voidtreckerexpress | Event: Expulsion (Day 24)

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Event: Expulsion (Day 24)

"Good morning passengers, today is the twenty fourth day of the month of Apple." The morning announcement sounds as usual as dark turns to the ever shifting colours of the void outside the train windows. Some passengers may stir. It might be that they are an early riser or bad sleeper and get out of bed the moment the announcement wakes them or perhaps they roll over and go back to sleep.

Either way the morning rolls on for a few hours whatever they might be doing. Until a sudden judder runs through the train, followed quickly by another. Much like bad turbulence. Really bad turbulence. A third follows and there is a crackling sound before an alarm starts going off blaring loudly, the lights begin flashing red, white and red again.

"Warning. Void engines failing. Warning. Void engines failing. Warning Expulsion from void imminent." More shaking, worse each time, enough to knock them over and then a bang, the train plummets into darkness and lurches, sending everyone flying...

… They never crash land. Instead they float, suspended in the air. In the darkness it is hard to orient themselves or even understand what is happening. There’s a roar in their heads as pressure builds, their ears pop. "All systems critical." Breathing is hard, for one terrifying moment there seems to be no air to breathe.

"Oxygen levels stabilising." They can breathe, the pressure in their heads fades, their ears eventually stop ringing. "Pressure levels stabilising." They are still floating, suspended in darkness. "Gravity systems critical".

Emergency lighting flickers on finally, a red glow from either end of each carriage, in the cabins and along floor strips, enabling them to move without bumping into anything. If they can figure out how to move at all that is. Outside the windows is dark. Not the blackness of the void at night but the deep vastness of space. A few moments pass, enough time to just about process that fact before the voice over the speakers is heard once more.

"Passengers of the Voidtrecker express, due to technical issues we are currently experiencing void engine failure. Thank you for your patience as we endeavour to continue our journey as quickly as possible. We ask that all passengers help in securing the train for re-entry into the Void and on behalf of the Voidtrecker Express I apologise for any inconvenience caused."

Then there is silence. Broken only, no doubt, by the passengers on this now stranded train.

(OOC: Event information is here.)

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Ash would feel pretty bad about hitting him later, but right now she can barely think about it. She realized a little belatedly that it was Tony's hand she'd grabbed and now he was there, talking, saying something. Something about gravity, this is why we're floating... The explanation was distant, but even if she'd heard it she wouldn't feel better. The issue was less with the mechanics of it and more what happened the last time.

The question about tying her hair back caught her off guard and ripped her head away from where it had been. The grip on Tony's hand relaxed a bit as she thought about what was in her pack as she got on the train. She couldn't recall anything to tie her hair back with in it. "It hadn't... been an issue up until... now." There was a pause before she spoke again, her voice betraying her as a little embarrassed. "I would like that." She didn't realize how quietly she spoke it - hopefully he heard her alright. She felt very small in this moment and she was embarrassed by it, and also not really in a place to act as level headed as she normally did.

He very gently pulled Ash closer to him and when he had the chance, he wrapped one arm around her to hold her body to his and he used the other hand to hold on to the bed. Despite how tough he suspected Ash was, right now she seemed like a scared little bunny and it spoke to his protective nature.

"Just hold on to my shoulders. There you go. You're safe. Give me one-pffft- second." Her hair kept finding his mouth, but he knew that wasn't her fault.

"We're going to turn a bit here, but everything's okay." He spun them slowly so his feet could outstretch and pin them between the bunks and let the hand he didn't have on her back to be free. He fumbled a bit trying to get his shoe, but he kept quietly reassuring her and keeping her tightly to him. Finally he was getting the shoelace free. "Okay I'm going to let go of you but you just keep your arms on my shoulders. Just re-pffft- relax." Dammit, his sleeping mask got in his face now. He swatted it away and then as careful as he could, he tied her hair back with the lace. It wasn't perfect, but it'd do.

As he pulled her closer Ash could feel herself calming down a little - the last time she was in this situation she was alone. Tony holding her and talking her through it really helped to break that bad memory and remind her that this wasn't that and she wasn't (hopefully) in any immediate danger. She hesitated for a moment, then listened to Tony and held on to his shoulders.

She gave a small nod at the warning of the spin, but her grip tightened a little anyway. She would relax with his reassurances, to the point that her ears lifted away from her head a little and her grip didn't tighten even as he let her go to tie her hair back. He missed a piece here and there - nothing to be surprised about given how floofy her hair was and the lack of gravity - but he got essentially all of it.

Ash hesitated for a moment, then looked up at Tony. "I-uh. Thank you." Her gaze shifted to anywhere but Tony's face - was this embarrassment? "It means a lot." She didn't uncurl herself, but she did start to look around. "I... Didn't really hear what you said earlier. I'm sorry." Her ears drooped a little with the apology. "Are you okay? What's happened?" He'd have to dig a bit if he wanted to know what all that just was.

If they weren't in such a negatively stressed situation, Tony would find more about Ash's behavior as cute. The ears, the way she was tucked in so tightly against him, it was all a reminder of when Morgan had gone to a farm to visit and played with their rabbits. She'd- of course- wanted to keep all of them, but somehow Pepper had convinced her that the ones at the farm were a family and needed to be together.

Before all this happened with the Avengers, he'd had designs sketched out for a rabbit hatch and had spoken to the farmer about getting her one that Easter. Why did everything around here have to remind him of his girls?

Fortunately, now wasn't the time to be thinking about all of that. He shoved it aside, made even easier by Ash speaking up. He gave her a warm smile in return for her thanks. "It's okay. I don't think people hear what I say most of the time anyway." He would've just let it go but she was giving a pretty heartfelt apology over nothing. "It's okay. I was just saying that this is like space. There's an artificial gravity on this train keeping everything down. If we were in space without that, we'd be floating like this since we got here. People on our world who go to space spend years training to live without gravity."

He doesn't make a motion to let her go. He could still feel her fear and uncertainty. "Have you been in a situation like this before?"

Her ears didn't really pick up even with his reassurances, but she did feel a little better with it. Her gaze meandered back to his face as he spoke, her ears lifting as she listened. She was both curious and a little confused - her only experience with something even remotely like space was the void between the world shards. Tony's world went there willingly? They trained for it? That was both impressive and terrifying, and what even is the point? Did his world have shards too?

The last question made her breath skip and she, again, looked at anything but Tony. She looked as if she were chewing on the inside of her lip. Did she want to talk about this right now? Based on previous interactions with Tony he seemed to be someone who's relatively insistent and she kind of figured that he likely wouldn't really let this go. She took a deep breath, holding it for a moment before she exhaled.

"Yes." She paused as she tried to figure out how to explain. "Where I am from there is a Source. It's sort of the main shard, from which all other shards originated. Long ago there was a Calamity that caused the Source to split into thirteen shards, and I am from the First. On the First we called humans not hyur, but humes. I wasn't a viera, but a viis." Similar, but not the same.

"My shard had a Calamity brewing due to the work of the Warriors of Light, tilting the balance of the aether too far towards the light. A wave of primordial light rushed over my world, consuming all before it. As the wave of light encroached about the last of my world, the Voice of Hydaelyn came through with the Warriors of Light and, with their sacrifice, put a stop to the wave." There was so much more she could speak of. "My world is still shrouded in permanent, unnatural light. Their sacrifice only put on hold the destruction of my world." She wouldn't go into what happened to the people of the First.

"I was an experiment. A brilliant man was working to bring heroes from another shard to help save us. He was to send me to the Source to make clear the path there. On arrival I was to attune to an aetheryte so that I was tethered to both - I was to be able to trace my aether back home and report to him." She shook her head and bowed her gaze, her grip on Tony's shoulders tightening. Her voice started to hitch as she spoke. "So he sent me. The void between the shards was neither light nor dark, there were far away lights of other worlds. It was as if I was floating, except that I was also falling towards the Source - the place the Exarch was sending me. I was attacked by something." Not something, but someone. She knew who, too, and she knew that she was lucky to be alive at all. It wasn't reassuring. "It... Hurt me." Hurt? It cleaved her in half. She paused and then added quietly: "It just felt like that for a moment." The panic set in before she realized it wasn't that.

There had been a chance he would've let it go if she'd struggled to hard to talk about it, but she'd been right. He could be obnoxiously persistent. He would like to think he could hold back when it was clear he might be hurting someone else, but he hadn't had the best track record of succeeding.

So he listens. Her story isn't anything he'd expected to her and he can hear that whatever this thing was, it had hurt her long before she admitted it had done so. All while she talks, he is quiet and holding her gently. He knew some reactions couldn't be helped, so if she pulls away from him he didn't want to keep her from that space. However, she seems to be clinging to him more than wanting to be let go.

"I'm sorry, Ash. You're safe here. We're going to keep you protected so no one and nothing can hurt you again."

It actually felt pretty good to talk about this to somebody - since it'd happened she'd never actually spoken about it. She could feel the emotion beneath the surface - what was normally a logical recognition of emotions became a knot in her stomach and an occasional sniffle. She knew that she had been upset about this, but for the first time since she'd actually resigned to living on the Source did she actually feel close to tears. She had always been upset on some level, but this is the first time she felt upset, and the first time she began to genuinely grasp just how deep seated this issue was.

She was waffling between wanting to be held and wanting to pull away and put all of her walls up and push all of these emotions away until they were just a distant call from somewhere under a taciturn ocean again, but something in her gut told her that would do nothing to get better and to find her way through the mess she was currently in. If it was a bit awkward it was because of this internal debate and she just couldn't decide what she wanted.

At Tony's remark she shook her head a little and bowed her head, quiet for a moment. She looked back up to Tony, struggling to look at him directly but clearly doing her best. "I appreciate it. From the bottom of my heart, I do. There's only one other person who's ever been kind enough to try to promise me that. But I would hope you know that's not a promise you can make and hope to keep."

She caught herself trying to look away and made the effort to keep her gaze on Tony, causing her to pause a moment. "I'm not a little girl, I know that people get hurt. I know that there is a good chance that somewhere on this journey with this train I will get hurt. My entire life - from the day I was born up until I arrived on this train - has been an elaborate samba with danger." And death, but she wasn't sure she could say that without choking up.

"It's more important to know we have each other's backs and that we can trust each other than it is to try to take on all of the burdens of others on our shoulders." She was struggling to get through that sentence, another swell of emotion crashing over her for reasons she did not understand, but she stumbled her way to the end, falling silent as she searched Tony's face.

Tony frowns as he watches her struggle. He'd never seen her as emotional as this and it was breaking his heart. He wanted to take this pain away from her, to do exactly what she was saying not to do. He was a guardian, it's who he was. He saw suffering and knew his shoulders were stronger than a lot of other people's and he could take it from them if only there was a way to do so. In many cases, there was but sadly, this didn't sound like one of them.

Ash had always been wise and now was no exception. She didn't give herself nearly enough credit. "You don't have to be a little girl to need some help, Ash. Being used to difficulty doesn't mean you should have to continue to do so. But.. I do understand what you mean. And I'll have that back of yours whenever you need it and appreciate that you have mine." Now would've been a time he would've offered a hug, a more obvious one than simply holding her to keep them from floating about the room. However, his issues with Buttercup had made him cautious about those being unwelcomed contact.

Her face softened as Tony spoke up and reminded her she didn't have to do everything alone. Since arriving on the Source she'd always kept the burden on her own shoulders. She never spoke of what happened, and she never allowed herself to be too vulnerable, even around Stephanivien. The tightness in her shoulders never left, and likely that would not change without more reminders that it was okay to be vulnerable - but it was something she heard.

She gave him a tired half smile as he said he had her back. "Us Viis are a stubborn, loyal folk." She was only confirm that she would have his back. She looked away for a moment, maybe a little embarrassed. "Is it okay if I hug you?" She was not very good at this vulnerable thing, and it's clear she hasn't had very many friends so she isn't sure what is okay.

"That's just the way I like my 'folk'," Tony teases lightly. At her question, his eyebrows rose and a smile spread across his face. He pulls her in, giving her a warm, friendly hug. "It's always okay, Ash."

He might not have been the type of person who liked affection, but that was before Morgan. To be a good dad to her and after losing Peter for so long, he'd re-evaluated how he related to people. PTSD and his near death experience had been great motivators to start making it more clear that he loved people. It still felt a little awkward at times.

This wasn't one of them. He genuinely liked Ash. She just seemed so similar to an Avenger he'd known. Still can't believe that was past tense...

The small tease did make Ash relax a little, but she froze up a little as he pulled her in to the hug. She knows she asked for it, but she hadn't expected him to just do it, you know? She didn't mind it, but she hesitated before she hugged him back. She seemed to remember what to do and hugged him back.

As she hugged Tony she recalled that it had been so long since she'd actually touched someone for more than a high five, pat on the back, something like that. The thought just made her want to cling to Tony, but she held herself back - she had already put enough on Tony by not being able to keep herself together during this all.

She was glad to have this moment though. She admittedly kinda milked it for as long as she could before pulling away, but she eventually did. She'd seemed to calm down quite a bit as floated there, sort of withdrawing back into herself as she was before all of this. She couldn't really bring herself to look directly at Tony again, perhaps embarrassed at what had happened.

"Thanks for that." She'd struggle to actually say what, but a thanks is better than none. "...That's the first time I've ever told someone what happened." Not once had she uttered the truth of herself on the Source - something about Tony being from somewhere completely different made it a little easier to talk about.

She should really learn better than to suggest Tony do something and not expect him to just drop whatever he had been doing, to do what she asked instead. She had become that important to him. Something in the way she was holding him back told him just how much she needed this, so he wasn't the one to break it.

She looks cute and shy again as she starts getting embarrassed about the hug. She was such an interesting, beautiful creature. He knew there were things he could say to make her feel better, but he couldn't think of them. He just gave her a gentle smile and nodded. "It's okay. I'm glad I know. You know I won't be telling anyone else."

He glances toward the door. "Think we should maybe go see how much of the train people have destroyed already?"

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Event: Expulsion (Day 24)

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