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

[blitzcheer]

What is it that Esteban's searching for? It's Esteban that Tidus needs to focus on, but if it's a passenger, Tidus knows plenty, he can give a better angle for Esteban to direct himself in, when to know a person even by their presence, is plenty better than just knowing them by a faceless name.

But it's a them - a collective, not a singular that Esteban's reaching for. Confusion tickles through the link that they share, coming from Tidus. Who? in the sensation; slow for Tidus to piece together, and maybe, just when he gets it-- the void comes for Esteban.

It hits him, nearly as hard as it does Esteban; memories that have no personal connection to him, but his is the connection with Esteban, and so the pain and lost and the blame that comes from it all stabs at Tidus, a not-so-unfamiliar feeling. But his first reaction - his ability from the distance, from being Esteban's guide, his safety net - is to pull back. People that Esteban wants to find in the abyss of the void, but panic strikes Tidus, no no no no, not like this, another time, c'mon Esteban, we'll try later.

And he knows the pain of loss, he knows so desperately the desire to search, to find, to bring back to you those lost. Pleas with his heart that's filled with so many faces, all of those met in his time on the train, and more: Drizzt, his first roommate, the person who wanted to stay and help others; Sam, the man he didn't know too well, but he has a baby back home, and what's happened to him? What's happened to his kid? -- the mother of three ducks, Della Duck, the kids she's been away from for so long, who deserves to be home with her family.

And then there's Yuna, Yuna. Just the thought of her filled with love and longing, so much fear, everything he refuses to let go of but worries in the crevices of his mind, Can I find her? His heart linked to the very thought of her, this person he owes so much to.

Flashes, so quick, and Tidus pleas with their places in his heart as he takes Esteban's own loss, and tries to call him back to him with it. We'll look, not like this, we can't lose you, come back, come back.

It's not unlike the fear of nearly losing Inigo, that he might lose Esteban too wandering this way. They've both lost, but they'll support each other, they'll be pillars for one another, and they'll try, but not this way. Not today.

[crowneddragon]

Bring them back, bring them back!

It's voiceless, wordless, but there is stubbornness to his reach, a seed of determination, a sprout of recklessness trying to take root. Heart still crippled, crushed under heels and claws, who he is-- what he is-- fighting him, tooth and claw and nail and wings, reaching for these nameless faces, these people that are so important, so bloody important even if he doesn't know them.

Give up?

It's not an option, it was never an option, Esteban bounces back, he always does, he just needs, needs, greeds to save someone, to save anyone because they are missing from him and they are lost-- he lost them, he lost them, he lost them-- and they're untethered, lost in the void, lost in the abyss and the darkness and the far reaches between the stars where nothing shines--

Glowing lights, trails of lights. Some vanish, into the distance, tantalizingly out of reach.

We'll look, not like this, we can't lose you, come back, come back.

Sunshine shimmering on the break of the waves. The smell of salt and grass, three moons aligned in the sky. Joy and teasing and warmth, warmth-- flowers, soil scattered on the ground and pain and loss; a loss that he knows too well, a loss that he won't allow to linger. He won't allow it to stay.

'I'm sorry.'

No; not like this. He needs to say it, he needs to say it. It can't be this half-hearted attempt when their thoughts are too full and the line blurs between he and him and them, too tangled that they share in each other's memories. Esteban is not a coward. He will apologize to Tidus to his face, and that is a promise.

He reaches back to the blond, turns his memories away even though it's painful, even though it rips at him, grief greedily leeching bloody fingertips deep between his ribs, cracking at the fragile cage. Lost, lost, lost to him, these faceless beings, these people he does not know but wishes to save, wishes to reach, wishes to hold, back with him, where it is light, and warm, and safe.

Tidus. The feeling of sand tickling between his toes, the wind carried across miles of open water, the sound of waves, like a breath, steady in its rhythm. The strands of light, filtering above his head and dancing in the water like veils. He doesn't trust himself to turn his thoughts away, even though he recalls each name that has come to be precious to him, that has come to become part of his soul as he turns back, and walks.

It's hard. Nameless voices wail their hatred behind him, their fury and pain and begging, begging, please save them. And he wants to. He wants to so badly, to turn around and offer his hand and tell them it's going to be alright, it's going to be fine, he can save them, can guide them back, it's going to be alright because he's here and Tidus can anchor them and they'll walk back together.

Tidus. Holding him loosely and pretending he doesn't know that he's crying, promising things that weren't his to promise, even though he would have put anything at all on the line to spare him that pain. (But he can't really spare him, can he? There are people who went missing, people screaming behind him that he should bring back, that he could bring back if he only tried a little harder--)

He'd been so callous. He'd been so focused. Determined to fix this all so much that he'd foregone the blond's pain to think instead of a solution, and he shouldn't have, he shouldn't have been so blind. He knows grief-- bloody scarring across his chest-- he knows that fear.

He should have listened to Tidus to the end first. He should have offered more, and thought less. He should have been a friend, actually a friend, and he's failed him, and he's sorry, but he won't let it happen again. He's going to apologize, straight to the blond's face, and he won't ever be so callous again.

He's running, void screeching at his back, but he won't listen, he can't listen because Tidus is next to the train, and Esteban's already failed him before. He won't do it twice.

[blitzcheer]

The pain of loss isn't one that Tidus can smother. Wanting back the people he knows, the one he doesn't; he feels it as fervently, lives it every day. Holds onto the need to save everyone lost like a lifeline, a reason for being. This is his life, this is who he is; he has nothing else. I don't have a home, all I want is to get them back.

And he can't lose Esteban too. Calling him desperately back through desperation, pleading, focusing on everything he knows Esteban to be, reaching out to the space where he was. Comfort, a friend, someone who cares and wants to help. Strengths that aren't disparaged, but right now, this, this isn't the way. Ignore the voices, that's not them, and Tidus believes this fully, deeply, knows it's not - but they'll still find a way, they will.

Each apology and regret pulsing through Esteban pushed aside, not given room to breathe or grow, not necessary. Just come back, is Tidus's plea, his want, his only want. Doesn't care for the rest, only to not lose friends.

The train and its platform waits, Tidus with his outstretched hand, a friend ready to pull out Esteban from the void - to bring him back whole again.

[crowneddragon]

The blond's desire to save the people lost overlaps with Esteban's; almost trip him up. He goes to turn-- shadowed voices without tone, without recognition, but begging, screaming out to him-- but there is one more tug as Tidus calls him back, and Esteban swallows back the attempt, running, running. It is exhausting, but he keeps going, feels like there is no end, but clings to the sunshine in his mind-- a bottle with a crystal wave, a lighthouse ahead in the darkness. And he trusts Tidus. Trusts him with himself, trusts him with their goal.

They'll manage. They'll make it. They'll save them all someday-- not today. Not now. But some day. They'll save them.

No one gets left behind.

The void spits him out without a warning, tripping and stumbling over his own feet, hand catching onto Tidus' before his momentum rushes a collision course with him entirely, a reversal of their first anchoring. He tries his best to avoid his companion, but it's a clumsy attempt, feet and thoughts and limbs sluggish after his struggle, the void still latched onto pieces of him where it can still linger. In his ears and his throat and his thoughts, scratching nails against his skull in an effort to leave its mark. 'Dians.

That had been so, so stupid.

"Y' alright?" the half-elf calls out as soon as he has a wheeze of a breath in his lungs, eyes shut tight against the assault of colours and sunlight and too much. Everything is just too much at this point. No wonder Tidus had been dead tired after that anchoring-- this one was worse than all of Esteban's other attempts all together.

[blitzcheer]

The weight of Esteban pushes Tidus, but there's a train at his back to catch him, not taking either of them far. Their connection and the void slipping in the cracks clinging as well onto Tidus, numbing parts of him, but parts he was already ignoring, already worn down from this constant anchoring day after day. He's at least less wheezed than Esteban, arms around the other guy, letting him rest against him until he can or tries to find his own footing. There's no rush.

"Think about yourself for once." It's not a chide, but what's the point of asking about Tidus before himself? The guy who was actually in there, trying to wade through the void. A hand moves onto Esteban's shoulder, not urging him to move or look at him, but with a purpose.

"Tell me if you're gonna do something like that. I already tried - we can't. Not like this."

[crowneddragon]

There's still too much blurring behind the half-elf's eyes, and he shivers, feeling the thin, snarled fingers of the emptiness inside his head crawl their last stroke down along his neck before it fades. His lungs still can't keep up with his heart, rattling a staccato of beats in his throat and his ears, pulsing louder than the world around him.

Think about himself? Esteban is nothing but selfish-- wanting so much from the world. Wanting and greedy and so determined, that he always ends up clawing up more than he should from it, holding his treasures close even though he shouldn't. Shouldn't, shouldn't, shouldn't.

Telling-- well, he'd thought it was already obvious what he was trying to do; but it hadn't actually occurred to him to tell Tidus. And, despite the darkness, the void, the loss that still feels raw across his ribs and down his throat, and inside his thoughts, barely keeping his head above the waves that threaten to swallow him, Esteban knows that it would have changed nothing.

he never has enough time, slipping, crumbling through his fingers, losing far more than he should be holding

"I w'ld've tried 'nyways." Not trying is not an option. Not even if he knew it was useless, because he couldn't bear the thought of 'if'. But, well.

"Sorry." It's still too shallow, not for the dozen thoughts that still haunt him, but Esteban is having a bit of trouble pulling himself together enough to form better, coherent thoughts. His limbs are slowly faltering, and he feels slow, sluggish. "For draggin' you int' this."

And ripping open the wounds of his own loss. They still echo somewhere in Esteban's memories; faces and names he's never seen, never heard, but that he now knows he would give anything to find again. He's only now realizing how many, just how many people have gone missing from the train, vanishing into the nothing that almost pulled Esteban under with its hissing, wailing voices.

[blitzcheer]

Tidus can't blame him - for wanting to look, even with Tidus's own failure. Esteban doesn't need to speak it, that 'if', but it's not his confession that bothers Tidus.

It's the apology. For dragging you into this. The state that Esteban looks, no different from how any of them look during this task, and he thinks he gets what Esteban is really apologising for, and it's nothing Tidus wants to hear - isn't what Tidus is trying to call him out on.

"You sorry you couldn't do this by yourself?" His hand is still resting on Esteban's shoulder, and he lets out a quiet breath, the mental dull yet buzz from dealing with the anchoring weighing down on his body. "That's my point, I don't want you doing this yourself. You include me in this - you're not alone, alright? We're doing this together. This isn't one person's burden to bear."

[crowneddragon]

"What?" Oh! Oh, that's not what he meant! Esteban's head shakes before he can think better of it, still too woozy for this to be a good idea. It takes him a moment to breathe slowly, untangling himself from the blond so that he can lean against the train and collapse, blinking back the darkness behind his eyelids and squinting against what little sunlight makes it through the fog.

Not alone. Tidus had told Inigo the same thing, and Esteban had... had believed it. Still believes it. He isn't alone; and it's been a long, long time since he'd last had companions he can rely on, so they are precious to him. And that is precisely why he pushes for this so hard. If he can give back to them, even just a bit; if he can offer them something precious, even just a fraction of how much Esteban is thankful-- he just wants to give back to them what they've already given him, even unknowingly.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he tries to explain instead, shifting his head to the side to look back at his companion again. "I'm sorry that-- that I made you relive that." His words are slower, losing the peculiar slang-quickness that follows him when he is speaking too fast. He wants to add more, but the garden carriage is its own separate thing, and he won't hide his apology behind another, different one.

"I am sorry for your loss." It's a repetition, but Esteban means it, means it with every fiber of his being, because he might not have caught onto everything, he still needs to unscramble his thoughts away from Tidus', but he knows that feeling. He knows that feeling too much, too well, and he-- wishes it were different. Tidus doesn't deserve that. Neither of them deserve that.

But it doesn't change what's happened.

[blitzcheer]

As Esteban pulls back, Tidus settles himself; a drop that's awkward to make, but he does, one leg wrapped loosely around the other. Taking in a breath, an emptiness to his body, his weight. It's like a mission, how numb he feels - and once they can finally stop, he'll likely treat the aftermath the same too, crashing in bed for a couple of days.

"We'll find them." He's not sure what to do with apologies, how else to answer 'that I made you relive it' -- when it's always a permanent loss, yet Tidus knows that Esteban isn't trying to imply otherwise. But it is what it is, a state of being - what those who care about those lost deal with. Have to deal with.

A constant weight, a knowledge. And that it's either getting them back, or not.

[crowneddragon]

"Yeah." It... comes out weaker than he's intended.

He knows that there are some people that can never come back.

He clears his throat, and tries again.

"Yeah!" He's smiling brightly now even if his eyes are closed again, cheered up and pulling every memory he can from his time linked with the train to throw every confidence he has at this. "The train's kept a memory of each of them, right? So even if they're lost really deeply, we can still reach out t' them, eventually." When they have a plan, when they have a way to travel the void that isn't as draining as these anchoring.

"So long's we hold onto them, d'you think it makes it easier for the tetherin' to hold longer? Even if they're not here?" It's... a new theory. Esteban's got too many of them; he doesn't know how to organize his thoughts surrounding this, but he does so want to offer Tidus the brightest ones. The ones that will make him hope. That will give him the strength to keep going.

"Actually--" and now that he thought about it-- overlapping ideas fusing in some form of a monster that he isn't sure if it's a good or a bad one. "D'you think we could anchor people to each other? To tether them better?"

He-- he's been starting to wonder. It's still a tangled mess in his head, the vision of lights and void and the lasting impression that 'it's his hoard'. The wonder and curiosity if he could do that. If he should do that. Or maybe this is alll a very, very stupid idea that he should really not entertain. He can't quite tell if it walks the line between genius or madness.

[blitzcheer]

Esteban's mind is, apparently, going places. Kept a memory - he's not sure what Esteban means by that, but he's not sure what he's thinking as he goes on, until he gets further into it. He's thinking out loud, Tidus realises, piecing something together on the spot. A lot of theorising about tethering that even Tidus doesn't fully understand, though he's been here longer than the other.

"I- don't know?" He sounds dubious, trying to gather his own thoughts about what Esteban's suggesting. "Is this even tethering? We're just moving people back to where they were." That had been the same case with Diagad. It was more like guiding - but at the same time, Tidus just has no idea. This is a lot of deep thinking.

"You should ask someone else. Maybe there's something in the info we got about tethering." Maybe? Tidus rubs the back of his neck, frown pulling to one side of his face.

[crowneddragon]

"Isn't it tetherin'?" Hang on, is he getting all confused over this? "There's three tethers accordin' to the ministry, right?" He... doesn't remember them being named, but he knows there is one to the train per say, and he'd? thought that was what they were doing? Re-tethering the ones who had been badly un-tethered?

(He hates the fact that tethering is used in such a way, now how's he going to explain the tethers of his own world without having to jump through twenty hoops, he doesn't know-- but that's besides the point, and he's getting confused.)

"I think it's something like the train, the conscious an' the soul? So..." and here, he trails off, losing his confidence. This is far, far from his usual zone of comfort, but he cannot just... leave it be. "If the train's able t' do that-- t' anchor us to it even without us havin' a say... can't we make our own tethers? Find people an' things we can get tethered to, can chose t' be tethered to?"

Can he offer his hoard this way? It feels particularly dangerous and stupid now that he's said it aloud, something that might end up merging two people into one if they aren't careful-- Tidus had picked up his Common slang even though something as simple as anchoring; a tether? A tether might make it ten times worse.

Esteban huffs at himself, feeling the strain and sluggishness of his thoughts crawling back across his mind. Maybe he's just suggesting that because he's being an idiot. Maybe he's just offering this because he's scared-- he'd thought himself so much better already, only to realize he'd been covering his eyes so that he wouldn't see the dark. He's a horrible friend, really. Dragons are selfish creatures by nature.

Right.

"D'you know who might know? Or have some better idea 'bout the tethers?" Esteban... Esteban has an idea. It's not his brightest-- (he doesn't think he's had a bright idea in the last few days, maybe he should consider resting instead of doing stupid stuff like this over and over again?)-- but it's... it's an option he wants to follow. And the train is, if he's honest, probably the best source of information they actually could have over this.

No! WAIT!

He's doing the same thing again! This-- this! Blindness! Not again! Not. Again.

"Sorry." Dead guardians in a ditch, he's repeating the same pattern and not even realizing it; why is he so-- lost in his thoughts? He'd wanted to bring some cheer to his companion. He'd wanted, he'd wanted to fix things again without pausing to offer more. Offer help, offer a hand, a shoulder, a care. He does care for Tidus-- he does! But every time, it's like he thinks he could fix things for him right that moment when he can't.

He has to lean his head back against the wheels supporting them once more, breathing deeply of the steel and fog that surrounds them, the sharp metal tempered by the weak scent of things they cannot see. Stone and grey and nothingness and another deep breath helps slow him down again, enough that he scoots a little closer to the blond, leaning his shoulder against his. It's not much, but it's better than words, Esteban figures, especially since his words always end up scattering his thoughts twenty ways before he can truly offer comfort.

He keeps on saying exactly the wrong thing to Inigo, and he keeps on getting distracted when trying to help Tidus. Some friend he is.

[blitzcheer]

There's an inner turmoil going on with Esteban that Tidus only has a glimpse into. Through what he says, his apologies given after a brief pause, his expression and how it shifts. It's enough to tell that there's a lot whirling around inside of Esteban, and -- Tidus gets it. At least he thinks he does, and he leans, enough so he can put a hand on the guy's shoulder.

(Given his habit with his wings, Tidus figures he's the kind of guy to like physical touch.)

"Whatever you're overthinking in there, don't worry, alright? If you want someone to talk to," since he can answer that, has a pretty easy name to give, "then I'd go to Seto if I were you. He'll know - he might've read up about them and voidcrafts."

Seeing how the guy wants to pilot one someday.

"All I know about tethering, is - it's the train that tethers us, or we're tethered to. How we can do it... I don't know about that." He exhales, then drops his hand - and moves instead, to come and take a place beside Esteban. Against the train, the sight of the platform ahead of them.

"...nothing about this makes sense to me. But if you think you can find an answer, or look into something... then try it. Nothing's going to stop you, right?" A joke, soft as it is - what Esteban had earlier remarked. He needs to try.

"Just know that...you're likely going to end up lost, and not knowing what else you can do. Sometimes, you're just - stuck. And that's all you can be, 'til a chance comes around."

[crowneddragon]

For a moment, Tidus' encouragement for him to try is almost enough to send Esteban back to his feet (even if he can't find them right now, his body is disjointed, a puppet without strings, but he could do it if he just pushes through--). It coils unease along his spine, a need for action, to do something, anything. Time that slips like sand between his fingers.

But the blond goes on and-- and--

Esteban is stuck. He's stuck with wanting better-- wanting something so much brighter than what they have right now. He wants his friends to be happy. He wants them to be content and happy and at ease, he wants to offer them comfort and fix the things that hurt them.

He wants to erase the heartache that lingers in Tidus, he wants to bring back those who have been lost, wants to fix things that are too broken and sharp for him to offer them back to his friends. He's always wanted them to be happy above all else, wants to bring light where there is darkness, because that is one thing Esteban can do-- should be able to do.

But there are storms he can't fight. Not like this. Not alone.

There's a taste of gingerbread in Esteban's memory. A chat next to the sweets claimed by the purple team, of water worlds saved and fire worlds lost and the slowing lull of the blond's voice as he'd fallen to his own thoughts. Naming him after the sunshine to chase away the storms. 'Dians.

"You're pretty amazin', y' know that?" He'd sort of known it before, but Esteban can't help but admire Tidus' resolve, especially now that he's starting to understand... this. The drag of loss, the confinement of their thoughts. Esteban doesn't want to go back to the train. Not right now. Not like this.

It feels like a trap.

But he knows he won't turn away from it. Not now, not until things are resolved; echoing Tidus' steadfast brightness. His lips pull up in a smile as he decides that, trying to etch it deep enough that it won't fail him next time. He wants to be as strong as his companion is, and maybe next time, maybe he'll manage to be the strength to keep someone else going.