A New Platform [Intro Post September]

[voidtreckermods]

On the Train

"Good morning Voidtreckers, it is day one of the month of Nebula. Points have been updated on the system."

With points updated, everyone can spend the morning shopping. Most people will 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 doors open. As usual, those who leave first notice nothing, walking silently, rucksacks on their backs, towards the barriers. A-Qing, Atem, Beauregard Lionett, Casper LeBlanc Jr, Donatello Versus, Frankie Bacon, Ichiban Kasuga, Kumoko, Lena Sabrewing, Mami Tomoe, Mono, Peter Parker, Reno, Shi Qingxuan, Tobari, Wen Ning; all pass across the platform, not looking back. And then they're gone, disappeared 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 find themselves on a platform. The platform is open to a bright blue sky, speckled with a couple of clouds. It's very warm, enough that they will not want to stay in those hoodies for long. Behind them through the fogs is a set of barriers, set in a brick wall and in front of them is a single set of tracks extending both ways into that same 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 on the foggy, blistering hot platform; then the fog begins to fade and they realise they aren’t alone.

The platform isn't large, but it is enough to hold the figures scattered around, all facing the tracks, all dressed in cargo trousers and hoodies. 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 pours a strange assortment of people, over a hundred at least. 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.

Behind them, the doors close, and the train is cloaked in the same fog that hides the world beyond the platform.

The Train

After a short time, perhaps ten minutes or so, the fog clears and 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'). They will also find a bunch of posters around the train and might notice the new clock in the standard coach.

The store rooms have been restocked with fresh ingredients, the ingredient this month is a strange meat, yaddon tail.

For passengers that have bought items, these are also scattered around the luggage carriage in various suitcases and bags. There is a box labelled for purple team containing a stick of rock for each member of purple team, including those who are new. Join in your teams success!

New passengers will find their ticket allows them into their cabins. In most rooms, the occupied beds are obvious, leaving the spotless, empty spaces for the newcomers. 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 taking advantage of the fresh air, 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

Greened House

[springforth]

"Is it dying?"

He may have shifted to hide it from view, but her voice is coming from above him. A few strands of hair brush his forehead as she looks down at him, not quite fully upside down but close. There's something amiss here. He's growing something and he's not showing her. He's hiding it from her. Which means something has gone terribly wrong. Obviously.

"I can help, no judgement."

[dyingpro]

Leave it to the Fates to have it be the One Person he didn't want to see it just yet. It's clear Persephone is not going to let this go, and so he slowly reveals the little clay pot and the stem sticking up from freshly-watered potting soil.

"Well I'd wanted to put a little bow on it or something first, if I was going to end up giving it to you at all, but the surprise is sort of ruined now, so..." Zagreus turns slightly around to be able to nudge the humble potted plant toward her feet. "Ta-dah?"

He tries to smile at her, but it's clear he's conflicted about giving it to her. "Do you... like it? I can always try and plant it somewhere else, if you don't want it, o-or already have one, or something, I-- dammit. I'm sorry. This was supposed to be a little more ceremonial, I think. Maybe then I wouldn't feel so nervous."

[springforth]

If all the things he could be hiding, an avocado sapling was not on the list. It doesn't look dead, it looks like it's thriving under his care. As much as a sapling with five or six leaves can thrive.

And then his words catch up to her as she starts to place her hands on the pot. She stops, fingertips brushing the soil.

"Oh--wait, you grew this for me?" She'd thought this was like Thanatos, growing to prove he could, to bring a little life into an existence of merely death. Her hands cup the pot.

"Really? You--gods, it's been months since we had avocados, you've been growing this the whole time?" Persephone traces her finger over a leaf.

[dyingpro]

The sapling in fact looks very healthy; although it seems to have been left to grow its roots in water for too long, and might be having a bit of trouble adjusting to the nutrient-rich soil. Given a little bit of magic, or a few days' time, it should start growing quite nicely.

"... you're right, I have been growing this for a while. I started growing it for you on the first 'night' I was here. For how rudely I'd treated you when we first met, as an apology avocado, or something? And when we started cooking together, it became less of an apology and more of a thank you. It wasn't doing anything on its own, so I left it for a few missions, and made sure to top up its water source every time I could, like Ryo had told me to do... and it was about that time I realized I was really growing it because I was projecting my mother onto you, unfairly I might add." He chances a look up to Persephone, but instantly regrets it with his nerves getting the better of him. He looks away and rubs at his neck, hoping to mitigate some of the awkwardness of the situation.

"So I thought about... well, maybe growing it myself for the rest of the car, because you didn't ask for me to be here, and you didn't ask for a son, or the baggage of my family's dysfunction, or any of that mess. And you didn't ask me to grow you an avocado plant because I wanted to make my mother proud. But I'd never seen plants growing before, so I panicked to Ryo last month about it." His cheeks flush nearly as pink as her skin at this admission. "Turns out I don't know what roots look like if they're not decades or hundreds of years old. And Than wouldn't have known, I don't think, so he was the only one I could talk to that wasn't you, beca So I transferred it into this pot, only..."

The hellion prince finally pauses his big jumble of words, his own fingers gently trailing a leaf, and watching it bend with the movement. "Jinnjar City happened. And suddenly I had a family that was happy, and a father who told me he loved me, and didn't think I was an abject failure. And I had a cousin, in you, who I loved to tease and spend time with, and play with when we were younger, in those false memories. Now, I see you more like a sister, I think. But I'm not sure you even want that, so it's just been difficult to... aagh, I don't know. Am I even making any sense?" He puts his head in his hands, elbows propped up on his knees as he sits cross-legged on the floor of the greenhouse. "Sorry, I know this is a lot to spill on you at once, but we haven't had a lot of time to... you know, talk as ourselves? I know you've been busy with Zetta and other things. And being alone in my room now hasn't helped, and the whole thing with Than... but that's another thing for another time that I really don't want to get into at the moment."

Zagreus ends his big gut-spilling rant by motioning dramatically to the pot, trying to at least save some face in this all too one-sided conversation. "The important thing is: I brought you an avocado. Please take it, because I'm afraid I'm going to end up killing it because I don't know the first thing about keeping a plant alive, and its life thread is so tiny I'm afraid just blowing on it will make it shrivel up and die."

[springforth]

There was always going to be baggage with them. There was always going to be this disconnect in how they saw each other, how they treated one another. His projections onto her as a mother in another life, a replacement, a family that he didn't really have. Her guilt about not choosing the life that would bring him into existence, her anger about his Hades, his Underworld.

Persephone slips down to her own knees, hands snatching at his and clasping them between hers. Just have to find the words to say. In the end it comes out more like a flood, disparate thoughts finding form as she speaks them.

"Okay. Firstly, it's not going to die if you blow on it wrong. It's strong. It needs a little jump to get used to the soil but that's just life. And uh--okay, the rest." She takes a breath.

"Both of us had--a lot to think about you arrived. And--if we're doing big long feelings talk, I kind of need to get it all out at once or I'll stop and never say it, you know?" She gives him a second to take that in before she opens her mouth again. Nothing comes out. With a squeeze of his hands, she tries again.

"I had just learned that I married Hades two weeks before you arrived. When Thanatos called me Queen Persephone and explained what he meant. And when I asked people--when I was pointed with my questions, it turned out that I married him in a lot of worlds. Almost every world where some version of me existed, I married him. And it was terrifying. I had had a brief crush on him before I arrived here. He was one of the few men I'd met and we had a connection, but nothing as deep as a relationship. He was friendly to me in a time when some were not. He was kind when he could have easily been upset with me and I guess fate kept throwing us together. Until I was here. And here I met others. And I got to know myself better. I'm not implying that this is also fate, it's just--a lot. And I don't know if I would end up married to Hades in some version of things where I'm not here. If I went home, would I remember this? Would I make the same choices as I would have, would I know to make different ones?"

"It was a lot to learn, it felt like the Fates had been forcing me down a path, that I wasn't ever allowed to vary from. So when you--you insisted we were fated and he was in love with me before you even knew about him or what my life was like--I wasn't happy."

Persephone sits back on her heels, eyes to the ground.

"And I know now that you just want your parents to be happy together. I get it. But it really just made me...annoyed I guess. Angry. Here was another way the Fates were trying to control my whole life after I deviated from the plan. So I defaulted to being hospitable. I tried not to think too much about your parentage. But you did sort of try to treat me like your mother. In the kitchen a little and in little ways. And I wanted to get to know you too. I had all these ideas of who you might be but you were your own person. You aren't anything like me or the Hades I know. It was strange."

"And I feel guilty sometimes. That you won't exist if I continue down my own path. Even if I don't--you know, if things don't work out long term with Zetta, maybe I go home. Maybe I marry Hades or maybe I marry someone different. Or maybe I marry no one at all. Let alone having children might never happen. The point being that I don't know if you'll exist in my version of--of reality. And I mean--I like you. I never thought about having children but I hope they're like you? Possibly with slightly more self preservation?" She tries for joking but still isn't meeting his eyes, "But I think sometimes you're more like me than your Persephone. I...struggle a lot. With who I was supposed to be. With who I actually am. With wanting to stay and wanting to go. I get angry and when I get angry it's like a rush over me. And when you got angry at me that first time, the look in your eyes reminded me a lot of myself."

"And then you saw...you saw what you saw and then a month later, we were acting out a reality where we'd known each other our whole lives, there wasn't this--this baggage, this weird feeling that we're related and yet completely disparate beings with no blood. I liked that. Not that I don't want this to be reality, it was just...easier in some ways. To be a normal person with a normal mom and a normal family. I didn't have powers I can't always control and I wasn't struggling with myself and we didn't have this guilt and this weirdness. I get it. It was nice."

But they aren't those people. Not really. They're themselves, flawed and full of weirdness, within and between them. So what even did this really accomplish?

"I think that's everything. I guess. I think you and Thanatos are idiots but as you said, another time."

[dyingpro]

Zagreus startles when Persephone clasps his hands in hers, but he clasps her hands back tightly with his own for just a moment, trying to give her a small smile. "You know I thought the avocado seed was simply going to grow another avocado? Ryo disabused me of that notion pretty quickly. Just goes to show how bad I am with plants. Didn't get my mother's touch on that one, I'm afraid. At least I got my cool green eye from her?" He quips nervously. Please, please take the avocado from this idiot, Persephone. He doesn't know what the fresh hell he's doing.

The prince nods quietly to her warning, and he listens. And listens. He doesn't even do his normal thing of interrupting when he has a question, instead tallying them down in the back of his mind for later. Much later, likely. She can't look at him, and it hurts, somewhere deep down in a place he can't really explain. And when she describes her guilt, guilt that he caused, it only twists in a more agonizing way. Tears begin to well up in his mis-matched eyes, but Zagreus blinks them away, not about to cry like a child in front of Sephe - his friend Sephe - on the off chance he tugs at her mothering instinct and only makes his list of impositions upon her worse.

"What is there to preserve?" Zagreus jokes back, though he winces almost immediately at how that might have sounded. "Sorry, that's... what I meant to say is, I'm Fated never to die permanently. If I can spare someone else from their death, why wouldn't I do it? I'd rather Thanatos have to stitch my thread together for the hundredth time than force him to cut the life threads of one, two, maybe even a half-dozen mortals at a time. Less work for him to do. And the mortals... they deserve to live as long a life as the Fates will let them, don't they? Before they spend an eternity in my Father's realm."

His fingers tighten on the hem of his chiton, and he quiets himself again until Persephone gets to the end of her feelings rant. He starts at the last comment, frowning and furrowing his brows for a moment, wanting to interrupt, but everything should be addressed in order. "That's... a lot, but it's good you got it all off your chest. I didn't know you had so much on your mind. It's..." He swallows against the lump in his throat. "... enlightening." The prince lets his words sit for a moment, knuckles still white against the blood-red fabric of his chiton. "First things first... I'm sorry, Sephe. I haven't apologized properly to you since I got here. One of my many failures, I guess." He laughs softly, but there's no mirth in it. "I'm sorry for placing expectations upon you that were unfair. I'm sorry for placing you in a position which you never wanted to be in. I'm sorry I tried to force my concept of how things should have been upon you. I'm sorry I made you feel guilty for my non-existence in your world... and I'm sorry for selfishly wanting to exist in your world, anyway."

The tears come back now, and a few of them fall. Zagreus releases her hands and quickly wipes the tears away with his forearm, not daring to let his emotions get in the way of words he should have said four months ago. "I've mistreated you since we first met, and you have every right to be truly, truly angry with me. But you've been so understanding, and-- and patient with me, and I've only taken advantage of your kindness. No apology avocado is going to do a damn thing to fix that. Gods, some 'friend' I am." He runs his fingers through his hair, sending laurels sparking into the air to dissipate, exhaling hard as he gets his emotions back under control, or as under his control as he could possibly get.

Now he's the one who can't bear to look at her, staring instead at the little avocado plant, its life thread so tiny he can't see it unless he focuses on it. "Sometimes I wonder, if... if maybe I had never been born, things wouldn't be... better off? Like your world, it's not stuck under eternal winter. Your Lord Hades sounds so much better than mine, but maybe it's for the best that you two didn't fall in love. Maybe it's better that you never become Queen of the Underworld. Maybe you can be just as happy living with Lady Artemis and Lady Athena on Olympus, or-- or run away across the sea and start a new life there, away from Lady Demeter's gardens. Maybe you can be just as happy living with Lord Hades, because he sounds way better than my Father ever could be. But maybe not. You certainly wouldn't have to deal with a little brat like me being born if you left all of our family's mess behind." He tries a smile, again, but it's weak and ineffectual.

"I'm... happy you're happy with Zetta, and I'm sorry I reacted so poorly to him. Despite how differently he and I seem to think, he makes you happy, and so I shouldn't judge him so harshly. I'm sorry for that, too. There's probably a lot of other things I should apologize for that I can't think of at the moment, so you'll forgive me if I table those apologies for another time? But you mean a l-lot to me, even without the parallels to my mother, and so I hope... I hope, at least, we can still be friends, even after the way I've made a right arse of myself since we first met."

His voice is beginning to give out, from the onslaught of confessions or the tears still threatening to fall he couldn't say. But Zagreus still has more to add, so he pushes through to the end. "And you're right, I am an idiot. I should have realized that Thanatos only thought of me as a friend, when I confessed. But that's on my shoulders, not his. He's not an idiot for feeling how he feels. Gods, I've got a lot to apologize for to him, too. I don't think I could manage it right now, but... soon. I should apologize soon. I don't deserve him, either, just like I don't deserve you."

Zagreus wants to hug her, to show her how much she means to him, but he doesn't move from his spot. He could never do anything like what Apollo had done, demand affection that he wasn't owed from this powerful, radiant Goddess. And so with a swallow to clear the dryness of his throat, he asks softly, "Can I... can I hold you? And kiss you on the cheek, maybe? If that's all right. I understand if you-- if you need time, or... space, or both."

[springforth]

It's hard not to be frustrated as much as she is alarmed. She didn't say this to upset him, she didn't say this to make him feel selfish. And she certainly didn't say it so he could apologize for his slights, for things he did in ignorance, a penance to be paid for words he couldn't know would hurt her. It's awful to feel him turn that outwards, so she has to soothe and explain.

"No no, he's not better, the world isn't better because you don't exist. It's different. It's so fundamentally different on every scale. I'm different from your mother, Hades was different from yours long before I was even born. And I don't--"

Persephone grabs at his hands, squeezes them tight. She leans in, presses her forehead to his. Under her influence, laurels of bright vivid green entwinging around his own flaming embers. Her power flows from her in a small circle, at first too much, pressing into their shoulders with the weight of growth and life, then relaxing into the softest brush. It settles over them gently: a glittering pink light that brings everything around them to a blooming brilliant height of spring. It brings with it the scent of flowers and dewy green leaves and the feeling of warm sunshine.

"Stop. Yes you can hug me. No you're not a brat. We are friends, just friends who are bad about talking about things." She sighs into the space between them, "I don't know who I want to be when I go home. I don't know what I can be. Neither do you, I imagine. This changes us both. You've seen worlds you can't imagine, been beyond your home, just like me. But you're worth more than anyone is telling you."

Persephone sits back just a fraction to tilt his head up, to look into his mismatched eyes.

"Your world did you and Thanatos a disservice. It was cruel to you both and you deserved better. I...I promised myself not to get in the middle of this, so I won't, but I can say he's had a harder time than most. So be kind to yourselves. Stop saying the world might be better without your existence when you have so many people who care about you."