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He has not been here long, but he already knows he will feel strangely about acclimating to such life.
The furniture is soft, warm with use, and the coffee table is never bare. The kitchen is always full of people, the hustle and bustle everpresent. If not from the inhabitants themselves, then from Shush who refuses to abide by his name. Silence is rare, and comfortable, while the chatter is vibrant and excitable. There are only six people here, seven including himself, but even with just two the warmth doesn’t change.
Here, mistakes are not equated to failure, they are expected. Perfection is a sought after thing only in words, already declared unreachable and unwanted. Perfection is only sought after in words, already declared unreachable and unwanted in action. The imperfections are what make this place warm, Himeko would say. And he would believe her.
He believes her, because her coffee is awful, and nobody enjoys drinking it, but she will only ever laugh lightheartedly about it. He believes her, because March insists on taking a photo of everything so she will remember, and they indulge her whims no matter how much they do not wish to be photographed. He believes her, because Caelus will rummage around yet another trashcan, and the others will only point him to the shower with a grimace. He believes her, because Dan Heng will flood the parlor car ten times a day, and Pom Pom will tell him on the eleventh that he’s getting a hang of things. He believes her, because Welt will spend hours gushing about animation and his love for mechatrons, and the rest of them will indulge him.
They indulge in every imperfection, because it is a trait. Not a flaw, not a problem to be fixed, but a facet of a person that is to be cherished along with everything else about them. They can slouch and mumble and yell and tap their foot on the floor incessantly and it will be part of them, not something that needs to be rectified.
Sunday is not wearing a tie now. His coat is buttoned haphazardly, and the layers are uneven. His trousers do not even crease– they bunch up at his knees, tucked in without fanfare. There are no dress shoes, only the practicality of sturdy boots to assist with long walks. There is no Order to his appearance, and yet all Pom Pom has to say about the disarray is that Sunday needs to sleep more.
Already he knows this will be the most adventurous thing he’s ever done. The environment is already seeping into his bones, like a new layer of cement to stabilise a crumbling foundation. Their adventures– for now– are brief stops to worlds they’ve already travelled previously, before setting off for their biggest stop yet. And Sunday will travel with them, watching the world of Amphoreus through the eyes of the Nameless.
It is as exciting as it is daunting. But for now, there is time, and he will use this time to understand the eyes of the Nameless. Every time March and Caelus drag him and Dan Heng along, he finds himself learning something new.
. . . Somewhere along the way, he has also become a secondary voice of reason, which he’s sure Himeko and Welt appreciate. Because, truly, sometimes Caelus’ knack for trashcan rummaging is not helpful at all.
Penacony may be the land closest to memoria, but the Xianzhou Luofu has the weight of a past. It becomes obvious with each building older than even Welt or Himeko, each citizen who speaks of stories centuries old, each craftsmanship piece he sees predating Penacony’s entire existence as the Planet of Festivities. Sunday feels humbled, barely a few steps since he’s entered this ancient land.
March blazes on, already singing tunes about good food, and Caelus is right behind her. The two of them take off in a flurry, racing down the streets, and Sunday hears more than sees them tangle up with a Cloud Knight or two along the way.
Dan Heng sighs, poignant and habituated. Sunday bites back a smile.
“You seem familiar with this place,” he starts carefully, and follows the line of Dan Heng’s gaze down to where March and Caelus are now apologising profusely. “Do you visit often?”
“Now, yes,” Dan Heng replies, and the two of them start their simpler walk down to meet their companions. Sunday knows the weight of the word Now like he knows himself.
Dan Heng is the quietest of them all. The few times he has something to say, his voice will be steady and measured. He would have everyone believe his mind is more of an encyclopedia than something to be conversed with, if Sunday had not seen how gladly he would open up when back in the Express. For Dan Heng may be the quietest, but his tenacity and steadfast will to protect his people will always shine brighter than his stoicity.
More recently, he has started talking to Sunday similarly. If Sunday had a word for the powerful rush of emotion he feels upon being confided in, he would use it.
Caelus offers a sheepish smile when he sees Sunday and Dan Heng approaching. “We fixed everything!”
“There would be less to fix, if you could watch where you run,” Dan Heng says, the chastising tone of his voice getting Caelus to bow his head down further. March giggles a nervous laugh, waving her hand.
“Come on, it’ll be fine! We know the General anyway, and I’m sure he’ll come to bat for us if we need it!”
Sunday blinks once, twice. “You want to ask the Arbiter General of the Luofu to save you from. . . patrolling Cloud Knights?”
“Why not!”
The conviction in March’s tone is astounding. Caelus straightens up then, that bright smile already back in place. He places his hands at his hips, nodding confidently. Dan Heng is pinching the bridge of his nose.
This is simply how it goes, Sunday learns, and this time he bites back less of his smile.
Now successfully chastised, March and Caelus resume their bright bumbling as they traverse the streets with a more controlled excitement. Pointing Sunday to every sight they’re familiar with, looking for Dan Heng with what they are not. The three of them have always moved like a comfortable unit, covering for each other’s mistakes and weaknesses, and now they’ve taken Sunday under their wing.
“And we will not,” Dan Heng adds, in between one of his longer explanations, “be bothering The General over something as trivial as a scuffle with Cloud Knights.”
Caelus gives him a puppy-like frown. March pats his shoulder comfortingly.
Later, when Caelus and March are busy learning how to spare with Yanqing, Dan Heng brings over a handful of BerryPheasant Skewers for the two of them. Sunday takes one gladly, and wonders if this is what it’s like to broaden one’s horizons.
March 7th cares about her camera more than anything else she owns. Always on her person, carefully held even with the clumsiest of hands. Her voice gets a touch softer talking about it, a notch more excited when she gets to use it. Sunday, now more than familiar with her and Caelus’ brand of amnesia, understands the will to remember with a violent nostalgic pang.
So when she thrusts it into Sunday’s hands one fine day, he can only blink at her in confusion.
“What. . ?”
She giggles quietly, gesturing to the Party Car. Sunday follows, mimicking the quietness of her footsteps. The two of them tiptoe their way to the Party Car, and Sunday gives Mr Yang a sheepish smile when he sees them on their way there.
Of course, as soon as they get there, Sunday understands the purpose of their low volume fairly quickly.
Dan Heng and Caelus are cooking.
Well, more specifically, Caelus is making mistakes, and Dan Heng is correcting them.
“If we’re too loud, Dan Heng will get embarrassed and stop,” she explains with a wide smile. “And we’re joining them after we take some pictures, okay?”
Sunday looks at her, and for a moment her hair seems longer, and there are wings under her ears. Shorter and softer, with pudding in her hands, offered up after a long day. Robin never left his thoughts, but sometimes the guilt hits a little harder than other days.
He sighs, the same sigh he has sighed every time March drags him into one of her antics, and takes the photo with less whining that she may have expected. Caelus is now fiddling with a packet of flour, Dan Heng holding the bowl steady under Caelus’s wavering hold so the flour doesn’t fly everywhere.
Once the photo is taken, March takes the camera off of his hands, and then loops her arm through his, dragging him into the kitchen alongside her. It’s all he can do to make a small noise of protest– not that she will listen.
“Cake!” March announces her entrance eloquently, startling Caelus badly enough that the flour flies into his face. Which March then laughs at, proceeding to take another photograph.
Dan Heng lets out a slow exhale. Sunday mirrors him.
“Your terrible kitchen skills are not welcome,” Caelus says, already dragging his very dark jacket sleeve across the very white flour. Sunday winces internally. “Do not sabotage my cake!”
March gasps. “It’s not even your cake, Dan Heng is doing all the work!”
“I’m pouring the flour!”
“You just got it all over your face– now your jacket!”
And so it goes.
It’s a familiar squabble between them. The first time he heard it, Sunday had been concerned enough to attempt to step in. By the twentieth time he’d learned this is just how the two of them bond.
Sunday sidesteps the two of them to find the vanilla essence Dan Heng is pointing at.
Later, when March writes out on the cake, Welcome, in terribly imperfect handwriting, Sunday’s heart wavers a little bit. Caelus pushes a small candle onto the cake, even though it’s not his birthday, and then the three of them insist he takes the first slice.
It’s a little dense, and too sweet. Probably from when Caelus and March fought over the sugar packet over the mixing bowl.
It’s the loveliest cake Sunday has had in a while.
The three of them had been to Penacony, and Sunday had taken the day to catch up on some reading still within the Express. After all, he’s said his goodbyes, and Penacony is a land that will not welcome him . . . . for perhaps the foreseeable future.
He wonders whether Robin is well.
“Sunday,” Caelus starts, once he returns, more serious than the Halovian has ever heard him. He’s already more alert, turning to face Caelus with his full attention. “Why did you never tell me you have golden Trash Cans on Penacony.”
Ah.
Sunday is already smiling. “I hardly see them myself. A few of them exist on the Dreamscape, and as far as I am aware, some of them are sentient, yes?”
Caelus nods solemnly. “They were so worth it.”
Dan Heng is already raising his voice as he boards the Express. “Caelus, please stop doing that–”
The Trailblazer ignores him entirely. “When you come back with us to Penacony,” he says, still sincere, “I will show you the Lordly Trashcans.”
Sunday’s smile dims slightly. “I’m not sure if–”
“One day,” Caelus insists, already leaning closer. “We saw Robin today too, you know? She’s doing great. She didn’t ask about you, but we said everyone aboard the Express is doing well. You should write to her.”
Every now and then, Caelus has these moments. Where all of his typical humour, carelessness, clumsiness evaporates in favour of wisdom. Like the shadow of the man he does not remember ever being, memories lurking behind the wall he finds himself in front of. They don’t last long, and he will start making his way to Herta Space Station for Cat Cakes eventually. But while they are here, Sunday understands how this is the man that was able to answer his question.
Why does life slumber?
“I will write to her,” he promises, and finds that he means it.
Indeed, why does life slumber?
It is a question he already had an answer for, when he turned to Bronze Melodia. When the Express Crew, along with Robin, had seen fit to bring him down from his rise to Aeonhood. When Mr Yang told him that his Trailblaze is about the companions he does know more than the adventures to worlds he does not know. When Himeko had told him the story of how she had fixed up the Astral Express and set sail amongst the stars.
But Sunday relearns his lessons, experiences a new life all the same.
Amphoreus is dangerous, treacherous, and more all-consuming than any of them could have possibly suspected. For a long time, it’s all Sunday can do, to wait. Sitting by Madam Herta’s side, Mr Yang right alongside him. Dan Heng and Caelus cut off, March wrapped in ice that refuses to give her back. The world becomes increasingly more concerning, and the puzzle pieces that fit together paint a picture is nothing to scoff at.
It has not been long. He has not been here long at all, and yet he’s already acclimated to this life. But it doesn’t feel quite right without the three of them here.
When the chance to contribute comes, he seizes it like lungs screaming for air. Tuning, everpresent at his fingertips, comes up once more to bring March back, reaching out to her through the crawl of Amphoreus’s code. But it slips away just as easily, and Sunday is left grasping at nothing at all. Mr Yang and Miss Himeko worry, whilst Madam Herta simply turns to the next possible solution.
Sunday stares down at his hands, snapped golden thread still visible in his mind’s eye. He had known, of course, that all of them had difficult pasts, but to be confronted with it like this brings a pain he hadn’t known was possible to feel.
It stings.
But even through his pain, Sunday looks upon the world as March, Dan Heng, and Caelus find each other once more. Through thick and thin, reuniting, and reaching back out towards them to connect the final dots. The picture isn’t pretty, but it is whole, and so are they. The weight of Sunday’s heart lightens, and his resolve strengthens. Despite everything the Universe seems to throw at them, they find each other, time and time again. Sunday takes solace in the fact that the Astral Express’s chaos has never stopped them from their steadfast, staunch advocacy for each other.
Irontomb is fearsome. But Sunday feels, and his emotions threaten to overwhelm, so the fear takes a backseat. Humanity simply isn’t made to be constrained in that way, and the thought hits him like a bullet to the chest.
Caelus perseveres, like he always does. Sunday welcomes the three of them home with open arms, and accepts them just as they accepted him. Mr Yang and Miss Himeko breathe a sigh of relief right alongside him, and the atmosphere of the Astral Express settles for the first time in weeks.
A whole world contained in the pages of a book. A book that Caelus refuses to let go of, for the first few days of his return. Sunday could never pretend to understand the ordeal the three of them went through. Thousands of years, compounded with grief for something that never existed until this very moment. A loss that cannot be explained to people who never experienced it.
But Sunday knows what it feels like to hold a complicated knot of emotions in one’s chest with no way to explain the thrashing frustration of reality clashing with hopeful ideals. It is, perhaps for the first time, he relates on a personal level, rather than a saintly one.
They had gone far, the world kept safe another day thanks to their efforts. They had also spoken next to nothing about it, their feelings wrapped up deep in their chests.
Sunday understands.
Compromise is no big deal, for a group like this.
Himeko asks him to take on some of March’s chores for the upcoming weeks. Sunday knows how March has been reluctant to sleep these days, and he doesn’t bat an eye when she sleeps through her exhaustion to take over for her on errands. When she apologises for it, Sunday simply smiles, and asks if she wants a serving of pudding Mr Yang had ordered for them. She wraps him up in a big hug, and Sunday stiffens only for a moment before he accepts it. Holding her close, patting her back lightly, he wonders if Robin would think he’s grown into someone new.
The data bank needs updating, and Dan Heng will not put down the work no matter how often the others insist he does. Sunday slides into the archive, settling into Dan Heng’s side as he takes over. The man only gives him a weary stare, a weak protest, everything Sunday can sidestep with eloquent ease. It is testament to Dan Heng’s exhaustion how little he argues. Slowly, the words and the details flow out of him in waves, stuttering sentences. Sunday logs it all the same, turning personal account into something more factual, and doesn’t comment when Dan Heng goes silent for long periods of time. He simply waits for Dan Heng to open up once more.
There is no end to the demands for a Trailblazer. Requests come in hoards, and ordinarily, Caelus would be amidst all of them, flitting from one to another without any pause. But Sunday knows all too well the dangers of running one’s self ragged. When Caelus makes to get up a little too quickly, receiving guests who he doesn’t quite have the energy for, Sunday steps in and shelves requests for another day. The urgent ones are handled by himself, Mr Yang, and Himeko, so Caelus can rest easy.
Time passes slowly. The clock ticks on, system hours compounding slowly as they leave Amphoreus behind and venture onward. Sunday spends his days on the Express much the same, as the three of them slowly regain their vibrance.
Life goes on.
It went on for him, didn’t it? Of course it would go on for everyone else, too.
The most surprising thing, perhaps, is when they start seeking him out instead. He is ill prepared for a night when March burrows into his side, his book abandoned rather quickly to wrap a hand around her shoulders. The few times Dan Heng seeks him out in the middle of the night for a cup of tea, Sunday is determined to make the best tea he’s ever steeped in his life. They drink it in silence, and Sunday has no qualms at all, if only to make sure that the warmth sinks into Dan Heng’s bones again.
Perhaps he is most familiar with Caelus’s brand of struggling, where the clawing throes of loneliness threaten to drag him under. But Sunday never judges- he understands all too well. Instead, he settles himself into the newly painted walls of Caelus’s room, and indulges him in idle chatter.
But he gladly accepts these aspects of them, too. The aspects of them that do not yet know how to open up about a thousand year long experience. That swallow down every word of grief of making companions and losing them.
If the Astral Express has taught him anything, after all, it is that imperfections are just as valuable as any strength. That March and Caelus will always run around in their chaos, but return to the safety of the Express at the end of the day. That Dan Heng will sigh an exasperated sound, but be the first to lift his spear in everyone’s defense.
The night after they decide to venture to Planarcadia, Caelus drags the three of them bodily into the parlour car, bringing along some truly ridiculous music to play on the phonograph. March and Caelus squabble over the song choices, and Dan Heng curls into a corner of the sofa, next to Sunday. Eventually, March settles down on his other side, sifting through the images in her camera as she talks about the tourism in Planarcadia. Caelus turns the music off and joins them eventually, talking late into the night.
Slowly, chatter patters out into silence, and the world is still.
Himeko lets out a silent giggle when she comes in a while later. Sliding the camera out of March’s slack grip, she takes a photo, smiling all the while. Welt joins her a moment later, bringing the four of them a blanket, tucking in the sides. Pom Pom decides today is not the day to point out how terrible this is for their backs.
Planarcadia will wait another day.