No Place Like Home: The Return

[voidtreckermods]

---

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.

Comments

[nell_of_soulwood]

She leaned into him. "I learned some things from Sister Erasmus. 'Bout my parents. And about John and Leah."

Her face was still a little bruised and cut up from the encounter he'd been there for, but otherwise she was no worse for wear physically.

[yondu]

"What did ya find out?" There's a way that she says it that it's not just casual 'how things are doing' talk, but he could be misjudging. He knows that a lot of her life, her safety, depended on them.

At least she's fine other than some scrapes. Surely some healer would fix her at the first sideglance.

[nell_of_soulwood]

It's hard to even say.

"They lied to me. Leah and John. About my parents, my family." All those years. Almost half her life. "My mawmaw and my mama. They hatched up the plan with John and Leah to save me from the colonel by marrying me. He didn't tell me that. He told me they wanted me back. To sell me to the colonel. He said he was keeping me safe from my family."

She made a sound that was almost a sob, then curled her lips into her mouth and bit down on them to keep from making it again.

"And he told my family he'd told me the truth, but I was too scared of the colonel, so I didn't want them around."

She wanted to wail again, the way she had when she got herself alone after Sister Erasmus first told her, wanted to demand to know why he would have done such a thing.

"All those years. They thought - and I thought -" Her throat hurt too much to get anymore out.

CW: more child marriage stuff and the implications with it.

[yondu]

Yondu is a man who has lied to control people. He's done it for legitimately good reasons (not telling Peter Quill his father was god who mass murdered his children, because he was worried the boy would seek him out). Or in the case of a different version of him, one a universe away, told his son his family had died so he wouldn't leave him. The worst kind of lie, and not one this Yondu would do, but the possibility had been inside of him at some point.

So he knows that kind of thing is horrible. He knows because he would do it to an extent. Maybe not to one where it'd cost someone their body or their whole future, he ain't that bad. But bad enough to get the awful place that behavior comes from. He rests one of his blue hands gently at the back of her head, against her hair, because she deserved that choice.

"It's selfish and stupid of him. Did they say it to ya? That they still wanted ya?" Not to sell, not to marry off, that they wanted her and wanted the best for her. 'Cause he wants to know she heard such a thing. More than that, he knows this little girl got used for 'wifely duties'.

Re: CW: more child marriage stuff and the implications with it.

[nell_of_soulwood]

Nell shook her head, her throat so tight it hurt to get the words out. "I had to come back here. Sister Erasmus... she was going to tell them - tell them that I didn't know, that John lied..."

She looked up at him. "Part of my heart is so relieved that they didn't want to give me to that man or sell me to someone else, that they watched out for me, but how could John - and Leah - how could they do that? I know it was to control me, but why? I woulda been a good wife no matter. I'da still been grateful they were willing to save me when my mawmaw and my mama asked. But I coulda had my family. And now... I didn't even get a chance to explain."

[yondu]

"It's just bein' selfish, Angel. All it is. It was just bein' selfish of 'em. Unless they got desperate about somethin' connectin' you to the woods, but that's the only thing I can fathom that ain't pure selfish and even then it mighta been."

He pets her hair and lets her cry if she wants, 'cause it's a lot and it was left unfinished. At least he had the closure of deciding to walk away. Of things being done. She didn't.

[nell_of_soulwood]

"They didn't even know about the woods. No one did. I knew they'd want to burn me as a witch if they found out." She turned her head into his shoulder, but fought to keep the tears back.

"Since I was twelve, Yondu. Eleven years I missed with my family. Held resentment toward them for being willing to give me up to the colonel. Eleven years they thought I was too scared or just didn't love'em enough."

[yondu]

She can cry if she wants. He wouldn't think less of her for it. Those big blue hands of his are as gentle as he can keep them, one arm around her shoulders and one hand petting over her hair.

They'd done it to control her. He can't even decide if there was love there. But they'd done it to control her, a kid, for reasons that were absolutely beyond vile to him. "They love ya like ya said, they'd know you weren't a witch. That said, I'm real sorry the people that saved ya didn't do that. How did the person what told ya know?"

[nell_of_soulwood]

"The church sure didn't love me," Nell said, "But now I think my family would have tried to save me." The tears came finally and she let herself cry into Yondu's shoulder as he stroked her hair.

But she wouldn't let herself indulge long, so the tears soon came to an end.

"It was Sister Erasmus who told me," Nell said when she'd collected herself. "She's the wife of one of the decent elders. She knows everything and she's well respected. She helped my mawmaw and mama too, which was why she was so shocked to find out John and Leah never told me.

[yondu]

"Will the woods protect your place until you get back to it?"

He feels for her, he does, and he moves to put his hands gently on either shoulder, to get her to step back and look at him.

"There's a good thing about this place. You can ask the train to get ya copies of whatever deeds you need to the land. No matter how well hidden they are. You ask the shop, give it the money, and it'll provide ya. And I know we cain't go home just yet, but you got the chance to study it, and if you talk to the right folks you might be able to arrange a message back.

"And quite possibly, get a letter directly to them while you're at it." He knows it isn't a huge help, but he wishes he could give Nell a little more agency in her poor life.

[nell_of_soulwood]

"No, it can't. But maybe, maybe my family will. As long as my body stays alive in that other world. I think Sister Erasmus might see to that."

She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "My deed's all good and filed with the court - so's the court papers sayin' it's all legally mine. Can't nobody argue that part at least."

Sorry I've not been tagging much

[yondu]

"You deserve it. You need it." Somewhere solid, something she can count on, stability that's all hers. "And I'm gonna make tripley sure if someone lays hands on ya again, you'll leave them hands in a state where they cain't hold nothin'."

He's still deeply concerned about what'll happen to her but... well... he knows she can hold her own. He's unhappy though that she has to. She deserves so much better than that. She would by default as a person just existing but a good soul like hers? Makes it even more of a crime.

No worries. I've been terrible myself, but I'm happy to backtag forever. :)

[nell_of_soulwood]

She couldn't help but laugh softly at that, though she knew he was serious. "Think I proved I can leave someone with no hands. With no nothing."

She knew what he meant and she was grateful for it. "But you can teach me so's they're alive to have learned from it. Hopefully."

[yondu]

In his opinion he wishes some of them were dead so that others would learn from it, but he knows she's a better person than him. He makes some space between them so he's not overwhelming her, as has become his habit with a good many people that didn't like it all that much.

"What do you reckon's gonna happen now?"

[nell_of_soulwood]

"I guess..." She wiped her face and straightened her shoulders. "I guess I just keep on doin' what I'm doin' on the train and pray for the best. One day maybe the train will get it right and they'll be able to send us home."