His new place is quieter than he is used to.
Verge doesn't mind. Not at all. He's always hated the buzz and the bombast of city life. The people around him chatter so much, the noise an endless echo in his mind, sending it spiraling and spiraling until he can't think of anything else. The quiet is a sanctuary. It's so quiet here.
And when he feels he needs the noise, when he feels he wants more, needs more, must have more, he can always travel beyond the Ranch.
Even from here, he can faintly make out the tiny warbling cries of slimes. Pink slimes, he guesses, from the sheer amount of them. He's heard about them before, from the scant few articles he'd managed to sneak about the Far, Far Range when his parents were out, gone to sun-knows-where. If he left this room, if he went out into the vast and grand wilderness right now, he could probably see them. But for now...
For now, he'll explore the little house in the Ranch.
It's not bright in here at all. Not like the main part. His house isn't on the main part of the Ranch at all. Instead- and he's having a bit of a hard time believing this- the last rancher who'd been here built one all for him. It's not professionally done, as the improvised everything hints strongly at, but it's sturdy and cozy and clearly took a lot of effort to do so well. He still doesn't know where all the nails came from, since they don't exactly grow on trees, and he has some serious worries about where all the metal for the roof was procured, but in all honesty, it's not that bad. It feels like the opposite of a liminal space, really. And after everything that happened at home, he learned a vehement hatred of liminal spaces.
More interestingly, it's in an extension of the Ranch that had been called the Grotto when he checked the online map. The online map hadn't mentioned the little wood-carved sign renaming it the Solar Sanctuary, but he's pretty sure that was the last rancher's personal opinion and so he'll continue calling it the Grotto. It's dark inside the Grotto, enough that the little paper lanterns hanging everywhere are more useful than decorative, and the cave roof is high enough that he can almost imagine flying and not touching it at all. It doesn't feel like a lonely place, despite its placement on a lonely continent on this alien planet- in all, it feels welcoming. There are little carvings on the cave walls and glow-in-the-dark stars carefully placed in high areas and a single, pre-made corral sits right in the middle.
He likes it. Verge thinks of the unevenly shaped tables and the beanbag chairs and how everything looks so pretty in the dim light and he likes it.
The tiny alarm he'd set on his laptop breaks him from his reverie, playing a cheerful flute and guitar tune that he doesn't at all remember the name of. Seven-thirty. He should be starting the day already.
Verge gets up, checking to see if his vac pack- succ gun, he thinks childishly- has its fruit and if his clothes are passably clean. There's a bunch of fruit in the main ranch's two farms, which he could probably feed the pink slimes if he finds enough of them, but for slimes with a meat diet like the tabby slimes he's read about in passing he's not sure what he can get them. Maybe there's some kind of wild prey animal here? He really does wish he'd read a little more about these things. But he hadn't; instead he'd hopped onto the first spaceship for volunteers he could and never looked back.
There are so few volunteers. He wonders why.
Maybe it's all the tests you had to pass to be considered a possible rancher. It's a legal mess of red tape. Thank god for perseverance.
He slings his vac across his back and heads out into the great unknown.
Let it be known that Verge Seeley is not a sensitive person. He knows how to hide reactions. He knows how to be carefully blank, how to show no emotion even as he feels happy or feels sad or wants to laugh. Emotion is punished in a busy society. Hiding emotion is not hard.
Still, when he sees the slimes, he can't suppress a tiny squeak of glee.
The area is teeming with the most adorable creatures he's ever seen. Ever. He's seen babies, he's seen kittens, he's seen baby kittens, but somehow this- this is what makes him break. He thought the articles had been exaggerating when they said that the colour of pink slimes was scientifically proven to be the colour of cheer or something. They were not.
He wants to hug every single one of them. Individually. And maybe bite one, just to see what texture it would make on his tongue, but they look so fragile and bouncy that he's pretty sure it'd hurt them. Their little happy noises are music to his ears, and each one he can see is a series of bright, beautiful hues that match so well together he swears he's stepped into some sort of dream world. The daytime makes light dance on each one's surface, and the sight of it must be making his brain go haywire, because there is not other explanation he will accept for the ecstasy welling up inside him.
"Oh my stars," he says to himself, his hands quivering slightly at the sight. "I am in heaven. I've died and gone to heaven."
This must be heaven. There are no artemicite gates, the wings of the elohim have not been nailed to the crystal walls or whatever that creepy kid in his high school bio class had said heaven was, but that creepy kid was wrong. Heaven is not a silver city above the clouds. Heaven is the Dry Reef, full to bursting with angels in the form of squishy little beings he would die for, and he wonders how he was ever good enough to deserve it.
No. Stop. Something in his brain recoils at the feeling, at the oxytocin or seratonin setting his nerves alight, and he forces himself to look away. He has to get back under control. He breathes carefully, counting one two three four until he's calm, and looks up again.
The slimes are still happy, still bouncing around everywhere with the sweetest little sounds he's ever heard anything make, but he feels a little queasy looking at them. He's off balance. And he hates it, hates having to ruin everything for himself again, but he has to get back on balance. He can't let himself stay happy. He didn't come here to be happy.
Then why did you go? Why did you leave everything you knew and fly all the way out here?
Because it was the furthest I could go, he answers that part of his brain, the part that is still trying to be happy. That's enough. It's always been enough. Even if going to this place in particular was because he wanted to see it, that was something minor. What he wanted was less important than what he needed, and what he needed was to get out of there. This place was just a means to that end.
One of the pink slimes bounces over, warbling cheerily as it bumps into his legs, and Verge shudders. It feels just like a stim toy. A giant, bouncy stim toy.
He isn't allowed those.
He steels his nerves and shoots a single, solitary fruit at the slime. It doesn't even hesitate as it jumps up, catching the food in its mouth midair. Before he can think about it, before the doubt starts to twist his thoughts, he pulls the vac into place and sucks it up. There's a gleeful noise that sounds like "wheeee!" as it's pulled in.
It's too cute. He doesn't yet know what it feels like inside the vac, but he hopes it feels comfortable. The little pink ball of love deserves the happiness.
"I'm sorry," he apologises uselessly, shoving down the familiar feeling of guilt that's starting to make itself known. He has to do this, doesn't he? He has to collect plorts and study these slimes and herd them into corrals. It's the payment for staying here. "But I'll let you out soon, okay? There's an empty corral in the main ranch. It's got a lot of sun, high walls and a roof so you can bounce all you like- maybe I'll bring some friends over for you, okay? I'm sorry. I'm very, very sorry."
The other slimes don't notice. They're crowding, all pep and cheer and hunger. One gnaws curiously at his leg, and he swears he doesn't jump a foot in the air at the sudden touch, really. He lands wrong anyway, the new gravity playing hell on his senses, and landing on his ass ends up knocking him over, right into a small cluster of the pink slimes. And a single, grey tabby slime, which meows loudly when he disturbs it and hops away.
He shouldn't be here. He doesn't deserve to be here.
He gets up, and with shaking hands, he points the vac at the tabby. It's rarer, right? He can sell the plorts for more. He should get it. He should.
But then the tabby pounces, chomping down on a chicken he didn't notice, and the meow is so content and pleased that he can't bring himself to take it. He lets the gun go.
He wants to do more. He really does. But he can't do it now. Verge bolts, making a beeline for the Ranch. He'll get the slime all set up, give it some fruit, and be right back here to finish his job.
He means it.
The main ranch, at least, is a welcome distraction. It's dusty and bright, the colours of the house in the middle faded from the year of disuse and the corral lonely and empty. But it's free of his wishes, of a happiness he can't afford, and that more than anything is something he can hold on to. Carefully, he enters the lone corral, aiming the gun and clicking the fire option.
Out comes that little pink slime, the only one he's actually dared to take. He wants more of them. But one is enough, right? It's enough. It has to be.
Verge shoots another fruit from the vac and the slime warbles happily, consuming the whole thing in a single bite. It looks back up at him, black eyes glimmering in the warm sun, and-
And shudders, a single little cube plopping out of its behind.
A plort? It must be. Verge hadn't been paying attention at the Dry Reef, hadn't seen any of these little things there, but he kneels down anyway, examining the tiny cube. It's the first plort he's really seen, really registered with his own eyes.
He sucks these into the vac, right? Trades them for money? Right. He swings the vac around and sucks it right in. The pink slime lets loose another one, and that one joins its predecessor in the gun. This... this is what he's meant to do here. This is his payment for staying.
He stands slowly, staring down at the little slime for barely a second before he makes himself leave. He'll have to put these into the plort exchange thing. That's fine.
It's his first day in this new world, his first time working in the Far, Far Range. And to be honest? Verge is doing terribly.
Hello, all! Welcome to the show! I've recently become pretty entranced with the world of Slime Rancher, and the lack of fanfiction for the game is... disappointing. Who wouldn't write stories for those balls of compressed happiness?!
So, then, I have taken the liberty of writing something for the fandom. Hope it's an alright work so far! I have a bit more focusing on the theme planned out for the rest of it, and a few new characters I'm trying to work in. So, if you're interested, keep an eye out for that! Readers are also free- in fact, encouraged- to send chapter ideas!
Thank you for reading!