voidtreckerexpress | A New Platform [Intro Post December]

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A New Platform [Intro Post December]

On the Train

It's only been a couple of days since the Voidtrecker Express took to the void once more, and many of the passengers are still recovering and recuperating after a very hectic end to their latest mission. Nevertheless, they are awoken by a familiar message.

"Good morning passengers, it is day sixteen of the month of Imagination. Points have been updated on the system."

They have indeed, and everyone can spend the morning shopping. Those who have been on the train for 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 the windows fill with the fog that means they are at a platform. It is warm outside with a pleasant breeze that flows down the platform, rustling the light spread of leaves that litter the floor.

As usual the first to leave the train notice nothing, walking silently, rucksacks on their backs, towards the barriers. Akemi Homura, Alfred the Poisoner, Donatello Versus, Chie Satonaka, Joscelin Fitzthomas, Ronan Lynch, Rose Tyler, Tangle the Lemur, Trowa Barton, Wester Mazaki and Whisper the Wolf all pass through the platform, not looking back before they disappear through the barriers and into the fog beyond.

But on the platform itself there are 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 the swirling leaves at their feet, moving in flurries and rattling against each other softly. As their eyes adjust, they will see they are on a platform, cement and packed earth forming a very practical, plain-looking shelter. Behind them is a set of barriers, and in front of them is a single track extending both ways into thick fog.

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 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 eight 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'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 more jars of honey, the ingredient of the month of Imagination, as well as sundries.

A new carriage has been added right next to the luggage carriage. It is a second medical carriage, or triage carriage. Downstairs is more open with beds and chairs, upstairs are two surgical bays for those that need immediate attention.

For those intrigued by the claim of a parcel for every passenger they will find several large boxes filled with small blue bags. Inside each bag is ten dark blue coins imprinted on each side with a silver snowflake. Each bag has a small label with a passengers name. On the other side of the label it reads: Keep these safe for now.

Of course for any passengers that have bought items, these are also scattered around the luggage carriage as well.

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 to encourage any stragglers taking advantage of the pleasant weather 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. The fog from the windows is gone now, replaced with a kaleidoscope of ever-changing colours.

Welcome to the Void!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Well, I suppose it's true that I don't know you as well, but... I think you're sweet, and kind, and that it's terribly easy for terrible people to use that kind of thing to their own advantage."

It isn't hard to remember the puppy eyes Devero had given him when he'd asked if they could dance again. Or his alarm at Koumyou's minor wounds, just a short time before. And the way he'd seemed surprised and then happy, every time Koumyou had grabbed his hand...

Before things had gotten... weird, somehow. Before he'd started to make the bigger man so nervous.

"Imagine treating anyone like they're expendable, like they're trash that can never be good enough... for what? Good enough for someone who has to hold another down just to feel higher up?"

Koumyou glances down at his hands wrapped around one of Devero's, and has a moment of uncertainty. Since when does he hold onto anyone, anymore?

He stares at that physical affront to his own barriers, and says almost too quietly to hear, "...You know, you might be one of the only people I've met who actually sees me?"

Edited 2020-12-05 02:39 (UTC)

His gut reaction is to object to Koumyou's unflinching assessment of his relationship. Madame's not taking advantage of him; he agreed to be her sub! She grinds him underfoot because that's what he wants her to do-- isn't it? She certainly tells him he should want that, if he wants to be a good sub, her good boy. He needs to let her train him, so he can please her, so he can meet her expectations.

...Her ever shifting expectations, nebulous from session to session, sometimes one demand in direct contradiction to another. Her whims, impossible to predict, so that he somehow ends up requiring discipline even when he thinks he's got her just right. How sometimes it seems she sets goalposts he can never reach, just so she can knock him down and punish him for failing.

He's always pushed that mutinous thought down deep, refusing to acknowledge it. But right now, he finds that he... doesn't want to. He lets it settle into his mind, and he doesn't try to interrupt or deny. Instead he watches Koumyou speak; the Sanzo once again compelling his attention and it's like he can't drag it away.

That intent regard is why he doesn't miss those very, very soft words. They pull him closer, turning back in to face Koumyou. "...What do you mean?" he asks, his own voice just as quiet as Koumyou's.

It's nothing. He almost says it, almost lets go, let 'whatever will happen, happen'. It's a pattern he's fallen into harder and harder over the years of his station, becoming just a spectator to the lives unfolding around him. Hold nothing.

"...I suppose it's proof of what I was saying before," Koumyou says, instead, still staring at their hands. "If you weren't what I called you, then you wouldn't see anything you weren't already expecting to see."

Not everyone on the train has been blind to his true nature, per se, but Koumyou hasn't detected even a hint of the usual off this guy. When Koumyou plays, he plays along. When Koumyou is sad, he moves closer. When Koumyou surprises him, it doesn't seem to be because Devero's decided on a pattern that the priest must fit into.

And back home, he might count those who see him like that on one hand. Or less, if the people must be alive. Sanzo-sama this and Sanzo-sama that. Sanzo must teach, Sanzo must not eat meat, Sanzo must be wise and good and save us all from ourselves.

His son sees him. Jikaku sees him. Maybe Ukoku, but... maybe not, come to think of it. Not if he'd really thought that Koumyou would stand by and watch his son die in his place.

Edited 2020-12-05 03:26 (UTC)

Devero's free hand comes up, and finally, finally he lets himself reach out to Koumyou. He grasps the other man's shoulder heedless of the sodden robe, and squeezes.

"How could I have any expectations of you?" he asks, somewhere between baffled and insistent. "You're like no one I've ever met."

Koumyou lifts his head and offers one of his trademark dopey smiles. "You just really like flattering an old man, don't you?"

It inspires an answering smile from Devero. "It's not flattery if I mean it," he insists. "--Besides, you're hardly an old man." ...Pause. For all Devero knows, he could be 1500 years old, kept perpetually young by the magic of the sutra. That kind of stuff happened in the fantasy streams, didn't it?

He squints at Koumyou suspiciously. "Right?"

"It's definitely flattery," Koumyou counters, and then laughs, finally loosening his hold on Devero's other hand. "But I'm not complaining! It's awfully fun."

Harmless fun.

Oh wait, there's a question hanging there, isn't there?

"...I'm forty-seven."

Is that old? Koumyou himself constantly seems to bounce from one opinion on the matter to the other and back again.

Edited 2020-12-05 04:05 (UTC)

Devero releases him in return, stepping back not to flee but to just open up a little space between them. Some breathing room.

He manages a smile. "If you're having fun, then that's what matters.

"Oh! Only forty-seven?" He snorts. "You had me worried you were into your triple digits with that old man crack."

"My bones think we're in the triple digits!" Koumyou returns with another light laugh, and tucks his hands in his sleeves like usual. They get cold so fast.

"So... are you going to go back to avoiding me, then?"

"Then you'd better get back into the water," Devero chides him, reaching out to pinch a sodden sleeve. "You're not going to get any warmer standing around in this."

Koumyou's question is... not unexpected, but it makes Devero shift uncertainly anyway. He looks away, so it's easier for him to say, "I don't want to." And with his usual straightforwardness: "I like you, Sanzo. I want to be around you."

"I think you should do what you want to do," says the priest, "but I won't try to force you."

Novel as that might be to poor Devero; someone giving him an actual choice and not just the illusion of one.

It is novel, and that scares him a little. There's still a churning dread, deep down inside of him, of what's going to happen when Madame finds out about this. If it was just a matter of his own desires, he'd probably deny himself, and do what he thinks Valdana would want. Avoid Koumyou, avoid temptation, avoid this vivacious, magnetic, fascinating reminder that there could be more in his life than his work and his Madame.

But he's not the only one who'd be affected by that decision, would he? He remembers Sanzo's soft words and the way his thin hands had felt on his own. He has been so lonely, lately, and maybe that's what lets him recognize loneliness in the other man.

"What I want," he says slowly, as if he's tasting the words as he says them, "is to get back into that pool with you, and relax."

A little tension drops from Koumyou's shoulders.

"Then let's do that," the priest is, of course, very agreeable to that suggestion. "It's so cold out of the water!"

It's really not, in the train car that contains a heated pool and the entrance to a tiny sauna. But, it takes very little for a chill to get into Koumyou anyway, and even less for him to complain about it.

He reaches to take Dev's hand and head back for the pool, eager to get out of the 'cold'.

Of course, this means the sleeping robe's going to come off again, doesn't it? Probably.

Devero trots at his side, that silly boyish smile on his face as Koumyou pulls him along by the hand. It may not actually be that cold in the car, and he certainly has more meat on his bones than the slighter man, but standing around wet and dripping hadn't been terribly comfortable for him.

His fingers squeeze Koumyou's before he releases his hand to slide back into the water. He has the decorum to not watch openly as the priest skins out of his robe, he doesn't seem as afraid to look at him when Koumyou joins him in the pool.

He sinks down to his chin, eyes half-closing. "Much better."

Koumyou sheds the robe without preamble, tossing it vaguely in the direction of where he'd set it down last time. The sutra, of course, comes with him into the pool, tucked against his hip in the waistband of his swim shorts.

Like that thing is ever out of arm's reach.

He doesn't bother to go around to the other side of the pool, though, getting in on the same side as Devero. There's room!

"Much better," Koumyou agrees with a happy sigh, sinking into the hot water properly. It's really the only place he ever feels any physical comfort.

A far cry from his skittishness earlier, Devero keeps right on smiling as Koumyou gets in beside him. Greatly daring, he might even be sprawling out his legs so his foot knocks against the other man's. How forward!

Beyond that, though, he's content to just lean back against the side of the pool and try to recapture that hazy, dozy peace from before.

A foot hitting a foot! The scandal! What would the other monks think?

Koumyou just sinks down until the water's lapping at his chin, eyes sliding shut. This close, the relieved tremble that goes through him as the heat soaks in can probably be felt.

As can the loosened end of his braid, which drifts around both on and in the water.

It can be felt, and it actually makes Devero look over at him with a touch of concern. "You were really cold, weren't you?"

And since he's looking, well, he can't help but see the enticing way Koumyou's pale hair drifts in the water, now can he? He peeks at the Sanzo, then lifts a hand up from the bath beneath, generating just enough of an upwelling to swirl the water gently.

The hair swirls with the motion, the strands as fine as silk threads glittering in the light. Koumyou's braid has come about half undone, and for every strand that's on the surface, there's a dozen more in the water below.

...Now tangling around Dev's hand, brushing against his side. A thigh. The more of it comes un-braided, the longer it gets.

"I've gotten cold really easily ever since Taisouji!" Koumyou, meanwhile, will never, ever miss an opportunity to complain about the cold, even while almost up to his bottom lip in hot water.

The way his hair moves in the water is almost meditative for Devero to watch. The gentle way it drifts and swirls, the beautiful blond color, how fine it is when it winds against his fingers. He does shiver, just a little, as it comes loose to start brushing against him in the water, but that's just an excuse to comb his fingers a little more boldly through the lush strands.

"Taisouji?" he prompts, tearing his eyes away for a moment to look at his face, instead.

Koumyou cracks open his eyes when Dev starts to get a little more bold with his hair. But he doesn't comment on it, and goes right back to relaxing, eyes slipping shut again.

Apparently playing with his hair is fine!

Much like the priest himself, the strands are stronger than they look. It's very fine, but well cared-for, without so much as a split end to be found. Kouryuu's work, that. The boy is nothing if not thorough when it comes to fussing over his master.

"Taisouji Temple," Koumyou explains, "it's where I was selected to become a Sanzo candidate, and spent years going through the additional training and trials."

He lowers his head a little further in the water to blow a few bubbles, pondering how much to say. When he comes back up, he actually gives more information--

"It was erected isolated from people and culture, surrounded by violent nature, on a cold, steep mountain. It was widely known for its harsh training techniques, but the reality far exceeded imagination."

And, most importantly, he has to really underline this--

"And it was very, very cold!"

And full of death.

Edited 2020-12-05 20:38 (UTC)

Devero doesn't realize that Koumyou's aware he's playing with his hair-- which is a good thing, because he'd probably stop if that was the case. And he does pause to listen when the other man speaks, his hands both settling into his lap and he gives the priest his full attention.

What he describes sounds awful to Devero, but he keeps that thought to himself. What he says instead is, "I imagine it has to be an extreme place, given the extreme nature of the task you were training for."

"There were twenty five of us in the first squad -- those chosen to strive for Sanzo. Only three of us survived to the end," Koumyou confirms, just as serene and calm as though they're talking about their team colors or something else mundane.

"You can't go into that sort of thing without giving everything. Some just did it more quickly than others. Tenkai Sanzo died a few years after, and asked me to take charge of the Maten."

With his dying words, his blood-drenched hand straining for the sky. For Koumyou.

"Goudai Sanzo grew ill over time. It was like the Muten was eating him from the inside out, like acid. He had me oversee his final moments, and the passing of his sutra and title to his successor, who I gave a holy name to in his stead and trained for a year."

Because Goudai's successor had been the one to kill him.

Ukoku.

But then Koumyou cracks an eye open again, and glances over. "--I'm not trying to be dramatic!" he adds in a rush, realizing the tone this conversation has gone into. "That's just..." at a loss for how to even try to temper it all, for a second, "That's just how it is. We all knew what we were..."

...doing? Had they, though?

If the title 'Sanzo' means watching your friends die, then it's worthless.

Who'd said that? A much younger man...

Edited 2020-12-06 01:51 (UTC)

When Koumyou looks over, Devero is staring at him. It's one thing to be told about the enormity of the responsibilities of a Sanzo priest. It's another to have glimpsed the power of Koumyou's sutra, to have seen the scars on his lean body.

And it's yet another to hear him talk so evenly about the survivors of the training regimen required to be eligible for the title, about giving everything.

Yes, there's conflict on his world. And on his world, he'd be considered an intimidating man, possibly a little bit dangerous, because of the time he served as a Scorpion in the World Guard. But even as the elite soldiers of his world only resorted to lethal force as a very last resort. Deaths, even combatant deaths in firefights, were investigated and analyzed, to figure out if they could have been prevented. Human life was too precious to the survivors of the Pathogen, even so many generations removed from the annihilation of the civilization of Before.

He's killed people, in the course of his service, but so few that he could number them on his hands. Each life weighs on him, even if taking them had always been judged necessary by his superiors.

He turns on the ledge to face Koumyou, water parting around his hands as he offers them out. "I'm sorry that that's just how it is," he tells him. "Your world is much, much harder than mine."

Koumyou, however, has no idea how many he's killed. He can't even say with certainty that they'd all deserved it, and he knows there hadn't always been no other choice. (But then, what choice was it, in the end, when letting someone go would just let them come for him again later?)

He twists a bit, too, and sets his bony hands onto Devero's much larger ones. It would be a bit cruel to ignore the gesture, after their earlier conversation.

"It's fine," he tells the other man calmly, and even his smile is steady. "It's not a competition, you know?"

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