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

[onemind]

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!))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[shri]

[ His displeasure rolls off easily. She knows what she expects, and it is almost always the worst. Blunt force object with simplest progression. ]

( A pleasant happenstance, I am not used to them being anything less. )

[redheadcarrier]

[ The image flashes through her own mind and she knows him - sort of. She's spoken to him once or twice. Her lips twitch into a frown and she eases her weight back. ]

I know who he is. Idiot.

[ Not that she knows anything else about him, really. ]

[greentech]

[ He gets a bit better mental image of it a few seconds after his thoughts go spiraling out into the ether. It's much different, apparently. She's not sure where the snarling came from. ]

( Saving the universe. And forming Voltron. )

[ Totally great reasons. ]

[skaikru]

( it takes a little self restraint to resist wiping her gloved hand on the folds of her costume after the release each others fingers, if only to shake the clammy feeling running up her arm. clarke's expression is steadfast even if it can't be seen, posture rigid. her stomach twists a little tighter, though from hunger or thoughts of allies and enemies was anyones guess. )

Not here, at least. ( she's thinking of her broodmates in turn, all a constant tug in the back of her heart. wondering, for the first time, why their saviors had seen fit to slot her alongside imperfect strangers, instead of those she already depended on. and, predominantly because seviilia is here, when new questions and concerns arise, she gets the high honor of being asked them. )

Is there a reason there's only a handful in a brood? ( the word still feels odd on her tongue, a weird term to apply to herself. ) I don't see the point in being more connected to a few people than to everyone else.

[ryohji]

[ the feeling's mutual, then. somehow the schadenfreude doesn't sweeten the experience, however fleeting it proved. rarely does it ever.

they spend much too long, in restrospect, staring each other down like cowboys poised on opposite ends of a godforsaken town. kaji finds himself trusting mat's denial for as much as it's worth, by one virtue of it sounding the most heartfelt kaji's ever heard from him, and by another virtue of the twinge of paranoia synchorized to the foreign intruder - be it a voice, a thought, or a malevolent presence even more abstruse than even that. the effect on him was immediate. no one could ever hope to conceal such a split-nano reaction, himself included.

kaji's expression softens despite everything. it's almost imperceivable. almost. ]

Are you?

[ before he realizes it kaji is on the move, power walking down a hallway illuminated by the same white, preternatural lights. he has enough sense to cast a look over his shoulder, a subtle invitation for mat to follow, though kaji wouldn't be surprised to catch him on his heels with an urgency not of his own volition. ]

Maybe the better question is, do we have a choice?

[huntsmachines]

[ Aloy seems a little taken aback by the sharp rebuttal and she almost recoils physically. It ends up being more of a mental thing. If she knew his thoughts, she'd be incredulous--Lexa hadn't sent her to do anything. In fact, Aloy was off sulking to avoid Lexa! She takes a breath and holds her hands up, warding off Murphy's annoyance. ]

I'm just concerned. You could feel that black cloud a mile away.

[ Okay. Deep breath. You can do this. ]

Sorry. I shouldn't have pried like that. I'm Aloy.

[polyphonos]

[Cathaway flicks a glance into her cup as he tops his off with liquor. After a moment, she extends her drink back to him. She had said she'd take it however he took his, hadn't see?]

What was you experience with them in your own world?

[Nothing quite so infuriating as answering a question with another question. She seems to be aware of the fact is the eyebrow she raises is any indication:] Forgive us. Consider it a necessary point of reference to begin.

[shiro2hero]

(And we're probably going to again, now that you're awake.)

[It's a little sore, that point. Since it's the last conversation he remembers having before... before the feeling of his arm being ripped from his side. Before everything felt raw and on fire for days on end.]

[The affection is slight, in comparison.]

(Even doing that puts people in danger. The people who won't help drag the rest of us down on missions like this one.)

(There's got to be a way to get everyone on the same page.)

[Yep, right back into old habits, but, really, it hasn't been that long.]

[miscreant]

You are mistaken, child.

[There is the sensation of a hand on her shoulder, though Seviilia's hands remain in her lap.]

Just because you are more closely connected to your broodmates does not mean we are not all connected. We all feel one another quite keenly -- just some more than others. If you were to break your arm right at this moment, I would feel it. But your broodmates would drop down in agony with you.

[To her actual question, the elf shrugs.]

I cannot be certain. That is a question for Cathaway. Though I suspect it must do with our hatch patterns, and how the symbiotes chose their Hosts. The majority of my brood had fallen to slumber before I awoke -- all but your friend.

[shiro2hero]

Angry people make more mistakes. It happens.

[Deep breaths.]

Look, you can be mad here, but at least try to work with it?

[And not just because there are way too many people here who don't try. Or resist working together on principle.]

[polyphonos]

[Press, press, press - smashing something living between two heavy stones, the squelch of tissue in the moment that Lakshmi presses forward into her space physically. Cathaway's thin frame gives under the weight of her aggression, but her mind doesn't - it's just as heavy, just as jagged. She stares at the woman, her grey eyes too reflective in the low light of the dusky colored garden. There's no trace of bared teeth in the shape of her mouth, but it feels like there could be.

So many things could be.]

Why? Because it would be simpler?

[polyphonos]

It's difficult to say. [She isn't being coy, that much is obvious from the frank delivery and the crisp shape of her mind in the garden.] Time is difficult to gauge accurately here and the symbiote-host bond decelerates the aging process significantly. And of course, it depends on the specificity of the question. Do you mean the oldest parts of us or...

[A small motion of the shoulder, the charms hanging from the gold chain picked through the layers of her dress chiming faintly. She motions to herself with a thin hand.] --her.

[Let's go with the second for simplicity, shall we? It's easier to digest.]

She's been here forty years. Or sixty. Ish.

[Big window.]

[shri]

[ It takes every bit of her, too new, too exposed, a little girl fumbling with her weapons, to keep her knuckles from being sliced open, but worse - she shudders, a miserable sensation, that hunches her shoulders up. Tenses every muscle, held fast, won't crumble, won't relinquish her hold.

Holds herself so hard, she can feel her nails bite to blood through her hold on Cathaway's clothes, into her own palm. ]

Because I will never be coerced by force. Of my mind or my body. My will is my own to dictate.

[ryohji]

[ her reply is the wind that blows over his skin, colder than any breeze he's ever felt in his life. it stands the hairs on his neck on end. it quickens his heartbeat with a fervor that bordered on chest pain. it pales his face, dilates his pupils.

knowledge is a funny thing. kaji was privy to information that would make most people's blood run cold. monstrosities that defied description, abuse so terrible it couldn't be said to belong to any man alive. his currency dealt in lies, exploitation, manipulation. technically he had the blood of millions, children included, on his hands. but there was always distance. always distance. to think of the end of the world or the dissolution of souls was always an exercise of imagination, which meant distance and fantasy followed by logical conclusion. this was personal. the symbiote in her head is the symbiote in his head is the symbiote that had all of them in an embrace of shared terror.

the woman he was speaking to escaped from him, or at least she'd took the backseat to someone-or-thing infinitely more terrifying, and this one-or-thing referred to her in the manner of a benevolent landlord to one of his most treasured tenants. ]

Who is her.

[ he thought he was through, asking questions he already knew the answer to. he only thing he could manage is a whisper, throat inexplicably tight and dry. ]

[shri]

[ She bows her head - not simply a nod. Lowered, an acknowledgement that she would remember this. All of this. That it meant something to her beyond such common courtesy, beyond polite spectacle.

And not once, does she let her eyes drop from her. That stare held unwavering. ]

Thank you.

[shri]

[ She laughs, still mean, because what else can she do about it otherwise? ]

Perhaps so. He may just be misguided. Vampires are to a singular point, deceitful creatures.

[ She's just a font of anti-vampire propaganda, apparently. ]

[skaikru]

( she's the suspicious type, wants to dig into the meat of that silence and the confusion that seems to lace his response. barely restrains herself, lips buttoned and arms folding across her chest, like physical barriers would prevent the swell of conscious to overlap and send them tumbling into the same emotional feedback loop as before. ) Yeah, I learned. ( a relatively quick answer, if a little dry. once upon a time, when she'd felt younger, clarke had despised the idea of arming herself, her people, like a war party. but peace had always been fleeting, and so she'd learned.

later learned that guns weren't a necessity to win a battle. they weren't even the fastest means to a bloody end.

drawing level with mat, clarke takes her time surveying the armament up close. again, they're the same, or similar enough to the guns she's handled evoke the same weighted familiarity he feels. only her muscle memory matches up to real life recollections, and she's reaching for a handgun instead of a bulky assault rifle. twisting it over in her hands, pulling back the slide to check the chamber before offering it to him. )

Maybe you should start smaller.

[skaikru]

( and again, she'll match the tone of unimpressed: mouth in a thin line, barely restraining an exasperated sigh. stupid? maybe not. but reckless seemed like a safe bet. speaking of reckless friends — )

( We? )

( there's that sigh, exhaled sharply through her nostrils. she could hazard a guess at who his accomplice in crime could have been, and blows over any response; content to piece the smaller pieces together through assumption, and move on to more important questions. )

( Did you at least learn more about it? Even if you couldn't get it out? ) ( her tone is edged by anxiety, dragging up the brief discussions of the symbiote she'd shared with kaji over a half assed game of chess. it was a living thing, different than the chip, different from the flame. her hopes of nerfing their unwelcome brain bug with a haphazard emp had been rather spectacularly quashed, but clarke still stubbornly clung to the hope there was some way to fight the thing. it's a slap in the face, coming so close to freeing themselves of one parasite that trekked through the neural pathways, only to be saddled with another. )

[skaikru]

( it's the answer clarke expects, but still leaves her feeling a little disjointed; again, struggling with the knowledge that she'd been reborn into a group she knew, but didn't. wanted to care for, and simultaneously wished to keep at arms length. felt inclined to trust, to seek out, to confide in, and continually grappled with the logic that she shouldn't. not yet, at least.

a little lost in her own thoughts, the question is an afterthought. )

( Third Impact? ) ( the name alone carries the weight of destruction, but the specifics, and the similarities to their current situation, are all hazy details wrapped in a blanket confusion. the history of nuclear bombs, the rumble of the earth upon high speed collision, and the sound of wood splintering echo in her thoughts, but none of the memories match. )

[hymnals]

Not in the traditional sense.

[ The tips of his ears twitch as Kaji's expression shifts. Sev's condition is blatantly obvious to Adra, even without his innate sense for magic--it hadn't occurred to him that other people might miss it. ]

But she is a victim of some pretty nasty necromancy, yeah.

[ He doubts she'd appreciate the term--victim. That's how he sees all the death knights, though, no matter what they've done. No matter what they continue to do. ]

[hymnals]

( What? No. )

[ That's a flood of completely foreign images, and though Azeroth is a big place, Adra's pretty sure he would've heard of these people. The Netherlight Temple comes in response: a tremendous cathedral filled with priests of all kinds, some walking in shadows, some walking in Light. A crystalline being of shimmering power stands at the head of the cathedral's main room, its puzzle piece body shifting constantly, its presence radiating light and music. ]

( We're a coalition from all over the world, united for a common purpose. One that, I suspect, has nothing to do with you. )

[ He doesn't sound disappointed or annoyed by that, though. If anything, he's buoyed: it just confirms his feeling that the Light reaches across worlds, across universes. ]

[redheadcarrier]

First time I've ever actually met one.

[ Asuka shrugs and puts her back against the wall, watching Lakshmi carefully. ]

Apparently you've been around them. What's up with that? Aside from revenge, what happened?

[unsea]

[ Ah, she caught that, did she? He leans closer, and tips the contents of the glass into her cup. ]

Oppressive. Awe-inspiring. I've lived a great many years, and killed things of myth and legend. Nothing like them.

[ Things thought to be immortal, divine, all-powerful or at the very least - long-lived. Nothing like this. She asks a question of him, and in this, he is up front. There is something he wants from her: a greater understanding of what threatens them, a greater knowledge. He hungers for something like that, more than anything else - and he parts what stiff barricades he's erected within his mind. The crook of a finger, beckoning her to a memory.

The last one, before he awoke in this place.

It was as it the skies themselves had decided to turn against him, pressing down upon the people gathered in the mountains. Threatening them, to get to him. His people, Alina. ]

More?

[ Tea/alcohol? Memory? Her choice. ]

[unsea]

[ He is not Clarke. When he asks for forgiveness, it's not because he thinks he needs it, for this relationship to function. It's because he wants to hear that Bellamy will give it to him - and the more a supplicant that his broodmate becomes, the better. This is how he is, has been, and will be. ]

Thank you.

[ Just as planned.

He tucks his hands around Bellamy's face, pressing his thumbs just under his eyes. Lifting, looking at him with a deep, disconcerting fondness. Bitch be a yandere, Eppy. ]

What happened, while I was away? At the Waypoint, with the "prize"?

[redheadcarrier]

( The end of the world. )

[ The way she says it is blithe, almost dismissive, but there's more to it than that. There's fragments of memory - of strange truths, of being one with a vast collective, of having regret and pain and sorrow thrown into her face for her to see. Of a red sea and a dark beach and hands around her throat. ]

( Not like it matters now. )