voidtreckerexpress | A New Platform [Intro Post October]

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A New Platform [Intro Post October]

On the Train

"Good morning passengers, it is day sixteen of the month of Horsehoe. Points have been updated on the system and new stock is available."

They have indeed and everyone can spend the morning shopping. Those who have been on the train a while 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 they are soon surrounded by the fog that means they are at a platform. The first thing they may notice is that this platform is inside a basic shelter, making it warmer than the last couple at least.

As usual the first to leave the train notice nothing as they walk silently, rucksacks on their backs, towards the barriers. Adora, Alex Hashimoto, Catra, Cloud Strife, Elizabeth Midford, Feanor, Gerome, Gladiolus Amicitia, Glimmer, Ifrit, Isabella D’Oro, Maru, Nari Reno, Noctis Lucis Caelum, Prompto Argentum, Scorpia, Siobahn Chereshei, SXT-2, Tamamo-no-Mae, Tony Stark, Uta, Zidane Tribal

But on the platform itself there are many 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. The second thing they will notice is it is gloomy, even without the steam and fog. They are in a wooden building, open to the tracks on one side. It in a creaky shelter, cobwebs hang from the rafters and there is a peculiar whistle as wind finds its way through the cracks.

They are standing, in clothes that are not their own, styles they might not even recognise. They are carrying a rucksack on their back. For a moment it seems to just be them, alone in the white haze but then the steam begins to fade and they realise they aren’t alone.

The platform is not large and it holds nineteen figures all facing the tracks, all dressed in cargo trousers and hoodies. Both left and right the tracks disappear into the mist. 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 into the gloom step a selection of people. 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.

The Train

The doors hiss open. Those from the train may encourage those on the platform to board. It’s not like there is 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 not be a good thing. If that is not enough, there are plenty of people on the platform now, to encourage them onto the train.

Indeed whereas usually there is plenty time for people to be met and brought slowly onto the train, the whistles blow a lot quicker this time, as if hurrying the passengers along.

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. The store rooms have been restocked, with… teddy bear shaped luncheon meat being the main ingredient to be found. There are plenty of other staples.

A new carriage has been added, those that go to investigate will find a room full of lockers, designated as the Armoury. Even for passengers without weapons it is somewhere to secure possessions. There are instructions on how to use the lockers and enough for everyone to claim one.

New passengers will find their tickets allow them into their cabins. They may need to negotiate for beds, especially if they want a top bunk!

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 and you will hopefully find a pillow for your bed if it has not been nabbed by a roommate, there are also spare blankets for if it gets cold.

Departure

A second horn sounds over the noise of the hail stones to encourage any stragglers braving the snow and the doors slide shut. Veteran passengers know what will happen next, they may wish to brief their new companions.

The train sets off, the fog obscuring the view 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. The fog from the windows is gone now, replaced with a kaleidoscope of ever changing colours.

Welcome to the Void!

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"I hate that thought."

Either of those thoughts. They both feel too negative, too heavy. Either they never find out what happens to the people who leave until they're the ones to leave, and then it's already too late, or something terrible happens to the people who leave and the train doesn't want them to know.

Both are way too much to think about when it involves people Inigo cares for with his whole heart.

"Now Gerome could be somewhere in pain, for all we know. And I.." He sniffs, though he isn't crying. (Yet?) "I can't do a thing about it."

"None of us can."

Nita agrees, and as she rubs at her forehead she says, with maximum emphasis: "And it really sucks."

Because even in the possibility that they go home, not remembering... it's still loss. Terrible, complete loss.

"The world keeps turning though - in a manner of speaking - whatever the truth is."

'Wheels keep turning', maybe?

Inigo is quiet at that. He closes his eyes, and with the way he's still resting his head on top of the back of the seat, it'd almost look as if he was sleeping. If it wasn't for the fact that he lets out a big sigh, anyway.

"The world always keeps turning," he says. Mumbles.

Because it's true. He's experienced it so many times. Even when his parents died, the world moved on. Even when his kingdom was destroyed, the world moved on. Even as he had to fight every single miserable day of his life, nothing ever stopped. It just kept going, and going, and going.

And it's still going, even now.

".. And I'm so tired of it.."

He's too emotionally exhausted to even consider hiding behind a smile the way he usually does. This is just a sentiment that's been slumbering for a long time finally coming to the light. It's just too much, always being expected to have to keep going. No matter how much he's hurting. Having to shove traumas down and just try to live with them.

Nita lets go of her head, getting up and coming around and...

Just hugs him. From behind, but it's a hug all the same.

Words feel too much like platitudes at this point - or just repeating the points she's made before - and what Inigo needs right now is action.

Even if it's not the action either of them most wish to happen, they have each other. They're not alone.

If they're helpless, they're helpless together.

It is a hug all the same.

And maybe it's what Inigo needs right now. Or at the very least, it's the only thing he can actually get out of the things he needs right now, so it's the best thing available, even though it may not necessarily be perfect. Which is why he doesn't move away. He doesn't avoid it. He just lets Nita hug him, sitting there still. Quiet, other than Inigo's soft and slightly shakey breaths.

He's still not crying though. Maybe it's since he already cried so much earlier today - he's cried himself dry.

"Hey, Nita.. Can I tell you something?" Inigo says, softly. "Please don't tell Roland though."

Because Inigo figures that if anyone is going to go around poking his nose into Inigo's business, it's his train dad. And Inigo wants to make sure that when Roland hears it, he'll hear it from him, not from anyone else.

"You got it," Nita replies, just as soft. Maybe it's because she didn't lose anyone closer than friend-of-a-friend today, but she has tears enough for the both of them.

Blinking them back for now, she lifts her head, tilting it as if to better hear Inigo.

"What is it?"

"Actually, I'm.. sort of on a limited timespan the moment I go home."

It's not something he's confessed to a lot of people. It feels too self-indulgent, too much attention aimed at his own misery, when all he wants to do is make people worry less.

But he feels like his dumb, dumb behaviour isn't explained very well without Nita being aware of this. Aware of why he tries to cling to everything so badly, to dumb extremes. Aware of just why giving up is so tempting.

"Soon enough I won't have anything anymore. My world, my family, my name, my identity.. They will all belong to someone else. I'll be no one from nowhere."

The minute Inigo says that, Nita feels like she should stop breathing.

But she doesn't, much as the idea of Inigo being replaced is like a punch to the gut. If anything, she holds him tighter.

She doesn't ask questions, right now; from the sound of it - and from the nature of the promise he'd asked her for - that's not what he wants right now, or needs. But she starts thinking on them, and for the moment she says:

"That's horrible... No one should be replacing you, Inigo. No one."

Whatever words he expected to hear in return, apparently it weren't those words. Since Inigo stops, almost surprised. And then he slips out of Nita's hold just slightly - but just so he can turn around to instead properly hug Nita in return too, rather than just letting her cling to him.

".. It's okay."

Well. Maybe not really okay, but.. it's the natural course of things, at least. Or maybe he should just say:

"It's better that way. The person replacing me will still be me, just not.. me. You know?" It sounds even weirder when he tries to explain it without context, huh. "It will be a better me. I'm just.. just the wrong one."

Nita snorts, much as it's muffled in the hug.

"People aren't things to be patched. Not like injuries, or timelines even."

And while the time-patching might go utterly over Inigo's head, at least they're exchanging context for context?

Hey, whatever time-patching may be, it sounds like it fits exactly in Nita's world, okay. Every single time he hears things about it, it just sounds so intricate, so far beyond Inigo's regular human understanding. So patching timelines, whatever that may be? Sure. Sounds like work for some Nita-style wizards.

"I don't know." Following the direction her snort gives to the conversation, Inigo tries to keep his tone light too. Like he's just joking, despite the fact that there isn't a whole lot of spirit in his tone. Not like usually. "I think a lot about me could be improved. It feels kind of dumb to just exist as an underdeveloped version of someone else, you know?"

"But... improvement is something you should get to decide, let alone do, for and to yourself."

This time she frowns, because she is reminded more directly of something from home, now. And she and Kit had not been 'versions' of Khretef and Aurilelde, those Maritans who had nonetheless seen a way to their future through them.

Inigo pauses for a moment.

Mostly since he's trying to look at Nita's eyes, trying to search them, see the intention behind her words. He can't be sure, after all. Is this really stepping on some personal nerve with her? Did something similar happen to Nita back home.. or does she just feel strongly on the subject? That's entirely possible too, since it feels like such a core belief.

Even after looking for a moment, he can't be sure. But he feels like he should at least answer along the lines of his own beliefs.

"I believe that too."

After all, if it were anyone else in Inigo's shoes, he would fight for them. Somehow. He would fight for them to have a place to exist. But when it comes to himself..

"But.. what if I want it to be this way? What if I feel he deserves it more than I do?"

"Then..."

I will exchange fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so.

What if it really was Inigo's choice?

"Will he remember you? Back home? That you were first? Or is the change supposed to be- total?"

It may sound like a 180-flip, but from the way she's still looking back at him... perhaps it's not.

"Um.." He pauses, seeming to have a hard time thinking about the answer more than he's having trouble saying it out loud. Because it's really hard to explain this without context, and he realises he ought to explain it to Nita. That he owes her as much after bringing this up.

"More like the latter, but-- It.. It has to do with timelines."

He figures that's the safest explanation. Nita brought up timelines herself, she must have some ideas about them already.

"I traveled from the future to the past in order to prevent the world from falling into ruin. But changing that past destroyed the future I come from. So I don't have a future to return to, but I can't stay in the past either, since a new Inigo will be born there soon enough. It will be his world. Not mine. He will grow up in peace." And just that fact by itself will make him a different person than this Inigo in many ways.

Better ways, Inigo thinks.

"Paradoxes."

Nita sounds far more exasperated than she has any right to be. But, she recovers, enough to continue:

"... Is your world one of those with the concept of souls, Inigo? That is," she adds, "What if you going away means you're going to literally be reborn?"

That question seems to either surprise him or confuse him. It's hard to tell which one of the two in particular it is, but he is giving Nita a slightly startled wide-eyed look.

"I don't.. think so?" He sounds unsure though. Mostly since Nita is smarter than him, and with how vulnerable he's feeling today, Inigo's insecurities prey even more on him than usually. What if she's catching onto something he's just never thought about before?

"I mean, my older sister.. she traveled back through time with me too. And she's already been born in the past. Um, the new baby version of her, I mean.."

Though Inigo has never seen those two versions of his sister together in the same place. Probably since it was just safer to stay away, since it's not like they would have known what would happen otherwise.

"It's not something most people think about," Nita says, picking up on that worry.

She's only time-travelled into her own past all of once, but she gets how it can mess someone up.

"But, and again this is only something I can be sure of for my world - when it's all said and done, time's arrow is always seen to run straight. If- if you were thinking about all this as making life better for you, directly or indirectly, whichever - and not making someone better than you, how would you feel about it?"

".. I don't know," he answers, softly, after seeming to consider it for a moment. He's frowning, though it's hard to tell whether it's since he's very confused while trying to overthink all these concepts, or if it's just because he's still upset with everything that's happened today.

But he doesn't leave it at that, at least. After a moment he glances at the ground and speaks on.

"I mean, I don't.. mind. To begin with." It doesn't sound like Inigo is lying, especially since that tends to be more obvious when he's upset. Sure, he sounds sad about it as he speaks, but he's never been angry about his fate. He's just getting what he deserves. Nothing. "The world deserves a better prince than how I turned out. So it would be better like this. I don't feel bad about it in the first place. Everything is just turning out the way it has to be, and if that's without me, then it's just without me."

"If it really was 'without you', then the both of you would be dead," Nita says bluntly.

"And I refuse to believe in that."

She closes her eyes with the force of her worlds - though like Inigo, she's not yelling, more sad than outright upset.

"You're just getting- a second start. And you can have one here, too; it doesn't... negate that."

They're still close enough that she can squeeze his shoulder again, so she does.

He's quiet. Inigo has a really hard time thinking of himself and the soon to be born Inigo as the same. Sure, they're the same person, but they don't share the same life. Inigo is getting a second start, he does believe in that, it's just..

What about him then? Who does that make him? In the end he can't get over the thought that there can't be two Inigos. And if his mother and father acknowledge the other one, then.. it's not him. Then he isn't Inigo. Then he needs to become someone else, but he doesn't know who, or where. Or if it's even worth it in the first place if he's going to be all alone.

"This train ride isn't going to last forever though." What good is a second start if there's already such a definite end to it?

"Inigo... I've been in that situation before."

It's quite possibly the only time she's really discussed what happened after Nautilus' purpose was fulfilled, and there's a shift in her expression, her stance, to go with it.

"When everything really was over. In the last place I was, a city called Nautilus, that city's purpose came to an end and we weren't needed as Ascended anymore. But we weren't made to just go home, or to forget. We'd fought for our lives, for the right of existence to be, and grow for its own... and we had a choice. To go to whichever world we chose, to be with friends or even make new worlds on our own. So whatever this train is for, wherever we ultimately end up... I can't make myself believe we'll only have our own worlds to go back to."

“No, I.. I think you’re right about that.”

They’re a bunch of headstrong passengers after all, aren’t they? If anyone could make sure that they would get the choice as to which place they’d go back to, it would be all of them. Inigo is more than willing to believe that, doesn’t argue with her over it.

.. though he still seems to be looking thoughtful over something all the same.

“But I think I’ll still have to go back to my own world first all the same. The world still hasn’t been saved at the point I was at before I ended up here.. and I need to make sure it is saved first. Otherwise I would have gone back in time for nothing.”

"Oh!"

Nita nods sharply.

"In that case, it's still your story to see finished, isn't it?"

Zelda - the one she'd met in Nautilus - had had some reason like that; to find out what happened home first, before she began going elsewhere.

"But... whatever happens after that, you won't be alone."

Inigo nods in turn. He isn't too sure whether or not he'd call it his story, but.. he feels responsible all the same. He travelled back in time to stop it, so he has to at the very least accomplish that task.

Or having gone back, having surrendered what felt like his own shot at life, would all have been for nothing.

He doesn't say that though, feels like it's implied in just his nod. No, instead he focuses on the other thing she says.

".. You think..?" He sounds a little unsure. Inigo always thought he would be alone, after all. That he'd finish his task, and then go out into the night like a nobody, losing all the bonds he once had.

A New Platform [Intro Post October]

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This one's probably wrapping soon? ... They could go get food, maybe.