John

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Haha.

Yeah ok. Thanks for taking care of Leila - I shall discuss details of the left-out events when I come back with Crescendo, I think. Relationship building time :>

meanwhile I wish to hug Songbird.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Everyone too adorable. Not ok.

Leaving tomorrow! Might not be able to get another post up. Welp.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

All the Jasper and Inadi. Hah.

And grapes. All the grapes at the party.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Posted.

Some implied nihilism from Leila to help you ignore the day.

Mostly reaction. And with that unsatisfactory post I will be leaving for England the day after tomorrow.

Also Fox u so ded.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Leila tried remaining calm and not let her thoughts show as she regretted not thinking things through before acting. She mentally braced herself for whatever unexpected course this chain of events she shouldn’t have started would then take a turn into. She almost exclaimed something when an elbow bumped into her, having expecting it to be no less than a punch from Harper when something suddenly touched her. She resisted the reaction, and because of that didn’t do anything in reply of Songbird’s hasty apology except allowing her eyes to flicker in the direction of the guide for some seconds.

She looked at the ground as Harper looked up. Their lines of sight didn’t cross.

”I…just forget it.”

Leila froze as Harper replied, and remained still long after the boy slowly walked away. His voice was coarse and sounded like it was on the verge of breaking. She wondered if Harper was close to breaking too, of if she was herself. She still glanced at where the sword wound would have been on Harper’s body from time to time.

The apology that took her so much effort preparing for did not escape her mouth.

The festivity continued around them. Leila kept her eyes to the ground, looking at the colours and shadows that fluctuated on the floor.

“Just forget it”, he said. The longer you stay…

...why were they there? What were they looking for? A train brought them there. A train filled with sparkles and stars and bunnies with laptops transported them to a realm where everything was pastel and the laws of physics as she knew them obviously didn’t apply. Where they put themselves in great danger collecting things like fragments of dying stars and voices of mythical beings - all of which apparently very well existed despite all reasoning suggesting otherwise; and then they return to the hall and beings from this nonsense world toasting over whatever they thought was worthy of celebrating in this scheme of neverending struggling and confusion.

The threads of thought started flowing her mind again, something that she hadn’t had time to do for such a long time when she was just struggling to stay alive. Finally now she had the time to think - but the thoughts tangled themselves into a chaotic mess as they accelerated. Anything that seemed like it was starting to flow smoothly would then run into a pile of unresolvable contradictions that triggered what could only be analogized to mental screams of “does not compute”. Above that noise, then, was the yells that couldn’t be silenced, the pledges for them to complete the list, to go back home. And those voices didn’t follow from anything else, and nothing could be said reliably that it followed from there.

Stay alive. Get home. Why? She had no idea.

She flinched. So that’s what they had to do? Scramble to ensure the achieving of a goal whose meaning they’ll eventually come to entirely forget.

Leila realized their interaction had ended only long after. In a scenario no worse than all those she had anticipated, but one that she hadn’t expected either. She sighed - still couldn’t rationalize these things, could she? She wasn’t sure whether she was supposed to feel relieved that it ended like that and she didn’t have to put up with a conversation. She didn’t.

She then looked again at Harper and Songbird and tried her hardest to persuade herself that she didn’t need to care for them, didn’t need to pay that thought. She succeeded, not because she convinced herself that Harper would be okay, but because of the realization that there was nothing she could do to help.

Leila sighed. Flowers and rainbows...

She raised the tall glass and gulped down the rest of the strawberry soda all at once. The surge of sparkles felt like they burnt as she pushed the liquid down her throat, but she ignored that and continued, only stopping on the exhaustion of the bright pink beverage. A few droplets escaped and fell into her airway instead, triggering reflexive convulsions in her chest, bones and muscles now healed and coping alright with the conflicting orders given by her conscious mind to suppress the coughs and sputters.

She stood there, eyes in a blank gaze into the crowd. The background noises persisted, and the jellyfish still sailed idly through the indoor air. The nauseating sweetness of the syrup persisted in her mouth.

music.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Writing up a post in a power outage. Much respect.

And I thought you were done with the feels when they left the Stone of Sacrifice. Well.

Hhhh harpurr u adorbs. Hugs.

Thanks for getting that post in, though. No worries about typos.

Gonna get one in myself - if Jasper does something before I'm done I'll as well respond to that, Kimichi needs not worry about time intervals. Harper's ignore being less hostile than expected means there's less to react to as well.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Yeh.

Additional information: Me leaving doesn't mean no interaction can happen - I have one post left to do, and anything that can be wrapped up reasonably before that is totally acceptable if you are willing to write it. Thank.

As for Leila, maybe NPC her along with whatever group she goes with? Being left alone with other people at this point just...doesn't flow with what the rest of the people are doing, it seems.

Should discuss via skype or smth.

Tomorrow.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Ahahahaha

But yeah everyone's mentally not okay right now so that was kinda expected Though that probably wasn't even an attempt at interaction she just wants to know how he's magically still alive

(Though, it'll provide reasona for development IC and since I'm taking leave in about one more cycle, it would work OOC as well so yeah ALL THE DRAMA)

meanwhile, realized link to image was broken. Meh. Fix'd.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Post up.

Short posts. I'll probably be doing this more often in the interaction-heavy chapters.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

music.

Leila arrived at the Queen’s feast late, meaning…

...whatever it was supposed to mean in a place without a valid concept of time.

She glanced momentarily downwards on her chest and shoulders that she couldn’t see. The healing potions worked magic. Its results were particularly impressive considering that the liquid tasted like a solution of rust, charcoal, and animal gut; an alcoholic one that, too. Not like she actually tasted such a thing before, though.

Like technology, any kind of magic had its flaws and drawbacks - Leila figured. for the potions mended ruptured organs and broken bone, but it seemed like the bruises and rashes on the skin would have to take the time to heal on their own, and the pink trail on the back of her shoulder that was what remained of an open wound still ached faintly from time to time.

Leila didn’t mind it that much itself, but several of the outfitters for the party were visibly frustrated when they realized that the areas of skin allowed to be shown in their fashion choices had to be severely restricted.

Standing in the middle of the dining hall, Leila looked up idly at the fluorescent jellyfish that navigated the insides of the half with much the same halfheartedness, the slowly altering pastel hues reflecting onto her clothes and skin and off the shiny waxed floor.

She didn’t feel the urge to extend an arm and poke one in its umbrella.

Music was playing in the background - not Bach or Vivaldi or anything Leila recognized, except the occasional few loose notes from the first chair violinist that were characteristic to the hyperactive bunny that accompanied them through the first portion of their journey.

Leila tried to smile at those memories and succeeded, although she acknowledged the fact that that didn't really help her feel any better.

The background noise wasn't as much music as it was the combined content of the chats, exclamations, and otherwise small-talk of the residents of this incomprehensible realm. The same sort of indistinct hums that sent her scrambling looking for exits the first time - it felt like so long ago - she walked into this place.

She noticed that she wasn’t afraid of this anymore, and she wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing.

It felt like she hadn’t seen her fellow lost souls for a while as well - most of her time spent back here was resting, mostly alone. How were they doing? She couldn’t really recall what happened to who back in the forest, perhaps partly because she didn’t want to. She saw Harper with a couple of the guides at a distance, and decided to walk over to them.

She didn’t know exactly why, or what she should do afterwards, so she just stood there, not saying anything. Not far away, a lady with colourful hair rambled on in her thrilly voice, and the item hunter and scarved cat man replied.

Leila shook her glass of a bit, perhaps out of feeling obligated to at least do something except...except not doing anything. A few bubbles sparkled their way to the surface of the pink beverage.

She slowly raised the glass and took a sip - she noticed the bitterness, present in all carbonated drinks more or less - even Nowhere’s strawberry soda. She looked down into the sparkling liquid and remembered it to also be first item of food she had since she stepped off the train.

She still thought the sweetness could be tuned down a little.

Looking back up, Leila saw Cello grab a shrimp from Harper’s plate. The amount of food on the container had otherwise not decreased at all. She then looked at the fellow human, who was dressed now in a suit. He looked much less pleasant than Leila remembered him to - not even that much better than on their painstaking trip back from the woods. She glanced occasionally down at where a sword wound would have been, only to be repeatedly reminded that she couldn’t see it.

“...How ... have you been?”

She instantly regretted uttering those words because the answer wasn’t going to be one of those she was taught to expect, so long ago, back home, when that question was to be proposed.