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

[irrationally]

"Of course. It's a river. What does it care what sort of messages it is carrying?"

After all, Alice has found the world is often like that. Completely uncaring. At least nature has a good excuse of it, not feeling emotions the way humans do to begin with.

But while it gives her a faint idea of the situation as she slowly removes her hand from the girl's shoulder, she still isn't too sure who A-Qing wants to send these bad messages to.

"What do you want to tell someone?"

[spikelet]

Alice's logic can be really strange sometimes, but it's true that a river is too powerful to really care about little offerings. Except after meeting creatures like the Higgledies, a-Qing is a little warier of the motives of nature, and so... she huffs, but decides to trust her.

And shifts even more towards her, chasing the hand that left her shoulder. Put it back..!

"That rotten guy. Not the one who came here, but the one from the world I came from." The distinction is a weird one, given that this guy wronged her the most, but... "Right now he'll be up to no good, controlling daozhang's friend and doing evil things with daozhang's--" With his corpse? He couldn't animate him while she was watching, but who knows... She shakes her head. "I want to torment him. He shouldn't be allowed peace."

[irrationally]

The girl doesn't have to explain who she means by that 'rotten guy'. In fact, said rotten guy has been on Alice's own mind as well after she saw that odd, odd announcement about a wedding.. She had been convinced that that blind man had cared for A-Qing greatly, though she's starting to doubt it a little. How much can he care for her if he's choosing to marry her murderer? Marrying said rotten guy?

"That's a good plan."

So of course she's going to encourage this. A-Qing deserves it, if not just to release some stress. And with the way the other is moving closer towards her like that, Alice seems to get the hint, now fully putting her arm over the girl's shoulder, rather than just a single hand.

"Did you have any idea yet of what message exactly you'd want to send to him?"

[spikelet]

This river trip really has come at just the right time for her to vent her helplessness. Get her feelings in order. Send dire curses to some bastard who doesn't even know the Void exists, because of everyone on her world, she was chosen.

That makes her feel a little better, actually. She wriggles so she's more securely within Alice's hold, and fishes one of the stones she's collected from her pocket.

"I can think of a lot of things I'd want to say," she admits. "But I already cursed and cursed at him before I came here, thinking I was about to die... What if he mistreats daozhang's soul or his body, if I provoke him?"

[irrationally]

"Well, since at least one version of each of them want to marry each other, I doubt it."

Is it said as dryly as Alice can possibly manage? It sure is. But come on, it's so ridiculous to her that she can't help but talk about it that way. It's just too strange to think about. Them talking about marriage here, but A-Qing having to worry about them hurting each other back home. Ridiculous.

"That being said, if you want to be careful about it, you can always make sure the messages are vague enough that he might not realise who they're coming from."

[spikelet]

"He definitely would," she argues. "He likes daozhang, but he's so messed up... he'd try to keep him to himself, he doesn't care about daozhang's will. Hurting is what he does."

This one... she couldn't believe he was so different. Not after that first night, never mind all of their interactions since. She pulls another face. "If I just say I'm someone he's wronged... there are so many, he'll have no idea." The stone wobbles in her hands, and she leans more heavily against Alice's side as she thinks. "I could say I was daozhang...!"

[irrationally]

Her arms shift a little, as if to pull the girl in even more, the more she speaks and leans over in Alice's direction. As if she may be able to keep her safe from all the dangers in the world, just as long as she can hold her in her arms like this.

Not that it's all Alice is doing though. The gears are turning in her head more and more with each word A-Qing says, and then Alice finally hums.

"Someone he's wronged, huh.."

That gives her an idea, apparently.

"Has he killed before, back home? You could use the messages to pretend to be a vengeful spirit haunting him. That might give him a good scare."

[spikelet]

"He's killed lots of people, I don't know their names." Her eyes narrow as she tries to remember the ranting he'd done. "The... Chang clan? And a mountain sect. The one daozhang's friend was from."

As far as she's concerned, he killed the citizens of Yi city, too, but since it was daozhang who held the sword, that wouldn't work. She slumps, frustrated. "I don't know enough about those guys to pretend--- oh!"

Her grip tightens around the stone, and she twists her neck to look up at Alice, eyes wide. Vengeful spirit, she's just said. A-Qing doesn't know the people, but hadn't she been trapped in that cave with the spirit of vengeance, Wester? That vision, of roiling, blistering hatred she'd been lost in... She can send that. After all, she knows it works on this Xue Yang. "Okay. Let me..." Her sentence trails off early, as she chews on her lower lip and relaxes her fingers around the sending stone.

It takes her a good minute to gather every scrap of that second-hand memory of pure, unadulterated loathing, as well as the weakness of someone paralysed by fear, the pain of a mouth filled with blood and nothing else, the injuries, the exhaustion-- I pray nothing good will ever happen to you, she thinks, viciously.

The stone glows a deep, bloody red, and she slips it into the bag before she can think better of it.

[irrationally]

Maybe this is a bit too much, Alice thinks the moment she spots that stone and its colour. Maybe she shouldn't be pushing a girl who's still young to think about stuff like this, while she should just be living an innocent kid's life.

But it's already a little too late for that, isn't it. Not even just in this moment, but in general. A-Qing has already been hurt beyond what any child should have to endure. And that means that taking revenge is her fair share, even if it means having to think thoughts that would turn a stone blood red.

"It looks like you did it."

Alice squeezes the girl's shoulder a little. Reassuringly. Like she's trying to pull A-Qing back down to this world, this moment.

"Are you alright?"

[spikelet]

The sensation of sending those feelings into the stone... it's cathartic, almost. She exhales steadily a few times, grounded by Alice's arm against her, then tips the bag into the river. Good riddance. The next time she speaks to him... it'll be when she goes home, ready to bring him to justice.

"Ye-" she clears her throat, then tries again. "Yes, I feel good."

Her smile is a little grim, eyes strained at the corners, but the relaxed slope of her shoulders and the way she leans back against Alice again is genuine enough. "Do you wanna send any?"

[irrationally]

"That's good," Alice simply says. Because she believes in those words. Even if A-Qing could lie verbally, Alice doesn't think the other girl would bother to fake her body language to this extent. It does seem like this made her feel better - and Alice is grateful enough for that, at least.

Even if the question that follows is a little more complicated.

"I don't have anyone to send nice messages to," she confesses after a moment, surprisingly candid. "And I'd rather have that the people I could send rude messages to would forget me entirely."