middleofsomewhere | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's hard to hide when you're a tall burly blonde standing out in the middle of a mushroom forest, and Soldat is hard to hide from in general. It doesn't hurt that they have a kind of warped sense of privacy, anyway, and don't really expect to be given it in many cases. "You don't need to leave, Guri," they say, without looking away from the river.

That detection is, frankly, impressive given how quiet she can be. Another small fact filed away. But he, like her, had been honed as a weapon regardless of personal preference.

"I felt it rude to interrupt," she responded.

"Well, I'm done now, so you're not interrupting. Come sit?" They pat the riverbank beside them.

She did so, sitting gracefully next to him, looking out at the water.

"Very well."

They toy with the chain around their neck, not pulling the chewing pendants out yet but considering it. "You doing okay? Didn't see a lot of you on the mission."

She sighed, looking down at her hands for a moment.

"I was on the walls, killing demons," she said. "All the time, just...combat."

"Yeah, I was, too. Off with Red team at the big gate, taking out demons and shattering keystones." They don't look at her, but she's in their peripheral vision, and that sigh is not boring well for the "okay" question. Which she didn't answer. They hazard a guess: "You aren't happy about that. The combat."

"No," she admitted. He was apt to understand, perhaps better than anyone. "I know it had to be done. What they would have done. But I killed so many. And I'm tired of killing."

She looked off, in the distance.

"Perhaps I would be better with it, had I longer to go without doing so. Or perhaps I'm just fated to do this. There are such forces, in my universe. Fates, destinies...maybe it's just what I get to do."

(Poor kid. Opposite problem from me, seems like. I dunno, pal. Think it's more complicated than that.) "Not all missions are like this, the last missions was much less combat," Soldat says after a moment of chewing on that, and deciding not to bring up their own experience in Beacon yet. Wrestling with the intense satisfaction they'd felt during the spirit siege, when everything was sharp and focused and right, but no one was giving them specific orders to kill-- it's not the same was what she's describing.

God, that was so long ago, now.

"And now you have a choice," they continue. "Join Orange team, who doesn't fight much at all. Or Blue team, which deals with civilians more often than enemies. Or stay on the train. Or fight, but on your own terms. It's not fate. It's your decision."

She took that in, just looking down at her hands.

"I couldn't stay on the train. That would be an abrogation of my responsibilities to other beings."

She's well aware many humans might not say the same thing. One of the ironies of her existence, really.

"But had I not fought on the wall, others would have died. Maybe my friend Della. Maybe others. Demonstrably, what I did saved lives. I was clearly placed there for a reason."

Choice or no, she may have a right to make another - but should she?

"I've been told that dying is. Very rare, around here," Soldat comments. "Only a handful in the. The. Eleven months? The train has been in operation?" If there's been one month per letter of the alphabet, then yeah, this is the eleventh month. "But I do understand. For people, dying can be traumatic, even if they come back, and saving them from that is good."

"Yes, and that I spared many people on that planet from such is the biggest factor I have mitigating how I...feel."

She pauses.

"I understand necessity. I will 'soldier on', as they say. But I just hope there are more, better uses for my sentience than snapping bone and shooting holes in things."

Well, that's just silly. "There already is. There already has been. You're kind. You're learning how to cook. You've gone to a dance. Looked out for people who turned into kids." She's only just barely close enough for them to reach over and bump her shoulder gently with their flesh knuckles. "You've made friends. Just cuz one week out of four you're fighting don't mean you aren't doing worthy things the other three weeks."

She looks at that gesture, brow furrowing. That's a new one. Hmm. Catalogued. Seems to be in the area of 'mild friendliness.' Oh well, a curiosity for later.

"Is it a matter of time, though? I killed...a lot of demons. Every religion I've ever encountered seems to be very hot on that being something to avoid, and rather heavier on the scales."

She's undecided about faith. She's not sure whether or not she believes in a God, or even gods. Religion, overall, well. They may have a point but she won't be putting money in the collection plate any time soon, let's put it that way.

"I don't know a ton about religion," Soldat admits. "If I ever did, the memories are gone." And they think maybe they might have known something, they're just not sure how much. "But I can't think it's wrong to stop someone or something that wants to hurt others. And I'd rather I do it myself if it's gotta be done. If I can spare someone who's never killed before. I'll do it. Without hesitation."

They hitch one shoulder, looking back down at the river. Seems like the right place to add: "I liked it, you know. That's probably the bad part, not the killing itself. It was. Satisfying. Doing what I'm made for. Making the perfect shot, always in motion, unstoppable. Actually using all the threat assessment going on in my head."

She processes all of that for some time, fingers drawing patterns in the dirt at her feet.

"I never had that. Satisfaction, I mean. I was just completing tasks, and they never utilized my skills to their fullest. Even in the old days, when I killed as ordered...I felt that lack. I still do, really."

She sighs.

"But you are correct in your first point. It is a dreadful necessity."

That's a little disheartening, that the other murder machine around doesn't recognize the feeling, but Soldat supposes they're not really surprised, either. It's better for her, not to feel that. Makes it easier to stop when she wants to, they figure.

"If it helps. I don't think you're bad. Killing or not," they offer. "You're not doing it for fun. Or without need. And if you need to stop, nobody is going to judge you for it. I sat out a couple fights back in Beacon, and nobody thought less of me."

The Endless River

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