[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

2. FOR EVERYONE

[sistershoggoth]

THE STATION -- OOZE/SYMBIOTE ABILITY
[ She rolls out her pod covered in very green slime, as if it was trying to cocoon her and Annie cannot help but remember Cathaway's theory that the slime was some kind of interaction between her inter-dimensionality and the inherit inter-
dimensionality of the symbiote. Like a blister filling with water to protect the flesh underneath from further damage. So fucking biological it almost makes sense. She leaves a trail of green droplets behind her to go meet Prince, and her green droplets follow her as she leaves him. Not that she leaves a trail of them, that the trail of them moves after her... each little droplet drawn to her, rolling after her like little creatures. Her vast emotionality is stirring them, however, not any kind of control over her symbiote ability.

She had tried to control it, a little while before she had fallen asleep, but... well. Control wasn't always her strong suit.

She's easy to find in the Station, just following the green droplets... The shower, her room, Noctis's room where she had personally painted him a mural of cactuars and chocobos, and back to the Nesting Deck where she stares into the pods of Lucina, Annabeth, and even Taako wondering how everything went so wrong. She radiates restlessness and misery. ]

AFTER 'FOR ALNAIR' -- GENERAL/WILDCARD
[ She should be helping pack, but this is her last and only chance to look around their current location... She walks around the compound to take a look, and to clear her head. She had rolled through the area like Godzilla on the psychic plane when she had first come off the ship, it would have been hard to miss, and the lingering remnants of her overwhelming presence and emotion radiate around her, the wet and the ozone after a tornado.

She is a noisy presence, poorly shielded, and immense on the horizon of thought. She's not quite human, and there is always something faintly threatening about her observations. Like the lurking of a beast in the darkness-- ]

THE WALK -- MEMORIES
[ The open planes remind her of the nowhere place she had woken up in, when she had somehow put her insides back into her outsides... She does not know why she returned to this form. She had been, for what felt like only an explosive instant, the cognizance of an entire world, all its atoms and energy, it's lifeforce, it's death, and then she had woken up as Annie again; in the middle of nowhere. She had walked naked for days across a plane that she doesn't find particularly different from this.

The encroachment of the caravan on an otherwise lonely memory is a surreal one... She radiates that loneliness like a beacon. Standing too close to other Hosts without realizing it, or standing too far away all on her own to sit and look over the open space, its swaying grasses in the sunlight and the moonlight. ]

THE MANOR -- ONE ON ONE/ALONE
[ When she sleeps, if she sleeps, she clings to her broodmates like a child. When she doesn't sleep, she patrols the perimeters of the manor like a possessed thing.

Unlike herself, she's not particularly interested in eating or making noise, she sneaks off whenever possible to smoke by herself. She can't, or won't, do without... ]

RIDING LESSONS
[ She already suspects before she even really tries. Animals don't particularly care for her, and they never have. Watching the lifelike behavior of these ponies makes her quite suspicious that it won't matter that they're mechanical at all... She wasn't the kind of environment for delicate mammals. She disturbed their senses. She was a cold planet with cold-blooded monsters and nimble, biting insects...

She can barely get on one of the mechanical Elin before it's trembling away from her. Expecting this, she gives up quickly, standing to the side with her hands tucked loosely into her robes. She'd rather run than get her skull stomped in by a robot pony, but you're welcome to... try to show her how it's done. ]

the walk

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ In his mind there's a faded echo of a running cadence, something ingrained a long time ago for all that he hasn't thought of it recently - slowed down a little to almost match their steps. There's a sense of bittersweet wistfulness for the remembered camaraderie that echoes the loneliness she radiates, a pale afterimage.

It's a moment before he notices that the press of loneliness is external, and a hell of a lot more than nostalgia. He can't recognize her in their disguises, but the shape of her mind he places pretty easily.

The cadence in his mind fades even further as he focuses on their link. ]

( Annie, right? We never officially met, but I know Nyx. I'm Sam. )

[sistershoggoth]

[ Her attention turning on him is intimidating, burdensome with the weight of too many eyes wedged in to too much deformed, nebulous flesh. The wide cavern of her mind is open to him, opening for him because she's not so good at closing it off without Noctis's cooling presence to obscure her borders.

She still looks like a harmless little figure in a cloak. ]

( I remember you. You stupid dicks were having a contest to see which one of you could brag the most about yourself. )

[ Her loose and colorful way of speaking is a bit at odds with that otherworldly pressure she exudes, and the edges of her concepts are warped, incomplete. When attached to her mind the farce that she is one complete being becomes more exposed. She uses words more like shapes and colors, fitting them together haphazardly to convey meaning despite a lack of it. As long as the shape of it does not actively clash, it seems close enough to language to her.

She's an odd, oozing duck. ]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Yeah that's not unsettling at all Annie, thank you. Normally Sam matches however open someone is with him - but for the moment he keeps it just a little bit more closed, just enough to try to ease some of that pressure.

It's not quite the same as the heaviness he gets when he talks to Cathaway, but he's still not used to it.

The juxtaposition between the feel of her mind and her words - on top of what she actually says - makes him huff slightly in something that's almost amusement.

He... can't actually protest that, because he does joke around like that a lot, especially with people like Clint and Nyx and Shepard, and he can't say he's all that particular about not broadcasting it to the Nest in general if the conversation starts there. The only thing he remembers about her that doesn't come from the impressions he'd gotten from Nyx and Shepard is watching her argue with Lexa and Katie back on Waypoint Shril. ]

( And here I remember you telling me and Shep we had our shit together. Which time was that? )

[sistershoggoth]

( When Nyx wanted everybody to get their shit together. )

[ A sharp wryness, but as the directness of her attention fades -- her head turning back to look out over the flat landscape again -- the intensity of her presence fades too. More like sitting in a tub full of eels and less like staring down the great maw of something hungry. ]

( Shep I like, him I could maybe do without. )

[ This is the boldest of bold faced lies and anyone with even the tiniest lick of intuition or even observational skills would know it. She'd come barreling into Naerstone on the hunt for both of her boys, and had all but exploded into joy and relief and sorrow when she found them each in their turn. She loves them, and her mind -- open and difficult for her to defend -- has taken them in to itself.

But she likes to give him a hard time, so she doesn't feel so ridiculous about falling for his charm -- (warmth, determination, warrior's spirit, idealism, nothing so superficial as charm. ) ]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ His mind eases open a little more as the intensity fades, figuring he might as well adjust to the strange feel of her mind. Understanding blooms across the mental link, and this time the amusement is just as obvious as his affection for Nyx.

Almost as obvious as hers, whatever she says. But it's something he's familiar with, comfortable around - showing someone you love them by hassling them, trying to bleed off the extent of your feelings by making light of them. ]

( But I fixed him breakfast after, so I'm pretty sure I made up for it. )

[ He's made Shepard breakfast, too, come to think of it, maybe he's obvious in showing his love in more ways than one. Or obvious in his strategies for people who drop unexpectedly into his life. ]

( Least both of them seem to know what they're doing. )

( THE MANOR )

[unfavoured]

[ Trying to find time alone can often be a challenge, especially around her. There is a particular sort of attentiveness that you have to have to pull off the uncomfortable hood and mask to get some air on your skin.

So when she hears footsteps she's quick to pull it on, before one of the Hosts shows herself to be the source of it. Parker pulls her hood back again and leans back on the stone wall, closing her eyes once more. ]

If you're here to get away from the noise, keep it quiet. [ Parker says tiredly, rubbing an eye before returning her hand to the crossed arms over her chest. ]

[sistershoggoth]

[ She gives Parker a curious look, mostly because well... As far as Annie's concerned, there's no getting away from the 'noise' she was shit for barriers and she herself was a slimy inescapable blot on the minds of the hosts. The rot runs deep. Still she gives a shrug, there is a kind of smoker's code that she has been known to abide from time to time: and that's sometimes you just want to smoke in fucking silence.

She does so contemplatively for a few minutes, and her only real topic of conversation is, ]

I'm gonna die when I run out of cigarettes.

RIDING LESSONS.

[unsea]

[ Wow, Annie. You've made mechanical animals shudder.

The last memory he has of her involves a whole lot of glitter and saliva. She's another who's awoken from slumber and returned to the nest - a positive thing? perhaps; he recalls her from afar, a distant, wild creature. She's not at all who he wants to wake, but he'll make the most of this situation, and lend a hand to her. Maybe she'll bite it - anything to break up this stop-go-stop monotony. ]

Let's take care of this, before they learn not to take you seriously.

[ She gives up too quickly, as the beasts flinch and dart away from her. He picks one out of the herd, pointing to it - fine, they can use this skittishness: ]

Force that one towards me.

[sistershoggoth]

[ She gives him a pinched, incredulous look. But she supposes if any animal is going to be convinced to deal with her shit, it was probably a mechanical one, even if they were clearly imbued with something -- technomancy or whatever the fuck they'd called it. ]

Do I have to.

[ Dull. She doesn't put up as much of a fuss as she would have done while they were on the Station. She understands that she's on a covert mission and has to tone her shit down... which she hates. That resentment is a tang in the air around her. She slouches off towards the robot pony he indicates, looking up into its 'face' without excitement before making an attempt to herd the thing over towards the Darkling.

She's successful in that much, if unenthusiastic. ]

riding lessons

[somnifacient]

[The presence that draws close is one that Annie would recognize almost immediately. Today there is a languid amusement mingling within everything that is Noctis, a result of watching her give up so easily at trying to ride an Elin. Under his hood, the smile is probably pretty obvious.]

You can't give up already.

[He stands adjacent to her, looking up the clockwork creature.]

Just because something is skittish doesn't mean it won't warm up to you eventually.

[Kind of like himself.]

[sistershoggoth]

Critters don't like me.

[ A statement of fact. And actually, telepaths had never liked her either, and now she knows why. ]

Seriously, all the animal tamer types made me step off their menageries.

[ There'd been a few had dealt in animals. Taylor and her dogs, Felice and her birds. Then there had been some who had dealt tangentially... turning into animals, turning blood into animals. Annie could use the latter, although she'd hated that whiny little snot, but maybe she'd learn a thing or two about controlling her ooze. ]

[somnifacient]

Do these count as critters, though?

[It seems like word that shouldn't be so easily applied to a mechanical creature, but he supposes he hasn't put much thought into the idea.]

Yeah, I remember how the one... well. You know. It bit you. [He means, of course, the hatched lizard-like thing from before, oozing and sleeping and snapping at Annie's hand.] What do they have against you, exactly?

[He has an idea, but why assume when he can ask?]

[sistershoggoth]

Oh my god where did your dumb slime baby go?

[ She had completely forgotten about it in her fervor to like. Get here. ]

I'm fuckin' unnatural, they don't dig it. Haven't you ever seen a movie where the dog barks at the ghost/alien/werewolf/whatever?

[ She ticks those options off on her fingers slowly. ]

[somnifacient]

It's not dumb. [The immediate retort of an indignant parent, hilariously enough. Noctis has grown quite fond of said slime baby, but he's always been very partial to animals of nearly every shape and size. The lizard creature is small enough to be considered a "pet", though the label isn't quite accurate.] It's probably with Bellamy right now.

[At the comparison, he's not sure if he should look amused or a little disturbed.] Well... yeah. But what are you going to do, then? You just can't walk the whole way there.

[Oh, an idea.]

Maybe you can ride with me? Animals usually like me, so it should counteract your creepy vibes. [Because... that's how it works, Noct.]

after alnair

[wrackful]

[Murphy's already done enough packing, as far as he's concerned, and wants to think about the pilgrimage they're about to embark on as little as possible before leaving. He's ducked out of the proceedings to head down to the kitchens again, idly chatting with a few of the staff as he tries some kind of sweet paste-filled pastries they've made.

He has a number of them collected in a bundle for taking back, thinking about exactly how long he should stall for when he feels her. He'd known she was back earlier, unmistakeable as she had been since he'd met her on Shril, but she'd been heading for her brood, and he'd kept away. Now she seems calmer, and he ventures a brush of thought against her mind.]

( You're late, you know. )

[Dry, irreverent, but it doesn't do much to disguise the relief underneath.]

[sistershoggoth]

( I'm not real good at keepin' track of time. )

[ Quite honestly wouldn't be the first time she'd slept through something important, but they both know it's not the same at all, even if they're both going to make the joke. ]

( Did I miss anything exciting? This doesn't seem like the exciting kind of place. )

[wrackful]

( This is where I tell you nothing was exciting without you around, right? )

[He'd missed her. He'd known he did, but he hadn't realised quite how much until this moment. How she doesn't say it, doesn't expect him to say it, and how they can just fall back into this.]

( Apart from the "one slip up and we're all dead" vibes, it really isn't. Unless you're into politics and diplomacy. )

[sistershoggoth]

( Nothing is exciting without me around. Totally true. )

[ She'd at least have noogied him a little if he was in reach, but this is close enough. A little back and forth, friendly, immediately comfortable. ]

( I passed those classes, but they're not my wheelhouse. Been getting the heebie-jeebies? )

[ Official Annie Sanctioned code for has your precious precog alarm gone off yet. ]

[wrackful]

( Not yet. )

[There's a ring of expectation to that, one that ripples back to something rooted much deeper. Darker, heavier than the the way they're talking. The way he wants to be talking. He steers away.]

( Talked my way into the kitchens though. ) [Sensation offered, the smell and taste of the fresh alien pastries he has tucked in a bundle under his arm.] ( You want some? )

pony by ginuwine dot mp3

[servitor]

Don't tell me you're scared of it.

[His own robotic mount seems to follow without too much of a fuss, occasionally stomping to get Nyx's attention.

But Arion huffs angrily now at Annie's presence. It seems less to be afraid of her, more ready to be aggressive should the occasion rise. Still, it trembled and took a few paces away from him.]

Hey!

[Nyx tries to pull its rein hard to keep it from bucking, but of course, Arion has little mind to go down quietly. It attempts to nip at Nyx's hand, attempts to be free of the control its rider wants to reassert.]

Fine, go, get out.

[Arion paws nervously, taking one or two steps back, yet somehow, it decides to stay nearby. It bumps its head against Nyx's back, trying to move him away from the danger it senses within the vicinity. Nyx only sighs, the shudder echoing in the link.]

I'm not going with you, she's a friend. [Apparently Nyx and Arion are best friends. He turns around and sets his hands on the beast's face.] Nothing's going to get you, I promise. [He glances over at Annie now, sulking and unwilling to deal with any of the animals.] Did you insult their mothers? [There's definitely a grin underneath the hood.]

[sistershoggoth]

[ Oh my god. ]

Oh my god, you're the fuckin' horse whisperer, what the fuck.

[ She crosses her arms over her chest, a gesture lost for its dramatics from inside of the stupid robes that she hates. ]

And no. Animals don't like me. I'm a fuckin' alien monstrosity beyond what their puny pony brains can comprehend. Animals didn't like fuckin' Sparrows either.

[servitor]

[He laughs. Not quite a whisperer but...]

We had a lot of strays around the house growing up, some wild animals crossing into the city too. You eventually start learning to read them if you don't want to get mauled.

[Galahd had always been somewhere between civilized and wild anyway. The trees grew thick in the middle of the square, and it wasn't so unusual to see a wild animal sitting on a car.]

Try mine. Maybe we can convince him together to play nice.

[sistershoggoth]

He's gonna whisper to the horse for me...

[ She muttering to herself, but she supposes maybe. The things aren't full organic, maybe their irrational animal bullshit can be soothed with some effort. She's literally never cared enough to try before. A sigh. ]

Here horse-thing, horse-thing, horse-thing...

[servitor]

I'm not whispering, and I can hear you.

[Nyx sets a hand on one of the handles, forcing the Elin forward, between himself and Annie. Arion is attempting to protest, but Nyx isn't having it.]

Start slow, yeah? Set your hand out so he can get a feel for you.