weighed on him, obviously.] ...neither are you and I, actually. None of us are.

I will keep my eye out for them. Two eyes. [She really did have to meet them. And it seems like they're not going anyway at least. Hearing how others are here, it is harder to keep patient.

But for England and his help, she'll remain so. Everything about America, about them, what was...going on?] That's...you mean...as I thought.

You...were still there, as in home, before I woke up here. It was 2013, everyone was still there, an older America, France. I didn't understand when you said you've been here for two years when I was about to see you again at the Halloween party...I don't believe this...

[There's too much to process, stuff that doesn't at all exist, and she finds herself running on a tangent. She stops herself quickly.] B-but that is not to say that while we are from different universes, that this changes anything! We are still the same, no? I will still work with you.