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

[theimpatientone]

Merwen's face lights up. "That's exactly it," she says, pleasantly surprised. "All life is about sharing. We're all connected, and all are necessary for the world to function properly, from humans to insects to plants."

If she's surprised, well, sometimes it's easy to get a little discouraged about the alternative attitudes she's encountered.

[knifewithnoname]

"That do be being what you do be believing? Do it be being a religion? Do you be having gods in your world."

She's still not sure what to think about worlds without gods, but she is very interesting in learning about the different ways people lived in different places.

[theimpatientone]

Merwen pauses before answering. It's a complicated question.

"Not a 'god' as I think you mean," she says, "though I'm familiar with the concept. We Sharers never put a name to the spirit of the universe, even if others do. But we do hold our world as sacred even as we are a part of it, and care for it as the living being that it is."

[knifewithnoname]

So her whole world was a god. Sort of. That was a fascinating idea, a spirit of the whole universe and so the world itself needed to be cared for as a god.

"It do be sounding very..."

She's not sure, it's a hard concept. But she thinks she likes it. It is certainly better than worlds with no gods at all.

[theimpatientone]

She smiles, both in homesickness and in tolerant amusement. Obviously one of those cultural concepts that doesn't translate well. That's fine.

"I share sadness, being away from it. I miss it in the same way I miss my family. I've been away from my own world before, but not... not in this way."

[knifewithnoname]

"You do be missing it that much?"

That was very intense. But also interesting, "You did be being away from it before?"

Not like this? Had she known where she was the last time? Had she been able to get back?

[theimpatientone]

She nods. "I and my lovesharer, Usha, travelled to Valedon on the ferry that goes between the worlds. Even then, Shora is moon to Valedon, and we could see it in the sky as normally we see Valedon. And we knew we would return, soon enough. It's... different."

She shrugs a little, vaguely.

[knifewithnoname]

That's a lot of words that she doesn't quite know but she followed as best she could. A lovesharer? Someone she loved? A ferry between worlds?

"So it did be being a different planet? I did be going to those on this train, I do be thinking that do be different than another world." Especially if they could see their own world in the sky the whole time.

Easier to get to for once thing. "Why did you be going there?"

[theimpatientone]

"Yes, Shora and Valedon are sister worlds that way, each the moon of the other."

Merwen sighs a little. Thinking back to that trip brings up a lot of very complicated memories. "We went to find proof that Valans are human," she says simply, "as many of our sisters didn't believe such a thing could be true. Valans are much like yourself, you see. They have no webbing between their fingers and toes, and they have the same sort of plumage on their head." She pauses. "Hair, I think that's the word."

[knifewithnoname]

"Yes this do be being hair." She twisted a strand of her own around a finger. "Do you be calling yourself human too? Do that be being why they did no be thinking the Valans could be being human too?"

She couldn't really imagine having webbing between her fingers and toes, though it would make swimming a lot easier...