voidtreckerexpress | Backdated to Domino 4

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Backdated to Domino 4

Who: Khardeen and Curufin, and maybe others? Khary will answer if requested.
Where: The Luggage Car.
When: Evening of Day 4 of the month of Domino.
What: Khardeen returns to the VoidTrecker Express.
Warnings: Bad songwriting! Cover your ears! And perhaps the usual humorous or not so humorous annoyance people express at waking up in a suitcase or a trunk.

[ Curufin isn't tired yet, in fact he's feeling very restless, so instead of preparing to sleep, he wanders the train and finally walks all the way back to the rear carriage. He is in the habit of coming here from time to time to fetch or store various items that don't fit in his cabin, but lately also to look for his friend Khardeen, who has been missing for some time. Now he comes into the carriage, waves the cigarette smoke away from his face -- obviously Jessie or someone else had been in here smoking recently! -- and kicks some old rucksacks out of his path. Then he stands there thinking. He grins and invents some silly lyrics and sets them to a sentimental tune. ]

Khardeen, my friend,
where have you been, my friend?
I have not seen
you in a very long time, specifically nineteen
days or more! I am so very keen
to see you again, and until then I lean
on this locker and. . . [ Where the heck is he going to find his next rhyme??]
. . . la la la. . . I'm not lying, I really mean
it!

[ Pardon the terrible music, Curufin is entertaining himself and hopefully Khary. ]

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Yeah, he had no clue what some of those words were. But he was getting bored, so he decided to have some fun of his own. He went through his personal storage and found what he was looking for. A bowl of stew he had made before... whatever. Living with Arcenians and Scelties one learned that you could make yourself invulnerable, you can make yourself invisible, you can make yourself inaudible. But nothing could stop scent. So he lit a small tongue of witchflame and started heating up the stew....

The only reason Curufin had any idea what these words and concepts meant was because he had had access to a library of sorts in that world called Arda Marred, the first world he had lived in after he left his own. There had been a fair number of residents before him who were from an Earth that had become very modern and supported the modern biological sciences, and they had left their books when they vanished.

He suddenly smelled something unusual and sniffed the air. Soup or stew??? The scent was definitely coming from the trunk.

"Hey, what are you doing in there?" he asked. "I didn't know the train equipped the luggage with kitchens of their own!"

Want to know? Well he'd have to open it up to find out...

Curufin considered the trunk for a moment. Then he grinned, seized the latch, and jerked the lid up.

And the smell would be stronger, but he'd see nothing.

He dropped the aural shield so he could be heard. "So where exactly am I now?" he asked, and you could just hear the grin in his voice.

Curufin's eyes widened considerably. There was absolutely nothing inside the trunk! Except for the scent of stew heating over a flame.

And then Khardeen spoke, astonishing him still further.

"I don't know where you are, Khardeen, but your voice is in a trunk in the luggage coach of the VoidTrecker Express."

"So I am still here." he dropped the shields and held up the bowl. "Stew?" The witchfire under it vanished.

Curufin burst into laughter. Khardeen had mentioned magic when they first spoke, but somehow Curufin had not grasped the extent of it, and this was wonderful. Besides, it was a delight to see that friendly, mischievous face again.

"Still here, or conversely, welcome back! I don't know which applies. You're going to share your stew with me? Got some spoons?"

"If you can get me out of this thing without me breaking out any bones, we can share it for sure," he said with a grin.

"All right, let me set the stew down so it doesn't spill," said Curufin, taking the bowl and setting it carefully on a nearby shelf.

"Now, let's see about getting you out of there." He came back and reached a hand down for Khardeen to grasp. "Hang on tight, shove with your feet, and I'll pull you out."

He nodded in both thanks and acknowledgement and when the other seemed ready, did so.

Curufin pulled Khardeen up out of the trunk, and then grinned and swept him up in both arms and set him down on his feet, beside the now empty trunk. "Voila! How does it feel to have your feet solidly on the ground again? Or rather, on the luggage coach's floor. Welcome back, by the way!"

He took the help and hugged the other man. "All I know is someone called to me, I went to check it out then I was in the dark, unsure of my surroundings with a muffled voice barely leaking through. So all in all, mostly how it feels is like I need a good drink and to share some wildwood stew. What do you mean by back?"

Curufin affectionately hugged Khardeen back and then stepped back a little to look him over. Nothing seemed different, this was still Khardeen, smiling mischievously and looking cheerful and perfectly fine. "You didn't realize you were gone? You've been missing for at least 60 days. I looked all over the train and didn't find you. But then today I had a feeling I should check out the luggage car. . . and here you are! Returned at last."

He grinned. "I don't know if we have the ingredients for wildwood stew, but we certainly have supplies to cook other things. Want to come to the kitchen and we'll see what we can rustle up?"

"Wait.... two months? How in ***** has it been two months? Ten minutes, tops."

"I don't know. I can't explain it. There are things about this train that so far remain mysteries. You said somebody called you and you ended up in the dark. Was that muffled voice my voice? Or did that happen before I started singing my song of seeking you?"

"That was you singing? Ouch, remind me to invest in some musical instruments. Loud ones. Pandar drums, perhaps," he joked. But his mind was reeling behind his easy smiles. There was too much about this web that made no sense, too much that he had to figure out.

"That was me singing! Yes, you'd better bring some drums to drown out my terrible songs." Grin.

Curufin may have picked up that Khardeen was uneasy with this odd occurrence. Who wouldn't be? "Are you all right?"

"Maybe I'll teach you to play the flute." Smirk.

He shrugged, "why wouldn't I be alright?"

"I already know how to play the flute," said Curufin, with a smirk of his own. He reached into his coat and pulled out his flute, which was an Irish low flute, not a standard transverse flute. He brandished it as though threatening to play it, but he didn't.

"You always look like you're all right, but what if you're not? You just had a very strange experience, which may be even stranger than being picked up by the train in the first place."

"Ah, you should see a Shalador whistle or a Scelt flute," he said with a half grin.

He ran a hand though his curls, tousling them. "Have others had this experience, then?"

"I hope that someday I do see such instruments!" said Curufin, grinning in return. "And you can instruct me as to their use. Or else I'll just pick them up and blow on them until I get the hang of it."

"Yes, others have disappeared from the train and then returned to it. No one I am close to, so I don't know exactly what their experiences are. Unless it is the same as when I and Arataka Reigen went with the Department of Void Travel inspectors. First we found ourselves in a boring little office with complaint forms on the desk and pens to fill them out, and then when we were finished, we left the office and suddenly found ourselves here in the luggage coach. With no memories of anything in between."

"Oh I have a friend who knows a very good teacher," he said with a mischievous glint in his eye.

He frowned a bit. I have... a lot to think about...."

"I'm sure your friend will be happy to collar this teacher to teach me the Scelt flute and the Shalador whistle," said Curufin with an equally mischievous sparkle of the eyes.

And then he asked softly, "What are you thinking about?"

Edited 2020-01-31 20:28 (UTC)

"This place. Come, we said we'd share stew."

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