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]

"Hey, I knew a guy who could cast his spells all day and be fine," Soldat says with an amused expression. "And one guy who could only cast like two before he was out. It's different for everybody, seems like."

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"I mean, I've been training my whole life to control my magic."

[worthallthis]

"I mean more like. Different people have different kinds of power. Different worlds, magic works differently. I don't know how yours works yet." They tilt their head a bit, looking out over the mushroom forest and into the void beyond. "Well. I suppose I don't know how theirs worked, either. But for tactical reasons, it's always good to try."

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"Ah." Raven said, then was quiet in thought for a bit. "Mine seems to be innate to me. It's tied to my emotions in general, so when I'm not in control, things happen." Raven tried to think of how to explain. "There was a time when Starfire and I had our bodies switched with our minds. Thanks to an evil Puppet Master." Quite literally a puppet master. "We had to learn how to use each other's abilities very quickly. And our abilities are controlled in almost the exact opposite way from each other."

[worthallthis]

"Ouch." That sounds pretty awful, actually. Soldat's experienced mind linking before, but there hadn't been any power bleed, let alone actually swapping bodies. (Well, I mean... we swap. Kinda. I think that's different, Sarge. You don't have a body of your own, really.) "Did you manage it? The two of you?" Since clearly they got it fixed, or they'd be talking to a very different person, right now, they figure.

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"We did, but it wasn't easy. You know how my powers react to my emotions--Starfire's do the same, but in the opposite way. For her to fly, she needs to feel the boundless joy of it." It had not been a fun time. "We had to learn quickly, and while we were being chased by controlled versions of our friends, too."

[worthallthis]

Soldat has a moment where they want to make some kind of smart comment, but then "controlled versions of our friends" shuts them right up. They take a beat before they can say, "Your life is a little bit nuts, kiddo. I hope you know that."

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"Oh I'm aware." Raven said, raising an eyebrow at the 'kiddo' comment. "Unfortunately I was never destined for a boring life."

[worthallthis]

Soldat is ninety-something years old, Raven. They're allowed to call a seventeen year old "kiddo" now and then. "I guess the people I tell about my life tend to say the same thing," they admit after a breath, shaking their head a bit. "So I got no call to judge."

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"From what little I know, you don't." Raven said it with a smile though. "Feeling a need to trade stories?" She'd already done so with Yondu too, but that didn't mean she wouldn't again.

[worthallthis]

"You already know some of it, don't you?" The other version of them who was here before, they know he told some people some stuff. "I don't mind sharing more, if you wanna know. It's not pretty, though."

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"I probably know less than you think I do. But only share what you're comfortable sharing, Soldat." Raven offered reassuringly.

[worthallthis]

"We're going to sit and toss 'only if you're comfortable' at each other for five minutes, aren't we," Soldat says with half a smile, but decides to cut that short, for now. "I only just learned how not to spill horror stories at the slightest question. Well. You know I don't have memories, right? Not most of them, not from before I died. Maybe a few dozen that I know for sure are real."

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"Only if you want to." Raven responded with a half-smile of her own. "Before you died in Beacon? Or were..." Frozen, is what she's not saying.

[worthallthis]

"Before I died in Beacon. Woke up on the ferry that brought us up to town with twelve hours, and a couple little slivers of Steve he helped me remember," Soldat explains. "While I was trying to kill him." They huff out a little sigh. "They'd fry my memories out of my head, before and after every mission. Before cryo. After cryo. Mid-mission, if a mission took too long. They started coming back after a few weeks in Beacon, and I'm still getting them. But it's not even-- it's a fraction of what I lost. Not even sure how many of them are actually real."

They dip their left hand into a pocket, count the ridges on handful of stones in there, and pull one out, a matrix opal embedded in simple sandstone. "Here. This one I'm pretty sure is real. Wrap your palm around it." If she takes it and does so, she'll see this memory.

[azrthmtrnznthos]

Raven takes the stone carefully, taking a deep breath to reinforce her mental and empathic shields too. The memory is....interesting. It fills in some gaps--but what hits her the most are the associated emotions with the memory.

Confusion, Affection and Love, Fear and Shame...

It makes her rock back slightly, before she gains control and is able to filter them properly.

[worthallthis]

Soldat looks vaguely concerned, hand hovering near hers but not touching. Nobody's reacted quite like that before, not to a relatively innocuous memory. "Raven? You okay?"

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"I'm alright." She replies, as calmly as she ever does. "There are emotions associated with the memory, and I hadn't thought to shield myself from them." Opening her eyes, she passes the stone back to him and has a soft, and slightly sad, smile on her face. "Thank you. For sharing with me, and trusting me."

[worthallthis]

They tuck the stone safely back into its inside pocket. They shrug off the thanks, a little awkwardly. "It helps people understand. I'm not always. Great with words, you know? Or explaining things. So. I got these back, and they help people understand." And they make them feel more secure in their own memories, having a back-up, as it were. Having a physical record right there in their pocket.

[azrthmtrnznthos]

"I get it." Raven said, still with that smile. But she understood--why he'd want to hold on to them. Even more she understood now, why he would.

[worthallthis]

"So that's part of it. That they took my memories, kept me in cryofreeze, cold storage, whenever I wasn't on a mission. There's also the. Programming. Intensive training, not just on weapons and fighting, not just languages and geography, but. Behaviors. Protocols. When it's allowed to talk, to make eye contact, to accept things offered to me." They shrug a little, looking out over the mushroom caps. The Words, too, but nobody on the train knows about those, and they still don't quite know what they do, so... best keep them to themselves, for now.

"I didn't know how to properly interact," they explain. "I didn't remember anything but handlers, technicians, field support, and targets. Even in Beacon, for months, I. Gave myself handlers. Found people to give me orders."