22 Southern Wastes / Along a Path of Stars

Previously, on Usagi Days: The luck module, now named 'Lucy', comes along with the Usagis as they leave the mountains, and head south.

- Usagi Roll Call -
Ruby Hanasaki: Driver. Impulsive.
Anemone Grayscale: Co-driver. Serious.
Violet Tachibana: Cook. Scatterbrained.
Ivy Evergreen: Tsukkomi. Bookworm.
Lucy: Artificial human. With a mysterious power.

- 22.1 - A Long Stretch of Highway, Pt 1 -

In the backseat, Ivy was reading off a crusty, torn-up travel brochure she had found during their last stop at an old abandoned motel.

Ivy: "Known colloquially as 'Hoshimichi Highway'—as in, Path of Stars, or Starry Way—National Highway 9 is one of …"

Lucy gripped her head in pain.

"Sorry, sorry! I keep forgetting … No numbers, no numbers …"

Lucy buried her head in Violet's shoulders, next to her. Violet shot Ivy a dirty look.

Ivy, returning to the brochure, guiltily: "… the Highway is one of, if not, the most important routes in the entire country. Stretching from the snowy Eastern Highlands all the way down to the sun-drenched Southern Territories …"

Ivy continued reading. Anemone, up in front, stared out the window, watching the scenery fly by. Ruby drove.

The road stretched on, and the Usagi sailed onward.

- 22.2 - A Long Stretch of Highway, Pt 2 -

They delivered the packages and letters they had taken jobs for. They visited various homesteads. Places that used to be farms. A few abandoned small towns with a main street.

A few times they had brief encounters with bandits—seeing gangs of them in the distance, they had to take detours or go around them. Any bandits who gave chase were never able to catch up.

On the Hoshimichi Highway they passed more motels, gas stations, roadside diners. Some abandoned, some taken over by small groups of people.

Wherever the Usagi went, it attracted gawk-eyed stares and endless questions.

The group tried their best to keep a low-profile—which wasn't always easy when traveling in a bright pink vehicle, delivering packages. But Ruby wasn't too worried. They could outrun anything in the Wastes.

Faded, weathered street signs indicating rest stops or tourist attractions flew by.

They stopped at the occasional lookout spot, all offering various views of the expanse that was the Southern Wastes.

Ivy: "It's all just flat land, really …"

Ruby, looking at the direction they'd come from: "Look, Lucy. The Eastern Highlands. That's where we came from."

Lucy looked out to the moutains in the far distance, a blank expression on her face.

- 22.3 - The Usagis Stop at an Automat -

Ivy, slapping Ruby's shoulder: "Oh, oh! Wait, Ruby! Stop here! Stop the car here!"

"Ow! Okay, okay! Quit hitting me!"

Ruby pulled the Usagi over and stopped in front of an old one-story building.

Violet: "What's so special about this place?"

Ivy: "I've read about these in old magazines! This is an 'automat'."

Anemone: "Auto-what?"

Ivy, opening the car door: "Automat! It's like, a restaurant, kind of, but there's no staff. They were open 24 hours. All the food's in vending machines, and you buy it yourself."

Ruby: "… Why are you excited by that?"

Ivy, pouting: "It's comfy! Imagine driving here at 3AM, it's completely empty, and you just sit here with a coffee or something. Read a book. That's the comfiest thing I can imagine."

Violet: "I wanted to call you a 'dweeb' for that just now—but that actually does sound pretty good."

Ivy, sighing: "And if technology continued properly, maybe we could have even gotten a restaurant with … with robot waiters!"

Ruby: "But that wouldn't be self-serve anymore. Isn't this place special to you because it's self-serve?"

Ivy, dreamily: "… Robot waiters … Imagine that …"

In the dim interior of the automat, lit by the scant midday sunlight filtering in through the dusty storefront windows, the girls peered at the faded pictures printed on the broken vending machines. Each one showing what foods they used to sell.

Violet: "Sandwiches … cheesecake … fried chicken, tacos … Sushi!?"

Ruby: "Hey, look. This one sells cigarettes!" Wagging a finger: "Smoking is bad, Lucy. Don't do it!"

Lucy nodded obediently, a serious look on her face.

Ivy: "Whoa! There's even a vending machine for ramen! A-and not the instant kind! The real thing!"

Violet: "What? How does that even work?" She giggled. "Maybe there was a little gnome cooking ramen inside the machine."

Lucy: "Ra … men?"

Violet: "Oh, you'd love ramen. I consider myself a pretty good chef, and I can make a decent bowl of noodles, with soup. But ramen is so much more than that! It's the broth, it's the 'tare', it's the toppings, and the way they all come together. A good ramen lives or dies by its broth."

Ivy: "I wonder what that ramen chef's doing now. Oh, we have to go back there one day. We will! Lucy, trust me, you're gonna love it … My mouth's watering just thinking about it."

Lucy looked at the picture of a bowl of ramen on the vending machine, and tried to imagine what it tasted like.

Anemone: "Look, video games." She was looking at the back wall, where arcade cabinets stood side-by-side in a row.

Ruby sighed. "Man. If there was one thing I'd like to experience, even just once, it would be video games."

Ivy: "You'd probably like the racing simulators. Or the ones where you pilot giant robots.

"… And Violet, you would probably like the ones where you play a group of friends going on an adventure. You fought monsters using menus, and you could only attack when it was your turn.

"As for Anemone … You'd probably like the ones where it was from a first person perspective, and you go around shooting guns. Usually in a war or something. Oh, but there were also ones that took place in space …"

Lucy looked up at Ivy, expectantly, like she was waiting to be assessed as well.

Ivy: "… oh, Lucy. I think you might like … the ones where you can raise pets. Like cats! And bunnies!"

Lucy's eyes sparkled.

Violet: "How do you know so much about video games?"

Ivy, sheepishly: "… They're featured a lot in manga."

- 22.4 - Camping Under the Stars -

At night they camped under the stars.

Ivy: "But back during the times before the Orcs, they say you couldn't see a single star if you looked up."

Violet: "What? How does that work?"

"Light pollution. All the artifical lights at night. Street lights, city lights."

"That's crazy. Look how bright they are. To think we could snuff out this entire field of stars."

"It's true! I read it in a book. Books don't lie."

"… Yes, they do. That's what 'fiction' is."

Anemone: "They could still see the stars with light pollution. It just washed most of them out. The brightest stars still shone. To get a full view, you just had to drive out to a place like this, in the middle of nowhere. Away from the cities and suburbs."

Lucy: "Sky … Pretty. Star." She pointed to a spot in the night sky. "Rab-bit."

Ruby: "Rabbit?"

Ivy: "Oh. Oh! I know! It's, um …"—trying to think of the right name—"Lapin … No … Lepus! Yeah! Lepus!"

Violet: "I kinda see it. The bunny ears. That's the tail, I guess."

Ruby: "And that one there is Orion. I can always spot that one, because of the three stars. The belt."

Anemone: "Yeah. Orion is supposed to be chasing the rabbit."

Ruby: "He's been chasing that thing for a long time."

There was a long period of silence, as the girls stared at the stars above.

- 22.5 - The Usagis Are Being Watched -

One morning, as they were loading up, Anemone spotted, on the horizon, a gang of mounted riders on horseback.

Anemone: "Look. We're being watched."

Ruby: "Bandits, you think?"

"On horses? That many of them? Unlikely. Bandits don't have the patience to raise horses, let alone train them."

"Well. They're not coming any closer. Even if they wanted to catch us, they couldn't. We'll just keep our distance."

When they drove off, Anemone looked back to make sure the riders weren't following.

They weren't. But she could still see them on the horizon.

Watching.