Event: Healing Waters

[voidtreckermods]

"Good morning passengers, it is day twenty three of the month of Grasshopper. All passengers of the Voidtrecker Express require rest. Next stop Jema’grethy Island. All passengers prepare to disembark."

It is a very strange morning message that rings through the train on the morning of day twenty three but as the passengers of the Voidtrecker Express wake their screens glow with the colour of the void and a holographic screen pops up for them to read.

World #2554098133741: A world once inhabited by an ancient civilisation and now preserved as a historical site, nature reserve and well-being retreat. It is famous for its relaxing hot springs, calming atmosphere and beautiful beaches.

It is a popular void-traveller destination, particularly among void missionaries as a place to rest and recuperate after difficult missions.

The Voidtrecker Express will spend three days here, arriving today and leaving on day twenty six of the month of Grasshopper. The dressing carriage is open for your convenience.

It is time for a holiday it seems!

Preparation

For those who go to explore the dressing carriage they will find a variety of beachwear and wetsuits. One cupboard has a pile of tents and groundsheets in all four team colours.

One cabinet is exclusively filled with beach towels, in a kaleidoscope of colours, designs and patterns. Another is filled with different shapes and sizes of plain towel dressing gowns. There is even a cabinet with buckets, spades and small rock-pooling nets.

It seems they are in for quite an adventure.

Arrival

"Shortly arriving on World #2554098133741. Exit from void in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one."

The train lurches and rattles as it leaves the void they will get a glimpse of silver-purple sky and a beautiful ocean below.

However some passengers might be a little more than distracted, one staring at that table for a second too long, another seeming lost in thought for a couple of seconds, a longer than normal pause in a sentence. They see a vision, a glimpse of a life that is not their own. Not all at once, but here and there as the train descends to the island.

But then it is gone and things are back to normal. Just in time, as they come to land.

Jema’grethy Island

The train has landed on a grassy ridge, overlooking a beautiful beach of white sand and the ocean beyond. It is warm, but not too hot, a cool ocean breeze cutting through the heat making it pleasant. Behind them is a grassy plain, changing to forest in the distance. There is the sound of birdsong in the purple sky. To the west the land is more craggy, the silhouette of a fortress in the distance. In a word, it is idylic. A sense of peace permeates the island.

A little more worrying is the volcano-like structure in the north. But even a quick glance will show it is not a typical volcano. There is no smoke and the liquid slowly running down it in rivulets is pink and blue.

Exploring the passengers will find beautiful beaches, ragged cliffs to walk and caves to explore. Where it is more craggy the beaches are made of pebbles- perfect for rock pooling.

The place has no people, but it is clearly maintained. The eastern beaches have racks of shallow boats, both canoes and one- or two-person sailing dinghies. There is also a small building in which scuba gear is stored, along with several waterproofed manuals and instructional literature.

Ruins of ancient houses are scattered across the island, but the main settlement is built into a rocky section in the north-west that has been secured with ropes and stairways cut into the cliffs, perfect for scrambles and hikes.

There are no living quarters, but there are sheltered sections with basic toilet facilities marked as camping grounds in five different sections of the island - by the hot springs, within the ruined fortress, beside the harbour, on the eastern beaches, and on the northern face of the mountain.

Hot Springs

To the west are the hot springs. They have both outdoor and indoor areas; the indoor areas being wooden loghouse saunas, changing rooms and storage sheds, whilst the outdoor areas are a tiered series of pools spilling down the side of the mountain and shaded by brightly flowering trees. The waters are hot, mineral-rich and soothing.

Perfect for overly stressed, world weary Void heroes...

(OOC: More setting information is here, please feel free to go wild with the setting and have a fun and relaxing time. You can use this post as a catch all for your holiday or make your own posts on middleofsomewhere. More information about how the memory event is structured is here!)

Comments

Hot Springs

[springforth]

Persephone, likewise, doesn't have much of a taboo about such things. Her toes dip in the water behind Nerdanel, testing the heat and pulling back with a little hiss. This one will be a bit of test of willpower.

"I feel like you have a very different idea of a perfect temperature than I do." She takes a step in, then another, dropping her towel on the edge of the pool.

[marriedanidiot]

Nerdanel makes a contented noise and smiles at Persephone.

"Well, I suppose I do much prefer things hot! One of the nicest parts of the home Feanaro and I had on the outskirts of Tirion was the fact that he worked out hot water on demand."

[springforth]

"I love a hot spring but I try to pick the ones a little further away from the source. I think I'm going to be a tomato after all this." Persephone dips her foot in more confidently this time, still with a bit of a hiss but adding her other foot in as well. It's a bit of a process.

"Oh--because of the forges?"

[marriedanidiot]

"Maybe build up to it slowly."

She suggests, and nods. "Yes, exactly!"

[springforth]

"Well I figured it was either that or some sort of magic."

There's no rush to get in right away, but she still feels a little odd standing around when Nerdanel is already in the spring. And she's usually the first one in herself.

"I assume he also loves a hot bath then? Or was it to make you happy?"

[marriedanidiot]

"Oh, no no. Although you could Sing the water hot, I suppose, but it would be terribly tiresome. No, since the forges had to run essentially all the time, plus we needed water to cool the steel, it was prudent to run the pipes through the forges, to heat the water."

She grins.

"And both of us adore a hot bath, there's that too."

[springforth]

"That's clever, honestly. No reason to let all that heat go to waste."

Persephone has never really seen a forget so large that it needed to be going all the time, but she has a vivid imagination. What could you make in such a forge?

"You'd think you'd get tired of the heat after all that. During a summer day, the last thing I was after was more heat."

[marriedanidiot]

"Exactly! Waste not want not, after all." She smiles.

"And between my husband, and then my son, and his son after him, not to mention all the various apprentices and so on... well. Someone was always needing the forge. Better than they simply never went out, in the end."

She laughs. "Well, there was always the nearby river, on the hot days. We had a pond but that was for fish, not swimming, not that it stopped any of my boys from tipping each other in at times."

[springforth]

"Ponds are lovely to swim in, I fully support your boys in their ventures." Persephone finally makes it fully into the water. Success! She promptly curls up to better lean in and talk. It's nice.

"I didn't know you had children actually. Just boys?"

[marriedanidiot]

"I'm not sure our fish would have agreed!" Nerdanel laughs.

"Yes, but not for lack of trying! Seven, in the end, at which point I told our husband that if he still wanted more he could adopt!"

[springforth]

"Seven!" Enjoy the flurry of astonished blinking. Of course, gods and nymphs tend to have kids for ages, on and on forever. But mortals--or well, sort of mortals. Not quite mortals. Mortal plus. Persephone cuts off her mental tangent. Mortals tend to be quite old before they have seven children. She thinks.

"I can't imagine. I don't think I'll have kids but even if somehow I did, seven seems like an awful lot. Too many to keep track of.

[marriedanidiot]

Nerdanel grins wryly.

"My husband is fortunate I love children as much as he does - but after the twins were born, I decided I was done!"

[springforth]

"Well you're the one having them, you should certainly get to say when you're ready to stop. Twins is a lot for anyone, especially if you already have five children."

She says this as if she really has any practical life experience. But babies are hard and two at once is bound to be even harder, right?

"Were they very young still? Or full grown?"

[marriedanidiot]

"You mean my older boys? Most of them, yes. The first three were long and long adults by then, but Carnistir was still at home, and Curufinwe had not managed his first yen yet."

[springforth]

"What's a yen? A rite of passage? Or a certain age?"

Don't mind her utter fascination. New worlds with confusing lifestyles might be overwhelming at times, but no less interesting.

[marriedanidiot]

"Oh sorry... I keep forgetting - a yen is 144 solar years - you could translate it as a great or long year."

She smiles wryly. "Which is to say, he was only just of Age, for we consider our children adult when they hit their first century, although they're usually physically mature by fifty."

[springforth]

"...Wow, we don't--it takes you fifty years to physically mature?"

And another fifty to be considered an adult. Persephone can't imagine it, at 20 she's been ready to fly the coop for years. Being told she'd not be considered an adult for another eighty is--weird.

[marriedanidiot]

"More or less." She nods. "I haven't made a study of how it compares, mind! But my nephew Findarato tells me that although our first year we mature faster, after that, we slow down compared to Men, being completely outstripped by the third year. Let me see if I remember... but I think he mentioned that a child of our people at twenty, are physically equivalent to a mortal child of seven. At fifty one is allowed to seek an apprenticeship, begin courting...even marry, if you truly want to, although it is generally suggested to wait a little."

Not that either she and Feanaro did. Cough.

"All that sort of thing. But full adulthood is not reckoned until your hundredth year."

[springforth]

"I'm twenty myself. We mature at a rate similar to humans up to a point, then we stop aging. Usually at an age appropriate to our powers and station. I think I stopped earlier this year, at 19, but--Spring, I was always going to stop a bit earlier than most."

Has she told Nerdanel about her status? She can't remember. Honestly, she'd relied on the rumor mill to fill people in since she'd been more open about it.

"18 is the age that marriage is allowed for gods, nymphs, so on. So I guess that's our age of adulthood. I can't imagine being stuck as a child for 50 years."

[marriedanidiot]

Nerdanel nods. "That makes sense, if you represent Spring..."

She still has no idea how exactly that works, as the Valar don't actually have ages, but Lady Vana certainly can look nineteen if she wants.

"I suppose if you mature earlier, there's no point in delaying." She reasons. "But since we mature slower... well, I don't think any of us considered it strange! It is simply how it's always been. It is part of why many elven families choose not to have children in times of war - tis simply far too dangerous for the child, especially as they will require considerable support from their parents fea for quite some time."

[springforth]

"Oh--no I completely understand why you would want to keep children closer and delay having them to a right time. I don't think any of the gods were having children during the wars and we grow up so much faster than you." She leans, earnestly trying to explain, "I guess if I had grown up only to the equivalent of seven, I wouldn't know any better. I just--I was ready to get out on my own a little for a few years so I'm just--I can't imagine having to wait longer is all."

[marriedanidiot]

She chuckles.

"And I cannot imagine the alternative! For us... well. Most of you seem so very YOUNG. Far too young to be away from kith and kin. I suppose it is harder for me, as I never met mortals before now. For you as well, it seems a little strange, but less so."

[springforth]

"See, you still seem sort of mortal to me, even as much older as you probably are. It's all what you're used to. I grew up pretty sheltered so I'm getting used to a lot regardless. Finally start to get used to one thing and whisked away to get used to something else entirely." Persephone gestures in the general direction of the train.

[marriedanidiot]

"Well compared to you I probably am!" She smiles. "You must be the youngest immortal I've ever met, as the Ainur are... well. They were here BEFORE time, if you understand my meaning."

She nods, understanding.

"There really are." She sighs.

[springforth]

"I do know what you mean. Some variation of us were there before time. But we keep having children and thus you always find someone new and young in the world." She leans her head back on the edge, eyes half closed.

"I do think it helps that my world is newer, I think, than yours. There's so much more time to be had."