WV: INTRODUCE YOURSELF TO INHABITANTS IN A ROUNDABOUT FASHION

[can-has-ur-cans.livejournal.com]

[You are now the WAYWARD VAGABOND, and while addressing matters such as these in the needlessly narrative internalized second person as usual, you find yourself BOGGLING VACANTLY AT RECENT SHENANIGANS.

To wit: you've just gone from being locked in a pod in a total wasteland while sleeping in a fort of your own construction and subsequently being attacked by a DOG-HEADED NOT-KING you despise, to being outside a HOUSING COMPLEX with only your trusty MEASURING SPEAR, your faithful FIREFLY "SERENITY", and a PROFUSELY BLEEDING STOMACH WOUND.

...A housing complex you notice contains more than a customary share of AMPLE GREENERY; rather, what looks like a veritable CORNUCOPIA of mouthwatering SUCCULENT FOLIAGE such as you once dreamed as certain paradise in your earlier life CULTIVATING THE RICH CHECKERED FIELDS OF SKAIA before the WARS and before the KINGS.

GOD, do you still hate KINGS.

This hatred reassures you, actually since it is undeniable proof that you are still very much YOURSELF. You are further reassured of this by your ever-present RAVENOUS HUNGER.

After tying off your wound (It's not like having a gaping stomach wound kills a game-construct which is mostly carapace. You and your beloved cans share several features there.) and spending several minutes busily attempting to EUPHORICALLY GRAZE on the complex's ENTICINGLY BOXY HEDGES, you find your BEADY MILK-WHITE EYES drawn to a ragged band of CANS by the curb, encased within an open plastic HOLDING CONTAINER of some sort.

You find yourself DEEPLY MOVED. These cans you are certain deserve a new chance at finding HAPPINESS much as you just have within the grounds of this new HEAVENLY GREEN UTOPIA.

Adjusting your MAYORAL SASH made of very OFFICIAL CABLING, you proceed to DRAG THE RECYCLING BIN with you into the SHELTER of the MEDTECH ROOMIES COMPLEX.

There seems to be a quite wonderful STORAGE AREA on the FIRST FLOOR, the jammed PACKED-IN design of which appeals deeply to your SMALL FORM on some level. You decide that with the proper LAND CLEARANCE, this is a PRIME SPOT TO BUILD YOUR NEW CITY. You embark on this course, shuffling in and out of the room periodically with armfuls of WEARY EXPATRIATE CANS hoping for a better life and the firm, polished, supple HAND OF SOCIAL REFORM to reach out to them.

You also manage to uproot several small SHRUBS from around the complex, which you quickly PLANT with some residual FARMING SKILL in the emptied CAN HOLDING CONTAINER. These will serve you well not only as snacks, but as PARKS for your increasingly more ambitious and inspiring CITY-PLANNING EFFORTS. You quickly maneuver a few promising-looking cans into their leafy embraces. You also sneak several quick nibbles from their VERDANT LEAVES, but find after a while that the sensation you have up to now attempted to soothe with greenery isn't so much one of CONSTANT HUNGER as it is one of PAIN.

You manage to drag your MUCH HEAVIER new FOOD AND PARK SOURCE midway back into the shelter of the COMPLEX before you flop down in a crumpled heap. You are simply TOO WEAK to continue. You think to yourself in hindsight that you may have perhaps UNDERESTIMATED your wound's severity rather BADLY.

It's during these SAD AND MORBID CONTEMPLATIONS that you notice unlike the EARTH you left behind, to your surprise, this complex seems to house an abundance of HUMANS, as well as a few scattered, rather fetchingly GRAY-SKINNED BIPEDAL BEINGS distinguishable from the humans by their bright HORNS, and their YELLOW EYES. You hadn't actually taken note of this until now, having been distracted by your HAPPY DREAMS OF KINDLY DEMOCRATIC WELFARE AND GOODWILL. The humans, too, likely hadn't noticed you on account of your being rather small, which you always have been, even among your people. The more accurate description may be "CHILD SIZED", you begin to realize as you find yourself looking up at these adult humans. Your MEASURING SPEAR is certainly no match.

Clutching your wound, and pulling yourself upright by the edge of your WOULD-BE-GARDEN, you feebly begin to blink out messages of your HOPE FOR ASSISTANCE as they begin to gather about your BLEEDING FORM... ]