[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

[wrackful]

[As much as Murphy's actions may have been motivated in anger, he's still used to being an outsider. If the rest of the Hosts had wanted to play off his behaviour with something like that, he could've taken it. May have even preferred it to being followed.

Not that he's surprised about being followed. Curls of bitter amusement rise, sharp-edged and twisting.]

( No one'd want to hear it, believe me. )

[hymnals]

[ Adra is not deterred. His mental voice remains mild, patient. He lets the bitter rawness of Murphy's emotions run through him and then settle; he accepts them as they are, but refuses to let them dictate his response. ]

( Well, I'm asking, and I do want to hear it. But I won't force it out of you. )

[wrackful]

( You sure? )

[The irreverence in his tone isn't any disguise for the anger still churning underneath, the blistering harsh desert winds of it.]

( I haven't been tortured for a while, it could be fun. )

[His humour isn't light. It's rooted deep and dark, truth a far better fuel than denial or avoidance. A better weapon, and often a better defence.]

[hymnals]

( Are you asking me to slap you? )

[ Yeah, he remembers that dream he interrupted. ]

( I'm not really that kind of priest. )

[wrackful]

[Recognition rises, a sharp spike, irritatingly vulnerable spike of it. Further, the question he'd broached to everyone, talking about faith.

Faith isn't something Murphy has a lot of space for. He's seen it as forced self-ignorance, delusion, and authority granted by some bullshit traditions and laws. And he's never been on the right side of it.]

( Right. The priest. )

[Derisive, cold.]

( Is that what you're after? Confession? ) [He'd have enough sins for it, if he cared.] ( Must be feeling kind of useless, dragged somewhere out in the multiverse and dropped in with a bunch of aliens who don't care about your... big whatever. )

[hymnals]

[ Adra just lets all these negative vibes slide off of him. Water on a duck's back. He's heard worse--and felt worse, too, felt the intensity of a whole society's rejection, of his own people violently turning their backs on the grace that had lead them for thousands and thousands of years. ]

( Not really. )

[ His tone is mild; no less warm than before. ]

( A belief that requires other people to validate it isn't much of a belief, don't you think? )

[wrackful]

[The maelstrom of his mind twists, sharp slices of desert wind spinning outwards, promising to scratch at skin, rip moisture away. In the haze of heat and sand a man walks with a staff in hand, an expression of pure, unwavering belief as he leads the way through the desert.

It isn't from the performance they've just watched. It's memory. And there's no hope in it, just the sick dark of knowing following him just led to betrayal.]

( I wasn't great in class, but I'm pretty sure the word's "delusion". )

[hymnals]

[ It's difficult to land a strike on Adra like this, mostly because of how his particular experience of religion functions. He does not worship at the altar of a distant god; does not wait and hope for messages that never come. The Light is an active, responsive force. He calls it to his fingers, just enough so that there's a soft glow visible beneath the robe, and shrugs. ]

( None of that here, either. But if lobbing shallow insults makes you feel better, I'm happy to help. )

[wrackful]

[Not faith at all then. Just power. That's more familiar, but gets no less derision.

He carries on walking.]

( You're the one who wanted me to talk. )

[hymnals]

[ Six of one, half dozen of the other. Adra might be more legitimately offended by such an equivalency, but it's one he's heard often enough, too.

His tone remains mild. ]

( That I did. Yet, somehow, I doubt my status as a priest is what caused you to storm off like a child. )

[wrackful]

[Child. Murphy's bitter amusement rises again, reminded too easily of the adults from the Ark, and how everything they'd done or tried to do was written off, dismissed. Kids again, once they weren't convenient survival gauges to be dropped down to the ground.]

( Yeah, I forgot how sitting and taking whatever bullshit's being shovelled is the adult thing to do. )

[hymnals]

[ Every human, no matter how old, registers as a child to an elf's sense of time. They are born and die as children--though not all of them act like it. ]

( Hmm. So you're the only person who hates this, huh? You're the only person who can't stand the performance, the artifice? You, alone, are brave enough to express dissent? The rest of us, well. We're just puppets, huh? We're lapping it up from the spoon. )

[ The warmth in Adra's voice tempers, turning from hearth to wild fire. He was like this, once. Not even when he was young. Just before he had certain experiences. Just before he learned that rage against the machine rarely hurt the machine itself. ]

[wrackful]

[There's a beat, a bolt of sheer incredulity striking through the storm of Murphy's anger. That was some impressive projection, especially with the sense of some real temper breaking through the priest's mild manner.]

( Not what I said, but it sounds like I gave you a good jumping off platform. You sure you're not the one who needs to talk? )

[hymnals]

[ It's a little projection, for sure; he's as frustrated by anyone by these constraints, by the demands of diplomacy. But he's more frustrated by the seeming inability, present not just here but in many of the others, too, to just get with the fucking program. ]

( Not what you said? If you're too good to cooperate on this mission, if you see stalking off in the middle of a delicate situation as the 'mature' choice, then what exactly do you think of the rest of us? The ones who are somewhat invested in ensuring that we don't all die? )

[ Come at him about his religion, and Adra's serene as a frost-capped peak. But undermining their survival here, for any reason beyond sheer emergency--that's less forgivable. ]

[wrackful]

[Another time and Murphy would laugh, shrug it off. He didn't know what he was talking about, but it wasn't like Murphy had never had to deal with that before. People assuming they knew him, knew what was going on in his head. Ironic that even with the mental connections, it still kept happening.

But he isn't steady enough, right now. Angry still churning, roiling beneath his skin, and in the moment where he would normally write off everything the priest had said, instead he stops. Smiles to himself. Turns back.]

( You think you're invested? Coming after me when all you had to do was tell them I ate something bad. )

[With everyone still back at the performance, the corridor of the House they're in is quiet, empty. No one to see the anger in his posture, the evident argument happening with no words being spoken.]

( What if I told you up there, they didn't think we were going to survive this. They knew we probably wouldn't. And they told you that your whatever, special light show, ) [he wriggles his fingers] ( that's the only way we might. )

[His power might be his own, not brain bug-gifted like Murphy's, but it didn't matter for the comparison. What Cathaway had put on him, her fear following him, dark dread in his gut knowing it wasn't a matter of if but when his power triggered.]

( And now you find out that time you walked through a desert with no food and water, people getting blown up and eaten around you, being that idiot who followed a crazy man to a promised land that didn't exist, yeah, you're going to have to do that all over again. Because that's the doing the right thing choice. That's the way to try and make sure no one dies. )

[And he hates it. Hates that he's here, that he's going to do it, that he cares. Hates Adra right now, for following him, assuming, projecting his own bullshit onto him. Hates the whole dame thing.]

( So take your "too good to cooperate" crap and go float yourself. You don't know me. )

[hymnals]

[ Adra's initial emotion in response to this barrage is, in fact, triumph. This is the kind of thing he lives for, the kind of thing he pushes for. This, to him, is getting somewhere. ]

( It's a tricky thing, I'd say. I don't know you. But I already know a lot more about you than I ever would have if not for our situation. )

[ Like the dream, like the desert. Fragmented images of a past that was not his own, of suffering beyond his particular experience--but not beyond his understanding. ]

( I know all about the warning, by the way. Sam made sure to tell me exactly what would happen to us if we failed. Why would I come after you to play along otherwise? )

[ He's not taken aback or deterred by the story of madness in the desert. Talk of people being eaten triggers images of wars in Adra's own history, battles with cannibalistic trolls that went on for years. His comrades roasting over a spit, eaten piece by piece. His own dirty cage; the poison they fed him, a hallucinogenic that turned his blood to sludge.

He frowns. Who's projecting, exactly? ]

( Let me tell you what I do know. Your past is not this team's future. )

[wrackful]

( Right. ) [His anger quiets again, pulls down into bitterness and derision. He remembers in these moments why he doesn't bother explaining himself: people don't listen.] ( Sam's warning. )

[Sam, who got the don't screw it up talk. Murphy, who got the you're all going to die but we're sending you anyway talk. But Murphy hadn't told anyone about his, not until now. Of course the idea of Cathaway bothering with him was going to be hard for anyone to believe.

He turns and starts walking again.]

( You're right. ) [Easy, bordering on dismissive. He didn't need the reassurance that this trip out into the desert wasn't going to be exactly the same as before. He wasn't stupid. But that still didn't stop it feeling like a repeat, one he didn't want to make.] ( Alien planet, alien enemy we know nothing about. It's going to be worse. )