[mission: hyrypia] i am not there; i do not sleep

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: Station 72; Hyrypia - The Graze
WHEN: DAY :019 - DAY :020
SUMMARY: Somewhere deep in the void between multiverses, a fresh clutch of Hosts hatches; down on the planet Hyrypia, a Host is laid to rest.
WARNINGS: Mentions of character death, funerary services. Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

STATION 72
DAY :019

NEW HATCHES
YOU WAKE UP and the universe with you in it is 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 a handful 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 sound and sensation: a warm shaft of sunlight through smoky glass - a gauzy curtain twitching in some summer breeze. It says or feels like:

( Come meet with me, won't you? )

Where exactly this meeting is supposed to occur isn't immediately clear, but head in the direction that seems correct and eventually Station 72 gets you where you're meant to be: a circular briefing room with tiered seating, empty now, before a woman with a sheet of graying hair and something focused in her expression. It's been some time since she's spoken with a young host - since she's done one of this briefings. Apparently she's feeling something like her usual self. She smiles and it's very warm.

"Welcome to Station 72. Unfortunately, you won't be here long but we'd like to answer as many of your questions as we're able 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 very alien pilots unload two heavy trunks, then dole out a series of kits to the new hosts. One of them - the pale female alien who her calls herself Rhan - cheerfully announces, "Get changes and buckle in. I'm afraid we've some grim business ahead of us today. Funerals, you know. But chin up, my darlings. One uncomfortable day and then we'll leave the matter behind us. --Oh, but do be gentle with the others. I suspect they might be tender for a few days yet."

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

HYRYPIA - THE GRAZE
DAY :020

THE FUNERAL PROCESSION
A SHIP DESCENDS from the iron colored sky early in the morning on Day :020. Before it even pierces the planet's atmosphere, its cargo should be obvious to the other Carbauschians: a new batch of Hosts, freshly hatched and just in time for the grim festivities.

The idea is simple: that they are part of a mourning delegation, only here to briefly oversee Lavellan's funerary rites. Luckily (...) there's plenty of comatose Hosts lying in the tents to trade places with the newcomers.

Better get to know your new friends quickly - there's plenty to be brought up to speed on (such as, uh, the recent death of one of the elder Hosts), and likely enough work to be done that the new spare hands are welcome. Or maybe the state of nothing-like-faux mourning is a good excuse for some alone time on a strange new alien planet. You're all so very, very far from home.


BURIAL RITES
THE FUNERAL has been arranged to the Hosts' precise specifications. Each and every single request they've made has been met, carried out by two soft-spoken, contrite Hyrypian servants who had come to them not long after their return from the hunt. Perhaps because the members of the other envoys are unsure whether it's permitted or welcome to attend, the site of the funerary pyre is hardly full to bursting with onlookers. Or maybe the burning of corpses goes against some obscure tradition. Or maybe some of the minor envoys simply don't care much and think the Carbasuchians are best left to their grief alone. Still, while it's hardly the entire encampment in attendance a notable selection of diplomats and their respective entourages and several of their Hyrypian hosts have turned out for the ceremony. It seems the Descendants in particular have turned out in some force, including the very hunter saved by Lavellan's quick thinking.

When the time comes for the rites to proceed, it's left to the Hosts to light the fire and say their farewells to their fallen comrade - the first and hopefully last to be lost in this strange land.


A SOMBER CELEBRATION
ASH SCENT HANGS HEAVY STILL over the encampment. Or maybe that's simply the perception - after all, the breeze still blows in from over the Great Flat. Surely it's just a memory of the smell which lingers, as circumstantial as the mournful note the wind sighs as it cuts across the Graze and into the tangled Finger Maze.

However, matters of the universe don't pause for the tragedy of the loss of an envoy - and there is so much riding on this Pilgrimage. To their credit, the Hyrypians have done all they can to provide for the Carbauschians in their time of grief (including a visit from the Matron Bassita herself, pale and full of sympathy and apologies), and as evening falls what clearly was meant to be a carousing party to celebrate a successful hunt and completion of the Pilgrimage's first stage has been considerably tempered.

The drinks still flow; the food is still plentiful, rich and lavishly spiced - but the music being played is soft and careful and of the hundreds of small technomanced insect lights the drift over the encampment tonight, a considerably portion of them are dedicated to lingering around the charred skeleton of the funeral pyre as a sober acknowledgement of what has come to pass.

Give it a few hours and maybe the mood will lighten slightly. On the other hand, there's nothing like an uncomfortably close tragedy to bring people together - and as Rhan suggests, maybe now's exactly the right time to ask a few pointed questions. Or to get hammered with new friends. Or to take a nice long walk while everyone else is consumed by the muted festivities.

---

((OOC Notes: This log covers the hatch, the arrival of new Hosts on Hyrypia, the funeral of Lavellan and the supremely awkward dinner party meant to wrap the first stage of the Pilgrimage. Feel free to make your own logs and posts additional to this if you care to. You can find a more detailed overview of the host hatching process HERE and additional setting information about the Station HERE. Please be sure to review the MISSION: HYRYPIA ooc information if you're brand new to the game. 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

seth gecko.

[detestable]

— R I C H I E

[ Seth's first, loudly projected thought is of some fucked up B-movie Eddie let them watch some Christmas. Seth can't remember if it had been aliens or clones, but he remembers a shot of tubes dug into skin. Soothing is bypassed by the groggy suspicion that he's a goddamn science experiment, and then the tube detaches and Seth's thoughts are drowned out entirely.

There's only one thread of consciousness that strikes him as familiar. Richie. The momentary focus on it steadies him until the tumult quiets, and Seth can swear to himself before wriggling down and out of his pod. At the foot of it, he yanks off his vest to scrub the layer of filth off his face before he touches the back of his neck, checking for injury and finding nothing. In fact, all his aches and pains are gone. It's not particularly reassuring.

His clothes are ruined. His revolver is still empty. And in the tube next to him is Richie, making his way out. Relief pulses outward from Seth's chest as he scrambles to catch hold of Richie the minute he gets his feet on the ground. ]

You okay? You good?

[ Everything else, all the other logistics of their situation, comes after those questions. The blatant concern is laid bare as Seth lifts a hand to press at Richie's neck, check the tube hadn't left a mark on him either. ]

— S T A T I O N | O T A

[ After the briefing, Seth goes back to try to make some sense of his clothes. His first impulse is correct: spattered in monster drool, there's no salvaging what he'd been wearing before he'd woken up in a pod. Seth's irritation is palpable, and a little deliberate. It sits like a barrier between himself and the onslaught of unwelcome and unfamiliar emotion.

He's still filthy. Blood and dusk and the new addition of alien spit hasn't done wonders for Seth's appearance. He's lifted the white shirt and pants from the cubby gingerly, though he doesn't have a whole lot of leeway to be picky. ]

No fucking laundry service in the place, I'm guessing?

[ But he'd settle for a shower. That had been all Seth really wanted to begin with after fighting a sun god and the queen of hell. It hadn't seemed like a lot to ask for, but it's hard to anticipate this particular set of roadblocks. Being attached by something straight out of a horror movie and pulled out by a strange psychic wasn't really something to be planned for. ]

[ or wildcard him, throw whatever down. ]

—H Y R Y P I A

[ So they get shuttled down in time for a funeral, which Seth has little interest in. Descending into a cloud of shared grief is uncomfortable. Seth's never met the person they're grieving, and it feels like a transgression to pretend he feels anything in particular about his passing. For most of the day he can be found:

• Hanging back at the edges of the funeral gathering, arms crossed, observing the audience they've gathered more than the actual spectacle of the funeral service. When prompted, he expresses all the right condolences, in the right order, and even sounds sincere about it, but it's clear he isn't going to engage any more than he's already done.
• Milling through the crowd, drink in hand. Not drunk, but cultivating a careful buzz as he works his way through the assembled partygoers. However, all his wandering never takes him far enough to let Richie pass completely from his sight line. Poking any curious minds away from his own is becoming second nature by now, but inevitably he'll direct a more vocal discouragement to the first robed figure that steps within range, regardless of whether he's certain they're responsible for the curious nudge he'd just felt: ]

Hasn't anyone ever told you to keep your hands to yourself?

[ The implication ghosts along after the statement: And out of my head. ]

—W I L D C A R D

[ toss in a random starter if none of these scenarios pique your interest, or hit me up on plurk if you wanna plot something specific. ]

hyrypia >> funeral

[otrazhenie]

[ Elena wants no part in the funeral, and stays as far back from the proceedings as she can manage while still keeping her cover as a noble. Her life has been filled with funerals lately and she'd rather not bring up those memories just now, though of course a few flit through her mind, breaking the surface of her oceanic shields to be shared with her broodmates.

It's the thought of those memories leaking out to them that reminds here there are new members here now. She has the urge to apologize for her slip in control, but it's not like any of them are more experienced at this than she is. They're all new here, less than a month in this strange existence, but. Still. Besides, searching them out might help to keep her mind off... all of this.

Finding the closest one, their connection innately stronger than most that she has with the Nest, she moves closer, stands next to them in a few moments of silence. And then, quietly: ]

How are you handling all of this?

[detestable]

[ So he's not the only one not interested in getting up close and personal with the funeral services. Or whatever this is. It's not like any funeral Seth's ever been to in his lifetime, but it also isn't as if he'd been down here for the planning stages. The team assembled on the ground had presented itself to Seth as one noisy, veiled conglomerate, but he can't keep ignoring the creeping sense of belonging and familiarity. Being addressed so directly yanks that connection unpleasantly to the surface. Seth knows her without having ever spoken to her, and he wishes he could blot all of that out.

He can't help but wonder if this is what it was like for Richie when Kisa had clawed her way into his head, but Richie had been more enthusiastic about meeting her than Seth is about being confronted with Elena. ]

You mean the funeral, or being in this for the long haul?

[ There's a beat, then Seth sighs, relenting slightly in spite of himself. ]

I didn't know him. There's nothing to handle.

[ This is unfortunately going to be the easy part. Show up at a funeral, say the right things, clap a few people on the back and then drink in the deceased's honor. It was whatever came next that was going to take adjustment. ]

[otrazhenie]

[ It's not hard to tell that he'd sooner sever their connection than accept it, but at least she can tell that it's not personal to her, the way it has been with some of the others in the Nest. He doesn't want this, any of it, and she can't really blame him for that. There's effort involved in keeping her shields up, pulling her thoughts and emotions back under those rippling waves in her mind, but she puts forth that effort without hesitation.

It's the least she can do to help him get through this. ]

This is the easy part. [ As much as any of this is easy, anyway. ] I didn't know him either, but I think he'd been... around, for a while.

[ The conversation would be easier in their minds, but she's not going to force that on him, not now. Especially not when she's fairly certain it would not end well. ]

I'm Elena. This is my 19th day since I woke up on the station. [ It seems best to share that information, in case he doesn't know. In case he's pushing it all away and not paying attention to the connection between their brood. ]

[sistershoggoth]

It's not like I grabbed your fuckin' dick, asshole.

[ She answers without batting an eyelash. ]

Toughen the fuck up.

[detestable]

[ Fuck off whips through his mind. It's the kneejerk response, even if it doesn't make it to his lips. It's filtered and hemmed in, but present in his actual reply. ]

You wanna embrace all this touchy feely shit, find someone else. You've got at least four other people fresh off the boat to commune with.

[ There's five, technically, but Seth marks Richie off the list of possibilities mentally without considering it further. He doesn't want Richie buying into any of this mindsharing bullshit. They can operate down here without meshing thoughts with the rest of this group. ]

[sistershoggoth]

Oooh, look who's got a fuckin' mouth on him. You ticklish, shit head? Don't like fingers in your ears?

[ The sneering jeer of a bitch who could probably stand to get hit. But then she gives a big shrug. A really big one, hands lifting up towards the sky. ]

I don't give a shit.

[shri]

[ there is a rightness to his presence she cannot mistake, no matter how her reaction still is to carve that out of herself.

But this cannot be ignored and of her mistakes with her own group, she had made as many that she truly regrets as the ones she refuses to ever take back. She does not bend well to apology, not anymore. Not that she looks to do it either from pressing the heated blade of her own presence against his.

She does try to do better. Once she as her attention, the feeling imprinted is stay still, she has her own song and dance to play. In her hands she holds a prayer plate, the silver tray from the long list of items she had received she does almost out of habit, and a need to give some solace if only for Asuka's sake. Held firm in one hand, full of flowers, the oil lamp that burns in the middle of it in a long sweet smelling flame.

Her hand lifts, and she moves it over the flame, through the smoke to wash it over him. The gold chains that hook in the light, hang and clatter with the movement, a quiet noise below the murmur of other people as she moves it through in a practised steady way. A prayer and a blessing that it murmured under her breath, below the veils, to Shiva, to Krishna, to ask for some relief of a pull to go to the Gods that have kept it.

When it stops, her mind is still steadily there, pressing and heavy, but doesn't push further. The heat of flame that burns and burns and burns, held in her hands now and sitting under the tongue. ]

Come, we must speak.

[detestable]

[ This whole bit with the pyre is about keeping up appearances. Seth is a professional, regardless of how out of his element he is, so flinching away from the presumably improvised ritual bestowed upon him. The scent of smoke is going to settle into his robes. Seth is just going to have to live with that, just like he's apparently going to have to live with people barging in and out of his mind for the foreseeable future.

Her mind is weighing against his own, but Seth's finding it hard to retreat. She's already woven into some essential part of him. Like Prompto, she is going to be difficult to block out. At least Seth is still removed enough from the mire of the Nest to harbor resentment about that. ]

Lead the way.

[ There's an undercurrent, unconcealed, that whispers beneath his response: Might as well get this over with.

Being out of sight means losing track of Richie momentarily. Seth tracks Richie across the crowd before he turns to follow Lakshmi. Alarm simmers, smoldering as he acquiesces to the request. They'll have to talk somewhere private. Seth won't even consider trading words between minds at this point. ]

[shri]

[ She says nothing until they're through the tent flap, and it's once it has closed behind them to shield them from prying eyes, that she settles down the silver plate to pull back her own veils, over her head, laying the neatly at her crown, over her shoulders. ]

Forgive the cloak and dagger, we have our own... private reception.

[ Carefully, she arranges the flowers neatly, where they had been disturbed. Settling them in their place to be evenly spread. ]

I am Maharani Lakshmi Bai. You may call me Rani. [ Translation there, Queen. ] We are brood, this feeling - that is what it is. We are to complete each other.

hyrypia

[adamance]

[Lexa is not here to drink or to mourn, as she'll never be able to shake the fact that losing one of their own is nothing short of a violation of their connections to one another. She never knew the man lost. For all that Lexa argues that they must keep one another alive and do anything to ensure that, it doesn't come from a place of good will and determination to make sure that everyone is alive. It comes from a utilitarian desire to avoid times like this, where she can feel the frayed edges of her mind trying to rectify that feeling. She doesn't like that she feels gutted and unstable. She doesn't like feeling driven to care for someone whose face and name she knew, but never interacted with personally.

During the procession, she acts differently, acts as if she cares, but there's a distance in her mind that's clearly there to help her adjust and to maintain control.

It becomes easier as she takes note of the newcomers. Her mind pushes against theirs curiously, and she does little to hide it. Right now, it's a much-needed distraction while the feelings of despair wash over her.

When Seth speaks out against her, she merely rumbles with a restrained amusement in response.]

You'll find that people are less than willing to do that. Before long, your tongue will feel foreign to you. I suggest you adapt. ["Or die." Though she isn't being so morbid here, but isn't that the obvious end result of a refusal to adapt? She knows she had to change, had to evolve, lest she end up another example of an individual without a brood to hold her up.]

[detestable]

[ While Seth could have passed on the performative mourning, the array of alcohol is a welcome sight. And he hasn't had to drink much. The shared spill of intoxication is doing most of the work for him. Seth can't decide if he resents or appreciates the efficiency of it.

Most everyone he's spoken to here has expressed the same sentiment Lexa has in varying degrees of blunt. Seth tips his glass towards her before chuckling bitterly. Lexa doesn't have to be explicit about the consequence. The consequences of not getting in line have been made clear. Richie's taking it seriously enough for the both of them. ]

Yeah, I think I'll stick to the method of communication that doesn't give me a front row seat to everyone else's thoughts.

[ At least, until he figures out a way to do it that doesn't end up the way he and Richie had: mired in each other's minds, too close to easily escape. Seth can't risk that with any of these other people. ]

You got any other helpful tips?

[adamance]

And how do you propose to avoid that seat? [Lexa asks, a hint of amusement present in her tone. Lexa decides to evade the second question, seeing no use in it just yet. Her question answers it just the same for her. After all, she's full of many useful tips of how to survive this experience, but she's way more interested in seeing how someone might react to a scenario.

Poking at someone's apparent discomfort is often times the best way to achieve that. It's a way of seeking out a weakness, and there's little more that she prefers than that. (After all, it goes right along with her obsession with strength.)]

the richie option I guess

[ophidia]

[Only a few days ago, Richard had been reborn in fire. It had been agony, burning alive until the corruption of his shadow self died. Nothing like the soothing contentment of waking up in the pod, but there is a feeling in both experiences which makes them comparable. Like waking after Kisa had turned him, seeing the world with new eyes.

He's unfocussed with it, hazy, as he climbs down from the pod. Looking up at the chamber around them, listening to the echo and swell in his head, he doesn't pay any attention to Seth until his brother's hands are on him. Pulling his gaze down. His focus. His mind.

He just nods, initially. Dumb in the face of Seth's concern, why he'd be concerned. He's filthy, dust and desert dirt, dried blood, drool, and Richard's understanding resolves itself further, memory sharpening it down. The motel. The monsters.

Yeah, yeah. I'm fine.

[Frowning. Distracted, still, because there's the press inside his head, the spill and flow of voices, feelings. None of them pulling into any particular shape or direction, the winding strength of Kisa. The only thing that feels close is--]

You can hear this.

[He isn't asking. He wouldn't ask - if he needed to, experience would say no, Seth couldn't hear what he could hear. But now he's pulling on the feeling of Seth, already knowing it has to resound back.]

what a surprise

[detestable]

[ It takes Richie a few beats to focus on Seth. The spike of panicky concern rises as he taps Richie's cheek lightly with his hand to draw his attention back. There's a shadow of similarity to the aftermath of Abilene and how Richie's attention had been split more often than not. ]

What? Yeah, yeah, I heard it.

[ He's still hearing it, but the volume's been turned down. Seth's focus has turned solely to Richie. That's made it easier to ignore the rise and fall of the people shimmying out of pods along with them.

And likely the intensity of that focus makes it easy to let Richie tug and unspool his mind. It's a comfort. It's a more immediate reassurance that Richie is on the level than Richie's actually offered him yet. Digging into it is as natural as grabbing for Richie's arms had been. ]

Hey. You with me? [ It feels like Richie's casing the place. Seth doesn't inherently object to it, but his mind feels expansive and drifting, even as it melds to Seth's. ] We gotta get our shit together, Richie.

[ Before part two of whatever freak show had interrupted them in the motel started up. ]

[ophidia]

[Getting their shit together seems like a distant concern. Even outside of the overflowing comfort of the pod, Richard doesn't feel like there's any threat incoming. He's far more interested in this: Seth's mind open to him, warm and familiar, even though he's never been able to hear it before. It feels comfortable. Right. He's always known the way Seth thinks, anticipating it, understanding it. Feeling it from the inside is only a confirmation, but the sensation still comes like pieces falling into place, a pattern he could trace in his sleep solidifying into focus.

He shouldn't be able to do this. His power held the potential, he'd always thought that, but he hadn't yet inherited Kisa's ability to coil into people's minds. It isn't just Seth. There are others, sliding out of other pods. More, far and vast, beyond this room. Richard's hand lifts to his neck, fingers pressing at the skin where the tube had been connected. Where Seth had checked, a moment ago.]

Turn around. [Drawing out of his thoughts, back into the room like a hammer falling, insistence in his tone. He grips at Seth's shoulders, intent on bodily turning him if he doesn't move on doing it himself quickly enough.] Turn around, Seth, I need to see.

planet-side

[skaikru]

( whoops. caught. called out.

any other day and clarke might have the emotional range to feel a bit guilty, apologetic. it hasn't been so long since her own rude awakening in the pods and subsequent flight down to hyrypia that she's forgotten what it'd felt like to be open and vulnerable, like an exposed nerve ending with little to do in order to keep people out of her head except ask (not so) nicely. but she couldn't help it, it hasn't been long enough for the instinctive desire to count heads and check everyone around her was still breathing to fade out, and in the process that meant brushing up against the conscious thoughts of the newcomers, which probably felt more like an arm being twisted rather than a tug on their sleeve. )

A few people. Sorry. ( it's a little flat, but genuine. she's tired, but the consuming image of the symbiote nestled in with brain and blood and spinal cord is very neatly buttoned up inside her thoughts. small blessings.

the confrontational newcomer gets a once over, an up and down. for all her genuine apologies, there's some mental fortitude behind the look she gives him, palpable through the veils that obscure their eyes. but clarke's speech is void of that intensity. )

Welcome to Hyrypia.

[detestable]

Not much of a welcome.

[ A funeral, a bunch of people trying to self-destruct in the middle of a goddamn desert, all of it was less than welcoming. It's only marginally better than waking up in a pod with a tube jabbed into him. In a way, it's all par with the downhill slide Seth's life has been on since the supernatural elements of the universe were revealed. ]

You get yourself a drink yet?

[ Is that not what people did at funerals? Or it seems to be what everyone here did, since half of them were drinking like that last night at the Twister. But this girl seemed—

There's some heft to her. It registers even if her tone's weary and her greeting insincere. Seth's thoughts skirt towards Kate then away, refusing to let the comparison kindle. ]

[skaikru]

( she shrugs in some vague sense of acknowledgment and agreement — yeah, this all sucks. by comparison, no matter how hectic and frantic her own arrival down here had been, it could be colored in a much more favorable light. there'd been a play, not a pyre. there's a flutter of sympathy, or maybe just empathy. )

I've had enough.

( meaning none tonight, and perhaps enough for the rest of her life if scooping lavellan's brain out hungover had taught clarke anything.

with a nod towards whatever cup is closest to them — )

Be careful with that stuff. It's strong. ( a statement made heavily, with a sigh and an ominous openness. she makes no attempt to hide the morose suspicions that things are only going to go downhill from here. )

hyrypia!

[extradite]

[ Cats, apparently, feel the draw of aversion. Ten minutes into prime-time exposure to the only mind that's both factory-made to fit 'their brood' and not broadcasting its traumas, Shinji's starting to feel distinctly feline.

The man's main advantage — it turns out on considerate, at-distance stalking — is deflective. Stick just close enough to him in the crowd, and his flagrant indifference will shield you from the social intrusion of curious partygoers, emotional drunkards and casual mental voyeurs.

The funeral procession left a slew of righteous mourners who lost their wit in the pyre fire and are satellite-tracking it back at the bottom of their latest cup. Possibly, Misato's leading the disaster. It's not mooching, exactly, to studiously tail this man, just because he's doing a veteran job of keeping everyone else away, with an earnestness and efficiency several overhyped championships above Shinji's kiddy league. It's common sense. He's fourteen, not (fully) stupid.

At some point, inevitably, even Shinji's woeful height and mousy presence do little to hide him, and he's next in line to offer awkward explanations for his indirect invasion. Mental links are fragile, amorphous things. He has been trying to find and push away the edges.

Now, he finds more ounces of that precious common sense and makes himself physically small, loose-limbed and slouching. ]

Sorry. [ The necessary out of the way first. ] You... were making everyone else go away. So.

[ So. ]

[detestable]

[ Kids are...not in Seth's wheelhouse. The slump-shouldered kid under those robes is not what Seth had in mind when he'd snapped. It's less physical proximity and more the encroaching fog of foreign thoughts. The verbal reproach had done the trick, but now Seth was left with the responsible party, and he doesn't know exactly what to do about it, or the cloying sense of remorse that follows as he takes in the offending presence. ]

So you're as sick of sharing brain space with twenty other people as I am?

[ Obviously. Seth doesn't blame him. He and Richie had been able to practically predict each other's thoughts since they could toddle, but Seth thinks he might have handled his few, disastrous forays into high school even worse if he had to accommodate mental links with a handful of strangers. ]

You don't need me to tell everyone else here to fuck off, kid.

[ Seth genuinely doesn't understand why more people haven't, or seem reluctant to get everyone else out of their head. What's the appeal here? It's all way too much intimacy with too little reward, as far as Seth's concerned. ]

[extradite]

[ Twenty other people, thirty, just two. One mental invasion violates as thoroughly as a thousand. Size doesn't matter: it's about the quality, not the quantity of being ignored when you scream no.

The nice man with the rough voice will get there. The steep learning curve of How This Place Works is around for neophytes to break their necks on. Possibly, Lakshmi will give him a liberal hand.

Beyond — outside — of them, the world's a carousel of weak lights, flesh shells and people passing on cups. One combination of hand and sharply smelling liquor comes just close enough to offend Shinji with proximity. He stares at it flicker close and go, then finally decides to he moderately informative. ]

If you ask them to go away, they'll only try harder to be noticed. [ Like jinxes or dust or cats. ] Or they'll do things to attract your attention. Things you won't like. And say it's a lesson. [ A lean shrug, half bones. ] And you need to learn the lesson.

HYRYPIA

[huntsmachines]

[ Aloy is a naturally curious person, even with all the mess and sadness and mourning that has descended on their group of clandestine Nestmates. So when new minds spark into the constellation of familiar feelings, thoughts, and impressions that she has settled into for what seems so long (it hasn't been that long though, has it?) she wants to reach out and say hello. When she does brush out, curious, and gets a strong rebuff, she seems almost taken aback. An apologetic little tendril reaches out from her own mind in response and she shuffles closer to the new arrival. Beneath her hoods and cloaks, she shrugs. ]

( Sorry. I didn't mean to be too nosy. )

[ 'Too nosy' describes Aloy in a nutshell, really. ]

[detestable]

Bullshit.

[ The excuse is rebuffed, as is the second prodding poke of Aloy's mind. Seth's irritation immediately spikes. ]

I say hands off, you take a second crack?

[ In some way, it's probably understandable. Fresh meant descending from the Station has to be a welcome distraction from the funeral and death and whatever else had happened before they showed up. But Seth's understanding of the motivation doesn't make him any more inclined to let it slide when people start trying to scrutinize him. ]

That's not gonna fly, kid.

[huntsmachines]

[ Aloy winces. She had meant to convey an apology but had only managed to make things even more awkward. She dips her head a little. Humble, Aloy. Be humble. ]

You're right. I'm sorry. I was trying to...

[ What? What was the best word to use here? ]

I was trying to give an apology and I'm just. Used to talking to people that way now. It was instinct.