No Place Like Home: The Return

[voidtreckermods]

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NO PLACE LIKE HOME: THE RETURN

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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

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Yeah, call me crazy but maybe let's not make any decisions on that score at the moment." Considering the circumstances... he totally got where she was coming from, but this freaking chorus of idiocy just didn't make for good rational thought. "The important thing is getting you back to the train now!"

[springforth]

"Hey, I've been thinking about the whole time I was home."

Though, he's right. Getting back is important. She falls silent until--is that solid beneath her feet? Gods, it's hard to tell after walking on what might have been nothing and might have something for so long. She peeks an eye open to look.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Argh!"

It must be something solid, because Zetta had somehow managed to slam into it face-first. This was not the noble, heroic rescue he had planned, damn it!

[springforth]

Persephone bursts into laughter--until she whacks into it herself. Hey wait, that's illegal! He's supposed to be the only one with slapstick nonsense!

[badassfreakingoverlord]

Color Zetta shocked, too, for the same reason. That wasn't supposed to happen to her? "Hey, are you okay?!"

[springforth]

Persephone rubs her nose, checking if it's broken or just bruised.

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" Clearly she has spent too much time around him!

"Serves me right for laughing at you."

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"But -- that's never true! There's never any karmic punishment for laughing at me!"

Zetta was in such a state that he could admit things out loud that ordinarily shouldn't be said at all.

[springforth]

"What's a karmic punishment?"

Persephone inches her way forward to Zetta, hoping to touch more than his hand for once. This whole leading ahead and walking behind thing is boring and not how she likes to live her life. Honestly, she'd rather be carried.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Just desserts? Like what just happened." He tugged on Persephone as he felt her move, bringing her towards him despite what seemed like a cosmos's worth of resistance between them.

[springforth]

When Persephone can feel his shoulder press against hers, her arm lined up alongside his, pressed to his jacket, she stops straining against it all. It's not relaxing, not really. Relaxing in this place would feel like giving up, just like it wants. Instead, she takes comfort in this touch.

"I'm your girlfriend, I shouldn't laugh at you being hurt." A pause, "You know, unless you did something stupid to yourself. And the wall did that to you. Wall. Or is this a floor? Which way is up?"

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Hurt?! I don't get hurt! I'm Zetta! The best the cosmos can do is knock my dignity down a bit!" And it was okay to laugh at those who were suffering. That's only fair!

[springforth]

"I'm not getting into an argument about whether you hurt your face or not when we're in the middle of getting back home. Focus."

Side by side as they are, she bumps his shoulder with her forehead.

"I will gladly argue this until the sun sets if we can do this in bed."

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Arguing is the LAST thing I want to do with you in bed!"

No situation was too dire or too dangerous for Zetta to not hit on her, apparently. Maybe that's comforting. If nothing else, Zetta committed far too fully to his course of actions for voices or influences or supernatural persuasions to ever lure him away.

[springforth]

A burst of laughter cuts through the strangeness of it all. And--is that light? Could be light. Different light, she thinks. And shapes. Shapes through the fog of it all.

"Oh good because that was kind of a lie. I think I want to sleep for a week, preferably with you as a pillow."

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Heh, good luck." Zetta was too restless to put up with a WEEK of that. All right, you stupid light... Grabbing the tether, Zetta gave a sharp yank that was more mental than anything. "You owe the kid, by the way!"

[springforth]

The shapes and colors of the platform--and then the train start to come into focus. Her grip on him tightens just a fraction.

"The k--Romeo? Oh gods, is he--of course he is!" Persephone huffs, "Why am I not surprised."

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"'Cuz that kid has more determination than most of the people I've met," Zetta said, surprisingly serious. "And that's a lot of people."

Zetta shifted, turning so he was sort of in-between her and the platform. If a splat was coming, he wanted her to splat on him and not the train.

[springforth]

Walking is easier now. Simpler. Her feet touch the ground suddenly and she can see the shapes of people against the train now.

"He did promise to help you find me so I guess he's just keeping his pro--"

The flash takes her by surprise--and her destination even more. Somehow she forgot she'd end up in the luggage car. Her nose wrinkles as she stares up at the ceiling. Cigarettes. Thank god Zetta doesn't smoke. She should really get up and go find Zetta, make sure he knows where she went. Levering herself up isn't that hard when one can float, after all.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

It took only a second before Zetta popped into the room, quite literally. He rarely actually teleported around the train, but special circumstances and special needs demanded instant reactions.

Unfortunately for him, he was facing the wrong way. "I'll get you out!" he yelled as he immediately began shredding a reasonably large suitcase.

[springforth]

Draped over and not in a suitcase as she is, she has full view of him just--just demolishing a perfectly innocent piece of luggage. She lets him continue as she floats up over, reclaiming her bag and throwing it over her shoulder, since leaving it there will resign her to a smoky bag. She fusses with the lay of her chiton and then taps him on the shoulder.

"Love, I'm back here."

[badassfreakingoverlord]

Zetta nearly jumped out of his skin when she spoke from behind him, and he whirled immediately. "I knew it all the time!" he blurted, reflexively, well aware that neither of them would believe it.

[springforth]

"Uh huh."

There are parts of here that are very aware that two weeks is not actually a long time. But she's also aware the longest amount of time she's been away from Zetta on is the two-ish weeks she was untethered--and she wasn't even aware of that. So, really, a few days here and there for missions. And she's gotten used to this. This ridiculous man who cares so much about her and all the trappings of their relationship. Sleeping together, cuddling, floating about him with the little touches she's so fond of. Kissing. Kissing is fun, she said that much before.

So before he can make anymore ridiculous excuses, she's kissing him. Pretty fiercely. She hasn't the weight or force to push him back against a wall but it doesn't mean she doesn't want to. And it doesn't mean she won't make at least an attempt.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

She didn't need to push him back against a wall. The moment she was in his arms, wrapped around him and knocking all conscious thought out of his brain, he took a slight step back. Just a slight step, to catch her and kiss her back, and that was all it took. His heel hit the suitcase he'd been shredding, his balance gave up just enough, and the pair of them were tumbling, back into a pile of suitcases that cushioned the landing.

Zetta barely even noticed. Kissing Persephone was the most important thing in the world, the only thing that mattered, right now.

[springforth]

It only registers enough for her to check that he's uninjured. Of course, he would be all in a huff if she thought such a little thing could hurt him, wouldn't he? But that's all it is, a moment to register he's unhurt, and then her full focus turns back to kissing him.

"I did mean it." Persephone mumbles in the space between them as she catches her breath.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"The tired part?" That better not have been it, though it may be a minute till she can answer, because he did not let go, nor did he allow more than those seven total words to get out before his lips were on hers again.