[hatch log] everything happens so much

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: The Station
WHEN: DAY :039
SUMMARY: New faces and old losses - a hatch occurs and a number of older hosts go comatose. Coma'd hosts include all auto-piloted dropped characters to date.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

NEW HATCHES
YOU WAKE UP and suddenly you're a different person. No. That's not right. You're you and there's no suddenly about it. It's been a while, hasn't it? It feels like waking up from a very deep, extended sleep or like surfacing up from the darkness of the ocean and right there in your own head there's something both familiar and strange. You know intuitively that you've been unconscious for more than just a blink of the eye. While it’s impossible to tell exactly how long ago or how exactly you escaped the danger that had been breathing down your neck, you're certain 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 once 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. The closer you are to these stranger, the louder the sound in your head becomes. --Actually they're not quite strangers either, are they? Something is wound about and between you and these people, whoever they are, are as familiar as this place you've never been is.

Welcome to Station 72. The air buzzes with activity. Somewhere deep in the Station, other minds call to yours. They are bright, brilliantly celebratory spots in your subconscious. They are sun-warm gentle, or they are fire and the taste of ash, or they are a vibrant frenetic whirl, or they are a tangled garden, or they are the feeling of flight through dense cirrus clouds. No two links are exactly the same, but you know for certain that you are connected to all of them in at least some small way.

Which is why it's easy to tell when something goes terribly wrong:


OLD HOSTS
THE ENDORPHIN RUSH of making it back to Station 72 (relatively) unharmed, having successfully acquired exactly what you'd set out to get your hands on can't be denied. Even if you're not necessarily the type to celebrate, there's no ignoring the thrumming celebratory sensation from those Hosts who are.

After a few hours of being back in the void, something else stirs in the air: the clear, prickling sensation of new hosts hatching on the Nesting Deck. They're a rush of mental information - as if someone's turned the volume on the radio all the way up -, a cacophony of sensation and emotional feedback for anyone unprepared to shield against it.

The swell of feeling might make it easy to miss what follows immediately after: the dull, gut-deep quiet as The Darkling, Chuuya Nakahara, and Nasu Rei go suddenly comatose.

---

((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for all new hosts. Feel free to make your own logs and posts additional to this if you care do. You can find a more detailed overview of the hatching process HERE. You can find additional setting information about the Station 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

Shepard Option

[earthborn]

The Station was built to house thousands of living individuals. Shepard doesn't have to ask anyone to know that, she doesn't even need to see how many would-be Hosts are sleeping away their lives, comatose and waiting, to know it for fact. The size of the station alone... And the variety. Squares and rectangles are common choices for most organic species she's encountered, but the Protheans liked verticality and the Rachni favored hexagonal tunnels, organized in a way that only made sense to them. Whatever had built or refurbished the Station, whether it was the Nest in some other form, or just some collection of Hosts, they had variety.

They had time.

The point was, there are a lot of rooms to explore. A lot of space. And that's just in the part that's comfortable for humans. Shepard is indeed occupying one such space, the store of non-perishables here passing for a commissary. If God didn't want people to eat watered-down cereal in their civvies, he could have at least provided milk as an alternative.

"Oh, hey," Shepard acknowledges, when she sees Aloy, "You're a... one of the new Hosts, right? Just woke up. Hungry?"

She's got corn-flakes. Or, they're flakes, at least. Who knows what kind of weird, likely alien plant-matter actually went into their making.

Re: Shepard Option

[huntsmachines]

There's so much space here. It reminds her of the ruins of Old Ones, though far larger than any she's been in. Intact on top of that, too. Aloy's lance is grasped lightly in one hand which dangles at her side. She blinks slowly as she sees Shepard standing in what must be a store-room, then takes a few steps inside to peer at the shelves and shelves of strange packaged foods and alien writing that her focus can't even begin to decipher.

"...Yes." Now that Shepard mentions it, Aloy can feel her stomach grumbling. How long had she slept?

"What's your name?"

[earthborn]

"Commander Jane Shepard, nice to meet you," Shepard replies, giving Aloy an informal gesture with her spoon, "Have at. It's sort of a first-come, first-served kind of thing around here."

Honor-system, and all that. Though if someone were to take more than their share, it likely wouldn't make much of a difference. There's enough here for everyone, more than everyone, even if it's a little weird, and often bland. Shepard rattles her box of cereal at Aloy in open invitation.

"You?"

[huntsmachines]

Aloy is trying to determine what is what. She's not used to packaged foods and she runs her fingers along a few of the boxes, trying to decipher what's inside based on the pictures. So much of it is unfamiliar, or at least in unfamiliar form. What does she pick off the shelf? Her fingers over and she finally tugs out a ration pack with the picture of some kind of meat that she thinks looks like turkey, though the small cartoon bird looks nothing like one. How does this work? After opening the box, she tugs the strange plastic-feeling packet free. She turns the automated heating packet over in her hands and squints at the instructions.

"Aloy. Aloy of the Nora. Do I just tear this here...?" She fingers an indentation and proffers it towards Shepard, who seems pretty comfortable with this stuff.

[earthborn]

"Yeah, the corner. They don't have a lot of prepackaged food where you're from, huh?"

Either that, or Aloy can't read english. Wouldn't be the first time someone was illiterate-- Being not the beneficiary of a traidional education, herself, Shepard can appreciate that.

"So, Aloy," Shepard takes a huge bite of her cereal, takes a long moment to crunch noisily, then swallows before continuing, "What's 'the Nora'?"

[huntsmachines]

"Great, thanks. I... Wasn't sure. The instructions are strange." Aloy wrinkles her nose. "Are you sure this is food?" She tears the package open across the top and instantly the packet begin to warm in her hands, steam and heat bubbling wafting from the open package along with scent of spices and chicken. Oh. Definitely food. Aloy is busy staring in amazement so it takes her a moment to realize Shepard is asking a question.

"Oh. They're my people. They live in Mother's Embrace, though I'm not sure where that is from here." Across the link comes a pang of confusion and loneliness. Where in the world was she?

[earthborn]

"Oh, it's food," She says, with all the surety of someone who's survived for long and desperate years on nothing better. The voice of experience, "Maybe not the best food you ever had, but it won't spoil and it takes maybe a minute to cook."

Shepard crunches her bowl dry, pours another, and starts again while Aloy's instant chicken steams, much to the kid's fascination. That's cute-- modern TV dinners meet artisinally-sourced bush-hunter? Shit, don't ask her.

"Down, at a guess," Shepard replies, around another mouthful, "Way down. Wherever your homeworld was, you're long gone from there. Welcome to inter-stellar space travel."

Inter-dimensional, more like. But who's counting?

[huntsmachines]

"I'm sure I've had worse," Aloy murmurs. She's only half-answering, still focused on her food. Aloy stares at the pouch, fascinated. It's distracting enough that her rudimentary blocks fall a little. There's a wave of curiosity and amazement as the packet cooks the food. She looks up as Shepard crunches around with her cereal.

"Wait, wait... You're saying we're off Earth? That's impossible. No one has the knowledge to do it!" As far as she knows, anyway. There could be people on the other side of the world, but with APOLLO gone it sounded like a dream. The chicken is finished and she dips her fingers into the still warm packet, using two to scoop a handful of chicken and rice in to her mouth. As the spiced meat hits her palate, she brightens and takes another bite.

"This is good--! It's like turkey but less gamey..."

[earthborn]

"Of course we are, we're nowhere near Earth," Shepard replies, a little disgruntled, "And I don't know about everyone else here, but I personally have plenty of knowledge about how to get off-planet."

She probably couldn't safely navigate the Charon Relay without assisted targeting protocols or a trained pilot, but hey. Details.

"It's chicken."

[huntsmachines]

"Chicken...?" The word is strange and she doesn't know what to associate it with. It was familiar in a strange way different all the same. She takes another bite, scooping more chicken out with her fingers. The hot food stings her skin but it's pleasant. Reminds her of home a little.

"I like chicken." Aloy grins toothily at Shepard.

"And I didn't mean any offense. Last time I checked the last thing we sent to space was almost one thousand years ago and it exploded."Aloy is a bit skeptical Shepard, sorry.

[earthborn]

"Lots of things explode in space. It's an easy place to die," Shepard says, but her tone is fonder than it might have been. Aloy likes chicken; that's pretty cute, "So, I take it you're from uh..."

...No, honestly, she can't actually guess. Ginger white girl in native-American reenactment gear doesn't exactly strike a good chord, no matter how authentic the leather looks. It's a good look, though, and she wears it naturally, it looks-- well, it looks broken in. Used.

"Look, I'm just gonna ask, what's with the getup? Don't get me wrong, you look pretty hot."

[huntsmachines]

"I grew up in the Mother's Embrace--" Aloy's answer gets cut off by a hot rush of embarrassment when Shepard compliments her. She's not used to that kind of thing and with this mental link it's all too easy to really pick up on the connotations of the word 'hot.' She rolls her shoulder, clears her throat, then tries to start again.

"I'm a Nora Brave. I grew up in the Mother's Embrace, where my people live..." She feels awkward How do you deal with flirting like this? Was this flirting? Oh Mother, what does she do now?

[earthborn]

"Pretend, just for one minute, that I don't know what a Nora is, or who the Mother is, or whatever it is she's embracing," Shepard has a version of patience that sounds an awful lot like condescension, if you're not being generous with her.

Oh no, look at this blush. That's got to be encouraged, even if Shepard doesn't intend to do much about it. Too easy, Aloy.

"...So maybe start from the beginning."

[huntsmachines]

"Oh." There might be some annoyance from Aloy. Maybe. If she wasn't busy being embarrassed. She coughs quietly, then tries to figure out how to explain everything. And Shepard, she's young. Blushing is kind of what she does.

"The Nora are my people," she repeats. "I don't know why we have the name we do but we live in a valley we call the Mother's Embrace. The Mother is the All-Mother, who birthed our people and the whole world. I... I'm not sure how to explain it." There's more to it but Aloy is distracted and doesn't feel she's much of a story teller.

[earthborn]

Many young things are adorable. Blushing's just part of the package.

"So it's... Like a tribal religion thing," Shepard said, "Got it. And this is the outfit of a-- you said a Brave? I take it that's a warrior's position."

[huntsmachines]

Don't tell Aloy she's adorable, she might take offense. She dips her head in a nod.

"That's what my people believe." Not that she's much of a believer anymore now that she knows the truth, but some things are hard to get away from when you've been raised with them.

"Yes. A hunter, a warrior, a protector."