[hatch log] pull plug, enter multiverse

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: The Station + Concordia
WHEN: DAY :025 - :026
SUMMARY: Somewhere deep in Station 72, a hatch happens; new hosts arrive on Concordia.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary.

YOU WAKE UP and in a very real sense you are born again. You’re not the same person you were the last time your eyes were open. You’ll never be that person again - well, except for you, Jessica Jones. You know how this part goes, don’t you?

You might not know it right away, though. What you do know is that you’re laying down in a place very different than you were before. The walls angle around you, claustrophobic, and they emit a gentle white light that’s faint enough not to hurt your freshly opened eyes. For a moment you feel fine even if you didn’t before you went under. Whatever injuries you might have had, whatever agony you may have been experiencing, whatever fear dogged your heels, they’re all gone. It’s quiet. When you’re conscious enough to take stock of anything beyond that, you realize that you’re wearing your own clothes and that there’s a faint pinch at the base of your skull - notable as the only discomfort you feel. Reach up, feel along the tube running from the base of your neck to the compartment’s back wall. It pulls free without much fuss.

Then it’s not so quiet anymore. There’s the sensation of something more, something louder, something both big and broad and something intimately near to you. There’s the realization that you aren’t alone, that you won’t ever be alone again. You belong here. This is as correct as the murmur of something like muffled voices in the back of your head is somehow familiar, or how the press of emotion that sweeps over you now doesn’t necessarily belong to you but doesn’t feel out of place either.

You can sit up - barely -, and shift out of the pod. There’s a ladder at your feet, and a little cubby just before it with anything you brought with you, as well as a set of crisp, loose-fitting white clothes; while your injuries are healed, whatever you’re wearing is in the exact state it was before. You can hear a sound in the back of your head, a faint buzzing, something like distant waves or the murmur of a party behind a door. Drop down the ladder to the floor of the Nesting Deck and you’ll find you’re not alone - and the those sounds in your head are louder. Other people’s thoughts swim up: some of them seem clear, most of them are a jumbled mess. Some of these people call to you - their voices are louder, their feelings more clear, they feel right. Further, there’s an awareness that there are others like you - not here, not close, but somewhere: an indelible tug at the back of your mind.

Welcome to Station 72. All new hosts will have one day aboard the Station before being whisked off to Concordia to join the others. Get to know the other new hosts, and ask the guardians of the Station - Prince and Cathaway -, any burning questions you might have. By the time the day has passed, Carata will arrive on the hangar to collect you.



MEANWHILE IN CONCORDIA Angel slips into a coma on :025 at almost at the exact same time that some Hosts become aware of missing pieces fitting into place. Those hosts with new brood members waking up on the station will feel somewhere more complete; you might want to let everyone know you’ll be getting new roommates soon.

Everyone might be putting themselves and their broods back together in the wake of the explosion that left the nest down one host and injected everyone with renewed motivation to either find the people responsible or make sure nothing like what happened at Royal Street ever happens again. Things are progressing on multiple fronts, but on DAY 26 there’s an option to put some of those efforts on the back burner...

     ON THE STATION, the new hosts are herded onto a sleek, black brick-shaped transport. Carata, a woman young enough to almost be called a girl, carefully makes sure everyone is seated and strapped in. She’s all gentle, easy smiles and cheerful responses to any questions posed to her. When everyone’s safely aboard, the ship’s landing platform descends through the floor of the hangar. It snaps into place in the airlock and for a moment there’s a beat of perfect stillness, a shiver of anticipation. Then the transport is flung through the shaft, ejected into the wild black of space. There’s a nauseating lurch in your belly as it bursts through the delicate shell of the multiverse and snaps into real space above the blue and yellow marble of the planet Opia. Somewhere, thousands of miles below in the city of Concordia, your brood is waiting for you.

     IN CONCORDIA
IN CONCORDIA, as dark falls, Nirad announces he’s going to fetch Carata and the new hosts from their landing. Anyone’s welcome to accompany him on the hour long drive to the stealth transport’s landing zone. The rented bus - manned by that same (now very stoic) android - takes everyone to the outskirts of the industrial block. They arrive at a different parking garage just as the stealth transport drops out of the sky, shivering into sight as it touches down. The hosts on the ship step down and then the stealth transport lifts back off the rooftop and wrinkles out of sight. It’s unclear how many more time they’ll be able to get away with this.

Get your meet and greets in and stretch your legs; you have a few minutes before everyone piles into the van and takes the long drive back to the Bearings Apartment block where the hosts have rented out the entirely of Level 13. New hosts will find there are rooms there that as of yet unclaimed, and they’re free to begin making this their home in whatever ways they please. Get familiar with your new comrades, explore the city, or maybe just take a well deserved breather. Officially speaking, nothing much happens until--

     EARLY ON DAY 27

A NEW WINDOW POPS UP IN YOUR EXTRANET PANEL...

---

((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for all new and recently returning hosts; any threads on the Station should be closed to newly awakened hosts or Station-based NPCs; a top level for Cathaway and Prince will be going live shortly. Any threads on Concordia can be open to both new and old hosts! For anything happening beyond these calendar dates, feel free to create your own logs and posts.

If you have questions about the mission specifically, direct them to the most recent calendar post HERE. You can find a more detailed overview of the hatching process HERE; you might also want to take a glance at the MISSION CONCORDIA BRIEFING. For all other questions, please hit up either the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages.))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[sensitively]

:025 - Awakening, in the Station:

[ When she comes to, it's with a sudden, jerking movement and a shout from her lips — Rey's hands are still reaching, clutching for her injured companion she'd been holding on Starkiller before the entire planet base destroyed itself from the inside out and before the strange ships had demolished everything else on its surface — ] — Finn? Finn!

[ — but there's nothing, only an empty, sterile room, soft white light. She's lying in a strange pod of some sort; she's clean, unharmed except for the strange pressure at the back of her head that she soon discovers originates from a tube connecting the base of her skull to the wall. With a flick of her wrist, she's free of it.

She's a bit shaky from disorientation and muscle disuse, but she manages to climb down from the pod utilizing the little ladder with relative ease; she jumps the last short distance from one of the rungs, used to repelling down the face of much steeper climbs.

The cacophony of voices she hears now in her head — some only faint whispers, some of them murmurs so loud she'd swear they were standing next to her — sound to her as though she's experiencing another Force-guided vision, as she had in Maz's castle when she'd first touched Skywalker's saber. At the same time, they're much different than that — there's noise and thoughts and emotions, but less disturbing somehow than reliving the moments of her childhood abandonment in vivid, visceral detail. Some of the voices even seem beckoning, coaxing.

...Jedi? Other Force-sensitives?

She sets the crisp, white, pressed clothes she finds aside, choosing to remain in her clothes she's arrived in, and after unearthing the rest of her belongings goes in search of the source of the faint tug at her senses. ]

:026 - Arrival in Concordia

[ The shuttle ride and transport to the Bearings is fairly uneventful, but as they draw nearer to the Apartment block Rey is aware of a multitude of both familiar and new noises in her mind — the voices she'd heard in the Nesting Deck are there and some are louder, more insistent, jumbled and lively and intermixed with images and textures.

And then there is a faint pulse in her head that she recognizes, humming like an unsteady motor, one she's heard before and nearly knows like the back of her own hand. As she and the other passengers disembark already her heartbeat and adrenaline are on high alert, even if she's not entirely certain why. She traverses down the hallway of level 13, in search of an empty room, and becomes even more aware of it; a crackling purr, uneven but steady somehow as though it's barely held together and just biding its time before it erupts.

...She might be so distracted by it, this sound in the back of her head that manages to be heard despite the cacophony of all the others, that she may in fact not be completely aware of her physical surroundings. Oops. ]

WILDCARD: [ feel free to run into Rey wherever your character would choose, in Concordia! ]

you know what I've come for

[narcissithstic]

[Up here, where Bearings sits atop its modern foundation, the city rooftops stretch high enough to remind him— at times— of Coruscant. He'd been only once or twice before, too young to really take much of it in, and then too old to feel either want or wonder at his Uncle's side; it was his mother's domain more than his own (the Force had seen to that), but now, entire star systems away, there are times that he feels a residual, familiar pull against the grain. A reminder that no matter where he treads, the shadow of who he once was clings tightly to his heels, unwilling to let go.

Anakin Skywalker is dead. For that reason alone, nostalgia comes easily: moments where he senses more than he should, loses focus for longer than he should. Still, with his symbiotic bond having negated nearly all of the physical damage he'd suffered in the bombing (sling cast off, superficial bindings left in place) the matter of returning to his room to survey the state of things remains on the table. Fingers set over cold metal, thumb braced against the crossguard of his hilt, and he realizes then— belatedly— that the stirring pull of the Force, the maddening pressure he'd felt in the wake of Anakin's loss, seems sharper somehow. Blooming clarity as if his vision were coming into focus. Proximity.

Proximity is the key, not grief.

And in that split-second moment of realization, Ren reels away from the polished gloss of his bedside table, footsteps rushed to the point of being a heavy clatter. The door swings open, strikes the wall with a bang— he rounds the first twist in the hall, the second, a trail he knows to follow as if it were carved into the flooring. Left, not right. Forward, forward.

And there, a slight silhouette against cast light from Concordia, he sees her.

His saber rests tightly against his palm, exposed wiring biting his skin. The high collar of his shirt compares little to the robes he'd worn when they'd last met, but the scar she left him with remains— as does the bitter fury in his expression. The trembling, hateful rage that boils just under his skin. Ren doesn't breathe, doesn't blink. Time slows, stretched out for a handful of beats as his tongue hits the back of his teeth - and then it's a sharp hiss, disbelief and outrage tangled up in his throat like bile. How much has he lost? How much has she ripped from his fingers as if it was her right?

It isn't fair.

The Nest should never have brought her here.]

ren, if you wanted another scar, all you had to do was ask she's very gracious like that.

[sensitively]

[ She's almost to the end of the wing of apartments when understanding dawns, slow and steady like light being filtered into a dark room increment by increment; the sound she hears, this sensation, she's not only heard it and felt it before but it's been in her head, sharp and cutting as it dissected through her thoughts like a tool, like a blade.

...Not 'it'. Him. He's been in my head. And then she stops breathing because she can feel him coming into even sharper relief, the pulse she's felt honing down into an engulfing tide that threatens to swallow her whole. When he stops before her she doesn't even flinch, his presence no longer a surprise.

But she remembers. ]

— You, [ her voice is gutteral, low and laced with venom. ] You're here, too, but you still haven't paid for what you've done. [ The scar he bears isn't punishment for his misdeed — merely a chastisement for the assumption that he'd defeat her so easily.

As he's likely certain of now, and without thinking further Rey scrunches up her face in fury and swings out with her arm, pushing with the Force, attempting to throw him —

— but something is wrong. The Force is still there, she can feel it, but she can't wield it; at least, not as he did in the forest by launching her through the air and into the base of a tree. Rey lowers her hand, perplexed and suddenly fearful.

...the saber. where is my saber? Panicked, she pats her hip, her thigh, never taking her eyes off of him. ]

no no please, let him grant you the favor this time

[narcissithstic]

[He feels it, the decisive instant that her thoughts snap towards aggression, knows the split-second before she acts that she means to use the Force and braces for a blow he's powerless to stop—

—a blow that never comes.

His eyebrows lift as her expression twists with fear, bolstered by her faltering steps. Much as he knows he should do nothing, that his place within the Nest depends on his ability to simply let her exist, Ren's shoulders rise, his chin dips low enough to leave his eyes shadowed beneath the pinched line of his brow: she's made a critical error in failing to recognize the symbiote's interference with the Force, and asking him to ignore the opportunity of a bared throat is entirely too much.]

Allow me. [Ren growls, matching the vitriol she'd hoped to unleash as he strides forward. It takes too little effort (how long he's waited to properly lash out with the Force) to raise his hand, throwing her into the wall at her back and pinning her down without the luxury of her saber.]

Concordia

[shiro2hero]

[He's still looking for his own place. Or the roof. Either way. Somewhere out of immediate reach of people just to get his head back on straight again and regroup. That's all he needs. Just a minute to breathe and figure out where it is he stands now.]

[He doesn't plan on running into anyone. Literally or figuratively. He doubly doesn't plan on it being someone with a weird sort of... (resonance? Is that the word?) ... weird sort of matching feel to himself.]

[It's enough to where the normally composed man in black and white armor runs smack into her back before snapping into reality.]

-- I didn't see you. Sorry.

[sensitively]

[ To be fair, Rey's head is far more full of jumbled thoughts than it normally would be, and she normally would have her physical senses much more attuned, but this is a state she's just not accustomed to.

And to make things even stranger, the young man who nearly mows her down in his armor is someone she instinctively feels as though she knows, as though his voice is one of the ones loudest in her head, most present in her thoughts.

She gapes up at him wordlessly for a moment, searching his features for an answer to this. ]

...I know you. [ and I shouldn't, and that makes her at the same time both fascinated and extremely wary of it. ] How?

[shiro2hero]

[That's not the usual answer. Then again, this isn't the usual situation where you run into someone in a hallway. He'd expected the weird sort of buzz he got from most people, once she turns to him. He didn't expect the even stranger feeling of clicking.]

[Like he's known her for a long time, but couldn't ever put a face or a name to the sense of her. Like -- like someone ripped away a memory of her. Like she's another missing point of so many others.]

[But that's not possible. As much as the thought turns his stomach, it's not possible.]

I... don't know. [He's strangling all other thoughts but putting a human hand forward in greeting.] This is all really, really weird for me. But, uh.

Hi. I'm Shiro.

26; arrival

[batmotif]

[Just when Bruce thinks he has a handle on this problem of mental connections, just when he thinks it may just be feasible to keep everyone at an arms length (if he can't manage a football-field-length, then an arms length will have to do), he brushes past someone deemed a broodmate, and the walls crumble, as if made of sand.

The mental crackle is louder, more pronounced; a frustrating part of him tells him that it feels right, but he ignores it with the stubbornness of someone clinging to the futile notion of seclusion in a Nest environment. They pass in the hall, shoulders bumping into each other, and Bruce feels that all-too-familiar shudder of adrenaline, the quickening of a heart beat. He's cognizant enough to know that these emotions don't belong to him, but rather the young woman passing him.

He should let her pass, let her focus pull her along whatever path she's walking, whatever she's looking for. But to ignore what he had just felt would be difficult; reactionary feelings, but to what? Despite himself, despite keeping to himself, he's the first to speak.]

What is it?

[sensitively]

[ Even consumed as she is by her unease and distraction, when Rey brushes past him she feels a spark of recognition; a key sliding neatly into fit. It's unlike anything she's experienced before, and yet it's so familiar that it momentarily distracts her from her fervent searching.

Not only that, but she knows intrinsically somehow that he's tapping into her heightened state of awareness that she's been in since her arrival in Concordia, and when he asks her of it she strangely doesn't hesitate to answer, where she would have bristled otherwise at anyone else's invasive question. ]

Something...I've felt, before, [ she answers, words thick and hesitant on her tongue as she tries her best to describe it for him. ] A presence I knew, back — from the place I came. [ she looks up at him now, almost searchingly. ] You don't feel it?

wildcardisharrivaly

[adamance]

[After experiencing it two times personally and one time distantly, Lexa now knows exactly how it feels to engage with the feedback of a Force user. Does she know what it means to be a Force user? No. She's seen some of the abilities utilized and she's had them explained by Ren, but she doesn't know that there's a name for that specific type of person. That's partly her own fault: being how she is, judgment and condescension tends to keep her from answers that would normally be just within her reach.

As it is, she stops short just as she's passing Rey, mind immediately recognizing that feeling she's experienced since day one when she met Ahsoka. She stops, studying the other woman, eyes passing over her face. Nothing about her is familiar, and she certainly hasn't glimpsed anyone like her from Ahsoka's dreams.

Still. Still, she decides it's better to speak than to not, as it would be better to know the Hosts (and if there are others like Ren, all the better).]

Is it too much for you? [The sounds. She seems ... distant. Unaware. Better to bring her to a point where she can focus. Lexa moves to stand before her, doing her best to keep her from walking almost blindly through the Bearings.]

yes yes good get in her face lexa

[sensitively]

[ Rey doesn't see her until she's literally blocking her path, standing before her; the haze she's been in melts into a sudden lucidity and her guard is instantly up.

There's none of the compelling pull and sway of those she's realized have been deemed her broodmates, here — but authority radiating off of this woman in spades, and while Rey would normally bristle at anyone who stood directly in her way like this she's made doubly aware that she's speaking of these new connections, the voices and feelings in her head that weren't there before. The implication that it's too much for her to handle hangs heavy in the air and only to her indignant response; she's faced worse than this and come away unscathed. ]

No, [ she replies brusquely, her brows pulling into a frown. ] It's not. [ And then like the little antisocial creature she is, she tries to push impatiently past. ]

wildcard ( after ren v rey )

[unsea]

[ Aka. after the Reckoning. Reyckoning. Renckoning. Uh. That fight thing you two did. ]

[ He finds her, later - rather than sooner. Young, wild with emotion, and wounded. Barely a few hours into her awakening, and there she had been, fighting for her life. There was antagonism, between her and the one he thought of as... kindred. Had he arrived back to the Bearings during the fight, his mind burning with the need to defend her, his rationale urging him to remain pragmatic about the battle -- well, he wasn't sure what he would have done. For her. To Ren. To her. For Ren. She was closer, the same to him as Clint or Bellamy or any of the newly awoken. But he had forged something with the other Force-user he wasn't keen to dismiss or value any less.

( Damn. )

The animosity that had been present wasn't there, when Ren and Bellamy had traded blows. And while he'd felt every second of their scuffle, he hadn't felt as though there were actual need to step in and separate them. When he finds her, finally, he has to conclude that he would have separated her from Ren. For both their sakes. ]

There you are, [ he calls out to her. Sorely amused and sore, about not knowing his own mind. ] I've been looking for you.

[sensitively]

[ No limbs lost, no outward scars, but Rey bears pain from the altercation all the same. She's bruised and banged up from the force of Ren's throws — something she's irrationally infuriated by that she can't do here as he does, nevermind the Jedi training he'd been gifted with and that she's never been privy to — and her clothing's been singed to Malachor and back with superficial wounds underneath where his saber grazed too close.

She looks up and licks at a spot of blood at the corner of her mouth as he approaches, this one whose mind shimmers carefully around hers like a blanket; she detects the sensation of a deep well of power, hidden and dark and quiet. The patience with which he speaks to her now, like a little lost child bruised in a youthful scuffle he's come to collect, brings to mind in sharp relief a parental sort of devotion — and Rey's eyes against her will grow damp with exhaustion and misplaced fury, ache and sorrow.

( He killed my friends, ) she unintentionally broadcasts, a newborn unable to rein in and control her thoughts. Her lip quivers. ]

I'm fine. [ A beat, as she steels herself and says it again in an attempt to believe it, herself. ] I'm fine.

25 - Awakening

[greentech]

[ Oh, good. Pidge isn't the only one flailing around after waking up in a slightly creepy pod. She's still trying to gather all of her belongings up - a change of clothes, her computer, her helmet, everything, when she hears the muffled yell. It sounds like a name. When Rey finally slips to the floor, Pidge is watching her curiously. As Rey turns to go, Pidge finishes gathering her gear and slips her helmet on and jogs after her, trying to catch up. ]

Hey! Uh-

[ Woops, don't be threatening. Then again, Pidge isn't all that physically imposing. ]

Where are you going? Do you know anything about this place?

[sensitively]

[ Rey is tangentially aware of the other people around her in the Hatch — understanding that she isn't the only one brought to this place, after the cacophony of voices in her head — but she's wary of the situation, regardless of the company.

When the younger girl hurries to catch up to her, she's surprised to see the gear and helm and tech wares she's got bundled under each of her arms. ]

Of course I don't, [ she snaps back rather quickly, but then reins in her irritation. This girl deserves neither the brunt of her ire, nor to be shut out from conversation just because Rey is still inherently distrustful of anyone and everyone, save the few people who were precious to her in the universe she left behind.

More calmly, gently: ] I don't know anymore than you do, I'm afraid. I just woke up. [ With her meager knapsack and quarterstaff, she feels woefully lacking compared to her companion's belongings. ] Did you have all of those with you, when you were taken?

wildcard

[erbier]

[ Inevitable. Meeting each of the hosts in time is always inevitable, but there is something else about this one. Another set of patterns that overlays the mandala of the hive. Ilde makes no particular attempt to resist it, letting herself walk to where her inclinations lead her.

Out to the Alpha Block where the city's crown jewel of a garden resides, lawns upon lawns of greenery and water feature. It is not as cozy to Ilde as the one on the roof, but it is difficult not to appreciate all the same. Not when you came from a world with nothing that grew. Hers was a world scorched, razed and baked down to hardened brick. A sky that rained with ash.

That is not so obvious when she approaches. She is dressed in a pretty white smock, long blonde hair wrapped into a braided bun at the base of her neck. She appraises Rey in a careful silence for a moment, feeling out the thread that brought her here. It pulses feverishly hot, a sensation she knows all too well and from whom it emanates, but not why and she chooses not to ask him. ]

Hello.

doing this before the rey-ren fight, if that's ok?

[sensitively]

[ Rey gravitates naturally to the gardens in Alpha Block; the lush greenery reminds her vaguely of Takodana, and she breathes in the flora of various sizes and types and colors. It's a welcome respite, no matter how small or contained, from the rest of the sleekly-modern, strangely-made architecture of the Station.

She watches then with interest when the gold-haired woman comes into view, appearing to head straight for her as opposed to stopping to admire the gardens. Her hand tightens on her quarterstaff — despite having met others who've been denoted as companions in her Brood, this woman is not one of them.

Not that she seems threatening, in the least; she's very pretty, polished and groomed, with delicate features that she's not accustomed to having seen anywhere...but the way she seems to size Rey up, in complete silence for a long moment before offering a spoken greeting, is a bit unnerving. ]

...Hello. [ Dark brows knit together in a curious frown. Then... ]

Did you come out here specifically to speak to me?

26; making our way downtown

[cognitived]

[ By now, Clint's met the others; Shiro and his hesitant acceptance, Bruce and his carefully attempted distance. Rey is -- Rey is a prickling anger, a settled despair, edging along his senses. She's muted still, far enough away that his barriers are holding still. Enough time for him to pull back, scan the crowd and reach out, looking for this distracted broodmate in the admittedly not very crowded streets.

He scans face to face, starting from the closest to the furthest, gaze flicking easily, carefully cataloging. No, no, no -- there. Rey swims easily into vision, mouth downturned, brow heavy, a worldweary sort of weight upon her shoulders. He slips through shadow, settling at her side like he was always there. It's easier now to try to draw back the weight of his mind, careful not to send her startling.

But she's new, she's already lost in thought, and it's more than likely her defenses crumble like sand between fingers. A faint wince crosses his features, apology lapping at the edges of her mind like wave to shore. ]

Best not to be alone out here.

[ He says, as if in explanation. Never mind the fact that that's exactly what he was just doing. ]

...walking faster

[sensitively]

[ For all of her perception — both within the Nest as a whole and that which she still gleans from the Force, in this place — he manages to still somehow sidle up to her while she's unaware. Rey startles anyway despite his best intentions when he speaks to her, low and into her ear, and she puts a sudden step of distance between them before her senses catch up to her.

...Ah. This isn't just anyone — this is another of those whose thoughts are louder than the others, the input sharper and stronger. He's significantly harder to read than both Shiro and the other one, but no less familiar in that strange way.

It's for that reason alone that she reins in her defensiveness, somewhat. ] Are you telling me I need a chaperone? [ The very idea is distasteful. ] I'm not a child. I can take care of myself.

[ thank u very much, hawkdad. !! ]

wildcaaaard?? idk, after that whole ren issue

[frakkincylons]

[ Sam's gotten very used to the feeling of Kylo Ren losing his shit echoing through the brood link. How many times is this now? Counting isn't really worth it. But he knows, immediately, when it happens, and his consciousness skips over to him, wanting to see what's going on, not just for the want to make sure Ren doesn't destroy anything else, but for fear he might be in trouble.

Ah. Beating up a teenage girl. Of course. He'd been ready to make a dash over to step between it, but he locks onto what Ren says - the warning about killing within the Nest.

You know what? Let him have it. He's seen this girl in his memories, knows she's an innocent, that she's right to be angry with him, and knows how bitter he is towards everything she is. Whatever. Let them have it out. No one's dying.

Some hours later, though, Sam actually goes to seek her out, as A, it's just polite to meet the new people as they'll all be sharing headspace eventually and B, Kylo Ren. Right. Leaning against her door frame, once Rey's found a room to take and settled in, he lifts a hand to wave, giving a friendly smile. ]

Hey, you're one of the newbies, right? I'm Sam Anders. [ Leaning out, he makes a show of glancing down the hallway, and tilting a look back to her. ] You the one that redecorated the hall?

i gotchu <3

[sensitively]

[ Hours after her visit by the Darkling, Rey is moved to her new room; it's spartan but comfortable enough, certainly more than her humble hollowed-out AT-AT on Jakku. Nevertheless, in lieu of sitting on the soft, plush bed, she sits cross-legged on the floor. plotting. She's used to lesser comforts.

At the visitor in her doorway she glances up but not too quickly, loathe to pull at the newly-forming scar that spans the length of her spine from just above her backside to her shoulder blades. ]

That was me, yes. [ Wryly, with no mirth whatsoever, not even an upward tick of the corners of her lips; sorry, Sam. ]

...Ren helped.

i've finally arrived || :026

[exhuxperation]

[ Unlike Ren, he doesn't have the Force to immediately recognize the pulse of energy that separates users from each other. All he knows is what the symbiote has granted him– connection with his brood and the nest. That alone makes it easy to feel when there's a new member, however faint it might be. Not an addition to his own brood, since the bond isn't strong, but it's there. Like a newly sprouted branch.

Hux moves towards the pull, curious to see what the Nest has dropped in on them now. Hopefully no more troublemakers.

Sensing the person is close, he turns a corner sharply and nearly runs straight into her. He stops short in front of her, one hand up reflexively to stop the collision.

A second later, the recognition kicks in. ]

Scavenger girl.

welcome welcome - sorry this is short but sweet!!

[sensitively]

[ It's fortunate he's put up a hand to block her from colliding directly with him — Rey is distracted up until a moment too late, inches away from headbutting the red-haired man in the chest.

When she steps quickly back, she has a moment to take in his attire — black and dark charcoal grey, form-fitted, but nothing out of the ordinary that she would recognize from anywhere — before her eyes flit up to his face, and his meticulously-parted hair.

His face seems vaguely familiar...where had she seen it? A holonet image that she'd seen on Starkiller Base comes briefly to mind, but her mind also may be conjuring a similarity that might not be present...

...until he says that phrase. Not in Kylo Ren's voice but something almost more disdainful if possible, and Rey lifts her chin defiantly around the same time she notices a particularly interesting patch on the shoulder of his jacket. ]

I don't collect trash any longer. [ A beat. ] But somehow it seems as though I still attract it, on occasion.

[ If that sounds like an insinuation... ]

[snippycup]

[Coupled with the encouragement from both the Force and the symbiote, Ahsoka is an easy target for Rey's senses. By now, her grief has settled enough that it does not dominate the network between them, but for a woman so strong with the Force, the togruta is strangely muted among the rest of the voices in spite of her bright presence.

She hasn't left the bearings except to address the issue of Anakin's body, and had made no plans to do so unless her skills were required. Instead, she had been finishing her old-master's scrap-droid project to the best of her ability. She was hardly the mechanic that he had been in his prime, but it was better than leaving it untouched.

Scrappy whirrs softly as she continues her work, his battery lapsing into low-power mode somewhat unexpectedly. Ahsoka frowns, but finds herself distracted by a Force-presence she doesn't recognize. Instinctively, she turns toward the door of her room, reaching with her mind for Rey in an attempt to locate her in turn.

Who could that be?]

assuming this is much later, after her fight with ren.

[sensitively]

[ As hyper-focused on Ren's Force signature as she is when she first arrives in Concordia, Rey finds she can't concentrate as easily on the other input she receives throughout the Nest. But after their altercation, when her spine has been nearly severed and she spends quiet days recovering in the infirmary, she becomes aware of another signal, and she reaches out with her own senses to find it.

Someone is reaching back, and with a sharp inhale her mind intercepts it — loneliness, betrayal, the laser sights of thousands of guns trained on unsuspecting hearts. Children of all sizes and shapes and colors and species, mouths open in wonder at a grand, majestic temple.

Rey wanders and turns corner after corner until she comes to where the pull is the strongest, down another hallway and into the doorway of a room, completely uninvited but unable to resist knowing. A girl unlike one she's ever seen — not many Togruta visit Jakku, after all — looks back at her, undeniably just as curious. ]

...Who are you?