middleofsomewhere | Event: Healing Waters

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Event: Healing Waters

"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!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

".. Huh?"

Madoka lets out that soft noise, slowly stopping her attempts to swim away. Instead she turns back around to look at the spot she just got away from, spotting a very familiar face.

It doesn't take much to connect the puzzle pieces and realise what just happened. Madoka's face starts turning red, and for a moment she attempts to hide it by sinking her face just a tiny bit more underwater.. But it's not like she can say anything that way, so Madoka fully emerges again with the blush still on her cheek.

"R.. Romeo! I thought there was something dangerous in the water..!"

"I'm sorry Madoka!"

He really feels bad now! He swam closer to her, looking worried.

"I didn't mean to scare you! I don't think there's anything dangerous here at all!"

He hasn't seen any sharks or crocodiles or jellyfish!

Yes, clearly Romeo is the only apex predator in these waters.. she's onto you now!

"It's okay.."

Sure, she got really scared! And she really doesn't like being scared, but it's not like she can blame Romeo.. Especially when he's sorry. He's much too sweet for her to not instantly forgive.

"I'm just glad if it's true that there's really nothing scary here.. This place looks so peaceful, so I thought it'd be okay to go swim here."

"It is Madoka!" He nodded, "But if you are worried I can swim with you! That way I can make sure you don't get gobbled by any fish!"

He doesn't think there are any Madoka gobbling fish in here, but he will be here to protect her regardless!

"Romeo.."

For a moment she's unable to say anything other than his name like that. Because she's touched. It's just really sweet of him to immediately offer that, as if he has nothing better to do with his day.

And who would she be to say no to spending some time with a friend?

"Thank you.. Of course you can stick with me if you want to. But don't worry about leaving when you want to either, okay? Even if there's anything around that would try to eat me, I'll.. um.."

Her voice trails off. She hadn't actually considered a plan yet!

"I'll handle it!" Nailed it.

"I bet you can beat anything that tries to eat you, Madoka!" He has every faith in her! "But it's okay I like swimming and swimming with you will be really fun!"

He grins, "Are you a good swimmer? Do you want to go down and look at fish?"

It's a good thing that Madoka is in much too good of a mood because of the nice location they're at to really think about how awkward this whole 'teenage girls being eaten' talk is with a trauma involving that lurking at the back of her mind..

But she's blissfully unaware, which means she instead can use all her brain capacity to answer Romeo's question instead.

"Down? Um.. I'm not sure.." She doesn't look bummed out, at least! Just genuinely worried! "I can swim alright, but I've never tried diving before! I didn't get to swim much back home.. Is it hard?"

"I never did it until today! Or well on the mission in the water but that was with one of those helmets!"

He grinned at her, "But we can do it together and see all the pretty fish!"

"Okay..!"

Madoka doesn't want to miss the opportunity to see some of the pretty fish, after all. She just hopes it actually goes well, because she sure doesn't want to give her dad anymore opportunity to get even more overprotective now she and Romeo have formed their little Child Rebellion Alliance.

"I.. I'll follow your lead then, Romeo. If that's okay with you.." Because Romeo clearly is the big brother here.

It won't go wrong at all! It can be the first activity of the Child Rebellion Alliance! Swim out to see the fish!

"Okay! Just stick with me and I'll make sure you're safe!"

Swimming and holding hands would be tricky! But he sticks near her as he begins swimming into deeper water.

At least she knows how to swim pretty well, so there's no real risk of drowning unless something extreme happens here.. Which means that Madoka manages to keep up with Romeo, already trying to glance into the water a bit from the surface as they go, like she's keeping an eye out for anything that looks pretty in the water..

"The water is so clear here, isn't it..? You usually only see that sort of thing in advertisements!"

"Yes!"

He grinned at her, ducking his head under the water to see the fish better for a moment before he poked it back up again, realising something.

"What's an advertisement?"

Madoka lets out an audible gasp. Thankfully it's not because she spotted anything dangerous though.. No, she's just utterly surprised by the words coming out of Romeo's mouth.

".. Romeo, have you never seen one before..?"

Look, it's not too surprising that heaven doesn't have them. Heaven probably has commercial-less TV! It's heaven, after all! But even during his life he's never come across one..?

"U-Um.." She ponders how to explain it, trying to stay in place in the water as she does so. "Do you know what markets are..?"

"A market?" He looked at her and then nodded with a grin, "That's where there's lots of stalls and everyone sells things and other people buy things and there's lots of interesting things to see!"

And eat usually, considering most the markets he's been to have been connected to festivals of one king or other.

"Yes, exactly!"

Phew, that helps her explanation a lot, she thinks..

"Do you know how the people selling things there usually call out? Like.. um.. they're always shouting about how great and cheap their wares are! Advertisements are kind of like that, except you find them in newspapers or magazines or on billboards! It's pictures and text talking about how amazing something is to try and get you to pay for it."

"Oh!" He nodded, "I know that, they are always shouting and saying you should buy things!"

So people took pictures as well, to show people what they should buy? But...

"But you can't buy the ocean! Why would you have an advertisement for it?"

"Ah.." She quickly shakes her head, making tiny droplets of water fly off her pigtails. "You're not buying the ocean itself!"

Did they also just not have vacations in heaven?! Or maybe it's since heaven is like one big vacation..?

"You're buying a trip to the ocean! Um, a lot of people like going on vacation to places that are really far away, where the weather is warmer, or the ocean is prettier.. So you'd have to pay for a way to get there, and a place to stay while you're on vacation. That's what they're advertising."

"Buying a trip?" You had to buy a trip? He guessed... When he and Gina had went on the train she had bought a ticket and that had cost money...

Money wasn't something he really understood. He knew people paid Elfnein when she answered prayers and here they got points that were like money because you could buy things.

"I guess you really can buy anything!"

Is this the capitalist message Madoka wants to pass on to the innocent - or even more innocent than her, anyway - youth?

.. not really.

"Well, kind of.." It's why she awkwardly laughs, trying to think of what to tell Romeo.. "But there are plenty of things you can't just buy, you know? Like.. um, our friendship! We've never had to exchange anything for that!"

He nodded, a sad look on his face for a moment but it soon brightens at her words. "That's true! You don't buy friends."

He hopes. There better not be people who buy friends. He thinks that would be a very bad thing to do!

"So that's good! And we didn't need to buy this ocean, we can enjoy it just like the fishes!"

Because fish clearly didn't pay to go to the ocean, it was where they lived!

Phew. It looks like she at least evaded disaster there.. Madoka really doesn't want to see such a sad look on Romeo's face, especially not over a topic like this of all things! So a wave of relief truly hits her the moment she sees him smile again.

Don't worry, Romeo, if this capitalist society threatens to crush you, Madoka will somehow crush it first for you!!

"Yes! When you really think about it, we're practically getting a vacation for free here! Usually a trip to a place like this would be so expensive.. But the train is giving it to us for free! That's pretty amazing, isn't it?"

(In return for captivity and half-forced labour, but.. ssh.. let's not think about that part.)

"It would be expensive?"

He really has no idea how much things cost at all. He knows people offered five yen for prayers, ice cream in Hawaii costs 1 dollar fifty, snacks in Japan cost around 500 yen and in a far off Italy children could be bought for eighty five lira. But how that all fits together and what it actually means in any real sense is beyond him.

But if Madoka says it is expensive it must be! And they got to come here for free! "We are really lucky! We get to see so many places and even get to come to a place like this! It's so beautiful here!"

"It is!" She giggles, even though the giggles do die off a little as she starts thinking afterwards.

"But.. hmm, it really would be expensive. Even though it's not like my family is poor back home, I'm still not sure if we would ever be able to pay for a vacation to a place like this, especially if it was outside of Japan.. I kind of wish mama and papa could have been here to see this."

He nods, sadly. It is really sad that Madoka was so far from her family. That she got to see all these things but couldn't share it with the people she loved.

"You should write it in your journal! And we could draw pictures. That way one day we might be able to show them, all the places you've been and the beautiful things you have seen!"

.. Haha, yeah.. She could.. show things to her parents.. when she gets home. Totally...

Madoka so does not feel like dragging down Romeo's mood any further though, so of course she's not going to mention the fact she may not ever see much of anyone anymore once she gets home. So instead she smiles thinly.

"That sounds like a good idea, Romeo." Nothing to see here, nope siree! "Do you maybe want to draw together once we're back on the train?"

Event: Healing Waters

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should we wrap it here?

Yep! Wrap!