[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

[adamance]

Do you think that you would be asking this question if that were the case? [Lexa can worry, can be paranoid, can do all of that just as well. She has and she will and nothing will change that.

But she also likes to believe that she's created a solid foundation for herself. She has to believe it.]

[greentech]

I guess I wouldn't.

[ It's going to remain a creeping fear at the back of her mind, for as long as she's here. And in a way, she'll know she's still herself if that fear sticks around. The day it's gone is the day she really ought to start worrying. ]

I'd still like to... I dunno. Be friends? Work together? It's kinda hard to put a word to it.

[adamance]

We can both work together and I can teach you. [Being a mentor to others is what suits her best, and many of those she helped before have slipped into comas.]

[greentech]

I'd like that.

[ Being taught, that is. She thinks it would help her in a few different ways. ]

I mean, I'm sure you know tons of stuff I have no idea about.

[adamance]

I do, though I've found that many here don't take kindly to the wisdom I have to offer.

[Then again, being upfront about how harsh she is will always be taken poorly. She isn't surprised.]

[greentech]

So many people just don't want to listen.

[ She wrinkles her nose. ]

It's... frustrating. We're all in this together, right?

[adamance]

Yes, but many cannot see beyond themselves. In that, asking them to see something bigger is too much of a demand. [Lexa has proven that she sees no issue in singling out weak points, but if those weak points don't add to their strength because of their own faults, that isn't on her.]

[greentech]

Makes me wonder why they pull in so many individuals like this and just throws us together. Wouldn't it make more sense to assign a symbiote group to people who can work together?

[ Questions. So many questions. Katie's brain seems to be full of them at all times. ]

Or maybe they can't control it. I don't know.

[adamance]

From what Cathaway has told me, it is a matter out of their control. How the symbiote finds a Host is both biologically and mentally out of the control of anyone here. After all, the Nest only has mentors—there are no greater leaders in charge of anyone. There is no one to make a decision.

[But therein lies the problem: where did this process begin? Who developed this process? And does it matter? Lexa feels that not knowing that hinders them. But they will always have questions.

Her people overlooked those questions with the Flame for years. Is it fair to ask the same of Cathaway, of Prince, when they are just branches of a greater circumstance?]

[greentech]

Weird.

[ Which is even more of a puzzle. More variables she cna't really control for. More questions without answers. That's been the running theme, though, so she can't complain too much. She'll just have to keep moving forward and hope for the best. ]

That makes me think something or someone set this all in motion who knows how many years ago and we're just the result of something on autopilot.

[adamance]

It's likely. We have just been inducted into a society with a set of traditions and beliefs all of its own. Even if those beliefs don't make a great deal of sense to us.

[Lexa knows that her Flame and its passage from one Commander to another without any great acknowledgement over what it was (is) is proof of this.]

[greentech]

Well. At least we have each other. Right?

[ Katie honestly sort of looks up to Lea. She seems to know what she's doing and she tries to cut through all the nonsense and sometimes Katie really just wishes she could have the same sort of attitude. But then she wouldn't be Katie anymore, would she? ]

Even if none of us have any idea what we're doing.

[adamance]

Never admit that you don't know what you're doing. [The words come easily, with a hint of arrogance that comes from someone who has to always act like she's completely certain about all of her decisions. Then again, it might not be an act.] Others will take advantage of it. What's around us may not make sense, but that doesn't mean we don't know how to act.

[greentech]

I don't know how to act half the time.

[ Katie admits this with a flare of insecurity. She's fourteen. She's trying to find her brother and she knows how to act when the way ahead of her is clear. She has doubts, though. She has fears. And sometimes she's not really sure what to do. ]

But I guess I'll just... uh. Fake it?

[adamance]

[Lexa considers her for a long moment before reaching back into her memories of Katie from early on, from before they even spoke. Her first impression had been of a girl who knew what she was doing, of someone who had opinions on how to proceed.

It's that recollection that Lexa calls upon.]

You've acted with confidence before. Right after you arrived. And when I chose to withhold information from troublesome members of the Nest. [It's a decision that she only regrets insofar as by stating that she would be doing the obvious that people took it to be some major declaration, even if she still feels that there are those who have proven themselves to not be trusted.] You questioned me. You felt you had a right to question me. What was it that drove you there?

[greentech]

Uh, I was angry. And I don't like being pushed around just because someone is older.

[ There's a memory of the anger and her own determination. It's easier for her to channel that when she feels sure. She's just not always sure and when she isn't she pretends she is. ]

I mean, even if I don't know what to do, I'm going to do something it's... hard to explain? I do what I think is best, even if I don't know.

[adamance]

I can't speak for Bruce or his intentions that day. [And unfortunately, he's comatose now. Lexa misses his steadying presence. They could still use someone like him.] But know that I'll never treat you that way because of your age. [After all, she was barely older than Katie when she became Commander. It's a cultural thing.]

Have confidence in what you know regardless. On those occasions, it seemed that you knew what you wanted. And what you could do. Act with conviction.

[greentech]

That means a lot, actually. Thanks.

[ Pidge offers a slightly weak smile, but there's a sense of relief in the link. Almost reassured. It's better to have that vote of confidence. She does believe in herself. Really. But sometimes it's hard to, especially here. ]

And I will. Act with conviction I mean.

[adamance]

Good. I'm glad we've come to an understanding. [There is a hint of warmth to Lexa's words—both in the words themselves and in the link—that shows her relief at helping Katie reach this place. She sees a lot of potential in her, and perhaps some of that is due to the merging of dreams, but someone so confident, so sure when she acts, should be guided to continue to do that.

In that, Lexa feels a hint of accomplishment in what she's managed.]

[greentech]

Hey-

[ Pidge half-stands from the table, as if she's thinking, and then stands up and walks around the table to throw her arms around Lexa in a hug. ]

Thanks.

[adamance]

[If someone were to ask Lexa the last time she had been hugged, she would struggle to recall it. That's not to say that she's lacked human contact. Here in the Nest, it's impossible to avoid intimacy in all ways—their minds force that upon them no matter what. But Lexa as a leader had kept herself distanced from others after she lost her first love, and she's been much the same since she came here. That distance didn't matter if it was romantic or platonic: she kept everyone away from her. What closeness she's managed with friends both here and back home had only brief touches, and nothing like this, nothing with a hint of gratefulness behind it.

To put it more simply: the last time she had been hugged, she was probably only a couple years older than Pidge, rather than nearly a decade. It's been a while.

The simple action is not so simple as a result, but it doesn't leave her stiff or unsure. She brings her hand up to press against Pidge's back, welcoming the bond between them for what it is. Mentor and student ... or simply friends, with one willing to guide the other.]

You're welcome, Katie.