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

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.

"Ain't nothin' to be sorry for." Looks like the kid was trying to center himself.

"This kid from Japan made some of this tea when I first showed up. I ain't so good at Terran drinks but I figured it might be good for you."

He sits it beside of Houmei carefully. He didn't fill it all the way up to allow a little bit of leeway for shaky hands. But that was more for him since who knew what would happen between the kitchen and here.

"O-oh," Houmei shouldn't be surprised, perhaps, but he is. And yet the little monk is still polite, "Th-thank you."

Look, he's even going to pick the mug up in his tiny, bruised hands. The warmth is very welcome if nothing else.

"You know, I used to be about your size, too." He sits down not too far from him, glancing over how wore out his hands are. What had he been into? He didn't want to think too hard on it, 'cause some of that might be on the train.

"This man what owned me when I was little, he'd have me run errands. So I had to scramble around everywhere. All knees and elbows."

He actually chuckles a little at the memory, because while he only ever reached a fairly upper-average male size, it's still odd think he was that small.

Houmei doesn't even bat an eye at the idea of someone being owned, when he first hears it come out of Yondu's mouth. Isn't that sort of his situation with the temple? He owed them for keeping him alive as an infant, if nothing else.

And he's still not sure he wasn't simply given to... this train, to get him off their hands. This train, or maybe the big guy in the room he'd woken up in, who knew his name before he'd ever said it. Who knew the Sanzo priest who'd been here before him.

"Wh... what sort of errands?"

"Kree? They'd fight a lot. The Kree man that owned me was leadin' a military unit, and he had me runnin' just battlefield notes and stuff."

He notes that Houmei doesn't think twice about it, and the worst part is that he guessed that was how he'd be. Kid had no sense of autonomy. Someone had thoroughly whipped this child into believing defiance was bad, and he knew how that was. In that instant, he was also glad he'd raised Peter Quill up to be a spiteful little cuss.

"What do they make you do?"

Houmei -- eventually Koumyou Sanzo -- will raise an adoptive son in the future as well, and Kouryuu -- eventually Genjo Sanzo -- is the most ornery, spiteful, punk-ass priest most people will ever meet.

Might even be a pattern, here!

"M-me? I just... clean, and... and train. Like I'm supposed to."

He's an extremely deadly little shit if you can get past his anxiety. Much as Devero is going to learn later in the day when Houmei breaks half a dozen of his bones in one maneuver, without even using magic.

Edited 2021-02-21 11:04 (UTC)

Not even a negative one in the slightest. Maybe with men (or a boy right now) like them, the best legacy they can pass on is one person who doesn't give a shit.

"You don't gotta do the chores here. But if you decide of your own free will that you wanna help someone, there's usually stuff in the kitchen that needs cleanin'."

His mouth quirks down, despite him always kind of looking like he's frowning. Smiles are rare unicorns with him. "Don't do it if you're still worried about gettin' in the way, though. Most people already got it taken care of."

"I went in there earlier and it was... a lot," Houmei confirms. He hadn't stayed, scurrying back out of there as soon as he wasn't being talked to directly by anyone.

Too narrow a space, with too many people coming and going, and too many dangerous things to accidentally hurt someone with.

Plus the whole food issue.

Yeah, that would be where a lot of people were at. But there was so many people on this train it was hard to find places where people weren't.

"I guess if worse comes to worse there's the book car." It's the fucking library, Yondu. "You can find somethin' to study. Right now somethin' is lettin' us understand each other. We ain't actually speakin' the same language-" he motions between them "-and that means you could probably read anything you wanted.

"I guess that makes sense," the little monk inclines his head to stare into the tea he's been holding and not drinking. It's just very warm, and he will always like things that are warm. It's nicer on his bony little hands than it'll be in his very empty stomach.

"A-and it's a good idea," if he's reading, he can't worry so much while he's doing it. And reading is the kind of thing you can just do in a corner somewhere and not be in anyone's way. That's a win-win-win, right there.

It's a pity that whatever he does read can't go back with him, that there's gonna be a little segment of this person's life that's just going to be a confusing blip that accomplishes nothing.

Which isn't a correct reading of the situation, but when faced with a kid that's already lived out whatever life this is, it's what it feels like to a father.

He leans forward and puts his elbows on his knees. "And y'know, if I was comin' across those priests? I'd let on like I don't know you. 'Cause I know what it's like when someone notices you too much. Houmei who, right?" He wouldn't promise to say good things about him. He knows better.

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