station72 | [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!))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( this man, this one right here — feels muted. he's oh so present, and commands attention with the sharp edged words that has her gaze snapping to his face immediately, but it's different. lacks the vivid realism between herself and mat cauthon, and the visceral push-pull of anger she's sharing with rust cohle. there's no shared desire to flee like with kaji, and he doesn't fit into either of the shapes carved out by their more distant companions, down planet side. but broodmates or not, very few things will ever cut through clarke griffin's anger or shatter her resolve like bellamy blake.

the wary expression she'd worn whilst he'd preened? yeah, that melts like ice before a flame as the imprint of a memory not her own is pressed upon her, folded neatly into her mind for evaluation. she blinks at the darkling without really seeing him for a long moment, caught up in a swirl of new, mixed emotions and unfinished questions — i, how, where, bellamy? there's the undertone of confusion, too; trying to match these memories with ones alongside her own. but the most readily available is the sense of reassurance, the comfort, the strength lent when she'd reached blindly for him in polis, and he'd taken her hand. but that doesn't line up. that'd been just a few minutes ago. maybe longer? start with bellamy blake. either way, sentimentality had no place in a war zone.

if he were here, no matter where here really was, she needs to find him. and while the confrontational wild-child disposition clarke had embodied a few moments earlier is all but ruined by her own fierce feelings leaking through her mind, and freely displayed on her face before she can school her features. clarke's her best imitation of sharp and authoritative when crowding into the darkling's personal space. when demanding — )

Where? Where is he?

( — in a harsh, emotion choked growl. but the line between commanding answers and begging for them is thin, and one she dances with absolutely very little regard; please and now twisting in her chest, heavy handed suspicion knitting her brow while a particularly vulnerable line of worry carves around her mouth. )

[ hers is a face that he recognizes because of that shared connection; a long night, two, spent pressing the back of his hand to bellamy's temple as his hatchtwin shivered through illness and distance. as he shared, bit by bit, the image of clarke griffin - a beacon, a fire - and every emotion that was associated with her. to him, she resembles a young woman he had known once ( a girl who crafted storms -- ), not the one he had prized above all others.

what he appreciates in clarke, immediately, is how she divorces herself from her sentiment. quick, sharp. her attention is on bellamy, and the darkling cannot reach him in this moment. he'd love to know where he was, because it was certainly not on the station-proper. ]

( Distant, ) [ he parses the minds around him; no, bellamy is further than even this. ]

( He must already be on location, for the mission. You and I have a late start, it seems.

If you wish to see him, I would suggest gathering your things, and quickly. )

( that sounds like bellamy, always two steps ahead in the action, diving headfirst into dangerous situations. but — being new, overwhelmed, and incredibly confused, the pieces don't click. it takes her a second or two too long to realize his mouth isn't moving, and then a second more to fight down the urge to clamp her hands over her ears. his response is also painfully vague, stoking that agitation in her chest like salt in a raw wound. )

through forcefully gritted teeth and with an edge of accusation: )

I don't understand. ( read/felt: i don't believe you. even at the insistence that he's "distant", clarke is still chancing looks around the room for bellamy — clawing through the suffocating blanket of thoughts and voices, seeking out one that is truly familiar — and ripping her gaze back to the darkling in turn like she expects him to suddenly bolt. ) How can you know that?

( location and mission are also alarming sentiments, but she'll get to that. priorities. )

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

the crosscanon cr of my dreams !!!!

whoops i buried this one

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