Chapter Text
All the debris maps out. His brother imitates an ostrich, and struck his butt vulnerable, head buried deep in sand. In other words, it’s hopeless. The sun is too cruel for them to stand outside, but the endless sea of sand hardly clues in a proper shelter.
The crude desert bears no edible food nor water, in other words they’re out of luck. He reaches his hand out and clips Goten’s scruff, the little sand particles fell off, and some had clung onto his brother’s hair. The display is a sandy river falling down the "moun-ten", weakly shoving him aside. Goten weakly fought him off.
He doesn’t exchange any words with his sand-cloaked brother. Goten spins and struggles in his grip knowing that it’s all for naught.
He sets Goten on his feet and makes him stand upright, proper posture and all. He lets go of his neck, and in that moment Goten spoke.
"I need to blow my nose," Goten sniffs, his voice funny and muted in a way. Trailing below his nostrils and on his upper lip are little snot leftovers, decorated by the small sand particles that it glitters. Gohan could see how Goten’s uninjured eye would often flicker towards his hideously painted scarf. He takes subtle steps back so that Goten wouldn’t snatch it and ruin it further with his extremely slimy booger.
"What where you hoping to accomplish under the sand?" Gohan finally asks, though Goten had lost interest in him and found the rubble more entertaining. The city buried in pieces deep under the rubble used to be huge, estimated by the size of broken stray parts of royally decorated buildings.
If Gohan were to follow Goten’s line of thoughts the stray pieces could be brought together as a shield against the agonising sun.
"Wouldn’t that make a homey shelter, what say you?" Goten smiles, the expression is lazy and Goten looks a bit high off euphoria. For a faint moment he wondered if the heat was getting to Goten. He recalls an earlier conversation of his brother admitting the heat was boiling the snot clogged inside. Goten wasn’t making a pretty face.
"Calling it 'homey' is a stretch—we’ve only got enough material for a roof," Gohan only includes "We" for bluff. Goten wouldn’t actually be doing anything besides watching his older brother work.
What led them towards an endless desert was a portal of sorts—something that works in the same principle, except it took Goten’s strength as means of transportation.
In conclusion, Goten is no lesser than a regular human, if a tiny bit stronger but he’s not beyond impossibilities.
"I’ll call it whatever I want," Goten dismisses, and the conversation ends.
Goten didn’t seem all too upset about losing his powers. Rather, he found some enjoyment in cowardice. The desert didn’t come without hostiles, with lowly bandits as the common enemy Goten had no hesitation in running away and leaving Gohan to fight alone.
Gohan couldn’t hold a grudge despite that. What could Goten really do in a fight against someone superior in strength when he lacks in everything? On the contrary, running away would burden Gohan less.
It’s only a bit annoying having to find Goten when he runs too far away. Gohan can’t sense his brother if there’s no spark inside him, and Goten hides too well. Sometimes he pretends he doesn’t hear his own name when Gohan yells it at the top of his lungs.
The roof is as proper as Gohan could make it, there’s only four poles to support it’s humongous weight—that is all to it. Goten slides under the cover in a blink, staring at one of the poles. It’s beautifully decorated despite its crumbled history, that which eludes them both.
"Those look like beautiful ladies," Goten traces his finger over the carvings on the pole, "I’m not a fan of the implication though."
Gohan approaches, stopping just behind Goten. Observing the pole verifies Goten’s point. They’re only faintly abstracting but the image of a circle of women is undoubtedly vivid. The "beautiful ladies" are bowing down awkwardly towards a statue of some kind—it cant be described besides being partly humanoid.
"Interesting—do you think they were religious?" It appears so, the implication is strong enough. The lack of men tells a story.
Goten shrugs, not sparing Gohan’s question much thought, "Whatever they believed in didn’t end well."
True, this wasn’t the first piece of royally divine architecture they came across. The elusive culture’s identity is scattered around the endless desert, there is undoubtedly more to come. It must’ve been one giant nation, and it met a great demise—maybe by its own hands, who knows?
Goten groans. Gohan hadn’t acknowledged that he moved on from his previous standing point and is now sitting on the ground sketching with a piece of rock till he heard him. Living in an era of peace in his teenage years gave Goten the luxury of being able to draw neatly enough to draw a sense of envy from Gohan.
Goten made the floor entail scattered pictures of forgettable faces and a few landscapes detailed enough to call out imitation. Gohan didn’t miss the crudely drawn tic-tac-toe scratch—Goten looked back at him expectantly.
"I stood as a two hundred year old tree trunk—my roots firm and deep, my roots firm and deep!"
They’re back on the road refreshed and ready to go. Their destination pathless and their legs aimless in where they choose to go. Usually, Gohan would only have thoughts for company and a fitful of Goten-dialogue (Gohan has no polite way around it, Goten is terrible at small talks.)
However, Goten is feeling new today. Choosing to sing as they trudged through the sand. Unfortunately for Gohan’s ears, his brother is tone-deaf. It’s an undeniable fact. The lack of a beautiful voice wouldn’t sadden Goten into stopping.
"The sun bled through the cracks in the leaves—dying my skin, dying my skin!"
Gohan snorts. Goten’s tone-deafness being mixed with the snot clogging his nose had transformed his vocal cords spectacularly, making him sound like a chipmunk as he sings dramatically.
"Poetry?" He asks, halting Goten’s embarrassing performance. Goten looks at him a bit ridiculously, surely miffed at Gohan’s purposely stupid question.
"Lyrics obviously. Song’s great but you’d never find an audio player lying around here so I had to improvise."
"I don’t believe that’s necessary."
Goten tsks, "You’re boring, brother-man."
The reason why they’re on foot rather than taking flight is not because of Goten’s inability to do so but because the skies are just as hostile as the ground if not more dangerous. Attacks would emit from above, with Gohan carrying Goten on a piggyback his brother would be rendered dead as cannon fodder.
Bandits have found ways to soar the skies in the most primitive way and it is by making ships float on wind itself. So actually they’re pirates..? Sky Pirates to be exact. Goten wouldn’t survive Sky Pirates if it came down to it. Gohan hadn’t a chance to learn how exactly Sky Pirates work.
"Look over yonder—do my eyes deceive?" Voices Goten all the sudden. Following his brother’s cyclops gaze a town is near walking distance. They went through different towns in their journey and all they could find were ideas of nostalgia and markings of a place once alive and well.
What makes this town different is the liveliness of it. People are in there, and they don’t seem all bad. Humble towns aren’t capable of malice—so he hopes.
Goten nudges him, "What’s your call, Gohan?"
"Let’s give it a try."