[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

[miscreant]

Sinu a'manore.

[That's what comes out of her mouth, but its easily understood as well met thanks to the link between their minds. She doesn't take measure of the handshake he offers or doesn't offer -- a civilized people knew better than to try and challenge the undead with such things, and he is better off for not trying. Even if that hadn't been his aim.

The implication that she is shy, followed by the warning and mental implications have her chuckling in spite of herself. Its not an altogether pleasant sound, coupled with the echo of her voice, but it is there all the same.]

Consider yourself excused, human. I am Sin'dorei. [Direct translation: a blood elf, child of blood.] There is one other of my number among us -- an older gentleman by the name of Adrasteius. We were brought here just as you were.

[She's had to explain the ins and outs of what made her different from Adrasteius -- namely, that she was dead, and he was not. She doesn't expect it to be any different for Kaji, but she isn't about to insult his intelligence and begin explaining.

She leans forward on her elbows and gestures outwardly.]

Does that satisfy?

[shiro2hero]

[Not home. Like Aloy. Like Pidge. And how much would he give if he could help them get back there? Sure, there's a job to do here. There are missions to run and universes to protect.]

[But if there were a way to get back... even for a day. Maybe it would make things that much easier for the people here. His face is covered, but there's the sense of a sympathetic expression. A sense of I get it.]

(It really depends on who you're talking to. How good they are at shielding things.) [He lets his own flicker a bit brighter, for emphasis. The stars swirling over his thoughts glowing stronger.] (I've gotten pretty good at it, when I'm calm enough.)

[And then, with concern, the sensation of offering out a hand:] (Is there something you need to talk about, privately? I can try and show you what they taught me.)

[Because while he's gotten good with covering up his own feelings, extending that to others still feels like a task best left to someone like Sam.]

i

[ryohji]

[ intuition is a crude tool, but whether by chance or design it leads him to the outer peripheries where cathaway sits mere paces away. her bearing was elegant and sanitary, wisdom immediately obvious to the casual observer.

he figures he'll have ample opportunity to appreciate this little garden in full. right now, though, she has answers. and he has questions. ]

( I want to know why. Seems like you've acquired more liability than you gained soldiers. I'm not a fighter. )

[greentech]

[ There's another mental jerk from Pidge. That's not the response she was expecting and it stings, but she understands why now - and she's also not quite as on edge as she was at the start of this. There's a moment of mental silence and turmoil and it's ended when Pidge finally "speaks" again. ]

( Yeah. I understand. )

[wille]

[ To have stepped through another person's defenses is to see all the thousand little rejections for what they are. Her hand against his jaw, an easily weathered inconvenience from any other person, or a small question easily brushed off with a lie, becomes intolerable for the weight and meaning it holds, because of the weight and meaning she holds. She takes pleasure in this, this knowing that she is substantial enough in his world that her hands and her words can wound (anything, anything to keep her mind from venturing into questioning why she wasn't enough to change his mind and his past and his future too, this well-worn habit of taking on the impossible). It is a currency of her significance that she can more easily measure, as loathsome as it is, and for this small victory, she can allow herself to lean against him when he holds her.

The silence is a beast that threatens to swallow both of them whole, but she won't let it, no, never: ]

When you say the words like that, it's a promise, don't you know? It means that you will. [ Love me, the words she leaves out because of the gravity of them that she can't yet bear, even if she utters her definition of his actions with such well-worn conviction, as rigid as the fist she clenches against his side. ] I won't suffer the love of a dead man.

[redheadcarrier]

( My mood. )

[ Asuka's retort is a mental snap. ]

( My mood doesn't have anything to do with this stupid play. Are you stupid or something? )

[ Which isn't really fair to Clarke; even with emotions and thoughts ping-ponging back and forth, things are misinterpreted. Then again, Asuka is rarely (if ever) fair about a lot of things. Her capacity for fairness and trying to play nice went out the window a long time ago and she's only starting to rebuild that part of her. ]

( The play thing will be entertaining. Maybe. Who knows what it's gonna actually mean for our mission, though. )

[ There's a pause as Asuka stews in her own sour mood. ]

( ...you're new, aren't you? )

[shri]

[ It sets her teeth flatly against each other, her fingers drumming. She hasn't settled once she arrived. How could she? With what she is connected too. ]

Then how do I kill her?

[ Because surely, surely this woman sees the danger of such a creature, being attached to them? ( Not personal - never personal - beyond personal when she knows their destruction first hand ). ]

[ryohji]

[ because past experience has left her the most bitter aftertaste? some men come alive only after death, and the contrapositive also holds true. some men live only in name alone, distinguished by reason of their still beating heart. ]

Ah. [ his agreement sounds anemic, foiled by the way his arms constrict around her ribs, a soft kiss supplanted against her head. the shampoo she uses is nothing that strikes him familiar. ] You have my word.

[ does she need anything else? is that it? is this what it's like? he'd never imagined the aftermath to feel so... businesslike. (he never imagined the aftermath, period, because he wasn't planning having the conversation that predates the aftermath.) it suits her well, he realizes idley, this matter-of-fact, pragmatic and one-sided emotional exchange. it suits her more than the flowers she's never watered, a formal love confession, a dogeza, or the folksy smell of earth and soil. maybe that's where he went wrong; perhaps he's had he wrong idea from the very inception.

there is so much he needs to ask in way of help, questions that concern her time in the nest, affairs back home, what and why they've been brought here. his conversations with cathaway, siva'co, and rhan had been woefully insufficient, his broodmates equally unhelpful. but the questions can't gain traction necassary to leave his mouth. instead he rocks with her under his chin, watching the shadows dance on a spot on the floor beside them. ]

[shri]

[ She's still recoiling from every touch, that she's slow to take up that datapad that is passed to her.

And in no small part because she has absolutely no idea what the thing is, but it is clear she is supposed to, or that it was important some how - so without knowing what else to do with it, she sets it down beside her. ]

Do you have paper and ink?

ii.

[blooded]

❰ the reunion and attendant explanations and emotions out of the way, damon has left elena temporarily in sam's care while he takes care of one very important bit of business. he doesn't want to take too long; elena is a new vampire and leaving her alone with a human, even one as capable as sam, for too long is a bad idea.

but this is something that could not wait, and he won't have time for it while he's trying to keep elena from spiraling and blowing their cover in this all-important mission.

damon follows the trail of a new mind, one that has the trace of a feeling like elena's, and when he finds her, he stops in the doorway. she looks like a woman, like any other, but appearances can be deceiving. he knows that better than anyone. his thoughts he keeps shielded from her, and more importantly his nature — if she tries to come snooping, she will find herself lost in an impenetrable fog. ❱

You're Elena's broodmate, aren't you? The only one?

[polyphonos]

[The response doesn't have the clarity to form itself into words. Her mind is a dark shape in the garden and it shifts at his behest - distant stars burgeoning in the black void of her and bursting. This is the act of taking the riverbed and sifting it through some irregular mesh. Most of the stones and sand and silt slips through back into the river and what's left is sometimes pleasant and sometimes just stones. The only requirement is that they don't slip through the screen.]

Most of us aren't. [She dog ears the page of the journal, then closes it.] But fighting isn't always necessary. Sometimes it's merely a matter of asking the right questions.

[That he's thinking about the situation and his place in it rather than simply attempting to extricate himself from it is promising.]

[polyphonos]

[The sensation of a pause. The texture of a moment unwinding from its spool.]

We would prefer you didn't.

[It's as if some measure of of this place has come into sharper focus, though the words are spoken flat and dry and the silver sheet of her hair swaying forward across her shoulder as she turns to the next page in her book. Still: the weight of her in the room is palpable.]

[ryohji]

[ the story asuka threads together, the visions she can't help but spill over the link, is enough a horrific visage to repulse the hardest of humans. kaji rides each seesaw emotion with slow-to-blooming nausea. it's gruesome, bloodcurling, hard to listen to. the truth often is. asuka was a tragedy forged, not born, and at each pit stop on the road to her undoing he - they - did nothing to stop it, could no nothing to stop it. it makes him sick. it makes him want to reach out for her, if only she were a different kind of girl. it's not the fear of her misunderstanding that keeps his hands still. it's because she's been touched so much, against her will,
that to add to that, even with good intentions, seems wrong. it's not right.

so he just sits there, by now the melancholy clearly visible across his features. she doesn't need to prod the mental link to capture his guilt, and sorrow. ]

You're here now. [ so is he. and she's here as a child soldier, no less. the realization comes too late. ] I'm sorry, Asuka. NERV...

[ she knows this, doesn't she? ]... failed you. You know that, don't you.

iii

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ And here's the jackass who left her tied up there. Any injuries he sustained in attempting to help Elena get her and Damon away from each other or in tying her up in the first place are gone, courtesy of his symbiote ability.

Still, there's a weariness about him, though the set of his shoulders is determined. He's playing at being a diplomat, here, but at the moment it's probably never been more obvious that he'll always be a soldier. ]

It's not just because they're friends, you know. This mission is... if we blow our cover, we're all dead.

[shri]

[ She watches her for a long minute - some poisons could take a minute, even so. She says nothing, just waits, directly up and on her face, that gaze that hardly seems to break or blink. Until she's absolutely sure, that she finally does, that burning, breaking thought that aren't reigned in yet. Too young, too new, to know how to keep her rage and frustration together.

Then, at last, her gaze drops to that cup and slowly, she begins to take a sip. ]

[adamance]

( I didn't know you thought so highly of me to think that I'm capable of just about anything. I'll keep that in mind. )

[It's more a matter of not letting anyone know what she can't do, but Lexa allows him to sense her amusement.]

[shri]

[ Her thoughts are not shielded, too strange to her to do so. They beat loud, full, a steady presence as the rest of her. A tumult of concerns and worry, battles and life, all brought down quiet as she runs the cloth along the straight edge of the blade. To that one point as she lets out a deep breath.

Doesn't look up - it's too much, looking at others, feeling that burdening pressure of her mind against another. Flinches, against that name. Elena. Something nauseous works up her throat with the reminder of it. ]

Yes, that creature is... connected to me.

[shri]

[ She flinches away from it, that pressure turning back at her. That attention against her mind, her own senses that sucks all the breath out of her body. Steels herself, that pressure she pushes down with against every limb. Her heels set into her boots, her fingernails into her palm. ]

Why? She is a monster.

[ It's not a belief, nothing so forgivable, she says it in the full pressure of the screams in her mind she cannot separate. ]

[shri]

[ Her fingers flex inside her bonds, working back and forth at the unending need to get free - and where she cannot - to breathe, to move, to never stop moving as long as there is a chance that could be death, and in the steady hum of her mind, that sparking, crackling writhing mess of thoughts, she does see them as death - a fate worse than death. ]

If it means their death, let it all burn.

[ Spat at as viciously as she can, from where she's trapped. ] What you consider friends would feast on you for your misguided belief.

[hymnals]

[ He sighs, exhaling sharply through his teeth. A smart-ass, obviously. That's fine; that's perfectly fine.

He opens one of the books, examines it thoughtfully. It looks like a volume of epic poetry--there are intricate illustrations, done in vibrant colors and accented with gold leaf. A retelling of the First's journey, from what he can gather. It's beautiful--but is it useful?

He turns the page, even as he keeps responding. ]

( That's a lazy way of thinking. Morally and physically. Besides, you could still be caught as you are now--with these books in your possession. )

[redheadcarrier]

[ The horrible part about the words he says to her is that they're genuine. Maybe for the first time, he's being honest with her and it hurts. In a way, it hurts more than if he'd continued his indifference or his attempts to keep her at an emotional arm's length. She'd been prepared for that - hoping for something different, but steeling herself for the inevitable dismissal. But she can feel the guilt and the sorrow leaking through the lin kthey share now and it's all too real. She wants to scream about not wanting pity, not wanting help, but she's past that now, isn't she? For all that she despises accepting help (or says she does), this is what she's wanted.

Validation.

Someone to tell her that it's not all in her head. The thought's occurred to her more than once: that all the indifference and cold dismissal was in her head. That she was imagining things. That she was crazy and to expect anything else out of the world besides empty smiles, pats on the head, and the cold dismissal was the height of insanity.

But he's admitting it. That she's been failed. And it's not just NERV; in a way, "NERV" is just a stand-in for everyone else. Him, Misato, Shinji Ikari, her mother, her father, her step-mother. He means it.

She digs the heel of her palm into her eye, scrubbing at the sudden sting. She's not going to cry. She's not crying. ]

Of course I know that, idiot! Why are you saying that now?

[ There's a tightness in her throat, an exasperation in her tone, a choked quality. Why now, why only now is he telling her that and being honest? Where was this months ago? Years ago? It's selfish of her, she knows, to expect more. To have wanted anything else. It's just the wya the world is, right? ]

Kaji-

[ Another choke, because she hates this. She hates feeling vulnerable and scared and raw and open, but she can't stop it and she can't help it. ]

I'm glad you're here. [ It's a small voice. Not the exuberance or the lilting joy of a teenager with a crush. It's something smaller; a child telling an adult a secret held close to the chest. She wants to touch him; wants him to touch her. A reassurance he's real, but she can't reach out like that. She's already on the verge of tears and she's sure that if it happens, she's going to break down and she's not sure she's ready or willing to handle the shame of letting him see her that raw and open.

She doesn't like letting people see her cry. ]

[blooded]

❰ for a moment, damon doesn't react. not that lakshmi would be able to perceive, anyway. he doesn't flinch or shift, his mind remains shrouded in fog, and he stares at her, expressionless.

the next moment he is a blur of motion, moving too quickly for lakshmi's eyes to follow. her blade is slapped out of her hand as damon drives her to the floor, one hand a vice-like grip around her throat and the other balled in a fist next to her head. his true face is fully on display, sclerae filled with blood, veins darkened and protruding from below his eyes, fangs visible as he speaks. ❱

That creature is mine. If you hurt her, if you touch her, I will kill you.

❰ he means it. no matter what he has to do, no matter how he has to circumvent the killswitch, he will find a way. if it's the last thing he does after tearing the symbiote out of his goddamn brain, he'll do it. ❱

[adamance]

( Good. ) [The jerk itself is unsurprising, but Lexa is pleased that she understands.]

( Would you like to speak about the pilgrimage or leave that for another time? )

[She may need to be left "alone," so to speak.]

[shri]

[ The blade goes flying and she's already moving to meet him even as she hits the ground - hard - heavy. More than she's expecting, where Elena had been so - bloodless - to what she knows - he most certainly isn't. But closer to what she has faced, seen bear down on her time and time again but in her mind's eye - her mind that isn't hidden or fogged, she tries to comprehend to what she sees, those monsters with their mouthful of fangs and lean twisted body, to what Damon is above her. Bloody and vicious.

Can't speak, and doesn't bother to as her nails rip into his hands, dragging, kicking underneath him. She is strong - not as strong as him, not by half - that was always the point, wasn't it? But enough that she can make her way to drawing blood, her heel getting set underneath her as she shoves her knee up hard into his side. Looking to roll him and throw him. ]

Naerstone House

[100mitsubishis]

[The last time they spoke, Kavinsky had been running from lawmen, the stale air of a marketplace beating on his face. He'd made a mistake; he'd antagonized another Hivemate without knowing the extent of the little prick's powers. And Darkling, wanting to avoid having to spring K out of the local jail, had shoved him into an alley and gave a warning. Those are the details Kavinsky is left with, the exacts long forgotten because the Darkling has been gone.

But he's luckier than Sirius that lays in a permanent state of Sleeping Grizzled Beauty. And unlike Sirius, Darkling never had Kavinsky visiting his faux-gravesite, wondering whether he'd hear nails scratching against the pod.

Someone, now gone, too, told him that the coma Nest members fall into is dreamless; Kavinsky would be locked in a box he couldn't pick his way out of if the same fate swung a noose around him.]

( Try not to jizz on the glass. )

[It's a suggestion, really, and decidedly not an answer to the question posed. Kavinsky's not even close to the Darkling, standing on the opposite side of the Hall on level two, pretending to take in the beauty of an abstract painting that looks, to him, like the vomited end result of a night mixing pills with gin.]