[HATCH LOG] STRAP IN

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: Station 72 | Avera 9
WHEN: Day :161
SUMMARY: New hosts wake up on the Station. Mom and Dad go to pick them up for the school field trip.
WARNINGS: None; will edit if necessary.

ON AVERA 9: A moment ago, the hosts on Avera 9 might have been aware of a hollow feeling in the back of their minds - a lack of something significant. On day :160, that changes for Adara and Castor broods. An empty, waiting slot is filled. With little warning, Prince and Cathaway announce they are returning to the Station. Even Prince - normally focused and attentive - seems distracted. There are reasons they don't usually leave the Station. This is one of them.

ON STATION 72: On day :161, two hosts wake up in the vaguely claustrophobic chambers of the Nesting Deck. There's a weight on their chests, a sharp tug like some piece of them is being pulled elsewhere - but maybe that's just the tube running from the rear wall of the chamber connected to the base of their skulls. Once disconnected, Jessica and Petre may collect their personal belongings - carefully organized in the cubby at the mouth of the compartment - and then slide feet first out into the Nesting Deck.

They aren't alone. First, there is a sound - a sensation - of something whispering too low to hear. More obviously though, there are two figures - a man and a woman - waiting for them at the center of the polished deck. The woman is easy, gentle through every one of her angles except person her pin straight hair and the piercing too-reflective quality of her gaze; the man is sharp, staunch, and his jaw is set.

Prince and Cathaway will offer answers, but it's clear there's an urgency here. The Prince, at least, seems anxious to hustle Petre and Jessica along to the hangar. The other hosts have been left to their own devices and the Prince has little trust for them. It isn't long before the two new hosts are ushered to the ship and urged to join Prince in returning to Avera 9. Today they'll be left to the tender mercies of Prince's capable but inelegant flying, as it appears Cathaway is opting not to make the trip with them.

"Be well," she tells the new hosts. Far away on Avera 9, the old hosts find her warm milk, honey sweet voice in their heads. It is intimately near, as if she weren't somewhere entirely different:

( Please return to the landing zone at-- [a sensation of time, an implication of navigation and the tilt of the planet and stars rotating overhead that is abstract but nonetheless clear as day]. The Prince brings you new hosts. Please support them. )

When the shuttle drops down again, it is with the expectation that the other Hosts be there to meet them and to take in the new members. --And maybe to get another lecture from The Prince, if the situation calls for it.

---

((OOC: This log will cover both the short time aboard Station 72 for the new Hosts should they chose to use it, as well as their landing on Avera 9, open to all of the Hosts new and old. Consider it a check in before they’re again allowed to go back to their scrounging and stabbing.

For additional hatch information, see the previous hatch log. For general information on Avera 9, see this ooc post.))

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Comments

[inflori]

Her presence is such a natural, pure comfort, that for a moment, Petre looks genuinely confused. Let him watch his world fall apart, bring him to the middle of nowhere in space and then witness the first instance of perplexity at a pleasant buzz in his limbs, like now is when he finally woke up for the first time. That's what makes him frown and look at his hands, then around. Not unlike someone experiencing an entirely new kind of high, however subdued it is.

When his attention returns to her, the link of their conversation reestablished, he is just as out of tune with the reality of what he's been told as one would expect. He is but a child and Diana is his world. Not just what he knows, but what matters.

"... But. Then. Where is she?"

Denial, of course. She can't be dead. Just misplaced, is all.

"Someone else got to her?"

[polyphonos]

"She is wherever you came from." It is an unsatisfying kind of thing to tell a young host. Cathaway understands this. The question is - to elaborate and potentially plant some seems of uneasiness in him, or to simply let it lay? After a flickering moment of study, she opts for the former. Better to be forthright. Consensus demands answers; almost no one would let such a feeble explanation sit.

"There was a force - a creature or a person, perhaps - which chased you here. Unless you saw your Diana come between you and it, we suspect is is likely she is perfectly fine. Once you've left the system, the enemy pursuing you has no reason to be there."

Cathaway fixes her attention on him. It feels pointed - something narrow set against tender skin, without the weight to cut. "Is she a friend to you?"

[inflori]

The realization that sets in him is unpleasant, though he seems more lost than angered with what he's told. Even knowing that Diana is most likely all right and unharmed, the selfishness of feeling her absence rings louder in his mind, despite the distraction of that weightless pressure calling his attention back to Cathaway.

"She's my sister." The only word that comes close to what he feels. There's a very twisted idea of family here, but. She's his creator, his mentor, his protector. Of course he's attached to her completely.

Was, anyway.

"I need her here. Can't you go get her?"

[polyphonos]

Cathaway's response is immediate. She shakes her head, no. "We cannot go to your system without endangering it and our position here. You must be content with the thought that she may be safe and sound without you."

Were there more time, she might be gentler about this. But they have a time table weighing on them. Turning on her heel, she motions for him to follow her as she makes her way from the mottle light of the Nesting Deck and up the gentle ramp leading to the Life Support corridor. "We're sorry for it, but trust that in a few hours you will be with others like you. In time that may begin to make up for the loss of her."

[inflori]

But he is not content. He can't be, he refuses, and that transpires immediately through his features and his thoughts, emotions curling tight like his hands into fists. His brows pinch together, his lips press and his breath picks up, a huff of frustration and helplessness. He's almost ready to call Cathaway indignantly, demand she give him more answers, but her urgency silences him and urges him to follow.

"No. That's not going to happen."

He says so after Cathaway claims that anything will make up for the loss of Diana. This one is now determined to be difficult, even if he is cooperating so far. Sorta.

"I'm alone."

[polyphonos]

She breathes out, a gentle sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "You may feel that way now, but we guarantee you are incorrect. By coming to this place, you are intimately connected by the symbiote in your mind to the others here. Patience. You will see once you reach the planet. Right now your brood is too far away for you to feel or hear, but once you're with them you'll know we are right."

Cathaway's pace is steady as she winds up the ramp and through the Life Support corridor. On either side of them are doorways leading to small rooms furnished a bed, a lamp, a mirror; there are no doors. She bypasses all of them and makes her way toward the doorway at the end of the corridor.

"Do you have any other questions? We have but a short time with you."

[inflori]

There's still a silent anger in his eyes, like this is all her fault. He thinks so only because she's his only target at the moment, but there's really nothing he can or will do about it other than just follow at his own irritated pace.

"So you're just bringing me here and then abandoning me?"

Won't even stay with him long enough to let him get accustomed to her presence. Terrible...

[polyphonos]

"Hardly." She scoffs it out, shaking her head as they pass through the doorway at the end of the hall. From here their path twists, leading through many seemingly empty corridors and chambers with vaulted ceilings - mottled light - a gentle, pervasive quiet.

"The Prince will take you to the planet and there you'll be with other new hosts under his eye. We must stay here in case other hosts hatch in the interim - you and your partner here are an unexpected surprise; consensus suggests the likelihood of more following you is high and we cannot afford the fuel to take these trips back and forth so often. So you will go be with your brood so that you might learn along with them and then return when your task there is done. Honestly, you will learn more there than you would here."

[inflori]

While they walk, Petre crosses his arms and inches up his shoulders uncomfortably, painting the perfect picture of a sulking child. Which is exactly what he is, and it's a wonder that he's not just lashing out by yelling at his guide and trying to wreck their surroundings like a cat who's just discovered toilet paper.

This is a terrible analogy, but so is he.

"Fine. But what's an interim?"

Asking the important questions: a tale of give him a dictionary.

[polyphonos]

A hesitation - she tips her face to regard him across her shoulder, then smiles sharply. How funny. He'll be a good match for Ares.

"Interim. It means...the time between two things, we suppose."

Look, she's here to answer the important questions.

[inflori]

"It sounds pointless."

Just like Petre sounds like a brat, as usual.

[polyphonos]

"Which part? The part where you're leaving this place, or the one where we must stay?"

It's a patient question, asked easily and with very little consideration. Her focus is elsewhere even as she leads him from the life support wing, looping their way through light mottled corridors and broad chambers empty of life and stone still.

[inflori]

... The question is harder, because it supposes that there's choice. He already left one place, and he knows that now he must remain in another one. The absence of Diana hurts all over again, but Petre doesn't know how to interpret it with anything other than irritation.

"I don't know. You tell me. I bet you're all wise and shit."

[polyphonos]

She makes a low noise of dismissal. She doesn't especially care to assume the answer for him; if he has no desire to interrogate his own statement, then she has no use for it. "We know many things, but it's rude to tell a person what they're thinking. We prefer not to presume."

It's a clipped statement - perhaps not terribly patient, though there's very little edge either. She sweeps forward, lengthening her stride as they wind their way through the corridors. He will keep up if he knows what's good for him.

[inflori]

Keep up he does, apparently unwilling to recognize that he's just a little shit and she's doing all she can to help him and guide him, despite the hurry of their pace. Nothing's every good enough unless it's going his way, and his coming here is decidedly not.

"What else don't you do? Since you can do whatever you want."

[polyphonos]

"We don't do any number of things. For example, we dislike washing dishes and aren't fond of chess."

'Helping him' is, apparently, a matter of opinion. Certainly, she'll guide him to the hangar deck, bundle him in his necessary equipment, and see him off to Avera 9 but she has no need or desire to seriously answer questions he doesn't genuinely mean. She is a tool here for the use of the young hosts, yes, but that doesn't mean she'll bend over backwards to please him.

Inane comments deserve inane answers.

[inflori]

"Okay, so you're not total psychos. Congratulations."

That is literally the opposite of what you just said, Petre, but sure. He remains quiet for the remainder of the trip, sulking as he gets his equipment and refraining to really ask what is what or what it's for. Time to go.