voidtreckerexpress | Make the Clock Reverse (Day 22 Jelly)

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Make the Clock Reverse (Day 22 Jelly)

Make the Clock Reverse,
Bring back what once was mine.

On the evening of Day 21, before it goes dark, any Voidtreckers who look out of the windows might see the void is a little more chaotic than usual. There's a little bit of turbulence. Nothing too bad, nowhere near how bad it got during the void storm, but noticeable all the same.

It doesn't last long, and the night continues. Those who are not early to bed may see the odd golden flicker out of the corner of their eyes, darting away and vanishing if pursued.

Strange...

Heal what has been hurt,
Change the fates' design.

"Good Morning passengers. Today is day twenty two of the month of Jelly." The morning announcement wakes everyone up as usual, and they awaken in their own beds.

Though, for some passengers, those beds may seem completely unfamiliar: a strange room full of people they don't recognise. For others the room and people are perfectly normal, just... bigger than they remember them being yesterday.

Or it might be that they feel healed, old scars faded. The changes might be small, sporting their embarrassing teenage hair cut; or drastic, their whole body younger.

Either way, it is clear that something very strange has happened on the train.

(OOC: All the information about this event is Here. All changes will reverse the next night and passengers will wake up normal on day 23.

Update: In early afternoon the dressing carriage cupboards will open and animal onesies will be available in child size.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He's very blue. He knows he's strange aboard (he's not even aware of Jack also typically being blue yet). Honestly he gets it a lot, anyway. Not that there aren't other blue species, but he's a Centaurian, not to mention a Centaurian with a reputation, and they're not too common off-world.

He pulled a good price as a kid. A rare little unicorn.

"No problem. Where are you tryin' to get too so fast? Seems like you're runnin' scared."

Houmei puts his back to the wall, but it's not because of Yondu specifically -- as evidenced by the way he quickly glances up and down the hall they're in.

"...Just out of the way."

Which he'd failed at quite miserably, he knows. He's aware. Bouncing off someone is kind of the opposite of his goal, here.

"There's a lot of people here and it's very small."

And he doesn't like to be underfoot. Bad shit happens when he's underfoot.

"Yeah, it's pretty closed up. I used to be on a big ol' ship that had way more space than this. But still, you ain't gonna get out of the way, kid. So you're gonna have to come up with a different way to handle it than runnin' scared."

He thumbs over his shoulder.

"There's a quiet car up that way. Want me to get you there. I'm pretty good at growlin' at people so they back off."

He says that with the most serious expression in the world.

Houmei's head whips to one side as if he'd just seen something alarming, but there's... kind of nothing there? Probably?

Maybe the kid's hallucinating? That's always a great sign, right?

"...S-sure."

That sounds like a good idea, really.

"I've never been anywhere like this before. It's-- it's a lot."

Certainly never on a ship.

"Yeah... But I hate to tell ya, not ever'body here's out to get ya. I still got trouble gettin' that through my own head. Come on."

He gestures for him to follow him.

"You know, even if they was? You can't act like it all the time. The more scared you are, the less important stuff you actually notice. Lose your bearings. Run into people, for example."

Houmei trails after him, like a tiny, scrawny bald shadow.

"...It would be easier if they were."

Then he could at least fight them and get it over with. He's heinous in a bout, despite his malnourished, bony little frame.

Not only can he route several adults at once in martial arts, and with a variety of weapons, but he has magic, too. Being able to use chi without having to chant first has resulted in him labeled a monster, but it's also very useful.

Which he's starting to think might be part of the 'problem' people have with it. Like that quiet kid he'd met earlier today's inability to feel any pain.

"Yeah, it would be. People are scarier when they're decent. Means their words end up sharp as knives. What's your name? I'm Yondu."

To be honest he's not actually seen that many bald Terrans. It looks like this one just shaved, though. He just figured out that they come in 7ft tall just recently so who knows.

"Let's see, it's... dinin', standard-" he counts off on his fingers on the number of cars they have to get through to get to the quiet car. Damn thing is so long. "You got somethin' you do when you're upset? My boy used to listen to music. It's how he dealt with things." It is getting way too easy to refer to Peter as his son now. This is gonna bite him in the ass so hard later, he's sure of it.

"I'm not upset, I'm just..."

Super, super nervous. Which is kind of his baseline, sometimes. (And also might qualify as upset, but hey. He's the least reliable narrator about that.)

"I-I'm Houmei."

And indeed, this kid has some pale blond stubble on his scalp. It's a little harder to see because it's so light, versus if he had dark hair, but it's there.

"So if you ain't upset? What are you? And how do you figure we should fix it?"

He takes him through the dining car, but luckily doesn't insist that he eat anything. He seems so antsy that he might throw it up. He needs to calm down.

He was sure to phrase it 'we'. He knows the kid needs help. Feeling left on your own at that age is a nightmare. He can kind of remember the older slaves back in the day, a Skrull here, another Centaurian there, helping him out when he was distressed. It made the unbearable a little more easy to muscle through.

"A-anxious. I could meditate, maybe. But that won't change anything."

It might calm him down for a minute, but the whole situation (and life in general) would be waiting for him on the outside to start it up anew. It seems easier to just dig in where he is, mentally.

"I'm not supposed to be here. Unless I was given to this place... but then I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. I'm not good for much."

The older monks make sure to tell him that on a regular basis.

"Why do you gotta be good for somethin'? Nobody here's askin' you to be. Nobody's judgin' you for it aside from yourself. At least they better not be."

He gets him to the quiet carriage finally, leading him in. He's got the common decency to lower his voice.

"If you wanna help, see someone doin' somethin' and ask if you can help. Like uh, stickin' labels or or holdin' tools or somethin'. People probably ain't gonna ask you for nothin'."

There are flowers and thick plants upstairs. That'll help, right? It helps him a little bit, though he doesn't like admitting that. Entertains his very few memories of his planet of origin. Instead of making him climb all the stairs, he warns him a- "I'm gonna pick you up, hold on." He stoops and gestures him over. If he cooperates it'd be easy. He's a skinny wiry kid. "You got your ticket by the way?"

"W-why would this place let the temple foist me off onto them if I didn't have a use?!"

Now he's just another mouth to feed, for... nothing?

That makes less than no sense.

As for Yondu stooping down and gesturing at him, Houmei actually backs away a little, visibly very confused by the whole idea. "Why?"

He's not normally touched outside of training, let alone picked up.

"Because you need to take a load off." He stays stooped, and while he doesn't quite close his offered hands he does withdraw one, leaving the other out. "When I was younger than you, I had a guy that'd sometimes help." A few of the older slaves, actually. "It's called teamwork. You help people that got it rough, they help you out later. You got it rough. Right now you're crew, and that's how crews work.

"And didn't your temple teach you patience anyway? Sometimes you gotta wait to be needed. Use some patience. A time'll come for ya."

Houmei looks at the extended hand, then up at Yondu's face. Back and forth a few times, looking more and more deeply confused with each repetition.

"But I..."

Even he's not sure where that sentence was going to go, so the little monk lets it trail off. Yondu's been nothing but understanding and kind to him, so can he really say no to this weird gesture the guy's trying to make?

That would be unspeakably rude, even for little Houmei who's somehow pissed off or deeply disappointed every older monk he's ever met, even when he tries to be on his best behavior. It's not like he's intentionally a fuck-up.

"A-alright."

And he steps closer, since that seems to be what the earlier gesturing wanted.

When Houmei comes closer, Yondu carefully reels him in and hauls him up with one arm around him.

"People have been decent to you since you showed up, right?" He's honestly more worried by kids not in their right mind than he is the people that remained adults. He's seen signs around that things got bad in some cases.

It's not that far, really. But it spares Houmei some stairs and some wandering around the car as Yondu looks for the space that's concealed by the thick plants. He notes the kid is much lighter than Peter was at a similar age.

"How about here for a little while, this one seem good?"

Being picked up is super weird. He grabs onto Yondu's nearest shoulder with both bony, scarred little hands, grip a lot tighter than one might expect from such a tiny kid.

Because what little meat is on him -- and it is very little -- is all muscle.

Even if the rest of him is all sharp, protruding bones. This kid's literally never been full in his life.

"Th...there was one guy who knew my name, and where I'm from, and he kept... lying about things."

Which was super creepy, from Houmei's point of view. As an adult, he'll feel terrible for his dearest Devero, that he was treated with such suspicion by any version of himself. But as little Houmei, all he knows is the guy knows too much and is too prone to lying about it, and he doesn't know why.

"And I think there may be a... a Sanzo around here somewhere? I-I need to avoid that person. Th...they're too important to have someone like me around. I'll just mess it up."

He says all this as Yondu carries him upstairs and around looking for the place he has in mind. When they arrive there, the young boy nods.

"S...sure. I like plants."

They don't care if he's a fuck-up, it's fantastic. As long as he doesn't try to tend to any of them and end up killing them.

He is a strong little cuss. Skinny, but strong. Yondu had been the same way when he was little. He puts him down on the bench and settles on the opposite one 'cause maybe he needs five minutes of not-bullshit.

Sounds like someone tried to reach him and Houmei here didn't believe him.

"You know, this is a weird place. Strange things happen here. People have been rememberin' things funny for a couple of days. Don't get too mad at him, alright? Coulda just been confused because of everythin' goin' on."

It's a lie. He doesn't know Devero. But he does know that trying to reach somebody and seeing them turn on you can rip out your heart and leave it in tatters.

"'Sanzo'? I ain't met him yet. But you ain't messed nothin' up that I seen." He looks at the plants around them, covered in little flowers. Another Terran thing, he reckons, but it's pretty. The memories of home are barely there, painfully faint, but enough that he can remember the green. He breaks off a little leaf to turn in his blue fingers. "Don't think I rightfully care if you messed things up anyway."

Houmei doesn't touch the plants. He just folds his hands together in his lap, sitting quietly as he thinks that first bit over. If this place is messing with Devero's mind like that, then maybe he can give him another chance.

So after coming to that conclusion, he nods. "Alright."

The Sanzo bit, though, has Houmei shaking his head a little, "I would care. Sanzo is the highest rank in Buddhism, embarrassing myself in front of one, or making them mad..."

His hands twist together anxiously just at the thought, and he repeats quietly, "I would care."

"Ohhh, so real important. I gotcha. Then I won't tell 'em. I bet if they're that important then they're busy tryin' to fix stuff."

He fucking doesn't know. He can't imagine that if the guy is still big, though, he'd give a shit.

(He is not putting two and two together. Shit is still five.)

(Also what the hell is Buddhism?)

"Sounds like people get mad at you a lot. They ever give good reasons or do they just like to be mad and you happen to be there?"

"That makes sense."

If there's a Sanzo in this place, they're probably way too busy to notice a little twerp like him. Thank Buddha for small favors.

"I mess things up a lot. I-I break things or don't do things right, a-and sometimes things go missing and end up in my cell, even though I..." didn't take them, "don't remember taking them."

You know, when someone else steals shit and plants some of the evidence on the least favorite person in the temple. As you do. It sure makes it easy to 'solve' the crime and not keep looking for a real perpetrator!

"And I lie? Sometimes? Without knowing I'm lying... at the time..."

Until he's gaslit into thinking he did so, later.

The boy stares down at his hands knotted together in his lap.

"And I can... I can use chi without having to chant first, which makes people mad, too. I tried to just chant anyway to fix that, but then I got told that's also lying, so..."

It does kind of sound like Houmei's been told some shit. That he's had stuff planted on him and just forced to accept it as the truth.

"Is there someone in your temple that gets special treatment if you get treated bad? Like, when you look bad, they look good? 'Cause if you really don't remember it, I'd look at that real hard."

Though who is he to say.

"So is chi- that like some kinda magic? I knew a man without a mouth that could use magic. Had to do these hand motion things."

"Maybe..."

Houmei's not really picking up what Yondu is putting down, though. He's lived at the temple ever since he'd been abandoned there as an infant, so of course he's bought into everyone's bullshit completely.

Give him a few more years, and he'll start to realize he doesn't have to care so much. If everything he does to try to be Good is never enough, if his best efforts get him treated like a delinquent anyway, then...

May as well just fucking be a delinquent, right?

By the time he's at Taisouji at twenty and taken into the first squad at twenty-two, he'll be wearing that Demerit Monk title like a badge of pride. Gonna grow his hair out, too, because fuck 'em.

Right now, though. He's just very small and so very earnest.

And distracted by that last bit there.

"...Hand motions, like mudras?"

It really sounds to Yondu like this child is an itty bitty scapegoat, but he won't harp on it now. They've dug a worldview so deep into him that he doesn't know if he ever climbed out. He never saw him as an adult.

"Don't know what they were called. Might have been somethin' like that? Can you use 'em?"

He can't make him feel better about himself, or trustworthy, but he can at least let the kid be more competent than some shlub like him is. Sometimes knowing something next to someone knowing nothing is the best encouragement someone can ask for.

"I've seen people use stuff I just don't get how it works. Sounds like you know some shit."

"I don't usually have to use them, so I'm not super good at them, but like..."

Houmei lifts his hands off his lap and puts them through a slow series of movements together, pausing at each mudra he forms. The one he stops entirely at has him holding onto his index and middle finger of his left hand with his right, with his right above his left.

"Something like that? This one's the most commonly used one for-- for spells. It's to help with focus, just like the chanting."

But Houmei, monster as he's often called, can form his focus, his will, instantaneously. For him and him alone, it's less of a build-up and more like cracking a bullwhip.

And it freaks people the hell out.

"Yeah, kinda. He had a bunch of different ones and he only had four fingers, but that seems kinda right."

It's hard to describe a Lem without someone having seen one. "I don't think he called it Buddhism, he called it somethin' else. Might be a whole different thing but it still required somethin' to get his magic to go."

He motions to Houmei after trying his level best to imitate some of Krugarr's hand gestures.

"So you can just do it, huh? Think it and it goes? What can ya do with it?"

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