middleofsomewhere | So Familiar a Gleam: Conclusion

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So Familiar a Gleam: Conclusion

Time to leave!

There is not much of the city left, but the park is holding together as those anchoring help those who are not voidtreckers through back to where they belong. Monsters continue to attack and a little further out there is a battle of hearts and minds being fought with the mass of colours and chaos.

Eventually, after the bulk of citizens had been evacuated everyone with SCA's on would hear Jin-Roh's voice after a few frantic beeps, as Chiff aligned everyone's SCA's. "We are almost done here, if you are with anyone not tethered to a voidcraft get them to the evacuation point, as quickly as possible."

Anan pulls out of the anchoring point to call out to any defenders in the park. "Come on! Anyone who isn't a voidtrecker! It's time to go."

Luckily those off fighting the entity headed the message and made their way to the park as Jin Roh spoke again.

"Everyone else get ready. When we call it you need to leave. If you don't have your SCA on then get to someone who does."

As the last people rushed to the park Anan calls out again, through her SCA and outloud to the park. "You need to unanchor, before you can evacuate. Everyone be ready."

She goes in again though, because there are some last people, those from the large battle, getting through as another message was called.

"Almost there. Be ready. On my command..."

Anan unanchored again. "Quick everyone unanchor."

"NOW" Jin Roh's voice came through strong on their SCA's. Hopefully those with SCA's would grab those without.

There is some outside help as well, the train pulls anyone who is unconscious or still under the entity's control, forcibly evacuating them. This includes Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji and Zagreus.

Luggage Carriage

There has been a mass evacuation before and that was crazy enough but since then the population of the train has almost doubled and now it is an extremely tight squeeze as everyone crashes into the luggage carriage at the same time.

The train jerks and rolls as they enter into the void at breakneck speed and again as they seem to slow, rather than speeding off though the void.

There's a crackling from their SCA's. "Voidtreckers? Voidtreckers come in!" Anan's voice. "Please tell me you made it..."

There's only a few moments of signal and soon they are flying though the void again, away from the strange non-world, the entity sealed for now. To new adventures, but first hopefully some time to recover from all that has happened.

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He plops himself down on a trunk next to her, all gangly limbs at sharp angles brought to an approximation of grace at the last moment. The shattering of illusions, literal or otherwise, were hard enough to handle when growing up. In a situation like this, they're a whole different kind of heartbreak.

"People do end up home, for the most part. It's a matter of when. There's... lower numbers who are here without pause." He thinks on some of them, the people he's met more recently. All of them have been young, even younger than Nell.

"Anyway," he says, and he smiles, "You were an excellent daughter, and as your former father, I couldn't have been more proud!" That he knew for most of it what was happening doesn't change his thoughts. She'd been a delight, fun to converse with, and dedicated to her interests.

Only now he's so tired that he's planting his elbows against his knees and leaning forward, propped up like that. "Gotta admit, though, that was exhausting."

The illusions, dealing with Chaos, all parts of it for the week and then some it'd lasted.

"I'd hoped the train thing was an illusion, too," she admitted. "But I guess it's not. It's good to know I'll probably go home at some point, but by then the church will probably have reclaimed my land. I don't know what I'll do then."

She shook her head and sighed. "I'm too exhausted to worry about it right now. A problem for another day." It made her heart hurt too much to think about it.

Nell smiled at him a little wistfully. "You'un were an excellent father as well, but I'm sure my actual father wouldn't agree with you'un about me being a good daughter. ... Anyway, you'un look as tired as I feel. The luggage isn't all that uncomfortable to sleep on all things considered. I may just stay here. Were you anchoring too?"

"It might not have," he said. "There's an equal chance that time here moves in a different direction, so maybe it'll be a similar time to when you've left. I don't think any of us know for sure, just that we're all from different places, and we're all here for a time."

He hummed, at the actual father wouldn't agree. Parents were not always kind, but they were your parents anyway. It was hard getting away from the feeling of everything they said being true, and finding your sense of self worth in the aftermath. He was still working on his, decades later, if in fairness, he'd only been aware for less than a handful of years.

"I'm glad to disagree. Father versus father." He nodded his head, as if that decided that. With no direct reason for it to not, said father was unlikely to pop up before next platform at the soonest, why not make the claim?

He chuckled, offering a small shake of his head while he leaned forward still, his weight all on his arms and supported by his knees. "No, no, though I heard the call. I, ah, was playing music to try and soothe Chaos." He patted the length of flute resting tucked against his side, one end shoved into his waistband belt. "What you were doing, that was important. Getting all those trapped people back to their homes."

"Then I can hope for that," Nell said. "Afterall the time I've spent tryin' to keep them out, I'd hate for them to take it."

Nell had left the church, refused to marry the church elder, and now refused to do the 'right' thing and give her land back to the church and return herself to be offered in marriage to whomever her father chose. Not things an obedient daughter would do. But she wouldn't be pressured.

She couldn't help but smile at him. "I think I was a better daughter to you. And I know you were an easier father."

"Soothing the Chaos was important, too," she insisted. "We might not have had enougj time to get everyone home otherwise."

He laughed at the last part, inclining his head in a nod even as he felt exhaustion down to his bones. "A team effort, I feel. There was more than once voice trying to work with Chaos. My flute was just one more sound."

One that ended with him playing on a tendril stage, but something in that was appropriate given the theatrical nature of Chaos, deep down. From that first vision in the days before the final conflict, and in the ones that followed after.

"Well, the offer's still standing, ah? If you feel like picking up a spare dad or two."

For her land, and her life back home, he could hope she'd find it as she left. That wouldn't be ideal for everyone, but for most, he expects that to be the case.

The men here were so different from the church men she knew back home. They offered her choices rather than demanding, and they seemed willing for her to have autonomy over what she did and didn't want to do. She was still a bit uneasy around them, but this one...

"Yes," she said, her voice quiet, but steady. "I think I'd like to have a spare father, actually. Thank you."

At her words, he nodded his head and smiled. "Thank you," he said in turn, more than a touch solemn for the time being. "The honour here is mine."

It always would be, forming those bonds of willing, chosen family. He knew that better than some, those he looks forward to back on his world. What he'll shore up and support while he's here, bonding again with the brother he's had such a fractured relationship, and everyone he meets, to whichever extent.

"What do you say we let the rest clear out for a bit longer before rallying and leaving these comfortable seats to find our rooms? Might make it a little less jarring when," he said, gesturing upward, "The train gets to sorting us out over 'night.'"

Over the enforced sleeping hours everyone was subjected to as a whole.

"And mine as well," Nell replied. "Should I... what would you like me to... would you rather be called by a different name...?"

She'd been cut off from her own family and then alone for so long that this was a strange and beautiful thing. And without the disturbing illusion world she might not have felt comfortable enough to forge a bond like this for quite some time.

She nodded. "I am all in favor of resting for a while as the others make their way out. I can't remember when I last was this tired."

He paused, only caught off guard because in reality, he'd been called of Wei-gege by the son he named his, when he was a child. Now he was Wei-qianbei; not wrong in its own sense, if less directly about being anyone's father. Senior, elder, for certain.

"Wei-qianbei if you wanted," he said, chuckling after. "It's what my son calls me," for various reasons. He was no one's baba, or die, or fuqin, even if all those were proper terms.

He lifted a hand to stifle his yawn, then brought both arms up to stretch them overhead after. "Mah, I can recall a time or two, but on train? Only once. Only I bled more then, I think." He winked, as if that was a joke. (It was, sort of.)

"Wei-qianbei," she said, trying it out. It was pretty close to the righ punctuation, if with a bit of a Tennessee accent tossed in. "I like that."

Her eyes widened. "Are you bleeding now?"

Between smiling at her decent capture of his name to the wide-eyed question that followed, Wei Wuxian laughed, shaking his hands. "No, no, only bleeding with exhaustion! See," he said, letting his hands flop into his lap. "Can't even hold my hands up. No, the last time I was tired like this, I had overdone things, in a different fashion. Had to be carried to bed."

Or to camp where he could then sleep until they headed off world, as it were. The "last time" was his first full mission here, on train.

"Enough sleep, and I was good as new!"

Nell nodded. "I understand that," she said. "I feel like I could sleep for a solid week right about now."

"Tempting," he said, "If not for how stiff poor old me would be after being bed bound that long..."

"... we'uns could do a lot of stretching afterwards?"

She wouldn't really sleep like that. Nell wasn't built to lie around doing nothing. She'd be up and cleaning in no time.

That had him laugh again, and he grinned, looking sidelong at her.

"Stretching is a good idea." Wei Wuxian, who stretched all the time, particularly if it was going to antagonise someone being rude or self-important. He was also not a man for long bed rests, but having to take them was a matter of course when so severely injured or exhausted he'd had days of sleeping through unaware of the world around him. This exhaustion was deep, but at least he didn't think there was a risk of that kind of slumber.

"Could coordinate everyone to stretch together over the panels for speaking on train, ah?"

Nell looked at him skeptically. "It's been a long time since I've lived with anyone else, but I'm not sure organizing mass stretching would make us very well thought of."

A sudden yawn caught her off guard. "Maybe we should find our way to our rooms. Though... it might be easier to sleep right here."

"Think of how limber everyone'd feel!" He grinned, nonplussed and amused at his own suggestion rather than particularly serious. Her yawn sparked another in him, like they were contagious and passed down the line, tired person to tired person.

Rubbing his hand over his eyes, he sighed. "Easier, yes, but wiser? The train will leave us in our proper beds come 'night.' May as well take ourselves there to not suffer through feeling stranger for waking up where we didn't go to sleep. I can lend a shoulder, ah?"

Two tired people heading off to their own rooms for an indeterminate amount of sleep.

"True," Nell said and began the process of getting down from the suitcases where she'd been resting. "No need to make things feel any stranger than they already do... Wei-qianbei?"

She tried out the name carefully, with a glance up at him to see if it was still all right, and a smile.

He smiled in turn, nodding his head to her as encouragement. Her effort was appreciated, and it was familiar, unlike enough of what they dealt with on the train.

"Right, Nellnell. Which, if you prefer me to call you another way... Just let this Old Man know, ah?"

She ducked her head a little. "I kinda got used to Nellnell," she admitted. "It's different, but it reminds me of good things."

She still remembered some of the fake memories. They'd faded and she knew that weren't exactly real, but they were a little comforting in this strange place.

He smiled, nodding his head to her with less depth than earlier, the exhaustion continuing to settle in deep. "Those are the things worth remembering," he said. "The good ones. Nellnell it is, ah? Until you decide otherwise."

He gestured forward, invitation for their slow progress into the sleeper carriages, to their eventual bunks. "And good rest to both of us, I think."

She nodded and continued her sleepily slow progress towards the carriage where she would be able to crawl into bed and sleep. "Yes. Good rest. Lots of good rest."

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So Familiar a Gleam: Conclusion

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