middleofsomewhere | No Place Like Home: The Return

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No Place Like Home: The Return

NO PLACE LIKE HOME: THE RETURN

a silence broken...

It's been a very difficult few days. Rocking and rolling into the void and out again. Watching their friends out of the window as they wander from world to world. Meanwhile those lost on worlds continue to wander unable to return to the train at all.

"All attempts at returning those who left have failed. This voidcraft cannot do it alone. It is lucky that unlike those that have left before them, I can still sense them.

But I cannot bring them back alone. This is perhaps too advanced for Voidtreckers, but you have done the improbable before. You say you wish to help. This is how you help."

Their SCA's light up with a message. Or rather, a series of instructions:

In the unlikely event a tether gets stranded on a liminal space platform or between their own world and the platform space, you should, in the first instance, contact the Void technicians who monitor their non-travelling self. However, in the case they cannot be reached or there is a mass displacement of tether, an anchoring procedure can be carried out.

Ideally, this will involve two fully tethered individuals to retrieve the lost tether. One should be a stationary anchor. They should be outside of their void craft, if possible, and in physical contact with it. The second should be a roaming anchor reaching to draw the tethers back. In situations of mass tether displacement the stationary anchor can hold mutiple roaming anchors but it is recommended to not exceed five. In this situation, it is recommended that anchors rotate between stationary and roaming.

To start an anchoring of this kind, those anchoring should activate their anchoring program. Those staying station should reach out to the tethers of those they plan to steady. This might cause some emotional upheaval, and they will need to stay steady, especially if connecting to more than one roaming tether. Roaming anchors then must hold the person they search for in their thoughts and move towards them. It is recommended that the lost tethers activate their emergency beacon to facilitate being found and returning but this is not a necessity.

Once the roaming anchor has found the lost tethers they must keep hold of them and guide them back towards their craft, the stationary tethers must draw them back, pulling them through.

There is an additional note at the end, in different font.

It is as Anan told you. Your minds should visualise it. Be strong Voidtreckers.

... a short-lived dream

The doors open and anyone who wishes to try this can leave onto the platform. It is empty, devoid of the figures they had seen before; and, beyond the fog, devoid of anything. But searching requires their SCAs, not a path, and as people get into teams, they can activate their anchors and begin.

For those who will roam, their minds become filled, visualising light, void, voices and chaos; their bodies feel less stable, like they might unravel if not careful. But for those who will stay, when they touch the Voidtrecker Express, they will feel more stable, grounded. The fog shifts, but the world moves around them without pulling them in.

Thinking of the person they wish to keep stable, a mental and emotional link will be established, and they will feel each other as the roaming anchor sets off to find their missing crew.

Outside the train...
For those that had left - either by choice or by strange happenings - they have found themselves back at their anchor point during Poi 26, regardless of where they were before. For those unfortunate enough not to have a world to return to, or those who were stuck between in the first place, they will find themselves alone, in a fog filled space where no matter how far they walk, nothing greets them.

All those in fog or back in their world receive the same message from their SCAs.

Hold fast. Press your evacuation button. Your friends come.

RETURNERS: FLEETING HAPPINESS

But it's likely before the message arrived, that something wrong has been noticed by those outside the void. More than the bizarre ability to travel between existences, an inability to move far from where they appear. Back at their anchor points, they may notice - in time - colours sometimes flash across the sky, streaking through clouds or making trails in a night sky. At first not much, something to be easily dismissed but it builds. People talk, wonder at what is happening.

For the colours aren't the only thing. Across worlds, in cities, kingdoms, villages, underworlds and space stations, people are dreaming. Bright colours, vivid dreams. Prophets spring from nowhere, people claim to know the future or to have seen the past. Some talk of places and worlds they could not have seen.

Perhaps at first it can be explained away, there are always such people. But more people talk, from urchin children to commanders, people dream and the colours dance.

ANCHORERS: A STEADY HAND

While the stationeries will feel grounded, they aren't blind to what's happening to their roamer. It's as if they're both linked, intimately, meshing together, and they will need to work to keep their feelings separate; hearing each other's thoughts, their feelings. Images of what the other thinks and memories shared between them.

And then there is the search for their teammates, amongst the multiple of realities. Existences move past the roamer, threatening to lose them in the mess, but they must persevere, keep their thoughts on the individual, their stationary anchor to help them. Until finally, they appear - in a world they perhaps know, don't, the kaleidoscope colours of the void faint above their heads.

Speak to each other, keep each other focused, certain, and find who you came to save.

BOTH: HOLDING ON

Searching for individuals, the anchorers will find themselves at a character's anchor point; if they haven't moved far from here or another world, it will be easy to locate them. Now is the time to convince them to come back, and then the eventual work of doing so.

It can be in agreement, or force. Taking a hold of the person, the anchorer can pull them into the mass of chaos. Just like when they helped the guests return to their worlds from the false Diagad, all parties become battered by images, voices. Voices like sirens; 'Just stay,' the voices encourage. 'Just let go and drift into the chaos. It will be easier.'

But they must be strong, move towards their anchor and towards the craft. The crossing doesn't take too long, perhaps ten minutes each way, and once they get to the craft the person they are rescuing glows gold and vanishes. The anchors will know instinctively that they are safe on the train.

And indeed, the rescued will find themselves within the luggage carriage - exhausted, but safe.

TRAIN: AN INEVITABLE RETURN

Exhaustion is something all parties will experience, once everyone is returned to the train and the adrenaline wears off. Those who anchored will be hit with a total exhaustion, leaving them unable to do much more than eat and sleep for a few days. Those rescued won't be as bad, but if they decide to join in with the efforts, they'll too face the soul-tiring experience that other anchorers are.

There's likely to be efforts, to help soothe people over this time. And as people return to their life on the train, they will see the marks of the last few days for those who stayed behind. Broken ceramics, books out of order in the library; the ICPs in the standard coach, storage, sports and games carriages broken, and some damage to furniture.

But for the scars brought on by this event, surely, they will heal - eventually.

OOC NOTES

OOC post. Ask questions here. New second part OOC post here.

First phase of the event took place during Poi 22 to 25; the second phase takes place during Poi 26 to 28 (20-25th February).

VISITING WORLDS: While during Poi 26, it will be possible to go back to wherever they were, or other spaces. However, they will have increasing difficulty doing this, and will feel themselves getting more lost if they try world hopping too much over the next 3 (void) days. It's like something is trying to pull them back, or pull them, but into nowhere.

SCAs: The SCA's comms will not be active at this time.

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It had been a rough trip getting there, but eventually Lea stepped out of the chaos and back onto solid ground, hoping his fellow searcher wouldn't be far behind. He didn't feel far behind but Lea was still getting used to this whole business. At least it was a bit easier to think clearly, now that he was back in a more normal environment.

Well 'normal' being a relative term at the moment given the streaks of color he could see across the sky. They reminded him of the fake Diagad, and he was certain that they were neither natural nor a good sign. Fortunately, he could see something- or rather someone else too; namely the friend they'd been searching for standing right in front of him. "Taiki!", he said. "Man, I'm glad we found you. There's not a lot of time, but we need... to..."

It was about then that other parts of the scene began to register, causing Lea's words to trail off mid-sentence. Not so much the buildings that vaguely resembled what he knew of the Land of Dragons back home; those he'd been expecting. No, what brought him to a halt were the skeletons staked out in the courtyard they were in. What had happened here?

Tidus has been steeling himself for the sight he sees, as far away as he is - back at the train, keeping their link open. Inigo had told him what was there; the state of Tai, and Taiki's place in it. The hopes that he had for Taiki, but - they were lying to themselves, too. Hoping for the best where there were no hopes like that to be had.

... At least, he was. He's sure Taiki always knew, and went there anyway, towards ruin - knowing that Tai was the only play he wanted to be.

Lea's reaction is as felt as it is heard, melting into his being, trying to be his. He's an apprehension in his own chest, pushed down and kept locked, focused on what they have to. 'That's Asen,' he thinks, a thought shared to all, meaning, This is who Asen is. Disgust, a trace of respect for a person he doesn't know, and his feelings guide their attention back to Taiki, the one who matters here.

He tries to speak to him, thoughts across a distance.

'I promised you.' A conversation, the two of them stood in the armoury - I promise we'll come help Tai - pressed in those words; but that promise isn't for this time. Not entirely. 'We're going to save Tai, but we can't do it like this. But I promise, alright? We're not abandoning it - we're gonna get help. But you'll be lost if we don't save you.'

Lost, die, who knows what else? The anything that could happen to Taiki weighs in his chest, emotions he has to push back down again.

He has to think about the other two, too, the way back to the train, so they can take Taiki there.

Taiki isn't going to come with them so easily.

It's mainly what Inigo can think about, going into this. After all, he saw the other out there on the platform. He went back to Tai with him, before Inigo was pulled back to the train first. He knows what Taiki is like, what his mindset is like - what he's seen to make him think like that.

Inigo already knows exactly what's waiting for them before they even set a foot in Tai, after all. The scene in front of his eyes doesn't surprise him at all, and though it does make something inside of his chest ache, he's a pro at shoving that down.

Contrary to the other two though, Inigo doesn't say anything. There's nothing to add until they'll know Taiki's specific reaction. And though he can guess at it - Inigo doesn't want to be cruel enough to speak off an assumption.

Instead he stays quiet, perhaps lingering behind a little compared to the other two. Just watching Taiki, trying to pick up on every sign of the other's body language, especially with the experience he's had of what Taiki acts like when he's trying to suppress a lot. He just tries to focus himself on the other, on the feeling of Taiki that brought them all the way over here.

That feeling of Taiki that they have to bring back with them, no matter what.

I am lost regardless. It was almost snappish. But he's out of options here. He knows he is out of options. He has done what he can, tried to help. But he is limited, in space, in resources, in allies. If only he could leave the palace, find the new king...

"Thank you for coming." His voice is perfectly polite. Serious but calm, as if they were in a formal meeting hall and not in a courtyard of ruin, in a crumbling kingdom surrounded by the dead.

"But I can't leave. I know if must have been hard for you to get here."

He's not sure how this is happening but considering he can hear Tidus' voice in his head and the other two stand before him and adding that to the message on his SCA... Something strange.

"I am sorry your journey was for nothing."

Lea's hands clenched into fists and all present would feel a surge of anger from him, hot and sharp, directed at the unseen perpetrator of all this. But it was quickly smothered into disgust similar to Tidus'. He's lucky we can't stay, Lea summed it up. Had the situation been different, and time not so pressing, Lea would have likely been tempted to run off and try to do something that was likely very stupid.

Shifting his eyes back to Taiki and unclenching his hands, Lea sighed and shook his head. "Sorry, Taiki," he said, "but we're not leaving without you. I admittedly don't know much about Tai, but I'm betting the sky here isn't supposed to look like that." He pointed up at the sky streaked with the colors of the Void. "That's happening on every world where people who tried to untether from the train ended up, and it's happening because we're here, but didn't untether properly. And if you were on the fake Diagad too, then you know it doesn't mean anything good."

"I'm sorry, but you can't stay here; none of us can. Not now. Not like this."

A snapping Taiki is rare, but Tidus doesn't budge in his emotions, the part of him that can be present. He'll take it; if there's anything so strong about Taiki, it's his resilience when he's put to the rest. Something he can admire, though it shocks him when he does see.

But he knows, too, that for Tai - he'll suffer anything, personally, for every last chance to help it. The way back to the Voidtrecker Express won't falter from Tidus's side.

If he were standing there, it'd be with the same expression that his presence impresses: that he isn't going to budge on leaving Taiki behind. But he won't attempt to speak, allowing Inigo and Lea the chance.

They're there. They have to bring him back.

It's - weirdly enough - familiar to Inigo, seeing Taiki like this. Maybe because of the time he spent around the other during the last few days, or maybe it's because he already saw the other like this very early on, before any of the others were even on the train. During the first moment he and Taiki met each other.

It makes Inigo wonder how to approach this. Usually he'd use his softness, but Taiki isn't being soft right now. He isn't too sure if it'll get the other to come back.

Lea's approach seems better, Inigo thinks. Remind the other of Tai in this moment, especially since Taiki most likely won't make a single decision in favour of himself in this moment. Only in favour of Tai. And then there's Tidus. Not speaking up this time, but through their shared link, Inigo can feel his feelings. They're determined, steady. It makes Inigo feel a little bit more confident too, even in the face of this.

Inigo tries sending back that feeling to Tidus. It's easier to keep it between the two of them when he sends it directly from higgledy to higgledy. A warmth like sunshine that will blossom in Tidus's own chest too, like gratitude for being strong in this moment.

"Lea is right," Inigo starts, giving the other that definite credit. "This current situation.. It isn't safe. You're not really here. None of us are."

That much has been obvious from people's reactions to them, no matter where they go.

"If you don't come back and lose the tether with the train.. Then you know what will happen, right? You'll be lost. And Tai-- It can't permanently lose you like that."

There's a pause, and then he adds, actually a tad softer this time: "We can't permanently lose you like that either."

He had noticed. The colourful sky. As in the void were trying to break through the clouds. It was worrying. Lea was right. It was not good for his world for him to be here.

But it was not good for his world for him to leave. He looks sadly at Inigo. Because he knows that it isn't true. Losing him permanently might be the only way to save Tai. But he has no idea if staying would achieve that or if he would just be lost in the void somewhere, his body still alive on this world, no new ranka growing.

He doesn't voice his thoughts though, it had been one thing to ask Jingyi such things, it would be another to voice such things in front of Inigo. He's too soft, he shouldn't have to contemplate such things.

"We're not truly here." He said, agreeing. As much as it broke his heart.

Lea got a sense that Inigo was sharing something with Tidus, but deliberately kept his focus elsewhere. The link of multiple minds- while extremely helpful under the circumstances- was still weird, and it seemed the least he could do to try and give the others in it as much privacy as was possible.

But Lea knew the same thing both of them did. Taiki would do just about anything for Tai, even if he wouldn't do a thing for himself. Much like Xion would throw herself against any enemy to protect her friends, but still refuse to stand up for herself. They really were a perfectly matched set, weren't they? No wonder they'd formed a bond. Lea just wished he knew how to help either of them.

No, no... he had to focus. Here and now, there was one thing they could do to help Taiki. Help everyone. "No, we're not," he said. "But we'll find a way to fix that, and get everyone back properly. Eventually." Because Lea wouldn't allow it to be otherwise. He had no idea how or when, but they would fix this. Fix everything.

"For now though, all we can do is get back to the train and regroup." He held out his hand to Taiki. "Once we're all back aboard, then we can figure out the next step."

The feeling is received, the gratitude, and Tidus accepts more what it represents than needing the validation. The sense of Inigo and his being in it, his connection with the higgledy. But he's listening too, to Inigo and Lea - and he knows there's nothing really for him to say, again, or attempt to.

But - he does lend reassurance, a strong-willed determination. His thoughts on Taiki, turning it on his direction. If we don't do this properly, we can't do anything for Tai. I know it hurts - I wish you could stay. I'm sorry.

But we have to.

You don't have to be someone like Taiki, an individual with such strong bonds to his homeland, to those he serves, to know how awful it is to see your home again and know you have to leave. Who wouldn't want to cling on? Even with the inkling it might be better to go. But after being away for so long, stuck on the train; losing Gyousou, and now...

But they had to. They had to suck up that pain, and turn back - so they could do better for it. Without risking whatever was happening to these worlds with the showing of the void.

Honestly, Inigo is mostly just glad that Taiki agrees. Not that Inigo thinks Taiki is too dumb to notice what's going on here. But he does think the other is dedicated, way too dedicated, and might just have dug his heels in when it came to Tai's best interests.

But it seems like Taiki gets it. There is no point in staying here. He won't be able to change a thing if he's just half here. All they can do is exactly what the others are saying. Get back to the train. Regroup. Think about what to do.

Keep Taiki safe.

He watches Lea's held out hand, waiting to see if Taiki will take it. Tidus mentioning something to Taiki at the periphery of Inigo's thoughts, but he tries not focus on it too hard.

Instead he just says: "We'll bring you back safely."

And then they can figure things out.

Go back, regroup. Figure it out from there. He nodded numbly, he would argue but he has no arguments that aren't pure stubbornness on his own part and he knows it. He steps closer, though he doesn't reach out, hands loose at his side.

He has left this world before, this will be the fourth time if he didn't count the bouncing two and from the platform he had done this last week. Two he doesn't remember, the first when he was still in his ranka. Leaving mount Hou rather than Tai. The third time when he had went to the train, a heart beat between one moment and the next.

The second time had been full of pain and grief. Different than this time but the overarching feelings were the same.

"Thank you." Is all he can say. He doesn't want to go. It feels wrong. Yet his friends are right. It is the only way.

Seeing that Taiki wasn't going to reach back out to them, Lea shifted to take his nearer hand himself, giving it a hopefully reassuring squeeze. "We've got you, Taiki," he said. "And we're all here for you, no matter what. Just hold onto us, and we'll get you back safe."

He knew Taiki didn't want to go. And frankly he couldn't blame him. But needs must. "This isn't running away. This is just regrouping so you can come back properly later." And hopefully give Asen exactly what was coming to him.

Taiki was conceding, resigned - and it wasn't a state that brought relief. That wouldn't come until they had answers, a way of helping Taiki and coming back here one day, doing good for Tai and its people.

For now, they had to go back. But before that...

Is there anything you wanna do before we go? Anything we can do to help.

Tidus thinks Lea and Inigo shouldn't mind, including them in this offer.

At least Lea is holding onto Taiki now. Inigo knows that can't make the situation perfect, but.. it's ought to at least provide Taiki with the tiniest bit of comfort, even if it might be nowhere near enough in a situation like this one.

Next comes Tidus's suggestion running through his head. Inigo isn't so sure there's much they can do, especially since he already had a little session before here, trying to figure things out with Taiki..

But he will leave it up to his friend what to answer.

He smiles though, showing he minds, figuring Lea doesn't mind either. That Tidus would also keep the line strong on his end.

"Yeah. If there's anything you want to do first, we can. It's no problem to us."

Anything that might help Taiki even a little.

"I think... I've done all I can from here." It's a quiet admission, he doesn't move from the circle of his friends. But it's true. He has sent what missives he can, he has ordered supplies to areas that would be suffering.

If any of it succeeded before they realised the forgeries...

"Thank you though. Really."

Lea doesn't mind the question at all. In fact everyone would get the sense that he'd love to have an excuse to go do something to help with this mess before they left. But he was also fully aware that the type of things he had in mind would almost certainly be terrible ideas. So ultimately it was for the best when, as expected, Taiki said no.

He nodded. "Alright, then," he said. "Let's go. Before someone spots us." Because crazy-void-sky or not, one thing he knew about castles was that there were always guards somewhere.

"We'll be with you all the way, Taiki." His voice became gentler, and they might catch an echo of memory with his next sentence. Another time those same words were said. "I'll always be there to bring my friends back."

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No Place Like Home: The Return

Rescue

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