station72 | [hatch log] everything happens so much

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 )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He may have been surprised by how few truly did. Which is enough in and of itself to cause Prince to pause before he answers, watching Noctis's hands as he searches out the second patch.]

Not quite either. It had been a part of a title, many cycles ago, but it is more accurately a nickname. [There is a pause, a moment of hesitation, a thing unsaid he usually left as such.] Given to my by my brood. It is the only name now with any meaning to me.

[That admittance is enough for Noctis to latch onto. He looks over his shoulder at Prince, frowning, taking a second to really look at the man. It's obvious that words hinge on the tip of his tongue, and that Noctis is trying his best to sort them.]

"Many cycles ago." [He echoes, and his gaze falls onto nothing for a prolonged moment, before turning back to work on the latch. Stubborn thing that it is, it finally releases itself with a loud pop.]

Does that mean you left a kingdom behind too?

[There is only the slightest pause before Prince answers, his fingers curling into a loose fist.] I did.

[A kingdom, yes. An army in the field. A father still in his manor. The aunts who were the closest thing he had to a mother. A faithful beast. Many things, but not so many as most.]

And so I would suggest you heed what I tell you now, knowing that if I had believed it when I was still young and new to this place, it would have made things far more simple. [Safer. Easier. Happier, for what value he placed in happiness. There is a chance it would have saved lives, although he knows better than to dwell on it.]

And perhaps it would have saved some heartache. Your title means nothing here. Neither do the things you were raised to do. The nest has no need for kings, no want for generals. There are no soldiers here, no subjects. What I was raised in to- and I would guess in part what you were- has no bearing here, where you are among your equals.

[He reaches across swiftly, sets his hand to the lid and lifts it open, revealing a container of thick rich blackness. Something for Cathaway, it seemed-]

I cannot speak for you, but I found it difficult to shed the mantle, even though it was a burden more than it was ever a boon.

[Noctis rises to his feet as Prince lifts the lid of the container. He opts to respond, gazing inside of it, unsure of what the blackness is, but only really half-focused on the sight.]

It isn’t about the title.

[Noctis was never one for commanding armies, for throwing his weight around for the sake of garnering satisfaction from authority. Everything about the way he conducts himself reveals this; distant, sometimes soft-spoken, glimmering with hope but and sensitivity, never severity.

A half-turn, looking at the other man.]

It’s about repurposing myself. No one expected me to lead, back home. [Of course, they never told him this. That revelation came late.] I was born to die, to fulfill a prophecy, and—

[He pauses, setting his jaw. He wasn’t sure where he was going with that, and a moment passes before he tries again.] I guess what I’m saying is, I’m just wondering how you got past the guilt of leaving it all behind.

[There's something surprising in his words- born to die, and clearly not in the way all men were. No, there is a story, but Prince will not pry. it is not in his nature, and he thinks that Noctis has likely had enough pressure placed on him for one day.]

How I personally got past it? [He pauses, closing the lid again, letting it click closed. He was a poor liar, but equally poor at conversation he would consider intimate. Still, it was his job to guide, and in this, he had some experience] Not well. I was angry, for many cycles. I wanted to return, because I could not imagine that they could survive without me, and I could not imagine what good I could do in this place.

[He straightens, rolls his shoulders and moves to stand again. It was a poor attempt at comfort, up to this point.]

But, stubbornness aside, I realized how- long it had been. I had to admit that they had either moved on or already suffered the fate that I feared for them, and that if I had attempted to return they would have suffered one worse. I had to admit that, in the face of all that I had seen, I was not so important as I would have imagined. And I had to admit that I was not the boy I had been, when I had been their Prince. So I left it behind.

[So he said. It clung, despite his efforts. Possibly because of them, it was difficult to fault himself for it.]

[He listens, taking each sliver of advice and comparing it to what he wants to hear and what he needs to hear. Noctis thinks that he's self-aware enough to tell the two apart, though perhaps he's leaning towards the former more than he realizes. He crosses his arms, lips pressed together into a thin line. His fingers flex when decides on how to respond.]

So, you're telling me that it's all a matter of time. [Of time passing, allowing him to let go. Allowing realization to sink in, that his world would either fight and survive in the face of darkness, or wither and die on the vine. An impossible notion to accept, and would cycle upon cycle really make this easier to parse? Being here, now, away from his responsibilities, away from what he was born to do — it feels as if a part of him is missing. Left behind.

He doesn’t mean to condense everything that Prince has told him into one single statement, but it’s easier for him that way. Despite his own doubts simmering through his entire being, it’s impossible to miss the thrum of gratitude for the attempt of consolation, regardless.]

I’m not angry, not really. I’m just— [Feeling guilty.] Frustrated with myself.

Most things are.

[Very little could stand against time. Possibly nothing. It was why his people had valued what made a valiant effort. Stone, mountain, the ancient forests. The things that held up best against the inescapable. The impermanence was terrifying, when it was not a comfort.]

That is understandable. [Even if it was not precisely as he had felt. It was at times close enough] But there is nothing you could have done.

[There's a faint echo of an old guilt in Prince's chest, but it does not escape. It's an old, meaningless thing.]