[hatch log] a lonely, distant place

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: Closed to Misato, Beth, Seviilia, Shepard & NPCs
WHERE: The Station
WHEN: DAY :045
SUMMARY: Somewhere far away from Concordia, new minds gain awareness.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary.

YOU WAKE UP and the person you were a moment ago is gone. --No. Not a moment. It's been a while, hasn't it? Something feels off - a combination of the strange and familiar right there in your own head. You know intuitively that you've been unconscious for more than just a blink of the eye, but it’s impossible to tell exactly how long or how exactly you escaped the danger that had been breathing down your neck.

But here you are, a small miracle of the multiverse: lying in a small faintly hexagonal chamber, a gentle white light emanating from the surrounding walls. If you were injured during your escape, those injuries have been healed. If you were anxious or frightened or distraught, those feelings have been briefly calmed. There's something strangely peaceful about waking up here and that feeling persists even as you find the tube running from the base of your neck to the compartment's rear wall.

But when you disconnect the tube things get loud and a wave of emotion fills that peaceful void. Fear, uncertainty, relief, a sense of purpose or loneliness or anxiety - maybe some of these emotions are yours, but they can't all be. After the initial sensory overload, the mental buzz elongates: stretches out into a murmur like the sound of a party behind a closed door.

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. Drop down the ladder to the floor of the Nesting Deck and you’ll find you’re not alone - and that those sounds in your head are louder. For two of you, the sense of familiarity runs so deep between you it might as well be cellular; one of you doesn’t share their connection, but you still feel like you know them somehow.

Welcome to Station 72. It’s quiet, still. Beyond the Nesting Deck in Life Support, there are a series of small personal rooms, all of them without doors. Some of them have personal belongings and a sense of life, but all of them are empty and it’s unclear how long they’ve sat that way. The only thing that’s obvious is that people are missing. For the time being, you’re alone with whatever (or whoever) has been left behind.

---

((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for the new hosts. You’re welcome to make your own logs separate to this for your time on the Station, but please be aware that until the current mission ends that you’ll be unable to play with older hosts currently away on Concordia.


Additionally, you can find a more detailed overview of the hatching process HERE. If you have any questions, please hit up either the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages!))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

cathaway | npc | ota

[polyphonos]

Perhaps Station 72 is one of many, or maybe it's the last lonely outpost in the dark place between the multiverse and maybe somewhere hosts are scheming or fighting or dying, but that's very far away indeed. Here and now, the Station is as quiet and still as a distant unnamed star. And from somewhere at its core emanates a low, pervasive murmur that almost sounds like--

( ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬...There you ▬▬▬▬ are.... )

--a summer's breeze drifting through a non-existent open window, stirring some sheer curtain hanging there. That breath of air (it isn't refreshing, it merely changes the density of the Station's atmosphere) winds it way through the labyrinthine guts of the place. If followed by instinct, it leads deep in to the heart of the structure. Here the narrow corridor-like sections of the Station elongated and widen into clearly alien overhangs and pathways that twist over and turn under themselves. A staircase switchback leads down the face of some large, quiet place, only to be followed minutes later by turning a corner and finding a dark chamber illuminated only by some strange mottled lights that shift under the surface of the glossy floor. In some corners there are strange signs of life - a forgotten pair of muddy boots, a bookshelf filled with alien texts.

Eventually the maze leads to a massive hangar bay. It curves faintly, bending away so that neither end can be seen. There's a mismatched assortment of air and ground craft - starfighters and carrier ships, wheeled vehicles and strange ornate archaic craft that have no obvious point of accessibility. A slate grey gunship sits on one of the vehicle platforms, it's personnel ramp dropped. Inside the ship and behind the controls is a woman. She's the source of that low, melodic murmur; right now, she's quietly parsing through the ship's diagnostics screens. Should someone come up the ship's ramp behind her--

"Ah, and now here you are. Good."

[wille]

[ Misato follows the trail set out for her like the most obedient prey, knowing that she is probably walking straight into a trap yet consciously choosing to do so over hiding away. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. What she isn't yet big enough to admit is that loneliness here is palpable and her need to find another soul is near physical in nature. Like hunger. Like thirst. Like lust. She had to find whoever was sending out the call.

So down the staircase, through the dark chamber with the alien library and into the massive hangar bay that could have come from her fantasies of the ideal car collection if only the vehicles weren't so strange. It fills her with unease, the near-familiarity of it all, and her one hand ventures inside her jacket to find the gun stowed in its holster just to affirm its existence. The scar that marks her torso tingles in remembrance. She was bleeding before, she was hurt, she was about to die. But-- ]

I'm alive.

[ Again. Life is a story that repeats. But she has always risen from apparent death to someone waiting for her to wake up. Ah. Like a thread, something pulls her onward to the nondescript gunship and to walk up its ramp to find the woman. The woman, quiet and composed compared to her sudden rush of thoughts, suspicion and fear, and questions: Who are you? Where is here? What do you want from me? Am I still me? What the hell is going on?

She picks and chooses. ]

Hey. [ A nod to say: I remember you. ] Who was that? The one you saved me from.

[ Gratitude will come later. For now it stays on the tip of her tongue. ]

[polyphonos]

[Her hand passes easily across the holographic display of the ship's diagnostics, the sweep and tap of her fingertips equal parts unconscious and systematic. The movement is punctuated by a soft chime of the metallic charms hung from the fine gold jeweler's chain wrapped the length of her arm, each new scan and systems diagram crafting some accidental melody.

Cathaway tips her face in the woman's direction. Her eyes are pale, watered with encroaching age, but there's a a preternatural brightness in them too: they're far too reflective and catch every minor fragment of light in the gunship's cramped cockpit.]

You must mean our Enemy. What shape did they find you in? They have many.

[miscreant]

"Here".

[The word is repeated, echoed even as she stands at the base of the ramp -- not because she is polite, or fearful, but entirely aware of how alien her surroundings are. The entire Station is incredibly overwhelming, technologies she could never have imagined, things that made even Titan constructs seem primitive. Somewhere between the hall, she had stowed her swords. In spite of her wariness, there was no mistaking Cathaway for an enemy.

She was the source of everything coursing through her. The mind of the Hive buzzing in her skull -- a modern day Lich King, if she had to compare her to something familiar. Its a dance she has danced before.

It doesn't matter where "here" is right this moment. She remembers the Burning Legion, and giving the order to attack. She remembers the hurried rescue, the enemies too strong to fight. And she remembers all those that surrounded her.]

Where are my Knights?

[polyphonos]

[There's a random melodic jingle as she pages through the ship's diagnostic information, the small charms at her wrist and elbow clinking faintly off one another. To her credit, Cathway does tip her attention toward the knight on the gunship's ramp. The mottled sheet of her grey hair falls forward over her narrow shoulder; she's rather small and narrow looking for a creature of power, and when she looks at Seviilia there's a frankness to her attention that seems (briefly) grounded.]

Not here. You probably know what happened to them better than we do.

[She offers up a smile:]

Can we do anything to help you be comfortable here? We rarely have hosts like you.

[She's very cold. Reeks of death in a way that belongs to her. That's... uncommon.]

[travailed]

[Years of new instincts have taught her that she can't stay in one place for too long without being sure it's secure, and so, in an effort to either gain that certainty or find somewhere else where she can, she wanders. It's slow-going and deliberate, but she finds the hangar eventually. It would be overwhelming, with its massive size and unfamiliar technology, if not for the fact that Beth hit her maximum threshold for feeling overwhelmed a long, long time ago.

She steps up the ramp of the ship with the same slow deliberateness that she's used to explore everything else. Cathaway's voice startles her, but she tries hard not to visibly show it, even if Cathaway isn't facing her. Her voice comes out even enough to almost be stoic.]

Why's that good?

[The thing is, Beth isn't sure she disagrees. She just doesn't know why she doesn't.]

[polyphonos]

It means you aren't content to wait for something to come to you. Exploration is an admirable trait.

[A moment later, the pilot's seat turns with her in it so that she can face Beth properly. Her hand strays from the diagnostic screens accordingly as well, a faint chime of the charms at her wrist tinkling against the edge of the gunship's console.

The woman in the chair is narrow and slim, delicate in the way that some ageing women are. She smiles and extends one of her narrow hands out, beckoning Beth to make her way farther into the ship.]

Are you comfortable, dear?

[earthborn]

There was something to be said for wild goose chases, as a category. For one thing, though they were annoying, they were also usually harmless. In Shepard's experience, however, they usually weren't-- opportunity cost could sometimes be counted in lives.

As a tactic for introduction, however, it had a weird, subtle merit. There was something both frustrating and comforting about being allowed to come in her own time, in her own way. In being allowed the pretense of having 'found' someone with whom the meeting had clearly been in no doubt.

So, she'd put her armor on before leaving the... living quarters, for lack of a better term. So sue her. Comfort or not, there were limits to the acceptable risk, on an alien ship, in an alien place.

"Yeah, I'm not all that fond of the whole gas and go method, just for future reference," 'At ease' was a relative term, and just because she's agreed to something, it doesn't mean she's happy about it either, "Cryo's one thing, but you don't have to drop something in my drink to get me home."

[polyphonos]

Don't worry Shepard, the woman in the gunship's piloting seat is at ease enough for the both of them. It wouldn't be inaccurate to describe the woman as languid as she moves her hand and pages through the ship's diagnostic reports made up of largely undecipherable lengths of code and data, alien schematics blinking in an assortment of colors and noted in equally foreign lettering systems. There's a faint, easy chime to each movement as the small charms at her wrists, fingers and elbows clink delicately off one another.

The woman appears to be in no hurry; in fact, she doesn't bother to raise her eyes from her work as she answers:

"We understand your discomfort. The disorientation can be extreme when you first wake up here - we believe it has something to do with the mind re-orienting itself to this place. Your symbiote will become better at managing that over time, though. It should be better from now on."

[miscreant]

[She remembers the dagger. Its a distant memory that suddenly feels far away, and yet somehow still at the front of her mind. Seviilia's glowing eyes slide open sluggishly, and she becomes aware of the fact that she's encased in something -- a structure she doesn't recognize, or even begin to identify. One hand comes up to find the tube, though she doesn't tug it out of her neck. The peace that comes with laying there is practically foreign to her, and so she absorbs as much as she can until it becomes clear that something about this just...isn't right.

When she tugs the tube free, it comes with a sharp inhale as the calm dissipates, and the more familiar stabbing returns to her skull. Long and pointed ears press backwards as she finds the rhythm of her own thoughts again, blinking rapidly as she tries to sit up and fails, the strong plate of her shoulderpads and the weight of the dreadplate on her chest keeping her secured. Her struggle lasts for an extended period, frustration mounting until she is able to uncomfortably twist on her side in order to push herself up on one arm and clear the lip of the chamber.

There is a period of about five minutes afterward where she simply sits and tries to recount the various happenings that lead her to this point, gripping the sides of her pod (where the padding is now slightly torn from the spikes that had dug into it while she struggled to release herself). She spots her swords in the cubbyhole beside her, as well as the white pajamas and a few personal effects -- her belt, jewelcrafting supplies, and pouches. She leaves the nightclothes and takes the rest, reattaching them to the various strapping on her person.

The calm forced upon her evaporates quickly when she is presented with the Nesting Deck in front of her, and she rethinks stowing her weapons away. There is a sense of others -- not a sensation she is entirely unfamiliar with, given the hivemind of the Scourge that she had been forcibly assimilated into, but they are distinctly not Scourge, nor are they fellow Ebon Blade.

She knows enough to follow it, until she reaches its source. When she calls out, her voice carries an unearthly echo -- as if the pale-blue tinged skin was not enough to hint at her state of undeath.]

Come out. I know you're here.

[wille]

[ The first thing she notices is the oncoming headache, like a bad hangover sans the fun lightheaded part of indulging in alcohol. But even as it throbs against her own skull, something tells her it doesn't quite belong there. The pain isn't hers. It's an other. She can sense her new company through the walls like an extra limb, not quite so tangible, but distinct. Undeniable.

Fear thrills her heart for a moment as she holds her breath, pausing her earlier plan to change out of her bloodstained dress and into the clothes provided, before deciding to not-accidentally push her pajama shirt down the ladder and onto the floor. ]

Uhh . . . But don't look okay! I need to get down and grab my shirt first.

[ Her sloppy words are incongruent against the state of her mind: focused and controlled, attention zeroed in on the other woman and unwilling to let go. Fists clenched, nerves bristling with the potential to react. ]

[miscreant]

[The fear filters through her blood like a limb still healing, but it awakens a sense of awareness that seemed to be partially absent in the other that Misato finds -- like the fear somehow set out to soothe the headache in her head. One of Seviilia's rotting ears twitches in curiousity as she looks up, a direction she hadn't quite expected to be looking at first. It made sense -- hadn't she just climbed out of one of those pods just the same?

There was no telling who was friend or foe here, given that she had just emerged from the heat of a battle with the Burning Legion. There was nothing to say that they weren't here now -- though something in the back of her head hints that this woman is not to be feared.

But, in spite of her request, Seviilia does not look away, and continues to stare upward. The naked flesh ceased to trouble her several years ago. When you were a corpse and in the business of raising other corpses, the flesh was just another construct -- hardly something to be hidden or ashamed of.]

Who are you?

[travailed]

[Beth does not come out. Instead, she crouches lower where she is, beside the... whatever it is she woke up in, and fits the pair of surgical scissors she found in her cubby in her palm, blades down. She attributes the new ache at the base of her skull to having slept strangely in the aforementioned whatever-it-is, still finding it difficult to sort through what feelings do and don't belong to her.

She knows that there are other people in this room, too, somehow, but she doesn't know if they're friendly. In general, she assumes not until reasonably shown otherwise, if just for safety's sake. That said, she still finds herself peeking over the edge of the platform with less restraint than she might in another situation.

She also has a, ah, complex relationship with undeath, not that she's drawn the connection yet.]

Who are you?

[miscreant]

[Her reaction is one that Seviilia might have expected from a civilian, who either didn't understand where they were, or did and knew what kind of trouble they were in for bringing a death knight aboard. However, there is a distinct sense that she feels that tells her that whoever this is--they're attached to her now.

Her exhale is forced, a sound that rattles like death, unnatural and unnecessary. She can't tell much more about her from the connection they now apparently share, only that she doesn't trust her -- no more than Seviilia herself doesn't trust her, of course.]

I am Seviilia, Deathlord of the Knights of the Ebon Blade.

[She pauses, and starts to pace at the base of the ladder with metal boots echoing, running through several possibilities in her mind, torn between the present and what she had seen before she had woken up. There was a chance this woman woke up much like her -- confused, and a foreigner to the world. There was an equal chance that someone was trying to force her to let her guard down.

Anticipating the latter, she tries again.]

I would prefer not to be your enemy, but you should know that my patience comes in limited quantities.

For Beth

[wille]

[ Misato emerges to the sound of music, the brief but intense rush of conflicting emotions following the tube's removal gives way to a song firmly sung by a voice in her head. It's unclear now what we intend, we're alone in our own world. It's comforting to hear, but the comfort gives her pause, turns her suspicious. She always looks a gift horse in the mouth, ever the cynic, and anything that seems too good to be true, is. It takes constant, willful reminding to ensure she doesn't let herself trust the voice, as kind and familiar as it sounds.

Gun in hand, safety off, finger away from the trigger, she descends down the stairs slowly, partly out of caution but mostly because she still feels so weak. Her black dress is stiffened by dried blood but the length of scar marking her torso feels distinctly numb. She was injured but not anymore. Everything is wrong.

The deck below seems empty but feels full. Like a room of people hiding in all your blind spots, ready to jump out for a surprise, or a house that hosted a party just moments ago with the remnants of all your friends' presence still lingering in the air. She holds on to the railing for a while longer once she reached the bottom rung, scanning the room to spot her companion, a blonde girl, slight and small, the epitome of harmlessness. She grips her gun tighter against her side, finger resting against the side of the trigger.

The thought that echoes in her mind: It's her. The girl is significant to her somehow and there's a sickly sweet taste in her mouth that won't go away no matter how many times she swallows, but she knows it isn't her sucking on that lollipop. Because that, that gets messy and you will hurt me or I'll disappear. So we will drink beer all day and our guards will give way and we'll be good. ]

It doesn't work that way, you know.

[ She's surprised by how hoarse she sounds, how weak, and the realization causes a wave of self-contempt to run through her limbs like a shiver. Running away only hurts you in the end. ]

[travailed]

[Beth has been standing on the lower deck for longer than she thinks she knows. She feels cut adrift and uncertain, like she's walked into a room and forgotten why she did. It's a sense that something's missing, something important, and every moment she can't recall what it is, her anxiety percolates a little more.

Her chest and stomach throb with phantom pain (it must be the fifth or sixth time since she woke up). It's enough that she's convinced (again) that something terrible must be wrong, and she lifts her shirt (again) only to find no blood or bruise there to explain it. Then there's a sound, and she looks up, makes eye-contact with the woman on the ladder, and her mind says Katsuragi, heavy like an anchor, weighing her down.

Her head tells her to be afraid, reminds her that her arm is still in a cast even if it no longer hurts, and her only weapon to counter the gun is a pair of scissors... but something deeper than that, deeper than her gut, deeper than her heart, feels relieved.]

Not always.

[She's agreeing and disagreeing. On some level she knows she shouldn't understand what the woman is talking about, but she— just does. It comes out smaller and more sheepish than she wanted, on the heels of a sudden sting of... shame? She isn't sure. The feeling doesn't feel correct, but it's there anyway, somehow.]

[wille]

[ Not always.

She remembers walking under dim streetlights, shoes in hands, deep in her belly blooms a sort of euphoria that comes from speaking a long-hidden truth, but only when she knows the revelation will change nothing. Eight years, it has been. He tells her the same: it doesn't matter. He gives her a half-promise only when he knows he's a dead man walking. This hurts like a knife to the heart but somehow she tells herself it would be worse if she hadn't kept her distance, hadn't run away. It was all a mistake--

No, no, the girl will know if she dwells on this. She may be the world champion at keeping up appearances, but her attempt at hiding her thoughts is clumsy, like a child trying to hold on to a handful of sand, too much of it slips past her fingers. The girl is the same, isn't she? Her fear is palpable.

She makes a point of replacing the safety on her gun and slowly stowing it in a holster against her side. ]

I heard you singing. You have a good voice. In your mind, at least . . .

[ Good job handing out compliments, Misato. ]

Prince | NPC | OTA

[regalled]

Some Time Later

[It has been hours. Perhaps it has been days. It's difficult to tell on the station, with its emanating white light and stillness. It's never too dark to work, never too light to sleep, and it is very, very empty.

Not quiet though. Even with so few minds the sound can be overwhelming. Ever present. A low hum, sometimes a loud shout, blending and melding and tugging at those caught up in the flow. It was easy to be carried away, unless you were solid and stable. Those who make their way- away from the honeycombed rooms and the nesting deck, opposite of the garden, the bridge, above the hangar- and find themselves in the Training Wing, where the scent of cool water permeates the air, have the opportunity to stumble upon another person, a man, just past middle aged but still solid and broad. They could easily be forgiven for being surprised, because unlike the rest of the residents of the Station he is quiet, outside and in.

Prince can be found just inside an open room, organizing rows of practice weapons on racks, blunt swords and spears without tips and staves of seemingly every make seeming almost archaic, their intended targets standing at attention- rows of training dummies almost as silent as him. He doesn't immediately turn when the new Host enters the room, but carefully replaces the weapon he was holding before doing so.]

Welcome to the Station.

[wille]

[ Misato's first thought is of how he's the only man on the station. Those drones, regardless of their apparent gender, don't count when they have been so stripped of their identity to be neither one or the other. Masculinity isn't about anatomy.

The realization turns her conscious of not being a man, becoming aware of how she carries herself, if she is standing straight enough, if she seems too weak or too fierce, if the expression she wears is friendly enough, too friendly. There is river wider and deeper than ocean between men and women, as the saying goes, though if she is at all honest, dismissing it as a saying leaves out the reason why it echoes in her head now. It's more personal than that. She despises the idea, the futility implied therein, and wishes nothing more to prove the author wrong.

But hush, stop this now, silly, he can hear you. ]

That's a bit late, isn't it?

[ It's been days, she's sure of it, has counted each passing hour like an inmate. She resorts to crossing her arms in front of her chest, standing tall, feet together, expression as confident as she can muster. She can cross that river, just watch. ]

[regalled]

[For all the way that Misato's thoughts betray her, Prince doesn't change the set of his shoulders or the mild expression that sat on his face. The young hosts were always loud, unfiltered and unpracticed in hiding what they've always considered to be secret by default. Still, there is wisdom in the saying that practice makes perfect. This new group had been preceded by many others since the newest hatching had begun, and however rusty he'd become in the long stretch before he was again accustomed to weathering the storm of their minds. It wasn't the same thing as blocking, not entirely, but he could muffle, and he could pretend not to hear what wasn't intended for him in the first place.]

Perhaps, but is nevertheless true.

[With his hands now free and his attention focused solely on her, he wastes little time in raising his hand to his chest, palm up, wrist loose as he performs a shallow but well-practiced bow.]

I am Prince, one of the guardians of this place. You have spoken to Cathaway?

[miscreant]

[Because of his silence, Seviilia almost doesn't notice him. The noise of the station was enough to distract her, the familiarity of it easy to get lost in -- but its his breathing, his beating heart that eventually draws her attention, shortly before he opts to greet her formally.

The archaicness of the weapons is familiar too -- more familiar than just about everything else in the Station had been. She observes the room around her before answering more formally, with a light crease in her brow.]

I did not aim to interrupt you.

Shepard | Day 048 | ota

[earthborn]

As usual, Shepard's first moments of awareness came on slowly, with a distinct and troubling sense that she'd been drugged. Or rather, with the sense that it would be troubling in a moment, that she remembered this sensation being troubling in the past: right now, everything was just fine. A perverse part of her always liked this bit here, delusional and relaxed, the easy life of a child, before responsibility and duty cut through all those umbilical cords and thrust you out into the coldness of life. And some people wondered why a body might turn to drugs.

Speaking of umbilicals, this thing back here just had to...

It all rushed in, impossibly loud, and extremely close. Flashbang grenade of sensation, the chatter of conversation, voices, memories, like freefall for the first time, if the first time had been done in time's square at midnight, emotional backlash like a shower of confetti. She might have let out a shout, might have gripped the edge of... whatever the hell this is.

A bed? A pod. A fucking pod.

Even as the noise attenuated, Shepard allowed herself to be distracted by it, like the things the collectors had had, melting people down, peeling them away to sludge and then-- Nope. She wrenched herself away from the memory with a nearly physical snarl, and the motion turned her towards a footlocker. Investigation was rewarded with physical incentive. Leaving the armor, for now, she dressed in the civvies and dropped the ladder.

If they were here for combat, the world wouldn't look like the nice parts of a psych ward. That was what she told herself was why she knew it was safe enough, here; whatever else she'd gotten her damnfool self into now, wasn't going to get any better by acknowledging that for fatalism.

"Hello?" The place seemed comfortingly empty of threats. Either she was the first one out of bed, or the last. Given the... the radio contact, was a fine enough way to parse it, Shepard was forced to assume the latter, "Anybody around here?"

[wille]

Misato senses her will, like an advancing and unstoppable wall of fire, before she sees the woman making her way down the ladder, an anticlimactic conclusion to the initial dread of meeting someone with as colossal a presence. People are bigger, more magnificent inside their heads, their bodies just puny shells for who they truly are. But she shrinks and withdraws in response, not believing the same of herself, setting the disgusting traps and hurdles along the way lest her new company tries to step any closer inside her. Nothing to see here, nothing to see.

"Yo!" Informality is a kind of defense too. "Over here."

The vision that greets Shepard is the epitome of disorder: dozens of emptied cans and bottles of coffee and almost!coffee and maybe?coffee of various brands strewn about her on the floor, with books, papers and magazines dotting what empty spots remain. Misato has set herself smack dab in the middle of this chaos, wearing the same white pajamas as her company and somehow managing to make it look tousled, sleeves rolled up to her shoulders, one knee exposed, surfaces wrinkled and coffee-stained.

The book open in front of her is Octavia Butler's Mind of My Mind, nearly finished.

"How are you feeling?"

[miscreant]

The sensation isn't strong, but its impossible for Seviilia (whom has fallen into the vastness of the nest easier than she would care to admit) not to feel the far-off tickle of extreme discomfort coming from the nesting chamber. The visions aren't necessarily clear, but they are familiar in their own way, sensations she's felt before once upon a time.

It is this that causes her to about face and return to the chamber she'd been avoiding. After all, the one who called herself Cathaway had told her the other hosts were out -- there was no reason to imagine there would be further disturbances there. She's almost happy to be wrong. In truth, the Station had been dreadfully free of conflict and it had been slowly compounding the familiar hunger she found stirring in her gut.

Shepard's call echoes down the hall, and Seviilia pauses half-way. The other two who had risen from the pods seemed content to be in her presence, but it was rarely safe for her to assume that everyone would react the same way. Unlike the other woman, Seviilia is not dressed in civvies, but in her full plate armor. Her hood sits down around her neck, leaving glowing blue eyes and parched skin in plain sight.

After a minute of debating whether or not to pull her hood up and arm herself, she decides against it and turns the corner.

"You'll find the halls mostly empty," Seviilia offers, as if they already knew one another. "But there are a few of us roaming."

[travailed]

Beth hadn't been expecting anyone else to wake up. It seemed reasonable to assume that the three of them had been a batch, and that them waking up together had been rote and planned. But when Shepard wakes up, it's like another piece of Beth is slotting into place, like of course Shepard should be here, now.

She's gotten better at sorting through which feelings are hers and which aren't, but simmering, bottled anger— that's something that's familiar enough to her to make it harder to tell the difference.

"I am." Beth has stopped near the entrance of the Nesting Deck, arms folded loosely across her stomach; she'd started making her way over as soon as she'd been aware that she needed to. She has a small journal in one hand. "Did you just wake up?"