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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He had been darting in and out of the mushrooms, amazed at just how large they were, they were the biggest mushrooms he had ever seen!

He grinned when he saw his roommate and quickly found a way to climb up. He's a good climber, which is good because they are too tall even for a huge jump!

"This world is very pretty, miss Persephone!"

"It is! It's gorgeous, like nothing I've ever seen."

Persephone helps him up the last few feet and gesture to the picnic basket as she settles back down. Her face turns up again, the colors in the sky, and then the colors below, not quite mirroring but complementary in their chaos.

"Are you hungry? I've seen you running around, you must be getting hungry."

He grins as she helps him, clambering up to sit next to her and looks around. "I'm very hungry miss!"

He was always hungry, but even more so on a day like today where there was so much to do and so much to see! He's been exploring and playing and a picnic sounds amazing!

Persephone hasn't really unpacked the food, given the limited space up on a mushroom, but she opens it and offers him a savory nibble or a little cake.

"Have whatever you like. Growing children and all." She taps the picture frame on her lap, "Have you sent any messages?"

"Thank you miss!" He grinned and was quiet a moment as he tried the food. It was very yummy.

He nodded at the question. "I sent one to Elfnein, I hope she gets it wherever she went! I told her me and mister Zetta would find her once we figure out how but he's really smart so we will definitely manage eventually!"

Ah--right. Elfnein was his god? Goddess? Something like that. Persephone does wonder how he's taking it and well--it seems like a mix of denial and relentless brilliant optimism. So blinding. Well...if it works for him.

"Well he can be a bit of idiot, just between you and me, but I'm sure he'll try his best if you ask. He's not at all as heartless as he certainly claims to be."

"He's not an idiot!" It was mean to say such things about him! But she was right, Zetta would try his best and wasn't heartless at all!

"He's very kind even if he likes to pretend he's not! I thought it would be a bit scary being his shinki but he's been so nice and explains things and doesn't get mad at me even if I don't know stuff and he wants to help me become stronger too!"

Even if he was just his god until they found Elfnein again, it wasn't a scary thing at all!

"I'm pretty sure he's at least a little bit of idiot. As his girlfriend, I get to call him that, it's a privilege."

Persephone's amused smile softens the longer Romeo talks, nibbling at a tart as she takes it in. It sounds like Zetta. The Zetta she knows, as opposed to the face he tried to portray to the world.

"He cares about you. Even if he's a lot of show and bluster about it, he does care."

Wait. Miss Persephone was mister Zetta's girlfriend? Mister Zetta had a girlfriend? He hadn't known that!

He grinned at her. "I didn't know you were mister Zetta's girlfriend!" He hadn't thought book demon gods would have girlfriends at all. But miss Persephone is a goddess too.

"He cares a lot about lots of things, he's just not very good at showing it so I bet he cares about you lots and lots too!"

Persephone slowly blushes as he goes on, a hint at first, then a brilliant pink wash over her cheeks.

"Yeah--he does care about a lot of things. Don't feel left out about not knowing, it's... relatively new. Not a secret but you know, I'm not going to make a big thing of it over the train system." She ruffles Romeo's hair, "I am glad to hear it's going well with him though."

He nodded, not a secret but not something they made a big deal about. And mister Zetta didn't tell people lots of things about him, except when he was boasting about being an overlord.

He grins up at her as she ruffles his hair. "It is! I just got to keep working hard so I can be really strong when he needs me!"

Oof, he's just a kid. He doesn't need to be strong for Zetta, Zetta should be strong for him. Other way around.

"I'm sure you'll be just as strong as he needs. But don't let yourself get dragged into something personal. If he makes his bed, he should lie in it, not have you pull him out." She pauses, "That was a bit of an extended metaphor but you know what I mean, right?"

"Um I think so. A metaphor is a saying right..." Madoka had taught him that, so Zetta wasn't really going to be lying in a bed he made.

"Do you mean if he gets into trouble I shouldn't help?"

Because that didn't sound right....

"I meant more that if he gets himself into trouble, let him figure it out. If he upsets someone because he was being loud or rude, let him deal with it. He's a big guy, he can deal with his own arguments, even if they end in fights."

She pauses, how to explain it. "If he gets into a fight, no fault of his own, sure, help if he needs it. I just don't want you to throw yourself into something because he mouthed off to the wrong person or didn't think the long way was worth the time. Not that I think he'll drag you into it, I just don't want you to feel honorbound or something. How does this god thing work for you guys anyways?"

"Oh." He nodded slowly, it still felt a bit wrong but he knows mister Zetta was very grumpy sometimes and he might make people mad. Romeo didn't want that to happen, he wanted to help Zetta make friends with everyone and do good teamwork but he knew his god still needed a lot of help in that regard.

"How does it work? Um what do you mean miss? Do you mean how mister Zetta is a god?"

Because he can understand that's confusing, for him to be a god and a book demon all at the same time.

"I mean, more him being your particular god now and not Elfnein. I never really asked him and we don't really talk about where he was before this. I forget it happened sometimes, until, you know, this sort of thing." She gestures to him, "You belonging to him in some fashion and helping him. Is that the right way to put it?"

"Oh." That was easier to explain at least. "When Elfnein left from the platform the name she gave me disappeared. It's bad for a shinki not to have a god so mister Zetta named me instead." He held out his hand to show the red kanji 小僧 there.

"So it's just like that, I belong to him and am supposed to help him with whatever he needs help with." Which isn't that much, but Romeo tries to be as useful as possible. "When he calls my name I turn into my weapon form and that's a motorcycle. So he can fight with me, but he's not really done that because I'm not very strong and he doesn't really need help to fight... But I want to help him be better at teamwork because that's something he's not very good at yet."

"That's a decent goal to have. Teamwork is something he struggles with--or at least I'm guessing so. We don't cross paths very often out there during missions. Unless I tag along. But I tend to get in the way, I imagine."

Being a noncombatant. Only works when the mission isn't fighting. Persephone frowns. Romeo isn't really a combatant either.

"I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you didn't have to fight at all."

"I don't know... It's complicated." He sighed.

"He doesn't seem to want me to fight but also he does and he talks about making me be levelled up and something about combination and es-pee and I don't know. Sometimes he uses lots of words I don't understand."

He sighed again, he supposed he would just get in the way...

"I think I'd just get in his way too."

"I don't think you'd get in the way. I think he'd just worry about you getting hurt. I know he seems like it wouldn't bother him but I'm sure it would."

It's always been more difficult to thread the space between 'not really a fighter' and 'want to be helpful'. For her, it ends up with doing what she can on missions and finding opportunities where she can. For Romeo, an actual child, it's a little more complicated.

"I feel like, if it were me, I'd want you to be able to take care of yourself. But I'd be hesitant about fighting with you. Part of me would always be worrying about where you are and if you're okay and if you got hurt, I would have a hard time forgiving myself."

"I know, he doesn't say it much but I know he worries." He always had, even the very first time they had met when he had yelled at Romeo for digging dangerous holes in the sand

"But I worry about him too! Even though he is a god and a demon and an overlord. He doesn't know good teamwork yet so I worry he might go off on his own and get hurt or beaten."

After all, other worlds might have threats that were bigger than Zetta! "But I guess I can worry a little less because I know you will keep an eye on him too."

"I think he'd be a little bit offended if he knew you worried. He wants to be seen as the most powerful, thinking that he might get taken down by something else is doubting him. I mean, I worry occasionally, but I think he worries more about me than the other way around."

Persephone tucks her knees up to one side and smiles, "But I try to keep an eye on him anyways. Not because I'm worried but because I care."

"He would be very offended." He pulled a face, "But I can't help it! Shinki are 'sposed to worry about our gods, 'cause they worry about everyone else and have a big job to do."

So they needed to be cared for as well. "I'm glad you care about him though, It's all... together I think. Caring and being worried and being friends."

"We don't have anything like shinki on my world. Gods take care of each other. With nymphs and all the other beings of course. So I guess I get it. Though no one considers it their job to take care of gods."

Unless they're well paid for the trouble or grew up with them. She's fairly sure the nymphs she grew up around consider taking care of her part of their job, even now that she's all grown up.

"I suppose it is all together. But let's be honest, you don't worry just cause you're supposed to."

That was a bit sad, that they didn't have anything like shinki, people to look after them. But it was okay if they all looked after each other.

He shook his head. "No I worry 'cause he's my friend and I like him a lot so I want to make sure he is okay and is happy! I worried about him even when I was Elfnein's shinki."

Just because it was his job now didn't mean he hadn't cared before!

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