choo choo

[antigravitysocks]

Train to the After Life
tickets please

maybe you know how, maybe you don't. perhaps the memory is fuzzy, or perhaps it's crystal clear down to the look in your comrades' eyes. maybe it was your time; you've done all you wanted to. or maybe you weren't at all ready to go, maybe you went out kicking and screaming -- but none of it matters. you know you're dead, and the train is taking you to an afterlife. perhaps an afterlife of your choice; you might've earned that heaven. or perhaps you've earned something else entirely. it'll be a bit of a journey, though, so you might as well take your time and talk to the other people in your coach. death knows no place: most of them are strangers, even from faraway worlds. but death knows no time either, so who knows, some of them may be people you know, even if last you knew, they were alive -- or long gone. oh look, here comes the snack cart.

» POST with your character
» said character is now DEAD for whatever reason -- canon, au, what have you. they are on a train with other dead people from many other times, places, and worlds.
» characters don't know for a fact where they're headed -- just a general awareness that they're going to some kind of AFTERLIFE. whatever they think it is is up to the player.
» have FUN & TAG AROUND

TRIGGER WARNING!!
this meme obviously deals with death and may deal with other unpleasant themes as a result. please be cautious.

Comments

do i apologize? no. am i crying? yes.

[bewithme]

[ It was a particularly harrowing season on a planet that offered nothing else.

Rey doesn't survive it.

A broken foot, the consequence of scaling too far up an Imperial shuttle, had kept her from being able to scavenge properly for usable parts for weeks. She'd done her best, dragging herself around, scraping by -- but Plutt wasn't forgiving and whatever portions she managed were barely enough.

And then the sandstorms came.

What she first becomes aware of once the blackness subsides is that her foot doesn’t hurt and her stomach isn’t pinched with all-consuming hunger. She's staring up at a craft she's only ever seen in holos that everyone around her is boarding. She follows suit, knowing she has no choice but to do so. Keeping her head down, she shuffles down the corridor while casting her eyes around her surroundings. Everyone seems to know where to go... except her. She stays out of the way, fingers curled defensively around her staff to ground herself. At least she got to keep that.

Rey doesn't know what possesses her to stop in front of the closed carriage door, why her instincts tell her to raise her hand to the handle. It's almost empty, with the exception of a single person.

The man inside looks... vaguely familiar. Like she should know him. Maybe she’s seen a face like it in the trading market. ]

Um. [ Her voice sounds quiet to her own ears, unsure. ] Can I sit with you?

[dyaddyissues]

[ Ben's death, had been quick but no less painful. The pain of betrayal was perhaps more agonizing than the lightsaber through the gut... he is not sure he will ever be able to unsee the look on his uncle's face as he realized what he had done. Attacking the young man as he slept; Ben had woken just as the man had done the act. Maybe at one time he had loved his nephew, but over the last few years things had been tense... h just didn't know they were that bad. That he believed him that far lost to the darkness.

Darkness he had been trying to fight.

If only Ben could see his mother and father one more time. The things he could say to them, he has much to be sorry for.

Most people, leave the carriage alone. Passing it by to their own destinations on the train. Ben doesn't look up as the door opens, staring at the boring scenery that passes them out the window until she speaks. He lifts his head slightly to look at her, nodding.

Have we met? he almost asks, but instead settles for a simple reply. ]

Sure.

[bewithme]

[ He meets her eyes and Rey squares her shoulders. When he concedes, she feels herself let go of a breath she didn’t know she was holding. That preparation for rejection deeply embedded in her following her even now. The hand still grasping the doorknob, ready to ease it back, slowly releases to hang at her side. ]

Thank you.

[ A soft mutter of a phrase she barely uttered back on the desert wasteland she called home. A place she’ll never see again, will she? The thought jolts her.

She avoids looking at him as she slides in and seats herself in a corner, conscious that it was his carriage first and he’s sharing it with her. Her staff rests against the wall before she brings her feet up, arms hooking around her legs.

Lapsing into silence, her eyes stray to the window he had been staring out of before she interrupted. In spite of herself, she finds herself sneaking glances, eye gravitating to him, her curiosity building, until — ]

Do you know where we’re headed?

[dyaddyissues]

[ He's trying not to stare at the new passenger in his car, but Ben's eyes are drawn towards her -- noting how she seemed to be expecting something other than letting her stay. But as she sits down opposite him, he lets his eyes trail back towards the rushing landscape that flies by as they travel towards an unknown destination. How did she get here, he wonders.

Ben shrugs. ]

Wherever we go... after we die, I guess.

[ A non answer that he is unsure of how to articulate. He says it so casually, though. As if it's a comment about the weather, instead of comment from someone who'd just been murdered.

It rattles him more than he's letting on. ]

I'm Ben.

[bewithme]

[ When she poses the question, she gives into the curiosity to look at him more squarely. As her eyes focus, she notes maybe he isn’t a man after all but a boy — around her age? A little older? Barely.

He doesn’t know any better than she does. Of course. It’s disappointing and disquieting to learn they’re in the same boat. Her eyes flicker away briefly. She doesn’t know why she thought he might know differently. But she had to ask, just in case.

Somehow, maybe it’s from the tiniest of clues in his body language or an intuition - she’s always been able to read people well - she can tell he’s rocked as deeply as she is. But she doesn’t let on that she notices. It’s not her place.

When he offers his name, the scavenger visibly hesitates and even looks a little surprised. People don’t regularly ask for hers, and she’s not sure whether she should disclose it in return. Except. He has been kind, so far. She’s not used to kindness; at best helping others out comes at your own detriment back where she comes from. Resources are slim and people are naturally reserved and usually unwilling to lend a hand.

It can’t be of any harm, right? She’s already dead. ]

Rey. My name is Rey.

[dyaddyissues]

Rey. [ She looks young, Ben realized. Not much older, maybe even younger than himself. He gave her the smallest quirk of his lips in something that might resemble a reassuring smile, but those muscles were far too unused to being worked. ]

I'd say it was good to meet you, but given our uh, circumstances...

[ (In another world, their first meeting is perhaps even worse)

Very few of the other students talk to him, he has only One Friend, and it has been a season or since his father last came to visit. His mother couldn't make it, being in the middle of a reelection season, and the knowledge that the last time she had, they'd argued and he'd stormed away without saying goodbye.

He sighs, running a hand through his hair and staring out the window again. ]

So where would you want to go, if you could decide?

[bewithme]

[ Her name on his tongue sends a jolt through her. She gives the barest of nods back.

Ben. She turns the name over in her head. It stirs something in her breast that she fails to understand. Whatever that hint of recognition was, it has to be wrong. It’s impossible she’s ever met him before. It’s painfully obvious he doesn’t belong somewhere like Jakku. The telltale signs are nowhere to be seen. Too pale, skin not freckled or scorched by the sun; hair kempt; clothes that don't bear the dust and sand that seem a permanent fixture on her, even here. On Jakku he would look foreign, wrong, so untouched by manual labor.

She realizes belatedly she's studying him too hard and quickly shifts her eyes away, back to the window. Outside, the world - whatever world, or a place beyond them all - blurs.

She pauses. That’s not a question she’s prepared to answer. It's not a question anyone would think to ask her, once. Where would she want to go? Does she have a choice? She's had so many daydreams of leaving Jakku, none of which anyone else has been privy to. She tugs her bottom lip into her mouth. ]

Somewhere with... trees. Water. An island of green.

[ With my family, she almost says, but the thought deflates her. Her voice sounds wistful. It's just a dream she will never live.

Her eyes cut to his. ] And you? Where would you go? [ It's only fair; she had answered him. ]

[dyaddyissues]

[ He is well aware of her studying him, but to be fair, Ben is doing his own staring. She's pretty, he would be blind not to notice. Tanned and freckled which spoke of a life under the sun, with chestnut brown hair up in a way that frames her face.

And he can't help but note... there is something familiar about her, or her presence at least. If she were one of... the students, he would've recognized her.

The question is meant as a distraction, but in reality he realizes a moment too late it's a reminder that they're not going to pick their destination. Ben doesn't have a lot of hope, not really. But he finds... he hopes Rey gets to go to her island. ]

I think I'd like to go somewhere remote. A farm, or somewhere where there's mountains. Maybe a heard of bantha or two. As long as it's peaceful, I could go anywhere.

[ After living in the city, after a jedi temple full of kids; and having a voice in his head all of his life Ben thinks he'd like that kind of tranquility. ]

[bewithme]

[ A lot of the initial tension she'd held is starting to dissipate the longer they sit there companionably. When he answers, the corner of her mouth hooks up into a soft smile. The scavenger rarely smiles, at least sincerely at other people, she can't even remember the last time she did, but the image he paints elicits one of her few. ]

That sounds nice. I've never seen a mountain before.

[ Rey realizes after she volunteers that fact about herself that it may be more than he cares to know about her. For whatever reason - that odd, inexplicable familiarity - the energy around them is tentative, but... easier than anything she's ever had with anyone that she can recall in memory.

Abandoning her pretense she cares as much about what's outside the window, that she's impassive about his presence, she turns her body more to him. ]

I'm from Jakku. There's only sand and wreckage there. Can I.. ask where you come from?

[dyaddyissues]

I've seen them, even climbed a couple. [ It's easy to talk to her, in a way it hadn't been easy to talk to anyone in a long time - other than Tai, that is. He'd been one of the only people to be able to see him, as an actual person. Rey, meanwhile, doesn't know who he is, so she doesn't see him as only a legacy, or a disappointment to the family name. ]

That sounds... awful, honestly. [ Ben answers bluntly. ] No offense.

[ He stares down at the floor; the first few years of his life were spent in the comfort of his mother's apartment ... but that wasn't it anymore, was it? His parents moved on. And the temple on Yavin had never been his home. ]

I was born on Chandrila. I haven't been back there in a long time, though.

[bewithme]

[ Jealousy twinges through her. Rey can only imagine what climbing a mountain would feel - it seems an impossible feat. Maybe, if the stars are kind, she might learn. They never have been before. ]

None taken. You’re not wrong.

[ She shrugs. Jakku was very deserving of that particular adjective, she won’t disagree with that. He doesn’t know the half of it. Nevertheless, as she thinks back on the dry planet, she realizes with an ache that there were parts of it she will miss - her AT-AT, sliding down the dunes on scraps... that moment when she just knows where a salvageable piece of machinery is in that way she always does, that way that has kept her alive. For all its cruelty, the galaxy had given her a small stroke of luck to get this far... only to die.

He takes a moment to answer and her eyes drop in the meantime to the contraption secured to his belt. It looks like a tool, but it’s unrecognizable to her. Something niggles at the back of her consciousness and she blinks back up at him, almost in a daze.

Fascination stretches across her face. ] Chandrila. That was the Republic’s capital once, wasn’t it? I’ve heard about it. [ She’d always enjoyed hearing about other people’s travels, when traders from far flung corners of the galaxy would visit Niima, usually on their way to better places. ] I always wanted to visit the Core. I thought my parents —

[ She stops abruptly, a little choked breath coming out of her as she realizes belatedly that she stumbled into dangerous territory. Her face falls and she swallows, shifts a little more into herself to try to save face. ]

I thought my parents would take me. [ Bitterly: ] I was wrong.