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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Yondu didn't send one to Peter.

It wasn't a lack of pride; he's disgustingly proud of how that boy turned out. He's proud of his good heart and the fact he don't give up. He's proud he's got people that love him and are willin' to commit to him in a way that he lost so long ago. He's even glad Rocket isn't going to make the mistakes Yondu himself made.

But he also doesn't want to ruin that clear, concise, important parting note.

So he's got a pocket full of little bags with no place to send them. He's got a heart brimming over with shit that no one wants to hear. The only outgoing thoughts he's managed are outgoing ones of hate, for parents that he's never had a chance to berate before.

This river is breaking people, and he doesn't know Selenay, but he knows what that sob means. A whole lifetime worth of some kinda missed chances.

He walks up to her side and offers the bags in his pocket. "Make sure ya get ever'thin' said. I don't think no one will judge."

Damn, she's been caught. There's no point in trying to hid the evidence now, but she wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand regardless. She's a Queen, dammit, and she has some dignity left. Not much, but all the more reason why she should at least try to protect what she has left.

She tries to answer once, but finds that she can't get the words out quite yet. What even would she say to explain herself? He's obviously heard enough to at least have an idea of what sent her here. She takes a deep and shaky breath and sighs the air out of her before she tries again.

"Thank you, but no. If I send any more I'm liable not to stop." There are too many things she wants so desperately to tell her daughter she'd just never leave. Even if she never got an answer.

"I'm sorry, I'll move out of your way."

"Nah, I sent my piece."

And it wasn't pleasant. Not loving in the least. It was hard-edged and bitter and directed at family that never had the claim of being as such. But nothing good. No words of fondness.

"Never seen a river mess so many people up. Ever'body here had a whole life they got yanked out of... or ain't had much of no life at all."

Sounds like Selanay is the former.

It's only then that she actually turns to look at the man and pauses--blue. Of course he's blue. What else can happen around here? At least she's learned well enough not to ask questions lest she give herself another series of headaches trying to untangle the innumerable things she had no hope of understanding. He's blue. Why would he not be?

She covers the moment of shock with a sigh and she shakes her head, less in disagreement than resignation.

"This...being doesn't seem to realize that we have our own disasters we should be tending to. Or that someone else is expecting to see us in the morning."

"I don't have nothin', I won my fight." And lost it. "But the rest of y'all do. It really don't care much."

Except enough to bring them here and to throw thoughts to the wind. He kicks one of the stones into the 'water', watching it vanish without a dream to contain or a bag to hold it aloft.

Just an old blue man, kicking rocks.

"What'dya say? Or is that private." Because a lot of this was. Sometimes people needed to say it aloud to someone they could face, though. Someone who they knew would hear. And as brutally closed as he used to be, he's found it in him to listen more often than not.

"There were--or are, I suppose--several people who needed to know not to look for me." And final decisions she needed to have made to at least make the transition to Elspeth's reign as smooth as it could possibly be, given that it had begun with her mother's disappearance. And on the cusp of a war that was going to end in rivers of blood.

That's not what the tears had been for, though, and that much is obvious. She briefly considers just not continuing the explanation, but she's already been caught and just pretending she hadn't isn't going to work.

"And one for Elspeth. My daughter." She does leave it there for now. IF she starts to think about it, she'll cry again, she can already tell that much.

Ah. He sees now.

It had hit Sanzo like that, too. Yondu couldn't even bring himself to send something to Peter.

"S'alright. I got a boy, too. I get it." Even if he'd been a coward about it, not wanting to ruin that moment for her. It was important that they had this. Even if he couldn't settle into it.

"I mean, I don't know ya none, but I figured if you needed the help or somethin'." It's the most awkward offer, just to be around when someone seems to be alone and breaking down, being unknowingly strange while he's at it. But it's there.

"It's alright, I appreciate it." Perhaps she's overly-friendly or too focused on people, but she can appreciate the effort it takes to comfort a stranger. He might not be able to reach the deepest parts of her grief over what she'd left Elspeth to do, but he's trying. And that by itself makes a difference to her.

But she is a Herald, after all.

"Your boy," she finally manages after a moment or two of silence. "What was he like?"

"He's a good boy. Not real smart, but grew up to be a decent man. Great at flyin' a ship, though. Has a good heart, better than most of the folks that he was raised around. Figure he gets that from his mama- I didn't know her, I took him in after she passed."

Took being the operative word there.

"What about yours?"

She snorts in spite of herself at "not real smart." That sounds somewhat less supportive than what a parent should probably be saying about their child, but the rest is more in keeping with what matters, anyway.

"He sounds like a good man." And now she has to describe her daughter, which seems far more difficult than it should be.

"Elspeth is...fiery, I suppose you could say. Even so, she's still sweet and kind and loyal. She truly cares about her people and her duty. She's become a lovely young woman, which is somewhat surprising considering I almost ruined her after her father died."

Considering that Peter called him an 'old doofus' to his face, that's about as good as their relationship got.

"You messed up a li'l' bit too, huh?" He doesn't sound in the slightest bit judgemental. Just... actually, sort of glad that he's not the only one with shit they did wrong. It's not great, no, but it means that if some seemingly decent folks messed up, maybe he can be decent for someone, too? There's not a whole lotta hope in him for himself, but he clings to it a little bit at a time.

"She got any family left aside from you? Close friends or somethin' for support?" At least he knows what Peter has now is better than what he did.

"I might call it more than 'a bit' but yes." She at least knows her mistake and can admit it. It's been years now, and Elspeth has been spared Selenay's confusion. Too much like her father, even today.

"Family, yes. Sort of. She's not met them, and honestly I'm not in any rush to introduce her to them. They're her father's blood." And she can't speak to how good or bad that blood might be. She's managed to be rescued, but that was mostly Talia's work. And Selenay herself has had enough bad experience with them.

"Friends she does have, at least. And I would hope that she's reaching out when she needs them. She'll...be in a difficult position about now, and I can't imagine what she must be going through."

"What kinda position is it?"

It sounds like she had some kind of big obligation that her daughter now inherited. But that wasn't unusual for these parts. Yondu destroyed his entire life to protect Peter. He didn't just sacrifice himself. But his ship, the bastard remains of his men, his arrow, everything. All so Peter wouldn't be followed by his problems.

He can imagine how he'd feel if he hadn't had the chance to do that.

Damn. She'd gotten too comfortable and let too much slip. Or too emotional to keep her mouth shut. Either way the result is the same, and she'll either have to give up pretending that she's no one special, or lie through her teeth very carefully. Neither option is all that appealing, and she can't even really say which is the lesser of the two evils.

"I'll have left some unfinished business behind that she'll have to handle and it's all rather a mess at the moment." Not exactly a lie, but not the whole truth either. She's learned a trick or two by now, at least.

"I like that dodge there. That could be 'wanted poster' unfinished business or 'I have bodyguards' unfinished business. But I ain't gonna press ya."

It's none of his business, but he's gonna tease her over noticing something went awry there.

"I'm sure they'll be fine." Both her daughter and his idiot. "I know I raised mine strong an' stubborn an' he's plain ol' unreasonably lucky in unlucky situations. He'll get by."

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The Endless River

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