A New Platform [Intro Post February]

[voidtreckermods]

On the Train

Three days after the Voidtreckers return to the void after their adventures on the biosphere world, they are awoken by a familiar announcement.

"Good morning passengers, it is day Sixteen of the month of Jelly. Points have been updated on the system."

They have indeed, and everyone can spend the morning shopping. Those who have been on the train for a while will also be expecting the second announcement that comes a few hours later.

"Shortly arriving into a designated void platform. Exit from void in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." A lurch and a jolt and the windows fill with the fog that means they are at a platform. The fog seems thicker than usual and as they step out onto the platform they will find it is cold, very cold. Icy fog sticks to their clothing, makes it hard to see very far; the atmosphere is dark and gloomy.

As usual the first to leave the train notice nothing as they walk silently, rucksacks on their backs, towards the barriers: Alexis Rhodes, Elfnein, Itsuki Myoudouin, Ken Ichijouji, MT, Neku Sakuraba, Nike Lemercier, Noctis Lucis Caelum, Rainbow Dash, Rei Saotome, Taichi Yagami, Tsubomi Hanasaki, Yuri Tsukikage and Zechs Merquise all pass through the platform, not looking back before they disappear through the barriers and into the fog beyond.

But on the platform itself there are new faces. Wearing hoodies in all four colours, in various states of confusion.

For New Passengers

At first all they can see is steam, billowing around them as they come to their senses. As their eyes adjust, they will see they are on a platform, glass and dark stone rising in sturdy arches around them. Behind them is a set of barriers, and in front of them is a single track extending both ways into thick fog.

They are standing, in clothes that are not their own and a style they might not even recognise. They are carrying a rucksack on their back. For a moment it seems to just be them, alone in the white haze; then the steam begins to fade and they realise they aren’t alone.

The platform is not large with sixteen figures scattered around, all facing the tracks, all dressed in cargo trousers and hoodies. To both the left and right, tracks disappear into the mist. Then there is a roaring sound and out of the fog arrives a train. Jet black with gold writing on the side. The Voidtrecker Express. There is a hiss as the doors slide open and out step a strange assortment of people. Some are human, some are less so. Most are wearing the same hoodie in one of the four colours, red, orange, blue and purple, though some are sporting different clothes in a variety of styles.

The Train

After a short time, the doors hiss open again. Those from the train may encourage those on the platform to board. It’s not like there's anywhere else to go and even if there was, you feel a pull. A need to board, a feeling that staying on the platform would lead to something terrible. If that is not enough, there are plenty of people on the platform now, to encourage them onto the train.

Each ICP shows the same message and next to the screens there are stacks of leaflets written by those on the train, with further information (see
'Publications'). The store rooms have been restocked with fresh ingredients, including several crates of avocados, the ingredient of the month of Jelly, as well as all sundries.

For passengers that have bought items, these are also scattered around the luggage carriage in various suitcases and bags.

New passengers will find their ticket allows them into their cabins. They may need to negotiate for beds, especially if they want a top bunk!

Room is tight but there are storage cubbies at the head of each bed, beds fold up and the bottom bunks double as benches for the small table. There is storage under those benches full of spare blankets and pillows.

Departure

A second horn sounds to encourage any stragglers braving the freezing fog, and the doors slide shut. Veteran passengers know what will happen next, but they may wish to brief their new companions.

The train sets off, the fog obscuring the view again as it picks up speed.

"Welcome aboard, passengers of the Voidtrecker Express." A female-coded artificial sounding voice echoes throughout the train. "Please take the time to read the passenger information displayed on the Information and Communication points and familiarise yourself with the layout and emergency exits."

The train begins to tilt, leaving the ground and rising up into the fog-filled sky.

"Entrance into Voidspace imminent. New passengers are advised to remain seated. Entry into Voidspace in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one."

A shudder, a jolt, a lurch to the left. A flash of light, colourful and blinding. As quick as it happens it is done. The train seems to steady itself. The fog from the windows is gone now, replaced with a kaleidoscope of ever-changing colours.

Welcome to the Void!

Comments

[theimpatientone]

Her gaze flicks to the metal hand, and her forehead creases a little. That is... uncomfortable and almost obscene, from her point of view. Still, they seem to mean well. She might have no reason to trust Soldat, but she has no reason to distrust them, either.

So Merwen holds herself in place. "Soldat," she repeats. She'll accept their offer of friendship, at least. How could she do anything else? "Am I meant to know you? You greet me like an old friend, but I've never shared meeting with you, I'm sure."

[worthallthis]

"No, you're. It's complicated, like I said." They approach slowly, hands still up. "I'll explain, promise. Want to get inside where it's warmer first, though? Don't want you to lose any toes just cuz you don't like clothes." Definitely going to get to work altering those. Surely they can make a skirt out of those pants, and capes out of her shirts. Some particularly loose socks for her poor webbed feet.

They've done it before. They'll do it again.

[theimpatientone]

"Inside... that?"

She gestures at the train, her nose wrinkled in an expression of dismay bordering on disgust. "I am meant to go inside that?" That just seems to scream "bad idea" to her. "I have spent more than enough of my life inside coldstone, and I don't particularly wish to step into a," she pauses, searching for a word she knows that can possibly describe a train, "boat like this."

[worthallthis]

"It's called a train," Soldat explains. "And unfortunately. You're tied to it now. Like the rest of us. You can't stay here." They consider a moment, then offer, "There's water inside. Warm pools you can use. Localized rainfall. There's none out here."

[theimpatientone]

"No," she agrees, "out here is a place of death. I can see that much."

Honestly, it's not the greatest choice she finds herself faced with, between this terrible cold platform and trusting a strange Valan-looking male with a coldstone arm, but being inside the 'train' is probably the better option. Probably. Merwen picks up the rucksack again, and gives Soldat a nod.

"I will come."

[worthallthis]

"Good. Good, thank you." That's a relief, that they don't have to argue with her further. They lead her towards the train, keeping half-turned back to face her, on the right side so the metal arm isn't as prominent-- they recognize those looks she's giving it. "Are you familiar with the idea of. Multiple universes? Where the same people can exist across a spectrum of choices and experiences, at the same time?"

[theimpatientone]

She frowns faintly, as she follows. "I've never learnshared such a notion. But a spectrum of choices, which may lead us to follow different currents without our realising the implications, this I do understand. How does this imply more than one of a single soul?"

[worthallthis]

"I don't know the specifics. If the soul of the Merwen the Impatient One I knew is different from yours, or you. Share it somehow, I don't know. I just know I met you, a different you, from. Somewhere else in time and space." They move around boxes and other waiting passengers, climbing the steps to the train itself and doing their best to shield Merwen from the worst of the wind chill. "I made you clothes you could stand to wear, when it got cold outside. Watched over you when we went underground and you were afraid. Taught you the language of the spirits."

[theimpatientone]

Underground. Merwen shudders at the thought. It's an intimate sort of fear, though, and it really does do something to make the very impossible idea that a stranger has known another version of herself a little more believable.

Inside is much nicer in temperature, though. At least there's that. The clickfly seems to think so too, buzzing its wings to warm itself up. "You and this other Merwen shared friendship, and you know me through her? That is... forgive me, it's a strange story."

[worthallthis]

"I know, it really is," Soldat allows, apologetic. "I had the same problem when I came here, though. There was some other. Me. Who had been here before, a couple months ago. So a bunch of people sort of knew me." A bunch of people knew where they came from, anyway. They're not... the same.

And this Merwen might not be the same, either. But they're pretty sure they'll still like her.

[theimpatientone]

"Do others know me here, or only you?"

Honestly, she's not sure what answer she prefers. Both are equally unsettling, in different ways. The former feels like a trap, but the latter feels more personal.

"Does this happen frequently here?"

[worthallthis]

"I can't say for sure," Soldat hedges, "but no one else here was with me in the other place, so. It's not likely. As for frequently... not that much. But not never, either." That handful of people knew the other-- them-- and they new Crowley and Aziraphale, from before, too.

They look up and down the standard card that's used for boarding, full of rows of seats and shortly to be full of more people, and offer, "Want me to show you to your cabin? You can put your bag down. Maybe. If you want. You can let me take the clothes they give you, and I can make something you can stand to wear. Because lots of people here are mostly going to want to you wear clothes."

[theimpatientone]

She sighs through her nose. "Why? Why should I have to cover myself? If others wish to do so they are free to wear whatever they want, but I do not, and I have not even chosen to come share in these customs. I'm simply here."

It's not even nice fabric.

[worthallthis]

"Sometimes people are weird about being covered up," Soldat says apologetically. "And there are missions. Times when we go out into other worlds and help them. It would be dangerous to go without clothes, then. No protection from temperature changes, hostile elements, or the environment."

[theimpatientone]

"Cold I have little experience with, and you may share truth on that point," she admits. "But here, must I?" She gestures around them, giving another sigh, more despairing. "This is safe enough, and a comfortable temperature. How am I meant to live here constantly suffocated under cloth?"

Because it is suffocating, thank you.

[worthallthis]

Soldat shrugs at her, holding the door into the next car down the line, which happens to be the gym car: largely open, with wooden floors, variable goal items, and cupboards of game balls. "I'm not going to argue with you about it, Merwen. If you want to keep going on not wearing clothes, I'll let you handle everyone else's reaction. But you should still let me have the ones they gave you to alter. So you'll at least have something for missions."

[theimpatientone]

"Thank you," she says, her voice softer. "I don't mean to share anger with you. You are being very kind, and my frustration is not for you. I know better than this. "

The gym is... Distracting, though. Rooms after rooms, none like anything she's seen before. She leans down to touch the wooden floor. Not living wood, no, and finished in an unfamiliar way, but it's still a little familiar.

"What is this room for?" she asks.

[worthallthis]

"For games, for fun and exercise. Putting balls through those goals while another team tries to stop you." They gesture at the basketball hoops and goal nets and things at either end of the room. "I don't know the point or the rules, though, so I can't really explain more than that."

There is one sport Bucky Barnes knew anything about, and it's not one you can play on a gym court, so they haven't gotten any memories back about it yet. Baseball remains as much a mystery as every other sport out there.

[theimpatientone]

It's... kinder than she would have expected. It's kinder than she's experienced. But it also keeps them comfortable and cooperative. And she's seen that, before.

"I'd like to see this game," Merwen says. "Soldat... this other Merwen you knew, did she share much about her time as a Valan prisoner?"

It's an abrupt shift in topic, but it follows logically for her, and the idea that a stranger might know of something she hardly speaks about at all, to anyone, to her family, is a little worrying.

[worthallthis]

"Not unless she did it without making it clear what she was talking about," Soldat says, shaking their head, leading the way across the gym floor to the door in the other end of the car. The next one is the medical car, and they visibly brace themselves before entering, and walk down the center isle briskly, not looking at the doors to either side into surgery and exam rooms. Even the smell in here is terrible, but they can at least walk through it. They're not that badly off.

"She did call me and the others who looked more like me Valar, though." They have a thought they don't like much, and add, "I hope she didn't mean she saw us as captors."

[theimpatientone]

She shakes her head. "You are like Valans, in your maleness, your skintone, your head plumage, your lack of webbing. That does not define your humanity. That doesn't even define whether someone can become a Sharer."

She watches them, recognises their discomfort at the medical car, knows what it is. She doesn't like it, either.

"This room is... unwelcoming," she observes, meaning to be gently sympathetic. "Let's not linger here."

[worthallthis]

"It's the. Medical car," they explain. "If you get hurt or sick. This is where you would come. I just don't like it." But they do keep walking briskly, and are relieved to get to the other side and into the game car. This room is much more welcoming, with its tables and chairs and shelves of colorful game boxes. "About half the non-sleeper cars are for important things. The other half are for entertainment."

[theimpatientone]

"I dislike it as well."

As though any place so uncomfortable has any business being a place of healing. The game room is alien, as everything is alien, but it's at least comfortable and inviting.

"If I wish to go from room to room, it's necessary to go between all the rooms in between?" That seems so... very inefficient.

[worthallthis]

"All the cars are connected in a straight line," Soldat says apologetically. The next car might be more comfortable for her, as it's the garden car, with a domed, transparent ceiling letting in sun-like light, little streams, lots of plants, and meandering rock paths. "And you can't even really skip the bad ones. Because the kitchen and dining car are the other direction, at the very front of the train." And everybody's gotta eat.

[theimpatientone]

"What a strange way of arranging your living arrangements," Merwen says.

The garden is interesting. Stone in a garden. Stone, which she still thinks of as being unnatural, dead, worse than dead but never alive in the first place, set up with plants. It's a weird contrast, from her point of view, life and death placed side by side. She pauses to look at a plant, unfamiliar to her, though lovely enough.

"Are these food plants or decorative plants?" she asks.