[MISSION: HYRYPIA] And through that cordage threading with its call one arc synoptic of all tides

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: Everyone
WHERE: Station 72; Naerstone House
WHEN: DAY :001
SUMMARY: Makeovers, wining, dining and...dead bodies??? The first night on Hyrypia.
WARNINGS: N/A, will update as necessary.

CASTING OFF
     I. MAKEOVER, MAKEOVER
[It's less than one full day after the briefing that the hosts once again have a voice interrupt their thoughts. It is familiar this time: the curt, low sound of Siva’co in their mind without warning.]

( There is- ) [the passage of time pressed into their minds like a flower into a book- one hour-] ( until departure. All hosts will report to the Hangar Deck for supply and outfitting. ) [He does not say precisely when they should report, but something about the weight of the words says sooner rather than later.

When the hosts arrive there is a strangely antiquated looking ship waiting for them, its rivets and steel in bizarre contrast with the seamless white flow of the Station’s walls. Its gangplank is already lowered, but before they can pass into the interior there is a raised platform manned by Rhan and Siva’co. Once again clad they're clad in the layered robes that Misato and Aloy had seen them in. On the platform there are stacks of similarly lush and contrasting fabrics, one for each host, each one a neat pile topped with a pair of odd boots that give the impression of heels.]

There will be no space on the ship to kit up. You will need to outfit yourself before we depart. If you cannot figure out how to dress yourselves, get assistance.

[His voice is clipped, sharp and precise. It does not invite conversation. The slightest survey of the deck reveals that there is no kind of privacy provided, which may explain the crooked grin on Rhan’s face.]


     II. IN FLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT
[Once aboard the ship there is little time before the deck of Station 72 drops out beneath them, lowering them down and out and into the still darkness of the in between.

They stay there, frozen for a second before the engines kick on - a low efficient hum, no apparent feeling of motion to accompany it. After a moment another much louder noise begins. It's a gurgling, creaking sound that seems more suited to the ship’s exterior appearance.

Siva’co remains where he has been since they boarded, poised beside a panel just to the left of the hatch to the exterior where he's checking a number of crisp readouts. They're digital black and white like the databanks held by all hosts and are completely out of place in the ship's leather and wood interior. After a moment, seemingly satisfied, he reaches down and snaps the display shut - holding his hand there as a glow spreads around the edge of the panel the fades into a seamless fusing into the interior walls, just another section of brass and pipe and spinning dials. He moves through the cabin then, down the rows of seats and towards the cockpit, nodding to Rhan as he passes her.

She seems to take it as a sign, standing up as he disappears with a dip of his head under the low bulkhead of the hatchway. She drags a heavy bag out from under her seat and drops it with a thunk.]

Well my dears, we've a few hours ahead of travel ahead of us. I hope everyone brought along something to read. If you're feeling bored, might I suggest swapping notes on the mission briefing? You've brought your highlighters along, right?

[She grins, flashing an encouraging wink.] --Oh! And before I forget, I've a little present for you all from myself and Siva'co.

[Rhan reaches into the bag, producing a series of ancient looking books.] Take one and pass it down. [She hands one to the nearest Host. The books are shockingly light... because they've been hollowed out into the perfect shape to conceal a databank.] This way you can keep your cheat sheets with you at all times. I've decided we're all very religious -- or at least that we have the pretense of it.

[As promised, the trip in is indeed long. It takes them through vast reaches of real space. It's quiet and still - the perfect atmosphere to get some last minute studying in.]


HYRYPIA
     [At a distance, Hyrypia is a world made of gold and brass banded with iron. As the Host ship pierces down through the atmosphere, the colors morph and curve into hard stone, bitter scrub, black seas, and beautiful - but barren - golden waves of long valley grasses. White stones and squat farmhouses speck the landscape which slants as if inevitable toward the glittering pastel household acting as sentinel at the landmass's edge where today a hundred brilliantly colored banners and flags fly from every tower and gate, are wound through every garden and adorning every tent on the grounds surrounding it.

Naerstone House sits at the eye of a veritable flock of ships of every design and taste. They range from delicate as a rapier to solid as a stone, from as slight as this small ship the Hosts have used for their transport to large enough to cast a shadow across the entire structure of the compound. The yellowed grasses bend and shake in the shadow of them as they drop from the sky and the Hyrypians stuffed on the gray road leading to Naerstone from the valley hold their clothes against the energy dispersal from the engines. The host ship touches down in the fields in a place marked out with blue and yellow flags, just one of scores.

Welcome to the corner of Hyrypia where hundreds upon hundreds of varied Rabadoceans have met under a flag of peace for perhaps the first time in two centuries. As the gangway to the platform is lowered, it becomes immediately apparent that Rhan and Siva'co's companions have come to meet you. Completely obscured from head to toe, there's no telling what they look like, but surely they must be familiar to the agents, as no one asks questions when one of them hurries aboard.]

[Lyr's mind is cool like a river stone, though in this moment the river is being chopped by rainfall:]

( Half of you - the ones who know how to speak - follow me in the procession to the Veranda. The other half - take everyone's things and go with Collector. )


SPLIT THE PARTY
     III. THE PROCESSION AND VERANDA
[Lyr leads the hosts in his company to join the long, winding procession making its way up they gray road to Naerstone. They are all recognizably Rabadocean, though their styling and some mutations of their biology separates them into clear subsets. Here is a group with elaborate cloaks of liquid silver billowing as flags in the acrid sea wind; there is a group dressed in thick rich furs, huddled close for warmth and trying not to look it as they make their way. Everyone travels on foot through the field of ships, the village of brilliantly colored silken tents, and everywhere one looks is another strange collection of people to stare at. --And some of them may be staring back.

The grand procession winds its way through the main entrance of the sky blue compound, through brilliant open breezeways painted with frescos of four legged animals, lush vegetation, and threads of light. Eventually this train of people reaches a vast garden at the center of which is a massive shallow pool with a path leading to the covered structure at its middle. THE GARDEN has clearly been decorated for a party. On one side is an apparent series of games and common entertainment, and on the other are a series of low tables and long benches dressed for an inevitable dinner studding the space between low flowering shrubs and beds of golden grass punctuated with winding stone paths.

But they bypass this all in favor of THE VERANDA itself, draped in gauzy silks and furnished with a series of low couches and delicate wood chairs with elaborately embroidered cushions. It's clear that the Veranda is where the ranking officials and their aides will start the evening. There's easy conversation to be had or overhead. Two musicians skillfully play large string instruments balanced on their knees and a series of mute servants make their way through the gathering with trays of fine finger foods and small cups of rich black wines. They're so silent and unaffected by the hosts of company that they might as well be dead.

--Which is because, on closer inspection, they apparently are. Or close to it. They've an ashen pallor and milky eyes; one or two of the re-animated dead servants wears conspicuous articles of clothing to cover the thing which killed them - a cracked skull, a terrible wound.]

( Act naturally, ) [says Lyr's voice in the mind] ( If you find yourself drowning, call for me. )

[Enjoy the appetizers and polite company, everyone! Strangely enough, it seems perfectly simple to understand the rough, low shared language of the Rabadoceans and as equally easy to mimic it.]


     IV. THE APARTMENTS AND GARDEN
[Those who remain after Lyr has departed are greeted by the second stranger. Much like Lyr, she speaks into their minds, but unlike him her voice is soft and sweet and melodic, ringing pleasantly as a bell, accenting somehow the sound of crowds and distant pulsing beat of some kind of music. She is taller than the rest, and the process of elimination says that this must be Collector.]

( Welcome to Hyrypia. I hope you will tell me your stories, when there is time. For now, please follow. )

[She turns, heading in the opposite direction as Lyr and his batch, weaving her way effortlessly through the crowds towards the largest collection of buildings on the castle grounds. Each building is connected to the rest by plain walkways through simple stone gardens with the occasional gently sloped awning. It's a longer walk then it seems like it should be, but after they pass some of the more grand rooms - most of them at least partly open to the air - they come across another low stone patio. This one Collector steps on to, passing through the wide open entry and into the half shadowed space beyond.]

( There are a number of rooms, please, take your pick. I would suggest keeping your most valuable possessions with you, but there are lockers beneath each bed. They have tales here of lovers being secreted away in them, but these should not be occupied. )

[With that thought - the bubbling cheerful ring of it - she passses through the living area, sidestepping the low piles of cushions and disappearing into one of the rooms.]

( We should join the festivities soon- ) [Her voice is as near as it would be directly into their ears, despite her absence-] ( And please, feel free to speak. Silence is only my virtue.)

[It is only a short time later that she again emerges from the room, pausing in the center of the space and pulling a bell from her sleeve, ringing it once with her gloved hands - a sharp peal that interrupts even the low background hum of the surrounding apartments.]

( We must now venture out. There are stories waiting to be made. )

[She leads the hosts out the same way they came and then further into the heat of the festivities. Here the crowd grow thicker - a myriad of Rabadoceans, some wearing intricate costumes, some in elegant garments or wearing very little. All head towards the same space - a great GARDEN at the center of which is a shallow pool and VERANDA. Clever eyes may spot the other hosts there even though the obscuring gauze. They're hard to miss in all that heavy layered cloth. It draws attention even from strangers here, some of which shoot them glances with their sharp dark eyes. Others Rabadoceans whisper as the hosts pass, but the exact words are hard to hear.

The garden itself is as sprawling as the apartments and is mainly composed of a low shrubs with pale flowers and the same amber grass that covers so much of the planet only broken by the occasional rug and twisting stone path. The largest open areas are home to what appear to be games: balls and hoops and poles. Some look like they're to be struck or thrown, others which appear to be a part of some elaborate strategy game involving the placement of people around a central pole. The Rabadoceans laugh - low coughing sounds - but you recognize them for what they are. Just as you become aware that their words - thick and mealy as they seemed at first, now sound perfectly natural. It would be easy to mimic, easy to speak. Collector smiles through her mind.]

( Go on now. You may be shy, but you must be sharp. Life waits for no soul. )


     V. A COMMON PURPOSE
[When both sides have completed their tasks - picking their rooms and playing alongside the common folk, or eating appetizers and rubbing palms with the elite - all are summoned at once to gather in the gardens together by the signal of a deep resounding horn. The two parties merge on their short trek across the garden to the long low benches. Each set of benches has an equally long table with a narrow walking path through the center of it, and as guests sort themselves into their correct places - each distinct party collected with itself - food begins to be brought out. They're sumptuous and heavily spiced dishes. Although you cannot immediately see her, Collector’s voice joins the procession-]

( You can process all of the food without risk of death, however humans may wish to avoid the eel. It will cause indigestion. They are scooped up from the shallow streams that flow out of the highest mountains, and they dine only on the passings of the cave rodents that surround such places. )

[Lively string instruments play through dinner and talk is encouraged on the fringes of each envoy. Dishes are passed from hand to hand down the length of the long table and re-animated servants pour long streams of dark wine and faintly bitter water from long necked pitchers to wide, intricately inlaid cups. And while you are clustered in with the rest of your “delegation”, there are other Rabadoceans sitting across from you- strangers with strange smiles. Food does not seem to prevent conversation. Anything you want to say without being overheard is better left in your mind- and the minds of others.]


     VI. EVENING'S END
[Evening falls. The braziers are lit. Eventually, the music of the uncanny reverberating string instruments wanes to a tinny pervasive whine that stretches long enough to rouse suspicion. Ting, comes the chime of a small metal bell. Ting, ting, ting - the sound of the metal adoring the robes and elaborate headdresses of the small group of four Hyrypians which passes now down the long path from the Veranda and into the middle of the feasting.

They come to a halt there in the burnished grass. Quiet falls, save for that pervasive buzzing whine. Finally the Hyrypian at the front lifts her hand in the dark, revealing from her belled sleeves the rows and rows of brass and gold and glass scales adorning her gloves. She breathes across her glove and for a moment it's as if the air has turned to gold. It slips glittering between her fingers, then the scales peel themselves from her hands and flitter away to reveal themselves as wings of thin intricately beaten metal with glowing glass bodies: insects with watch-gear small mechanisms powering the rapid beating of their wings. They take flight, swirling and dancing through the thin breeze. As they do, the acolytes behind her raise their own hands to reveal larger insect-lights within each palm. They toss them lightly as jugglers. At their highest peak they too take flight, elegantly pirouetting to hover over the tables and casting a warm glow over the guests who applaud, each according to their own custom. This group cheers with a low whooping sounds from one corner, that one with stomping feet, another with lightly chiming bells. The smaller lights come to land along the edges of cups, on the high peaks of guest’s hats, and on knobby wrists. The machines are small, twinkling lights held on wire fine legs and they hum with a comfortable, welcoming heat.

The leading technomancer then goes swiftly to one knee, her hand pressing into a barely visible stripe of copper that runs down the main walkway. With that, the Veranda behind them lights up suddenly and brightly like a catching flame. The light races along the branching pathways of of the garden led by similarly fine wires, and not long after the lit garden is joined by the entire castle: every castle and balcony shining brilliantly in the darkness by this lone technomancer's hand.

From one of the long central tables, an elder Hyrypian in an elaborately draped tunic and cloak picked with gold rises. She raises a mottled hand before her, palm to the summer night sky.]

Friends. [Ysiddia Cabrielle's voice is low and thick, requiring attention without demanding it. She speaks with all the ease of a Major House of Hyrypian's head - which is appropriate, for that is what she is.] Welcome to our Hyrpyria and this Naerstone House. You've done my family an honor that will persist for generations. Tonight, we know each other as strangers-- [Some measure of her smoothed facade shifts; Ysiddia has a wry smile, as if she's telling a small secret to a cherished second daughter.] --or as enemies. Tonight, we are separate peoples divided by the places we came from and the things which those places required we be. But in the weeks that follow, it's my wish - and the wish of all Hyrypians - that we remember we are all Rabadocean and that the prosperity of one is the prosperity of all. We look forward to reaching the end of this great pilgrimage not in the company of friends, but with honored family.

We hope that this journey will do for you what it has done for our people. That it brings you understanding and renewed respect for The First and all those who have followed down their path. We hope you will come to see our people’s true destiny and true strength. But for tonight and the two days that follow, we invite you to enjoy yourselves as yourselves.

[Ysiddia bows her head to the assemblage, then to the techomancer who rises. The light fades as she does - first form the distant apartment, then to these gardens, to the veranda and finally where she and her acolytes stand.

The music resumes. Ysiddia takes her seat once more and the Seconds retire into the darkened garden.]

---

((OOC NOTES: This is the log for the first day on Hyrypia. For events beyond this evening, feel free to make additional logs/posts occurring on DAY :002 and :003 as the assemblage will be at their liberty in Naerstone and beyond for those two days. What follows after? Who can say.

'Wait, can I NPC this character?' If they don't have a name, go wild. Should you desire mod input or for us to bounce into a thread, feel free to reach out to us and we'll be happy to accommodate. We may also be threadjacking some of these threads, however don't feel compelled to wait for us to do so. Have fun and don't blow your cover!))

MISSION HYRYPIA OVERVIEW • NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[unfavoured]

[ It wasn't at all an attempt to try to be funny. She is the least funny person aboard this ship. It's awful.

She is looking outside, from the window, to the outer space, almost like zoning out, but still listening to him. In fact, she definitely is for when he mentions gods, her eyebrows raise. She glances up at him for a second, wondering if he's serious or not, before turning back down to the window. Gods. That's what they call the superhumans back on her own Earth too, sometimes. It leaves a bad taste in her mouth, so she pushes it to the side. She tries to avoid thinking about home too much, but always ends up doing so.

But she does entirely turn her face to him at his question. Her eyebrow raises, the other curling the skin of her forehead. ]

Yes. [ She says very definitely. She could tack on a lot of adjectives on to that, but keeps it to one: ] And arrogant. You don't?

[somnifacient]

[The gods of Noctis' world are not exactly superheroes, but gods proper. Or whatever could pass as a "proper" sort of god, he supposes. Beings with form, of immense power, the sort meant to watch over the world and dictate destiny; the ones that made a mistake thousands of years ago, one that Noctis had to shoulder, had to correct. The very reason for his birth.

His feelings on his gods, as helpful as they had been to him in the end, were still rather mixed notions.

But she's not asking about the gods, she's asking about the other hosts. And so, his own brow furrows together, as if trying to figure out what answer she's expecting.]

Maybe a little bit. But they know more about what's going on than we do, so we have no choice but to work with them for now.

[unfavoured]

They do?

[ Parker arches both her eyebrows at him, though her face remains stoically neutral, giving her a look like she is bored - or, with the heavy grey under her eyes, a too tired for any of this. Leaning a hand on a knee she brings up, she points at him with a book. ]

If they know more, then why aren't they telling us everything?

[somnifacient]

[Well, she has a point. Noctis readjusts his statement.]

I mean that they know more about the situation we're being thrown into than we did initially. Since they provided us with information, I think by default we want to trust their judgment.

[He says "we", but there's something about that unimpressed, bored look on her face that makes him think that he shouldn't count her as part of this group.]

But... what do you think?

[unfavoured]

[ Honestly, she suffers from resting bitchface syndrome, a terrible affliction common among uncool people. But it's the only one she has.

Parker blinks at him slowly like a judgemental cat and licks her lower lip, before shaking her head, glancing off to the side where the aliens are. She purses her lips in thought, then looks back to the guy in front of her. For a moment, it looks like she isn't going to answer him: long, awkward silences are only to be expected from her. It's awful at first, but eventually one gets used to it. Sometimes.

But then, she speaks: ]

I don't know what to think anymore. [ She admits, scratching her eyebrow with the hand holding her book. ] I think they don't know shit, but then again-- why are they following some invisible command and forcing the rest of you to go along? Some misplaced sense of community? It's stupid and vague. [ She doesn't like it. She don't like it, meeeeeem. ]

[somnifacient]

[Wow, she's worse than him. The silence that ensues is indeed long and awkward, and Noctis wonders if he's said something heinously offensive, to the point where he's put a premature end to this already stilted conversation.

He shifts his weight in the seat, turning to look out the viewport. Another moment or two passes before she speaks, and Noctis blinks, glancing over at her again.]

I think... [He trails off, really taking time to consider her question. He applies it to himself; why is he going along with any of this? Did he feel a "misplaced sense of community" with those around him? Most of them still remained strangers, people he didn't understand from far away worlds he couldn't even fathom.]

...I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but when I was uprooted from Eos, I lost my sense of purpose. Literally. [He was born for one thing, in the end. He couldn't achieve it any longer, far away from home.] Here, maybe I can have some of that back, even if I'm just kidding myself. Even if it won't ever be the same.

[unfavoured]

[ Yes, she is.

Parker keeps her eyes on him and frowns a little as he speaks. Perhaps if both of them didn't keep everything shelled away from the outside, they could relate. But whereas Noctis has turned his loss of purpose into something constructive (although debatable, in Parker's opinion), she has let hers become destructive. Not that it was hard to do it in her situation, with the guilt hanging over her everyday and the pull of dissimulated despair. She doesn't say it, though, keeps it inside and behind walls so tall that you would have to be too invested to even begin to think about climbing her. ]

So, you let yourself be their pawn. [ She concludes with a shrug, before leaning back on the floor, opening the book again. She's disappointed with the answer, it seems. ] That's some purpose you got there.

[somnifacient]

[parker pls

How constructive it might actually be up is up for the debate, like she might think; twist it around, just a little bit, and it becomes a matter of choice being torn away from him. The same as it was on Eos (born to die, just because the gods dictated it so), only transferred to the Station and all that entailed (here to aid in a fight against a faceless Enemy). He's a King that's always doing what is expected of him, even if it meant getting crushed under the heel of destiny. What choice did he have then?

What choice did he have now?

Ten years ago, he would have taken offense to this. Something would have spiked, a sense of being both offended and irritated at her assumption. She didn't know him, not really, so who was she to judge?

These days, Noctis is just too tired for any of that. Maybe a small part of him agrees with her.]

It's better than sitting and doing nothing. I don't think I could handle that. [His look is even, just like his tone, though pierced with curiosity.] But you're on this ship with the rest of us, aren't you? If you're not a pawn, too, then what?

[unfavoured]

[ She doesn't look up from her book just yet, even as he speaks, instead shifting to a more comfortable position. Her elbows leans on the wall and she props her head up on her closed fist like such, her finger sliding behind a page as she finishes reading the text, then flipping it over. He speaks, she half-listens. Her eyebrow arches for a second at his-- insult? She's not sure what he wants from her with this.

She sighs through her nose. ]

Is it? [ By her tone, she doesn't think so. She would rather do nothing than fight for them. She flattens the palm of her hand against the side of her head, fingers into hair that is getting too long and curly. ] I have my own agenda. [ She admits, no bullshit around it. ]

[somnifacient]

Yes. [The answer is immediate. Yes, it is better than sitting and stewing in something awfully close to ennui. Listlessness, restlessness, he hates them -- it makes his skin crawl, it reminds him of when he was torn between wanting to run from his responsibilities and the pull of necessity. This is something that will be impossible to change his opinion of, even if he doesn't extrapolate further.

Idly, he plays at the ring around his finger. Spins it around, feeling its contour against his fingertips, as if it were a toy to fiddle with.]

Which is what, exactly? [Out here, what was there to achieve? Then again, he wonders if she's even inclined to tell him at this point. He's still engaging, but Parker seems to be drifting away in both interest and body language.]

[unfavoured]

You're wrong.

[ She says back at him after his immediate answer. To be used by others without a will of your own, to be used to achieve an end that you have no investment on, no morality, no thought? That would be the same as letting people back home move her around as they wanted. It was, at first, the thing that moved to join the rebellion: the need to shove away being moved as a pawn. To break the chain.

Ironic, the passage “Sir,” said Captain Smollett, “with no intention to take offence, I deny your right to put words into my mouth.”.

She scratches idly over her ear, slipping her fingers around the back of her hair to smooth it out distractedly. Parker finally glances up at him at his question. ]

The truth. The no cryptic truth. The truth that isn't a vague gargle of regurgitated bullshit. [ She pauses, looking him over with a frown. ] Why do you call who they call "the enemy" [ She uses her free hand to give emphasis to the air quotes, ] the same? Do you know anything about it? What, they're-- going to blow up the planet? You mean, the suggestion half those people were giving in that-- whatever it was?

[somnifacient]

[A little flare of resistance at that, like a star burning in the night sky, fading moments later. He doesn't think he's wrong, at least, not if the end he achieves is the right one. For the sake of the rest of the world, for the people back home, for every universe that seems threatened by the Enemy. Its own form of darkness sweeping over existence, something immutable and impossible to understand-

But her question makes him purse his lips together in consternation. She's pulling up the notion of trust, and thinking back... how easily he had given it to them, maybe. But shouldn't he have? He had been saved, after all; everyone else told him the same thing, that the Enemy was a force to be stopped, even if they did not understand their purpose nor motivation. Even if they were flying blind.

Parker is the first he's spoken to that's bothered to question it. He isn't sure how to respond, not yet, withdrawing within himself just long enough to parse together words. It isn't a bad thing. It's making him think in ways he hadn't before.]

My world was going to die. I wanted to save it, and something dark and... terrifying came in, threatening to snuff out that little shred of hope. How can that not be something worth fighting against?

[unfavoured]

Yeah? And who told you it was this enemy?

[ Parker says almost without missing a beat, which seems to be the way she operates on polar opposition to the more deliberate and awkward silence that can stretch in conversations against someone else. Parker keeps her finger on the page she is on, but now with her eyes on him.

Yes, she doesn't understand blind trust. She can't, not with the way she has lived - in a world of spies and backstabber and power-hungry self-imposed metahumans posing as the greater upholders of justice. She has never been able to afford that luxury and when she did, she suffered the consequences, irreparable damages inside her, broken to pieces to never be put back again. There is nothing she has that can be fixed, not really. The way she is is the way she will be. ]

I'm not going to tell you what to believe. [ She says, before he can give an answer. ] Do whatever you want to, I don't care. But don't try to tell me this, any of this, is a normal thing to do. They put parasites in your head and then tell you to trust them, no questions asked. If you think that's fair, a price on your freedom, thoughts in your head that aren't yours, doors and walls and privacy denied and stripping you of your agency, individuality a thing that shouldn't be upheld-- then you are where you're supposed to be, aren't you?

[somnifacient]

[And that is a question he has no answer for.

Noctis won't try to interrupt; even as a little kid, he never was the type. She has something to say and so he listens, even if a frown continues to tug at his features. He stops playing with the ring, instead shifting again in his seat, a hand coming up to rub at his chin -- the stubble there feels rough and needs to be shaved, but it barely registers.

He thinks to himself, surely, surely others have asked the same questions. That the other hosts before him have trusted that they're not being misled for a reason? That Parker must be a vocal minority. He could just dismiss it as little more than that, call her paranoid and distrustful.

Instead:] I don't know how fair any of this is. It's just going from one shitty situation to another for me. Honestly? If I could go back home, I'd be there in a heartbeat. But I was told that was impossible. [His own words have lost their awkwardness; instead he enunciates them with a sturdiness that wasn't there before.]

How do you plan going about looking for this truth?

[unfavoured]

[ He would not be the first one to call her that, and neither would he be wrong. While not on conspiracy theory levels of paranoid, Parker does have a stride of it. Again, a construct from the life she has led for the better part of her life. But on the other hand, she is neither so blind to deny the truth. But she has seen none, not one backed by evidence or anything concrete. Everything is vague, floating in space like the Station. It does not sit well with her. She has been dismissed, over and over, and she is tired, but she hasn't given up on it yet.

She is, she feels, the vocal minority, but it is a place she sit well and comfortable. Maybe she does it more aggressively because it is the only comfort of familiarity she feels in a strange place, displaced, unbelonging. ]

That's what it takes? You've been told you can't go back, so you just sit down and nod your head? [ A vague gesture to him. ] One shitty situation to the other, so you just accept it? [ Parker has never been good at accepting that sort of thing. Her heels will always dig in. Fire spirit, and all that, stubborn and annoying and a nuisance.

She stares at him at his question again. It's another long silence that welcomes him in response. She thumbs her small lip scar, a discreet line over her upper lip, left side. Something that has long been there. Parker stares out the window as she does, as if mulling her words, or thoughts, or his (words, not thoughts, she has her guard always up, her barrier always muffling others and pushing them out). Finally, it comes in the form of a stale, monotone voice: ]

I don't think you need to know.

[somnifacient]

[Those words shear right through him, as if he were made of nothing. A truth he's danced around in his own head, but reassured by others that he had been doing the right thing. Nyx had told him that they'd get through it together, that they'd focus on the mission at hand, because it's all they had any more; Eos was gone, but that didn't mean either of them had to feel useless. Purposeless.

Noctis glances away, moves a hand up to shift an annoying piece of hair out of his face. This time, he chooses not to answer. This time, something petulant rises up, like a child, but he has enough sense to keep it reined in so that he doesn't look like too much the sheltered manchild that he can easily be. Running his tongue across his teeth, he decides that he just won't answer that part.

But he will comment on the declaration that he doesn't need to know.]

Why not? Think it's something you can do on your own?

[unfavoured]

[ If she meant to make him feel that way, she doesn't show it. Parker has never been one to mince words or to lay it out gentle, never one to lie either. She will omit, but never lie - she has never been a good liar anyway. Regardless, she would be happy to tell him that at least he feels something when such words are thrown at his face. That ought to count for something.

She blinks slowly again at him, keeping her eyes on his face for once, and not on the book. Her thumb taps idly on the tattered cover of Treasure Island. ]

I think it's something I don't trust any of you with. [ Save one person, but she isn't naming names. And she has no illusions: it is not something easy to achieve, but Parker has never taken the easy way out. ]

[somnifacient]

[It's a reasonable answer; she doesn't know him beyond this short conversation he's having with her, and trust is something not placed so lightly in the hands of others. No matter how much the symbiote, in all its connectedness, would try to encourage otherwise.

Logically, yes, he knows this. But some innate part of him wants to be helpful, and writhes at the doubts that she's stirred within him.]

Then how does someone earn your trust? If there's something more to what they're telling us, I'd want to know just as much as you.

[unfavoured]

[ It is, in fact, the symbiote that makes her even more distrustful. She has always been slightly paranoid, has to be considering the life she took, some sort of survival instinct, but the fact that she sometimes struggles to see her own instincts distinct from the ones of the parasite in her brain makes everything worse.

She scratches her eyebrow again and glances at Rhan moving somewhere in the background, her eyes squinting slightly in an analytical way, as if she was trying to read her mind (she isn't, she wouldn't, even if she could). Parker doesn't look back at him as she answers. ]

Show, don't tell. [ She says simply. ]

[somnifacient]

[It's an answer, and one that's difficult to contend against. Show, don't tell. Noctis Lucis Caelum, who finds more comfort in taking action than trying to explain things verbally, should perhaps consider this a preferable response. Instead, he's trying to decide how to reply, instead following her gaze to Rhan in the distance.

Frowning, in the end, all he has to say to that is:]

Yeah. All right.