thecrossinglogs | Those Who Went Ahead

[The path isn't so much a path as it's marching directly through what sometimes seems like every piece of underbrush in the forest. It might have been more convenient if the fire geysers continued deeper inland than they actually did, if only for ease of movement.

Nagito picks his way through with more skill than you might expect of him; even if his travels took him through more urban than rural environments, finding steady ground and pushing through obstacles is pretty similar in some ways.]

Have you seen those starburst marks anywhere before? [Nagito didn't actually point them out before he started following them; he assumed Need would also have seen them. Need probably saw them before he did, he's sure.] They don't match the eye or flower marks, but I'm not sure if this means we're following the path of a new group or if it was too difficult for them to make consistent eyes or flowers in the trees.

[Need is familiar with how Darkwind and other Tayledras scouts move near-silently in deep woods, but they do it by clambering up trees and taking the 'high road'. And 'familiar' isn't the same as having muscle memory of it herself, even if she wasn't bigger and heavier than any Tayledras.

So she's on the ground and using a staff, something she'd picked up after the first trip out here proved how overgrown the terrain was. Something that could cut the brush would be better but this at least extends her reach shoving back the reaching branches and brambles, and as some are bent or broken in the process it makes retracing their steps seem a little easier.

It's also noisier than she likes, so she's got a habit of pausing at irregular intervals to listen. Anything of size moving in something like this will make sound. Unless it's special and doesn't.]

Nope. [She's noticed by now but probably hasn't seen all the ones Nagito has, being more focused on potential threats.]

Lop a branch off and it leaves something eyelike as the rings of the branch are exposed, and even if not an eye symbol can be pretty simple. These took a little more work than that. The bark on some of these trees has been pretty thick.

[this is a joke:] Carpentry tools maybe. Some people have all the luck.

Perhaps this is a new group, then. [Interesting!] I wonder if our group is unusual for not having come up with anything like this, or if there were several groups in play at the same time at some point.

[The only time Nagito would say their group separates in any real capacity is when they split up during Crossings between those going with the Ferryman and those going without; they don't exactly need specific group identifications aside from that.]

Maybe other groups were larger. You housefolk have been rattling around in the spaces they've occupied.

[There've been enough houses in all three stops so far that even if the kids spaced themselves out they would have a lot left over. Even if there were still as many now as when this had started.

Need shakes her head and turns over the thought she'd been having - calling on the Star-Eyed Goddess, who's supposed to be able to hear Her true name regardless of where it's spoken - once again. She's not at a point where she's actually willing to try it yet. The Star-Eyed doesn't like that name taken unless things are truly dire, and Need doesn't want it to not work.

She pushes past a particularly grasping piece of underbrush, which tries to snag at her apron as it goes. The leather is tough, though.]

Are you leaving any bits behind on thorns? [Hair and fibers from his clothes, she means, he's not going to be all bloodied.]

[Nagito's hair has gotten pulled at by branches and brambles more than once on this trek.] It's too bad I couldn't bring my jacket--it's actually pretty sturdy. [But it's not fireproof, so Nagito left it behind on this trip. He's traveling pretty light, and in clothing he found, which means yes, it's taken some damage as well. But he doesn't really mind--this is the sort of thing that second outfit is for.]

If we find anything useful, we'll have to be careful taking it back.

I'll just walk ahead and make more of a trail. And then probably have to double back and do the carrying.

[Nagito has the look of someone who'd either be unable to lift much or would be unable to control something bulky. Maybe both!]

If this goes too long you're going bald. C'mere, thistle-head. I don't want to have to think of another nickname.

['thistle' is a name she's given to multiple pale horses, it's not actually creative.]

If it's something I can't carry, I could walk ahead and--ah? [Nagito does as he's told, approaching Need, but he obviously isn't quite following her train of thought here. He's not used to other people taking notice of things like his hair.]

Turn around. I have to braid and cover your hair. Unless you object?

[She'd remembered people don't like their hair pulled at unexpectedly in time to ask. Also he's a little tall to do this easily but she hasn't seen a convenient stump and otherwise the only thing that could be done is him getting on the ground, which isn't really better.]

[Nagito definitely looks surprised by this, though he also turns around obediently.] I don't mind. It seems like a lot of trouble to go through for someone like me, though.

You overestimate how troublesome hair is.

[Putting her staff aside, Need immediately puts both hands in and determines what she's working with, then starts working at a style meant to keep it close to Nagito's scalp. and honestly this would kind of hurt in other circumstances, she's not being very gentle.]

Back when all myths were true [aka 'back in my day, when dinosaurs walked the earth'] everyone always kept their hair braided, except for little kids and the mad. We'd wear it loose on some ritual occasions, and when about to die, if we could help it. That's why mine has a wave to it. It was straight as grass otherwise.

[Nagito doesn't seem to notice any rough treatment--really, even if he wasn't dead, it would still be unlikely he would notice. He's busy feeling something close to amazement that anyone would do this for him at all.]

Sometimes I put my hair in a ponytail, but I've never done anything else. [He knows how to braid hair, but on a purely theoretical basis. He's braided rope before; that's probably not that different?] Topknots are very traditional in Japan, but nowadays it's mostly only sumo wrestlers and kabuki actors wearing them. They're both very old, traditional activities.

[Also it would be very difficult to get Nagito's cotton ball hair into a topknot.]

[Definitely some pulling and twisting going on here as Need battles flyaways and works her way down to the nape of his neck. She'll have to give up on perfection, she sees, she's not going to soak it down with water or grease to make it behave.]

Hm. Why the change in Japan? Kids these days don't honor their ancestors like they should? [that's sardonic; it's not something she really believes, it's something she's seen every generation complain about, a constant of humanity.]

Influence from other nations. [Westernization, but that term wouldn't really give Need any context. Nagito is holding pretty still, allowing her to pull this way and that. It's actually kind of nice; he's not sure how to approach that, so he's not.] In general, men should have short haircuts. Women can have longer hair. And dark brown or black is really the standard. Mine stands out, but not so much when I'm amongst my former classmates.

[Exceptions to the standards are made for the talented, is what he means.]

[Need pins one braid between her middle and ring finger and takes another between thumb and forefinger so she can use her free hand to pull strips of fabric out of an apron pocket and tie them off.]

Did you try to fit in before all that? [before hope's peak, she means.]

There's a people maybe descended from mine called the Kaled'a'in who, the stereotype was they were terribly insular, but they weren't all like that. Plenty become housefolk. Ate like their neighbors, dressed like them, spoke like them, intermarried. That did include hair coloring and styling.

I never dyed my hair, but I tried not to stand out too much. I'm not really the kind of person who deserves the spotlight. But--ah, there's only so much I could do about my luck, especially when I was so young. So mostly I tried to keep to myself instead.

[Which is clearly a habit that still sticks, given how often he can be found reading on his own or lingering at the edges of one of their various get togethers. He never stops expressing confusion when someone else pulls him away from the walls.]

I'd noticed. Did you say you were eight?

[there's that awkward, baffled look to Nagito sometimes, like a long-hungry dog that's not sure if the meat set before it will be whisked away. Need doesn't know what to do with that, if anything, and just focuses on making another scalp-hugging braid on the side of his head.

The ends of the braids are all going to be bundled into a club by his nape. This process has really proven just how much of the mass of his loose hair is nothing but air.]

Being housefolk didn't save my little maybe-cousins. They were seen as eternal foreigners, still too different, never really part of their adoptive nations. Easy scapegoats. A lot of people hated the Kaled'a'in and thought any trying to fit in were doing it for sinister reasons. Wretched business in the end.

When my parents died, yes, though I already had some idea of my luck, even if I didn't have a name for it yet. [Not well enough to realize what was inevitably going to happen, though.]

Really, people get worked up about the most ridiculous, ultimately pointless differences between themselves sometimes. [Not like talent, which is the real and true differentiator.]

Was it part of you as an infant, do you think? So much can go wrong with small children.

[Aaah. This isn't her best work. Off-center, uneven, all these wisps escaping! She should have brought a comb. Functional's better than beautiful, she reminds herself.

Need smiles sardonically.]

Human nature, I'm afraid. It's a song for countless voices. Even I sing it sometimes, and my nature's removed a good ways from human by now. All right, just a moment more... [the problem with a lot of pockets: which one??] I know I picked one up...

Edited 2025-07-25 04:31 (UTC)

Oh, definitely. My parents told me about a few incidents, like the time my nursery caught on fire, but because of all the chaos, my parents were able to find out that the nanny they had looking after me was stealing from them. And it was apparently very difficult to clean my stuffed animals, because when they were taken away I'd always figure out where they were hidden. I must have been guessing and letting luck do the work for me.

[The extremely normal life of Nagito Komaeda the baby.]

I see. The second incident sounds cute, I'll admit.

[A thought, that Need doesn't share: maybe luck is actually a very common talent, it's just that most who have it die early. Even if they have some understanding of the body and health and can ensure most children grow up in that world, there are so many factors involved...

There, this kerchief will do. Need covers the semi-organized chaos she's made of that frizz with a triangle of fabric embroidered with stylized frogs, shamelessly taken from the hertasi village. She knots the corners so it fits close against close-braided hair, not unlike how her kerchief lies, and dusts her hands together ostentatiously.]

There. Don't put your face into a bush and it should help. [She badly smothers a laugh.] Now you've got a small head. How does it feel?

[Nagito touches the fabric gingerly, like he's expecting the whole thing to explode if he does anything too reckless. His smile is a little softer than the one he nearly always plasters on his face.]

Thank you, Need-san. I really appreciate you going to the trouble for someone like me!

[Need, of course, is mildly embarrassed and just shrugs, ignoring the repetition of 'someone like me'.]

Yes, yes, decide if you still feel that way when you have to take it out. And now you don't stand out as much out here.

[Her wariness of being followed has been eased, mildly, for the moment. Being in one place for a few minutes has meant not making enough noise to cover another moving body. Of course, she's never going to decide it's safe. Something intelligent could absolutely wait out their pause, and there can always be things that somehow don't make noise.]

Back to it then.

Right! [Nagito is nearly always cheerful, but he has a little more energy than he did before. His reorienting process is a little unusual--he takes a few steps in an apparently random direction, pauses, and then looks around to orient himself properly. returning to the barely-there trail.]

I'm sure we'll find something useful. We had good luck with following symbols in the caves! There were a few dead ends there, though, so we'll have to watch out for that.

[Need is just going to have to hope that a moment of kindness - she'd deny that that was kind if asked, but knows better internally - won't backfire on her. She cannot peer into this kid's head but she can see he's starved for positive attention and knows from the last Crossing that he can be overwhelmed and knocked akilter by warmth and care. Somehow talking about that classmate he cared about had pulled him back from some edge, but she might not intuit the right thing if it comes up again.]

We're going this way. [she says in that short pause.] Did you forget?

Right, if we have a bunch of those it'll take longer to backtrack. And that was the eye and flower symbols?

Ah, not exactly. [Nagito ducks his head, embarrassed.] I'm used to relying on my luck to get me where I need to be, that's all. Sometimes I still forget I don't have it.

[He nods in response to the eye and flower symbols.] The flower symbols didn't lead anywhere, ultimately. Ferryman-san said that was probably because that group had moved on. That might mean any other flower symbols we might see in the future will also lead to dead ends... But I'd probably check them anyway, you know?

[Just in case.]

Hm. I had to find a rabid ox like that once. [Need's experience with luck is quite unlike Nagito's most of the time, but the overlap isn't nonexistent.] And I did that sort of thing a lot for a while after the Cataclysm, if I'm honest.

Obviously. You never know, and it's not like there isn't time.

Oh, you understand! [It's a pleased tone that seems surprised by being pleased.] Maybe we can make a map later, in case the others need to find this place.

[She's too cautious to like leaving things up to chance, but, grudgingly:] It's fast. And we'll see, I think the fire's kind of a hard barrier for a lot of them.

I'm sure if I demonstrate a few times, they'll be able to handle it! [This is a good way to alarm almost everyone, actually.]

[Need shakes her head. Interesting that he doesn't know this.]

You'd scare and upset most of them. That's the kind of thing you have to work up to - find a candle or something, and even then, drip wax on your hand first. They've most of them not seen a lot of violence, and any they have was huge and catastrophic to them.

Do you think so? I thought as long as I was really clear I'd be fine... [He's not disagreeing with her, though; rather, he seems kind of embarrassed again.] Well, maybe I can work out a path around the geysers for everyone else.

It hasn't really sunken in for most of them that things have changed. They're still upset by what would be self-destructive behavior. [Frankly, it's stranger that he is fine with it.] It's hard to get past that.

Some people, if they think you're suicidal it just eclipses their entire view of how you handled a situation. It was always a trial explaining my death, even though I'd give them the memory so they could see the reasons themselves. There are things people just don't want to understand.

[Nagito is very familiar with not being understood. At least Need is explaining it to him beforehand. Well, mostly beforehand. There was that incident with Kel.]

Honestly, the only time we could do anything you might say is close to suicidal is during the Crossings. [He sounds a bit frustrated, but in a resigned way. There's nothing he can do to change anyone's opinion on this, he's sure.] This is why people like Dankovsky-san are so difficult to deal with. It spreads this sort of misinformation.

That we know of. [She has the sense that going off alone too far might count. Maybe the people who've vanished have done so, however unwittingly, by being alone. Of course, Need's been off alone a lot too.] There's an underlying logic to that kind of thing. Your ideals are a part of you, they make sense from your worldview and you cling to them all the harder when they're challenged. You'll rewrite what you see and remember to support them. It hurts to give them up.

[Nagito is unlikely to see that this could be about him and being a useless person or about talent, she knows.]

[Finally, something at the end of the path. A tent and a long-dead fire. Nagito draws up short, eyes falling on the wraiths--though it takes him a few moments to be certain that's what they are. It's less stretched out, twisty limbs and more vaseline over a camera lens. It looks as if the wraiths haven't noticed them yet, and for once Nagito shows some awareness of his situation, because when he addresses Need, it's in a whisper.]

Should we watch them from here first?

[He can only assume once the wraiths notice them that the wraiths will follow them around instead, after all. It might be worth seeing what they're doing without outside interference.]

[A little behind again, Need stops when he does and peers ahead. She can't quite see, not more than a patch of tent anyway. When Nagito asks a question with, to her, an obvious answer she gives a faint affirmative grunt and crouches lower. They'll be Crossing some time in the forseeable future, she thinks, because she can feel her knee complain distantly about this treatment.

At least having wrapped his head up the kid's not quite as obvious. In this kind of setting, there's nothing like white for standing out.

It's still. The fire is long out, not a wisp of smoke left. It's also not really feasible to scent the air to tell if anything lingers. There is a faint smell of hot metal, seared flesh etc, but it's Need's, clinging to her anywhere she goes. Nagito might have to make the next move.]

Those Who Went Ahead

the way to the village

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

the village

no subject