video/action

[sos_pilot]

[Video]

[ Della's face pops up looking... well, like everyone else - exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally. She smacks her beak a bit, before speaking. ]

... So. That sucked.

[ Fully aware that's the understatement of the century, Della draws a breath, and tries again. ]

I think we could all use a nice, long breather after everything... and, gosh darn it, as Train Mom, that is my sacred duty. Hugs? Head on the lap? Head-pats telling you that you did a good job? A shoulder to cry on? Venting out all your feelings without judgement? I'm right here.

[ She slaps her chest, then slaps a small sign on on the sports/gym car. It reads

EXHAUST PILE WITHIN

But as she does this, Tidus enters the scene - Della jumps, surprised, almost forgetting his presence.

He just smiles, holding up two cups with steam coming off them, then addresses the video feed as well. ]

We're also making big batches of cocoa too. Any of you that're gonna stress bake? There's room for that room - s'long as you don't need a nap first.

[ It's a small chide though, his smile small but sympathetic. ]

I've gotten out some incense pots from the supplies - you guys who got your head thrown into a blender by that aash-- uh, that jerk, [ he takes a swift glance at Della, then back ] --it'll help you relax. Just some, but better than nothin'. I'll set some off in Momma Duck's air nest, but if you're not doing great and you think you need a pot? Tell me. Raven made a lot of good stuff for good nights sleep if you need any in the medcar, too.

... So, yes. Cocoa. Incense. Hugging. And if you want to sleep with friends for a couple nights, we got air beds and extra pillows in here. Nobody has to get up and go until they feel ready.

And if that's not enough, that's fine too. Maybe next month we do something a little more organized, if you have any suggestions - movie night, sleepover night, big eat night, whatever, I'm listening. And I'm here for you.

[ Action ]

And inside the sports gym, the pair can be found. They have a few airbeds blown up, but there's more that still need airing up if you pop in straight after their message. There's also a tremendous amount of pillows. If you want to help, get blowing, and make these airbeds look nice and comfy!

The transgate from the standard coach has mysteriously been moved to the sports gym's outer hallway. Who did that? But it makes it easier to bring in the cups of hot chocolate from the kitchens, and for anyone who wants to bring snacks to do so. Take a seat, remember to bring your sleeping bag and whatever else you want. Plushes, your own musical instrument to offer some de-stress medication of your own with a melody.

And there's an area where small incense pots burn away, a gentle mist rising up. It won't heal the mind completely, but it will offer it some peace. And if you're worried about nightmares, a few of Raven's sachets and teas are available.

So come get a mom hug. Come and offer hugs. Just come and get something out of the company, whatever it is. Tidus and Della - and others - will be here to give a hand.

The life you had might've been fake, but the people around you aren't.

((OOC: consider this a mingling post, where everyone is free to tag everyone else! be the comforter, the one offering comfort, both, whatever!))

Comments

[mustknow]

"That's fine. But that's also a different thing than routine care." Especially when it comes time for potty breaks, nobody's gonna be jumping line to take care of that!

DID he just want a pet? He could probably get one if he really wanted to, and though Tidus may be joking, Xehanort takes a moment to actually, seriously consider it. His original desire for a dog had been to put their exceptional noses to work, but it seemed their rainbow foe might not be as much of a future threat as people feared. Did he want one just as a pet? "I like cats just as much," he says eventually, slowly, "When it's my cat."

Someone else's cat is just an obnoxious fuzzball getting hair on his stuff. HIS cat would obviously, be a superior kitty.

[blitzcheer]

Guilty as charged. Tidus isn't going to clear up after a dog that isn't his!

"And why should that guy get to have a cat, and you not a really fluffy dog?" Was the dog mentioned to be fluffy, or just big? The fluffy part is now the important dog factor here. "Makes total sense!"

That Xehanort really wants his own pet.

"But-" but! "--what're you gonna name them? Your dog for everyone."

But especially for Xehanort.

[mustknow]

"A desire to actually get sleep instead of animals disagreeing and then having to listen to the complaints of the owner is a good reason." The downside of shared space. It wasn't really viable to add another animal to an already crowded room that's overflowing with other people's belongings.

Personal space happens in OTHER places. Not on the train.

The idea of names draws a shrug. "I haven't thought that far ahead." Names were pretty individual things! "It would be hard to pick out a name without knowing anything about a creature besides its species."

[blitzcheer]

Pahhh, no one likes good reasons, but Tidus won't make a dumb argument about how it does matter, and ask instead: "Do animals even get sent to the same cabin as the owners? What if the dog slept somewhere else?"

Tidus can at least say something about that, than how naming works. He never even owned a goldfish, let alone a bigger pet.

[mustknow]

"Is that what that kennel carriage was supposed to be that the train offered?" He did not vote for that one, but he remembered it. "Some effort on its part to try to contain the menagerie?"

Would it even work? How many people would be willing to make their pets sleep somewhere far away from themselves? "All I'm certain of is one of my ... roommates keeps a cat in our quarters, I don't know if everyone does it."

[blitzcheer]

"I mean... I dunno. I guess in their cabins?" Shrug here! "But- you know how we get sent to our cabins at nights, right? Even if we don't want to- I don't know if it's the same for pets."

And not only that... "You don't want pets getting locked in the cabins either, when we go off the train. So... they can't be locked to rooms, right? But then you've got animals wandering around everywhere, and-"

...Wow, Tidus is suddenly really glad he doesn't stay on the train when it's mission time. How does it work for the pets??

[mustknow]

This is suddenly an alarming chain of thought. What DID happen to pets when they were gone? Who took care of their feeding and watering? Was it just dumped on anyone who stayed behind, whether or not they agreed? Were there hungry pets waiting in cabins, a week or more alone?

Xehanort's silence stretches on, while he considers this fairly disturbing idea. Did anyone know? He didn't return to his own cabin with cat business everywhere, so..

"I would assume a pet would need the same downtime to adapt to the void too," he begins cautiously, working through an idea bit by bit. "And we've never returned from a mission with starving pets and mess everywhere.."

[blitzcheer]

They're both joined in this very uncomfortable thought, one where Tidus can't immediately attempt to fill in the silence. It's a thought that's going to come back and haunt him, even if for the meantime...

"Er... I'm sure the people with pets know what they do. They've talked about it with other people!" Surely. Right? Right? "I just don't know 'cause I don't have any!"

He waves a hand.

"I'm sure it's fine."

Said in that very 'It's fiiiine, nothing to worry abouuttt' manner. There's got to be a system around!

[mustknow]

"I'm going to be thinking about this a lot now." So will Tidus. It's going to be relentless in its hauntings. What DOES happen to pets when they leave? Do they get forced into sleep? DOES ANYONE KNOW?

He's not even sure who he'd ask, he didn't exactly have the most social and engaging relationship wth .. anyone with a pet. "I'm sure it's fine," he echoes, tone totally and utterly unconvinced, but he seems willing to try to pretend. "After all if it was terrible, we'd know, right?"

[blitzcheer]

"Exactly! There'd be poop everywhere!" Hands coming out, gesturing to the gym. Poop everywhere! "And you know, I think most of the animals around here are those pokeymonsters a bunch of people have. They stick them in balls? You know the ones I mean?"

Is sticking animals in balls a new or known piece of information for you, Teddy?

[mustknow]

"It would be very disgusting. Nothing's that gross, therefore.." It's a sound theory!

He has never heard of such an improbably nonsense filled idea in his life as putting animals in balls, unless it's hamsters.

"They do what?"

Pokeymonsters. In balls. "Are those ... hamsters of some kind? Small rodents?" What else would be put in a ball and left to do their own thing? The possibility that most pets on the train are small self contained little cages of mice was almost but not quite reassuring.

[blitzcheer]

"Uhhh. Have you seen the thing that looks like a...horse?" Horse! Right! Tidus looks puzzled, squinting to find the word, then proud. "There's one of those, and then there's all the ones Eva has. Your team lead? They're all shapes and sizes, but they can fit them in balls about this big."

Cue him making a fist. That big!

"It's gotta be the same ideas as what I use to put things in and take them out." He raises the wrist with the arms band on it, but just in meaning than to show.

[mustknow]

Clearly Xehanort needed to start paying attention to what ELSE is on the train besides people. "... Can't say I've noticed, but I also didn't go looking."

He was going to have to now, someone's managing to fit a horse into a ball.

Magic is very obviously involved, but that wasn't enough detail for him! "Keeping pets in a pocket dimension seems kind of..." Mean. "...Unpleasant, but..." Well hey if it worked! And it wasn't killing anything? "When I can move without falling over, I'm going to find one of these people with large pets in tiny balls and ask to see it. It sounds ... really strange."

But it would also explain why there isn't poop everywhere. Poop stays in the pocket dimension!

[blitzcheer]

Can they poop in the pocket dimension? What happens in the pocket dimension.

But Tidus hums, noncomittal to what's mean or not. He doesn't know pokémon enough to have feelings one way or another, but the creatures never seemed to be having a bad time when he did see them around.

"Pretty useful getting around. As long as it doesn't hurt them? ...I could think of a group of knights who'd have an easier time getting their chocobos around if they had them."

At least, in some situations...

[mustknow]

"Chocobos are the ... very large birds used as mounts, right?" He's never seen one by his tone, but he's heard about them!

That would certainly make a cavalry a lot more sneaky. And portable. "..Actually if you think about it, being able to put animals in a ball.. could have a lot of really useful applications. Like sneaking through restricted areas with them." No pets allowed? No problem! It's just a ball, officer!

But if animals could be kept in them.. could people? "I wonder if you could sneak people around the same way."

[blitzcheer]

Oh, a guy who recognises them, even in passing? That gets an obvious look of surprise from Tidus, along with a "Yeah!"

But there's no room to ask about them, and honestly, where Teddy's mind goes with the idea of pet-holding balls does make him squint, unsure. Even if...

"I guess... or something that's less a ball and has a room inside it?"

Can we at least be stuck in a room, please. That'd be nice.

[mustknow]

Chocobos clearly took the place of horses and cattle in some worlds, he has theories about all of that, theories that Tidus is blessedly spared because Xehanort can and would go on and on about things nobody else cares about.

"I think, if you had the tech, it could LOOK like a ball on the outside, but the inside would be very different." It's enough to motivate him to pick up his pencil and notepad again, starting in on an absent doodle. "At first it might not be, you'd have to bring room things in there first like chairs or a bed or whatever, but I don't see why the interior shape should be dictated by the outside shape if it's a dimensional pocket. Right?"

[blitzcheer]

"...Sure!" It takes him a moment to agree, just because, wow, conversations he didn't think he'd get involved in: This one. But even in saying that, he does remember and share-

"Trunks, he's one of the guys on Purple, got purple hair? His mom - she's on the train too, Bulma - made these capsules that you can stick houses inside, he said. They're about this big."

Behold, the size he's making with his thumb and fingers. That big!

"They can't get anything that big through the shop, but that's the same idea, right? Uh, maybe you should ask her."

How to stick some table and chairs inside a space and to make it all incredibly small.

[mustknow]

It makes sense to Xehanort!

What makes less sense to Xehanort, an entire house in a capsule the size of a big thumb. But if they could keep horses in a ball, why not a house in something that small? But for a moment he looks rather nonplussed.

"I'm suddenly getting the sense that Radiant Garden is far less advanced than we THOUGHT it was," he says, bemused. "This is really humbling. I better get to work on my own stuff before I'm completely left behind by the multiverse. I can barely get toast to teleport accurately, I'm going to have to up my game." ENTIRE HOUSES.