onemind: (Default)
THE N E S T ([personal profile] onemind) wrote in [community profile] station722017-07-12 09:35 pm

[hatch log / mission: hyrypia] the winds that will be howling at all hours

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: Station 72; Hyrypia - Naerstone House
WHEN: DAY :002 - :003
SUMMARY: New hosts hatch on the Station, are briefed, then make their way to Hyrypia to join the rest of the hosts… while they attend a very important history lesson.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!






STATION 72
DAY :002

NEW HATCHES

YOU WAKE UP are are suddenly changed. --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 surfacing up from the darkness of some wine dark sea. Nothing is different and everything is because 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.

But here you are, a small miracle of the multiverse: lying in a small, faintly hexagonal chamber with 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 calmed. There's something peaceful about waking up here - like you belong. 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. A matching dread. An easy comfort. 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 nearby 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.In fact there are lots of you and none of them are the strangers they should be. Some even seems like people you've known for a very long time.They are as familiar as this place you've never been is.

Welcome to Station 72. Beyond this room it's quiet and still, feeling for all the world like a hollow shell.

--Or it does until a voice separates itself from the white noise in your head:



BRIEFING

THE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD isn't really a voice at all. It's the warm tang of camaraderie, tinged with a flash of impatience like ticking hands on a clock face and a flicker of wonder: a falling star. It says:

( My, you're all very fresh aren't you? Unfortunately, the multiverse waits for no spring chicken. Once you've figured out which way's up, won't you all join us? )

Join 'us' where is the question. And yet, once you're ready to meet the owner of the voice in your mind, your footsteps simply lead you there naturally. Two strangers sit in a small circular briefing room - a tall being covered in short brown fur with a rigid demeanor, and a pale alien with yellow washed frills at her jaw and throat who is smiling cheerfully.

"Hey there, sunshine," says Rhan, her frills humming as she speaks. "Why don't you take a seat so we can get started?"

[ooc note: please see here for the catch-all briefing thread]



THE STATION

WITH A LITTLE UNDER 24 HOURS before it's time to make the trip to Hyrypia, this is as good an opportunity as you're going to get to familiarize yourself with Station 72 before you leave it. There's plenty to see, but a distinct lack of people to make conversation with. It's lonely and quiet and there's a sensation of dust gathering even where there is none. Maybe studying the briefing files on your databank and going over your mission kit is the most proactive distraction, but if not? Well there's plenty of places to get lost...


HYRYPIA - NAERSTONE HOUSE
DAY :003

MEETING

A SINGLE SHIP LANDS in a field the color of burnished gold, returning to the place it had until late the night before occupied. It's carefully inserted beside dozens of other spacecraft bearing more than faint similarities, though each has its own unique aesthetic. When the gangplank drops, the loud engines powering down, it reveals--

New hosts. Seven fresh faces - obscured as they are in layers of intricate fabric - are led down the gangplank by Rhan There to greet them is a number of other hosts - any who answered to the sweet crystalline ring of Collector’s voice in their heads hardly a half hour earlier, speaking with certainty born of truth:

( Rhan and Siva’co are returning. Shall we see what stories they have to tell? )


Despite the solidarity that both combined groups provide, there's a feeling of eyes here. A number of guards along the edge of the shuttle field are watching the reunion like hawks. Better perhaps to return to the apartments where they'll be able to speak in private and teach the new hosts what it is that has been learned since their arrival. --Or explore, for those who prefer not to rest. Naerstone House's grounds are vast and they are almost entirely open to the parties of the pilgrims to explore.

THE PERFORMANCE

AS THE SINGLE RED SUN of Hyrypia dips low on the horizon there is a long, low, mournful sound. A deep bell-- or a horn? Or maybe it's something else entirely, but the call is heard and answered as any nearby servants inform the guests of the house:

“There will be a performance of the First Journey in a quarter turn. All guests are invited to attend.”

There's no mystery as to where the event is occurring. A steady trail of guests and servants lead out past the Veranda into the central garden where a number of pillars have been mounted and a large tiered platform festooned with with numerous draped curtains and abstract representations of trees and mountains - a great stage - now sits. The stage is surrounded by numerous low settees and tables, piles of thick cushions and richly colored rugs around which guests can be found clustered, lounging while sipping thick, syrupy drinks.

Each table is illuminated only by a single glowing orb at its center. Otherwise, as the sun sets it pitches the garden into darkness as even the castle itself has been left unlit. There are no lights in distant windows or on Naerstone House's high walls; these small orbs and the glitter of stars in the black sky might very well be the only points of light in the whole universe.

The allotted time passes and the performance begins. A sun rises over the stage. It's a much larger, more intricate glowing orb and reveals a number of players dressed far more simply than the Hyrypians the hosts have met. They wear complex machine masks upon their faces that shutter into different expressions as their hands flitter across their faces: dramatic caricatures to accompany the droning sound of their singing voices as they unfold the tale at the center of the performance - the one which drives this pilgrimage and for the Nest's very presence in the universe at all. It's the story of lost Rabadoceans coming to a planet near barren intent on brutalizing them - about loss and hardship until finally a single player separates from the rest. The orb of the sun over the stage turns, it's mechanical face shifting and resetting to indicate the passage of time as the very central platform of the stage begins to turn so that this lone player might walk. And walk. And walk through deserts and scrub land, through dark woods and dark caves, against the wind and with it. Through it all, the orb over the stage slowly lowers until at last this lone player can take it in their hands.

It cracks like an egg and brilliance streams from it. Braziers catch fire in the darkness. The garden illuminates itself. Every light in Naerstone House comes to life.

With that, the silence of the crowd breaks. There is applause -- each culture in its own unique fashion -- and then there is a rise of chattering conversation as the guests are served several small dishes and talk about the show they’ve just seen - and whatever possible clues it might give to the pilgrimage they themselves would soon be undertaking.






((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for all new hosts as well as the evening's performance. Feel free to make your own logs and posts additional to this if you care to. You can find a more detailed overview of the host hatching process HERE and additional setting information about the Station HERE. Please be sure to review the MISSION: HYRYPIA ooc information. If you have any questions, please hit up either the mission's question thread, the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages!))






calhar: (73)

mat cauthon | ota

[personal profile] calhar 2017-07-13 09:42 pm (UTC)(link)
i. HATCH
[ It's far from the worst way he's woken up, and for a few blissfully lazy seconds he doesn't realize he's in the wrong place. An absent attempt to reach out for someone — a woman, dark hair, sharp eyes — meets the side of the chamber, and that's when he realizes this isn't Tylin's bed. The slow crawl of awareness feels more like a long night of drinking than what he'd expect after having a building dropped on top of him. Still, that's what awareness brings: he remembers the bloody Bowl and the Seanchan and the pavement, intimately, and he remembers Olver running off in the middle of a bloody battle.

Mat sits up with a start, stopping short when something catches at the back of his neck. There's a flicker of confusion and curiosity as his fingers find the cord, a slight pause as he wonders at it — then he pulls.

Curiosity's drowned out by the wash of confusion and fear and thoughts, things he doesn't know and can't describe, and he pushes his palm to his forehead with a wince. His own paranoia's chased out by anger (anger fueled by fear, admittedly), but it's more productive than simply being scared. When he moves, finds his belongings and gets boots on the floor and starts to wander the halls, it's only because staying put feels like the worse plan.

Controlling his reaction hasn't got anything to do with controlling his thoughts. Stubborn resolve is undercut by the sound and sentiment of a sharp curse at every turn, and the memories are a constant, chaotic stream: red stone, dry desert, a rope scratching at your neck. Faces with pointed ears and narrow eyes, fox-like. The visceral recollection of the air being snatched from your lungs.

For as loud as his head is, Mat doesn't bother to speak up. At the first sight of someone, his first instinct is to tug his hat lower over his face and turn the other way. If there's a sense of recognition there, it isn't bloody his — and all it's met with is more belligerent avoidance and a distinctly offensive spike of emotion in response. ]
ii. STATION
[ In the hours between waking up and being dragged off to the planet, Mat does a good job of acting like he's seen all this before. Or he would, anyway, if broodmates didn’t have direct access to his thoughts. They vary between a string of frustrated complaints and curiosity and wonder, though that's always snuffed out by paranoia and irritation within seconds. It's all in stark contrast to the way he wanders the ship and lounges about in the common areas, testing out food and drink and generally avoiding being sociable.

Things that he's got no patience for: half the tech in the kitchens. The data pads. The rec room and gyms look like torture chambers, for all he's concerned, and the private quarters feel about as secure as standing naked in the middle of a field. The range is the first room that gives any of his abrasive thoughts pause, and Mat finds himself putting down the spear he's still childishly keeping on hand in favor of investigating the guns.

There's a distinct tangent to his thoughts, then. From petty and frustrated and new, they take an abrupt turn for something older, more patient. More analytical. Mat doesn't go so far as to pick any of the weapons up, but there's a tug at his memory that makes him think he'd know how. How to hold it, how to use it — channel it? His thoughts say shocklance, but that doesn't fill in all the blanks. ]


Burn me.

[ It'll be easy to interrupt. If there's a way to separate one voice from the hum of all of them and tell when someone's coming up behind you, he certainly hasn't figured it out. ]
iii. PERFORMANCE
[ He hates literally everything about this. Starting with the outfits that make him feel like some kind of fussy, noble woman and stretching all the way through to the open apartments and the fancy party. The fact that these people look more like snakes or foxes than people doesn't help. Mat spends most of his time from planet-fall until the performance shirking responsibility and being generally lazy (lounging around in chairs in various locations, really), but restlessness is enough to keep his complaints to a minimum when the event starts in earnest.

Going doesn't translate to putting any extra effort in, though. Mat settles in at a table with another overdressed fool at it, and if it weren't for the flicker of caution that proves some tact — he does take a second to make sure it's one of his people, at least — it'd seem like he had none, given the way he skips introductions and jumps straight to insulting their hosts. ]


Bloody planet of bloody witches. [ Planet's a new word. Not his first new word lately, though, and he's taken to cursing it as adeptly as he would anything else. The mention of witches does earn a faint pang of guilt, but it passes quickly. The girls aren't here to take offense. ]
iv. WILDCARD
[ Run into him wherever on the station or on the planet, I'll roll with it! Mat's ability is power amplification and he sucks at controlling it, so you can read about it here if you want to heck with it. ]
inflori: in treatment (185)

[personal profile] inflori 2017-07-13 09:49 pm (UTC)(link)
[ The surge of emotion he feels, with the vague identification of its source, has confusion condensing into something he can't put a name on. Some anger that once again, someone he's grown attached to is having feelings toward someone else.

He wouldn't have thought that resentment would spread away from the first web that was weaved around his thoughts, but. There have been more attachments ever since, and with them new reasons to feel possessive.

(No one's ever felt that happy to see him.) (Not that he cares.) (Baka.) ]


[ And later that night... ]

( Yeah, no shit. )

[ If nothing else, acting like a prickly brat hasn't changed. ]

( Think one of us isn't gonna last? )
unsea: (ᴅᴇᴄᴇɴᴛ.)

[personal profile] unsea 2017-07-13 09:55 pm (UTC)(link)
( I was in desperate need of a reprieve. )

[ From you. Who are children. His manner suggests; lofty, too proud. He is the one who fell asleep, taxed by the connection to his own symbiote, and the one who must now return to the fold and reclaim his place. He certainly does so with a measure of attitude, and his typical dry humor. #NAPTIMEFOROLDMEN ]

( Hello, Clint. )

[ All the same - the brush of his hand against the man's shoulder, the length of his arm. The way someone might touch a companion in passing - familiar, only through this stolen connection. He's arriving shortly, fresh off of the shuttle ride with the new hosts among him. They are loud and confused and curious, and have only added to the familiar ache in his temples. The sense that he's overslept, and playfully scolds Clint for not rousing him from his slumber.

They both know there was nothing that could be done. ]
( How are your feelings on our mission, this time? )
ryohji: (pic#10951774)

[personal profile] ryohji 2017-07-13 10:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[ he staggers backwards moments before he can assign the intrusion a source. to judge from the expression on his face, the time between shock and prehension is measured in seconds, if not in a single breath. he would have been just as defenseless if she'd been more accommodating of his inexperience, if she'd taken it slow, if she had the manners to ask permission first. there is no courteous way around the mind's private moat. even with consent, the motivations for intruding upon one's innermost parts couldn't be entirely benevolent.

he loathes it, her insisting fingers dragging their weight across the landscape of his mind, sinking in and scraping at tender places with the fingernails. he tries to disengage. he pays for his mistake; like an barbed stinger that seeks to do the most damage when removed, any attempts to fight her off stings terribly and makes his heart pound in his chest like a frightened bird. when she finally makes her retreat, his stomach twists in an ugly, nauseated marl. rejection hurts no matter how unwelcome the initial breech and that is the worst part, he realizes, the hot shame for not having kept her attention longer.

kaji manages to throw up one piddling wall only after it's all said and done. his hand grasps for the knob, turns it haltingly, just enough to peek his head through the dark crevasse to meet her gaze weight for weight. his expression defies description, breath catching, but otherwise resolute in the face of their one-sided psychological exchange. his hesitation seems to say, don't do that again, but he refuses to reply with anything other than his voice, a tremor above a whisper, unbelieving.
]

Katsuragi?
ryohji: (pic#10824693)

[personal profile] ryohji 2017-07-13 10:08 pm (UTC)(link)
[ he's serious, like heart attack. kaji tends to be grossly misinterpreted everywhere he goes, and he's glad to see that this precedent holds even on other planets. in lieu of an immediate reply, he makes an amiable noise in the back of his throat and pats the seat down next to him. ]

Us Japanese aren't exactly known for our multilingualism.

[ it takes kaji seconds to canvass this man - his build, his scar, the cut of his jib. a soldier. someone who likely commanded his share of respect, a man tightly bound by the onus of duty, compassion, and principle. he could glean more, infinitely more, if he tried exploiting the connection the nest afforded them. but he doesn't, satisfied with first impressions. they've gotten him far, symbiote be damned. ]

I was thinking maybe there's some way to translate these, if we can understand the Rabadoceans without the help of an interpreter. [ a mystery he has yet to make plausible. it makes scarcely more sense if they were to assume the rabadoceans had the help of the symbiote, ergo making them absolute polyglots, but that generates an even larger series of questions as to why they would be outfitted with symbiotes, and by whom. the implications of which seemed troublesome, to put it lightly. ] Or, they could have symbolic value outside of what's printed on their pages. I tried to take what looked most valuable.

[ if he's lucky, among the books is the only copy of a sacred religious text. a rabadocean bible? not even the pretense of shame from his end. ]
unsea: (Default)

[personal profile] unsea 2017-07-13 10:10 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He likes this one, if only because the colors he wears are as traditional to his bloodline as they are to The Darkling's station among Grisha. He is the sole one of his kind who is permitted to wear a black kefta, and to be in colors other than his own is - new. It is not something he can afford to nitpick and be concerned over. They are the colors of a disguise, after all - how better to divorce himself from who he was among the nest, to become another -- ]

( Have we a common focus? )

[ Info-gathering aside, he's definitely surprised to hear that the nest has not split into factions already. ]

( -- I remember you. From Waypoint Shril, just before I went away. )
miscreant: ({ starting to break; ❄)

[personal profile] miscreant 2017-07-13 10:16 pm (UTC)(link)
[Seviilia is always hovering -- around the spectacle, near her follow hosts, a bit too close to some of the aliens for the express purpose of making them uncomfortable. Kaji is one of the newer hatchlings, so he grabs her attention easily.

She can appreciate a good pickpocket when she meets one, particularly one who manages to smuggle such large objects without detection. Still, being an elf, she can't help but chuckle at his candor when he addresses her mentally.

Her voice in his mind has an unearthly echo all its own.]


( What makes you believe they are written in any language you happen to be familiar with? )

[She'd run into such a roadblock before. Thankfully, the symbiote made them understandable to one another without difficulty, but alien worlds were always hit or miss. Not necessarily a new phenomenon for her, a woman who only spoke three languages in comparison to the many that constantly existed in her space.]

( Still, that is quite a hoard for such a broad human. )

[How'd you get to be so stealthy, buddy?]
Edited (hit enter too fast!!!) 2017-07-13 22:18 (UTC)
ryohji: (pic#10951798)

[personal profile] ryohji 2017-07-13 10:17 pm (UTC)(link)
[ he sees her before he hears her, but that was just coincidence. even if he was trapped in a cage with a thousand screeching strangers, and a thousand more clamoring inside his head, he'd still be able to pick out her voice. he'd bet his last coin on it.

habit has a funny way of overriding shock. asuka was so predictable, profoundly so, that kaji braces himself for the contact before it happens, already making determinations about how best to downplay and deemphasize. gingerly a pair of arms wraps around her, again more out of habit than stark relief. there is nothing relieving about asuka being here. from what he's gleaned so far, the nest had handpicked each and every host to wage war against a staggeringly powerful and malevolent force, the likes of which were stronger than anything they can hope to wrap their minds around. kaji hadn't seen unit-02 about, and without unit-02 she was just a girl - a highly troubled and temperamental girl - with no generalizable skills outside of piloting specifically engineered eldritch cyborgs, under exacting conditions no less. no supplemental ability could make these truths any less evident. no ability could make her a 30 year old liability - like, say, himself - and not a 13 year old one. this must be a fluke; barring that, a cruel, sick joke.

asuka may be able to discern shades of kaji's reluctance, even as he steels his hands against her shoulders and peels her off him to take stock of her for any physical changes. her eyepatch draws his gaze. the pit in his stomach grows.
]

Asuka, [ why are you here? could she hear that? does it matter? ] Don't tell me that's part of your disguise.
Edited 2017-07-13 22:18 (UTC)
unsea: (sʜᴏᴜʟᴅᴇʀ ɢʟᴀɴᴄᴇ.)

[personal profile] unsea 2017-07-13 10:19 pm (UTC)(link)
[ you think the sweetest things of him, shiro ]

( The garden.

Don't do anything
rash, dear Shiro. )

[ he warns, only because he'd hate for their cover to be blown by any Wild Displays Of Emotion. even though his mind warms over, flickering like an ill-kept fireplace, as shiro draws closer and closer to where he has gone to re-read over the data provided to them for their mission. when shiro inevitably finds him, he's tucked in a back corner of the garden - fully hidden in the folds of his disguise - but, waiting now, for another of his silly, bright-hearted broodmates. ]
redheadcarrier: (Oh mah gawd)

[personal profile] redheadcarrier 2017-07-13 10:29 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Habit. The whole start of this conversation is a habit. She's just glad to see him - alive and well and not dead - but that happiness is fleeting. She knows that he doesn't see her like that and that he and Misato are a thing so the tentative, ginger way in which he handles her isn't unexpected or a surprise. It's just disappointing. Like always. Nothing's changed between them. Why should it have? He's been dead and you can't build a relationship with a dead man.

His dread she can feel in bits and pieces, leaking through the link like sand through a sieve. It's something that rankles her - a sharp jolt of resentment. She's not a child. She's here for a reason, because she's good at what she does, she can do this. She doesn't need him to shield her (although if he did, she might enjoy it, if only because it might mean that he cares enough to do it).

But for that first moment, she clings to him and the warmth of his body through all the layers of cloth and imagines that he might actually return her embrace, feeling oddly comforted by the familiar. Then he peels her back and she eases back, gives him that bit of space. As much as she'd like to link arms and stay with him, she knows what's going to happen and she's not quite the same as she always was. She's learned a few things along the way.

Her stomach churns. Of course he notices the eyepatch. She rubs at it with a thumb, feeling suddenly self-conscious. Almost bashful.
]

Of course it's not! It's - Ugh. [ Her stomach clenches now, a spike of fear running up her spine as memories of her last fight tumble through her head, visions of mass production eva units, blood, blinding pain, the loss of vision in an eye. ]

It's a long story, but - you're alive!

[ She's futilely trying to hold onto that exultation she was feeling a moment ago, but it's slipping through her fingers. It's fleeting and temporary. Seeing him again was always going to be painful, no matter what happens. ]
Edited 2017-07-13 22:29 (UTC)
cognitived: (pic#9058394)

[personal profile] cognitived 2017-07-13 10:40 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Ah, yes, he hadn't forgotten this. The lofty arrogance the Darkling is seeped in -- part mask, but largely not. Amusement brims, long-suffering as the way a parent listening to a child protesting naptime is. ]

( Hello, Darkling. )

[ He mirrors, something not quite sing-song in his voice. It's clear Clint's pleased, even clearer that he's strangely relaxed even here among an unknown situation. But this is what he's made for, and so the familiar touch simply settles, returned easily in the brief press of shoulders together. Laughter, easily stolen at the scolding, an impression of a grin that's all teeth. ]

( More my cup of tea than the last. )

[ Free reign to use his skills as a spy? Sign him the fuck up. ]
adamance: (pledge and i pledge in return)

[personal profile] adamance 2017-07-13 10:41 pm (UTC)(link)
( We'll have to ask. It seems that Rhan has a good idea of what this all entails, but we may be wrong on that part. )

[A year of scouting should be something. As it is, the buzz of reply from Lexa feels like Lexa—but is lighter, more at ease within her flesh, like a jumble of knots have been cut free. Though there are worries and she's not one to forget those worries, having Clarke here makes her feel infinitely more capable. That's in part because Clarke is the only person who Lexa believes in fully and completely.

She does believe in others—Pidge, for example, has earned Lexa's belief. But it's different. There are pedestals in Lexa's belief system, and certain people just ... are on higher rises.]


( That said, Rhan implied that we would need fighters. We may not seem weak for sending our most capable. And we must be able to continue to conceal ourselves in some way, so we can utilize what we can should it come to that. )
Edited (i fixed my html while forgetting to close my thought dialogue after editing it, whoops ) 2017-07-13 22:41 (UTC)
ryohji: (pic#11472615)

[personal profile] ryohji 2017-07-13 10:45 pm (UTC)(link)
( Let's just say, I don't look before I leap. )

[ that is the exact opposite of what he tends to do, and he meets the almost spectral echo inside his head with a self-deprecating humor that seems to hint, ever subtly, at the bare-faced lie.

he sweeps over the room in an understated sort of way, keeping his head fixed and low as his eyes scan from right to left. a twice-over isn't necessary. he thinks he's found the mystery miscreant by process of simple elimination. not many humans are in the habit of designating other humans as such, and not many humans succeed in sounding so preternaturally alien. if he's judged incorrectly, well, the stare he eventually fixes seviilia's way will come off as exceptionally awkward. not that he's made a habit of being wrong, at least when it counts.
]

( Planning on revealing yourself? I don't bite, if that's what you're wondering. )

[ she looks like she does. ]
adamance: (finish mourning i want a date)

[personal profile] adamance 2017-07-13 11:04 pm (UTC)(link)
( I do. More than that, the fact that we might reveal where we've come from on this pilgrimage worries me. A failure on the pilgrimage could mean a failure overall. )

[That may be another "no shit" moment, but Lexa would rather not fail at a simple feat of strength. Or struggle. Or anything of the sort. She also doesn't know if her own resilience with heat extends to something like that. She thinks ... not, probably.]

( Have you been to many deserts before? ) [It's clearly a measurement of whether he might be able, since she thinks he's a likely candidate. The drive to prove himself may be enough.

Oh, and it should be said that Lexa's mind has a buzz of ... ease, like she's far less unhappy or ... stiff than ever before. It's not a conscious thing that she's projecting. Rather, it just is.]
miscreant: ({ no longer the lost; ❄)

[personal profile] miscreant 2017-07-13 11:12 pm (UTC)(link)
( No? Pity. )

[Equally playful, to parry his depreciating humor. As called, Seviilia weaves through the others presently in the common area. She's still dressed head-to-toe, though it does little to hide her too-broad shoulders. The peaks of her veil are just a bit pointer than everyone else's, but her glowing eyes are expertly covered by a set of glasses beneath the thin sheer over her face. By all accounts, she just looks a little bigger than most of the other "Carbauschians".

She makes no excuses for how she measures him from beneath her disguise, a subtle tip and raise of her head before she reaches up to undo the wrapping. A courtesy. And when the veil falls away, she pulls the glasses from her eyes and switches off the collar device around her neck. No need to confuse the man by having an entirely different sound speak from the body that the voice in his head had been connected to.]


I am afraid that unless that book is somehow written in Thalassian that I will be most unhelpful.
somnifacient: (06)

[personal profile] somnifacient 2017-07-13 11:52 pm (UTC)(link)
[I remember you, he says, and the familiarity blossoms into prickling recognition. Waypoint Shril, in all its chaos, in all the confusion he felt after his arrival -- that's right. Noctis does remember now.]

(You're back, then.) [Obvious, of course. But he's still new and uninitiated in many ways; the weight of someone having awoken pulls across the link, and his curiosity tugs at it more.]

(How do you feel?)

[He realizes he didn't answer the initial question. He can get to that later.]
ryohji: (pic#11473947)

hatch

[personal profile] ryohji 2017-07-14 12:21 am (UTC)(link)
[ it isn't his memory that serves him a reminder. it's when he looks down for the first time since opening his eyes, laboriously, as though his head had been stuffed with feathers and cotton and tied from his chin to his bellybutton was a string. the massive blotch of dried blood on his shirt startles for a moment, and then his wits come back to him in an unyielding flood. an old man, his stomach severed open, spine and sinew visible. all consuming darkness, enough to drown in it. fear of the kind that stills your feet and keeps you put despite yourself.

it's these memories kaji takes with him when he finally makes his way down to the deck. before he makes any determination about where he is, and why, he fishes for a cigarette. four and five more directionless paces and he spots someone else, a man, looking just as lost as he feels. he is a stranger, or not - the thought is intercepted by a more abstract sense of familiarity, one that transcends the limits of reason. what is clear: the man's youth betrays him and his avoidant behavior doesn't exactly communicate a license of authority.
]

So they've taken you, too. [ bleary eyed, kaji attempts to meet his gaze. the longer he attempts, the more foreign the images that ripple in his mind's eye. the sensation of rope-on-neck makes him brush against his adam's apple absentmindedly, but the belligerence rolls off him like water off a duck's back. ] Isn't that right?
aluminumandash: (she's asking to be mine)

i

[personal profile] aluminumandash 2017-07-14 12:58 am (UTC)(link)
[ Uncomfortable echoes for him, too, with the jammies. Yellow-white tile, blistering neon. The touch of hands he doesn't have faces for. That hasn't stopped him from carrying the clothes tucked under an arm—curious, if nothing else, to see how they fit.

Rust is, he's trying to be methodical about this. Trying to find some organizing principle behind what's running riot in his skull—he's naming each feeling he can pin down, which would be laughable if he had the space to think about it.


( Fear. ) he thinks, distinctly. As though he aims to bottle it, put it on a high shelf. ( Guilt. Desperation. )

[ Then he gets a look at her. ]

( She's a fucking kid. ) [ His turn to snap: it feels good, allowing anger that's unquestionably his to consume everything else. Memory embedded in it—filth, children's eyes staring vacant out of the dark. An urge to do violence, though not to her.

He rides it out. The answer to her question is a long time coming. ]
Cohle. [ A dull sheen to the name, a badge gone unpolished (beneath that: remoteness, like a flag flapping in a wasteland). He extends a hand. It's automatic and it's awkward and he seethes at a familiarity he cannot place until the bottom drops out and he's plunged into grief like icy water.

His gaze is flat, mostly. He takes a deep breath. ]
Might be easier if you just scream.
wille: (- answering machine)

[personal profile] wille 2017-07-14 01:36 am (UTC)(link)
[ Like an iceberg. She plumbs the depths of him and is astounded by the unfamiliar landscape, this strange foundation that keeps him afloat, something alien inside someone she thought she knew so well. But the submerged folds and ridges connect to form the surface she can recognize. Misato knows, even before he pushes the door open to reveal his face and voice, who he is. She has already sensed whatever makes him, him, the essence of him or something like it.

She is in tears already, seated crosslegged on the bed with hair pulled back in a disheveled bun, and breathing too fast, taking in too little air and leaves her head buzzing. Her body as much an ally as a traitor, her mind even more so. What names she has for the emotions she feels are insufficient, when they are crests and troughs of the same current, fear at the height of it still, a yearning that rolls and plumbs deeper than she can grasp, ripples of hurt from a perceived betrayal.

Her whisper is as hesitant as his, every word weighed with accusation. ]


Why didn't you tell me--?

[ Why didn't you say it will turn out this way? Spare her the heartache, the longing, the pain, was it all necessary? She forms a fist against her chest, where her cross should be is a hollow, a handful of cloth, but she feels a need to push against her sternum, in, stop the heart's door from opening lest what he sees is nothing but ugliness. Something like laughter escapes her throat, choked, and she shakes her head to dismiss it. She draws in a breath, a gasp, and barks out: ]

You're such a jerk! [ Loud enough, though its edges are ragged, a declaration of weakness more than anything. She inhales again, another try, this time gentler, a plea: ] Come here.
greentech: (lance what did i just say)

performance

[personal profile] greentech 2017-07-14 01:39 am (UTC)(link)
[ The frustration that rolls off of Mat is palpable in some regards. Pidge understands the feeling. It's something she's wrestled with herself ever since she arrived here. Every time she goes out on a mission, she feels like she's doing something for reasons she doesn't quite understand. That doesn't really excuse the way she speaks about their erstwhile hosts, though. For all that she finds their task unpleasant, she hasn't found a real reason to start disliking the people. She shoots him a look. ]

They're not witches. And you should be careful about what you say - we're guests.

[ That part is in the open and she's trying to maintain an air of someone shocked that one of her own would go so far as to insult the pilgrimage. ]

( If you're going to insult them, you could at least not make the rest of our job harder and do it where they can't hear. )
Edited 2017-07-14 01:39 (UTC)
sizeofyourbaggage: (I hear you)

Sam Wilson | OTA

[personal profile] sizeofyourbaggage 2017-07-14 01:40 am (UTC)(link)
MEETING
[ Sam is among those who responded to the Collector's call, and waits to greet the new and returning Hosts. For the most part, he keeps his connection as closed as he can, not wanting to overwhelm anyone - but he can't help but reach out just enough to brush over their minds, searching for those that are reuniting with the Nest rather than joining it.

There are many reunions to be had, it seems, and he feels the heavy, familiar weight of the Darkling's mind as well those unfamiliar except for the echoes he's picked up from other Hosts. He leaves them, for the moment, for the people waiting for them and the people they seek, and turns his attention to the other new Hosts. Anyone on their own or looking particularly confused might find Sam coming to introduce himself. ]


PRE-PERFORMANCE
i. explore
[ Just after the meeting, Sam takes the opportunity to explore a little. He can be found in the veranda, sitting by the pool and eavesdropping on people's conversation while he reads through a tome of poetry or mingling with other diplomats and nobility, always with another Host as a "bodyguard" nearby or in the the hall of the past, sorting through tomes and sliding some into the folds of his robes for further reading - mostly romances and love poetry.

When he recognizes the feel of another member of the Nest, his mind brushes theirs briefly in greeting. ]


ii. apartments
[ Back at the apartments, Sam's shed most of the layers of their disguises, although they're within easy reach in case he has to put them back on quickly. He's down to black pants trimmed with crimson and a deep purple shirt, and he's sitting cross-legged on one of the beds that may or may not be his. Tomes on magic and stories about the First are scattered around him, but the book in his lap is a love story.

He'll look up if someone else in disguise enters the the more private location, giving a little grin. ]


Looking to get out of that for a little while too?


PERFORMANCE
[ At least one of his ever present "bodyguards" are close by, but aside from that, when it comes time to be seated for the performance, he settles among the acquaintances he's started to make in the other envoys. When those sits next to murmur about the performance, Sam listens - occasionally rephrasing an echo of their opinions of it or disagreeing in a way meant to prompt friendly discussion. Despite that he's playing a part, Sam is genuinely impressed by the performance.

Even with all the themes of loss and hardship and the endless walking, though he can't help but comment on that last one. ]


( I'm guessing this is a preview of what we've got in store for us. )
greentech: (curious and curiouser)

[personal profile] greentech 2017-07-14 01:44 am (UTC)(link)
[ Pidge notes the lightness and the ease and she wants to ask, but she refrains, curiosity buzzing just beneath the surface of her own mind. Something's happened but she doesn't know what and she doesn't want to pry. Not yet. She gets along with Lexa and doesn't want to spoil that. Besides, she should be focused on the mission.

Instead she files the data away for later, wonders if she'll have to end up using it someday.
]

( I hope she does. I hate flying blind... )

[ Deception and skullduggery. Not her first choice, but they have to make it work like this, don't they? She breathes out and glances back up at the stage, listening to the hum and buzz of the after-performance conversation. ]

( I'll go, if we can only send a few people. If nothing else I might be able to help out with building something to keep us going. Even if I hate the outdoors... )
ryohji: (pic#10951797)

[personal profile] ryohji 2017-07-14 03:24 am (UTC)(link)
[ he feels insofar as she does. the depths of human emotion, every extreme from one end to another, he feels only after having witnessed her feel it first.

kaji watches her cry, his mouth a harsh slash of grief across his face. his face twists severely at the salvo of tears, the onslaught of uninhibited sensations -
fear, yearning, betrayal - overwhelming him in an instant. emotional contagion: her heaving makes him heave. he doesn't need to think about what her words mean, he comprehends at once. when she tells him to come, he goes at once.

the distance between them is closed in three strides. three strides separates the kaji that watched her from outside the door to the kaji that falls on his knees. he takes her fist from her, his fingers caressing the grooves of her knuckles to coax them open and into his palm. he hangs his head low, temple pressed against her knee, a crude, primitive dogeza. the extremes of japanese penitence he performs now with acute, single-minded devotion. never has he apologized like this. never has he felt the need to prostrate himself before anyone until now. what more does he have to hide? for what end? for what end?
]

I understand. [ he knows he is. does she think for a moment he pretended to be anything else, but an fool? he offers her a memory, a secluded phone booth, an isolated part of town. the words ( After I caused you so much trouble, I'm sorry. After I caused you so much trouble, I'm sorry —   over and over he rehearses it again for her like a cultish chant. still it isn't enough. ] I understand, Katsuragi. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, [ that you have to hear this now] but I love you.
ryohji: (pic#10951789)

[personal profile] ryohji 2017-07-14 04:12 am (UTC)(link)
[ he is a paragon of patience as she goes through the motions of removing the layers on layers of the obscenely ornate outfit provided to them. truthfully, he isn't quite sure what she is. he is familiar with the diversity of forms intelligence life can take, at least back at home, where the angels presented with empyrean exteriors previously thought to defy all notions of physics. elvin, most definitely. the ears didn't do her any favors in that regard. ]

I'm impressed. [ he steeples his fingers in front of him, as though he were a store attendant servicing a client. ] But something tells me you already knew that.

[ as far as the books go, he'll bet his bottom dollar they aren't written in thalassian. he picks one up, running his fingers through the folio. each page was painted with a golden trim, like how he'd seen in a few western bibles. he'd picked this one for that very reason, deeming it important one way or another. ]

I figure it's good to keep them around, just in case. And the company doesn't hurt. You don't look new.
calhar: (38)

[personal profile] calhar 2017-07-14 04:18 am (UTC)(link)
[ There's something laughably delinquent about the way Mat tries to avoid even a direct question. The impulse is there, stubborn; but even he's aware that it's about as childish as it is futile, and he eventually gives up on the act.

The resistance in the connection thins first, followed by a cautious pause as Mat looks the man over. Dressed oddly, plain — smoking, which he's vaguely jealous of. There's no obvious threat, but simple awareness is overlaid by darkness and fear and spine and sinew, and there's another beat of silence as Mat's thoughts skitter to an abrupt halt.

Not mine. Not his death. Mat tries to brush past it as he would any other memory that isn't his, but it sticks in a way that keeps his hackles on edge. ]
Burn you— burn us, nobody's taking me anywhere. I'm not bloody staying.

[ The clear lack of a game plan to back up that statement is in the connection, stark as day, though there's a sense that he's scrabbling at something: portals, a metal tower. The words Aes Sedai, no translation, though the conviction around that one is shaky at best. There are more solid leads, like trying to fill in the gaps between Ebou Dar and here. ] Light, but where'd they find you?