[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

[regalled]

[Anger is not uncommon, not in new hosts, not in old hosts, not in any of them. The root of it- the loss is a root that grows long and thick and buries deep. It is not the anger that has Prince's attention turned to the newly hatched hosts. It's the direction. The focus. And then the fear.

That was dangerous- not immediately deadly, but he knew that the relationship broodmates shared could be irreparably damaged, and that could prove deadly. It leaves his mind open like an ear pressed to a door, even as he takes one short-cut, two, their minds unguarded, projecting loud if not entirely coherently.

When he steps out between them it is from a doorway that did not seem to be there before, sliding open just before he strides out of it, shoulders back, chin up, dark eyes trained on the one with the blade and the intent. There's a stillness to him that betrays nothing.]

You will stop this.

[shri]

[ She swings onto empty air. A broad slash that as immediately she goes to follow, pushing forward in sheer expectation of how this will go. They will fight, they will bleed - and one of them will die. With how scared and young and unsure this girl is, there isn't much doubt in her mind which one of them will be doing that.

But then they aren't alone.

There's a man standing there in front of her, telling her to stop and the blade turns over in her adjusting grip. That hard quick breath in her lungs and in a mind that is too new to this, the bleed open of thoughts ready to take whatever path is presented. Even as her mind slipped around the walls of his mind. To the cacophony of herself, of Elena, it's like a step slipped out from under her feet and she - lurches. Bodily as she lands heavy on her front step. Watching him in return, the hind brain instinct to back down ignored. His absence is too much, his quiet to where she could rage and rage and rage for days. ]

Get out of my way. She needs to be put down.

[ Perhaps the worst of it is that it isn't said in a lack of understanding: but in the compassion that you end the misery of a sick animal. ]

[otrazhenie]

[ It's terrifying for Elena to hear that in Lakshmi's voice, to know that this woman believes she's doing the right thing. This is the only option in her mind -- letting a vampire live simply isn't acceptable. It's horrifying that, for just a second, Elena understands and agrees with that view, and for a single moment she's ready and willing to place herself in the path of that blade.

The realization hits her and she stumbles backward a few steps, putting distance between herself and her broodmate and this new arrival, a man she doesn't know but who seems to want to help her. Well, perhaps not specifically help her, but to at least stop Lakshmi from killing her. If that distinction is there, Elena doesn't really care. She wants to live, it's why she'd held on for so long and used every bit of her strength to complete the transition to becoming a vampire. ]

Please.

[ It's addressed to the man, a desperate plea for... something. Please help me. Please don't let her kill me. Please let me live. Whatever it is, her mind is practically screaming it. A singular emotion begging to be heard. ]

[regalled]

[He is not surprised to see Elena again- because he has seen her already, before this, brought here safe and relatively sound but different than before. He has had time to adjust to her. Others- would have less. Still, he does not immediately answer her plea, outside of the way he stands- between them and seemingly immovable- the slightest tug on the mental link between them- unusual for him, but all things change- a quiet and faint reassurance, like a broad palm set at her shoulder.

When he speaks again it is strictly to Lakshmi, delivery flat, certain, just as inflexible as his stance.]

You cannot do it. Her pain will be your pain, and while I doubt you have any fear of pain the symbiote will know it, and it will stop you. Better to make the choice yourself.

[shri]

I will never turn away from my duty.

[ It's grit through teeth, forcing herself against those walls - if only because she doesn't know how to do otherwise. Hold, hold, and hold again. Her fingers gripped hard to a lion's throat.

But nothing quiets the scream of Elena, the desperation, it works its way under her skin, works her way in, and strange, she things, to feel the opposite side to this. To feel that fear of herself, that curl away.

A different woman might have some regret for that. But she'd stopped apologizing far too long ago to feel anything other than flat satisfaction. ]

She needs to die. So does every one of her kind.

[otrazhenie]

[ Elena's watching Lakshmi more than her rescuer, hoping that the words are getting through to the other woman and feeling that they very clearly aren't. That tumbling of emotion--fear, anxiety, desperation--sends her adrenaline skyrocketing.

Fight or flight. Her instincts are screaming at her to do one or the other, and the predator now lurking within is making it apparent which choice she'll be making if she stays any longer. Those veins begin to appear beneath her eyes again and she stumbles back even further, one step, two, fighting that urge--

And then she turns and runs. She's nothing more than a blur as she effortlessly uses her new speed to flee, following the first path she comes across to get away. If only running would get Lakshmi's mind out of her own. ]

[regalled]

[There is no chance of him allowing Lakshmi to pass, even when Elena turns and run- if she attempts to pass him, she will be stopped with a broad palm held before and a surprisingly quick step to stand in her way.]

Whatever duty you feel you had, it is ended. Done. This is not your world, and the threat that you now face is far more deadly than what you fought before. She is no longer one of her kind any more than you are yours. You are changed. This is the way of things. We need her strength, and yours.

[A tip of his chin- imperious in a way that is entirely instinctual.]

Others risked their lives to bring you here. They did not save you or her to have you kill each other.

[shri]

Then they should have done their job and let her die then.

[ She does in fact barely consider him, as she steps forward into that hand - looking down at it in surprise and then in unspeakable frustration that he would even dare stop her. A pulled back snarl, lips over teeth, teeth grit against themselves. Held fast, or held together. The thick heavy breath she pulls into herself for the effort of doing so.

Her hand still tight on her weapon, the blade waiting to do its work. ]

- And who are you that I should listen to anything you have to say?