[hatch log] welcome to the void-- wait no, waypoint shril

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: The Station, Waypoint Shril
WHEN: DAY :027
SUMMARY: New hosts take the universe for a spin.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

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

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. That feeling persists even as you find the tube running from the base of your neck to the compartment's rear wall.

But when the tube's disconnected? Things get loud. 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 happening 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. Maybe it's time for a change? 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 the closer you are to these strangers. --No. That's not right either. A sense of familiarity runs so deep between you it might as well be cellular.

Welcome to Station 72. It is... exhausting. There's both a both deep weariness in your bones and a pulse of anticipation crawling under your skin. Your body feels heavy at first, like you're somehow too dense or too real. But maybe that sensation eases eventually. Or maybe you just get used to it?

( ▬▬▬▬▬...There you are. Join us on the hangar, won't you....▬▬▬? )

It doesn't sound like a voice as much as it just resembles sounds, the sensation of warmth and security like napping in a window at the height of summer. If it's followed, you'll eventually wind your day to a massive hangar bay peppered with a myriad of small and medium ships ranging from strange to ornately beautiful to hardly recognizable. Waiting in front of a small silver craft is an aging woman with greying hair, fine jewlery chains tinkling with a multitude of metal charms sound through her clothing and along her forearms. You know instinctively she was the one who spoke to you.

She smiles now, moving to climb into the (very) small ship. There's room enough for all of you if you pack in tight. "Come along," says Cathaway. "The line for Platform Alfa is long enough that we can answer your questions on the way."





WAYPOINT SHRIL might be bursting at the seams with activity, noise and people, but there's no missing when something in the universe shifts. For most older Hosts, they wont quite be able to put their finger on what's going on, but Chuuya and Elena? They know exactly what's happening - somewhere in this universe, new Hosts are hatching and at least one of them belongs to you.

Not that the mystery lasts long for everyone else either. A few hours after the shift, Cathaway's speaks to you. Her voice is clear as a crystal bell, suffused with an intense and simple joy that has nothing to do with--

( New hosts have arrived. Please come meet us at Platform Alfa if you're able. They'll need your assistance. )

--and everything to do with the sensation of a ship hurtling as a bullet through space, the nauseating feeling of darting between other small craft and buzzing around larger class ships.

Come fetch your new friends, everyone. Waypoint Shril could be dangerous for the initiated. After all, the Catacomb Hotel is filled with construction zones and open elevator shafts, the streets are thronged with vendors looking to make a quick Shen off unsuspecting tourists, the area immediately surrounding the Stadium Zone is jammed with intergalactic reporters and especially hot headed or famous competitors filming a pre-competition conference, and - most mortifying of all - the line to leave Platform Alfa is apparently several hours long. What's a new Host to do without a little guidance?

---

((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for the new hosts and anyone looking to greet them after their hatching. You’re welcome to make your own logs separate to this going forward and tag any old logs that have been forward dated to this point or beyond. We're about halfway through the first week at Waypoint Shril, so feel free to touch the mission drop post as long as you're appropriately timing your encounters.


Additionally, you can find a more detailed overview of the hatching process HERE. You can find additional setting information about the Station HERE. Information about Waypoint Shril is located at the Current Mission Brief - you may consider this information more or less ICly known. Last but not least, 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

[polyphonos]

Uncertain. Exhausted. Waiting for the moment when things will begin to make sense again. [There's something rhythmic about the cant of her voice, the roll of her syllables in the cramped ship as it twists slowly downward.] But you're whole and alive. Is it a novel concept?

[The ship rotates down into the Station's launch tube, halting with a sigh too soft to be heard over the grumble of it's engines. Something starts, latching to the underside of the craft with a heavy clack.]

Brace yourself.

[With a jerk, the hook drags the ship forward. Fires it forward like a bullet from a gun.]

[somnifacient]

[A novel concept? He supposes it is — novel, but it settles wrong in him. Cathaway is right in the rest of her assessment, too. It’s almost too on the nose, enough to bother Noct, to unsettle him in a way he can’t quite enunciate.

Not that it matters. Because when the ship pitches forward with impossible momentum, pressing him back into his seat, making his insides feel simultaneously light and dizzying, the only phrase that filters loudly through his head is:

Holy shit.

Hands grip at his knees, tight, tense. Adrenaline spikes, not unlike the kind he feels before a battle. An unwanted sensation of… giddiness and apprehension fight for control, with neither winning.

He’s just gonna squeeze his eyes shut for this part, okay.]

[polyphonos]

[They smack into space. The silver ship rolls to avoid colliding with a shuttle buzzing across its trajectory, nauseatingly abrupt if not for the vivid, high spike of delight that pours off the woman behind the controls. It's fierce enough to be felt in the chest, like the weight of gravity pushing back from the velocity of the ship. And then the craft rights, wheeling hard around and racing for the broad silhouette of Platform Alfa peppered with craft.

Give it a second and it's almost not the worst as space folds out around them: hundreds of ships and the glitter of stars and wandering debris, the flash of lights from passing craft and the glare of three dozen holoboards winking from one brilliant advertisement to the next.]

Still in one piece back there?

[It's impossible to miss how pleased she is.]

[somnifacient]

[Only when she speaks does Noctis realize that he had been holding in his breath. It comes out with a hiss, forcing his eyes back open against a wave of fluttering delight that's coming off of Cathaway in even waves.

He's ready to make another dry quip (those always come to him quickly), but it sticks in his throat when he sees what surrounds them. It's a silence brought on by awe; passing craft and twinkling lights and stars dotting the canvas at every discernible angle. It makes Noctis feel impossibly small.]

This is insane.

[That's more or less a "yes".]

I never knew anything like this existed. [The weight of a revelation, the heavy realization of ignorance, is almost embarrassing.]

[polyphonos]

Lots of places like this exist.

[It isn't an indictment. That pleased, pervasive sensation of delight thrums through the shape of the words like a secret being told. If this place exists, what else might? What other strange, unimaginable adventures lay in the ever broadening multiverse and how long would it take to find them? They could go there, couldn't they? They could see everything, do everything; they could find the answer to every question or never ask another one and be content.

With a flex of the controls, Cathaway slews the silver ship over: stands it up on one of its gracefully swept pointed wings, then farther still - corkscrewing down toward the long, long queue lining up to Platform Alfa.]

How are you feeling? You must have questions for us.

[somnifacient]

[Questions-- right, questions. Noctis has plenty, though they're all fighting for priority, since he's having trouble sorting through them in his head. Eventually, he gaze settles on the sight of stars glittering in the distance, not the ships skittering past or even Shril itself.]

If we complete this mission, then what? [He feels a wave of something akin to regret bubbling up, spilling forth in what he should have asked awhile ago, yet was afraid of the answer.] Is it possible for me to return to Eos afterwards?

[polyphonos]

Unfortunately, no. [She throttles back on the engines with a deft quirk of the wrist, a flex of the fingers.] When you came here, it was to escape an Enemy hunting you. Should you return to your world, they will find you again.

[It's hard to feel sorry about it under the invigorating joy of flying, but she tries to remember what sympathy tastes like so he might sense it across the narrowed link between them.]

We're sorry. We know that isn't ideal.

[somnifacient]

[He grits his teeth, eyes flickering back to the waystation. It's not the answer he wanted to hear, but it's one that he had already expected. To think that it would be so easy was naive.

Noctis doesn't wave away the sympathy, though it feels faint. Not quite artificial, but not completely poignant either.]

You're right. It isn't. I have others that are relying on me. An entire kingdom.

[polyphonos]

Then you can rest easy, knowing that you have left them in a better position than if you had stayed. [There's a long, long queue forming to reach Waypoint Alfa. She heels the silver ship over, honing in at the end of that interminable line.]

You've done right by your people. To remain in your world might have put them in the line of fire; for as long as you stay away from it, you can be certain the Enemy will have no interest in your universe.

[somnifacient]

[Cathaway can likely feel nothing short of doubt radiating off of Noctis now. A better position? If only that were the case.

The line to Alfa is surprisingly long, but he's too caught up in their current line of conversation to think anything of it for now. When they're still sitting in the queue an hour later or so, maybe then he'll start to wonder how anyone has the patience for it.]

I haven't done right. I might have drawn away one enemy, but I left Eos with another. [A job unfinished, darkness and daemons thriving.] My people are still suffering.

[polyphonos]

[It tastes like something bitter on the tongue, fetid in the air. Doubt is the cruelest type of rot.]

Would it be better to have your world ravaged by the Enemy that precipitated your rescue before they faced this other threat? Your people would be suffering regardless. [The ship's engines huff, winding down at the craft secures its place in the queue and comes to a dead stop. She clicks a few controls, spins a dial and set a lever with snap. Then Cathaway turns in the pilot's chair, her elbow draped delicately across the back. She looks directly at him. Her pale eyes glint oddly in the low light of the cockpit.]

They will learn to survive without you or they won't; you would've been removed from them either this way or by death. At least here you can choose to do some good if you care to.

[It sounds like a challenge or just an impatience with self pity, her own satisfaction thrumming beneath the skin like something living.]

[somnifacient]

[As the ship hovers to a stop and Cathaway turns to look at him, Noctis feels the urge to challenge everything she's said. And yet it's hard to argue against you would've been removed from them either this way or by death; it's hard to be petulant in the face of what was, even to Noctis, obvious.

And so he pushes it down, despite everything he hears being absolutely unsatisfactory. Despite feeling a pinprick of impatience at the edges of his mind, causing him to shift in his seat.]

...I know. [But the young king looks at her, dark eyes scrutinizing.] But you know it's not that easy to discard all the guilt that comes with accepting to come here?

[Was he just expected to flip a switch, focus on the mission at hand, to not think of home after all he's lost?]

[polyphonos]

[If there is a sensation in the air between them, it shifts now and becomes perceptible. The pervasive thrum of her her enthusiasm for being away from the Station flickers in response to him, as a candle flame guttering, and somewhere beyond it is-- sympathy or a flash of half remembered loneliness or a violent, broad slash of guilt or shame.

They've left hundreds of universes behind. If there's a single constant among Hosts, that's it.]

Of course we understand that. [Said patiently.] We were once young Hosts too.

[somnifacient]

[A thread of guilt rises somewhere between their connection, and Noctis latches onto it without thinking. An anchor, even in its negativity, that he can ground himself against. A laughable lifeline in what is otherwise a deep pool that he can't see the bottom of; or rather, that's how he views Cathaway's mind, this early on after his arrival.]

How do you adjust to it?

[polyphonos]

We make ourselves useful.

[There's a cant of easiness to the statement, even if the reality of that isn't simple. Cathaway shrugs, tapping blindly and habitually through a few screens on the ship's controls.]

There's nothing we can do for our own universes, but there's plenty to be done in the ones we can be in. We do what we can to make things better there as we help the Nest.

[Guerilla space philanthropy, mostly.]

Making friends with other Hosts helps. Building a sense of community is important.

[somnifacient]

Community. [The word is echoed back, because Noctis can't help but find it strangely ironic. What "community" was there to build when they were all in each other's heads? Though he supposes that solidarity is never a default state, even here. So, instead:] I'll keep it in mind.

[A moment of silence passes, and Noctis just watches the light of the control screens with an empty sort of interest. Then he speaks again.]

Do you ever... miss your own home? [What a strange-sounding question, to say it out loud. But curiosity is the hardest thing to kill, in all circumstances, so he doesn't regret asking it.]

[polyphonos]

All the time.

[There's no hesitation there, no notable sensation or feeling underlining the words. She shrugs, and rotates the pilot's chair back toward the controls so she might more comfortably set both hands at their task again.]

But we're happy to be here now. We've met many good beings and have seen things we wouldn't have imagined otherwise. It's been a very good adventure.

[She isn't sad about it, if that's what he's asking.]