middleofsomewhere | 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

"You-- why are you so proud of that?!"

If this space doesn't kill him first, Wei Wuxian might be the other cause of it. It's always stressful talking to this person, and more so that there are two of him and they are equally annoying. Even if he's closer to one, this one isn't any different. He seems to be falling into the same motions with him every time.

"W-What do are you even going on about?! Peacock, wings?! How did my father treat my mother? Don't pull my leg!"

Though, he must admit, he knows exactly what Wei Wuxian is saying, because he's experienced his father and the Wei Wuxian he knows arguing in broad daylight! They continued their bickering even though Jin Ling is standing there watching all of that. As much as he's curious to learn more, he just keeps running until, he eventually finds Wei Wuxian in the mess.

He's out of breath and so is his dog. She stays a good distance from Jin Ling, lest Wei Wuxian flips out at her presence once more.

Wei Wuxian is tense, tensing more when he sees Fairy. He doesn't bolt, and that's about as good as it's going to get, because he's not comfortable with dogs, and Fairy is, through no fault of its own, a dog.

He's not capable of moving closer to Jin Ling right now unless Jin Ling is about to die, so he holds out his hands, quirking his brow.

"I can tell you while we get out of here, ah?"

Jin Ling can only softly gesture for his spiritual companion to stay as far away from them as possible, just to ease Wei Wuxian's tense self. She doesn't even seem to be barking or making a sound, other than staring at the two of them curiously from a far distance. She doesn't seem happy though.

Regardless, Jin Ling manages to breathe a sigh as he looks at the outstretched hand. After a moment of silence and nodding his head, he takes the hands. He doesn't want to be here anymore than he has to. He rather get out of here as soon as possible.

"You better not be lying then."

He can't help but want to be curious about his parents.

"Not right now," he says, smiling in a way that's... sadder, a way more true than many of the smiles Jin Ling may have seen from this particular man. This man who studiously ignores Fairy, but is aware of the dog trailing after Jin Ling.

The dog will go where his nephew goes. He doesn't need to worry about it: that's simply factual. Everyone's told him it's so.

They walk, in this nothingness of bursts of coloured lights and ribbons of mist and shadow, born again as further twisting rainbows that pull and whisper and plead, give up, Jin Ling, stay, let go, don't leave.

"Your father was a complete donkey to your mother for years," he says, "He dressed well, overdressed in my opinion, and he was a good cultivator, and he knew it. Stalked around like a peacock proud of his feathers, which annoyed me and your maternal uncle, because be a peacock, but don't make our sister suffer for your vanity. Which he did, for many years, until he finally put his head on better, I suppose."

Grudging words, but he quirks up the corner of his mouth, takes an edge off what seems to be a complaint that's long since lost its weight.

"He was a good husband. Your mother loved him very much, more than he deserve for a long time, and more than he deserved because he didn't have the chance to love her more and better. I'm sorry about that, to you, to him, and to her." Softer, that statement, and the unfortunate reality: Jin Ling can feel his sincerity, the sorrow that dives deep into his marrow, the fondness mixed with sickened guilt and acceptance and a grief still percolating for him, he of the sixteen years of darkness, sixteen years without light.

His love for Yanli, his ache for her loss, his guilt at his own inability to stop it, to have controlled it all, even knowing now why he had not, where he'd overlooked, where he'd been played as much as he played Chenqing, that suffuses him. Bittersweet, that warmth, where Jin Ling finds it curling around him.

Jin Ling doesn't press the topic any longer. If he's going to tell, he'll certainly do it. He sort of believes it, maybe. It's not like pushing Wei Wuxian will do anything for Jin Ling right now. If he's anything similar to the one he is familiar with, he probably will find ways to divert the conversation. Something Jin Ling gets rather frustrated about, but somehow has adjusted to it.

That doesn't mean he won't argue it, though. Fairy keeps a fairly good distance from both of them. She knows at this point that Wei Wuxian won't want her to be near and Jin Ling has already instructed her. She's a little sad, but at least he's helping her master to safety. So, the spiritual dog just trails quietly behind, no barks, no yaps. She's well behaved and well trained, clearly.

The noise really is bothering him. Those voices, pleading, telling him to stay, let go and don't leave. If he hasn't already experienced something similar, he might have fallen to its lulling, but not this time. He tries to ignore it the best he can as he listens to Wei Wuxian's voice, focusing on just that. There's no place for him here, anyway. It's better to get back to the train, or whatever seems more appropriate for him.

It helps that the topic of discussion is his parents and he definitely has a huge amount of interest towards it. Somehow, those words, he normally will refute, he doesn't. How can someone talk about his father like that?! Though, after seeing his father and Wei Wuxian argue about the ridiculous of things, he sort of-- well gets it. To some degree. He's not sure how similar all of this is, but he's assuming there's not too much of a difference.

"...I heard-- he's unbelievable at times. I saw him arguing with-- that Wei Wuxian. I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it."

He sighed. He's a little aware that his father may have rubbed off on him a little. Not too much, but enough, because some of those words-- ouch! It really hits too close to him.

"I know-- that's what everyone keeps telling me."

He misses them dearly. Especially, that one moment of experience. He silently hopes that he might be able to see his father or mother at some point. Though, he doesn't know if that will happen. A boy can be a bit optimistic, right? He takes a moment to process the apology for a moment.

"It's fine. I-- well there's a lot of things. I don't want to talk about them all right now. If whatever you experienced in your world is similar to the Wei Wuxian I know, then I get it. I know you cared about my mother very much and I know that you're not-- completely at fault for the things that happened."

Again, he'd have to go after every single person at this point if he's out for revenge. He's tired of it all and really doesn't want to always be wrapped up in it. He has his family, people that cared about him and vise versa. He has to focus on that. He also has to focus on fixing Lanling Jin when he returns, so no more tragedies like his parents or Wei Wuxian's happen again. Of course, Jin Ling isn't going to say any of those out loud. It makes him sound extremely sappy.

"Thanks-- for telling me about them, my parents."

Edited 2022-03-16 04:09 (UTC)

No Place Like Home: The Return

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oops sorry went tldr mode on this ;W;