A New Platform [Intro Post October]

[voidtreckermods]

On the Train

The train continues its journey

"Good morning Voidtreckers, it is day sixteen 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. Asch, Ayumi Uoshida, Cleopatra Selene, Della Duck, Ghost, Hanuel Min, Jaisyn Solo, Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood, Nie Huaisang, Vermouth; 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 four new faces. Wearing hoodies, three in purple one orange, 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 relatively small, a brick wall behind them and cracked flagstones on the floor. It is cold, icy cold but the wall at least shelters them a little.

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, freezing 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 four 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'). The store rooms have been restocked with fresh ingredients, including yadon tail, 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. 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

[jingyeets]

Oh, heavens, the music carriage songs. He had limited exposure to them, but what Inigo says definitely makes sense for what contact he has had.

"Yeah, like those ones!" There's so much going on, at times so discordantly to his ear, and other times worming in and creating odd hybrid melodies. He feels like what Inigo says is something he's heard sung before, though he can't make any more sense of it than Inigo does. In fact, it might be worse.

"Bass is a fish? Maybe they're fishing in a privately owned lake."

Not because that made more sense, but it did at least make more sense to him.

"There was this one getting sung that was something about a baby being a firework to show what they were worth. Who would compare a baby to something that explodes in the sky? Why would anyone want to? Let alone make babies fly. Such weird things they sing about," he says, continuing his lazy spiral. "I assume there's poetry involved, but I know nothing about whatever poetry they're referencing."

[flatteries]

.. honestly, that's the explanation that comes the closest to making sense to Inigo as well. He does suppose it would be trouble if you were fishing in privately owned lakes.. but then why make a song about it? Other worlds are so confusing.

But thankfully Jingyi just happens to bring up an example that Inigo has already done some extensive research on. It puts a smile on his face, and he sounds almost a little proud when he speaks up.

(Granted, that pride would fade instantly if Jingyi were the fly any faster, but the speed right now is very much something Inigo can bear.)

"It's a term of endearment in many other worlds," he explains. Not his own, hence why he says 'other', but still! "Calling the person you like 'baby' or 'babe'. I imagine that singer was most likely singing the song to her beloved.. Even though I'm still not really sure why said lover was being compared to firework."

[jingyeets]

Jingyi has engineered today's riding so that he can't actually look at his rider (or riders, when he will take Sizhui up as well), so he's more creative in how he communicates his disbelief. The stark silence that follows Inigo's announcement turns into abrupt laughter.

"People call their lovers infants? You know that's literally a name where I'm from, so it's only a term of endearment if it is your name. A-Ying, I guess, or Yingying, or their family name followed by Ying..."

Wei Wuxian would be an example, but he feels weird enough when he refers to either of his seniors by their courtesy names, and he only knows their birth names because the two of them call each other by them at all times. Otherwise it was unlikely he'd have ever learned.

"Comparing them to fireworks is even worse! I can send up fireworks," he says, and he lifts one taloned paw to actually do that, sending a streak of blue-white light up and overhead, hitting into the barrier and then bursting into a showering of cool sparks of blue and white light, without the sound of a firework done through black powder means, "But unless you're saying your lover's like a warning sign that you're in trouble and need help, seems kind of inauspicious."

Look at them, inventing their own lingo by merit of not understanding outside culture associations and the like.

[flatteries]

Ah.

Yes.

Sure. Jingyi can randomly create fireworks, because why not. It's not something dragons generally can do in Inigo's world, as long as he's not counting Naga in that category, so it's pretty wild to him.. but then again, he's been on the train for such a long time now. Constantly seeing new, wild things is basically his daily reality at this point, and so he doesn't remark on it.

Instead he puts his brainpower towards a purpose that is clearly much more productive: thinking about modern song lyrics.

"Maybe they are comparing their lover to a specific quality firework has." Because Inigo doubts the song was meant as something negative. That just seems too mean, and so he doesn't like even considering it. "Since firework explodes. So maybe they are saying their lover is.. passionate!"

That sounds plausible, right?

Inigo thinks it does.

"Perhaps all we have to do is master these modern forms of poetry to understand these songs."

[jingyeets]

Jingyi, still trying to understand what in a firework would be a desirable quality in a lover, puzzles right on back.

"I mean, maybe it's that they're loud? Or flashy? Or they're more dramatic at night? They do explode, but that's kind of over too fast, isn't it?"

He's thinking about attention spans, and how the memory of a firework might linger, but the truth of it passes so swiftly as to have been barely there at all. The smoke lingers. Maybe that's relevant?

He huffs out a sound of amusement tinged with exasperation.

"I think we've got to, even if it's not modern, it's future. What's so modern about these things? Tell me how, Hey, I just met you and this is crazy, but here's my number, so call me, maybe is some modern revelation instead of a future one where people have numbers! ... Which I think are the things we used on that illusion Diagad world to communicate? Instead of the SCAs."

[flatteries]

H-Hey, dude, don't grill him on the modern part! It's just what people have called it in front of him, okay, so he's just copying it. He doesn't know how else to differentiate it from their sort of worlds, other than calling it 'otherworldly'-- but technically that just means their worlds are otherworldly compared to each other's too.

"Well, I imagine some of them are more straightforward than others.."

Like the masterpiece Jingyi is reciting here. (Inigo feels like he might have heard that song before too, if not in passing..)

"But why are you only thinking about the negative sides of firework? No one would write a song to insult their lover!"

[jingyeets]

It's Jingyi, he always argues.

Though Inigo has a point, and so Jingyi, who has been looking at fireworks as what he uses them as (what do you mean people have firework shows, they're signal alerts, okay) tries to consider a positive side. A good side to fireworks.

Then he strikes it, all at once, and his voice lifts and has a very happy, self-satisfied air.

"Because your lover always comes to save you when everything else has gone to hell!"

This is probably not the intent, but it's at least more like it.

[flatteries]

There's a slight pause after Jingyi gives that answer, a silence only filled up by the air swooshing by them as they're flying. But it's not a concerned pause or a pause because Inigo thinks that idea is ridiculous.

No.. instead he's trying really hard to hold back a laugh, because he doesn't want Jingyi to feel like he's laughing at him - but he's fighting a truly losing battle here, considering the laugh escapes Inigo's lips a moment later all the same.

It doesn't sound like he's mocking Jingyi though. Instead it just sounds genuinely mirtful.

"That's probably the cutest thing I've ever heard you say!"

Now he's getting more of an idea about your concept of romance, Jingyi.

[jingyeets]

When your formative concept of romance ends up being your best friend's dads... you might have a certain give and take understanding of how you come to each other's aid while also largely fighting side by side. Perhaps a little influenced. Particularly when you use a firework... to summon... one or the other of said dads...

"What?" He sounds surprised, genuinely caught off guard by the laughter and the statement. "How in the world is that cute?"

[flatteries]

"How in the world isn't that cute!"

Sorry, Jingyi, Inigo might be getting straight up giddy now while he's still sitting there on your back. But how else is he supposed to react to a statement like that? Especially when Jingyi said it so eagerly! Everything about that is positively adorable.

"I mean, out of all of the things you could be looking for in a lover, it seems that them coming to save you when times are most dire is something you sound so happy about!" And how isn't that cute. Rather than going for something shallow, or something weird, it's such a pure thought that left Jingyi's mouth just now.

It's just even cuter in contrast to his other suggestions, or his usual complaining.

"Hey, hey, don't you know that I'd come save you too whenever you need it? Just call me whenever you're in trouble, and I'll be right there! We don't need to be lovers for that, you know."

[jingyeets]

Surprisingly, perhaps, having this called out like Inigo does actually manages to fluster him to some degree of not knowing what in the world to say.

"Shouldn't I be happy?!" It's the ultimate form of support, isn't it? Inigo could probably feel Jingyi's fur standing on end, though it was more of a soft movement and getting more fur suddenly in his face as Jingyi turned from relaxed form to full fluff. Which was admittedly not a long lasting response, but there it was regardless.

"Of course we don't have to be! I was just trying to think of something positive a firework could be like that you'd want in a lover!" Which to him is, yes, having someone willing to show up at his side when all hell has broken loose, thank you. "What kind of a jackass would only show up for their lover and none of their friends? I'm not sure I want to meet them..."

He was grousing by now, but in such a way that it's good dragons can't blush, and Inigo wouldn't be able to see his face any better than he can see Inigo's right now. Heavens, it's natural, isn't it? To want someone you love at your side when things are hard. It's not different to him in the sense that the friends he cared for deeply are the same kind of support, and he's aware that it's selfish, too, because it's the wanting of that person at his side, just like he'd want to be at their side, shoulder to shoulder, when they were facing their own difficulties.

"If you wanted romance couldn't we talk about flowers? Moonlight? Whispering winds and the brush of a candle's heat against your palm or the lingering warmth on a pillow beside you, come dawn? There are such better metaphors than fireworks."

That this was all from not getting future-modern poetry in song has been lost somewhere along the way.

[flatteries]

The complaining isn't too strange. After all, it's something that happens pretty much every day by Jingyi standards - and yet there seems to be something a little more about it right now. Inigo is quiet, just listening to the other grouch on and on like that, but his brain sure is buzzing with the thought at the same time.

There's something a little more to it. It's almost as if..

".. Jingyi." Sorry to cut off your fireworks rant, bro. But Inigo can't help but ask this with a smile on his face: "Are you embarrassed?"

Look, he just never expected this table to be flipped around! Usually he is the embarrassed one! Or flustered one, whatever!

[jingyeets]

Lans, generally speaking, don't lie. At least not directly, which is why, even with his fur returning to it's usual state, Jingyi says, "That's what you're choosing to focus on?!"

Which is a yes, without having to be a yes.

[flatteries]

"Yes, because that's also cute!"

Don't worry, Jingyi. It's all still said with love. Pal love, that is. It's just a nice moment of Inigo realising just how fond he's grown of someone. Knowing that little things, like Jingyi saying that stuff or getting all flustered, makes him feel weirdly happy, his chest weirdly warm.

"I just like seeing this side of you, you know." Or.. maybe more like 'hearing' it, since Jingyi is still in dragon form and can't exactly face it.. How unfortunate that Inigo didn't get to see the faces the other would've made in his human form.

And to be open about his own feelings in turn, just so Jingyi won't feel like the only vulnerable one here, Inigo shakes his head and adds: "It makes me feel all happy."

[jingyeets]

Which doesn't really make sense to Jingyi, but his ways of learning about people or feeling close to them is more the direct questions or incidental sharing that happens over time. He's happy when his friends are happy, he's protective when they're sad or sick or conflicted. It's not particularly complicated social mathematics, but it doesn't need to be.

That's more where respect and boundary pushing comes in, but there's less of that with peers and juniors. More of a concern, when people are of an older generation.

"I really don't get why," he says, ears flicking back, one swiveling to stay tracked on Inigo. "You're happy knowing I get embarrassed?"

[flatteries]

Bro, please, you say that as if people never laugh when Inigo gets all embarrassed.

But there's a little more to it here. Sure, there's some amusement in it, since it is kind of funny. But Inigo wouldn't let that be the leading emotion here, especially since it's some genuine happiness he's feeling.

"It's like I'm seeing more of you."

After all, it feels like Jingyi doesn't get embarrassed as easily as Inigo does.. But let's be real, Inigo is basically the undefeated champion of easy embarrassment.

"I like that. Seeing all these different sides of you." (Jingyi can keep the drunk side though, it's fine, he doesn't need to see more of that one.)

[jingyeets]

Inigo will specifically get to see more of his drunk side. Somehow. Simply for having thought about disaster.

Jingyi can't turn his head to squint at Inigo, or stare at him, or anything he usually would, so he settles on banking left and giving a full body shiver. Because it was harmless and also because Inigo would have to feel it too, before he huffs out a sound that can't decide what it's meant to sound like.

"Isn't that natural the longer you know someone?" He thinks that makes more sense than otherwise, though at least he's starting to get why it makes Inigo happy. It's not hard to see Inigo holds personal relationships with people of all natures close to his heart, so it makes sense, along that line of thinking, that the more Inigo knows, the more close he felt.

Jingyi snorted, arcing around in the opposite direction. "When you want to know them, that is. There's things you learn about people you don't necessarily feel close to 'cause they're around often enough, but, you know. For things like this."

He dips his head then, taking them on a gentler downslope that turns into a rise again not long after. This platform's a bit more restrictive than some others have been, but it still feels nice, flying like this with a friend.

"Besides, you can always ask if there's something you want to know. I'll tell you if I don't want to answer. If you manage to find something I don't want to share." He sounds like he finds the concept dubious, and this might lean into the way he doesn't seem like a patient person, if one also ignored that he was doing things like not flying the way that excited Sizhui and frightened Inigo, or that he hasn't been adapting to the people around him as he learns more about them as individuals.

[flatteries]

Honestly, he wonders if there even is something that Jingyi doesn't want to share, considering how consistently open the other is. He's constantly throwing around information about himself, to a point where Inigo is pretty sure he knows more about Jingyi than some other people he's known longer than the other guy.

But again - it's a nice thing. Indeed, Inigo likes feeling close to people. He likes getting to know more about them, because it's like proof that people have been with him for longer. That his friends are sticking around. What more could a simple guy like Inigo want?

"I want to know so much about you though. Everything." Apparently not even a mid-flight dragon shiver can keep him from remaining all fond and sappy. He'd rub circles on the other's scales if not for the fact that Inigo is definitely not fearless enough to let one hand go while flying. "I wouldn't even know where to start."

[jingyeets]

There are few things about himself he wouldn't share; most he won't deals with other people. It makes him simple enough on one hand. Too much, on another, though right now he thinks the one being too much is his friend. In a sweet way, just like he's sweetly confusing the hell out of himself by saying something so large it completely lacks limits.

"You're going to have to pick somewhere if you're trying to know twenty one years of anyone else's life." Which he snorts over, no rancour. "Knowing people happens, or it doesn't. When you can think of something, ask."

If he freezes himself into never asking? Nothing that weighs Jingyi down either way.

[flatteries]

"Then tell me about a memory!"

The demand is simple - almost childish in nature, really. Like when a small child wanders up to you and decides to demand something from you, except here the small child ia actually a teenager instead.

He might even be patting Jingyi as he says it with his arms - not hard enough to hit him, obviously, but with just enough strength to be noticable.

"A memory of some time when you were younger."

[jingyeets]

That feeling when a brain goes entirely blank when someone asks a question? Jingyi found himself with a brain full of absolute silence in the wake of Inigo's request, before he blurts out the first memory that snakes back out of the recesses of his mind.

"When I first was doing escort duty as a young disciple I was so overfocussed on flying steadily that I flew myself and my passenger straight into a low hanging branch on the sect stairs."

[flatteries]

Honestly? Inigo was expecting some sort of cute memory. Maybe not the same brand of cute-with-a-parent as Inigo has spades of, but at least cute with a friend.

But he didn't quite expect the other to be willing to offer up something this embarrassing so easily. It renders the boy quiet for a moment, but then he lets out bright laughter.

"That's so cute too!" Look how many cute sides of Jingyi he's discovering today. It's like an entire banquet of them. "Were you okay after that though? You didn't get badly hurt, right?"

[jingyeets]

"How is that cute?!"

This time he sounds even more like he's whining, because it wasn't cute, it was flying into a branch and getting his horns caught on another one! At least he caught the person riding him, but still!

"No, my skull was too thick to hurt, and I caught my rider before they fell off. The worst that happened was they had to help free my horns from the other branches."

[flatteries]

Please, Jingyi, you can't forever argue against things about you being cute! Just accept that this is the reality you're living in now - or rather, the reality Inigo has imagined for you!

"Because it's so much like you! You were so focused on doing your duty that you forgot to think about the obvious!" Not to say that Jingyi is dumb. That's not the trait Inigo is trying to put in the spotlight here. It's that Jingyi seems so duty-oriented. The way he focuses on the rules of his clan, the way he just really wants to do a good job on some job he was assigned.. "Come on, you really can't see why someone would find that cute?"

[jingyeets]

He really wished he could eyeball Inigo after that comment. He guesses it isn't wrong, but duty to him was clan, was friendship, was the Night Hunts, and wasn't as blind as flying into a tree, that'd been nerves. Which more or less might be the point, of getting too distracted by one thing to see the other he's running right into, and he huffs.

"I just see why it's funny. If I saw anyone else do that, after I knew they were okay, I'd be laughing. Unless I didn't like them, in which case I'd be laughing from the moment it was obvious they weren't seriously injured."

Jingyi, never shy with the less endearing emotional displays, as long as it was in acceptable enough context. Who can be an asshole? This dragon raises a hand with zero compunction.

Oh, but then there's a way to turn this back around, right? He grins, draconic and hard to see, but less hard to hear in his tone.

"What's cute is going on about how you want to know everything about someone, and laughing over what you think is cute." Factually true to Jingyi, because it was endearing that anyone was so pleased over silly stories and the like. He's fairly sure Sizhui would say the same sort of thing, because it's a very Sizhui thing to do while also laughing at (and with, but very much at) him. Friendship!