A New Platform [Intro Post December]

[voidtreckermods]

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!

Comments

[subcircuits]

"He must be very important to you if you wanted to family-claim him," he murmurs. Lucky kid.

He actually blinks when Koumyou asks him that, sitting up again. "I-- I'm fine?" he says. And then a moment later, "A little envious, maybe. No one's ever wanted to 'claim me."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"I feel like I'm missing some really key context, here," Koumyou says after a second of thought.

Help?

"Were you an orphan, perhaps?"

[subcircuits]

"An... orphan?" That's an archaic term that he doesn't recognize, even with the train's help translating. "What's that?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

"You know, like... if your parents died in a war or something, when you were young."

There was another possibility he'd seen plenty of times, too--

"Or maybe they were just really rotten?"

[subcircuits]

"Oh. Oh, I have no idea what they're like," he says with a little laugh. "They never claimed me, and we're not supposed to reach out if they don't make a claim." He finds a smile, though this one is a little crooked. "I was 100% a creche kid. Which is fine, obviously, they were never under any obligation, I know no one is, but--..."

He trails off. At home, he wouldn't have to qualify that 'but'. Anyone whose parents didn't claim them would know what that 'but' meant, because no matter what the caretakers said, it sucked to be one of the kids left behind on family days. It sucked to know that out there, two people had made a decision to bring you into the world, and then another decision to have nothing to do with you. His parents hadn't even opted into correspondence.

But this is an old hurt, worn as flat and smooth as a river stone by time, so he shrugs and scoops up some more ice cream. "Your Kouryuu is very lucky," he says, and sticks the spoon in his mouth.

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou reaches to take a hand anyway, if he can.

"Well, I think you're wonderful, so it's their loss."

[subcircuits]

There's another one of those little hesitations, that moment of uncertainty when Koumyou takes his hand where it seems like he might be waiting for it to be yanked on or raked or slapped away. But the other man just holds it, and goes and says something like that, and the moment definitely passes.

His smile might be a little wobbly as he shares it with Koumyou. His eyes are definitely prickling a little. "Thank you."

He is determined not to start crying again, though, so after a fierce squeeze of his fingers he takes his hand back and goes for another scoop of ice cream. "Tell me more about your son?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou also goes back to his ice cream, working around the edges inside his bowl as it slowly tries to melt.

"Oh! Well, what do you want to know about him? He's thirteen, and has hair so gold it almost looks like metal! And the biggest, brightest eyes! He's the cutest kid in all existence, as far as I'm concerned. And he's so serious! He's always trying to scold me, with his grumpy little face."

[subcircuits]

Devero wants to know anything, if for no other reason than to see the way Koumyou's face has lit up as he talks about him. He actually is interested though, interjecting a soft, "It's a pity you can't show me a picture," once Koumyou's described his son.

"He has to scold you?" he repeats back, getting that sly teasing tilt to his mouth. "Really? How strange, I have no idea why, as you also are absolutely serious all the time."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Maaaah, maybe I'll ask the train for a picture! You never know, it could work!"

That tease gets a laugh out of Koumyou, all bright and bubbly.

"It's true, it's true! And I would never skip out on giving lectures, or smoke where someone could see me."

Or need to be reminded to eat.

Or woken up before he could drown in the bath.

[subcircuits]

"You should," Devero encourages him. "I'd love to see him."

He snickers. "Are Sanzo priests expected to give a lot of lectures?" he asks. "And expected not to smoke?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

"I'm supposed to teach," Koumyou confirms, "but I'm terrible at it, and I avoid it whenever possible."

As for the rest, Koumyou ticks things off on one bony hand, "No smoking, no drinking, no eating meat, no gambling -- even without money! No... basically anything, that isn't just meditating and teaching. That's how it is for all monks, just substitute teaching for studying in most cases. Oh, and add chores. Rank does have some benefits, and not having to hand-scrub the floors anymore is one of them."

[subcircuits]

"That sounds..." How can he politely say 'boring and sad'? "...austere." Listen, there are reasons religion never spoke to him, and that kind of circumscribed abstention is absolutely one of them.

"Is another benefit of having your rank that you don't have to adhere to any of that if you don't want to?" It's a guess, but between Koumyou's obvious penchant for smoking and what he'd said earlier about rules, it's a pretty educated guess.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Yes," Koumyou laughs, "because no one can enforce it, much to their absolute horror. I don't think I've ever set foot in a temple without causing some sort of scandal."

He reaches back with his free hand and pulls the tightly-wound scroll of the sutra from the back pocket of his jeans, "But they don't have to die protecting one of these, so as far as I'm concerned, I'll do what I like."

[subcircuits]

Devero chuckles. "Why is it that enjoying yourself is always the thing people decide to find scandalous?"

He eyes the sutra as Koumyou displays it. Such a small, unassuming little thing, it's still almost impossible to comprehend the sheer significance of it. "It's not their lives on the line, is it?" he asks, looking from the scroll to its protector. "As long as indulging yourself causes no harm to others, I don't see what the problem is."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"That sums up my feelings on the matter, yes," Koumyou agrees, and sets the scroll down on the table. He's still in the base layer of his uniform, or else it would have been on his shoulders where it belonged.

"That includes who I decide to spend my time with. Whether it's the baby I plucked from the river, or a big handsome guy with pretty brown eyes."

[subcircuits]

The compliment has about the intended effect on Devero, flustering him enough that he has to hide those pretty brown eyes behind his hands. He's definitely smiling, though, he's just-- forgotten how nice it is to have his looks honestly complimented, instead of assessed and commodified.

He emerges from behind his fingers after a moment. "Is that how you found your son? In a river?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou reaches over to try to poke his cheek once he comes out from behind his hands, beaming. Look at you, all flustered!

"I heard a voice..." the priest says, after the poke, and turns to wrap his hands around his tea.

"It was so alone, so scared... and no one else could hear it. So I went to look, and I saw a basket in the river. It had tipped over on its side. I waded out, and I found him, barely alive in the water. He wasn't even a day old, I don't think, he was so tiny. Just him and... a set of red prayer beads, and the basket."

Those beads had apparently worked.

"I pushed the water out of his lungs, and he started crying immediately! There was no one else around, no towns upriver for weeks...! So I took him back to the temple with me, and I've had him ever since."

Until now, of course.

[subcircuits]

Devero's brain badly wants to hang up on the fact that a vulnerable newborn child had been abandoned to die in a river. Something like that would be absolutely unthinkable in his world, where children are born into the custody of the government and raised in hospitals to ensure they survive their infancy. (Well, most of them, anyway.)

So he sticks a big spoonful of ice cream in his mouth to buy himself time to have a second thought. After all, Koumyou's world is so, so very different from his own.

"What an incredible story," is what he says when enough of the ice cream has melted to let him talk around it. He swallows the rest, then, "Do you have any idea who it was who called out to you?"

Because obviously it wasn't the drowning baby, that would be ridiculous.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Well, it was Kouryuu, of course."

Of course it was. Who else would it be if not the drowning baby?

[subcircuits]

He opens his mouth, once again thinks twice, and then shuts it again. Of course. There's magic in Koumyou's world, why couldn't a drowning baby call out to an incredibly powerful priest?

He reaches over and lays his hand on Koumyou's wrist. "How lucky you were, to have found each other," he says.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Ears aren't all a person can hear with, you know," Koumyou says in response to that opening, silence, and then closing of Devero's mouth. "Mouths aren't all that can scream."

He covers the hand on his wrist, with his other hand. "Yeah."

[subcircuits]

Devero looks at him, considering that for a moment. "...You'd know more about that kind of thing than me, I would think," he says quietly.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"...Or I could be completely full of shit," Koumyou adds cheerfully, "you never know!"

It's only a joke, of course, he knows what happened was exactly as he just told it. But the mood might drop a bit too far if he lets it, so it's time for some humor.

His own ice cream's done, so the priest reaches for his comb again, intent on tidying up the mess that is his hair. It's about half combed out now, all sleek and straight.

"So, what is a creche? Do all kids go to one, where you're from?"

[subcircuits]

His sally has precisely the intended effect. Devero chuckles, and lets the topic pass.

He does reach out to intercept Koumyou's hand, though, covering the comb with his own bigger one first. "May I?" he asks, before he starts to think about how to answer that big question.