Misty Island Escape
This was supposed to be a rambling connected to this post. It turned into part lore dump, mostly rewrite, and kinda sorta fic, so now it gets a poster and a fancy title. I have opted to call it Misty Island Escape because while there is rescuing, it's mostly escaping. Also the rescue team, while they would be doing their thing still, kinda became irrelevant, whoops.
Preface:
In this AU, Misty Island gets the dream treatment (sort of).
It isn't an outright dream, but the island is trapped in a state of half-reality, half-dream. There's a reason it seems to work so weirdly - reality isn't quite as solid as it should be.
If you have ever read A Wrinkle in Time, the Veil's movement here may seem vaguely familiar. This is tesseract logic.
This story happens around 1965 (tentatively), relatively early in the rescue centre's construction.
Below are 2,408 words of Misty Island Rewrite. Good luck have fun don't die.
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Misty Island is a little nowhere island off the coast of California, near Bear Harbor. The marine layer often hides it from view, and even on clear days it's unobtrusive and difficult to spot. Bear Harbor lies on the coast of the Sinkyone wilderness. This wilderness was and remains an important ground to the natives, and is protected as such.
Way back in 1893, Bash and Dash were built to work for the Bear Harbor Lumber Company. Ferdinand was built later in 1899. He was purchased by a lumber company in Washington first, and later sold in 1903 to Bear Harbor.
When the Bear Harbor company started falling apart, the three were loaned out to the Misty Island logging company, a smaller offshoot looking at the small forested island. The locals advised against it, but the logging company was grasping at straws and didn't listen. When the operation finally collapsed in 1905 - in part due several mystery accidents - the company pulled up stakes and left, leaving the Locos behind. The Locos overheard murmurs that they might be sold for scrap, but the workers never came back to get them.
The Locos couldn't have known what happened at the time. The workers couldn't get back. The three engines were trapped by more than just their lack of crew, a reality they discovered before much longer.
In 1906, the San Francisco earthquake stirred up tidal waves along the coast. By the time anyone ashore had time to notice, Misty Island had seemingly fallen off the map. They assumed the island - small as it was - had sunk or otherwise been broken up.
The earthquake was to blame, but only as a catalyst. The Sinkyone wilderness and Sodor have several historical sites to their names - the Leyflow between the two has long been strong. When the earthquake threatened to destroy Misty Island, and the three lives on it, reality simply... folded. The fabric of our plane folded the distance between two points selected by the Leyflow. The island lurched a little to the left and got tangled in the weave, thus preserving - and trapping - the three engines on an island just off the coast of California, but also not.
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Down the line not quite six decades finds Thomas off the coast of Sodor, making his way by boat to the mainland to pick up a shipment of wood for the rescue centre, which he'll bring back by bridge if repair time permits. He drifts off to sleep as the waves gently rock the boat, only to wake again the same night to the feeling of cold sand.
He opens his eyes to no sign of his crew or the boat, on the foggy shore of somewhere Distinctly Else.
It's not hard for him to shift across to his golem form - it's unnervingly easy, for that matter. He's lucky he still had any fire going, but his crew had left him a little warmth, fuel, and water to work with. Not much, though.
It's obvious enough that wherever he is, the line between waking and dreaming is incredibly thin. He had enough experience with that when Lady last surfaced, and the trifling brushes with that line ever since are enough for him to recognize this general flavor of weird. He also has just enough experience to realize this isn't quite the same thing. It's not within a dream this time, he is still awake, and it's not a puncture in the fabric either.
He finds, somewhat to his surprise, an overgrown rail track. It's something to follow, so he does, gliding along one side. It veers into the forest shrouding the island before too long, and the thick mist clogs what little space there is between the trees until the world is a dim ombre of green and black and brown.
He's allowed fifteen minutes of apprehensive movement in the darkness before two lights appear down the line in front of him - bright, golden, and eye-like. Thomas stops cold - as much as he can - squinting at the twin halos of light diffusing through the mist. If they're eyes, they don't blink. As he creeps forward, something shifts in the light and two silhouettes begin to take shape. Lanky, antlered shapes each perched on a large wheel, balanced precariously on the track. He can just see orange and warm greys and browns, and their light glimmers across twin pairs of large, dark eyes staring at him.
Fear isn't the right word, really, but Thomas isn't sure what else to call the feeling. He certainly doesn't feel safe, but neither do the two seem malicious. They seem more curious than anything. Then more lights appear behind them and above them. Two strands, draped between massive elkish horns that crown the looming shadow of something much, much larger.
Fear quickly becomes the right word.
He can't seem to flee. The three regard him steadily. Silently. Two with a penetrating curiosity, one with an unreadable pensiveness. In the light of the third one's lanterns, Thomas can see them better - they're golems, that much is evident, yet they are terribly, disconcertingly wrong. Not in a dangerous way, just... off. Changed. Thomas knows how golems work, he knows their variations and their quirks, and this dryadic meld is not part of that. Branching antlers and young velvet, hooves and claws and maybe-fur, winding patterns and scrollwork, asymmetrical vents and whistles, and frames like curling roots and bark - it's all too far to the left of right and Thomas doesn't know whether to be afraid of them or for them.
He wonders if they were normal engines at one point. They don't feel like dream-beings, and it doesn't take a genius to gather that something might have happened to them. Much like the island itself, it's unsettling. It's unnerving and off without ever truly being unsafe.
The looming elk-like one finally stirs, and beckons him to follow. The smaller pair brings up the rear, chattering rapidly in low voices as they roll atop their strange wheels. Thomas - to himself - muses that he's never seen something so like a fawn or a satyr dressed in flannel, denim, and suspenders, and takes some heart in the bizarre humor of the image. The forest brightens, eventually, as they reach a lopsided camp of ancient structures and winding rails and rocking trestles, suspended over air here and grounded on the forest floor there. It's almost enchanting. It doesn't move like the real world does, and yet it's more tangible than any dream.
The twins behind him finally break the silence, introducing themselves and their larger counterpart as Bash, Dash, and Ferdinand respectively. Thomas introduces himself in kind, puzzled by their reservation. They observe him like they aren't sure how to interact with him. Ferdinand seems wary, though not unkind.
The twins turn out to be bubblier than over-carbonated soda and never quite seem to stop talking. They fit right in with the island's dreamish oddities, and more than once Thomas wonders if they're actually separate people for how seamlessly they finish each other's sentences. They're clingy too - personal space simply doesn't exist and for some reason they like adhering themselves to him (at least until Ferdinand tells them off). Ferdinand himself proves the more grounded one, with both feet - er, hooves - on the forest floor, though he doesn't talk much. Reserved or not, he's a good soul.
And thus begins the strangest week of Thomas's life, which is an achievement all things considered. It becomes disturbingly evident over time that the island is getting weirder every moment, likely has been for a while, and is dragging these three with it.
During a late-night conversation, after the twins have hit the hay, Ferdinand shares his working theory with Thomas - the island got tangled in the dividing veil between reality and dream. For a time it got more tangled, and has since been slowly untangling itself, but on other side. It'll bring the Locos with it if they don't leave. It's harder to guess what will happen with Thomas - he's still solidly rooted in reality. Chances are it won't drag him with it, but the Locos almost certainly won't be so lucky.
It's a grim revelation, and uncomfortable to sit with. These three are on a time limit without knowing how much is left on the clock, and while Ferdinand seems aware yet even keel, the twins seem to avoid thinking about it, filling silence with anything they can. As Thomas watches them go about life, it becomes painfully apparent that Ferdinand is doing his best to keep Bash and Dash from losing themselves. He's treading a delicate balance, keeping hope alive without raising it too high.
As the week passes, Ferdinand keeps a firm outward neutrality towards Thomas - not unkind, but it's often as though Thomas isn't really there, at least when the twins are around. The larger engine regards him with the detached reservation one might extend to a hallucination.
Between him and Thomas, he knows the latter is real, but he doesn't want the twins to get too hopeful that Thomas will actually be able to save them. If their hopes were to be so drastically shattered, Ferdinand isn't sure they would keep themselves together.
Thomas tries to lean into the "well maybe I'm a hallucination" act, but he struggles. The twins put enough trust in Ferdinand's outlook on the matter to follow his judgment regardless, though. (Never mind that they know they're lying to themselves. Thomas is real and it's painfully apparent. But it hurts to hope too much; they can't hope harder or they'll rip at the seams.)
Thomas continues looking for a way off the island, and takes it upon himself to make sure they can come with. Whatever he can do to ground them, he will. Unfortunately, as with many things, he thinks he knows better than he does, doesn't give their advice due diligence, and gets out over his skis. The Locos aren't exactly impressed, but at least watching him fail miserably to navigate dream-logic is funny.
Until it isn't, at any rate. Getting off the island proves a touchier task than Thomas anticipated, and one that may well hang on very few threads. When the island finally comes free, no doubt whatever is bridging the gap between it and Sodor will unfold too, and Thomas will end up who-knows-where in the middle of it. The twins and Ferdinand will undoubtedly go with the island, dragged to the other side of the coin where physical, living engines aren't really meant to be.
It takes trial and error. It takes Thomas getting lost in the forest and popping out in the same three meter radius twenty times because he didn't listen to Dash's advice on navigating. It takes falling off the bridge and landing in a tree because Thomas didn't look the right direction. It takes combing over the ever-shifting, ever-changing island. It takes careful searches as the island becomes less and less stable and the terrain begins to dip and curve and warp in matters of minutes, never mind hours or days. It takes more trial and error than they're comfortable with.
They finally find the tunnel - it's Bash that does, after feeling a foreign coldness in the air. It's bizarrely stable. It doesn't changing with the terrain around it. It smells like forest, but different forest. Thomas urges them through despite their apprehensions. Ferdinand worries they should wait a bit, but Thomas doesn't want to wait. Never mind how spooked the twins seem by the tunnel's feel.
They're making good progress when they start getting dizzy and nauseous. Thomas recognizes the feeling somewhat - it's like waking up the wrong way from a dream, or a bad attempt to transmute from train to golem. They're crossing over a threshold of some kind, and the only real solution is to keep going. He presses ahead and Ferdinand follows in the back, but the twins between them are faltering. Moments later, Dash is struggling to stay upright, and almost hyperventilating. He can't seem to move forward. Thomas can't pull him either. Bash isn't faring better. Despite Thomas's protests Ferdinand makes the executive call to backtrack until the twins have their feet under them. Thomas doesn't want to waste time. Ferdinand is adamant that they have to or the twins are going to fall apart.
The tunnel hasn't changed, but frigid air rushes through the tunnel towards the island, and they look back in time to see golden light from the forest wink out.
There they sit, praying that the tunnel holds. They creep forward at intervals, when the twins can manage. They're all starting to feel ill, though. Even Ferdinand is beginning to falter. Thomas presses forward as much as he can without leaving them behind, and they follow when they can. The tunnel seems stable, but the amount of room they have to backtrack is shrinking. Soon enough, they can't move forward any farther. The twins have been on the island too long, and Ferdinand is cutting it close. Reality is heavier by comparison and moves differently. The adjustment is steep even if it isn't painful, like the world is tilted ten degrees sideways and gravity is just a little stronger and the ground is so real your feet ache even though the dirt is soft.
The tunnel rides the line of real and not, but Dash feels like the air is limited, as if it's not really open at the other end. Thomas begins to feel it too. A staleness to the inbetweenness. Nervous time ticks by until finally, finally, the air moves just the tiniest bit.
Then it moves more, and freshness fills the space. There's light. Someone is yelling. It sounds like Percy. The pinhole of light widens to a shaft and then to a flood. To his absolute bewilderment, Diesel's face is the first Thomas sees, with Percy behind him and Henry standing in the mouth of the tunnel.
That's when the tunnel starts to shake. Ferdinand hoists one of the twins off the ground and Thomas and Diesel grab the other between them, following Percy back towards Henry as fast as they can. The tunnel steepens, brightens, dirt becomes mingled with roots, and finally they tumble out into the middle of Henry's Forest from an opening in the side of the Wishing Tree. They don't get much chance to look at it - it closes behind them the second Ferdinand is out.
The four escapees collapse onto soft, grassy earth and inhale the scent of real, grounded, earthy forest with trees that stay where you expect them to and roots that mostly behave themselves. Percy and Diesel and Henry and someone else are all chattering - Thomas thinks he might hear Edward in the mix, and the Fat Controller is definitely there - but oh is he too tired and relieved to be back on Sodor to understand a thing being said.
When he finally sits up again, Bash, Dash, and Ferdinand are all but pancaked on the ground. Bash is asleep, Dash looks like he's spaced out, and Ferdinand's antlers are stuck in the dirt. The other engines seem stunned by the three. Thomas reckons they're experiencing roughly the same chain of thoughts he had the first time.
It takes a while for the Locos to acclimate to Sodor and the right side of reality again. The twins and even Ferdinand hurt themselves more than once trying to move on Misty Island logic. Their golems start to change too, as they settle in. Thomas notices early on that their antlers had begun to look more like real antlers, all together in one piece. Ferdinand's had looked awfully heavy, and a few days later Thomas heard that they'd shed. The twins take longer to shed theirs, but it does happen eventually. Claws soften out to hands, hooves and extra joins sort themselves out into normal legs (though the twins still have a propensity for standing on tip-toe). Even their wooden root-like bodies begin to even out into something a little closer to home, though their treeishness never really goes away. Their asymmetry stays too. It's charming, really, even if it gives Victor a headache on maintenance days.
No one is quite sure where Misty Island ended up. It's not back in California, at least not this side of the Veil. Thomas figures he'll ask Lady if he ever gets the chance. For now, though, perhaps its better that they can't get back to it.
