The Endless River

[voidtreckermods]

On the morning of day twenty one of the month of Kazoo there is a message on the ICP screens around the train. Their SCA's will light up the colour of the Void and show the following information.

World #398050 is a void nexus known locally as Tshering. As a void nexus this world has strong links with the void and the connection through worlds. World #398050 is home to the Endless River. Legends speak of this river being powerful enough to send thoughts from one heart to another across any distance. All that is needed is for you to know who it is you wish to reach.

On-board

The dressing carriage is open, filled with clothing best suited to a pleasant spring day. Light, airy and in a rainbow of joyful colours and florals. One closet is entirely filled with wide-brimmed hats bedecked with ribbons, feathers and ornaments. A stack of picnic baskets and containers filled with an alarming variety of passenger-suitable foodstuffs and flasked drinks sits in one corner, next to rolls of thick, weatherproof blankets in the four team colours.

The large box marked Do Not Use Yet, filled with small, empty jute bags, is hopefully still sat in the Luggage carriage, ready for passengers to grab handfuls of its contents as directed by the announcement.

Upon landing (after an appropriate countdown), the train remains on the surface, its carriages partially curved to form a gathering site for the day. Welcome to Tshering, the eighth void nexus!



A Day for Picnics

Tshering, system #398050, is a strange place, only habitable by grace of the passengers' SCAs. The sky is shot through with colours, a cascade of sunsets, and through it, the void shimmering through it in seams like a child's painting of the milky way. Still, there's a beauty to the chaotic mash of colours that soaks through its landscape, and in the shelter of the forests of towering funghi that dot its surface, the Void can go unseen by its visitors.

The temperature seems mild, suitable for the provided clothing, and if there are weather patterns around the world they've taken the day off. The funghi are sturdy enough that what air flow there is doesn't disturb their stalks, and carved grooves and holds in some of the larger examples indicate that climbing them to sit atop their glowing crowns is eminently possible, and, in fact, encouraged.

the Endless River

The Endless River is a font of pure chaos, flowing from a multitude of small rivulets across the area to a central reservoir, from which it pours directly upwards, away from Tshering's surface and out of sight, beyond the world's atmosphere.

Anything bagged and placed within the Endless River will also flow upwards and soon be out of sight, passing, presumably, into the Void. Scattered across the surface of Tshering are small, glittering pebbles, as described in the announcement.

The stones are pleasantly cool to the touch, and all passengers need to do is feel. Messages can be in any form that the Voidtreckers wish. Perhaps words, perhaps feelings, perhaps an image from their mind into the stone. Perhaps a mixture. Once they begin their message the stone will glow slightly and continue to glow as they secure it in the bag and cast it into the river. They will feel, almost instinctively, that they need to focus as they do so, thinking of the person they wish to reach all the while.

There are plenty of bags and many more stones; passengers will not be limited in their sendings.

Comments

Picnicking

[yondu]

Yondu eventually leaves his own picnic patch to come over and check on Raven. He's been kind of a sadsack mess, and it's kind of funny because he's wearing cream colors and a pink shirt. Here she's managed to not wear pastels but Yondu's here in something that matches him for shit just because it fit.

"How's it goin' for you?" he asks when he gets to her.

She looks fine, to be honest. It's just one of those idle friend check-ins to make sure everything is alright.

Re: Picnicking

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"This is a good break. And a nice change from the party, although I think that was needed too." Raven replies after a moment, voice thoughtful. "How are you doing?" She can easily read the hints of sadness in him, but doesn't want to pry.

Instead she moves over on her blanket, adjusting her knitting project, to make room if he wants to join her.

[yondu]

"Homesick, in a way." He's a little more honest right now, just because the atmosphere is rubbing him raw. "Mad in another. Missin' travellin'. Missin' bein' a Ravager. Hatin' that dumbass river."

Because he has no one to send a message to.

"Seen places not too differ'nt from this back home." Not so much the mushrooms, just that feelin' that everything went sideways makin' 'em when you look at 'em."

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"I can listen, if you'd like to talk about it." Raven offered, putting her knitting aside fully. "I get home-sick. I also get the 'mad' feeling, albeit in different ways."

As gentle encouragement, she poured two cups of tea.

[yondu]

He does end up sitting, because he'd told her enough before for her to get at least one part.

"Remember I told ya about how my boy had this big godlike shit that was his father? Well his name was 'Ego', the 'Living Planet'. He had this Terran-looking form, but his real self was at the middle of the planet he made around it. An' it was real pretty. Nothin' so much like this place, but it got that same mouthfeel, y'know?"

He flicks his fingers at the beautifully lit mushrooms.

"...An' the sky just makes me miss choosin' where to go."

[azrthmtrnznthos]

She nudges the cup of tea over to him, and makes sure he has her attention. "It was almost too pretty in a way?" Raven asked, as that was the only thing she'd found so far with this place. "You were a captain before, right? I can understand this must be really hard, being stuck on a train. Having to go where it chooses, not where you choose." Sympathy in her calm voice.

[yondu]

He picks up the cup, finally, but it's more to hold it.

"Yeah, somethin' like that." The freedom's not there. Always been an issue, but its harder when it feels like it's close enough to touch.

"Like it was designed to be looked at." Can't shake the idea there's something creepy beyond that river.

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"Don't worry. I won't let any monsters get you." With her deadpan tone it might be hard to tell if she's serious or joking. Then again, part of it was definitely true--she'd protect Yondu if she needed to.

"Tell me more about the ravagers? If you want to..."

[yondu]

"I don't think somebody like Ego'd show up here an' honestly I ain't all that worried about it. Just one of those cases where shit happens."

He just waves off that. "Don't worry about it. Why don't ya tell me some more about your buddies. I think we left off at Stankball."

Because his Ravagers either hate him or are dead.

[azrthmtrnznthos]

Raven shrugged. "We were teenagers, even if we also were superheroes. Sometimes it was Starfire's weird, at least to us, tastes in food. Sometimes it was just Beast Boy playing jokes." Not all that much to tell. "Starfire does have a pet. A mutant silkworm named Silkie. She tried to hide him from us at first, and came up with all kinds of excuses for some of the damage he caused. Like it being the day when Tameranians berate and destroy their curtains."

[yondu]

He smiles a little at that, reminded of Peter's antics just a little.

"He never brought home no pets, but yeah, Peter woulda said stuff like that." He picks one of the smaller mushrooms off the ground to get a look at the cap's underside, to see if it's glowing. "Did she try to feed nonsense to y'all?"

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"Besides about Tameranian's berating and destroying their curtains?" Raven's tones had a hint of amusement. "How she got the pet, I don't really know--but I know where it came from. It was a leftover from some pets or minions or both from Killer Moth. A supervillain who threatened to release them all over the city." A pause. "Unless Robin took his daughter, Kitten, to the prom. Think stereotypical blonde-haired, dark blue eyes, teenage drama-queen, only her dad's a supervillain."

[yondu]

"Nah, I mean, you mentioned she liked weird food. Which, I reckon, is about how I feel ever' time I go in the kitchen. Luckily I ain't picky. If it's got protein I'll prolly give it a try."

He pulls a face. Well, he can't really ridicule some other dad's tactics. But, huh....

"I know a few folks like that who think mighty highly of themselves." And it's easier to live in that lazy sort of dismissal of egotistical people than it is to keep feeling bad about himself.

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"Killer Moth was also blackmailing the city for money. And for Robin to take Kitten to the prom. Cyborg, Beast Boy, and I only found out because he called us on the comms after it happened. We'd been chasing this thief on a motorcycle--who literally had a spider for his head."

[yondu]

"An actual spider- do yours got ten legs or eight legs?"

It doesn't change the strangeness of the story, but he needs it for his own mental image.

"So Starfire ended up keepin' one of the lil critters as a pet?"

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"Eight Legs." Raven answered easily. "Turns out said spider-headed thief was actually Kitten's boyfriend. He'd broken up with her right before prom, hence her being a brat and getting her father to add 'And Robin takes her to Prom' to his blackmail demands." It had been a strange mission, that was certain.

"Cyborg, Beast Boy, and I went ahead to try and stop Killer Moth, while Starfire apparently shadowed Robin at the Prom." Honestly Raven still wasn't sure how or when Starfire had picked up Silkie. This wasn't even their strangest mission.

"This wasn't even the strangest mission we'd had."

[yondu]

Yondu grins again.

"Yeah, funny how the weirder ones sometimes stick with you in a good way. Even if bad shit happened, ya got all this stuff that you ain't ever gonna reason around. What do you reckon was your strangest?"

Hey, he'll enjoy her good stories. They're probably worried like hell for her right now.

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"That's...hard to say, honestly." Raven admitted, then was quiet and thinking. "We've had some strange ones. One I definitely do not want to repeat, ever, involved the villain Mumbo Jumbo."

[yondu]

You ever heard a name and knew it was gonna be bad? That's the kind of thing a name like 'Mumbo Jumbo' invokes. He blinks so hard that it probably should have been accompanied by some kind of sound effect, then scrunches up his face.

"Welp, hit me with it. I'm in the mood to hear it."

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"His official name might've been the Amazing Mumbo, but I just remember the mumbo jumbo, so that's what he became in my head." Raven sighed. "We thought he'd been defeated for good after his jewelry heist and chase around the city, as Robin managed to break his magic wand. Apparently, he had more tricks."

And she looks kind of disgusted for having to make that joke.

"So this time, he'd just robbed a bank. I still wasn't very impressed with his magic, so apparently he decided to teach me--and my friends--a lesson. He pulled me into his hat somehow." Raven ignored the fact that she pulled people into her cloak sometimes too. Extra-dimensional spaces were tricky alright? "Where I was changed into a small, white, bunny."

[yondu]

"Oh, like them li'l things WangJi owns."

He sees them in his room sometimes.

But somehow, Yondu doesn't look all that surprised. He's following along fine. He gets the whole dimensional space shit. He gets the people turning into animals shit.

"It's pretty funny that he weren't impressed, though. Were ya not flashy enough?"

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"Yes. Xiao Xingchen has one too." Raven actually liked the little bunny, but was very glad she was NOT a bunny herself. If she never had to experience that again, it would be too soon.

"I honestly don't know, because it's not like I'm subtle." Raven shrugged. "In any case, he also ended up pulling my friends into his hat-world, and planned to do his greatest trick ever. Making the Titans disappear."

[yondu]

"....Was it gonna all be rabbits or like, a cabinet thing or some kinda hokey setup?"

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"Honestly? I still don't know. He did have us all trapped in cages on a stage, and made us perform for him." Raven sighed. "Robin was turned into a monkey, Starfire a big cat, Cyborg was a bear in a tutu. Beast Boy is normally an animal shapeshifter, but he could only do inanimate objects."

[yondu]

"What the hell kinda magic is that?" Yondu asks, staring into the middle distance. His brow all furrows and his mouth in one of its more exaggerated frowns.

Then he just shakes his head. It's no stranger than train shit. No explanations actually needed.