station72 | [hatch log / mission hyrypia] more peaceful pilgrims I shall see

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

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 )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[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.]

[ 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. ]

[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?

[ 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. ]

[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.]

[ 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. ]

[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.

[ 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? ]

[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.

[ 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?

[He gives her a smile that's nearly apologetic. With all that Annie is, this place seems all about... well, restraint in more ways than one, and he can't help but wonder just how well she'll acclimate to it.

He doesn't doubt her ability to. It's just a very different sort of mission than what they had on Shril.]

I'm sure you got the mission overview already, but it's all about staying under cover. These stupid robes... we're stuck in them all the time. I hate having to move in them.

[Maybe not exactly what she meant by her question, but this is a sticking point for him.]

You know about the Nectar, right?

[ The Nectar sounds amazing. The Nectar sounds like something she might just understand, not in the front of herself where there's Annie, but back in the depths where a different sentience lingers. Nectar is a mortal world for an immortal concept. ]

Yeah, yeah. I just-- I wonder, if we really gotta go through all this prancing around shit. Sounds like the planet's part of the decision making...

[ She wants to talk to it, but... How. ]

The planet? [He’s confused for a moment, not completely parsing her meaning.]

What does the planet have to do with any of this?

[Was it not all about political maneuvering and finding the right palms to grease? Of eavesdropping and being in places that you shouldn't be? How does the planet itself factor in?]

It sounds like it's the source of the shit.

[ But she does have a bias on that concept. She is a living planet. She too could dole out something similar to the Nectar, if she chose to. Her awareness of this is a kind of pinch, a pain in her human mind where that vast alien existence doesn't quite fit. A muscle starting to stretch too far. ]

Makes sense to me anyway.

[It isn’t what his mind settles on first — the idea of the planet being something that can be negotiated with, maybe on a scale that could help them finish their mission more effectively. Of it being conscious, in an ancillary way.]

It's not something anyone has considered yet. But how does someone convince a planet to make a specific decision about the Nectar?

[Even if it's hypothetical, it would be way above his pay grade. Noctis, who's communed with the gods of his world, mind reeling over the idea of talking to a planet.]

Dunno.

[ She really doesn't know. She barely understands what she herself is most of the time, let alone this planet she's been on for like a few hours. ]

But the fucks who have it aren't the source of it, even in their own myth. They have some sway over it now, but maybe we can go around them.

[ A frown. She actually doesn't like this. This isn't her kind of plan. She preferred things to be a lot more concrete, but this isn't Earth. All the rules are different. ]

Dunno. I just don't know how I feel about just playing along with this 'pilgrimage' at face value.

[He seems to hesitate, but he's trying to mull over the idea.]

It's worth thinking about, I guess. Otherwise, all I've been doing is playing along with this whole "pilgrimage" thing. Trying to eavesdrop on everyone around me but... I'm not really made for this cloak-and-dagger stuff. I'm more comfortable if I get to swing a sword around.

[At least he knows himself well enough to admit to it.]

And that's definitely out of the question.

[ She quirks a sideways grin. It charms her, that he's just as uninterested in all this covert shit as she is. ]

Keep it in your pants, sailor.

[ She pats him consoling on the shoulder, laughing. ]

Maybe we can find somewhere to spar again before we get too fuckin' bored, huh?

[He wishes he could be more interested. Truthfully, he wishes he could be better at it, so he doesn't feel so out of his depth in this mission. But there's nothing to be done, really, than to just follow the leads of those who are actually suited for it. The king who follows; that might as well be him these days.

At the thought of sparring, though, his smile becomes lopsided.]

Sure. You're on.

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

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