[ It's clear Vash knows, and it'd probably be kinder to let him dance around it. But he's trying to be honest, cards on the table. So he says it, painfully aware that the little squeeze of apology he gives Vash is crashingly inadequate. ]
They worship him. Keep an army to serve him. They need people who are malleable, people they can indoctrinate and shape to their purposes. So they take children.
[ He knows this already. Somewhere, deep down, he has to know Rollo's town wasn't an outlier. Doesn't mean it doesn't ache to make him face it. ]
They use drugs. They make us stronger, but they also make us susceptible to all the other stuff. It's like... induced psychosis. Breaking the mind down to clay they can shape. Different people have different reactions. Some just die. Some end up completely different, physically, mentally, or both. It triggers physical growth, too. Adult bodies are better in a fight.
[ It's really not the time for a joke, but there's at least one thing he can reassure Vash about, so he smiles crookedly. ]
Judging by how old I was when they took me from Hopeland and how long I was in the field before I met you, I'm at least twenty. Some room inbetween for the treatments. So don't go getting knotted up about that.
no subject
[ It's clear Vash knows, and it'd probably be kinder to let him dance around it. But he's trying to be honest, cards on the table. So he says it, painfully aware that the little squeeze of apology he gives Vash is crashingly inadequate. ]
They worship him. Keep an army to serve him. They need people who are malleable, people they can indoctrinate and shape to their purposes. So they take children.
[ He knows this already. Somewhere, deep down, he has to know Rollo's town wasn't an outlier. Doesn't mean it doesn't ache to make him face it. ]
They use drugs. They make us stronger, but they also make us susceptible to all the other stuff. It's like... induced psychosis. Breaking the mind down to clay they can shape. Different people have different reactions. Some just die. Some end up completely different, physically, mentally, or both. It triggers physical growth, too. Adult bodies are better in a fight.
[ It's really not the time for a joke, but there's at least one thing he can reassure Vash about, so he smiles crookedly. ]
Judging by how old I was when they took me from Hopeland and how long I was in the field before I met you, I'm at least twenty. Some room inbetween for the treatments. So don't go getting knotted up about that.