there is no place in the world we do not belong

[tenthousandmiles]

who: Ginko & open!
what: you get a memory and you get a memory and YOU get a memory
when: during the memory event
where: around the city + in yo brainz
warnings: Mild body horror in the third memory

[Wherever you are, wherever you're going, you're probably generally minding your own business. But sometimes walking through a town means brushing against people, and when that inevitably happens as you pass by Ginko, maybe you'll see a flash of a memory that's not yours....]

Who are you?

The god-eating mushi

A Sea of Writings

[ooc: memories in individual comments! if you'd like something specific, please feel free to PM me or hit me up on plurk @ goodluckmodes

Comments

[sweetlies]

That didn't clear anything up for the teen, though the word seemed vaguely Japanese. Maybe he should have listened to Tanaka's stories more often when he'd been a while. That aside, it certainly sounded like a creature to be worried about.

"It's fine." He was confident enough in that, at least for himself. "I've experienced worse but I can't imagine how that must have been."

Well, he could but imagination could only take someone so far. "Did you find anyone you knew from before?"

Wandering like that, alone and without memory, couldn't have been even remotely safe. And there had been someone at the end there, calling.

[tenthousandmiles]

If that wasn't the response he was expecting, Ginko doesn't show it. Ginko has met plenty of village children with ordinary lives...but he's also seen many that have suffered. Due to famine, or disease, or natural disaster...the influence of mushi, or the lack of it. Some could pose danger to humans, it was true, but an area barren of mushi was typically equally barren of life. Crops wouldn't flourish, and children born to such an area often were frail and sickly.

"I didn't. Or rather, if I have, they didn't recognize me, and I couldn't recognize them, obviously."

His hair and eye color aren't normal, he knows. And while he no longer has the specific knowledge of how they came to be that way, Suguro had suggested long ago that it too was related to his encounter with the Tokoyami. It's as good an explanation as any; he doesn't think about it much, having long since accepted the portion of his life that was lost to him forever.

"Most likely, I was traveling somewhere, but got separated from whoever I was with at the time."

And those people....are either dead or abandoned him intentionally. After all, Suguro had also been able to tell that his condition of attracting mushi had nothing to do with the Tokoyami trapped within him. If he had lived in a village, he would've only brought it the same kind of disasters he did to the village mushi-shi who used him to gain work before shooing him away.

Again, it's not something he spends a lot of time trying to figure it out.

[sweetlies]

And that was entirely alright with him. Ciel wasn't as willing to share but he also hadn't shared one of his own on contact, for which he was thankful. Hearing this, he could only imagine what this guy would think of what he'd done in the past. Then again, it was equally possibly to had shared something more pleasant, even if those memories were more rare.

"You can't possibly have changed so much since it happened." It wouldn't have occurred to Ciel that his hair and eyes were likely not their original color. One of his own eyes were changed but he never showed it and he wasn't about to guess anything equally supernatural to be in play there.

"There were no frequently traveled routes to look into later?"

[tenthousandmiles]

Ginko's world doesn't have anything like demons that can be contracted with, really, so he wouldn't particularly have anything to compare it with; despite the fear in his own memory, Ginko as an adult bears no ill will against the Tokoyami in his eye. It was simply living, just as he was. The result is unfortunate, but there's nothing that can be done for it.

He simply shakes his head at the boy's remark. To some extent, he appreciates what Ciel is trying to do--give him some kind of hope for reconnecting with those people from his past--but there isn't much point dwelling on any of it.

"My hair and eye color aren't natural," he explains, "And my original name was lost in the encounter with the Tokoyami."

Simply put, there was just no information that could be used to connect him to his original identity; in those days, fingerprinting didn't exist, after all, nor were people aware of the unique DNA of every creature.

"There's no way to tell which direction I could've come from in the forest, either."

It's such a large forest, and there were many, many routes within it. Many ways to get lost, too.

[sweetlies]

Really, Ciel couldn't imagine not having memories of who he'd been, knowing where he'd been. Of potentially having things that could be used against him that he couldn't help. Or losing the resources he might have had.

"What exactly are Tokoyami?" The hair and eyes were slightly less of a curiosity, especially since he knows several non-humans. Only one had silver hair, but Ronald's was strange as well, with the two colors.

He wasn't a fan of wandering forests himself, so he'd never learned a lot about dealing with being in the forest, or tracking and trails. The only one Ciel had gone into willingly had been on a job for the queen.

[tenthousandmiles]

"Ah, right."

He's usually better at remembering to explain things as he goes, given the line of work he's in, but things have been strange at the quarantine, lately, and he hadn't realized he'd forgotten.

"Tokoyami is a species of mushi." Of course, that in itself is its own complicated explanation. He thinks it may be best to start from the beginning, here.

"It might be easier to explain with an analogy." He holds up his arm, and points to the fingers and thumb individually.

"Imagine that the thumb of your hand represents plant life, and the four fingers represent animal life." He points to the middle finger, then. "Humans would be here, at the farthest point."

Then, the thumb traces back down his palm, all the way to the wrist.

"Fungi and microorganisms would be here, where the various forms of life begin to meld together. But there is an even more fundamental form of life--"

And then, the thumb traces back even further, up past the arm and the shoulder...all the way to the heart.

"--Mushi. Close to life itself, in its purest form."

[sweetlies]

He listened, thoughtful, trying to understand. Ciel was smart, he always had been, a genius at chess as a child, and an Earl at ten. So he was fairly sure he had the basic idea of it as he let his eye follow the trail Ginko made across his hand and down his arm.

"So... If I'm understanding correctly, they're spirits? Souls?"

That was the closest he could relate them to, and partly because of Undertaker's explanation about souls, life and death, when they'd been on the Campania. Before that, he might have scoffed a bit at the idea.

lmfao mushishi is so complicated im sorry

[tenthousandmiles]

Ginko shakes his head, at that.

"No, mushi don't have souls." Aside from the lack of a physical body, it's the main thing that sets them apart from creatures of flesh and blood, such as themselves.

"They are of an existence separate from our own, part of our reality and yet removed from it at the same time. Few of them are capable of individual thought, and fewer still of anything we might call 'emotion.' "

They possess will, and some can become capable of learning, even speech, such as that one Watahaki he'd encountered...but for the most part, they simply existed.

"They are 'living', like animals, yet inanimate, like objects."

It's a confusing explanation, he realizes. As he'd told that boy, Shinra...it was difficult to explain a sensory experience like the presence of mushi, much as someone born blind would have no frame of reference for the colors red or blue. But Ginko is patient with it; he's had many years of experience answering these questions, and he's patient enough to continue with the conversation until Ciel is either satisfied with the answers he offers or is prepared to move on.

lol it's okay

[sweetlies]

Ciel was no expert but he thought every living thing had a soul. Except plants. So every sentient creature, and it did sound like they were sentient. At least someone of them. Suddenly, the teen was struck with an almost overwhelming sense of gratitude that he'd been born in England. It didn't seem like this would be easy to understand even if he'd been from this mans world.

"So the closer comparison would be the plants and fungus?" The question came out then he sighed, frustration directed at himself more than anything. "I apologize, this is a bit beyond anything I have experience with."

[tenthousandmiles]

"It's alright. Most in my world don't have experience with them, either. Because they're so close to life itself, their existences can be rather ambiguous--many are unable to perceive them at all."

Even those who could see mushi didn't always understand them. Ginko himself has had many, many years to learn all he has.

"At any rate, it depends on the kind of mushi. Some have a greater sense of will than others."