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

[worthallthis]

"To Beacon?" They consider a beat. "Probably. I mean. I like that we've got a sense of purpose here, but. I've got people back there. And we had a mission, too, to try and warn the rest of the universe about the World Eaters." They look out over the river, stuffing back a moment of homesickness. The little house, the inn and its big kitchen, their patrol route, even the endless darkness has a feel of warm comfort to it.

They shake their head. "It might not exist anymore, though. If we didn't take out the last World Eater on the planet, then there might not be anyone to go back to."

[subcircuits]

"I hope you can get back to your people," Devero says quietly. "Somehow. However that might work. Kind of seems like anything's possible when it comes to the train, so who knows?"

[worthallthis]

They're not particularly hopeful. Even if they did defeat the World Eater, the dead might not be able to continue to exist on a world that's no longer dying. The spirits certainly expected to die if they saved their home. Even if they'd sent a message to Misty, they don't know if it will have anywhere to go.

Soldat doesn't want to think about it. They forcefully turn their attention back outward again, look back down at their folding paper. "Will you go back? If you have the choice?"

[subcircuits]

"No." Flat, immediate, certain. "I want to stay on the train. Keep doing the work; it's good work. Important."

He pauses for a moment, a long-ass moment filled with another hit on the joint and a controlled exhale and finally, finally, "I don't want to go back to her."

It is the first time he's so much as referenced his absolute meltdown on Soldat that day in the kitchen, now more than a month past.

[worthallthis]

"That's good." That's pretty important to know, they figure. (Ya think? Look, all I've got to compare to is us. And he ain't us.) "Took me a while to realize going back to HYDRA wasn't a thing I. Wanted. So that's good." Well, really, it took them a while to realize they were allowed to want that, rather than simply accept what came or didn't come and be grateful when what came didn't hurt. They think Devero is well past that, at least.

[subcircuits]

The comparison of his Madame to HYDRA this time doesn't discomfit him nearly as badly as last time, though there's still a twinge of objection briefly visible on his face. Just as visible is the way he dismisses it with a shake of his head.

"Does it feel like it shouldn't have been that hard to figure out to you, too?" he asks in a low voice.

[worthallthis]

They consider that for a moment, trying to put words to feelings that, at the time, had been very hard to put names to. "I know everyone else thought it took me longer than it should've," they settle for. "But I think it was. The soonest I could have processed it. I needed to learn that I could want things, first. That I was allowed to have a say in what happened to me."

[subcircuits]

That resonates. Oh, that resonates. In a much smaller and more narrowly defined way for Devero than for Soldat, but still-- "I get that," he says with a brief, humorless laugh. "Doesn't matter what everyone else sees about you if you can't see it from your own vantage, right?"

[worthallthis]

"If you can't see something from your own vantage, is it even really there? For you?" They shake their head. "Gotta change your vantage before something like that is. Is real." And sometimes it's just not possible to climb up high enough to see it, at all, they think. The stairs are gone, there's no handholds, and the cliff is too slippery to get purchase.

[subcircuits]

"How can it be?" Devero asks softly. "If you have no idea it could exist and you can't see it, how can it be real?"

When you're sunk so damn deep that all you know is that crushing isolation, that prison made out of your own mind; when you're so far down that the light from above can't even penetrate, how do you know what direction to swim? How could you know what to reach for if there's nothing visible at all?

He runs the tip of his tongue along the line of his teeth. "Needed a lot of help, to get somewhere where I could even see," he admits, the words coming slow and painful. "Still do."

[worthallthis]

"Yeah. I did a lot of crying on Misty's kitchen floor," Soldat admits. "And a lantern malfunction that showed me how much I'd changed, without even realizing it." They won't necessarily say there's a big hurdle yet to go-- they can't see that prize of personhood on a ledge far above, and frankly don't really want it, anyway-- but they can recognize they've gotten better. Recognize smaller goals to continuing to get better, like being more comfortable with touch. Not panicking every time they walk through the medical cars.

They toy a little with their lantern strap, the lantern itself still hanging open, spilling golden light onto the riverbank. "I used to have a paper on the fridge in our old house. New Year's Resolutions. Regain more good memories, stop shut-down, never forget again, and. Get better. But getting better is hard, yeah?"

[subcircuits]

"Fuckin' hard," Devero agrees. "I feel-- so--" He gestures vaguely, trying to describe with his hands something he's having trouble articulating in words. Finally, he settles on, "Pathetic."

He closes his eyes and hits his joint again, as if he expects the soporific to steady his nerves. Even future-weed doesn't work that way, though, and all it's really doing is making him sort of numb and disconnected.

"That's a good idea," he continues after a moment. "Your list. Little actionable goals're easier to meet, right? Getting better has to be all those other parts combined-- for. For you." He doesn't know what he'd put on his list, if he tried to make one like theirs.

[worthallthis]

"Misty said," Soldat offers after a moment, "that it's long. And hard. A slog, she said, and sometimes it'll get worse before it gets better. The Asset calls it reprogramming." They make another slow fold on their origami, now, just one. "But it's worth it. To be able to hug someone who needs it. To not freak out when somebody says the wrong word. To." They wrinkle up their nose a bit. "Well, she wanted me to take my old name back. Not sure if I wanna go that far."

They're sure those aren't the problems Devero has to work on, but they're pretending they're talking about Soldat here, not Devero, so it's okay.

[subcircuits]

"Names're important," Devero says. "Most important part is that it's the name you want, so if you don't want that deadname back, I say let it be dead. Keep Soldat, or-- pick a new name! Go by Edred, or Rathon or Mavudo, or whatever damn name you like."

He runs his free hand through his hair. "Reprogramming," he says, soft and thoughtful. "I think the Asset's got it right." And he's not just talking about Soldat, for real or pretend.

[worthallthis]

"The Asset's smarter than it lets on," Soldat agrees, and it makes an awkward rumble-grinding noise in the back of their mind at the praise. "Considering what I remember of my own programming process. I think we can manage it with it being a little less awful. Maybe." No actual beatings, no actual cattle prods, no actual Words. Just time and effort.

They make another fold, then another. The animal still hasn't taken shape, it's always hard to see where it will end up during the process. Soldat knows where it's going, but anyone watching won't. "I think we can probably make yours a little less awful, too. Even if yours wasn't exactly like mine."