Work Text:
The heroes have been gone a few months, now. For the first few weeks, after spending so long surrounded by them— you won’t deny that it was difficult. You’ve found that throwing yourself into building Can Town is the most effective way to mitigate their loss. After all, you know where they will be, eventually. Perhaps they’ll never be in your life again, not the way they were for those three years, but you know you will be in theirs.
And so you find yourself walking towards the center of town with the Prime Mailperson, preparing for a day of jumping between several construction projects. Can Town has been built from the outskirts inwards— an unusual form for development to take, but a necessary one nonetheless. Residential zones were of the highest importance when you began work, with entertainment and market districts following soon after. The central hub of governmental policies and communal space needed everyone’s input, anyways, and that could only happen once life in Can Town stabilized to some degree. Your blueprints have been a good starting point, but you did exist primarily on the battlefield— those who once lived on Prospit or Derse continue to have invaluable insight into the flaws with your designs, and you refuse to let your peoples’ home be anything less than perfect.
Your name is the Wishful Voice. It is too early in the morning for most others to be out yet— you and the Prime Mailperson are regularly the first to be on-site on any given day. After all, you have been waiting to work on this for— for years, at this point, you plotting out what little you could while she fought to defend it with every breath she had.
A gentle breeze flows along with your movement. You smile as it brushes past your carapace. Each gust of wind is a reminder of a life long-forgotten, of a child whose smile you will never again see. It is a bittersweet form of recognition, one of those aches you feel deep in your carapace that will never truly heal. And yet, it is an ache you cling to with all that you hold. Everything that happened back then was real. You can never let yourself forget that.
You wave the Prime Mailperson off, as you reach the construction zones. She has her own offices to work on— after all, the postal service cannot continue operating from within your can forever. It works for now, if only because the can the two of you share has become a major hub of community until this town center is built, but there is only so much room within it. And there are only so many mail officers that can operate from a residential property, anyways.
While she begins her work on the foundations of the postal office, you continue forward to where the community center will sit. Your own offices will wait, of course— you would not be using them yet, and there are more pressing projects to address first —but a central gathering zone will be important, rather soon. You are certain it will be good for the upcoming harvest, and for the elections the community have agreed to hold in the coming weeks. Today, you will be working to coat the exterior with a variety of protective layers, so that the center can hold its own for centuries to come.
It is just as you’re laying down the first strokes of protective coating that a gentle popping noise draws your attention. You look over your shoulder in concern— months of working on construction for Can Town has taught you that any unexpected noise could mean danger, could be a genuine cause for concern —only to be met with... confusion.
Someone is standing there. Someone you don’t know is standing there.
Now that, in and of itself, would not be unusual. You know full well that you don’t know every carapacian in Can Town by name, despite your best efforts. Many of them, yes, but never quite all of them. You don’t even know everyone who stops by the construction sites, if only because almost everyone does.
No, what makes this person so confusing is simple: they are an adult human.
The only adults in Can Town are carapacians. You know this to be true, have known this to be true for the entirety of the town’s existence. Trolls and humans both need time and resources to age into adulthood, and so both populations currently exist exclusively in infancy. You’ve visited with them, you’ve offered words of encouragement and advice to their guardians, you’ve done everything you could to ensure they make it to adulthood. But that will not happen for years now, even for the oldest of the group.
Who, then, is this adult— you think they’re an adult, at least, because they’re certainly taller than the humans you spent those three years journeying with —human doing here?
She— you think they’re a she. You remember overhearing long conversations with the heroes on the meteor about gendered expression and, though you thought most of it utter nonsense and frustratingly arbitrary, you’re fairly certain that the way she wears her hair and the flowier cut of her clothes are feminine in nature —seems to be floating in mid-air, her shoes just barely missing the ground as she looks around at her surroundings. The construction seems to catch her eye first, as she smiles and giggles at the empty middle of your clearing.
A fountain will stand there eventually, the back of your head offers up. A statue of the heroes, offering water and life and a place to rest for all. A reminder of those who fought for your existence, and of those who helped so much with the earliest stages.
When she turns to look at you, you can’t help but feel a pang of hurt. Something about her is familiar. Recognizable in the same way the childrens’ faces are. (You wonder when the children will start floating. Perhaps you should recommend the caretakers prepare sooner rather than later.)
She offers a wave, bright and lively in her movements, and calls out to you.
????: hey, you! how long has this place been around?
You put your paint roller down with as much caution as you can, stepping to your feet and wiping your hands on your overalls before giving the best answer you can, though you cannot help but allow confusion to seep into your voice. Everything about her is out of time, out of place— she should not be here, you know, and yet. And yet she has always been here, now that you think on it.
She floats closer to you, a bounce in her movements that you know you recognize, but it’s been so long that— oh!
You freeze, staring at her glasses frames, at the shade of blue on her suit, at the contrasting yellow shoes that you knew you’d seen before somewhere. It’s him. (Her? You remember the hero John being a ‘him’, you think, but perhaps you were mistaken. They did all dress fairly similarly, back then. You decide to continue with ‘them’ for now— another of the arbitrary rules discussed on the meteor suggested that if you were not sure, a neutral term was ideal)
The Heir of Breath, your charge. You remember now: they were able to move between places, when you last saw them, in a manner that felt wrong. In the days the heroes stayed here you let it become right, let it become a reminder of the child you cared for. You let out a delighted cry, rushing forward to greet them and offer what little you have on you. A snack, perhaps? You think you still have some dried pumpkin seeds on you, perhaps they will like those?
JOHN: you are the guy in charge, right? the mayor or whatever?
You hesitate before offering a single, cautious nod. It is... unclear, technically. There have not been proper elections yet, but you are the one organizing many of the projects around town and you haven’t heard of anyone seriously running against you. At the very least, you are the acting mayor, and so it is fair to answer in the affirmative. You do make sure to clarify that your greeting was on a personal level, rather than a political one— you knew them before Can Town even existed, after all, and are glad to see them alive and well.
They’ve grown up. They’ve grown up, and you get to see them alive and well as an adult, and they look happy. They’re smiling ear to ear, somehow wider than any grin you’d ever seen them boasting before, and decidedly wider than any grin they’d offered without their friends to support them. And they look healthy, too, for the most part.
JOHN: hold on, how do you know me again? sorry, it has been a while for me and we met a whole lot of you before we left. i thought you were dave’s friend?
You should have known they wouldn’t recognize you. You’re wearing different clothes now, at least, and- and the majority of your interactions with them would have been from a distance, anyways.
It’s hard to encapsulate it all into a simple explanation. You tell them that you were their exile, that you watched over them as they entered the Land of Wind and Shade and you spoke with them several times throughout their journey. That you tried to stop their death, and that you failed in doing so, and that that failure haunted you for years on end until you saw them alive and well in the new world.
Talking about the time physically with them is harder. An afterthought, as you tell them that once they called you a Wizardly Vassal.
JOHN: oh! wait, yeah, i remember you. i sent you with the rabbit jade gave me. how is she doing anyways?
You don’t know. You barely remember the rabbit, frankly— they’re right, that it’s been a long time. And the rabbit was never important to you, not like it seemed to be for them in the moments you watched.
JOHN: oh whatever. actually, if you are that voice i heard back then, this works out perfect! i want to talk to you about the whole boy thing?
The boy thing. That’s right, the way you spoke to them was rather rude on occassion. In your defense, you didn’t know the rules of human interaction at first. Even once you did, you didn’t really have a name to their face until the heroes on the meteor gave you one— they were the Heir, and at first they were hard to recognize as the Heir. It seems odd that they would come back all this way just to talk to you about that, but... well. You were rather rude. Of course it would come back up, eventually.
JOHN: what? no. i mean yeah you were rude but that is not what i wanted to talk about.
JOHN: turns out i am not that. a boy that is. i am a girl, actually.
And... oh! That would explain the discrepancies between what you remember of her— you are fairly certain feminine humans are bound to ‘she’ and ‘her’, most of the time, even though it still seems arbitrary to you. It is not as though it matters in the long run what people call you, but... well. It matters to her, you think, or she would not be here. So feminine pronouns it is. —and the person who stands in front of you today. You congratulate her on the discovery, on figuring this out about herself. It can not have been easy to navigate those paths and figure out what is true for her!
You’re glad it makes her happy.
JOHN: thanks man!
JOHN: so, right, the reason i am here. dave says i should not change the time line too much especially now that things are stable, but he does not have to live with having to tell everyone that no, actually, the god you have been following and all the writing about them is wrong, so he does not get a say here! and the stupid fucking fountain with my stupid fucking dead name has been taking months to get updated!
JOHN: it is easier to just tell you now, so you can fix it before it is an issue!
JUNE: my name is june! juuuuuuuune! j-u-n-e.
You lift one hand to your forehead, a mock salute as you rush to assure her that you will make this known throughout Can Town. It is an honor to be the one entrusted with this knowledge, and you will not let her vulnerability be in vain. She is lucky she came back before the children grew into adulthood. After all, nearly everyone in your community has changed their name at least once by now, given the shift in your realities as you settled into this new world. With a shift as impactful as changing her human gender, you think the others would have more questions if she didn’t change her name.
But more importantly than that, you explain as you reach out to shake her hand, you will not let her be misremembered. On a personal level, you refuse to allow anyone to tarnish the memory of the children you watched over. She may not have been there for the trip on the meteor, may not have come to know you as the others did, but she was instrumental in your existence.
You love her, as you love all of them. Why would you repay that love— and the debt that you owe her —with disrespect?
JUNE: daww. that is really sweet of you!
JUNE: but, ummm, what debt? i do not think you owe me anything?
How do you explain what she did? How do you explain the distraction she offered, the way she brought you a sense of stability until you were able to function again? How do you explain the grounding she offered you, and how important that was all those years ago?
How do you explain that she helped you start living again?
You can’t.
Instead, you just offer a quiet explanation of her influence on the game still meaning a lot to you, of how you know she loved and continues to love those you grew to care for on the meteor, of how you know she helped create this planet alongside the others. It is not the full truth, but... it is enough. It will have to be enough.
JUNE: i mean, i guess! it was what every one else did, though, so i will tell them thanks from you too.
You laugh. It’s weird, hearing it from the other side. For so long you’ve been insisting that the rebellion was nothing special, that your role as the leader of this community is nothing special, that you have just been doing what anyone else would. Someone had to. Maybe, you think, that’s what makes her so special. Maybe it’s what convinced people to listen to you, too.
JUNE: oh yeah
JUNE: one more thing before i go. can i take a picture of us together? karkat said if i went through with ret conning my gender i should prove to them that i did.
And you can never deny her something that brings her joy. The two of you take a picture, blurry and with poor lighting, her holding up two fingers behind your head as you hold your hands in front of your face in a pose she insisted you hold. It is not a good picture, is not formal or serious in any way.
It is everything you ever could have hoped for.
She is happy. And from what you’ve heard, the others are as well. They’re thriving, really, finally able to live their lives away from the horrors of the game they played.
June leaves just as other carapacians are starting to filter in. She claims that letting anyone else see her would cause too much disturbance, and she doesn’t want to change too much of the world. Retconning is dangerous, after all!
And as she pops out of existence, as you watch the flash and erasure of the grown woman you once helped guide, you turn your attention to the fountain’s plans.
You can’t have them calling on the wrong god, after all.