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

[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.

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"If it helps, we tricked him to get us free with 'hokey' magic. Namely, we painted ourselves to blend into the stage backdrop, and took him by surprise. His hat is actually in our vault, for safe-keeping."

[yondu]

"Alright, yeah, that's a pretty odd'un."

He accepts that story as suitably strange, nodding with a grin. "Me an' my crew was about that close before I screwed shit up. Depends on how much you'd enjoy stories about folks stealin' instead of bein' heroes. Because we pulled some real big heists."

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"I wouldn't mind hearing your stories, Yondu." Raven said, with a genuine smile. "You were something like a space-pirate, right?"

[yondu]

"Right, kinda. Stakar founded the Ravagers to exist outside of the laws of the Kree an' Xandarian Empires. Somethin' of a kinda refuge. Not that we was the best people but for people what needed to get out an' had the fightin' affinity to do it, the Ravagers were there."

He chuckles. "Hey uh... there was this big guy. Like, Piccolo big called 'Charlie-27'? Now I'd take the piss out of 'im ever' once in a while for bein' so big. Did that thing where you ask for somethin' on high shelves? One day he just goes, 'Here, I'll help you get it'-" he mocks a really deep voice as he says that, "-picks me up like I'm a li'l' baby right at the waist and lifts me up like I ain't nothin'. I ain't ever had someone get that sound outa me again, I can't describe it."

[azrthmtrnznthos]

That brought a chuckle out of Raven. "Cyborg's the tallest of us, but it's always neat to see Starfire give him the bear hug-pick-up-off-the-ground style that he gives the rest of us, considering she's shorter than him."

[yondu]

"Yeah, I'd bet. Some of us need put in our place a few times."

At least in that way. He does his very best to keep the more serious scenarios of that out of his head.

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"Why was he called Charlie-27?" Not that Raven was judging. She was honestly curious.

[yondu]

"He was a clone. They were these engineered people for heavy gravity. Real strong, sizable folks. One of them boys that could bend metal for the fun of it."

He shrugs. "I slowed down teasin' 'im but until we all split I didn't stop altogether."

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"Tell me about more of your crew." Raven asked, because that was what she was most curious about. Normally she wouldn't pry.

[yondu]

"My crew? Or my old team. 'Cause my crew wasn't really somethin' to write home about. That uh... actually, that didn't end too good."

He almost says something, but blinks twice. The cries as they were dragged to the airlock, the mutineers laughing at their fading corpses out the window and waving poisonous farewells.

"Yeah, they weren't great." He finally settles on. "About a third of 'em was, but I needed numbers an' not a lot that signed up were good folks."