So Familiar a Gleam: Conclusion

[voidtreckermods]

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.

Comments

[jingyeets]

The shaking has him try to curl tighter at first, which is the most active he's been in being carried, and it's that as much as being spoken to that penetrates the fog of his tired mind. When he lifts his head, thin line of drool painting down over his scales and some fur at his jaw, he blinks incomprehensibly at Inigo.

Slowly turns his head to the door.

Equally slowly turns his head back to Inigo. Squirms just enough to contort one of four legs free, temporarily holding his mouth stuffed ribbon so he can speak instead of attempt charades or waste energy with wind manipulation.

"Hoodie pocket."

Where his ticket is, so that he can open the door. He does carry the thing on him now, that first time realising he was locked out by ignorance a learning moment of the train needs better wards, and to keep the thing with him.

[flatteries]

Inigo is so proud of Jingyi, look who's learned from his earlier mistake.

And this way of communication also manages to prevent a lot of circus-level antics. Instead Inigo can just shift the load in his arms a little so he can actually reach the hoodie pocket - it's a lot when you're trying to juggle clothes and a dragon at the same time. Even if it's a miniature dragon. But after a moment of fiddling around, he manages to dive his hand into it, pulling the ticket out a moment later and using it to let them in.

Once he's stepped into the room, Inigo just heads straight over towards the bunks, before lowering the dragon down on one of them. Inigo hopes it's the right one.

"There you go. Brought all the way back to your bed by your loyal knight Inigo!"

[jingyeets]

Given Jingyi doesn't bother course correcting, it's either the right one, close enough, or he figures he's small enough his roommate can shove him over and deal; at least Jingyi's bed is made and only one night's worth of sleep used. Clean enough for sharing, he thinks.

"Very loyal," he says, once he has his ribbon out of mouth and claw, letting his chin fall to the bed like the rest of his floppy form. "Thank you."

For having hauled him back here, and his clothes, and for the not entirely forgotten rice bowls needing cleaning, still. His eyes are at half mast again when he adds, wonderingly, "What makes you a night Inigo instead of a day Inigo?"

Yeah. What indeed is with that.

[flatteries]

He's just in the middle of trying to fold up Jingyi's clothes neatly - or, well, neatly by teenage boy standards - when he hears the other say that. It instantly makes Inigo look away from the clothes and right over to the dragon.

His jaw has dropped, his mouth hanging open slightly.

"Are you.." He starts, then stops. Unsure. He doesn't want to hurt Jingyi's feelings here, but that question feels so odd to Inigo that he can't help but wonder if he's being pranked here. "A-Are you.. joking?"

Is that what this is? A joke?

[jingyeets]

Jingyi slowly cranes his neck, which makes his head come around, skimming over the blanket. Very snakelike in motion, meaning nothing else of him has to move to get a better eye on Inigo.

Is this supposed to be obvious? Jingyi blinks, slowly, heaves in a breath, and exhales long and slow after.

"Is it your hair?" He has no idea. "When you were born?" There are whole structures based on things related to the characters of a person's birth, if it wasn't so relevant to either of them. "Are you more of a moon guy?"

Versus a sun... guy...

It's apparently Jingyi has zero idea what possible joke is going on here.

[flatteries]

.. well, that settles it. Inigo is pretty sure no one can keep up the joke this convincingly, so he's pretty sure that Jingyi really has no idea what Inigo is talking about. And there do seem to be a lot of worlds represented on the train that don't have knights, but he was really hoping Jingyi's world was more similar to his than that - especially since it has dragons! And people turning into dragons! It felt like the most similar thing to Ylisse he had seen in this place.

But it turns out it's different all the same. It's a little disappointing, but Inigo's surprise still fades into a smile all the same when he replies.

"No, a knight is.. It's a title for someone who protests someone else, usually a ruler of some sort. They are very noble warriors."

He figures he ought to stick to the simple explanation. Jingyi is already tired enough.

[jingyeets]

He gazes at Inigo blearily, grunting out a, "Huh," followed by a, "So like Dragon Guards, in all the palace stories. Or actual palaces, in the kingdoms."

Outside of his region, where things were overseen by cultivation clans, but kingdoms (and empires, at some point) existed in other regions. He let his eyes fully close, not bothering with further movement.

"Cultivators... are noble warriors too." An easier shorthand than the full inflection of what they were, but there was some shared concepts. He still had the word wrong, 'night' without the silent 'kay', but he huffs out what might be a laugh. Or a wheeze?

"So the day's your ruler. The one who lights up the night, 'flecting off th'moon."

[flatteries]

"Okay, mister sleepy poet," Inigo says. Though his tone doesn't sound offended as much as it sounds amused. He figures that Jingyi probably isn't thinking entirely straight, considering just how tired the other is. Why else would he have fallen asleep like that in Inigo's arms earlier?

He shakes his head, moving to gently put some of the blanket over Jingyi. Even if it's a little harder while he's still a tiny dragon, but look, he's not entirely putting it over him. The goal here is not to smother.

"Sounds like it's bedtime for you when you start talking like that."

[jingyeets]

Jingyi is so loopy right now he might as well be fully coiled up, and still have loopiness to spare. He barely offers a twitch when the blanket's partly over him, and he makes a whining tired sound of objection and acknowledgement, eyes fully closed.

"'s naptime, always naptime. Annoying." His ears flick forward, then tilt until they're pressed back against his skull. Annoying was a full body effort at expressing the feeling, his exhaustion earned, but it's lingering not welcome. This feels more like recovering from something than simply being exhausted, and he has to think it's the cost of all that time wading through the not-river.

He shifts and curls himself around enough that his face ends up being partly buried against his side. He won't bother shifting back. Sleeping like this will be fine.

"Work on the memorial later. Won't forget. Mister Night."

[flatteries]

Inigo lets out a breath when he sees Jingyi like that. Just a little dragon, all coiled up.

It's weirdly cute, and he smiles as he gives him a gently pat before heading towards the room's door. It opens, and Inigo is about to exist, but he leaves just for another moment, just long enough to say:

"You know, there's a k somewhere in that word."

Have fun figuring that one out when you're more awake, Jingyi, because Inigo is already gone.