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

[bodyoftheseus]

Yondu saying he's just about killed everyone who wanted to cause him a bad life made V give an amused snort. He had a smirk on his face as he spoke, thoroughly amused.

"Done 'bout the same. Anyone who got in the way, at least. To kill all 'em that caused me a bad life would be t'kill half'a Night City 'n some of the strongest people of Japan." The smirk faded and his voice grew more resigned as he spoke more.

"Harder t'kill a man who made a home in my head, though. Rippin' him out woulda killed me jus' as much as it'd kill him." It was the first time he'd mentioned this out loud since starting this journey. He wasn't sure why the words left his mouth right here and right now. "Easier t'just call him a dick, but I think he'd somehow be proud'f hisself that even after death he's still in my head."

[yondu]

"To be honest that's prolly what my death count is about like."

He pulls a face, mouth quirking to the side. It's not a brag. It's an exhausted statement that he's calloused to the idea of death but at the same time has burned those fraying loose ends so the rope behind him doesn't unravel.

"Didn't particularly enjoy it." He at least has the decency to say. Only a very chosen few felt memorably good to end.

"Okay, I gotta ask. Is that figurative, you talkin' about the worst version of yourself, or a whole other person. 'Cause both them types o' things happen."

[bodyoftheseus]

"Guess if you measure the blood on my hands from when I was a kid to now it'd tally somethin' similar, but I don't remember much from that time too good anymore."

There's a similar twinge of exhaustion and resignation to the way V admits it, though it's hard to tell if the feeling is due to the killing or to the fact he couldn't remember much from then.

"It's always been a matter'f them or me. Was neither here nor there." Probably shoulda made V feel a certain kinda way, but never really did. Death was maybe something of a mercy in Night City pending the circumstance.

"Guess it ended up bein' a bit'f both in the end, but that's not what you're askin'." V crossed his arms across his chest as he started - an unconscious distancing technique despite sharing something so personal.

"An actual person. Man named Johnny Silverhand." He spat the name as if it tasted poorly in his mouth. "Pissed off the wrong kinda people 'n got killed 'n put on a chip as an AI. Through a series of unfortunate events that chip ended up slotted into my head. I died 'n that chip was the only thing keepin' me alive while also was the thing that was killin' me. Came with the pleasant side effect of havin' to deal with the ray of sunshine himself." That is to say, Johnny's a fucking douche. V's vitriolic tone said as much.

[yondu]

"He still in ya? Or did the train do ya the decency of bringin' ya empty."

Because Yondu can already imagine how shit a deal that is. Being a douchebag yourself and knowing it, doing it to survive, is bad enough. It's barely even livin'! Your whole sense of being is built on this carefully cultivated persona of hate and that's not what your insides want at all.

(Or maybe he's assuming too much, sometimes he sees kinship there when there's none).

But from what he's said so far, he deserves a break. Just a breath of freedom. Less killin'. Less being used by someone else.

[bodyoftheseus]

"We were separated long 'fore I got here." Long before being four months, but definitely long enough.

The experience was similar, at least. V took less of an edge: he refused to commit to relationships, kept things distant and hold everyone at arm's length. If they pushed and grew too close he would be a dick and shove them away, or simply excise himself from their life and never look back. Which made the train, you know, difficult. Had to live with people no matter how you treat them, couldn't simply shut off and walk away from it all.

"Not sure what I'd do if I showed up here with 'im in my head, 'specially with Kerry here now." Talk about a recipe for disaster.

[yondu]

Wait, that gets Yondu's attention.

"Kerry? The pretty good musician guy? Asked for somethin' to drink a while back?"

Suddenly he's putting together possible reasons for Kerry's sadness there. Not that he'd been intrusive, but sometimes realizing after the fact why someone had it hard made you feel that slightest bit worse for 'em.

[bodyoftheseus]

"Don't think there's another Kerry on the roster."

There's a bite to the way V says it, a meanness meant to try and push someone off of the topic. It confirmed that V at least had an idea of why Kerry was so unhappy, suggested that it was likely V's fault or - with the context of Johnny - maybe Johnny's fault.

Either way, he would need prompting to say more.

[yondu]

There's plenty of stupid comebacks he could make, or just to tell him to calm down, but since even Devero has yelled at him recently there's a part of his brain that hates his old crew, the ones what made him miserable by making him live with his fists raised and heart bloody and ragged, that just doesn't want to patiently ween someone through their heartbreak.

Hell. He's never even managed to find someone to love him. Helping someone else cope with theirs just isn't in him.

But his big act of kindness here is that he doesn't snipe back. He knows he's holding a verbal knife. He was handed a pretty sharp one with ragged edges that would cut deep. He doesn't use it. Instead he just hums, and turns away from that nightmare of a river, and walks off.

that's a wrap :elmofire:

[bodyoftheseus]

It was unfortunate that the fact that Yondu just turned and walked away suited V just fine. This was a topic that still hurt too much for V to talk about calmly. If Yondu were to bite back V would have picked a fight, if Yondu dug deeper V would have snapped to push Yondu away. There wasn't much way for this to go that continued in conversation anyway.

As Yondu walked off V became vaguely aware that he was doing it yet again - that thing where he pushed people away, but it was too late and he wasn't one to give chase. All he had left was to feel sorry for himself.