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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Soldat isn't the one going after Yondu. They're... not exactly pleased about that, but they couldn't find him when they looked last, and really, they're better at being the stationary anchor anyway. That doesn't mean they're not vibrating with stress and guilt that they're not out there hunting for him themselves again, though.

Unfortunately, anchoring for poor Tobirama means the guy has to deal with a few echoes of Sarge and James along with Soldat themselves, while he does the hunting. Soldat is so good at stationary anchoring because they know very clearly the distinct parts of themselves-- but those parts like to bicker. (Calm down, Jesus, you're doing good work here. YOU CAN LET SOMEBODY ELSE DO SOMETHING, FOR ONCE. Sorry, sorry. Sorry, Tobirama. Yeah, sorry, pal. We'll be quiet.)

Spoiler: they do not actually be quiet. They mostly just tell each other to be quiet, which is not actually being quiet. What that does do, though, is keep more emotions from leaking out, and keeps Soldat distracted enough from their worry that they can do their actual job and focus on keeping Tobirama grounded.

So Soldat is at the train platform when Tobirama treks back through the void with Yondu in tow. They hold very still, but they're staring hard at Yondu and have one of their chewing pendants in their mouth, a sure sign of intense emotion that Yondu would recognize.

Luckily there were a couple of heads involved at least, some sense of stability there even if Soldat had his moments.

Soldat probably was worried like hell. Yondu had just loosely assumed that he was fucked out here, that he wouldn't be coming back. He'd hoped that someone would be there for him in his absence, that somehow Soldat would turn out alright.

As predicted he vanishes back onto the train when he's brought in, so he has to come find Soldat after. Has to find him once he's reset or whatever the fuck this tethering mess is about. And what does he do? Try to greet him with a joke.

"Sorry I was late. Got stuck out after hours." Because he knows that he worried. "You alright?"

The one thing that will in fact make Soldat take a break: needing to verify that Yondu is okay after his return, because the mun may have completely missed that people reappear in the luggage car and not on the platform, but Soldat would not have missed that by now.

They prowl through the train in search of him, and probably meet him halfway. "Jesus Christ, Yondu. You ask me that." They aren't usually good for hugs, but this really calls for one, and if they're going to hug anyone, it's Yondu.

So Yondu gets tugged into a tight hug, for at good ten seconds, before it's too much and they have to step back to just grip his shoulders and look him over, as if for injuries.

Yondu falls into the hug way too easily. Not even a hesitation in it, arms wrapping around Soldat's shoulders and drawing him in tight, thumping his hands at his back. It lasts about as long as he knows Soldat can stand and he appreciates that, leaning back and watching his face.

"...Yeah. Yeah, I'm alright."

As alright as a man could be after a few days caught between worlds. One who went to fight in someone else's war, who found out that he was a hero in his world, some kind of legend in another. One where he fought off greedy bastards hurting a good woman and oppressive tyrants hurting another. One where he saw a friend die defending the man he loves, and saw versions of friends that met him with blankness that makes him appreciate the renditions he has here all the more.

He's had a hell of a few days.

"Stakar didn't hate me. I found a recordin' of him talkin' to someone. That he missed me and he was glad he'd been wrong about me. None of 'em hated me." And he gives that to Soldat, because he doesn't know what to do with any of it.

A whole lot worse than just sitting around fretting, that's for sure. They're not going to complain at all, about anything, not when they're getting their people back. Soldat looks him over again anyway, then gives his shoulders a squeeze with their hands there. "Good. Nobody should hate you."

They let him go finally, step back, and ask the harder question: "You're okay with that? With. Coming back? Even if your person misses you?"

"He was never my person. I was just real fond of him." Aletta and Stakar were always the two made for each other. Yondu was just a friend and distant piner. But now he knows the friendship was... well, he has evidence it wasn't lost forever, and even if it was at the cost of his life, he's glad he proved there'd been real significance and value to it.

But whether he's okay coming back? He doesn't answer. It was hard and he had no choice. Everyone that cares about him as a living person is on the train, but it's a very caged life, a wild animal brought back to a circus. So he just switches gears.

"Somethin' went wrong. People started havin' prophetic dreams, talkin' about colors in the sky. Whatever the train did wrong didn't just threaten us it threatened ever'thin'. You know... I actually think we're from the same universe 'cause of that. Someone had a dream about some guy named Steve Rogers fightin' Thanos with some other folks. And I know who Thanos is."

Soldat might notice the lack of a real answer, but they don't push it. They can't, not when they can guess the answer.

Instead, they give a very small smile. "No, not quite the same. A close one, though. In my universe, I died, and Steve probably did, too. Since I wasn't alive to save him from drowning. In other universes, close ones, I didn't die, and so Steve could go on to save the world again." They already know the two Steves they've met so far on this train were from one of those near-universes.

The rest is more concerning, anyway. "That's the first I've heard about dreams, and the void hitting other worlds, though. Was it getting worse?"

"Yeah, it was. I left before the train even told us to, 'cause I was worried. Didn't wanna keep infectin' my world."

He hesitates, scrunches his eyes and sighs.

"Can I have some food? I drank more'n' I ate, to be honest. Was tryin' to live up what little time I had left there."

"Yes. Shit, yes, of course." They even still have snacks on their person, for immediate refueling. They fumble in a pocket-- and before pulling out the bag of trail mix, pull out Yondu's little raccoon figurine. They look vaguely sheepish, and offer that to him, first. "I kinda kept a few of them with me. Sorry."

Yondu's face softens up when he realizes what Soldat did. He'd been out there without any of them and it had been wierdly isolating. Like them little things always reminded him there was people, or that he was a person what owned stuff.

And here Soldat was, holding one.

"That's what they're for." Because it's nice to think that maybe they were still doing their job, just in someone else's hands and reminding them of him.

The trail mix comes out next, and they offer both to Yondu to take. "They were kind of a reminder that you were out there. That maybe we could get you back. Besides, they looked lonely in there by themselves." The whole room felt lonely without Yondu in it.

He takes the trail mix, finally, having been thoroughly distracted by the fact Soldat kept his trinkets around.

"I think I got a lot outa my system while I was out there. I didn't do all that much helpful at all," he chuckles. Well, he supposes that it may have been helpful to someone, but honestly, he just wanted a few days of causing a ruckus with permission and watching set orders shake.

He's ready to rest again. Or at least he will be.

"Maybe it helped you," Soldat suggests. "That's important, too." (~~Ahem.~~ Shut up, Pit. THAT IS WHAT THEY KEEP TRYING TO POINT OUT. You shut up, too.)

Soldat shakes their head. "Come on. Why don't we get you to the cabin. Bet you're exhausted."

"I ain't that tired..." Not as tired as the ones that braved savin' 'em. "But I ain't gonna turn down a familiar bed."

He'd been roaming those few days, and even if he could afford sleeping at decent acomodations, he was sleeping on money meant for his dead crew. Sometimes, since the first time since the memorial, his thoughts lingered on them.

But for right now he's just glad to see this crew.

"It did help." He'd slept around in brothels, drank to excess, and fought wherever he could for what he wanted to. It was a few days of freedom, but it'd felt nice. Now it was time to be responsible again, and he heads back for their shared room.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

No Place Like Home: The Return

Tethering for the Return

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now that I'm done feeling really stupid...

Don't feel stupid, I'm fumbling over how everything works.

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so sorry for the delay >.< month-end close kicking my ass again

I'm very slow myself, so no worries.

probably not this slow :P sorry, having cat emergencies...

Pet emergencies are the worst D: I wish both of you well. We can also call it here.