Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chugginton is a town that is defined by its trainfolk, and prides itself on how well they are treated compared to their neighbors. They are small, and are often quiet compared to the larger countries that surround them, but they are lucky to hold key natural resources and a thriving economy. They have, more than any other country, tied the lives of both their human and vehicular residents together, uniting them in a way that no other place can match. The capital city, which shares a name with the country itself, is something they take great pride in.

It is looking out over all of the success the small country has achieved, that makes Mayor Antisha Pullman's heart heavy. While no one will admit it, Chuggington is in a twilight era, inching ever closer to the final night.

The existing population of trainfolk thrives, but they are not getting any younger. Even the youngest are well over three to four decades, with some of the oldest well into their second centuries. However, they will not last forever. And with the extinguishing of Big Al ten years before, Chuggington had lost the last of its most precious of trainfolk, its last Progenitor.

Progenitors, with their special sparks, naturally split off and nurtured small slivers from their own sparks that would eventually become new younglings. Losing the last of them a decade before had put them in a terrible position. Al, the last, had never been particularly a strong spark, and he rarely split. His last split had been a sickly, weak spark, and they were incredibly lucky they had a locomotive frame similar enough to Al that they could place the split in it, since it was so unexpected. Even so, the sparklet had barely survived long enough to become enframed, and it had been touch and go for weeks afterward, with Morgan working day and night to nurse the new youngling. Luckily, they had survived, maturing into the healthy crane locomotive Skylar. A year after Skylar was enframed, Al's spark gave out and he slipped away one night in his sleep, with them finding his grayed frame in the morning when he didn't show at Working Wheels.

They no longer have any Progenitors left, and with that, they no longer will have youngsters to become future trainees. The trainfolk they have are the last ones, save for others who come in from outside. And while the outsiders are always welcome, their supply too has trickled off and dried up in recent years, as it is hard to get to Chuggington since they are so far out of the way, and other places such as Tootington and Buffertonia have actively worked to ensure that their trainfolk citizens either cannot or will not want to leave. The only transplant in recent years is a small, strange engine who had come out of the mountains-a quiet and soft spoken engine who rarely spoke unless spoken to, rarely interacted with anyone unless forced, and so completely and easily faded into the background you would barely even know he existed. The only name he had given was a mumbled "Hodge." This engine is the only one who has arrived in the last two years and chosen to stay.

Mayor Pullman knows, just like everyone else, that their trainfolk, and therefore their city, are in their twilight. Without a miracle, dusk and eventually night, are quickly approaching.

Chapter Text

They say trainfolk can’t breathe.

This isn’t quite true, at least for anything that runs on steam or internal combustion. A diesel-electrics own engines, while they produce electricity to drive his wheels, run on diesel fuel, and even the stupidest of trainfolk with internal combustion engines know the three ingredients for their engines to run: fuel, spark, and air. Without air, they can’t run.

Right now, Chatsworth can’t breathe.

A Tootington native, he often feels run off his wheels, under the constant stress the huge manufacturing town throws upon the trainfolk that work there. A late delivery is bad, but a missed delivery could cost you your job, and worse yet, you and your sparkline’s reputation. And right now, his first delivery out of the city to the nearby dump of Chuggington over the border, he’s come off the rails. Were he a human, he might have known what was running through his mind at that moment would be called a panic attack.

Baldwin is one of the most well-known ur-sparklines in Tootington. It’s got three trunks winding off the main root, the largest and oldest of course being the steam locomotives, the rather small branch of electric boxcabs and the prestigious GG1s, and the other large branch, the diesel-electrics, of which his own sparkline, the RF-16s are a small offshoot. More commonly known as the “Sharknoses,” they are the face of their entire branch, as they are one of the most graceful, powerful, and sadly, reliable, of their brethren. While the steam engine branch, and even the electrics with their celebrated GG1s, enjoyed great success, the diesels had lagged behind, with a terrible reputation for reliability and inability to perform work.

The Sharknoses are suffering. Their sparkline, in fact their entire branch is already in trouble. Tootington does not bother to continue to waste resources enframing sparks that are from poorly functioning sparklines. The Baldwin diesel branch is in trouble. Elders noticed that their Progenitors, when they do bud and start to split and call for humans to catch the sparklet, the humans rarely bother to even show up, letting the splits gutter out. The unspoken meaning is clear-the Tootington leaders are beginning to consider their sparkline not worth continuing. And with every breakdown or accident, every failure, their reputation sinks even lower, endangering their future further.

Chatsworth is young. He’s only been enframed a few years now and he’s only just now started working, and he was the only Sharknose who has been enframed in the last five years. The Elders had made it very clear to him how much the fate of their entire sub-line, as well as the branch of the family sparkline depended on his success. And he was now sitting on the side of the rails, in a foreign land, broken, by himself in the dark.

He failed himself, and through that, everyone else.

They say that trainfolk can’t breathe.

Chatsworth knows that’s a lie.