WEEK 2

[strangerpeople]

WEEK 2

[It is again early morning when the train docks next. This time, however, the dock is not as busy. There are few trains to be seen, and even fewer people. Only a man stands at the dock, teeth sharp in his smile, scelera a deep gold as he stares beneath his fedora.

"Unexpected," he said with a smile. A two-dimensional dog with the head of a scribbled black cloud hops by, ignoring him. "But not unwanted. Do make yourselves comfortable."

This new place is known as Victoria's Chasm, named after an Empress. No, not that one. Her Thrice-Renewed Majesty is quite comfortable on her Throne, and rulled for much longer than 99 days, thank you very much.

In the distance, black begins to erupt like tendrils. Lightning flashes through the clouds. This is the land of monsters; tread carefully. And do not despair, whatever you do.


There are fifteen strangers left in this place.]

Comments

[overworker]

Oh. I just remembered--

[Towa pauses the conversation to dig a photo out of her pocket.]

I had been meaning to ask, but is this photo yours?

[telecosmetic]

Oh, yeah! [Eliza lights up.] That's a photo of me and most of my siblings, yeah!

[overworker]

It's a lovely photo. Here.

[Towa gently passes it over.]

Do you mind if I ask you who the others are?

[You know. Besides the obvious one.]

[telecosmetic]

Of course! You've seen Zack already, right? [She points at the blond young man to the right of her.] That's Pokey-[The brown-haired girl]-Recette-[The winged boy]-and Luce. It's missing Asriel though-he wasn't around then.

[overworker]

Yes! So this is your family?

[It's really heartwarming. It makes her wish that she had a picture of her friends to share with the others.]

Hopefully when this is over, I'll be able to meet them when we get you safely back home.

[telecosmetic]

Yeah! They're nice people, I'm sure you'll like them. [Eliza is going to tuck the photo safely away in a pocket now.]

[overworker]

We'll have a lot of traveling to do before we can all go back home. Part of me is looking forward to it-- a time when we can travel together without worrying about where we'll be dragged next. Even if it is just to see everyone off.

[telecosmetic]

Oh, that'd be nice. A chance to actually control where we get to go. Maybe I could also check up on some other older friends of mine.

[overworker]

Right? I keep thinking that there are a lot of things about this that I wouldn't mind if I could have gone on the trip under different circumstances.

[telecosmetic]

I'd probably have been careful about accepting an offer for this...and I'd have liked to have more of my family and friends along. [She figures a lot of them would probably enjoy a space train trip to various worlds. And maybe worked together to figure out how to overthrow the Empress.]

[overworker]

Yes, there are a lot of people I would have liked to share this with if things were different too. I've met a lot of wonderful people here, but I still can't help but miss them.

[telecosmetic]

[Eliza nods a little.] I don't know how well some of my friends would get along with some of the people here...but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like them to meet each other. [Friends meeting friends! What could go wrong?]