[HATCH LOG] IS ANYONE THERE?

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: Station 72
WHEN: Day :150
SUMMARY: Today is the day you wake up.
WARNINGS: None; will edit if necessary.

A MOMENT AGO it seemed like you willingly took the hand of someone beckoning to safety.


NOW YOU WAKE UP in one of many chambers of Station 72’s nesting deck. If you had wounds, they’re (mostly) gone; if you had doubts they are - for the split second between dreaming and waking - gently reassured. This is correct. This is right. You’re safe here. The only question is what here is exactly.

The compartment you find yourself in is small, though gently padded for comfort with enough elbow and head -room to not be wholly claustrophobic. Still, it’s difficult to re-orient yourself; the best way to get to the chamber’s built in ladder and down to the smooth, polished white floor of the nesting is to simply roll over onto your belly and go out feet first.

First thing’s first though: get rid of that tube running from the rear wall of the chamber to the base of your skull. The moment you’ve done that, there’s the sensation like a rubber band popping - a string in your hand being jerked. The headache that punches in falls like the heavy end of a hammer - not serious, but surprisingly abrupt - as a of combination confusion, resolve, anxiety, certainty, delight, and fear and expectation finds you. In fades after a moment, churning to a low dull pressure and a faint hum. It’s feels like standing outside the door of a small party, sounds muffled and incomprehensible. Some pieces rise and swell above the others then fall again. Strain your ears and realize you’re hearing nothing at all.

On the plus side, you’re not hooked into the compartment anymore. Slide out and onto the ladder, though not too fast or you’ll miss the small cubicle built into the wall near the mouth of the chamber. In the cubicle are all the things you brought with you, every small piece you own of the home you left behind. There’s a neatly folded pair of something like white pajamas there as well. They’re definitely in your size, though you have the option not to wear them since you’re still in the clothes you left home in. Granted, for some of you that might not exactly be a blessing. Your clothes haven’t exactly been laundered or repaired, so best hope you didn’t bleed or sweat on them too much during your escape.

Sliding free from the chamber pod and stepping out onto the ladder, you’ll find yourself in an open space. The room is broad and pale and clean, its sloping walls featuring dozens and dozens of holes like the one you just wiggled out of. There are more ladders and a few other people climbing down, or stareing, or already down on the nesting deck’s floor but the sixteen - seventeen, including yourself - people present would hardly fill even a sixth of the room’s available accommodations.

The noise is louder when you near any of the others. It’s as if you've entered the party yourself. Identifiable now is the low wash of feelings, a hum of emotions that only serves to make the slight headache worsen. They feel genuine. They feel like they could belong to you. Still, that pressure in your head doesn't worry you --Shouldn't it worry you? Does worrying - about the headache, about the world and people you left behind, or the strange place you’re in now, the odd collection of people you’re with and the fact that you feel strangely drawn to five or six of them - make the headache better? Or worse?

If you manage to push the sound aside and listen with your true ears, you'd notice you can't hear anything besides this small group of fellow hosts: their footsteps, their oddly sharp breathing. There’s no sound of traffic, no wind in the trees, no birds, no hum of a ship. Only circulating air and silence.

You may not know what a brood is, but finding yours is easy. There are minds among these strangers that call to yours, their voices louder than the rest, their feelings sharper. The nearer to you they are, the more comfortable you feel. Is that strange? You don't know them, but you do. There are few answers to be found on the nesting deck.

Eventually you will have no choice but to head out of the room. There’s only one way out that you can see: up through a spiraling hallway that arches overhead. When it opens again the space seems slightly less alien. There are doorways of a kind lining the walls and each one opens to a small, nearly normal room. There are no doors, so it's easy to see all the rooms are vacant. In seventeen of them there are items neatly stacked on the bed. Most are hygiene supplies. Some of them - a toothbrush, comb, razor - may be familiar to you. Others less so. There's a flat horizontal ledge beside the bed with a small light and a single drawer. Another table, apparently built into the wall, sits across the room with a chair. A mirror is on the desk; it’s slightly mundane and not quite to the Station’s style.

This room is yours for the moment. It doesn't mean someone won't want to trade - or take. Beyond this life support deck stretches the rest of Station 72. It is quiet and and twisting and perfectly inert.

At its most familiar, the Station is merely a still, empty ship with broad chambers and gently mottled light. At its worst, it’s an Escher painting of strange angles and bizarre platforms that seems grown as much as built. There are many ways to many places and while it seems all doors and passages open to you, there’s an unshakeable feeling that the space doesn’t quite match up - that there’s even more to the Station which you can’t yet see. Don’t get lost!




For now, you reach the floor of the nesting deck. When you do, something blooms in your mind. A voice, disturbingly lacking any identifying traits but warm and comfortable like sweetened milk, says:

( ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬...There you are...▬▬▬..Welcome to Station 72 ▬▬. )

If you follow the thread of that voice, you’ll eventually find your way either to Cathaway on the bridge or The Prince in the training wing.

---

((OOC Notes: Welcome to Station 72! Feel free to check out the SETTINGS page for more information about the Station. If you have any questions about the setting itself, feel free to ask them there; otherwise, please direct all questions to either the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages.

Prince’s top level should be live in the evening! Keep an eye out for it if you want him to give your character the introduction spiel instead of Cathaway.

Happy hatchday, everyone! :) ))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

Prince + Iota-Specialized NPC

[regalled]

[Past the Nesting Deck, past the Life Support the station begins to open. Two paths split, each leading to more. It is a great, monstrous thing, too big by far, too quiet, too empty. It should be more uncomfortable than it is, more lonely than it feels.

It has been lonely, but the noise from the new Hosts now eliminates any lingering feeling of emptiness from the Station. It can be overwhelming for those unaccustomed to the volume and intensity, unused to sharing more than they meant, to receiving more than they wanted. For those who chose not to follow the warm call of the voice in their mind, for those who wish to find silence and the smallest amount of privacy, who turn away from the hall that beckons and instead head towards the silence, they will find themselves, eventually, in the Training Wing.

And near the entrance, seated on a bench that pushes out from a low wall is a man. Unlike the rest of the strangers, the ones who reach and claw and cling to you, he is quiet. And unlike them he fits in to the space. His uniform bears similar lines, the stark grey and white broken only by the pop of violet in the form of a cape, a streak in his hair that seems incongruous both with the maturity settled in the lines of his face and the gravity of his presence.

It is clear you've come across him at work, a pad in his hands, something between a tablet and a clip-board, and he takes the time to find a stopping point before he looks up, expression mild and distant. With a nearly imperceptible gesture the pad folds, neatly and automatically into a small card-sized rectangle which he slips into a slit in the wall beside him before he stands to meet you, tall and broad and steady.]

You've awoken.

[It's not quite a greeting, but it might be the closest you're going to get.]

[decommission]

I'm not the only one.

[ His eyes had been following the stranger's hands, now they're fixed on his face - narrowed slightly and jaw set. His body is wrapped in tension, as if he can somehow physically reject acclimating to his new setting. And wary now too, given that every other time he's encountered someone it's been... well, louder.

He'd stopped his approach more than a handful of paces away. The uniform gives him pause, or maybe something about the way the guy is holding himself. ]

Who're you? [ Besides not someone who just woke up. ]

[regalled]

I'm aware.

[It was impossible to ignore, the sound of their conscious minds rising from the low hum. There was a time he would have gone to them immediately, ready to address them as a group, to attempt to explain the situation to a group full of confused and anxious minds. Now, though? He knows better. Instead he waits. Eventually they come. The Station is not so large as that.

Patience was chief among the virtues. He focuses on that now, facing down this new Host. And for the set jaw and the narrowed eyes Prince has nothing but a passive, even expression, hand coming up to rest in front of his breastbone and leaning forward the barest amount.]

I am called Prince. [There is something clear in the way he says it. It's what he's called, it isn't who he is.]

I am one of the guardians of this place. Have you spoken to Cathaway?

[decommission]

[ For a second time his gaze follows that hand before returning to Prince's face, his head tilting the barest degree and his brow furrowing at the question turned back to him. ]

I haven't. [ If a Cathaway is another guardian, then he's sure he hasn't spoken to one. Everyone he's run into has been just as disoriented, nothing like this Prince fella. A pause, shoulders squaring a bit as his eyes narrow again, then: ] Something was chasing me before I woke up here. I saw it - [ a very slight pause, the space of a flickering image of a face here and gone ] - murder someone. [ His mouth twists. ]

Is that thing coming here? [ There anxious edge to his voice isn't masked, it's overwhelmed by a determination to face whichever the answer happens to be, despite lacking the means to fight whatever it was that attacked him - if it comes to that.

There's bruises underneath his shirt - better than the hole that had been there before. ]

[regalled]

I am sorry.

[His hand draws back as he stands straight again, face tipped down to him. It doesn't sound like a lie, for all that it could be an empty platitude, his voice is low and although it is not expressive by any means there's a gravity to the words that suggests they're genuine. He doesn't attempt to shrug it off, nor does he jump immediately away from it. The loss was regretful, unintended. They did their best, but it was rarely enough.]

No, they cannot find us here. The Station remains safe.

[Despite his tone Prince doesn't bother to tell him that he can't fight back. It's obvious even with little study that this new Host was fragile comparison to many others, but if that worried him it didn't show.]

Do you wish to know why you are here?

[adamance]

[For as long as she can, out of some kind of defiance, she avoids the lure. But when it appears that she can't get answers from those closest to her (in vicinity—despite all feelings that dictate otherwise), she follows one of those feelings down an unfamiliar hall. Contempt marks her features, but it's not out of judgment. It's out of the unfamiliarity with her surroundings, and how she isn't certain that this is a better solution than fighting and trying to live on.

(Lexa has to doubt. It has to spring back up in her mind whether she likes it or not. But she suppresses it. She has to.)

Her features momentarily soften and then harden as she reaches Prince. The hardening has lost the contempt, however, and her features are replaced with a cool neutrality.]

Many woke at the same time. Most of them are people I'm not familiar with. They don't seem to come from a world like mine, and yet, we've all come here at the same time. [There's a pause as she levels a look at Prince, as if he's personally responsible for this. Then again, as far as she's concerned, he might be.] Explain.

[She's making a number of assumptions here, but she feels that their lack of knowledge of her gives her some leverage in those assumptions. Maybe it's unwise, but she's following that for now.]

[regalled]

[He studies her for a short, silent moment, and for all the intensity she radiates he appears unaffected. Even at the snap of the order- and it us unmistakably an order- the only change is the slightly lift of his chin, half disguised by the breath he takes.]

Most new broods are born together.

[Cycles and cycles of waiting broken all at once. The symbiotes awaken. Then the hunt begins, and they are called on again to do their duty.]

It is their way, so most hosts are brought to the station together, regardless of their origin.

[adamance]

Born? [The word seems to unsettle her. For some reason, she considers herself the brood in question, especially given her process of waking up. But she knows that isn't the case (or, she hopes that isn't the case). She recalls reaching for the metal bump in the back of her neck, hoping that it would still give rise there. Nothing from her world could simply be "born" elsewhere, but she also believes in reincarnation. Perhaps that's where her unease is coming from.

No, no perhaps. That's definitely it.]

I need to know more. [There's a beat, before he is allowed to speak again.] These people need to know more. Luring us out and hoping we can figure it out for ourselves tells us nothing. [As a leader, her process would be different.

But she's quick to judge what she understands so little of, especially given the circumstances through which she was brought here.

And she is grateful for her life. But she's on edge. She wants to fix that quickly.]

[regalled]

Yes. Such as birds. Fish. They hatch together.

[It's a simple explanation, but he preferred simple. Concise. Nevertheless, he knows one simple answer to one of a hundred questions would not satisfy, so he is unsurprised by her initial response.

If the slight raise of his eyebrows is any indication, he is more surprised by the second. Or insulted, perhaps.]

Is your head clear? Do you find it easy to focus? [He knows the answer already. Although he has not felt it himself for some time, he has experienced the echo of new hosts countless times. The noise was too much, the lights too bright, the scent of their own skin almost enough to drive them mad. But this is a learning experience. Most things were.]

To expect everyone to be ready to hear and understand at once is folly. The process affects each Host differently. Some wish to know everything they can immediately, others wish to only know that they are safe, that they may rest for some time until they adjust to their new senses. When they are ready, they seek answers.

[A pause, a lecture ended. Arms coming up to cross over his chest as he looks down at her.]

You are ready. Would you like to know why you are here?

[faul]

[ She doesn't know what she's going to find at the end of this path, but when she sees Prince, it sort of makes sense for him to be there. He fits, not like a furniture on a room, but more like a missing part on a puzzle that has just been found. Romy can't say the same about herself. ]

Awoken to what, exactly. I would like to understand.

[ Understanding is the first step of getting out of here. ]

[regalled]

[There is a patent regularity to most new host's thoughts. A certain number of typical responses to the situation, so he while her thoughts are less than silent he takes no more notice of them than he would of a miss-set button or a crooked tie. To point out something such as that to one you didn't know was rude. Best to ignore it, like you would the minor indiscretions of a child.

He tips his head slightly, focused on the words, not the background. On what mattered.]

You did not answer Cathaway's call?

[Enough time had passed for him to think it likely. Not guaranteed, however. Sometimes nearly every member of the new broods would go. Sometimes almost none. Predicting it was impossible on a case by case basis, but in the end he found it roughly even. Thoughts of regularity and pattern were something to occupy his thoughts where the increasing silence and emptiness between waves of broods lengthened.]

[faul]

I did.

[ There's no anger in her anymore. She has moved on. She's curious and tired, but mostly curious. These people will answer to some degree, so better get what she can while she can. ]

I'm a sucker for second opinions.

[ She's still unused to the link, but for the time being she tries to get a feel of it. All she gets is the certainty she shouldn't mess with this guy either. ]

Where is everybody else?

[regalled]

[He feels her testing along the frail new thread connecting them, but she will find no answering call from him, no invitation. He remains closed off, ignoring the clumsy attempt where he might, with a more experienced Host, chide her. It was rude, but she wasn't to know. Especially since his feelings on it differed from most.]

I see. I assume most of the new Hosts are acclimating themselves to their new accommodations.

[Which does not explain the large, silent space around him. Something he appears to realize after a short moment.]

There are very few others aboard the station. It has been some time since we last had new Hosts.

[insurrectum]

[ He is a black stain in pristine white.

The corridors are a contrast with him (or rather, he is the contrast= as he walks along them, away from the noise. Pushes it away from his mind with disgust, discomfort, anxiety. Like trying to peel off honey from your hands. It sticks stubbornly to it and the more you try to wash it out the harder it becomes to get off. So, he creates distance. Exploring the magnitude of the station for an exit sign. Steal a car-- a vehicle. Something to escape. It reminds me of the great halls in the military underground. Sterile. Cold.

When he turns the corner, he is not expecting someone else. It's quiet here, after all, and everyone else is noisy. Parker has no idea how to stop it or why it is happening. Part of him assures him it's fine. It's a natural thing. The instinct he has relayed on years after years however, tells him it is not fine. It is wrong. Enough to leave him angry. A buzzing in his chest. Tiring, this constant duality. A tug of war with yourself.

So he stops too, when the tall, broad man does. Keeps his eyes on him. Holds on to his bag, tighter. His jaw clenches. He doesn't move his eyes away from him. ]

If you say so. [ It feels more like a waking nightmare than anything else. He wishes he was back to sleep. Not here. He doesn't remember how he got here. A fuzzy memory (he was death, his eighth hour upon him, a fragment of a person, if that much.), something forgotten. A dark blank in his mind. His bones still ache. His organs still feel-- tender. ] Who the hell are you?

[ It is unkind, unfriendly and demanding. It is not tentative. Like some kind of idiotic dick measuring contest. Puffed out peacock. ]

[regalled]

[Patience. Patience in all things. Chief among the virtues, hardest learned of lessons. It is a mantra that would almost be loud enough to hear if he were not so schooled, or if there were anyone with a strong connection closer to him than Cathaway,

The young Hosts were to be forgiven many things. Rudeness was among them. Most were, at first. He himself had made a fool of his name when he had first come to the Station. So he merely breaths, waits, and answers, level and apparently unaffected.]

I am Prince.

[He doesn't have to check the time. There are no clocks aboard the station even if he did. Either way he knows exactly how long it has been since the new Hosts had woken. Long enough for him to have had time to cool off, not that he appeared to, and long enough for him to have found some answers if he were truly searching.]

Are you looking for something?

[insurrectum]

[ He would, very obviously, disagree. Patience only gets you so far. But then again, people deal with the world in different ways. It is what makes people, well, people. Individuality. Self thought. He is an adamant supporter of free will and free thought and fighting against the tide, because it is where he feels most comfortable. An unresting spirit, a rebellious soul. Never at rest.

He does not want forgiveness nor patience. He does not want anything from them.

He doesn't give him his name back. Doesn't want to (has to bite his tongue to not to give it to him, because it feels right), he repeats to himself as he clutches the bag tighter and becomes tenser. Churned and battered. ]

The way out.

[ His grip on reality, too. ]

[polyphonos]

[There's no sense of settling, no indication of quietened minds despite the fact that between the two of them she believes them to have spoken to nearly every newly hatched host - but that's often the way of things in the beginnings. New hosts grow louder before they learn to be quiet, shout more than they do listen. It has never mattered what they say or what they don't say; a period of adjustment is inevitable, no matter the willingness of the hosts in question.

Still, he is easy enough to find under the din of new minds: a familiar, persistent quiet like her own shadow. When she knows herself to be finished, Cathaway runs a mental finger across the imagined nape of his neck. She is leaving the bridge, it says. Stay put.

It doesn't take her long to navigate the station; it opens itself for her and sinks shut in her wake. Today, this hour, she finds the most direct path because it pleases her to do so. This is not the day for walking in circles as she suspects by now he has little patience remaining - can sense it in the threadiness of his mind, even if the exact sensation is kept quiet and distance from her. She turns a corner and passes then through the doorway to the training wing; Cathaway's version of a beeline from it to him is slow, easy, the charms at her waist and wrists jingling pleasantly.]

A good hatch. There are many we like.

[regalled]

[The ghost of her mind across his as he works, not long after the departure of what he believes will likely be the last of the new Hosts to stumble across him pins him in place as neatly as an arrow. She wants him to stay, and so he wants to stay, and then, just as quickly, he wants to go. It is a knee-jerk response to gentleness of the connection, the soothing edge of it, and he recognizes it for what it is.

So he stays, but he straightens his back further. He doesn't check her progress even though she is like a beacon even through the noisy clatter of the new Hosts and their fractured minds. The sound of her ringing charms, the gentle chime is what he chooses instead to react to, finishing off the last bit of his work- vital, or so he believed, but not exciting.

He makes a low noise, neither assent or denial, and takes a breath before he looks up to her, lowering the pad to his lap and waiting to see whether she would join him or merely pace the room, flit from place to place as if she were untethered. A false impression.]

You rarely feel otherwise.

[A truth. He was far more reserved in his judgement than she was. They were, as a collection, strong willed but hard-edged. They would prove difficult, of that he had little doubt.

Smaller still. From this distance he can feel the last edges of blooming bruising pain from her, the tenderness of her windpipe. His lips narrow, the smallest degree, as if the tempered look of him would stop her from knowing his mind.]

But their number is reassuring. It seems we will see more before this wave ends.

[The truncated size of Castor's brood was a guarantee. He suspects they will have at least another brood join them before the wave ended. Not a disappointing number.]

[polyphonos]

We rarely have cause to.

[Most minds, however small or stubborn, had elements which appealed or might be made to be beneficial to the whole given time, support, and the appropriate structure. There were few exceptions but she's confident that those would either learn to be better on their own or-- well, she is not above gentle encouragement should be it prove necessary.

She drifts from the entrance of the training rooms to his bench, but doesn't move to sit beside her. There is an urge to, a tingling at the base of her neck and in her fingers, but she lets it develop no farther. He will feel it of course, that chemical taste want in her mouth, but she trusts The Prince will appreciate her self control. It's a sign of respect, a well-practiced reservation that holds even in the face that tiny thread where he feels the lingering pain of Kylo Ren's attack. His attention becomes her want for it, her desire an appealing sliver of curiosity in him.]

Agreed. A more respectable number than we expected, really. [She had hoped for just six - anything fresh to wrap her mind around; two full broods and slightly more than half of a third is more than she would've thought to ask for.

Her attention on him gentles then, her hands idle at her sides.] We know you find this process annoying, but we think the work is good for your peace of mind. It gives you somewhere to focus your attentions.

[Otherwise his options were limited to their link and-- not much else. She understands that to be difficult for him.]

[snippycup]

[Ahsoka walks with less caution now that she's spoken to Cathaway. Combined with the odd calm in her mind, it almost feels like she might be used to her new life.

She isn't. There's still something crawling under her skin, and it translates to discomfort even if her body (and the symbiote) refuses to let her feel it. So when she spots Prince across the way, she pauses at a respectable distance to watch him with some interest.

He doesn't feel like many of the others she's encountered. Most others immediately have some sort of feedback that she has to deal with. Prince does it. Its a relief, even if silence is still a far way away from her.

The way he speaks reminds her of the way Cathaway addressed her. Like he was expecting her to awaken -- perhaps he is also apart of the rescue group.]

A little while ago, yeah.

[She finds herself smiling in spite of her innate unease. There's a wryness to her tone to cover up her vocal discomfort.]

But you probably knew that already.

[regalled]

[This one, at least, seemed to have found some sort of control in the interim between the sudden rise of the new Host's minds and now. It did not make her silent, not to him, but it made her ordered, to an extent. It was far easier to feel the low humming note beneath her mind that came along with her. An interesting power, one which he hoped would benefit them in the end. At least she seemed unlikely to strike out with it.

Not that his guards were lowered entirely, but they rarely were.

He takes a short second to study her. He has become very used to alien peoples in his years, but he had not seen one of her before. Humanoid, which was always convenient, but likely her abilities would vary somewhat, her strengths and her weaknesses differing. Still, there is a part of him that appreciates seeing something other than a human in the halls of the Station. Some outnumbered part of him.]

New Hosts are never silent. [It is an agreement, but a gentle one. She was very young for this life. As always, better than death.]

I suspect you have already received welcome. Allow me introductions, then. I am Prince.

[His hand rises smoothly, palm upward near the center of his chest as he bows slightly.]

[snippycup]

[The bow works out better than the handshake had with Cathaway. Ahsoka, in turn, folds her hands in front of her and bows a touch lower than Prince opts for.]

Ahsoka Tano, at your service.

[When she straightens, its with a slightly tilted head and a blink of curiosity. She's been absorbing too much information today, but that doesn't stop her from trying to learn more. For the moment, she forgets her manners. Its an easy thing to do, when one's thoughts were on display to start with.]

Just Prince? Prince of what? [A short pause, like she remembers herself. Should she add 'your majesty'?] If...you don't mind me asking.

[fearward]

[ Anduin's a social animal: he likes to be out among people, talking to them, learning from them. But silence has its place, too--though he's not sure if things will ever be silent again, given the constant, bubbling stream of strange voices now running through his head.

He wanders the ship, massaging his temples, hardly even paying mind to where he is or what's around him. When he hears the man speak, he stops short. It's a declarative statement, authoritative--knowing. ]

Yes, sir. Was I expected?

[regalled]

Certainly.

[If he hadn't been him being here would be unprecedented. He was more than expected, he was brought here. The only question then had been how long it would take the new Hosts to awaken, and it had always been a question of when, not if. Perhaps someday that would change, but not today.]

You have wandered far.

[It's a statement, not a question, but he doesn't actually know what has brought this one here. He neither seemed to be attempting to flee, driven by anger or fear, nor did he seem curious- the sort of curious that would drive one further into the unknown.

Quiet, likely, something difficult to find for one so young.]

[fearward]

Exploring. It's important to know as much as you can about where you are, right?

[ And, that said ... ]

Is there anything I should know? In particular? What exactly do you expect of us?

[ Anduin is inquisitive by nature. He doesn't just want to know--he wants to understand. ]