Chapter Text
“Attention passengers, this is your conductor speaking.” Speakers hidden in the corners carry Dyle’s voice throughout the train cars.
There are an abundance of train cars and a total of four persons on board. No one knows about the fourth passenger.
Scraps, Brightney, and Rodger are the three known passengers. Scraps is returning from her hometown, having collected materials and textiles for her craft lesson.
Originally, this was meant to be a one-toon task. But Brightney was excited to go since it would be a great change of pace, and she could get new literature from a foreign place. She's reading a book about worms, and it's not the most fascinating thing. Rodger then showed interest. It was a fantastic chance for him to broaden his knowledge. Scraps did not want to contain his newfound curiosity. But three was enough. She got them on the train before the other toons found out.
“We will be arriving at Gardenview Station in less than 30 minutes. Please sit tight, and thank you for taking the Dyle Express.” The speakers click off.
The papercraft searches through one of the supply boxes. Her paw moves like a diver in a coral reef, skimming ribbons and gliding across construction paper. It culminates as the tip of her claw becomes engaged in the enticing touch of warm thread. Her paw wraps around the thing, plucking it out.
“How many yarns have you played with so far?” Brightney asks, reading specs and with a book at the ready.
“I can’t help it. These train rides are boring, and I need something to do.” She balances the ball of yarn on her claw.
The lamp shifts in a laid-back shrug, "Fair enough."
“Have you read any of the dozens of books you got from the library?” Scraps asks.
“I plan to, but I hate leaving things incomplete. I have to finish this one.” She opens the book while reclining in her chair. It’s the same worm book as before.
Glancing past Brightney, Scraps observes Rodger, who is on the opposite side of the cart, taking advantage of the available space. As soon as they boarded the train again, a ton of books were arranged and quickly read, identifying connections and stories from her and Goob's backgrounds. That one large eye has never ventured outside the boundaries of historical interpretation.
The mountains in the background pass. Beautiful greens and vivid yellows stretch as far as the eye can see. A little speck of detail hiding decades of history beneath a simple position in the present time. All of this is briefly stored on a little screen of a window panel. It has been a hot minute since she’s been back and then gone as quickly as she came. Even though the train has been traveling for too long for her to look back, Scraps finds herself attempting to do so.
The papercraft violently shakes her body like a cat drying itself. “Hey Brightney, I have to use the bathroom. I need your helpusingitdon'tthinkaboutittoomuchTHANKS!" She pulls Brightney off the chair and bolts.
The noise breaks Rodger's concentration. Rodger watches as the two dash to the back of the cart. The door swings open, and they vanish behind it. He just heard unpleasant, loud noises, not what anyone was saying. Rodger easily resumes his investigation and retrieves an ink-tipped quill. He forgot his lucky pen, so Scrap's hometown pawn shop provided a quill as a substitute.
Threads, bullet points, and sources clog a cheap bulletin board, and he's not sure where he left off. Extra pamphlets. An excessive number of sticky notes. Three books sit on the table, two of them open. The remainder are packed in bags. A notepad full of cramped handwriting. Rodger scratches his one eye. With a hesitant grunt, he pulls a book catalog and begins the tedious task of scanning every title he's collected—made harder by Brightney's additions. He sorts whose is whose, then cross-references his books with an ongoing timeline, physically marking off titles to identify which came first and where he stopped.
Brightney is standing in a corner of the bathroom, while Scraps is sitting on the lid of a toilet. Neither of them has spoken. One doesn’t know what to talk about, and the other can’t find a conversation to justify their being there. The tail is in her hands. There is a slant to one ear. It won't rise again.
“Are you done?” Brightney asks.
Scraps holds her tail closer. She keeps opening her mouth but constantly has nothing to say. She's sitting like a frightened fool. unable to come up with an explanation or anything.
“Can I turn around?”
Scraps might erupt with humiliation. This is the consequence of not thinking things through. It should be better than that. "Yeah, sure." She cannot bring herself to look up at her. Every passing instant represents another failed attempt to justify something. She quickly falls silent.
His research is a little more organized. Rodger leans and flips through another book.
“Where did I…” He mumbles and trails off repeatedly. The biggest sign of him falling into hyperfocus is sentence trailing. So when the door at the far back creaked, Rodger did not turn around.
Then, the door creaks a little more.
Fabric moves. Footsteps on a carpet, perhaps? The sound of something lightly scraping the wall comes after it.
Then—
creeeak.
From the wall this time.
Rodger stops.
He turns around slowly. The cart is empty.
The aisle reaches down between rows of vacant seats. The door now sits closed. The overhead lights are humming once more, but this time the clicks are stronger, incoming like a knife piercing the back of his neck.
"Right."
He turns back to the table.
creak.
Rodger whips around.
Same empty cart.
He squints at the door, waiting for it to move. It doesn’t.
Now, Brightney is the one sitting on the toilet lid. Brightney watches Scraps pacing about the room, mumbling random things. This is a new side that no one should see. not friends, nor family, and certainly not strangers who might need support. She is mentally yanked from topic to topic, leaving no room for Brightney to jump in.
The papercraft holds herself. The steps progressively get faster and shorter, as if trying to outrun the narrowing space around her. A blue-moon jolt from the train rattles the rhythm, but it’s swiftly corrected. Nothing along the cramped sides is brushed or disturbed: not a stray thread of dress, nor skin, nor a wandering paw. She’s as small as the space the bathroom allows. With every additional mumble, the hues of her skin fade, and when a flurry of unwanted thoughts assaults her brain, her voice becomes thinner.
“It’s just some town.” The first thing she utters aloud. Loud enough for Brightney to pick up on and latch onto.
“Is it? I mean, it’s perfectly okay to not like where you come from.”
“It’s not like that. It’s a fine place. Fine people and whatnot. There’s nothing wrong with it.”
Brightney stands on the toilet lid. Brightney moves to the side of the sink so as not to immediately encroach on her personal space. Brightney leaned forward to demonstrate her attention, her hands flat on the surface of the sink. Choosing to remain facing the other, Scraps retreats to a corner. She's looking down, yet her eyes choose to see how Brightney is talking to her, even though it's only slightly.
“Did something happen? Or like, something scaring you?”
Scraps holds back the urge to interrupt. “I don’t know. It’s fine. Being back is getting me in the feels, I guess. Nothing like a week or two I can’t get over.”
Scraps notices Brightney tapping her index finger against the sink’s surface, deep in thought. A faint "mmm" slips from the lips. Scraps swears she can see a lightbulb beginning to glow. Brightney adjusts to lean against a wall. It looks kind of dorky.
Brightney signals to speak by knocking on the sink. “Is that common?”
Scraps’s mouth thins into a tight line. Her claws drag absently over her arms, nails catching just enough to give her something to focus on, something to keep the rest of her still. Anxiety coils through her, with the tail matching it by winding and unwinding around her leg.
“Is that what you did? When you meet everyone. Did you do that?”
Now the tail clings to the leg, and the lips can’t form an answer. She shifts in place, thumbs rolling over each other. Scraps sidesteps and turns on the faucet. The steady stream consistently flows into the same basin and down a single drain. The sound of running water sends a satisfying thrill of calm down her spine. Before getting too immersed, she idly dips her hands into the water and shuts off the faucet. A loud, disgruntled sigh precedes the words. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”