There were nights when the winds of the Etherium, so inviting in their promise of flight and freedom made one's spirit soar.
The solar surfer takes weeks to build. With the arrogance of a child Vash believes that it would have taken no time at all if only heād had all the components sooner, but he doesnāt live in a house and he doesnāt have anyone to purchase shiny things that come delivered in shiny boxes for him, so it takes weeks because he lives at the junkyard and it takes a long while to go through everything thatās there, and everything that gets dropped there every day. The haulers are huge and hulking black shapes in the orange Belos sky, fat and slow and embarrassing, in Vashās opinion.
āIf youāre stuck collecting junk,ā Vash declares loudly, āWhy wouldnāt you do it in a cool ship? Something fast, with racing stripes.ā He looks expectantly at his friend for confirmation and agreement and is met with silence. This is because Vashās friend is a rusted old trash compactor droid, a blocky figure with melted internal wiring and no juice to power it. It doesnāt matter, because Vash has great plans to fix him too, one day, and until then has used some graffiti paint to draw a lopsided smiling face on him. Thatās all he needs to see to deduce that Tol-E (his designation detailed on his undercarriage) agrees with him.
Anyway, one of the junk haulers has just arrived and opens up the big thick maw underneath it to send trash dropping down onto a pile not far from Vash, and heās positive that heāll find the last thing he needs there.
āSee ya later, Tol-E!ā He pips and waves and runs off, all scraped knees and dirty clothes which only get dirtier still as he climbs the nearest pile and waits for the drop to finish. Tol-E isnāt Vashās only friend. He has others ā droids make up some of them, in various states of disarray, but there are human friends, too. A lot of them have places to live, so Vash doesnāt see them all the time, and heās independent and basically a grown up anyway (Martiv lets him sip whiskey behind the bar counter, and thatās an adult thing to do, even if it makes Vash go pink and cough so hard he thinks a lung might pop out). But when heās finished his surfer, heās going to take them all for a ride, and maybe if heās clever enough theyāll be open to running away with him on an adventure across the galaxy.
But first he has to finish the surfer.
Vash has made himself a t-shirt that has the same Tol-E smiley face shiny graffiti on it, but on the back it says Lucky with a lightning bolt. He thinks itās pretty cool and stylish, and itās one-of-a-kind, so that makes it even better. But lucky isnāt just a word. Vash knows heās lucky. It means he can do anything he wants, whenever he wants, and nothing and nobody is going to touch him. (Vash seems to forget this every time heās caught by Rouzid and his gang, or every time he electrocutes himself trying to hotwire someoneās bike, or every time Jonn Tavik has to pull him out of security lock up, orā the list goes on. Vash has a very selective memory.)
Besides, today is lucky no matter what. Today is lucky because it has to be. Today is when Fullertonās racing ships take off from the Belos outskirts to fly a slingshot race around Nibiruās moons, and Vash canāt get there to watch if he doesnāt have his surfer. (Maybe watch, maybe try to puppy dog-eye his way onboard, maybe just take a cockpit by force and demand they let him race.) Vash has flown ships before ā small things that arenāt supposed to leave atmos, hovers and bikes and delivery trucks, but heās already decided that heās probably the best pilot in the galaxy. This is because Vash is convinced that his father is famous starship racer Zalen Starwind, so obviously itās genetic, and how else can Vash explain to people that he just knows how to do it, that heās never been taught, and isnāt that cool? (He doesnāt like to see their sceptical expressions when he says this, but he does like to see the looks of shock and horror and sometimes fury when he steals their ride and zips off with middle finger in the air.)
Anyway. The surfer.
Vash has streaks of dirt and grease and oil on his face because heās shoved himself all the way into this particular junk pile and says, āYes!ā when he finds what heās looking for. He hauls himself out and holds up the broken catalytic converter so that Tol-E in the distance can see it.
āSee, I told you I was lucky!ā Tol-E doesnāt reply, but Vash can still see his smile from his vantage point. The converter is the missing piece, and itās barely broken. The things people throw away kind of astound Vash. All it needs is some fiddling in the wires and then it would work again, but even in Belos where needs are much and supply is minimal, sometimes people are just lazy or stupid or both. It doesnāt matter, because Vash isnāt either of those things, and he skids down the side of the pile and starts a whirlwind bolt for his home.
His home is a bit of tarp and a cruddy mattress and itās perfect.
It takes the better part of the day for Vash to fix the converter and then get it attached to the base of his surfer. There are some setbacks when it nearly blows up and tries to set him on fire, but Vash just says, āOh, youāre spicy, I like it,ā and fixes it. Then it takes three times to start, but three is Vashās lucky number, so heās expecting it. When it gets going itās loud like a truck and gutters out some black smoke, but thatās all part of its style, and besides ā the power isnāt supposed to come from the surfer itself, but the sun. āØSometimes itās hard to see, because Belos can be so smoggy, but the UV rays are still strong enough to get the patchwork sail heās put together humming and glowing and Vash has the biggest grin on his face when the surfer kicks off and he flies it directly into the nearest junk pile.
Okay, round two: Vash now has a big grin on his face and a bloody nose. They fly out of control and careen into Tol-E, who is solid, and doesnāt move.
Round three: the lucky round. Vash is bloodied in the nose still and has a loose tooth and some of Tol-Eās scrap metal has embedded itself in the surfer's board, but it's fine. Itās perfect, actually, because Vash says to Tol-E, āThis is it,ā and that means this is it.
Vash and the surfer shoot out of the junkyard and they donāt look back. (They will look back, when they have to return to sleep eventually, but for now itās like theyāll be gone forever.) They have to navigate the city first and Vash is nearly taken out in the skylanes but he doesnāt need to slow down or stop ā heās best when heās at his fastest, even when thereās someone shouting at him from the pavement to watch it. Vash just flashes them a bloodied smile and disappears around the corner.
Theyāre just outside the city limits when the surfer starts to choke and whir.
āNo, no, no, donātāā Tol-E isnāt around, so Vash allows himself to look worried. Heās so close. In the distance above the sand dunes he can see the shiny sleek lines of racing ships powering up. He canāt be late. He needs them to take him away. He needs to climb into a cockpit and take it himself, even if his feet donāt reach the floor yet.
āNo, please donāt give up nowāā Begging an inanimate object hasnāt worked before, but Vash is desperate. The surfer sputters and slows and gives out in the red dirt and Vash allows himself a quick little cry. Nobody is around to see it, so it's fine. He wipes his snot and blood on his āLuckyā t-shirt and remembers that heās unstoppable. He plugs a graffiti canister into the converter and nearly blows himself to smithereens, and heās just barely able to jump onto the board of the surfer again before it hurtles off towards the dunes.
In the end, it doesnāt matter that heās too late. Heās still sailing across the red dust of Nibiru as the ships take off, shooting in bright arcs up towards the sky. They burn as they cross atmos, blink, and are gone. Vash watches with the wind in his hair and a smile on his face. Heās never seen anything so beautiful in his life. When he reaches the top of the dunes, almost everybody is gone, except for one last red ship. Vash can tell immediately that something is wrong. The pilot has a panel open on the side of it and is swearing up a storm while some other people in jumpsuits mill around looking lost. Vash hops off his surfer and lets it drop unceremoniously.
āThis piece of junkā Iām gonna kill that son of a bitch Florkāā The pilot is hissing and Vash goes ignored and unnoticed as he strides up behind him. (He understands that happens a lot, because heās skinny and grubby and people probably feel a little sad when they look at him, but Vash pretends that itās because heās extremely stealthy.)
āPlug this bit in here.ā Vash says without waiting to be asked to help. The pilot knocks his head on the panel opening and swears and while heās dazed that gives Vash the chance he needs to jump up, shove his hand into the mess of wires and screws, to find the thing he can feel at the back of his mind. Itās nothing clear, just a suggestion that he knows where something needs fixing, and he yanks a thick gold wire out of the mess and nearly puts the pilot into cardiac arrest.
āKid, what the fuck are you doing!ā Heās a half second away from clapping Vash over the head and now people are noticing, but it only takes a moment for Vash to plug the wire where he feels it goes best, and the funny clanking sound the ship was making suddenly fades away to a soft, even hum.
Vash sinks back on his heels and smiles proudly up at the pilot, who stares at him in shock. And hey ā this time thereās no horror or fury. The shock turns to something a little more awestruck. The pilot shoves something into Vashās hands, and says, āthanksā.
āYou lucky son of a bitch,ā the pilot says with a broad grin. Then he winks at him and turns on his heel and Vash is too blown away by how absolutely fucking cool this is to realise heās missed his chance at getting in the cockpit. Itās too late. He's dragged backwards before the ship takes off and he can be turned to ionised dust by its exhaust. It doesnāt matter. Vash stands at the edge of the dune by his surfer and watches as the red ship takes off and disappears into the yellow sky after the rest, a streak so fast Vash canāt believe his eyes.
When itās gone, he looks down at what the pilot has given him. Itās his racing badge, shiny silver and gold in the shape of a lightning bolt crossing a burning sun. Itās heavy. Vash could probably make a pretty penny on the black market for reselling it, but he never will. He clutches it to his chest. Itāll get pinned to his āLuckyā shirt, and then to the first leather jacket he gets, and then every single jacket since, until it finds its final home on his lucky red. For the first time, Vash doesnāt show it off to anyone. Itās his and his alone, a secret to keep. He doesnāt even show Tol-E, and when someone points it out he shrugs and says he found it in the trash. At night, when stars peek through the Belos smog above the junkyard, Vash turns the badge over and over in his hands and decides that the pilot he met was Zalen Starwind, his father, and the badge is a promise.
Vash smiles up at a faint winking star above him and knows his luck will take him there.
āIf youāre stuck collecting junk,ā Vash declares loudly, āWhy wouldnāt you do it in a cool ship? Something fast, with racing stripes.ā He looks expectantly at his friend for confirmation and agreement and is met with silence. This is because Vashās friend is a rusted old trash compactor droid, a blocky figure with melted internal wiring and no juice to power it. It doesnāt matter, because Vash has great plans to fix him too, one day, and until then has used some graffiti paint to draw a lopsided smiling face on him. Thatās all he needs to see to deduce that Tol-E (his designation detailed on his undercarriage) agrees with him.
Anyway, one of the junk haulers has just arrived and opens up the big thick maw underneath it to send trash dropping down onto a pile not far from Vash, and heās positive that heāll find the last thing he needs there.
āSee ya later, Tol-E!ā He pips and waves and runs off, all scraped knees and dirty clothes which only get dirtier still as he climbs the nearest pile and waits for the drop to finish. Tol-E isnāt Vashās only friend. He has others ā droids make up some of them, in various states of disarray, but there are human friends, too. A lot of them have places to live, so Vash doesnāt see them all the time, and heās independent and basically a grown up anyway (Martiv lets him sip whiskey behind the bar counter, and thatās an adult thing to do, even if it makes Vash go pink and cough so hard he thinks a lung might pop out). But when heās finished his surfer, heās going to take them all for a ride, and maybe if heās clever enough theyāll be open to running away with him on an adventure across the galaxy.
But first he has to finish the surfer.
Vash has made himself a t-shirt that has the same Tol-E smiley face shiny graffiti on it, but on the back it says Lucky with a lightning bolt. He thinks itās pretty cool and stylish, and itās one-of-a-kind, so that makes it even better. But lucky isnāt just a word. Vash knows heās lucky. It means he can do anything he wants, whenever he wants, and nothing and nobody is going to touch him. (Vash seems to forget this every time heās caught by Rouzid and his gang, or every time he electrocutes himself trying to hotwire someoneās bike, or every time Jonn Tavik has to pull him out of security lock up, orā the list goes on. Vash has a very selective memory.)
Besides, today is lucky no matter what. Today is lucky because it has to be. Today is when Fullertonās racing ships take off from the Belos outskirts to fly a slingshot race around Nibiruās moons, and Vash canāt get there to watch if he doesnāt have his surfer. (Maybe watch, maybe try to puppy dog-eye his way onboard, maybe just take a cockpit by force and demand they let him race.) Vash has flown ships before ā small things that arenāt supposed to leave atmos, hovers and bikes and delivery trucks, but heās already decided that heās probably the best pilot in the galaxy. This is because Vash is convinced that his father is famous starship racer Zalen Starwind, so obviously itās genetic, and how else can Vash explain to people that he just knows how to do it, that heās never been taught, and isnāt that cool? (He doesnāt like to see their sceptical expressions when he says this, but he does like to see the looks of shock and horror and sometimes fury when he steals their ride and zips off with middle finger in the air.)
Anyway. The surfer.
Vash has streaks of dirt and grease and oil on his face because heās shoved himself all the way into this particular junk pile and says, āYes!ā when he finds what heās looking for. He hauls himself out and holds up the broken catalytic converter so that Tol-E in the distance can see it.
āSee, I told you I was lucky!ā Tol-E doesnāt reply, but Vash can still see his smile from his vantage point. The converter is the missing piece, and itās barely broken. The things people throw away kind of astound Vash. All it needs is some fiddling in the wires and then it would work again, but even in Belos where needs are much and supply is minimal, sometimes people are just lazy or stupid or both. It doesnāt matter, because Vash isnāt either of those things, and he skids down the side of the pile and starts a whirlwind bolt for his home.
His home is a bit of tarp and a cruddy mattress and itās perfect.
It takes the better part of the day for Vash to fix the converter and then get it attached to the base of his surfer. There are some setbacks when it nearly blows up and tries to set him on fire, but Vash just says, āOh, youāre spicy, I like it,ā and fixes it. Then it takes three times to start, but three is Vashās lucky number, so heās expecting it. When it gets going itās loud like a truck and gutters out some black smoke, but thatās all part of its style, and besides ā the power isnāt supposed to come from the surfer itself, but the sun. āØSometimes itās hard to see, because Belos can be so smoggy, but the UV rays are still strong enough to get the patchwork sail heās put together humming and glowing and Vash has the biggest grin on his face when the surfer kicks off and he flies it directly into the nearest junk pile.
Okay, round two: Vash now has a big grin on his face and a bloody nose. They fly out of control and careen into Tol-E, who is solid, and doesnāt move.
Round three: the lucky round. Vash is bloodied in the nose still and has a loose tooth and some of Tol-Eās scrap metal has embedded itself in the surfer's board, but it's fine. Itās perfect, actually, because Vash says to Tol-E, āThis is it,ā and that means this is it.
Vash and the surfer shoot out of the junkyard and they donāt look back. (They will look back, when they have to return to sleep eventually, but for now itās like theyāll be gone forever.) They have to navigate the city first and Vash is nearly taken out in the skylanes but he doesnāt need to slow down or stop ā heās best when heās at his fastest, even when thereās someone shouting at him from the pavement to watch it. Vash just flashes them a bloodied smile and disappears around the corner.
Theyāre just outside the city limits when the surfer starts to choke and whir.
āNo, no, no, donātāā Tol-E isnāt around, so Vash allows himself to look worried. Heās so close. In the distance above the sand dunes he can see the shiny sleek lines of racing ships powering up. He canāt be late. He needs them to take him away. He needs to climb into a cockpit and take it himself, even if his feet donāt reach the floor yet.
āNo, please donāt give up nowāā Begging an inanimate object hasnāt worked before, but Vash is desperate. The surfer sputters and slows and gives out in the red dirt and Vash allows himself a quick little cry. Nobody is around to see it, so it's fine. He wipes his snot and blood on his āLuckyā t-shirt and remembers that heās unstoppable. He plugs a graffiti canister into the converter and nearly blows himself to smithereens, and heās just barely able to jump onto the board of the surfer again before it hurtles off towards the dunes.
In the end, it doesnāt matter that heās too late. Heās still sailing across the red dust of Nibiru as the ships take off, shooting in bright arcs up towards the sky. They burn as they cross atmos, blink, and are gone. Vash watches with the wind in his hair and a smile on his face. Heās never seen anything so beautiful in his life. When he reaches the top of the dunes, almost everybody is gone, except for one last red ship. Vash can tell immediately that something is wrong. The pilot has a panel open on the side of it and is swearing up a storm while some other people in jumpsuits mill around looking lost. Vash hops off his surfer and lets it drop unceremoniously.
āThis piece of junkā Iām gonna kill that son of a bitch Florkāā The pilot is hissing and Vash goes ignored and unnoticed as he strides up behind him. (He understands that happens a lot, because heās skinny and grubby and people probably feel a little sad when they look at him, but Vash pretends that itās because heās extremely stealthy.)
āPlug this bit in here.ā Vash says without waiting to be asked to help. The pilot knocks his head on the panel opening and swears and while heās dazed that gives Vash the chance he needs to jump up, shove his hand into the mess of wires and screws, to find the thing he can feel at the back of his mind. Itās nothing clear, just a suggestion that he knows where something needs fixing, and he yanks a thick gold wire out of the mess and nearly puts the pilot into cardiac arrest.
āKid, what the fuck are you doing!ā Heās a half second away from clapping Vash over the head and now people are noticing, but it only takes a moment for Vash to plug the wire where he feels it goes best, and the funny clanking sound the ship was making suddenly fades away to a soft, even hum.
Vash sinks back on his heels and smiles proudly up at the pilot, who stares at him in shock. And hey ā this time thereās no horror or fury. The shock turns to something a little more awestruck. The pilot shoves something into Vashās hands, and says, āthanksā.
āYou lucky son of a bitch,ā the pilot says with a broad grin. Then he winks at him and turns on his heel and Vash is too blown away by how absolutely fucking cool this is to realise heās missed his chance at getting in the cockpit. Itās too late. He's dragged backwards before the ship takes off and he can be turned to ionised dust by its exhaust. It doesnāt matter. Vash stands at the edge of the dune by his surfer and watches as the red ship takes off and disappears into the yellow sky after the rest, a streak so fast Vash canāt believe his eyes.
When itās gone, he looks down at what the pilot has given him. Itās his racing badge, shiny silver and gold in the shape of a lightning bolt crossing a burning sun. Itās heavy. Vash could probably make a pretty penny on the black market for reselling it, but he never will. He clutches it to his chest. Itāll get pinned to his āLuckyā shirt, and then to the first leather jacket he gets, and then every single jacket since, until it finds its final home on his lucky red. For the first time, Vash doesnāt show it off to anyone. Itās his and his alone, a secret to keep. He doesnāt even show Tol-E, and when someone points it out he shrugs and says he found it in the trash. At night, when stars peek through the Belos smog above the junkyard, Vash turns the badge over and over in his hands and decides that the pilot he met was Zalen Starwind, his father, and the badge is a promise.
Vash smiles up at a faint winking star above him and knows his luck will take him there.