[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

cw suicide

[polyphonos]

[The darkness of her absorbs the shape of that too, every little detail melting into that void that sits behind her like the outline of a person that doesn't match the woman sitting on the stone.]

We do. [Understand.] But you've mistaken us for having the luxury of choice versus working with what the symbiote has deemed accepted physiology. Every host which can be rescued is. There is no preoperative inspection, merely... a series of standards afterward as a mean to reduce an individual's potential harm to other hosts and the Nest.

[What exactly those standards are, that unspeakable void doesn't say. But given their company, surely they must be very simple.]

We work with what we are given. Sometimes people find a place here and sometimes... [Sometimes they remove themselves from it. She regards him for a moment, something in the lines of her face softening.] We don't know if that's comforting, but it's true.

[ryohji]

That's alright. The truth rarely is.

[ luckily he's not looking for the comfort in knowing. ]

So, it has an incentive to keep itself alive. [ to keep the host alive, is his tacit inference. ] And if it's good at survival, then I imagine it has adaptions to ensure nothing gets in the way of that goal. It's an organism, after all.

[ he's humble, as if reciting a lesson he's just now learned, and expecting to be clarified on some crucial minutia. ]

But it's not perfect, as you said. Though, judging from your successes so far, it's not victim to random chance, either. And the only explanation I can think of as to why, is that the symbiote tries to align the Host's goals with its own. Directly, or indirectly.

[ an invitation to prove him wrong, or confirm his budding hypothesis, the implications of which are far reaching. he meets her softening temperance with one of his own, seemingly sympathetic, and then - ]

- Well, you'll have to forgive me for my manners. It's Kaji.

[polyphonos]

[There's nothing to say to dissuade him from his hypothesis. It is, by and large, a suspicion she shares. (And she shares lots and lots and lots of things.)]

Cathaway. It's a pleasure to meet you, Kaji. [Him and the familiar shapes of his mind. There is a part of them - and she can't quite specify which - that seems somehow true to a piece of her as well. Which--]

Yes, we suspect that's a side effect of the symbiote. It creates amalgamations of the needs and desires of its hosts. Most of us prefer to be alive, which generally trends toward working in tandem with another other. Which strengthens the symbiote connection, which strengthens the host, and so on.

[It isn't a parasite.]

Maybe it wasn't exactly so for the creatures whose minds they once tied, but that seems to be the case with us.

[ryohji]

Cathaway. Likewise.

[ creatures whose minds they once tied. kaji gets the impression that she's speaking of decades, perhaps centuries. a cold chill runs up his spine. it comes like a tornado, manifesting out of sheer nothingness before he reigns it, anticipating her perception. but her perception is likely inevitable. ]

And how long have you been here?

[ ( How long has the symbiote been with you? ) he wants to say. ]

[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.]

[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. ]

[polyphonos]

[If she-the-thing-behind-her is aware of that horrible chill passing through him now (it must know, doesn't it?), there's nothing in her face to indicate it. There's no shift in the shape of her mind in the room. No green thing or delicate flower or thorn studded branch shifts in the garden. It's quiet and peaceful and nothing ever changes.]

Cathaway. [As if that much is obvious; hasn't he been listening? They just had such a nice introduction.] She is the part of us who arrived in this body. The part of us that lives closest to this place still.

[If this is an aggregate of something different, something larger, then she is the thread which moors it here.]

[ryohji]

Then what does that make you?

[ he latches on, quickly despite the revulsion that threatens to have a lesser man vomit and run. this, perhaps, is what he'd been getting at all along. to trim away the fat, to question the thing-or-one he was speaking to, the thing-or-one that introduced cathaway for the second time, to question his mind's invader, to question himself. ]

Tease them apart for me.

[polyphonos]

We are the aggregate consciousness of her and other hosts like her - hosts which have grown close enough to the symbiote and the nest that they're pieces of for the edges to blur, as it were. We're still her. We're just also lots of other things as well.

[From her seat on the stone bench, she offers him a bland smile. The disturbance in him tastes like something coppery and bitter in her mouth. Cathaway raises her chin by a degree, the sheet of her silvering hair dripping forward across her shoulder.]

It might be easier to show you.

[Her hand turns in her lap. She offers it out to him palm up, long fingers at easy angles.]

[ryohji]

[ aggregate consciousness. blurred edges. souls consolidated into lilith's egg, forever bodiless, and finally, an incorporeal singularity, slowly devouring any remaining vestiges of individuality and personhood, determined to make the annihilation seamless and complete. this is what kaji hears: human instrumentality, wrought upon unsuspecting people, on a scale beyond anything ever known before.

he balks at the snarling dog - no, hand. but then he takes the step. and another one.

never let it be said that he kept himself clear from risk. if someone offered to show you something, you took them up, no matter the cirumstances. carefully, though he was choreographing how each of his fingers will thread into hers, kaji wraps his hand. ]

HECK I totally misplaced this notif please forgive me

[polyphonos]

[Her fingers are well calloused as if, for all her delicacy and how narrow and fine she seems here in this light mottled garden, there is a history of labor there. But the way Cathway folds her fingers closed around his hand is light, infinitely breakable. Certainly she couldn't hold him here like this against his will -- could she?]

Don't be frightened. [She says, smilingly slyly up at his through her pale eyelashes.] We don't bite.

[The warmth of the joke - because that's what it is, good humored and utterly harmless - blooms between them like a flower in the sun. Like a drop of ink in a water droplet. Like a sunbeam traveling the length of the floor through an open window as the day passes. Like a cable unraveling into its component threads, leaving them in the strange negative space between: a place that is and isn't part of the whole. The gap between two stitches. The seam between two pieces laid flush. Her mind flexes in that empty space, a cup cracking open and all the liquid crumbling apart as shale stone under an uneven footstep.

His hand is warm-- because its set against a sun warmed railing of a place both familiar and strange. The light reflecting off the glass structures of the city doesn't read right to his eye: melting into a pane of marbled color and the dim sound of something that--

(doesn't fit; it's the low hum of a machine and the rhythmic tapping of a pen against the top of a clipboard)

--She (he) (they) touch their temple. Focus, they think and for a second this far off place clicks sharper by a series of degrees. The breeze up here on this walkway is warm, tinged with a sulfurous metal smell and the walkway itself is crowded with long-faced creatures in sharp chrome and black clothing. With the clarity comes pieces of of things that he knows. Things that of course he knows. Things he's known all along (how could he have forgotten?). They are:

He can't take off his helmet (he'll suffocate).
He shouldn't tell anyone his name (Daron).
He has twenty minutes to report in (Madeline is expecting him).
He's waiting for something to happen (in the cross section of city below).
He isn't frightened (even though this walkway is about to become very dangerous).

Tap, tap, tap goes that pen on the top of clipboard somewhere else.

'How's it shaking, Encyclopedia Brown?' asks someone somewhere else and somehow it's relevant in the place where the pen is tapping and in the glass city and here in the garden where Cathaway's hand is set gently inside the curl of Kaji's fingers. In a cross-section of city below a suspended walkway, something black forces its way up through the underside of the pavement. Their grip on the pen slips and it bounces off the clipboard and out of their hand into their lap.

'Oh shit,' they say.

'Don't worry about it. I don't meant to surprise you, buddy,' says someone. 'Is something wrong?']

( No ) [she thinks or says or feels in the garden on the Station as she slips her hand from Kaji's.]