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]

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!

[flatteries]

".. what?"

Consider this car dragon successfully turned around, because it sure sounds like Inigo didn't see that remark coming in return for what he was saying. The surprise in his voice is evident, and he grows entirely quiet for a moment as his brain is trying to keep up with the whiplash that statement gives him.

"H-Hold on!" Please, dude, cute sounds too much like a compliment. You know Inigo can't take those! It's a small miracle he's still holding on mid-flight rather than accidentally letting himself plummet to his death! "How is that cute then, huh?!"

[jingyeets]

Inigo, fall and be caught by dragon claws or wind, it'll be a whole new world! Don't you dare close your eyes. ... You might fall faster then.

Jingyi laughs, because it's funny turning things back around again, like they're caught up in some childish cycle of no, you. Having been through a few of those, it's familiar grounds, albeit not necessarily with his current passenger.

"You're that willing to take something stupid a friend has done and turn it into a positive, even if the most I could tell you about that whole thing is I never got my horns stuck in anything again. Too much of a hassle! Too embarrassing... You want to know those things, and not because you're planning to manipulate the knowledge. You're actually happy just to learn about this stuff for no reason. That's cute."

[flatteries]

"T-That's not cute!" Inigo immediately sputters in protest. It's just way too easy to drive Inigo into a corner, isn't it. Anyone with half a braincell would realise that this is just Jingyi flipping the tables on him, but Inigo is way too busy trying to defend himself from this cuteness slander to think about that much.

"That's just friendship! That's just what friends do!" What's so wrong with a pal wanting to learn more about another pal, huh? Do people just eternally shut up in Jingyi's world or something?! "Wouldn't you be happy to learn more about me too?!"

[jingyeets]

"I think it's the kind of friend you are," he says, "To learn about things and take them the way you do. I think you're built that way, reaching for the light."

A nod to the not-demon of his heart, in all her princess ways, filled with light.

"Back home, you learn about people slowly. Or you grow closer because you survive things together, school or barracks or Night Hunts, or whatever. Here we're already starting off at a disadvantage. Knowing each other, what does it end up meaning? We still confuse each other. We're working twice as hard just to understand, so, it's cute, being this excited. It's nice that you care that much. You don't have to."

[flatteries]

You don't have to, Jingyi says, and apparently that's the thing that gets Inigo to promptly shut up, rather than quickly argue against what the other is saying.

Because Inigo has never thought of it as a choice. He's never chosen to care - it's just something that happens. Even as he grew up in a ruined land filled with dying people, he couldn't just stop caring. He's always been a bleeding heart for everyone around him. It's not something that can just stop.

But it feels weird to talk about it when Jingyi says it like that, so Inigo doesn't. Instead when he speaks up again, it's with a more muted than before:

"Isn't it just because we don't have the option of getting to know people slowly here? For all I know, you could be gone tomorrow. Or later today. Or next week." There's indeed the nuance of saying 'you' there, rather than Inigo including himself as well - he's been here for so long, if he was at as much of a risk of suddenly disappearing as other people, he would have been gone by now. "I don't want to regret never having talked about a lot of things with you if that happens."

[jingyeets]

"Remember why we're flying?"

He leaves it as that when it comes to an answer, because the promise he'd made—that he'd do this with him as long as it was something they were both here for, that there was no promise anyone would be, neither Inigo the train-stuck nor Jingyi the train-new.

"Live life. Embrace it. No regrets. The world won't regret anything for us, just like the universes have no interest in being anything like fair."

He supports the whole friendship asking everything, even if it's off model for him, depending on circumstances. He's also surprisingly laid back about it for a very straightforward, direct guy.

[flatteries]

"It's easy to say to not regret anything. It's a lot harder to not feel it."

Or maybe that's just him. Inigo isn't too sure, really. If his interactions with people in general have taught him something, it's the fact that he - seemingly by nature - seems to feel things much more intensely than most people, both the good and the bad.

At the very least he's very well aware that he doesn't stand a single chance in winning from the way regret tends to wash over him.

Inigo exhales, and quickly continues with: "But it's fine, I won't have anything to regret in the first place if we just talk. Let's hang out sometime and just.. talk about things. A lot of things. I'm sure that there are things about me or my world that you could be curious about as well."

[jingyeets]

"Do you want me to make a list."

He mostly jests, but it's just so Inigo, and so not how Jingyi does things, that he's amused by it. No, regrets can't be stopped from feeling, but choosing to live to minimise the number one chooses to accumulate? To Jingyi, that seems obvious.

And it's where he thinks Inigo is when he's saying, just talk. Even while Jingyi is circling around to come in lower, banking toward the train he uses as his landing space when the platform is too dotted with people to have reliable open spaces for him.

"Come over whenever you want me to talk, then." He can talk just fine, he knows it. "Or call out on the ICP, I'm surprised people don't do that more often."

[flatteries]

Inigo's mouth slowly opens.

"Y-Yes, that.. is surprising.."

Of course, as always, Inigo is absolutely fully seethrough over here. Of course he's sounding nervous, because there's a very obvious reason he's not one to just shout for someone over the terminals - the main reason being that he's so super shy when it comes to speaking up where a lot of people can see him. It's so much easier to just walk through the entire train to look for someone, even with how long the train is nowadays..

B-But saying that out loud would be super uncool, right? And he can't ruin the obviously great, cool impression Jingyi has of him!

(Keep on dreaming, boy.)

He keeps on talking, holding on as the other seems to be flying lower and lower.

"Don't worry..! I'll find you either way! You can't escape me!"

[jingyeets]

Jingyi may finally understand cool as slang, but of the people he'd apply it to here... as part of their personality? So far the number is low. Fond as he is of his friend, very, very few of those he calls friend qualify as cool, outside of the way they take on and accept the world, in general circumstances.

"Inigo the Night Hunter," he sing-songs, bracing as he touches down on top of the train. As per his usual, his neck arches back until his forelegs slip forward and down to the platform alongside the train, ignoring whatever gap is naturally there between the Voidtrecker Express and the material of the platform. "Tracking down dragons across entire straight line vessels."

Lowering his head and neck again to give Inigo an easy time of slipping off to the solidity of the ground, at his leisure.

[flatteries]

"E.. Exactly!"

Look at that answer. He's truly sounding like an actual hero over here, huh?

Even as he's saying it while moving down Jingyi and his neck to land with both feet on the platform, having managed to survive yet another dragon ride - though this time the main threat to his life wasn't Jingyi's speed - since the other is so considerate about that by now - as much as it was embarrassment.

Inigo's #1 enemy.

But now he's standing on both feet again, he puffs out his chest. Perhaps like he's trying to look like a true hero, going along with the dramatics here.

"Finding dragons is my speciality! And you're on my list!"

The list of friends he wants to hang out with and share information with.

Terrifying.

[jingyeets]

Is it better or worse it's still the misunderstood Knight being merged with the far more familiar Night Hunt that Jingyi knows? It lives on.

Jingyi lifts his head with a snort, whiskers fanning out to either side of his face.

"I knew a list would be involved somehow. I'll try not to let it haunt my dreams."

Said solemnly, like there was any chance it would, before he exhales and prods his nose gently into Inigo's chest. "Catch you back on train, Dragon Finder."

For now, he had his own shapeshifting business to attend to.