[mission: hyrypia] give me my scallop shell of quiet, my staff of faith to walk upon

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: EVERYONE
WHERE: Hyrypia - The Graze
WHEN: DAY :013
SUMMARY: A day of competition begins, and Hosts put their newfound skills to the test.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

THE GRAZE
DAY :013

A MOURNFUL SOUND passes across the Graze in the early hours of the morning: the mingling drone of the wind coming up across the flatlands and funneling into the depths of the Finger Maze. It saws, a tired, hollow constant noise. Carried with it up through the Great Flat are maybe forty visitors carried by a variety of carts and wagons, automated and incredibly austentatious live mounts. Apparently the events of the day are drawing a crowd from the surrounding farms and homesteads on top of the various diplomatic envoys already in attendance.

After a brisk, light breakfast the short blare of a horn cuts across the encampment. It seems it's time to saddle up.



I. THE SIDELINES
A CHEER SWELLS up from the assemblage of Rabadoceans as a team successfully completes their event. On a nearby platform, musicians takes turns striking up a series of fast paced, sparkling tunes and the tang of roasting meat is heavy in the air. There's a sense of festival in this that quickly becomes lively as the Hyrypians' official pleasantries cede encourage the Meradan's cheerful, competitive shouting and the Descendants'' entertained clapping and smiling. There might even be a few smiles to be seen among the typically grim faced Carpathan diplomatic envoy.

Get something to eat. Talk to a stranger. Make friends. Sabotage a competing team. Most importantly: keep your eyes and ears open. For every moment you might spend machinating, someone (or something) else might be doing the same.

II. THE SORTING
THE SUN HAS FULLY RISEN by the time the first event is ready to begin. There has been a constant bustle up until this point, people meeting up and splitting off again, members of Envoy’s checking in with each other, carefully discussing their strategies- or laughing the challenges off as a game. Now, all of the competitors are gathered together to be given their tools- the ropes and crooks of the Gryer wranglers- even as the spectators begin to gather at the edges of the large pen, some standing at the fences, other on long staggered benches along the edges. There are a flags strung up all along the fences and large banners fly from the outermost posts of the pen. When it is nearly time the teams are split- each of the members led to a different point on the outside of the pen, to the gates that will set them loose upon the false gryer within.

When it is time for the Hosts to begin, the gates are again reset, the Gryer are all released from their holding pens, and the spectators have become no less raucous. They’re so loud it’s almost hard to hear the horn that calls from the holding pen, but the gates that spring open in front of the hosts are signal enough for them to begin. They are afforded just enough time to make their way fully into the pen before the three Gryer are lit, scattered through the herd and still milling about. The clock- or whatever passes for a clock- is ticking, and the faster they manage the task- if they manage it- the better.

When it is over, the crowd cheers, either way- energized by the competition and the strong grassy flavored drink that seems to improve every Rabadocean’s mood.

III. THE MESSENGER RACE
A SERIES OF FLAGS marks the route of the relay race that runs along the edge of the outermost cliff faces - not that it's necessary. Spectators are strung along the sidelines that it might be possible to run the race using only them as a guide for where to go. The course itself is studded with obstacles - logs and ditches, stacks of brush and at least a few imposing walls made from coral harvested out of the Finger Maze. The riders of each team are dispersed along the length of the course toward the finish line, quiet and lonely (if you disregard the forty or so other riders from competing teams in your company) and waiting in the midday heat for--

The short burst of a horn. The first string of Elin and riders, each in possession of a ceremonial scroll, launch forward across the starting line. Hopefully. What would be even better? If they keep all their riders in the process.

IV. THE ELINMASTER RUN
THE FINAL EVENT comes late - so late that the sun is already beginning to move towards the high horizon of the clifftops, leaving a cool purple cast across the landscape as the competitors and spectators alike are gathered at the yawning entrance of the isolated splinter of the Finger Maze. Unlike the other events, there is no seating, no rows, no stretches of banners or strings of flags. The environment doesn’t allow for it. Instead there are ropes separating the milling crowds from the riders. There are no gates and no strict starting point; rather, there is an area the width of the entrance and forty feet behind it that the racers may begin from. A large number are clustered near the very front - eager but clearly at extra risk, the metal and rubber flesh of the Elin automatons pressed close enough to crush. In the stillness of the near-evening air, the anticipation for this event is more subdued. More hushed. It's clear that the majority of the race will not be visible to spectators or judges. There will be only a small party waiting at the end of the course, ready in the clearing to mark places, and no witnesses before that.

The most senior members of House Basittia stand on either side of the entrance, protected by the ropes and flashy in their officiator-wear. When the horn is blown, sharp and with very little warning, it echoes down the length of the waiting canyon walls. It echoes strangely, broken only by the sound of metal hooves pounding forward into the maze and out of sight.

The first challenge is immediate - beyond the wide entrance the canyon begins to narrow dramatically. Those who have chosen the front of the pack will be forced to either get ahead or muscle their way through the others around them. Those that have chosen to stay further back will find that the distance between them and the next rider ahead of them narrows. Before there is much chance to adjust to the new positions, there is the first obstacle - a ditch, narrow but sudden, ready to take the legs out from under an Elin that fails to jump. From there the course begins in earnest. A number of paths split off from the main line, each with their own challenges. Coral branches fallen in the path, others arching just over rider’s heads. The course is full of switchbacks and sudden turns and in places the ground is made of pebbles that slide beneath the metallic hooves of the mechanical beasts. The course narrows in sections, barely wide enough to allow one rider to pass, and as the race stretches on fewer and fewer are able to continue. Some riders simply fall, others are knocked off, others foul their mounts and end up as new obstacles for those behind them.

By the time the end is in sight - a large open clearing, the far end of which has a simple stage where the judges wait - many racers have been unseated and countless others have simply fallen behind. But for those who make it to the end, there is a note in an ancient looking tome and a ribbon to be tied around their wrists to show that they have completed their trial. They will linger there in the winner’s circle until the last of the racers trickle in. Once that happens, they will be allowed at a much more sedate pace to make their way out of the canyon and into the awaiting cheering crowd - into the beginning of night and the lighting of the great braziers and flames, the scent of a well-earned meal that awaits them carried across the Graze by the mournful sigh of the wind.

V. BEFORE, AFTER, AND BETWEEN
THE COMPETITION stretches long, each individual challenge met by scores of Envoys eager to impress or simply eager for something to entertain themselves with. But the day is made far longer by the time between the competitions which is filled with talk, general chatter, and some good- and less good-natured betting - all lubricated by a constant stream of the cool grass drink that’s growing rapidly more popular as the sun’s heat increases. There's plenty to do- and plenty to enjoy between the events themselves. People will have little trouble finding things to keep busy with. And after the competition is said and done there is dinner (of course), the great dining tents pulled open and even more crowded than before with the additional local color. It’s those locals, and perhaps the camaraderie born of shared experience, which seems to help encourage some of the Envoys to intermingle more than they have before.

Of course, not everyone is in a good mood. Some of the participants didn't perform as well as others. Bruised egos are as abundant as bruised bodies among some envoys... a potentially volatile situation considering the close quarters they share with other Rabadoceans who clearly think very highly of their own performances.

---

((OOC Notes: This log covers the competition events of Day :013 and any related sideline activities. You can find a full breakdown of the events/a place for mini-event specific questions HERE. Sign-ups will remain open until the next event log goes live, however going forward please make sure to either join the individual event or have a full team selected for the team events. Please be aware that signing up late won't give you extra time to finish your thread to qualify for the finale event.

Have more generalized questions? Drop them on the MISSION: HYRYPIA OOC POST or get in touch with us on the Mod Contact page.))

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

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[extradite]

[ Right. OF course she'd find the meatiest scab to pick at, nails ready, eyes hawk-like and sharp.

Every inch of the spine he didn't know he was growing trembles, but he doesn't wither away from her. Not yet. ]

Ah... I've met some people. Some who say we're part of the same... group.

[ Brood, Lakshmi had called it, a disgusting surrogate for healthy social constructs. Not that the specifics of their nomadic arrangements matter. He can be housed with anyone, teamed up with anyone, assigned to cooperate with anyone.

The trouble is, and he deflects every inch of warmth that might creep into his voice — ]

They do things. Imposing things. You can hear them — ...share.

[ Overshare, though his won't be the first hand to pick up a stone and ruin their little group's glass house. ]

Misato, we don't have to share back, do we? If it's not an order...

[ Then, he really doesn't want to. ]

[wille]

[ To tell him it's not an order is to return the reins attached to his leash back to his own hands. It would disempower her and her authority. To tell him he doesn't have to open his mind to another would be similarly disingenuous if she wants, still, to know him and be close to him. Then there are Kaji's warnings of instrumentality by any other name. Even so, even so. ]

Who are they? The ones in your brood?

[ Brood, brood. Say the word, Shinji. That's the only way to pull out its teeth and claws and turn it no more threatening than a house cat. ]

It shouldn't scare you to hear them share things like that, it's just something to get used to. It's like learning to be a good neighbor, right?

[extradite]

[ You're cold again. But then, she'd only complain that the average temperature here is closer to boiling, and that she's always aligned with the trend calling for a casual tan, anyway.

His nerves feel raw, prickled surgically, the needle of her carefree obliviousness sliding between flesh and skin. Deepening. Separating him, the compact being that can resist and subsist in catastrophic conditions from the human shell he shows the world for artificial communion. His fingers curl into his palms, nails teasing skin. Biting in. ]

Neighbours sit on the other side of walls.

[ Careful and even, the slow trickle of indignant letters in a simplified definition. ]

Being a good neighbour means sitting on your side respectfully. Not making noise. Recycling often. Not inconveniencing.

[ This... brood arrangement is antithetic to that, more like the equivalent of a clan of reality TV stars moving in to party every weekend, blast stereos, lure the cops over daily, raise property prices and all around ruin the neighbourhood.

On camera. ]

[wille]

[ A casual fan would do, though she would maintain that air conditioning remains man's greatest invention, barring such tools engineered to cause their own eradication. Arguable, really.

Now, she wants him to stay who he is, but closer. She wants him to become her and yet not her so that she can still love him as a being apart from herself. She wants to jealously guard him against the symbiote encroaching upon his mind, taking what belongs to her, but then she thinks she is also, now, the symbiote, and maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Misato heaves a sigh, filing away the edges of her words to make them soft. ]

Shinji-kun. You can sit on your side of the wall, and you can beef up your wall besides, I can show you how. But being a good neighbor also means saying hello and getting to know each other and learning how to be close without hurting one another.

[ In the classic tradition of giving him the advice that a magnanimous great-grandaunt would while remaining far away from the philosophy by which she lives her own life. These are words she wishes were told to herself, words she hopes she can live by all while knowing she can't. She can't because she is who she is, and the world is just so. Choice is so often an illusion. ]

And hey, you didn't answer my question!

[ Who are these people closer to him than a sibling? Than a parent? Than her, herself? ]

[extradite]

[ Learning how to be close without hurting each other, she says. And she looks him in the eye for it — no. She always knows better than that. A lie is only as strong as the indifference set as its armor.

She can't send him to kill flesh and blood and bone, all bound with human stitches in the patchwork of 'KAWORU', then claim compromise is the way of social life.

His eyes widen comically, the clarity of his vision troubled by heat. She looks softer like this, lines blurred by background poverty. The vegetables in the appetizer she wolfed down must have demanded volumes of water to grow that could have nourished a server. ]

What difference does it make? They're strangers.

[ And families are agglomerations of passers-by who glimpse each other's exteriors with regularity and pretend to themselves this makes them known. They're a family, Misato and Asuka and Pen-Pen and he.

They'd claw each other apart. ]

Why? Do you... [ Ah. Ah, but he laughs, shaking his head silently throughout. ] Do you like the people in your... brood?

[ Of course she might. She has yet to meet a betrayal she wouldn't fraternize with. (No, that's not her. That's his father. That's not Misato in the slightest. Shut up.) ]

[wille]

[ Compromise is the way of human life, that is, the way of life between familiars. The us against them. Compromise should be upheld among such groups that one wishes to belong in, that is, humanity, that is Japanese, that is them, NERV. Her made-up stitched-together family. In this case, then, the hosts should be tolerated like unruly neighbors even as the enemy can't.

Her beliefs aren't so simple, she knows, but can't bear showing him anything less than certainty, mistaking it for guidance and wisdom she can't even claim to have, let alone offer. She laughs to follow his laughter, just as empty, as dry. ]

Not really. I've lost two of them already, one of them I really liked. Beth. Well, anyway, it's easier to like someone when they're not around. The ones still here: Shepard and Damon, they're angry at me cause I won't give them what they want. Kavinsky's alright, but he's trouble.

[ If he would keep evading her question then she would lay down her cards and call on him to follow suit. ]

Your turn.

[extradite]

[ It's easier to like someone when they're not around. Yes. She was very grateful to see Shinji. Warm, almost, boasting the mimicked manners of a mother who might be thrilled to recover her child.

A closer approximation: her fingers look ungainly on her pastries, grip rudely uncertain. In his absence, she must have forgotten how to use instruments. ]

I don't know them. [ No — he hesitates — most days, you don't lie to a superior officer. ] Gildor. Lakshmi Bai. That's all I know.

[ That's all he butchers in untrained syllables, the names like the wet print of ice pellets slipping down his nape to feed each vertebra of his spine. ]

That's all I wanted to know.

[ Guilt arrests his breathing for a moment, evens it down to staccato and husky gasps. He didn't owe those two interests, but he's due to present Misato with better information than this. ]

...do I have to know more?

[wille]

[ In his short absence, she has forgotten how far along the spectrum of apathy-compassion she should be to reach his frequency, to be warm and yet believable. This and their latest reunion were offtone, like tuning an instrument and never quite finding the right keys, or maybe she was always tonedeaf and only now realized it. She keeps her voice gentle, regardless, still hoping he would impute upon her whatever it is he needs her to be. ]

You only need to know enough to keep yourself safe.

There's also Elena, a vampire, and Lakshmi Bai is the vampire hunter, so that could mean a bit of trouble for you. [ Succinct, isn't it? Complete with her brand of understatement. ] Damon, my broodmate, has some history with Elena, and isn't someone you talk sense to. So don't. Just stay out of their way.

[ Telling Shinji to lay low is the equivalent of -- what? Telling the sun to shine, the wind to blow, and so on and so forth. Gildor she hasn't seen, though she engraves the name on her mind for future reference. ]

[extradite]

[ There's a trick here, a small and tiny problem, the littlest, most anaemic of complications — so slight, crippled and insignificant, in fact, that Shinji almost neglects to bring it up.

And yet, he's duty-bound to bring up to be truthful and honest and passive aggressive towards his guardian. He can't fail her now.

And so, he doesn't, blank-faced and unblinking, his monotone dragging out an obvious reveal. ]

Misato.

[ Unfortunately, as there are no chairs present, Shinji can't ask her to sit down. Still, he peels his hands out of his pockets, almost prepared to reach out and reassure her with a gentle grasp (but abstaining). ]

Vampires don't exist.

[ For her information. ]

[wille]

[ How kind of him, how considerate, to prepare himself thus for her sudden swoon and fall the moment he lays out this grand, reality-altering truth for her puny mind to absorb. It almost makes her laugh, if she doesn't opt instead for a seething glare that her hood, fortunately, conceals. The sentiment stands, and the heat bypasses physical space to skim the edge of his mind. ]

Shinji-kun.

[ She lays a hand on his shoulder. This is what children are for, to be touched, held, manipulated as such. Then she releases the long-suffering sigh of one carrying the weight of infinite wisdom. ]

If you tell them what you told me, I'm sure they'll stop being vampires.

[extradite]

[ Is she purchasing him? Is there a price tag conveniently placed on his shoulder for her passing hand to sweep aside? Why is she touching him without gain, without need and without purpose?

He flinches under the weight of her fingers, the thin sticks of her bones eating at his collar, ruining him for the next two hours of isolated convalescence to come. Body language isn't muted; people put their hand on you to burn telltale marks on their new property. ]

This is why it's hard to take you seriously.

[ Vampires, possibly. Intruding on his body, probably. The combination, inevitably. ]

What am I supposed to do with 'vampires'? You tell me things, but you don't mean them at all.

[wille]

I always mean what I say. [ Lie, so grouchily said.

Her guilt echoes in her head and she can't quite sequester it away, so she pushes on, resting yet another hand on his vacant shoulder, bowing at the waist to meet his level. Their faces are both concealed, and so the gesture remains nominal at best. ]

I mean they drink blood, and they might ask you for it or not ask. I don't care if they're lying or if they're telling the truth, each one of us has to know why we deserve to live, even more so if they have to leech off of others to survive.

[extradite]

[ It's in physics' interest to keep action bound to reaction. She bows, marginally, so he takes a step back, as commitment to estrangement as she is to keeping them in each other's orbit.

Possibly, they both can't help themselves. ]

All right, all right...

[ He can pretend, for a moment, that a whim of this scale and be fairly and accurately indulged. ]

So... if vampires ask me for — blood, do you want me to give it to them, or not?

[ His body is subject to her decisions, as ever. ]

[wille]

No. I don't want you to.

[ Clear. Immediate. He is subject to her because he chooses to let past organization structures prevail beyond world, galaxy, universe, and so the subjection is wholly voluntary, all the more valid for it. But she stands straighter after, retrieving her hands both from his shoulders in a slow retreat now that the message has been accepted. ]

Anyone who asks a child to bleed for them don't deserve it, right?

[ Right, Shinji? The smile she wears is impish, the opportunity for him to strike left open for but a handful of seconds before she dismisses it with a huff and a stretch of her arms high in the air. Releasing the tension. ]

Don't worry. I'm here, okay?

[extradite]

[ Kick back a moral compass hard enough, it will never point south. Naturally, NERv only ever asked them to die for the cause, not to bleed for it. Plasma played no part in the ounce of self-worth per service transaction.

Shinji stares at her, briefly inconvenienced by the solid defence a last-minute technicality affords her. There will be no dent in the armour of a woman who's decided whose skin she can stain to preserve her own. Indifference is her steel. ]

Maybe... maybe that's what I should be worried about.

[ That's she's here for him, to defend him. That she thinks it will help more than hinder him to know her poison close.

No. Enough of that. His hands curl for want of a throat to strangle. ]

...anyway. You're here. And — vampires are here. How do you expect me to stay away from them, if they want to get into my head?

[wille]

[ Misato crinkles her face in a grimace threatening to become a smile, interrupted by a Rabadocean passing nearby, to whom she shoots a wary glance then a respectful nod once the danger has passed. Then again, well, the threat may lie closer to home, to the symbiote itself, to her herself, as he correctly places. This she doesn't deign with a response. ]

Your head is as much theirs now. That's not something you can change.

[ As much a peddler of harsh truths as impossible hopes. Well, she thinks the two are intertwined, the latter is needed in a world full of the former. ]

But you can guard what's yours, and keep what's theirs out. I'll show you another time.