I'M CAPTAIN KIRK

this is not a lie, he is a normal man who does, in fact, have parents.

 

He did not name himself that because he thought it was funny and had the impression that everyone else would be too dumb to get it, only to regret his decision every day since then, that is not at all what happened

 

The locomotive was a hulking dark shadow in the gloom of the shed, looming over haphazardly stacked crates and disused parts like a particularly indiscriminate dragon.
It had been, as far as I remembered, near five years since anyone had touched the thing. An ignominous end and an equally ignominous retirement, hidden away where everyone would, with luck, forget all about it. No maintenance, no 'well maybe we'll pull it out and fix it up if demand keeps on rising', no hope of reprieve. The only reason it hadn't already been decommissioned and dismantled entirely was, to be frank, superstition, and the fact that we didn't really need this shed for anything.
Which made it even stranger, really, that the Controller had caught me at the end of the day and hissed in my ear that she needed me to go get it back in working order, and I was to forget about any other projects I had on hand until it was done. I'd asked if I was going to get any help with this, and been told that not only was I going to do it alone, if I dared breathe a word to anyone else about it I'd be put out on my arse posthaste. As for how I was supposed to dump all my usual duties and not arouse suspicion in my colleagues, well, that was left up to me entirely, of course.
Hence the fact I was here after hours, while the twilight was gathering in the corners like a fog.
It wasn't strange that the Controller had picked me. At the risk of sounding conceited, which I frankly am, I'm the best mechanic at the depot. Not to mention the one with the reputation of handling even the most difficult engines and getting them running again no matter what tantrum they were throwing this time. And everyone thinks I'm weird, so I don't tend to get involved in gossip much; most of it's about me. But that there'd be a time when anyone would want this particular loco back on the tracks- well. Never thought that'd happen, if I'm being honest.
Someone more suspicious than little old me might think all this urgency and secrecy was a little dodgy. Someone more suspicious than me might be awful curious about what exactly was going on. But me? I'm a loyal employee, have been for years, and I really, really don't want to lose this job.
So all the suspicion and curiosity was going to happen where none of my bosses could see me, obviously.
I picked my way through the surrounding junk with fastidious care, unwilling to risk a gash from the copious amounts of rusted metal and splintered wood; this had been a general dumping ground for things that 'might be useful later', before it had become a grave and people had stopped setting foot in it. Unsurprisingly, none of the things currently mouldering around me had been required for anything in the past five years.
The metal of the footplate by the cab sent freezing chills right through my boot as I stepped up, and the atmosphere inside was far colder than it ought to be on a mild early summer evening. It smelled of rust and neglect, and I wrinkled my nose and clicked my tongue. This was going to keep me occupied for a while.
I did the poor old thing the courtesy of stubbing my cigarette out in the ashtray still sitting by the control levers instead of on any of the framework proper, and slowly crouched down to open the firebox.
Nobody had cleaned it out, of course. I had expected that; I remembered the hurry in which the sealing-away took place. But what made me puff a surprised smoke ring was that, among the ashes, there were still a few scattered sparks.

 

I really love the voice you've got here, it's super vivid

 

aaahhh!!!! thank you!!! it's been a long time since i've written anything in first person but i always enjoyed doing so. so many people hate it but

 

Well, that wasn't supposed to happen.
It had been five years, and given the way things had ended, there shouldn't have been anything left alive in there even if it had been the very next day. Pursing my lips, I fished out another cigarette, fumbled out a match to light it, sucked on it until the tip glowed, then stuck my head through the hatch.
The cigarette didn't illuminate much. That wasn't really what it was there for.
"Hello?" I called, trying to keep my voice light. "Anyone awake?"
Silence. But the pinpricks of light didn't go out. The nearest one even glimmered a little brighter as the cigarette smoke drifted towards it.
Oh boy.
The firebox hatch was, for obvious reasons, not built to let adult human men crawl directly into it. It let you keep the fuel coming and sweep out some of the waste, but it wasn't about to admit a full pair of shoulders. But if I tried to fish those tiny sparkles out with a shovel, I risked putting them out entirely. With a mumbled curse and a few annoyed grunts, I managed to take advantage of the fact that my body was considerably smaller than most of my co-workers' and twist myself into a position where I could stretch out an arm as far as it could go and gently, ever-so-gently, scrape the nearest one back towards me.
It seemed even tinier and more pathetic once out in the open, sitting in the palm of my glove in a little pile of ash and clinker, barely visible. But it was, undoubtedly, what I'd thought it was.
"Ah, fuck," I said, and meant it from my whole damn heart.
Well, it wouldn't survive trying to take it out of the cab. It probably wouldn't survive a sneeze. I deposited it back in the firebox, constructing it a safety ring out of the ashes, and left the cigarette next to it while I hopped down to the ground again. There had to be something useful in these piles of garbage, surely.
There was, as it turned out, but it took me a depressingly long time to find it. An old oil lamp, brass base smashed beyond repair but glass miraculously still mostly intact. I fished it out from under the tattered remains of a velvet seat, and trotted back towards the bulk of the locomotive. I wasn't praying that the spark would still be lit- there aren't any gods around worth my time- but I sure was stepping a bit faster than was truly wise back through the mess.
By the time I regained the cab, there were a couple of unsightly tears in various places across my overalls, but the skin beneath was thankfully unharmed. I opened the firebox hatch again with the care of one trying not to disturb a sleeping infant, and peeped inside.

 

ftr no i doubt i'll try and turn this into anything especially long or developed, because it would require me writing about three things i know fuckall about:
-trains
-railway worker culture
-cigarettes

 

I want to know what the baby sparks are....

Also apropos of absolutely nothing I would like you to know that this is what I think of every time I read your thread title

 

train magic.........

 

i've not seen this before, i'm not very up on old meme videos, but dear god it's delightful and i'm honoured to remind you of it

you're damn right it is

now i have to decide if the knowledge that i will never meaningfully 'finish' whatever this is and should therefore share my thoughts on it is worth giving up the intense joy in the atmosphere of mystery i've managed to set up with those two little snippets

 

nah bruh write exactly as much as you want to write, finishing is unrelated

 

Conlang idea, free to good home because I don't conlang (not properly, anyway) but I woke up with it in my head and it seems good enough to write down:
-special form of the verb to come [home], meaning essentially 'come to your last home from your first', 'properly' used to signify someone got married but also euphemistically to mean 'died'
-other good uses, people being people: sarcastically; flirtily; sexily

 

The main shed was a hubbub of noise and light after the dead air of the junk shed. Voices called to me the second I stepped inside: curious, playful, mocking, all three.
"Hey, you're not on the night shift tonight!"
"Come back because you miss us so much, huh?"
"Get out of here, or at least get me something to eat!"
"Ava! Ava! Ava! What do you have?"
As soon as the last voice spoke, the rest of them immediately switched their attention to demanding the same thing, as if they were hounds scenting blood. I adjusted the lamp tucked in the crook of my arm and wagged my finger at the assembled arseholes.
"It's a broken lamp I want to fix, you dumb bastards, it's boring."
There was a chorus of disappointed boos in response, but the one who had first brought it up wasn't about to let it drop that easily.
"Why are you carrying it like it's a human baby, then?"
"Because stuff falls off and leaks if I don't, why do you think? Go to sleep."
"I can't, I'm going out in an hour- Trev will be coming to get me soon."
I grinned, pouncing on the presented distraction with heartless immediacy. "Oh, Trev is coming to get you! And you do so enjoy it when Trev's your partner!"
As expected, the target's protesting "He's a good driver!" was promptly drowned out by gleeful wolf-whistles and delighted comments at varying levels of insulting. I took advantage of the racket to hurry through the shed and into the workshop, crossing my mental fingers that it would be unoccupied.
Naturally, it wasn't. I tensed immediately when I spotted the figure at the back, then just as quickly relaxed as I recognised the broad shoulders and greying hair. Beckah wasn't going to ask what I was doing. Beckah was the only colleague of mine I could trust to be resolutely uninterested in a single one of my comings and goings, authorised or otherwise.
Honestly, the Controller should have asked Beckah to do all this. Beckah would have just got shit done, mysterious sparks be damned.
My eyes landed on the pot of glue heating on the stove next to Beckah's elbow. Apparently my luck was holding, since now I wouldn't have to mess around warming it up myself. I set the lamp down with delicate care on the nearest workbench, grabbed a brush and a random offcut from where someone had been mending seats earlier, and sidled over.
"'Scuse me, beautiful, don't mind if I just grab some of this, do you? 'Course not, you're always so nice to me-"
The only response I got was a faint grunt as I dunked the brush hastily into the gluepot and skedaddled away. Generally, the more you irritated Beckah the less she wanted to pay attention, and unnecessary flattery was the quickest way to get on her nerves.
I hadn't been lying when I said the lamp was leaky; the shattered base had shed half the ashes I'd put in just on the journey over. Once I'd got it more or less sealed up, I cautiously opened the door and sifted the remaining ashes around with a finger, biting back a relieved curse as the little spark revealed itself to be still glimmering. Its cigarette companion had burned out, so I lit another, breathing out the smoke over the spark with all the loving care of a mother bathing her infant.
"Now," I muttered, watching the tiny light brighten noticeably under the attention, "What are we going to do with you?"
As it stood, there was no way I could get any information out of this. Five years of neglect, on top of what had destroyed it in the first place? If I'd come maybe a couple of weeks later, there might have been nothing left at all. The determination involved in keeping even the few sparks I'd seen alive that long was impressive even to me. So if I was going to nurture them back to health, it was going to be a long road, and I'd be damned if I was going to walk it carrying a shitty broken lamp.
I exhaled more smoke over the spark, and wondered if I should bother nurturing it at all. It wasn't like it was a smart idea, or one unlikely to bite me directly in the ass further down the line. And given everything, it might be a kindness to snuff it out now, spare it...
With a slow, deliberate motion, I took the cigarette out of my mouth and ground it out on the back of my hand, baring my teeth at the pain.
What was I thinking? If I put out the light that had hung on so long, I might as well take up going around smothering elderly relatives in their beds or setting fire to hospitals.
Anyway. Whatever was coming, whatever state it came back in, I'd help it make it work.
I had lots of experience in that particular area, after all.
Nodding to myself, I re-lit the cigarette and dropped it into the lamp next to the spark, then cheerfully shook another six of them out of the box, stuffed all of them between my lips at once, lit them and dragged.
Hoo. That was the stuff. I glanced down at the burn mark on the back of my hand; it was already almost gone. Good thing Beckah hadn't seen me do that.
Once my new ward was safely nestled once again in a bed of slowly-burning tobacco, I turned my attention to building.

 

*sits here and popcorns* ohhhhhh

 

im lov baby spark

 

i would be like 'so what're your best guesses as to what's going on' but you guys probably know as much as I do at this point

and baby spark isn't conscious enough to loves you back!

 

honestly I'm getting some heart of the cards trains vibes goin on. little coalbox salamander most train folks don't believe in but Nevertheless, Pulls Through For The Protagonist!!

 

Your protag is just so excessively Bright And Normal it's almost a little creepy and I mean that as a compliment

 

:333

 

I honestly wasn't fully consciously doing that but I am so glad it happened anyway because it's extremely fitting

=DDDD