[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

[blooded]

❰ pain doesn't bother damon. nails raking over his hands and drawing blood don't even merit a blink of an eye — the wounds close up almost as soon as her nails leave his skin and he's been through so much worse. it's almost laughable that this woman thinks she can bother him with something so insignificant, and his grip around her throat only tightens in response to the pain.

the knee to the side does just a little more, enough so that he does roll to the side, but he isn't thrown, and his grip on her throat remains. if he were his brother, he might try to make a point about not being what lakshmi thinks he is — stefan would try to form a truce, and if he were here, maybe this would all be happening differently. but it's just damon, now, and he has no patience for diplomacy. if violence is what is expected of him, he'll give it, and so well that no one can wonder at his intent. certainly not the woman whose trachea he's about to crush even as she looms over him. ❱

Did you hear me, girl?

❰ I will kill you, this time he says it straight into her mind, with all the force of his furious conviction behind it. elena is not to be touched, not by anyone who would hurt her. damon will do anything to make sure that's true. ❱

[shri]

[ And crush her throat he does, desperately, she can feel it - feel the cut of breath out of her lungs, that death - death will follow, even as she pushes him back. Rolls heavily with her whole body and slight as she looks, the strength in those hands is solid and real, reaching deep, deep into the black water and the bleed through of that feeling, that quiet, that stillness as she sucks in a breath.

The one, vicious thought - that is the only one she has as she wrenches her head back, not out of his grip, but to get the momentum she needs. ]

( Try harder, Queens don't die easily. )

[ And to all her best effort, and no, no she cannot breathe, he is killing her, but that has as yet to phase her. If he expects to find fear for that - he never will. And this close, this contact, where her mind is a body cleaved open to a sword man's blow - where she cannot peel apart her hatred of him from Elena's affection, it comes as animal roar over it all. Devoted wholly, to the one action.

She forces her whole weight down to smash her forehead down into his. ]

[blooded]

❰ she's not a coward, at least. damon can practically feel the symbiote in the back of his mind, the anxious little creature with its finger hovering over the killswitch, but he won't let up until either she concedes or he passes out. she can no more kill him than he could her, so he's not afraid of unconsciousness. he has a point to make, and he will see it done.

as she pulls her head back, his first thought is that she's trying to get away — but that idea is abandoned as soon as she begins to move forward. there's only enough time to turn his head, so that hers doesn't connect dead center of his; even so, his head rings, and he throws lakshmi backward, knowing that even just a moment of weakness will be pounced on. he's loathe to let her go, but the opportunity to regain clarity is more important than a chokehold he can't make good on. ❱

I don't care what you are. ❰ he rises slowly from the ground, her knife in his hand — it's becoming a habit, his stealing the knives of women who cross him. maybe he'll start a collection. ❱ Queen, hunter, I don't care. Touch her again, you're dead.

❰ even if he has to compel some alien off the street to do it. ❱

[shri]

[ It's a hard enough blow that it splits her forehead in a pressure cut from the force she brings down. A trickle of blood that runs down as she lands heavy where he throws her. Forces herself through the rest of it - even as her head rings with the force of the impact.

Swipes messily at her face before that trickle can work its way into her vision. Grasping desperately at what she does have over him. ]

Then it must destroy you to know that I am connected to her in a way you can never be now.

[blooded]

❰ the attempt at manipulation is obvious, and it hardly even stings — he's never been as close as he wanted to be to elena, that he isn't her broodmate is honestly just more of the same. it was a good thing, even, when she was here without any of her memories and being connected to him any further would have made her privy to things he didn't want her to know.

(even so, his grip tightens on the hilt of lakshmi's blade.) ❱

I'm fine with it, actually, ❰ he says, voice even, tone uncaring. he begins to circle her, keeping his eyes on lakshmi as he steps to the right, thumb playing with the tip of the knife in his hand. ❱ I bet it bothers you a whole lot more than it does me, actually. How does it feel, to know your mortal enemy is a terrified child? How's that moral superiority treating you?

❰ that is what angers damon. that is what drives him to blur forward again, faster even than he was when he drove her to the ground — elena has been through so much more than any one person should have to be, and she deserves peace. she deserves to be connected to someone who will appreciate her.

instead, she has a hunter for a broodmate, denied the quiet acclimatization she had gotten previously. he can't protect her from someone who shares her mind so intimately —

but he can wound them. lakshmi's knife is driven into her shoulder, cutting deep — nowhere near anywhere that might kill her, but painful. ❱

[shri]

[ As he moves, she readies herself, slipping to a fighter's stance. Foot sliding, missing her pistol as her fingers curl ready and waiting for whatever it is. Whatever it is he will do - will be something, how he's holding that blade ( not hers, Sir Bors, and her husband's, curled together and entirely her ).

And perhaps she should be glad that she keeps it so sharp when it drives into her shoulder. Cutting in deep, easily, then wide as the broad of her blade sinks into the skin it was meant to protect, drawing her blood, welling and blotting in her clothes. Not a scream of pain - too familiar with it - but she chokes on that bubbled up a burst of pain. Her fingers latching onto it, feeling it bite into her palm and cut her there as she pushes into it.

Her blade and her purpose and all of her - and she had done too much, for him to be able to pry at that kind of guilt. ]

Better than the person that turned her into that. They were either selfish, cruel or a coward.

[blooded]

❰ he doesn't know who turned her — has his suspicions, his fears — but if he could do so without losing ground to her, damon would agree with lakshmi's assessment. taking the life elena wanted from her, forcing her into this... whoever did it would have to be incredibly selfish. cruel, too, after the way she reacted the last time it was a possibility. too cowardly to accept the possibility of losing her.

damon knows only one person who fits all those descriptors.

it doesn't matter that she's right, though. what matters is winning. ❱

You don't know anything about her. You know she has a brother? She loves that kid. She's the last person he's got, and you want to take her away from him too. You really think that's protecting him? Making the world a better place by turning a child into an orphan?

❰ humans are so predictable. not as emotional as vampires, maybe, but all one has to do to tug on their heartstrings is paint a tragic picture of a sad child — the image of a poor, sad orphan boy, alone in the world and mourning the last of his family. where will he go? who will he be, with his beloved sister murdered? how will he be?

jeremy would be furious about the pathetic picture he's painting, but damon doesn't really care. he twists the knife in lakshmi's shoulder, slow, hoping to make the pain as agonizing as possible. ❱

[shri]

[ Agonising it is, her fingers holding tightly not just to make sure she didn't lose her grip, to try and keep herself up. Slipping, her legs going out from her in the familiar bite and tang of blood loss and the strained breath where the bruises are coming up dark under her skin. A beating, through and through.

The flicker there - it has the effect he wants. She knows that picture and the voice that calls out, clear as a bell in her mind, in her memories of just what he speaks. 'Rani, Rani where is my papaji?' ]

My people were innocent too, and that never stopped your kind ripping them limb from limb.

[ Blood, so much blood, and it isn't hers, in her mind's eyes. What does she care for hers? It was made to be spilt. But there is so much, so much it's enough to turn streets to mud, and she feels it still, under her feet as she braces herself. Feels that bite and that pain and her dizziness grows, as she tries to throw him off, an attempt to drive her booted heel into the inside of his knee to make him crumple. Once and then again with whatever strength she can muster into the movement. ]

[blooded]

❰ whatever she wanted him to feel, whatever guilt she might be trying to engender in him, it doesn't work. the vampires she knows most likely have nothing to do with him, given her accent, and even if they did, damon doesn't feel anyone's guilt but his own. where he can play on her emotions, his are thus far out of her reach. ❱

And that makes you so righteous, doesn't it? An eye for an eye, and who cares if the world goes blind so long as you feel good about yourself. Who cares if you kill children, if you make orphans of people just trying to live their lives when you feel like justice has been dealt, right? Because you know best.

❰ there's a deep hypocrisy in damon's words, but he doesn't care. their veracity doesn't matter, what matters is their effect. truly, he's reminded so acutely of bonnie bennett it makes his blood burn. these sanctimonious, self-righteous forces of nature who know that they know best, facts and other people be damned. at least witchy cared about elena. at least she knew what was important. she could be reasoned with, she could find reasons to stay her hand, she could bide her time. this woman is a poor imitation of the bennett hurricane.

though, it must be said, nearly as effective at getting damon to crumple. lakshmi's boot strikes at the inside of his knee and damon stumbles, though remains standing — but only for a moment, as she kicks again and this time he does go down, snarling as he does. ❱

[shri]

[ And contrary to all that - she starts to laugh, laugh and laugh and laugh. It's ugly, miserable, as awful a sound as laughter full of regrets could be. ]

Try again.

[ He slips down and with that angle, she lays her hands over his, and slow, steady, she pulls the blade free. Heaving with the pain, burning in every limb, and her heart beats hard against her lungs, not in fear, but her whole body alive. The race of purpose that fills her from mind to limb to this knife in her hand. The splash of her blood over them both as she takes in wretched breath. ] If you're looking for remorse, you will find none in me.

[blooded]

❰ he knows this song, he knows this dance — he's sung it himself more times than he can count, after all. he feels no guilt, doesn't know regret... except when he does. except when he does. but that pain is his, and he won't share it with anyone, certainly not an enemy. not someone who might stab him as soon as listen to him.

lakshmi pulls the knife out of her shoulder and damon bares his teeth, inhuman and wrathful. her blood drips onto his nose, slides down his face, and damon makes no move to wipe it away.

she hates what he is so much, she's so unwilling to give elena a moment's reprieve from the shittiness of her life? fine. he will be everything she thinks he is and more.

damon surges forward, bowling lakshmi over so that he has her pinned beneath him. one hand holds her head against the floor, cheek pressed into the carpet, the other holds her arm down by the wrist. there's something snappy he could say, probably. some quip that would show her how unaffected he is. but he's rather done with talking, and he'd guess she is as well. so he doesn't say anything.

he just sinks his teeth into lakshmi's shoulder, rending her skin open, and drinks her blood. ❱

[shri]

[ She goes down hard, scrambling, desperately underneath him. Bucking sharply, trying to push his body with her own. But he's heavy, inhumanly strong. That it's not enough with the angle of her hips and knees to get there.

Nothing that would ever come from her mouth, but that scream as she feels his teeth sink into her flesh is guttural with rage as she no long cares what comes of it, not fear, but sheer rejection of ever allowing herself to be fed upon.Tthe blade in her hand comes down and messily, like butchering meat she stabs it into the back of his shoulder. Over and over again, trying to weaken his hold, even as she feels the blood loss make each strike weaker and weaker - no, no she will not die here. Not here, not to him, not now. Not on her back, not where she ashes cannot be put in the river, not where her soul might be so far from finding her son and husband ever again.

She cannot, she will not, she will fight it to her last, and the blade stabs in again. ]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ The only reason that Sam hadn't gotten here before is, well, honestly, Damon's faster than him. He'd had to figure out what the fuck'd gotten Damon so riled up, doing his best to make sure Elena was okay before taking off after him to make sure he didn't do something they'd all regret. Sam made him a promise, after all.

It takes a little bit longer to track Damon through their connection, but he does. And finds exactly the kind of thing that Damon came to him about, at least as far as Sam's concerned.

He drops the shields keeping Damon out of his mind, and him out of Damon's - and he doesn't have to widen the connection between them, not anymore, he just has to stop concentrating on keeping it closed. The connection between them is strong enough that without much holding it back, well. Sam gets a flood of everything Damon's feeling, pain, rage, hunger, all centered around a fierce protectiveness and an endless love.

Nothing that he didn't already know, nothing that he hadn't felt an echo of before, but it's different when it's all rushing to the surface, when there's the taste of blood on the back of his tongue and the warmth of it down his throat.

Then he breathes, fingers curled around a coin in his pocket and pressed against the beads and charms of a bracelet on his wrist as he centers himself back into who he is, and not what's overwhelming Damon's.

His mind wraps around Damon's like feathered wings, a warm rush of wind tugging for attention in lieu of something like shouting his name. ]

( Elena can feel damn near everything she does, man, remember what it was like when we first got here and had no shields with our broodmates? )

[blooded]

❰ really, she's making this much more dramatic than she needs to. damon isn't looking to kill her, much as it may feel like he is — that wouldn't serve his greater agenda, after all, and he's all about the greater agenda. passing out on top of her because the symbiote's a paranoid little baby would not leave her with the impression he wants to confer — namely, he wants her to think of him as a threat, much more of one than elena could ever be. if she focuses her fire on him, he can focus his on making sure elena gets through all this intact.

he had forgotten, though, how hungry he was. it's been days since he's fed, reluctant as he's been to talk to sam, and elena and her friendly veins sleeping in a pod on the ship. his control is hardly frayed, by the rush of blood in his stomach or by the knife continually stabbing his shoulder — ow, also — but... he might be feeding longer than he intended to be.

it's sam who distracts him. sam's voice, elena's name, and this is so familiar he could probably write the script. everything you're doing to her is hurting elena! thwarted again by forces outside of his control, linking the woman he loves to the woman he... well, he doesn't hate lakshmi. to hate her he'd have to care about her at all. it's frustrating all the same, and damon growls against her neck, his grip on her wrist tightening.

it takes a moment, but he disengages from lakshmi, blurring to standing and then, after a pause, out of the room. he has to find elena, and he's rather certain he made his point. ❱

[shri]

[ she rolls away the second he's gone. The blade the only thing she holds onto. Gripped as tightly as she can, her other hand reaching up to that ripped open wound. Breathing hard, her whole body shaking in the blood loss that makes her scramble, desperately - she doesn't know who arrived. Doesn't know if her fate with him will be better - and as her mind rebels to every single thing, that guttural scream that goes and goes and goes and wants to claw at herself further, remove that feeling further of his teeth. She does not care about the wound, it is only blood, and blood she has spilt a hundred times.

But that feeling? That feeling cuts, guts her deep, doesn't know why she isn't dead? THe blade relinquished only to reaching for the phial around her neck. Bringing it up to her lips, drinking from it deeply. Her hands shaking to hold it, that thud - thud - thud of her heart getting slower from the edge she hangs onto. ]