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

[worthallthis]

Aw. Soldat gently pats the river bank next to them. Come sit, shy lady, they're not going to yell at you. "I'm making origami boats. It's a thing I picked up the last place I lived. You make a boat for someone you miss, and watch it float for a while. It helps, some."

[oceantier]

Less shyness, perhaps, and more wariness and uncertainty for how they'll react to her -- some from past habit, long ingrained, that has to be forcibly worked through, and some from the present, where she's done things that they have every right to be angry at her for.

They've made no moves against her -- surprisingly, no one here has -- but she doesn't know if she dares trust it yet. She doesn't know these people. The other shoe could drop at any moment.

At the pat, her eyes flick back up to their face, resting there a moment. Only then she slips forward, sinking slowly into a spot not too far distant, but not as close as where their hand touched. She faces them rather than the river.

Her eyes drift back to the boats, obviously attracted.

"They're paper," she notes. "How do you make it survive all the way to them?"

[worthallthis]

Shy is the kindest word for it, and Soldat is not going to judge here. They've had their own share of uncertain receptions and suspicion, expecting punishment when none came. So long as she's sitting, safely out of reach or not, they're content. "The boats won't reach their destinations. I'll be surprised if these make it all the way up the waterclimb." They nod in the direction of the water flowing away from the planet itself, off into the Void.

They offer her one of their remaining sheets of origami paper, silver on one side and mint on the other. "They're for the ones who send them, not the ones who are lost. It's a mourning tradition."

[oceantier]

She accepts the paper, turning it over in her hands.

It's pretty.

The thought surprises her; she's never considered aesthetics in any great detail.

. . . Or maybe that's wrong.

Maybe once. Far enough and long enough ago that it's too hazy to be distinct.

Another lifetime. One that doesn't matter now.

"Does it help?" She has a certain amount of skepticism for this. How can making and launching a paper boat, especially knowing that it won't survive the water, help?

[worthallthis]

"For some people. It's the act of making something and then letting it go, like letting go of the sadness at losing someone." Soldat starts another page of their own, laying it flat on the ground, and very, very slowly demonstrates the first fold, in case Lapiz might like to try, herself. If she doesn't, it's fine, and they won't prod her to.

"The folding itself is what helps me most," they add, maybe a bit sheepishly. "It helps me calm down when I'm afraid or upset."

[oceantier]

She's still skeptical that making something and letting it drown in the water is helpful, but the paper is pretty, and this person says that folding it makes them calmer. Their voice is calm, too, their hands steady, and they seem to be demonstrating for her, seeing if she's willing to try.

For these reasons, she's willing.

Stretching out just a bit to try to peer around their hand as they fold, she lays the paper down as slim fingers echo the movement. For now the stones she's collected are a small, glittering pile in her lap, cradled in the folds of her skirt.

She waits for the next move, eyes flicking towards their face.

[worthallthis]

If she's going to play along, then they're absolutely going to walk her through the creation of the simplest origami shape they know, the crane. They don't speak until it's done unless she asks a question, just showing bit by bit, waiting until she's mastered one fold before moving on to the next.

It's not a cure for anxiety and panic, but it is a good way to reorient the brain to something productive but unrelated, a good grounding technique. That's what Soldat uses it for, anyway.

They pick up the final product and pull the tail gently, showing her how that makes the wings flap.

[oceantier]

For her turn, she's quiet as she follows their movements, though they certainly have her attention. She's watching their fingers intently, craning on occasion to try to make up for her limited angle -- not unlike a bird in some ways with the way she tips her head, the way she stretches to peer at something not quite in range.

She concentrates hard, not wanting to make a mistake, sensing that a wrong fold will throw off the shape being created. The benefit of that, at least, is that she's temporarily forgotten the stones in her lap. A couple even slide off as she shifts to peer at their hands, and she doesn't seem to notice, doesn't move to replace them.

As they pick up the crane and pull the tail, her eyes widen in open wonderment: It moves. There's almost -- almost -- the tiny flicker of a smile as she lifts hers, tests the tail in turn. It's not quite as graceful as theirs, but it does move, and she spends a moment tugging it, watching the wings shift up and down. That little ghost of a smile blooms further.

But.

She realizes something, and looks back up at them: ". . . It doesn't look like a boat?"

Was it supposed to?

Hers does look like theirs -- a bird of some sort, she knows, but she's never seen a crane -- but.

[worthallthis]

They shake their head a little, smiling. "Nah, this is the easiest thing I know how to make, easier than the boat, figured that's better to show somebody. Besides. A crane ain't gonna float any worse than a boat on a river like this."

They lean over to set the bird gently on the not-water. It swirls away; it'll probably dissolve before it gets to the waterclimb, but that'll be out of view anyway, so they don't suppose it matters. "I can show you a boat, too, if you want. I brought a bunch of paper."

[oceantier]

She watches his movements, but doesn't follow, turning her own crane in her hands. The silver paper catches the light along the fragile length of the neck. The river will dissolve it, wash it away.

"Could I keep it?"

This is a strange impulse, really -- she's never owned anything until her previous world, and even then she felt no impulse to collect. But here . . . there's a place for storage next to her bed, and there's nothing in it that's hers except for the poster she brought with her.

It would be nice to have a few things to call her own. Somehow, especially this -- something both pretty and something that she's made.

Not that she still intends to stay in this place. But for now . . . she likes the idea of something that's hers.

[worthallthis]

Aw. Soldat remembers, with a kind of homesick clarity, asking almost the same thing of Misty the first time they made an origami crane. Because they hadn't really understood ownership, at the time; it had just been sad, thinking of it disappearing into the lake. "Of course. You can do with it. Whatever you want. It's yours."

[oceantier]

A nod, small, and she cradles the crane a moment more in her hands, that lingering shadow of a smile emerging again.

"I would like to learn the boat." If they're still offering.

While she's still skeptical of it helping, she liked learning this . . . and if there's a possibility of it helping, she'll take it.

[worthallthis]

Even if it doesn't help her for grief, it's still useful for keeping the hands and mind busy. "Then you'll learn the boat," they say, willing to sit here until the train is ready to go, teaching the art of folding paper, if that's what somebody wants.

They offer her another piece of origami paper, this one purple and blue.