[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

[regalled]

You have given no offense.

[True enough. His purpose here was not to sort weaponry. It was to guide and guard the young Hosts, even those who seemed capable of guarding themselves. And there is little mistaking this Host for helpless.]

I am Prince- [he bows, a short, practiced motion before stepping sideways away from the rack of weapons] and this is the Training Wing. It is at your disposal, as am I.

[miscreant]

[He supplies the word "Prince" as if it were meant to be a name, and because of that, silence extends between them for a few moments. Eventually, she frowns, clearly uncertain if she should be addressing him more formally.

There were plenty of princes on Azeroth, even if she found most of them to be obsolete.]

I see. Prince of...?

[No land she's familiar with, certainly. The only Prince of consequence was now a King.]

[regalled]

Nothing. It is a name, not a title.

[It had been a title, at one point, but the particulars of it and the longer name that had been attached were no longer relevant and certainly would be of no importance to her. Or to anyone.]

You will find this place has little use for such tings. Regardless of what they were, all hosts are equal.

[A thing that had taken him far too long to come to terms with.]

[miscreant]

Not entirely equal.

[She nods to him when she says it. It doesn't take an engineer to understand that Prince was longer lived than the other two he had met, though perhaps not quite as much as Cathaway. Prince might not encompass everything as she felt Cathaway had, but there was still a solid sort of distance she felt that she didn't feel with Misato or Beth.

If he was, perhaps her headache would not be needling her quite as much.]

Seviilia.

[She avoids the titles, given his reply.]

[regalled]

[He almost opens his mouth to correct- yes, entirely- but it would be difficult to explain. There were positions within the Nest, and certain Hosts had responsibilities beyond others, but there were no true leaders, and Hosts could move between these positions fluidly. He and Cathaway were Guardians, but they had not always been and may not always be, and-]

Perhaps I should say they begin equally.

[There, more simple. He dips his head slightly at her introduction, a pale excuse for his earlier bow.]

Have you had our situation explained to you?

[miscreant]

By your associate. She was rather thorough.

[She seems to mean that well enough, even if her brow dips a little when she says it. The idea that the Burning Legion wasn't the greatest threat she could have imagined is a tough pill to swallow when they somehow managed to thwart even the titans.]

She was rather optimistic, for such grim circumstances.

[regalled]

Good.

[He could have explained it, and had many times before, but this would be a late hour for her to be hearing of it for the first time.]

She is afforded some distance.

[It's a gentle, if not entirely approving, explanation. Her position in the Nest allowed her some distance from the personal nature of their struggle. From many personal things. Still, she was in an unusually good mood, it seemed.]

But there are only two possible outcomes, and only one of them bears considering.

[They had to fight as if there was only one outcome. There was no other choice.]

[miscreant]

Is that not how war usually turns?

[This time, Seviilia folds her arms. War was easy, when you were already dead. If you finally did get cut off from the thread of life, then you were simply meeting an end you were meant to meet years prior.

It doesn't bother her, thinking about the other outcome that apparently isn't worth being considered.]

It is not dissimilar to the one I was managing just a few days ago.

[regalled]

No, not entirely. Which is why I do not typically call it a war.

[Battles, on occassion. Struggles. Fights. But a war was a different beast from the one they faced. At least at this point]

The one you were managing, what was it for?

[miscreant]

[For a moment, she blinks, as if she had expected Prince to know already. She isn't exactly certain why -- someone had brought her here, it was easy to assume it was one of the two who appeared to be native. Or as close to native as she would find.]

The defense of our world, against the Burning Legion.

[Or so she thought.]

Their singular purpose is to cause destruction and chaos until there is nothing left of a world but ash.

[regalled]

[Prince nods, a shallow tip of his head, arms crossing over his chest. A somewhat unusual war of her own, but still, it bore little in common with their own situation. If she could understand that, she would have an easier time. So often soldier's believed they understood what it was they had entered into. And that was a dangerous illusion. One of his hands gestured as he finally spoke, wrist loose and elbow close to his body-]

I see. In contrast, we have no world to defend. The enemy has no ground to conquer. And we do not fight as two armies on a field. We are not soldiers. We have no king and no general. When this ends, we will either be alive as we are or we will be dead, without a chance of retreat or terms.

[There would be no treaty. There would be no surrender. There was no glory in it, there was only, at times, a certain satisfaction of driving a sliver into the pad of a great beast's foot as it approaches with slavering jaws.]

So you see, it is no war. It is warding off a predator.

[Unsuccessfully, for the most part.]

[miscreant]

[Its easy for Seviilia to scoff at the idea, then. Everything in her life was centered around war, regardless of what others had called it. If it serves him to avoid calling it what it is, then she will not take that from him.

When was the last time one of Azeroth's enemies could be negotiated with? Perhaps she'd been fighting predators all of her existence.]

Fair enough. Predators can always be outsmarted.

[regalled]

[Prince's brow furrows at the response, a sharp downward turn to one corner of his mouth.]

Not always. If that were the truth there would be none left. So unless you come from a very fortunate world I don't imagine that is your experience.

[He thinks if her world had no predators, she would likely not be here.]

Still, we fight, war or no.