[hatch log / mission hyrypia] more peaceful pilgrims I shall see

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: Station 72; Hyrypia - The Road - The Great Flat
WHEN: DAY :007 - Day:011
SUMMARY: New hosts come alive on the Station; a path is walked; something stirs in the darkness. The Pilgrimage is underway.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

STATION 72
DAY :007

NEW HATCHES
YOU WAKE UP and you and the universe are suddenly different. --No. That's not right. You're you, the universe is as it's always been, 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 coming up from the darkness of some wine dark sea. Nothing is different and yet everything is.

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. There are three of you here, somehow intimately familiar to each other.

Welcome to Station 72. Beyond this room it's quiet and still, feeling for all the world like a shell for some vast dark thing.

Eventually, a sensation manifests out of the black. It says:


PREPARE YOURSELF
THE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD is precisely that. A voice- untainted by anything else- sight and feeling, taste, touch, unlike those you have heard in your mind so far.

( I would like to speak to you. )

Where exactly they intend for this to happen is not immediately clear, but there is something like an itch that leads you to an anonymous, circular room. A man stands there, tall and broad, with brown hair and skin and a slim-fitting charcoal suit that seems fit to this place. Prince’s expression is as it often is, carefully neutral, unfazed by the new arrivals.

"Thank you for coming. You will have questions, and there are things you will need to know before you leave this place."

[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 is the most proactive distraction, but if not? Well there's plenty of places to get lost...

In the simulated morning, a strange archaic ship has arrived on the Hangar. Its two very alien hosts unload two heavy trunks, then dole out a series of kits to the three new hosts. One of them - the pale female alien her calls herself Rhan - cheerfully announces, "Get changed and buckle up, my darlings. We've got a bit of a trip ahead of us."

You leave the Station. If you're lucky, you might one day make it back.

HYRYPIA - NAERSTONE HOUSE
DAY :008

MEETING
A SINGLE SHIP LANDS at first light, 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. Well, mostly new. Three faces - obscured as they are in layers of intricate fabric - are led down the gangplank by Rhan. No one's there to greet them though. It seems everyone's too busy with last minute preparations, the whole estate alight with activity. Ships are being unloaded. Vast strangely powered wagons are being stuffed with belongings. Animals have been ordered into strings and servants are lashing down great casks of wine and piled of bedding and furs and-- Everyone is far too busy to pay three cloaked newcomers any attention. Besides, who can recognize the difference between a new Carbasuchian and an old one?

The host's apartments are in a similar state of disarray. Here where there's some privacy to be found, Collector has her bird head bare and is patiently orchestrating the effort of packing up the apartments. Apparently they're expected to bring all the bedding and furnishings provided with them - if they care to sleep with any blankets on the road anyway. This might be a good time to gossip amongst each other. Or maybe you'd rather explore; Naerstone House's grounds are vast and almost entirely open to the parties of the pilgrims to explore. For the places that aren't open? There's lots being done. Maybe someone won't notice if you slip away for a moment… Just for a moment though. Everyone is gearing up to leave soon.

HYRYPIA - THE ROAD
DAY :008-:011

WALKING SHOES
IT'S A LONG WALK from Naerstone House, through the relatively short golden valley and out into the rocky, arid steppe which stretches for most of the trip. The landscape is inhospitable and seemingly unchanging, though after two days of travel it finally gives way. The grass grows long and turns silver under the red sun - stretching into interminable flat lands. A wind blows, whispering through the tall grass; long legged small game leap from the grass in brilliant arcs and at night the stars are very, very bright. Most travellers spend at least some time on foot, walking at a leisurely pace during the daylight hours, but there are an assortment of wagons which draw themselves. Their huge wheels turn seemingly of their own volition, the wagons carrying most of the baggage and some of the Envoys. One of the open wagons has musicians on it - Hyrypians first, then when they tire up goes a shout for volunteers. A Meradan is thrown up onto the platform, bellowing a ship's song that earns laughter and cheers at all the right intervals. For the first time, the lines of the envoys begin to bleed (if only as some Rabadoceans fall behind while others pull forward). They're separated again only when the evening sets in and the tents are set up.

During the last night spend on the road, all Hosts wake up at once awash with a prickle of dread. Something stirs in the darkness - brushing delicately against the symbiotic nerve system - and suddenly Naerstone and its fleet of spaceships feels very far away, the safety of the Station impossibly remote.

By morning, the sensation of creeping uneasiness has faded. Probably.

HYRYPIA - THE SWEPT MANOR'S SHADOW
LATE DAY :010

A WELCOME FROM THE MANOR
THE WALK BEGINS TO WEAR, having stretched long enough to tire even most of the Hosts - who by now must all be aware of the benefits the symbiote has quietly granted their physicality. Everyone's weary of walking and here, finally, the base of the cliffs have gone from being distant smudges on the horizon to towering above them. Finally there are signs of civilization: fires burning through the fading dusk light in the shadow of the Swept Manor. Some tents already set up there; the scent of spice and the smell of roasting vegetables is thick in the air even with the wind blowing it towards the low mournful noise of the cliffs in the distance.

The procession is met by a herd of servants dressed in plain, coarse fabric. They helpfully guide individual envoys into the spots set aside for them to set up their tents, providing additional amenities as they may be required. As soon as the camp is made - for more than just a night, this time - all are welcomed into the long dining tents. Their heavy fabric walls have been pulled open to allow the breeze to flow through them. Guests to take places around the long low plank tables. The feast that awaits is more simple than the one at Naerstone house had been, with less decoration and less aplomb, but it is no less delicious. This time Collector warns them to avoid the crab-sized insect like creatures that are served on a bed of grains ("They might cause you to break out in hives"). The evening gives way to louder music than even what had been on the road, and there is a collective sigh as no one is expected to be on their feet for the rest of the day.

HYRYPIA - THE SWEPT MANOR'S SHADOW
DAY :011

RIDING LESSONS
DAWN BREAKS with a long, bright sound from a horn from the half-cup shaped buildings that cling to the cliff face above the campground, visible now in the brighter daylight: The Swept Manor. The horn's blast is met with immediate activity. The long dining tents again open to the air for a simple breakfast, then fires are banked, servants bringing great dishes of water before they hurry along their other tasks. There is little time provided to fully prepare before the Envoys are summoned to the edge of the campground by a tall Hyrypian who identifies herself as Arin Basittia. She bows politely before leading them to The String.

Here the lead Elinkeeper, a stately and clearly respected member of the Swept Manor tells them of the Elin and their history with the Hyrypians. They had once been the only method of transportation the young Hyrypian people had had after the last of their technomancy faded away. The Elinkeeper speaks their delicate constitutions and how slow they are to breed, and of the partnership they and the Gryerhunters and herders had formed over the centuries.

Despite his words, there are few Elin represented- far fewer than would be necessary to accommodate the Envoys. Instead there are a number of mechanical simulacrum, equally elegant and perhaps more impressive, but clearly longer-lived and less delicate than the Elin that inspired their creation. Their bodies are made of rubber sinew and smooth layering plates, elegantly engraved along the haunch and face. These will be the Hosts' (and all the Envoy’s) companions during their time at the base of the Finger Maze. Today will be dedicated to teaching them how to ride the creatures and control them - including how to deal with their surprisingly lifelike quirks.

The saddles are wide with footholds high on the back, leaving a rider’s heels to rest just under the thighs. The creatures are nudged forward with the slightest pressure of toes along their sides. Their direction is guided by reins connected to their handle-bar shaped antlers (or by their antlers themselves, for those who would lean forward for a hard run). The simulacrum Elin are fast, and provide a surprisingly smooth ride... when they aren’t bolting suddenly in the wrong direction, turning sharply, or objecting to a misplaced nudge by shaking their great bodies out from under their riders.

Do try not to fall off (you're going to fall off).

---

((OOC Notes: This log covers the hatch, the arrival of new Hosts on Hyrypia, the departure from Naerstone, the journey through the Great Flat and finally the arrival in the shadow of The Swept Manor. 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, which includes information about the new locations. If you have any questions, please hit up either the mission's question thread, the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages!))

NAVIGATION • GAME CALENDAR • MISSION: HYRYPIA • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

1. FOR ALNAIR

[sistershoggoth]

[ She's a mess, the whole trip. Half her brood was unconscious and the other half was beyond her reach, turning her back into the pumpkin she always was: choking in a stew of loneliness, an isolation that defied all remedy. It was worse now, awake again, and knowing exactly what she was missing. Twin stars that lit up her putrid skies, twin minds that walked her sinking, mist-drenched surface. She needs them, they belong in her atmosphere, a part of it now, breathing in fetid Annie toxins and breathing back out fire and starlight. She can't bring herself to be even slightly polite to anyone in the ship with her, crawling out of her skin with need, refusing to be quiet or comforted like the petulant child she still finds it easy to pretend she is sometimes. It takes everything in her not to bolt as soon as they touch down, somehow letting herself be wrestled into her cloak. Somehow.

It doesn't last much longer than that, she doesn't have it in her to hold back. She needs to see them, paw all over their faces and minds for signs of damage. Here in the real world, she's a streak of billowing cloth as she follows the link between herself and her brood. In the periphery, she's more like a great rotting sea monster rolling thunderously, gracelessly, through everyone's minds until she finds what she's looking for.

Pustulating grossly with rage and joy, relief and terror. ]

[somnifacient]

[He feels her awaken before she even lands. Of course he does. He can’t miss it, that sensation of something twisting back to reality, something immeasurable and wide and vast and almost suffocating, something that he had grown to welcome — something that could only be Annie. Too many emotions rush to the surface, her proximity only proving to exacerbate them with each hurried step she takes, and Noctis doesn’t even bother trying to sort it all out. He swims through the anxiety and relief and apprehension and excitement; an ocean filling, finally, where there had been a dearth of anything before. A broodmate returned. A part of himself, suddenly less empty again.

She’ll find him in the apartments, drawn to his room. There, at least, she can see him still draped in his black robes, but his face unobscured by the hood. He stands from being seated at the edge of his bed, feeling her draw even closer, like a predator slinking after its prey, like a friend looking for another friend.]

(Annie?)

[All impatience, but he reaches out to her mind softly, as if hesitant to touch it completely, knowing that she’ll be the one to overflow in his consciousness soon enough. He needn’t even try, and he certainly won’t resist.

Now, he merely looks at his door, still closed, expression taut with terrible and wonderful expectation.]

[sistershoggoth]

[ Inarticulate desperation explodes back at his question, a total lack of words for the way she feels. Like a free falling asteroid out of gravity, maybe. Or an atmosphere drained of one of its most vital chemicals, and now suffocating-- oceans boiling, greenery shriveling, And as much as she wants to be where he is now, she also almost afraid to open the door and let all this electricity come rushing out of her.

She's not quite sure what will happen.

She's fantasized before, about regaining the pieces of herself: Helka, Anita, Sarah. Therese. She likes to think maybe she'd cry beatifically or something. Be joyous with their reunion and mournful for all that they have lost. And then, that things would go right back to the way they always were... It's usually there that she loses the thread of it. Nothing will ever be the same, and Therese had left her, disgust in her eyes, because she wasn't ready for the brave new world they could carve out.

Annie is definitely already crying as she pulls the clothe away from her head -- god she hates these kinds of missions -- and utterly throws herself at Noctis. Her fingers thread together between his shoulder blades into one knotted fist, her arms squeezing him tight like she's a python trying to suffocate him, tenderize him, swallow him.

And still crying big, hot tears.

There's nothing to cry about, but it floods out of her anyways. ]

[somnifacient]

[Even as the door opens, he stays frozen. Caught in headlights, caught in the surge of her anticipation, reflected back with his own, an echo chamber of waves wanting to crash into each other, only frozen in time. Noctis doesn't realize that he's holding his breath until she tears away the hood, and only then does he release it through his teeth, miraculously managing to form words only moments later.]

You... you woke up, you-

[But then he's caught in her embrace, and everything cracks at the edges. What Noctis had been feeling just moments before is negligible, a speck of dust in the shadow of newfound relief and happiness that he experiences upon knowing she's there. She could smother the life out of him and he wouldn't care in this moment.

His arms wrap tight around her, his chin finds her shoulder, he feels tired with the weight of everything, but he smiles and he laughs. Weakly.]

And you give me shit for sleeping too much...

[If he were cognizant of anything more than the presence of Annie, in all her terrible glory, being here before him, he'd feel the sensation of his eyes wetting with hot tears. He isn't, and so he doesn't.]

[sistershoggoth]

[ She blubbers a little. Stupid useless noises into his shoulder. It's not the first time she's woken up again. She can't entirely say she's happy about it. She's wanted all of this to just stop for years and years and years -- "Feel like I died when everybody else did. But I didn't, so I just keep going for them, but I'm not really goin' anywhere. So, I dunno. Guess I feel like a dead twenty year old."

But her relief to feel the cool mist on her brow of the stupid dead baby prince who her holds her hand and weathers her misery is a collision of guilt and adoration. One day, she'll maybe love someone without that knifing guilt that she shouldn't, she can't, or maybe she'll always be that way. Playing human games with a lack of human intent.

When she lifts her head and grabs his cheeks, the kiss she gives him is not a comfortable one, teeth and nose smashing. More like she's trying to imprint into his skin than trying to kiss him at all, and really... that's the case, no comparison about it. ]

I hate you so much!

[ For making her cry, for crying back. For letting her back in without reluctance. ]

[somnifacient]

[His own fingers remained pressed into her back, the solid pressure from the hug not releasing just yet. He's glad, so glad, that she's here. A missing fragment sliding back into place, making him that much closer to whole again, even as it swallows him completely. Her kiss is many things to him — messy, possessive, necessary. In normal circumstances, he would pull away, because a kiss is a kiss, and Noctis is in many ways still an awkward teenager in the body of a 30 year-old; and that’s what an awkward teen would do, is to stammer and feel embarrassed and lean back.

But it helps him. It dissolves that sorrow that had begun to crystallize within, growing larger by the day, fed by loss. And now it fades, sliding beneath the surface to sleep until it’s called for again.

Only with her declaration of I hate you so much! does he laugh once more, but it’s twisted with his tears, cracking a little.]

What did I do?

[sistershoggoth]

[ She warbles, some cartoonish little dinosaur noise of total agonizing frustration. She pulls his forehead down to touch hers, a softer gesture than the kiss but still heavy-handed, needing to be in charge and needing to be in contact.

Her mind is still a whirlwind of noise and fury, but here in her skin she's sniffling back to normal breathing. ]

Are you okay?

[ It's the only set of coherent words she can string together, the central kernel of what she needs to be reassured of: not hurt, not different. ]

[somnifacient]

[He can push past those swirling noises, finding his way to the center so that he can anchor himself in them, so that he can manage to respond in a way that would be coherent.]

I'm... I'm fine. [Physically here, all in one piece. Mentally present, all Noctis, all sensitivity and sorrow and sincerity and gladness, in the small things. More complete, now that she's here again.]

It was difficult, when you left. The others... they...

[He breathes out the words, forehead touching hers. Noctis' eyes divert to the side, and he doesn't have to finish his sentence. She would know who he's talking about -- the rest of their brood, asleep.]

[sistershoggoth]

[ She knows all about that. The empty girls had been closer when she'd woken up than her lonesome boys... Though in a way, she's almost glad they're asleep. Tucked safe in their pods instead of out here where they were assuredly going to die, to hurt. Sometimes Annie thinks she can hurt enough for all of them, something like the irrational idea that by prodding a wound in stinging, it might heal up faster. It never does. ]

It's always like that.

[ She's floating in a pool of dead bodies again. All the girls who have been there and then fallen away-- This adventure out into space was supposed to be different, but in the end she's in the same story that she always was. Exploited by some alien entity for her violence.

Maybe that's just the curse of her humanity, twisted as it is. ]

But it's gonna take more than that to get rid of me, huh?

[ Clearly, if her continued roach-like insistence was anything to go by. ]

[somnifacient]

[It’s always like that. If Noctis wasn’t a man who had felt the sting of loss too many times, he’d call that a cynical statement. He’d bristle and tell her not to say that. But they’ve always been able to commiserate together, an ability to understand and reflect in each other’s own brand of sorrow. He can’t refute it, he doesn’t even want to. It’s merely reality, that things and people will be lost to him one way or another — just look at the situation he finds himself in now. Departed from home, he’s lost all of it, almost everything. A single Glaive at his side (thankful as he was for him), but little else. Even Gladio had gone back to sleep, another loss to tally to his ever-growing count.

He’s tired enough to accept her statement for what it is. Just as he’s hopeful enough to wish that Annie will never slip away from him, even if it offers the threat of being disappointed and shattered in the future, as fate takes everything away all over again.

Such is the life of a Lucis Caelum.]

Yeah, you’re as stubborn as an angry Behemoth.

[Think of it as a compliment, or don’t. He says it with enough humor, eyes still wet around the edges, to imply that it’s meant to be taken both ways. A hand drops to pinch at the sleeve of her robes.]

I’m surprised they managed to actually shove you into these things.

[sistershoggoth]

[ Her total love for him is immense. There are so many moving pieces to it, a grand cosmos of comfort and understanding. His recognition for her total sadness and how that sadness was isolating. His understanding of what it was like to have your life slip away from you, leaving you part confused teenager and the rest just tired. His willingness to fight and love anyway, his naiveties and compassion despite feeling like it was fumbling between his fingers-- Or maybe some of that was her.

But maybe that was it too, his willingness to be a part of her, to commit to being a denizen of her. She can't imagine herself without him any more. Not him nor Nyx, they'd both put in so fearlessly, willing to fight. She'd come here to maybe free herself from her burdens, and now she has them instead, and a willingness to fight.

She almost can't crack a joke about the robes. Almost. ]

I hate 'em. Who's gonna wanna fuck me looking like this?

[ Her thumb rubs his temple tenderly for a moment. She doesn't want to let go of him, but she supposes she'll have to eventually... Does she though? ]

[somnifacient]

[He’ll let go when she does. He’s too glad to have her here again, that it would feel strange to step away so soon after their reunion.

He laughs, though, despite himself. Seriousness be damned, he’ll latch onto the joke when it’s given to him. He grins in a way he hasn’t grinned in a while, since she left.]

Is that all you think about? Maybe you can start worrying about that again when we get back to the Station, not before.

[sistershoggoth]

[ A smile, wobbly around the edges because her face is still streaked with tears. ]

It's most of what I think about.

[ She huffs, finally taking her hands away and run her hands back through her hair. ]

What's this place like then, huh?

[servitor]

[There's a very real, very astral punch in his gut and mind. Something bigger than himself, twisting and confusing in every sense of the word. The white-furred coeurl in Nyx's mind rages, teeth bared, blue eyes searching and scampering across the link. Great claws tear through links without much thought as he physically follows the pull. There's little regard from the cat if it destroys a carefully netted world.

He damn well knows the feeling.

Electricity crackles from the great Galahdian beast, who almost seems to grow as his own desperation really starts to settle and gnaw at his mind. Nyx can't even manage to throw up shields to focus himself. A part of the hole in his mind is being plugged up now. Everything else, though. It leaks through the cracks.]

( Where the hell have you been? )

[No hellos. All control of the fact that he's weirdly happy that she's back. It's been a fucking mess. The coeurl impatiently circles and paws at the reformed link that is Annie. Electricity jumps from its barbs, the horns on its head. Nyx himself? He knows he's close to finding her, but he's not about to push until she gives the go ahead that he can be present in her physical state.

Besides. If he says hello? He's sure that he'll get a "fuck off, pretty boy" or something along those lines. Might as well start speaking her language.]

[sistershoggoth]

[ God, she's missed him too. In the few days since she's been awake, she's hurt for her brood. It's selfish, the boys were alone longer, but of course she feels like it's so deep she can barely take it. It had been torture, waiting a day and a night on the Station with the girls and the stupid elf there but unfeeling, and her boys too far away to really take hold of, to really feel in the curves of her thoughts. When did that get so comfortable? Something about it is easy for her though, she's never been alone in her head and always been far more disposed to communing internally with those laughing, hulking, cruel-minded beasts of flesh... The boys are more ethereal than that, visitors of mist and smoke, one running cool water over her to help her sleep at night, the other lighting brush fires. ]

( Running late. )

[ Like she always is, one step behind-- If she'd been better she would have been ready to kill the Crafters before the Crafters had killed half her planet. She wasn't, and her life and her friends all died beneath alien fists. She woke up to that reality, and she had thought that it would be the same. That she'd wake up to corpses all over again, a world burning.

An irrational certitude, that her fall from the consciousness of the Nest could only mean one thing: that she'd betrayed her loved ones one more time.

She doesn't cry for Nyx. He's different. He's the other half. The other side. Him she just launches at, wrapping her arms around his neck, certain that he'll catch her and keep her there. ]

( Don't fuckin' leave me behind, you fucking bastard. )

[ He's right about her, she just wants to cuss and spit and hold on much much much too tight. ]

[servitor]

[He doesn't miss a beat, he catches her instantly and grips her so tight he could probably be mistaken for trying to knock the wind out of her.

But she's tough. She can take it. She can just put up with the fact that he's burying his face into her shoulder. In all honesty, it wasn't really that long she was gone. Nyx has dealt with absences for far longer periods of time.

They were just never attached to his brain the way Annie had been. It's almost like finding the missing item you've been looking for so long. It only reappears when you stop looking for it.]

( Never. )

[Stupid the number of times he'd wished Annie had been there to back him up, to egg him on instead of reining back his wildfires. Every time he could almost hear her hissing I told you so.

There's no space or time to control the fire. It just grows upwards and hot, never quite reaching to a dangerous space. The flames only grow as if they've been fed fresh wood and gasoline. Nyx doesn't bother saying much else. All he does is hold her.]

[sistershoggoth]

[ She huffs into his neck, maybe a breath of relief or maybe one of exasperation. Her knees come up to pin in around his hips so she's not just hanging there limp like a ragdoll. Instead she's clung on like a monkey. Very flattering. His crushing grip on her feels good, his mind open and touching hers feels good, like warming her feet in a hot tub. ]

( Would have been here faster but fucking Prince made us wait. Like we couldn't have read the fuckin' mission in the ship, jesus fucking christ. )

[ Her complaining is loose, lacking the harsh bite of when she's really pissed off, she's actually too happy to be back where she belongs. ]

( Fuckin' torture. )

[servitor]

[He hardly minds it, especially since he's not letting go anytime soon. Surely people around them are staring, but it's a good thing Nyx gives about two shits when it comes to other peoples' opinions.]

( Just give me a minute. )

[Because he doesn't really give a shit about words either. It's all radiant in his mind how much he missed her, how sure he'd do the same for any of his comrades if they showed up here.]

[sistershoggoth]

[ Oh right. They're supposed to be all pious and restrained and shit-- Annie really doesn't want to care. She really really doesn't, but she also knows that they've barely even started this mission, she doesn't need to be the one to fuck it all up. She clambers down of her own volition, reluctant. ]

( Sorry-- )

[ Well. She'd missed him. The big idiot fuckboy dickhead. ]

[servitor]

[He shakes his head slowly as he sets his hands on her shoulders.]

You were missed. We kind of needed you back there for a bit.

[And it's true, all of it, and in more ways than one was she needed. He scoffs lightly. Had he disappeared, gone back to Insomnia, then come back, he'd be confused and irritated, for being taken away again.

So would it be the same for her?]

I don't know if it's good or bad for you that you're back but... it's good to see you.

[sistershoggoth]

[ Huh. Someone actually needed her? It's not that she doesn't think she's useful, so much as... well, she tended to come with her own set of problems. Then again, who was more used to her and her problems than her brood? She opens her mouth, surprised by her own warm reaction. It's a more sedate warmth, less that raging storm of desperate attachment and more comfortable. Huh. ]

You can only kind of see me.

[ Fuck this burka, ok. ]

[servitor]

[He flicks her forehead lightly, through the hood and mask and everything.]

I still remember what you look like.

[Nyx leans in a little, his grin shining right through the link, all kinds of crackling warmth and mischievousness. All the link did for him was put the heart on his sleeve right at the center of everything. He lets that comfortable warmth coming off Annie mix with his own freely.]

Don't bullshit me, Annie. We're glad you're back, even if I can't see you right now.

[sistershoggoth]

Hey!

[ She lifts her hands too late to protect her forehead. She gives him a look through the through her dumbass burka. But her affection doesn't fade. ]

I dunno, maybe you liked me not insulting your ugly face every day. Who am I to judge?

[servitor]

I got used to it. Kind of weird not hearing something like "morning, fuckhead" when I went to get my coffee.

[Which is... actually pretty true. It had gotten to the point where he'd just toss back a good morning without batting an eyelash.]

[sistershoggoth]

Oh my god, there is some coffee like shit on this planet, right? I need that and also cigarettes. Or I'll die.

[ She sounds really serious, she is not really willing to go without her vices. ]