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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Raven shrugged. "We were teenagers, even if we also were superheroes. Sometimes it was Starfire's weird, at least to us, tastes in food. Sometimes it was just Beast Boy playing jokes." Not all that much to tell. "Starfire does have a pet. A mutant silkworm named Silkie. She tried to hide him from us at first, and came up with all kinds of excuses for some of the damage he caused. Like it being the day when Tameranians berate and destroy their curtains."

He smiles a little at that, reminded of Peter's antics just a little.

"He never brought home no pets, but yeah, Peter woulda said stuff like that." He picks one of the smaller mushrooms off the ground to get a look at the cap's underside, to see if it's glowing. "Did she try to feed nonsense to y'all?"

"Besides about Tameranian's berating and destroying their curtains?" Raven's tones had a hint of amusement. "How she got the pet, I don't really know--but I know where it came from. It was a leftover from some pets or minions or both from Killer Moth. A supervillain who threatened to release them all over the city." A pause. "Unless Robin took his daughter, Kitten, to the prom. Think stereotypical blonde-haired, dark blue eyes, teenage drama-queen, only her dad's a supervillain."

"Nah, I mean, you mentioned she liked weird food. Which, I reckon, is about how I feel ever' time I go in the kitchen. Luckily I ain't picky. If it's got protein I'll prolly give it a try."

He pulls a face. Well, he can't really ridicule some other dad's tactics. But, huh....

"I know a few folks like that who think mighty highly of themselves." And it's easier to live in that lazy sort of dismissal of egotistical people than it is to keep feeling bad about himself.

"Killer Moth was also blackmailing the city for money. And for Robin to take Kitten to the prom. Cyborg, Beast Boy, and I only found out because he called us on the comms after it happened. We'd been chasing this thief on a motorcycle--who literally had a spider for his head."

"An actual spider- do yours got ten legs or eight legs?"

It doesn't change the strangeness of the story, but he needs it for his own mental image.

"So Starfire ended up keepin' one of the lil critters as a pet?"

"Eight Legs." Raven answered easily. "Turns out said spider-headed thief was actually Kitten's boyfriend. He'd broken up with her right before prom, hence her being a brat and getting her father to add 'And Robin takes her to Prom' to his blackmail demands." It had been a strange mission, that was certain.

"Cyborg, Beast Boy, and I went ahead to try and stop Killer Moth, while Starfire apparently shadowed Robin at the Prom." Honestly Raven still wasn't sure how or when Starfire had picked up Silkie. This wasn't even their strangest mission.

"This wasn't even the strangest mission we'd had."

Yondu grins again.

"Yeah, funny how the weirder ones sometimes stick with you in a good way. Even if bad shit happened, ya got all this stuff that you ain't ever gonna reason around. What do you reckon was your strangest?"

Hey, he'll enjoy her good stories. They're probably worried like hell for her right now.

"That's...hard to say, honestly." Raven admitted, then was quiet and thinking. "We've had some strange ones. One I definitely do not want to repeat, ever, involved the villain Mumbo Jumbo."

You ever heard a name and knew it was gonna be bad? That's the kind of thing a name like 'Mumbo Jumbo' invokes. He blinks so hard that it probably should have been accompanied by some kind of sound effect, then scrunches up his face.

"Welp, hit me with it. I'm in the mood to hear it."

"His official name might've been the Amazing Mumbo, but I just remember the mumbo jumbo, so that's what he became in my head." Raven sighed. "We thought he'd been defeated for good after his jewelry heist and chase around the city, as Robin managed to break his magic wand. Apparently, he had more tricks."

And she looks kind of disgusted for having to make that joke.

"So this time, he'd just robbed a bank. I still wasn't very impressed with his magic, so apparently he decided to teach me--and my friends--a lesson. He pulled me into his hat somehow." Raven ignored the fact that she pulled people into her cloak sometimes too. Extra-dimensional spaces were tricky alright? "Where I was changed into a small, white, bunny."

Edited 2021-04-14 03:15 (UTC)

"Oh, like them li'l things WangJi owns."

He sees them in his room sometimes.

But somehow, Yondu doesn't look all that surprised. He's following along fine. He gets the whole dimensional space shit. He gets the people turning into animals shit.

"It's pretty funny that he weren't impressed, though. Were ya not flashy enough?"

"Yes. Xiao Xingchen has one too." Raven actually liked the little bunny, but was very glad she was NOT a bunny herself. If she never had to experience that again, it would be too soon.

"I honestly don't know, because it's not like I'm subtle." Raven shrugged. "In any case, he also ended up pulling my friends into his hat-world, and planned to do his greatest trick ever. Making the Titans disappear."

"....Was it gonna all be rabbits or like, a cabinet thing or some kinda hokey setup?"

"Honestly? I still don't know. He did have us all trapped in cages on a stage, and made us perform for him." Raven sighed. "Robin was turned into a monkey, Starfire a big cat, Cyborg was a bear in a tutu. Beast Boy is normally an animal shapeshifter, but he could only do inanimate objects."

"What the hell kinda magic is that?" Yondu asks, staring into the middle distance. His brow all furrows and his mouth in one of its more exaggerated frowns.

Then he just shakes his head. It's no stranger than train shit. No explanations actually needed.

"If it helps, we tricked him to get us free with 'hokey' magic. Namely, we painted ourselves to blend into the stage backdrop, and took him by surprise. His hat is actually in our vault, for safe-keeping."

"Alright, yeah, that's a pretty odd'un."

He accepts that story as suitably strange, nodding with a grin. "Me an' my crew was about that close before I screwed shit up. Depends on how much you'd enjoy stories about folks stealin' instead of bein' heroes. Because we pulled some real big heists."

"I wouldn't mind hearing your stories, Yondu." Raven said, with a genuine smile. "You were something like a space-pirate, right?"

"Right, kinda. Stakar founded the Ravagers to exist outside of the laws of the Kree an' Xandarian Empires. Somethin' of a kinda refuge. Not that we was the best people but for people what needed to get out an' had the fightin' affinity to do it, the Ravagers were there."

He chuckles. "Hey uh... there was this big guy. Like, Piccolo big called 'Charlie-27'? Now I'd take the piss out of 'im ever' once in a while for bein' so big. Did that thing where you ask for somethin' on high shelves? One day he just goes, 'Here, I'll help you get it'-" he mocks a really deep voice as he says that, "-picks me up like I'm a li'l' baby right at the waist and lifts me up like I ain't nothin'. I ain't ever had someone get that sound outa me again, I can't describe it."

That brought a chuckle out of Raven. "Cyborg's the tallest of us, but it's always neat to see Starfire give him the bear hug-pick-up-off-the-ground style that he gives the rest of us, considering she's shorter than him."

"Yeah, I'd bet. Some of us need put in our place a few times."

At least in that way. He does his very best to keep the more serious scenarios of that out of his head.

"Why was he called Charlie-27?" Not that Raven was judging. She was honestly curious.

"He was a clone. They were these engineered people for heavy gravity. Real strong, sizable folks. One of them boys that could bend metal for the fun of it."

He shrugs. "I slowed down teasin' 'im but until we all split I didn't stop altogether."

"Tell me about more of your crew." Raven asked, because that was what she was most curious about. Normally she wouldn't pry.

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yondu - 2021-04-23 21:58 (UTC) - Expand

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