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

The moon may be absent from cabin on this interdimensional missionary train, but Devero might have said there was something luminous about Koumyou anyway. It was in the unwavering intensity of his gaze, in the play of his hair in the water, the glimmer of the bath itself. Devero couldn't look away.

"...I don't know much about souls," he admits slowly, "but I'm starting to understand why people like priests so much.

"Thank you. For your perspective, for-- for everything."

It's a very dramatic, very charged moment. Which Koumyou, of course, has to immediately ruin by flashing one of his dopier smiles.

"...People like priests?"

This is news to him!

Of course, a Sanzo can't go anywhere on his world without people clamoring for his attention. For teachings, for wisdom, for him to chant mantras that he never really memorized. But he's never taken that as anyone liking him.

Better than tension break with a grin than with another trauma attack. Devero smiles back at him-- a little subdued, a lot tired, but still a smile. "Okay, I guess I can't speak for everybody. But--" And he actually gets a little shy here, looking away even as he indicates himself with the jerk of a thumb. "I can say for sure that this person definitely likes one priest."

"Flatterer," Koumyou laughs lightly, and then turns away to climb up out of the pool. The leg with the cauterized bullet graze slashed across the back of his thigh is a hair weaker than it should be, after so long in the hot water.

He makes note of it, and adjusts accordingly, padding around the perimeter of the water to where his clothing had ended up.

"I don't know about you, but I need a cigarette after all of that. And ice cream. Do you like ice cream?"

What a combination.

"Ice cream sounds great," Devero says. He rises up out of the pool as well, though he goes straight for the towels. He picks one up, turns, and slings it at Koumyou. "You'd better dry off first, or you'll be cold again as soon as we step off this carriage."

Koumyou catches it and goes about trying to dry himself off. This ends a few moments later with the losing battle of wrapping his hair in the towel and squeezing it in random spots.

"Maaaah... I lost another hair tie..."

Yes. Yes, in fact, it took him this long to notice his braid's come completely undone.

"Your hair's so long," Devero remarks, peeking at it even as he's vigorously giving his curls another towel-off. "You must lose hair ties all the time."

He's already dressed again, though he hasn't put his Interface back on yet, just stuck it in a pocket. And he's still holding his trunks, taking them with the towel over to the basket for the dirty laundry. As he goes to drop both items in, the dangling drawstring of the swim trunks catches his eye. He glances back at Koumyou and his loose curtain of hair, and then yanks the string straight out of the waistband of the swim trunks. (Sorry to whoever gets this pair next.)

"And here I was expecting a crack about how most monks are shaved bald for a reason," Koumyou says with a little laugh, "I guess it's vanity, after all."

He sure doesn't sound upset about it, though, standing there in swim trunks doing battle with the mass of it. All while trying not to tangle it up too badly, for his own future sanity having to comb it all out again.

"I don't know any other monks, remember?" He grins crookedly. "You're going to be standard to which I compare every other clergyfolk I meet going forward."

He walks around the lip of the pool to join Koumyou, and holds out his hands. "Can I help?"

"What? No other clergy?" Koumyou pauses what he's doing, visibly having to wrap his brain around that notion. "You said that sort of thing is private, on your world... I didn't think that meant rare, or perhaps even secret?"

Huh.

The offer gets Devero a quizzical look from Koumyou, and then a smile. "Ohh? If you want, sure!"

Like he's going to turn down someone wrangling his hair for him. The now very damp towel gets placed in the bigger man's hands.

"No, nothing quite like that." He takes the towel with a return smile and attempts to wring some of the water out of it before he applies it again to Kouymou's hair. "I just wasn't interested. They teach us about all the major religions in the last year of creche, so we can pursue a faith if it speaks to us, just." He pauses, then shrugs. "None of them spoke to me. I'm an atheist. And I spend most of my time around other hiteks like me-- people who've pursued work in biotechnology, not faith work. If any of them are part of a religion, they keep their practice to themselves."

"Atheist, huh?" Koumyou ponders that for a moment, holding his chin. "Does that make the Seiten sutra even weirder? Or..."

Or even Koumyou himself, holy as he intrinsically is.

"I suppose Buddhism -- for me -- is less a religion and more a philosophy. 'Faith' implies trust in the unknown, but I have met the gods. I protect part of that which made everything. Those are facts."

Not for everyone, sure. There were a lot of people in Koumyou's world for whom the 'faith' element was very real. But... no one at his rank.

"How one lives their life, that's where things get much messier and much more interesting, to me."

He pauses again, dropping his hands with the towel still held in them. He stares at the back of Koumyou's head and tries to wrap his brain around the notion of tangible, literal gods.

"All of it is incredibly weird to me," he says finally, his voice a little distant. "Gods are just-- they're just stories where I come from." (Stories for people with nothing of actual value in their lives, he doesn't say, and even feels a little bad for thinking it.) "They're not people you can just go meet.

"And the energy that made the universe definitely couldn't be split into 5 parts for people to carry around."

Giving his head a little shake, he resumes the task of rubbing down Koumyou's hair. The Sanzo's final statement does make him snort softly. "Now that one might be uni-- multiversal. Real life's always a lot messier than pure philosophy."

"I haven't met anyone who seems to have any equivalent to the sutras," Koumyou muses, "except... well, the enemy of this train? Seems to have an ability, from what I've heard, that reminds me strongly of the Muten sutra."

But no one had taken the priest very seriously when he'd mentioned it, before.

"Wiping an entire planet and its people out of not only existence, but out of all memory and record of ever having existed..."

For a moment or two after that, Devero is silent. His hands still move, gently rubbing the water out of Koumyou's hair, but he doesn't speak.

When he does, finally, break his silence, it's to ask in a soft voice, "...Is there any way it could be the Maten sutra, that's done that?"

Koumyou shakes his head, carefully since his hair is being worked on.

"Even if Ukoku had a reason to use his sutra against a distant world like that, it was far too sloppy to be the Muten's work. We wouldn't be talking about it now. The train itself wouldn't exist -- the world was its home world."

And then, there had been Halo.

"The woman the five of us tried to rescue on Nion wouldn't have existed anymore, either, to tell the tale. Or if she had still existed, she certainly wouldn't have remembered her own home world."

The sutras don't leave scraps like that.

"But, even an imitation of a sutra is a considerable threat."

Edited 2020-12-08 05:00 (UTC)

On the one hand, it's a relief to hear that one of the incredibly powerful relics from Koumyou's home is not in play currently. On the other hand, by all the virtues what he's saying about its abilities is terrifying.

"Whatever it is that caused that-- that destruction is overwhelming enough as it is," Devero says. "I'm glad it's not the Muten. But--if there's anything you know about it that might help us figure out what's going on, maybe we should bring it to the community at large?"

He goes to one knee behind Koumyou, to spend some time squeezing water out of the ends of his hair. It is, perhaps, very good for his libido that their current topic of conversation is serious. "That woman-- you mean that captain, don't you. They played her final message at the meeting? You met her...?"

Koumyou makes a noncommittal noise at the idea of discussing this with the community at large, and holds still while Devero moves down behind him. He's only vaguely keeping track of what the bigger man is doing, and only that much out of pure habit.

"I did, I was one of the people who found her," Koumyou confirms, "I healed her with the Seiten, and held a barrier over the area while she talked with the others."

But healing her hadn't been enough. Not with her ship littering the area around them in fragments no larger than a door.

"...What happened to her?" he asks, his voice so low as to be almost hard to hear.

"They didn't tell you at the meeting?"

Koumyou produces his cigarettes from his arms band, and lights up before answering.

"The same thing that happens to everyone. She died."

He doesn't sound upset, though, just... resigned. Tired. The priest has watched a lot of people die, after all.

"...Not from her wounds, but, it seems that when a void ship is fully destroyed, the crew's minutes are numbered. So everyone should take good care of the train, if they don't want to join her."

"It was implied, but they didn't..." he murmurs, then just stops and listens quietly. Koumyou's words make him inhale sharply, his fingers clenching into the wet weave of the towel. "Rust and ruin. They... really should have brought that fact up at some fucking point."

He stands, tossing the towel aside as he does. Koumyou's hair is as dry as it's going to get. He missed where the other man had appeared those cigarettes from, but he doesn't ask, too distracted otherwise.

"Thank you for telling me," he says finally. He hesitates then, one hand lifted and hovering uncertainly in the air, and almost leaves it at that--

He grasps the priest's shoulder, bending enough to just lightly rest his forehead against the crown of Koumyou's head. Battling down a feeling that it's presumptuous of him to even ask, he says, "You've seen a lot of people die, haven't you?"

Koumyou does him the courtesy of holding his cigarette off to one side, at least, so the smoke doesn't drift straight up into Devero's face.

"Yeah."

His other hand comes up to settle on one of the bigger man's shoulders, in turn.

"Sometimes," Koumyou says slowly, and evenly, "all you can do for a person is to not look away, not even for a moment. So they know they're not alone, as they go.

"So that their death matters, even just a little bit, even to a total stranger. So it didn't just happen in a vacuum somewhere, unnoticed or recorded. So that they know someone can accept the karma of their death, and shoulder the load."

Even someone who's seen too many last moments just like it.

That was what he'd done for Halo. No tears, no emotional oaths, no platitudes. He'd simply not looked away.

Devero is aware in this moment of a profound gulf of experience between himself and Koumyou. Not in the sense of the peculiarities of their unique worlds-- that one he's been aware of from the start-- but in the sense of experience with the fundamental nature of life.

Everyone dies. People he's known and cared for have died. Beneath weapons in his hands, people have died. It's not that he's untouched by the pain and grief that comes along with the end of a person's life. But in the even cadence of Koumyou's voice and his unflinching gaze lies a closer acquaintance with death that Devero has personally never known.

For a moment, he feels very young, much younger than the age difference between the two of them can account for.

He reaches up, careful not to knock the cigarette hand, and takes Koumyou's other shoulder. "You've been carrying alone for a long time." It should probably be a question, but it's not.

It's his turn to not look away. After everything that's happened between them since the priest found him in the bath, he owes Koumyou that much. "If there's anything I can do to help you shoulder that burden, Koumyou Sanzo, please let me know."

Koumyou turns his head to take a long drag from his cigarette, over the bigger man's hand. He holds his breath in for a moment, then exhales the smoke away from Devero's face, too.

And then the cigarette is being held out to the side again, and the priest is back to watching Devero steadily.

"I wonder..." he says, after some thought, "if you mean that enough to not run away, anymore."

From him?

From whatever this tension is, slowly building between them?

Devero breathes in deeply, ~~slightly regrets it because of the acridity of the smoke, despite Koumyou's efforts,~~ and considers his response. He doesn't want to answer too glibly; he too feels the tension between them, weightier and more significant now than his initial creche-kid crush.

"I try not to say things I don't mean," he says finally. "Being around you is electrifying. You make me feel better than I've felt in--" He pauses, and is the one to look away. "--in a long time."

But he looks back a moment later, recalling what Koumyou had said to him earlier, and tells him, "You make me feel seen."

He releases the other man then, and steps back to give them both a little space. "I think... I think I've been lying to myself about... a lot of things, lately. And I think that maybe around you, I don't have to keep doing that? If you'd even let me."

It's an overwhelming thought, and his voice wavers as he says it. He has been lying to himself, but all those lies were defensive walls in a fortress built to protect his heart. The wounded creature inside that fort is gibbering in fear to even put it into words, this barest acknowledgement that Valdana has treated him badly. He's been hiding in the dark, trying to survive her abuse-- and Koumyou's been a light, lancing and insistent, finding its way in.

"I don't-- w-want to run away from this anymore. And I definitely don't want to run away from you."

A pause, and then a rueful laugh. Once more, he looks away. "If you'll have me, anyway. I don't want to impose or presume."

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two guys standing in a spa 6 inches away, it's absolutely gay

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