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.

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Ah.

He remembers Emporio mentioning that, and he kicks himself a little. Kid doesn't need reminders anymore than he does. Poor kid. He definitely should have someone to send a thought to.

"Pretty shit, huh?" Yondu says, staring out at the gorgeous river. It's like torture.

"I knew a planet who was this perty. He was somethin' called a Celestial. He was an asshole.... But I seen a few other places that were a li'l' like this that weren't so bad."

But then?

"You been on the train a good long time. How about if you lost some train folk you send 'em a message. Y'know, one of those what got off on a platform."

A grimacing smile, but he leaves it at that.

"Celestial..." Haha. "...That sounds like...someone trying to be a 'god'," he observes, perhaps with a stronger wince. It's what he was dealing with after all.

Hmm. "...I could try that I guess... ...I mean... ...I don't think he'd be from the world I really came from, since he died there, but the train said that time passes wherever we came from..." He swallows. "...Maybe he got to avoid it, then. He was here for a few weeks so..."

Donatello Versus wasn't exactly a nice person, but it's at least someone who he got to talk to, and know. And...

"...I guess...technically that means other people could be alive there too but..." But he can't. He can't do that.

Especially when the chances are that he'd just make things confusing for another version of himself.

"That's exactly what he was... had the powers to back it up, but you ain't wrong." Yondu pulls a toothpick out of his basket to gnaw on.

"You know, you don't gotta say somethin' real particular. You could just put a thought in their head."

He deserves the chance to at least try. This is a good kid that actually takes his time out to help people. Someone's gotta be glad to have a good thought from him.

"Why don't you try it an' make it short. Just... somethin' small, that they won't question all that much."

"There's a lot more people like that than I expected..." That's kinda...freaky, actually.

But still. He looks at the bag, and sighs.

"...I could, I guess, but..." ...

"...I think I'd just keep thinking about the ones I knew, you know? ...the ones that... ...aren't here now."

"Yeah...." His boy included, at least for a little while, but he doesn't say as much. Peter never got a handle on 'em for more than ten minutes and that's the damn shame of it all.

"Look, if you can do it, you oughta. Just... maybe if they exist somewheres? Some set-up of 'em, anyway, they'll get 'em a good thought."

He smiles a bit, and nods. He... ...He has a point, he supposes. He doesn't want to think about it that way, but there's a point and...

"...You don't have anyone like that, huh..." He sounds sad as he says it, but the fact is if Yondu is giving him a stone to pass a message like that, while saying that, it doesn't exactly point to any other option.

Yondu has to digest a way to put this to a kid. Someone that has his own hell of a lot to handle.

"I did somethin' stupid a long time ago an' made my friends hate me. Last time I saw 'em, which was not long before I came to the train, they uh... they told me they didn't want to hear from me none ever again."

That's the nicest way to put it.

"I still love 'em. Cain't force on 'em what they don't want." And there's nothing he can add to what he's said to Rocket or Peter. One of those 'add too much and risk ruining it' situations.

Hmm.

"...Would it be forcing, if it was an apology?"

The idea of leaving things behind...it doesn't sit well to him, really. As someone without a world to go to, the idea of leaving things to fester, leaving things raw to the world out of the fear of making it worse...it fees like doing that makes sure that nothing ends well.

"...I don't think I really know, I guess, what it feels like to get people that mad. I... ...honestly, if I think about it, everyone was just trying to keep me safe," he laughs quietly. "...But I think if I knew someone really well, and called them a friend... ...I think even if someone made me really mad, I'd like it if they apologized. ...Or, if I wasn't going to see them again, even just said goodbye."

...should he put that feeling in the stone, a goodbye? ...That would probably scare the 'alternate versions', if he thinks about it. Probably a bad idea then.

"It's one of them level of apologies that it takes acts to fix.... Hope I already managed that with how I went, but I ain't ever gonna know. Best I leave it."

But he does pick up a stone. No real intention to throw it in, but he holds it in his hands to think at. Kid breaks his heart. He doesn't know how bad they hated him. Or worse, how much they used to love him before he fucked that up. But he decides that, well, it wouldn't hurt too much to think out a few messages and just not send them.

"I think you oughta say somethin', though. You're a good boy. I cain't imagine a bad thing comin' out of ya."

All these kids are so decent they mess with him. They deserve better than here, but for some this is the only here that they have. "If ya had some folks that made your life good, at least tell 'em that. Too few of those in this damn universe."

Emporio looks to Yondu, and then looks to the stone. He's not sure about it, sending something to people who should be long gone- or even to people who simply...wouldn't remember that fact. Part of him feels like if he were to send it to anyone it'd have to be someone on the train with that logic- someone still on the train, even. But...

He takes the bag, considering it in silence.

"...hey...are you going to be okay?" he finds himself asking, still worried, still thinking, feeling, of course, because it's easier to think about how it can't possibly be too late for someone else rather than for himself. "...even though this is our only chance?"

It takes him a second too long to answer that. Just thinking about it. Is he ever okay? No. Not really. But he's okay enough to keep doing what he's doing and isn't that what they need.

"Yeah. I'll keep on truckin'."

He pats Emporio's back. He's a good kid. "Go ahead. I'm right here if you need somebody to keep ya hyped up."

"Right."

... "After this...can you tell me about your friends?" A pause, and he adds- "I can talk about mine too, if that helps. It just seems important to...talk."

If no talking happens, they're both stuck dwelling on...whatever it is they're stuck with, after all. Whatever it is...

...

Emporio pulls out the stone, clenching it tightly in his hands. He doesn't have to say anything aloud- and honestly he's not sure words would quite make it there. But it's a message for whoever it is that Yondu feels so terribly about, feels so much like he failed, that he can't bring himself to even apologize for fear of making something worse. Whoever it is out there, they deserve to know-

He's sorry. He made a mistake, and he's sorry. I don't know what he did, but he's sorry, and while I don't know him the way you probably do, he's been good to me, at least. You should know- that he's doing okay, helping us, helping others, and he'd want you to be doing well too. He'd want you to be happy, and safe, enough that he's holding back in case he hurts you.

I'm glad I know him. I hope you were glad to know him too.

Emporio breathes.

"Okay. ...I think... ...When they get this, they'll understand."

And tosses the stone into the river.

"I mean, yeah. They were good people."

As much as he hates himself constantly for disappointing them, he does like talking them up. He likes sharing stories of the past that he didn't get to share with Peter because it meant giving Peter openings to find out who his father was. Couldn't let that happen and let the boy end up dead.

He assumes that Emporio sends it to his own people, like they'd been talking about. He hopes he does, anyway, not imagining for a second he'd waste that kind of chance on an old bastard he barely knows.

"I was in a real bad place for a long time. Literally a bad place. I was a captive." He doesn't want to bring up the slavery thing to Emporio, even if so many kids on this train have seen just as bad. It still feels like burdening them with his shit. "But when I grew up, this guy came along an' saved me. Real strong fella named Stakar. Like... You seen folks like Soldat an' Devero? Imagine that but actually happy a good chunk of the time." Look, he's simply stating a fact. "His whole nature was lighter. Just took weight off ya to be around 'im." Something Yondu would probably never master. But he'd admired the hell out of Stakar for it. "He loved the hell out of the lot of us."

And Yondu had loved him right back. Through and through.

"We had this one guy that looked like a fish...snake thing... called a Lem? His name was Krugarr. Crystal guy named Martinex. Big fella named Charlie-27. Talkin' Piccolo big. Stakar's wife, her name was Aletta, an' she was pretty as hell an' scary as shit with a blade. We had this good team goin'. Probably the happiest I ever was."

He was a real dumbass for wanting more than that, wasn't he? It was practically gambling, what he pulled, and if he'd really considered what was on the table he might not have done it. Even if in the foggy chain of events in his mind, he can put together that his bullshit mistakes meant that he saved a big hunk of the galaxy's population.

It doesn't make him happier about 'em.

A bad, captive place...he doesn't expect that what he thinks of for himself is nearly the same situation, but he can't help but think of it anyway. Even if no one personally was holding him there, it was just as good as. So the boy nods, and listens, turning his head to look up at the other while he spoke.

A whole team...a whole family, huh...

... "...It sounds... ...familiar," he eventually says, smiling sadly. "...Where I was...I was alone for a long time, I guess. If anyone had found out I was there..." ...It wouldn't have ended well.

"But then I met..." He swallows. "...I met Jolyne. ...And...the same person I was hiding from...was targeting her next. So I tried to help her...and then after that, I met her friend Ermes, and then Foo Fighters... ...and from that, I got to know Anasui," he supposes, "And..."

... "...And Weather Report. ...The...The one who originally had the Stand, 'Weather Report'. They used the same name, since...he couldn't remember his real one," he explained, finding himself wiping at his eyes.

"...I guess, for me, that was my family...so..."

He wants to ask what happened. He probably will, eventually. He knows bits and pieces. It was there, it was gone, Emporio was thoroughly alone (what is a Stand?).

But then Emporio is tearing up, and in his mind's eye he can see some past version of himself demanding that Peter not cry. He couldn't cry, his crew would see it as a weakness. He can see some past version of himself being ignored as he cried to the point that he just stopped. He'd look away, he'd look down. He'd stop being a real person because tears accomplished nothing. No one would look at him as something capable of feeling pain except as a punishment.

But here's this little boy wiping his eyes. There's no crew here that'll kill him for being soft and missing his absent family. And Yondu's not some asshole fit to ignore it to teach a lesson if he can help it.

So he reaches out and carefully pulls Emporio up against his side, giving him something so he's not alone in that. "It's alright, kiddo. If they're worth cryin' for you might as well do it."

He's gotten a new appreciation for how much mourning someone means. If this kid wants to miss his friends, maybe that's as good a message as any. It's good he sent them somethin' (or so he thinks), but this is just as important an honor. Who would have thought shedding tears over folks was was important?

Emporio doesn't resist being pulled over, and if anything it lets the tears flow even more. They gather, and spill more in waves than drops, and the boy shakes in Yondu's grip. "...I miss them," he finally chokes, squeezing his eyes shut. "...I wish I could tell them- the right ones, how much it meant...how much them sacrificing themselves like that meant..! I wish I could tell them, I stopped him, so they can rest now...I...aaah..."

He'll just have to cry it out a bit, it seems. In his own way, he's at the other end of the sort of matter Yondu was handling himself.

"Stopped who? Who did they stop?"

There's a lot coming out of Emporio and in asking that he may be asking for more of a flood than he bargained for.

They put a lot of faith in him, apparently, to beat someone they couldn't. He's been in the place of the person having to give the faith. "Considerin' how timelines work, somethin' real near to the right ones might be folks you can reach." He still tries, and hell, this isn't his damn shirt. If Emporio needs to cry it's as good a place for child tears as any.

"I did... ...he killed... ...he killed all of them, and I was next, and..."

A shame about the shirt, but it might be a bit before Emporio's tears stop. Especially given what can be determined from his fragmented crying- evidently Someone was up to something no good. Enough to go after him- after everyone he knew.

Enough that it took everyone but him dying, to take down. "...I just wish I could...tell them, so they can rest..." It'd be too 'early', too awkward for anyone else.

Or worse- too late, he fears.

(Or maybe he can warn them? He doesn't know...he...)

"Who killed 'em?"

He stoops to pick up a rock, but doesn't move too far from Emporio. "Hey, hey. You want me to do it?"

He actually decides to ask, because sometimes it's easier to have someone else do it. He just got a loose rundown of names. "You tell me who needs to know what, an' I'll make sure they find out. Alright? An' that way you know they got told somethin'. If you don't want it to be from the voice in your head, it can be from the one in mine."

...It occurs to him what he's been saying. Emporio stills, quiet for a moment.

"It... ...it doesn't matter, now. They're..."

The boy blinks as Yondu picks up a rock. He almost says 'like what I did', but he holds his tongue. That much at least, he knows won't help. But...

"...He was called 'Enrico Pucci'," he says quietly, wiping at his tears. "...I... ...I can't even say 'their plan won't work', because what if they haven't thought of it yet in another world, or if it's a different one... ...But..."

It's a good thing that, despite their lack of knowledge, it can reach the ones who died.

He grabs one of the little bags for the rock, only moving away long enough to do that before coming back to Emporio and patting his back.

"Enrico Pucci. So name somethin' the plan involved, an' I'll say the plan about so an' so ain't gonna work, don't do it?"

He gives him an earnest nod. "We'll warn 'em, okay? Some version of 'em. So that they got time to think out what they're doin'. If this river knows it'll take it to 'em early enough to do somethin' about it."

He might not entirely trust it, but it's better than just feeling helpless.

Name the plan...or part of it...mnnh.

"...I think...the best way would be to say...stopping time, and using Anasui as bait, it won't work. ...I think somehow, they just didn't have enough time..."

"Alright. Got it."

He puts both hands over the rock, concentrating for a bit as he puts every bit of mental effort into a message for someone that he don't know.

The plan's not gonna work. You can't use Anasui as bait, there won't be enough time. If you're not careful, Emporio's gonna be left with all that guilt an' loneliness on his head. He needs y'all. Do your best for 'im.

He puts the rock in one of the bags and throws it into the river, then pats Emporio on the back. "I let 'em know, alright? Maybe they'll come up with a better plan somewhere. Sometimes you're just lucky enough to pull off an impossible fight if you got folks in the know."

He doesn't know the specifics of the message of course. But then again, he doesn't have reason to think that somewhere out there, it won't...not work. No reason to think that with this warning, some other version of him and the others might just come out happy.

He wishes he could see that sort of reality, but for now he decides to just be happy for whatever other self makes it through, and nods.

"...Yeah. ...I..." He swallows.

"...Thanks."

Emporio said his piece (or so Yondu assumes) and has a plan, now. It's not all that much, but it's something.

"Hey, you know what? How about you show me what they actually put in your basket. Ever'body seemed to get somethin' different."

It's a weak distraction, sure, but he's wanting to get them away from this morbid riverside. It's meant to be cathartic but all he feels is the baggage of a line of heavy minds, all struggling to unleash how they feel.

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seacub - 2021-05-01 14:08 (UTC) - Expand

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The Endless River

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CW: Vague Stone Ocean End Spoilers

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