middleofsomewhere | The Endless River

The Endless River

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"So, uh. You were totally right about me trying to push too hard on what I wanted, and from now on I'm just gonna stick to being support and only giving advice when asked. You should have a chance to figure out stuff for yourself."

...huh, that was actually much easier to say when he was face-down in the dirt for some reason. Maybe not being able to see anything made it easier to focus on just talking?

"Thank you."

Every bit of her burns with the urge to apologize for getting angry, for yelling, but she's heard him say plenty of times before that she should be allowed to get angry. Nothing she said wasn't true, though she probably wouldn't have brought it all up at once if she wasn't worked up. So instead she kneels beside him and gently flips him over.

"I shouldn't have yelled in front of everyone. It was embarrassing, for us both, I imagine."

Zetta made a face, because damned if some dirt didn't get in his mouth.

"I was in way too bad a mood," he said, after a moment. "I still am. It's embarrassing, so if you kept that between us that'd be cool. But I'm not gonna yell at you any more... though, uh, you should know I'm actually really jealous of you right now. You set out to do something incredible and you did it, right after I failed. So it's a mess in my head right now... since I don't even HAVE one."

"Oh...I'm--" She bites it back, "I didn't really think of that. I knew you must not have succeeded or--I mean--you would have definitely been very smug about it and very obvious and very much have already come to see me about it."

Her smile is small but knowing. Look, she would have known within minutes.

"But--I guess I didn't think of it like that. I just fulfilled my purpose, I brought life, it's my whole job. It just felt good to be able to do that, to be that being. I didn't think. I didn't think about the timing. You just...you let so much bounce off of you, I didn't think about how much that must have stung."

"Yeah, I -- wait, hold on." Zetta frowned slightly, although for once, it wasn't in anger. "I didn't come here to talk about me, I came here to apologize and see how YOU were doing."

If she wanted a clue that her words from the argument had some effect, she couldn't get much better than that. Not that he was checking on her and trying to make sure she was okay, he would have done that anyway. But here he was ADMITTING it instead of making some claim about how it was some selfish self-serving plan.

That does get a smile from her, admitting right out. She kneels beside him, dress fluffed up to attempt to save it from getting too dirty.

"I'm... I'm fine. I didn't really have much time to be angry in the end." She tilts her head side to side, "Ryo had a bad platform and then I met a new roommate, which was only mildly mortifying because he'd seen us fight. So, such good first impressions."

A pause, "You got to see it, right? I wanted you to see it."

"Your work on the planet? I totally saw it!" No mistaking the eager delight in his voice. He wasn't gonna yell about it as much any more, but he had one hell of a kickass girlfriend. "That was freaking sweet!"

"Good!" Persephone lights up, her smile radiant, "It was me, in the end. All the bits of me. Not perfect but real, you know?"

She'd wanted it to be real. Not cookie cutter perfection, not carefully trimmed back, but real. She leans down to kiss his cheek.

"Now that we've established I'm fine, can we talk about you?"

"Wait. I was trying to be better and talk about you. I always talk about me!" How did this happen?! Suddenly he was trying to downplay himself, and she wanted to talk more about him?! "I don't get what's happened here."

"Well you did just have a big disappointment, a crushing one. One I was being too self centered to think about. Um, do you want to talk about it? We don't have to."

Persephone points up at her mushroom, "And I have food and some pictures of me up there."

"I'm fine. That was just an off day. Nothing can keep the Overlord down for long! Hyaaaha ha ha ha ha!"

His laughter was, if wicked, genuine. Zetta was nothing if not resilient -- the setback had finally cracked the determination that he'd shown for years now, but he'd patched it right back up. If he had to, he'd try for centuries to fix this problem.

"So let's eat and admire your pictures!"

Genuine is hard to parse with Zetta. Sometimes he seems fine and then he'll show off some of the deep resentment he had for his situation. It's not clear cut.

"Let's. I'm sure this is the closest to a proper date we're getting for a while." She floats up, pausing halfway to see if he'll follow. If she has to hold him and float, this might take a while.

He may not be the most mobile floating book in the cosmos, but he can at least put on some height! If he was slower than she was, that might have more to do with the view than his abilities.

"You know, uh... I like that you're not intimidated by me at all."

'I've made out with the god of war, why would you be intimidating' is thought but not said. To be honest, they're both intense and powerful in their own ways with varying degrees of idiocy. Persephone frowns. Oh no, does she have a type? Ares wasn't even that good a kisser though--Still this is some self-reflection kind of stuff and she just doesn't have the time.

"It'd be the wrong thing to say that I don't find you intimidating wouldn't it?" She settles down, her fluffy skirt taking up far more mushroom real estate than you'd imagine.

"Nah. I've never tried to intimidate you, and you're not weak." Maybe in terms of combat ability, but she had more mana power than she probably realized. Even for a god.

"...Plus I know I lose scary points for being a book. That's a hard thing to get intimidated by."

"I probably would have been intimidated by you if we'd met when you weren't a book. You're a lot taller than me." She's at least being honest, "Of course most men are. Men are still kind of intimidating, in general."

Persephone digs through the basket until she finds some tiny tarts. She offers him one and pops the other in her mouth.

"Yeah, but you can float, so you can look down on anyone you want."

Ooh, tart! Zetta nommed it with delight.

"This is a recent development you know. First 19 years of my life, no flying. Just surrounded by extremely tall gods. Well, after I left home at least."

She claps her hands, "Right. Did you actually want to see the pictures? I mean one isn't even of me, it's of the six traitors, but they're all important to me in their way."

"Sure, but I'm really curious why you're hauling around pictures of traitors." That was sexy but also seemed a bit out of character, so Zetta figured he was missing something here.

"My mom is one of them. Well--they aren't traitors anymore, there's the kings and my mom and Hestia--and Hera is queen. But everyone still calls them that. They ousted the Titans who ruled before them, Kronos is the father of the three kings and they overthrew him."

Persephone opens up the folded frame set. The left picture is her and her mother, her half asleep in her mother's arms, walking back from the fields. In the middle is her sleeping with Melia and Delphine, her nymph friends. The rightmost picture is the one she shows to him first, Hestia, Hera and Demeter in the front, the three kings behind them, posed in clothing better suited to the seventies than modern times.

"So I grew up knowing Hera and Hestia fairly well. They and my mom are like sisters, they fought in the war together, so we would visit Hestia sometimes and I remember going to Hera's party a few times. Hera married Zeus and now she's Queen of the Gods, goddess of marriage and a million other things." She waves it off, then hesitates, "Feel free to stop me if this is boring. Old family stories can be kind of tedious, I'm fully aware."

"What? No way, I'm learning stuff about you." Wow, colorful crowd in that photo. Not really surprising given Persephone's whole look, but still, that's way different than what he'd expect if someone asked him to imagine some godz. "So were they power-grabbers, or were the Titans terrible?"

"Well, not all the Titans were terrible. But Kronos was. He was a tyrant and Zeus pulled the six of them together to overthrow him."

Persephone wiggles her hand back and forth, "Mom didn't really talk about it a lot. The details I mean. But I get the impression he was cruel and... What's the word, he wanted his way a lot and being the king at the time, he got it. Very powerful. Mom never told me exactly how Zeus did it. She doesn't really like him much nowadays."

Did she ever really like him? Hmn. She certainly didn't like him lately, after he burned their home.

"Oh, so it's a pride thing." That would explain why they kept the title. Betraying a bad ruler was good. Not the moral sort of good! Even a demon could get behind that reasoning. The duty of every vassal was to watch the Overlord for weakness, and one that was cruel could easily meet their downfall when all their subjects teamed up in opposition. "So, traitor's daughter, huh? That's pretty hot too."

"I guess? I mean, I imagine it was more about survival. As much as anything is about survival with immortal gods."

She imagines he knows how it is, being outrageously old and functionally immortal himself. Persephone rolls her eyes, hot, right.

"I'm not entertaining that comment." She picks up the magazine and waves it, "This--this isn't really for you though. It's just a thing about the Underworld, for Thanatos and Zagreus since explaining the difference is getting more and more difficult."

"I get you there. I don't think I've mentioned this, but the Underworld I know is a completely different place too, so it does get pretty weird."

Her Underworld sounded a lot nicer than Seedle's, though.

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