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

[light_of_willpower]

"You think the rest of us don't have promises to keep? People who will die without us?" Trunks made himself take a deep breath. "We do. This train kidnapped all of us without consideration for our circumstances. Without asking or giving us a choice."

At least she seemed more rational this time.

"That river isn't how to do it though. If you try--you'll die, and then you can't keep your promise."

[oceantier]

Maybe he does -- maybe they all do -- but they're not her. She doesn't know them. They have their own problems, and she has her own: Namely that the one she agreed to leave her post for, the one she'd sacrificed for to be weighed down with that post in the first place, is far away, out of reach.

That small face lingers in her mind. Fingers laced through hers. Trusting.

Of all people, trusting her.

"She could kill him." Her voice loses its quiet; her hands tense even as her eyes, dark, suddenly focus on his face. "How do you expect me to be okay with that? How do you expect me to just sit here in this place while he's there?"

[light_of_willpower]

"I don't. But I do know if you go in that river, you'll die. And he'll be dead anyway because you are." Harsh, maybe, but it was true. "Look, we're all stuck here--we're trying to find ways to go home. We all try to help each other."

[oceantier]

"You don't know that!" she shoots back. Her feet have braced on the soil. "It's sending rocks home." Briefly she twists, exposing the large, blue gem on her back, lodged between her shoulderblades -- seemingly embedded. "I'm a Gem. I control water. It might take me, even if it doesn't take you!"

She's not part of this place. She had a place -- started, finally, for the first time, to have a place. To have people. To have them ripped away, to not have a choice, to be trapped--

[light_of_willpower]

"Does it act like water? You say you control it, so CAN you control this? Are you absolutely sure you'll make it home?" Trunks continued, keeping himself calm. Making sure his hands were where she could see, and he was not approaching her closer.

[oceantier]

"It's my only option!" At this point her hands are balled into fists, furious at this person who just stands there calmly as though it doesn't matter, who just fires one question, one harsh, negating statement off after another. He doesn't understand. There's cost to her absence, at a level she can't begin to calculate.

He's crying.

He's afraid.

He's so small in that moment as she kneels in front of him. So small. His arms wrap around himself.

She quiets a moment, trying to form the words. And when she does, they stumble, but they're certain, as concrete as she can make them.

"These . . . aren't the things I know about you. I don't know what's happened. Something's wrong. Really wrong. Just . . . we'll fix it. Somehow. I don't know how yet. But . . . I want you to trust me."

Her fingers graze her collarbone. "Once . . . more than that . . . you helped me. You saved me. If you'll let me . . . -- even if you don't -- I'll give that back to you."

He reaches out his fingers to her. Rarely is she touched -- and especially not gently. When his hand reaches for her, for a moment she only freezes, uncertain at his stretching fingers.

Only on instinct does she stretch a hand out in return.

She backs away as the weight of the memory crashes inward -- almost a stagger.

"I promised." Whether the words are to Trunks or to herself is anyone's guess; the words are raw, strained. "I promised."

[light_of_willpower]

As long as she's not moving closer to the river, Trunks will stay where he is. "It's not the only option. You work with us, to try and find a way home. Several of us have ways of manipulating time too." Keeping himself calm, through willpower. He really didn't want to have to grab her, but he would if he had to.

[oceantier]

"Why should I trust you?" she thrusts back. She's gone back a step -- less to aim for the water and more to keep distance between them. "I don't even know you!"

[light_of_willpower]

"Have I given you a good reason not to? You admitted to all of us on the train yourself--you thought we weren't real." Trunks replied evenly. "No, you don't know me. And that's fine. I'll be honest here--if you try to go in that river, I AM going to try to stop that. Because I am 99% sure that you being a gem does not matter. It is not water, not like you know it, and then we're both probably going to end up dead and resurrected in the luggage car."

Trunks made himself take a breath. "I don't know you either. But I don't want you hurt or dying over something that's preventable. Do I have any good reason, not knowing you either, to be acting like this?" He had never acted hostile towards her, and he still wasn't.

Sorry, Trunks. Maybe they can try again in the future.

[oceantier]

She's upset and angry and raw at this point, and in no mood for someone who just tosses logic. At this point it's like tossing ice cubes into a raging flame, disintegrating in an angry hiss of vapor. He doesn't understand. As far as she's concerned, he doesn't try, and she's not ready for the cold emptiness of pure logic. Right now they're just not meeting anywhere in the middle, grinding together like jagged rocks. Unfortunately, it's not a situation that breeds calm.

She's not going to lash out at him. Nor at the moment is she going to jump in. But in that moment she hates him. Hates everything. Her shoulders tighten.

"I don't know what your reasons are, and it doesn't matter." As far as she's concerned, he has no reason to care at all. She's not altruistic -- why would anyone else be? He doesn't know her; no one knows her in this place. They have no reason to care, any of them.

Her wings blossom from her gem in a flurry of droplets. "Just leave me alone."

And with a sharp flap, she's launched upward into the rushing air.