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

"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?"

"Buddhism is a religion, or... I guess more of a philosophy."

It's not as easy to categorize as some things.

"Using chi is something anyone can do with enough training. Monks just usually have more time to dedicate to that stuff than someone who has to farm their land by themselves or run a shop or something. And we have teachers, which most non-monk people don't really have access to."

So there's a lot of overlap on the Venn diagram of people who can use magic and people who are Buddhist monks, but one really isn't part of the other.

"I can do stuff like make fire, or electricity, or manipulate the air, or do stuff to water. Water's the easiest for me for some reason. I can also lock down someone's movements, or create barriers and wards."

He's really not scared of the people on the train in the most obvious way. Houmei just doesn't want to have to fight anyone, or to get in trouble. He wants to be Good. And small, and quiet, and out of the way.

That's really all he wants.

"That's real helpful.... Honestly I don't know what's wrong with your temple folks, I woulda loved to have a kid like you around. Plus you bein' trouble would be a bonus. My whole crew is trouble."

Was trouble.

"But you seem like too good a boy for that kinda life. And you're gonna end up learnin' a lot."

At least he hopes he does. He knows this is probably an adult. Who the fuck knows how much he actually learned. "I was about your size, once. Way back when I was a youngin'? Tried to be a good boy, too. Problem was, I was too good a boy. Made me a good candidate for stuff I didn't wanna do. I ain't sayin' to be grateful for it? But grass ain't greener on the other side, it's more a double-edged sword situation."

"Sometimes I think it would be easier to just..."

Be trouble. Live down to the expectations of others. If you get in trouble no matter what you do, get accused of shit no matter what you do, then you may as well actually get to do the stuff to begin with, right?

Which is exactly what he'll end up deciding to start doing, eventually.

"It made you a different kind of target, because you stood out."

Houmei can understand that.

"I'm the only kid at the temple. I was left there as a baby. No one there wanted -- wants -- to have to take care of something like that. So I try to at least... be less of a problem, if I can."

Now that he's old enough to walk and talk and learn to fight, it's not as impossible. Surely, he can earn his place if he just tries hard enough?

"Some people do. I took care of someone that wasn't mine. Wasn't even like me, he was from your world."

But god, what a complicated situation that was. Pretty much had to train him to fight all the time. Trained him to fly quick. Taught him so much about how to steal. And then couldn't let on like he loved him all that much because he'd be damned if anyone on the crew thought he favored Peter Quill. And he wasn't wrong. Once they realized he did? They cut through the crew like a hot knife through butter.

He was a bad parent, even if his intentions had been good. But at least he can say he was probably better than these guys.

"But yeah, my parents dumped me too. Ain't pretty. But there are people out there that woulda wanted you, and if they can't be decent to ya while they're too busy pattin' themselves on the back for takin' care of ya? Then they got a lotta introspection they should be doin'."

He hopes the kid's learned that by his future.

"How are you feelin' by the way? Less a big deal in here?"

Houmei looks down at his hands, knotted together again in his lap. He just nods at Yondu's story -- of course the guy understands him, if he's another rejected baby. He gets it, then.

Maybe Houmei will end up taking care of a kid someday too, one never knows. If he does, he's definitely going to treat that kid differently.

"It's better in here, I know I'm not in anyone's way right now."

"You can stay in here as long as you like, too. And if you gotta go and eat? Food ain't too far away."

Yondu assures him, reaching out to pat his shoulder. He'd normally be rougher about it, but it seems like this kid hasn't had someone handle him gently in a good long while.

"I'll come back and check on ya later, alright? Maybe an hour or so. If you ain't here I'll assume you stepped out. You don't gotta wait for me or nothin'."

Houmei bobs his head, mention of food makes his stomach knot itself up but if it's not time to eat, then he won't.

And everyone here keeps telling him there's no specific time, or rations, but--

That just feels like a trap.

"A-alright... thanks."

Some kids are just skinny. Like strange ethereal colts. Some kids were like him, fed mostly to keep him strong but not much more than that. He doesn't know which Houmei is. He'd suspect the former, but decides not to pursue the thought yet.

Keeping his mind safe can come before keeping his belly full. Attending to someone's needs usually does clear one's head, but even he knows anxious people can't hold down shit anyway and this kid is wound tighter than a spring.

"I'll see ya in a li'l bit, or I'll see ya around."

If he finally gets up the gumption to slip out.

It's not at all an unfair assessment. Getting the skinny boy to eat would in itself stress him out even more, too, and add to the risk of anything that went down his throat not staying down.

"O-okay."

But for now he's fine with just, sitting with the plants.

He doesn't lie. He does go for a while, do some rounds, see if the gremlin has broken anything, stop into medical and see if they need anything, and heads back to the Quiet car with a mug of tea.

Something to drink is usually a lot more palatable to an anxious stomach than food.

It's in a mug rather than a quaint little cup, and if he's not around he'll just drink it himself. But he wants to see if he can get a little something into him, even if it's just liquid.

When he returns, the little monk is indeed still here. He's moved to sit on the floor beside the thickest-planted spot in the room, legs folded in full lotus, back ramrod straight, eyes closed.

Meditation.

When he feels someone walk into the room, of course, Houmei immediately reacts by scrambling to his feet and stammering a quiet, earnest, "Sorry!" before he's even seen who it is.

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