[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

[ophidia]

[Needing to answer the question himself only, in the moment, highlights a sensation of other. Of difference. This guy leaning unsteady, the others climbing out of the pods confused, his brother's spiked concerns, and yet Richard's stood here calm. Unfazed. But it's nothing new.]

I'm used to seeing more than other people.

[It isn't the same, but it is. Semantics stop being so rigid when you're talking about the mind, about sensing further and deeper than the traditional five, about knowing more than you should.

Other concepts that fray in the circumstances: introductions. They don't need it, the verbal exchange of names. But the same feeling which had drawn him here, kept him lingering in a faint sense of concern, says to take it at least a little easy on the guy.]

Richard Gecko.

[justttkidding]

[ November casts him a curious glance at the comment. Just what does he mean by more than other people?

Maybe he'll find out. Maybe later, he'll ask. For now he breathes in, concentrates on calming down the calamity in his head. He thinks of a blanket, laying it over the noise and the feeling. It seems to work a little, some of the chaos getting drowned and muted.

There, that was better. ]

Jack Simon. [ Pushing away from the wall of pods and looking less green around the gills, he holds his hand out in greeting. Maybe he should be giving his other name, but for now he wants to make this as straightforward as possible. Something about Richard's presence is reassuring, easy. Familiar. ]

Where are you from, if you don't mind my asking?

[ophidia]

[Where are you from had always been a funny question to Richard. Where he was born, where he was raised, where he lived (and now, where he'd died) were all different places. Even supplying just one rarely provided the information people were looking for: a way of rooting him down, gaining a basic understanding of his background. His context. What sports teams he cared about. What his politics or views on religion were. Whether he said "pop" or "soda".

But, once again, the circumstances have changed.]

As long as you don't mind that the only part which means anything now is "Earth". [Taking "Jack"'s hand to shakes. Assuming he'll know Earth. Assuming, also, that Richard doesn't need to say which country. Only:] Texas, mostly.

[As honest an answer as he's even been able to give. He's inclined to honesty, in this moment. It seems pointless to try anything else.]

You know, we're in each other's heads now. I can tell when you're lying.

[Conversational. He doesn't need to make it a direct accusation, isn't annoyed by it so much as wanting to let "Jack" know it's a waste of time. Even the faint feeling of him being muffled hadn't seemed to lessen the sense of connection all that much.]

[justttkidding]

[ Normally asking someone where they're from doesn't provide so much pause. People are generally chatty and liked to talk about their lives, their hometowns, what their home life was like.

Except in the instances where being tracked would make all those things difficult to divulge. He knows for a fact that the background agencies of the world have so much information at their fingertips. It can be so easy to pinpoint one person, if necessary.

Which is the sense he gets from Richard, and he's sure he's giving off the same vibe. Chagrined, he gives a mental sort of apology. ]

It's a wonder Americans can live there. [ Even after Heaven's Gate, America itself was mostly the same. Texas was dry, dusty, hot. Big storms and so many things that wanted to kill you. ]

I also go by November 11. [ And now he hesitates. Well. No use in hiding, right? ] Gave up my name when I went to work for the service and the Queen. Nothing personal, you understand.

[ophidia]

[A moment for comprehension to come together, skipping past the weird (maybe not so weird) comments on Texas, even the unarticulated apology. A code name. English, working in service to the Queen.]

You're fucking kidding me. [Standing on a real space station, an alien in his head, and now Richard grins, absolutely delighted.] A real fucking spy.

[justttkidding]

[ There's a beat of silence, even in their heads. He can practically feel the wheels turning and he's not entirely sure what to make of it.

Of course, the grin that blooms across Richard's face is nothing short of delightful. November feels his own mouth tug into a smile. Which he punctuates with a smooth and perfectly executed bow. ]

MI6's top agent. Not that it seems to matter here, hm?

[ophidia]

[The bow and the top agent are like the cherry on top. Richard's enthusiasm doesn't darken, though it eases back slightly. He reaches out to pat November on the shoulder, twice.]

Can't expect James Bond to win against space Godzilla, right? [Condolences, in a twisted way, for what it must be like. Dedicated your life to something like that, Queen and country, and now to have to say not that it seems to matter.] That's a genre clusterfuck.

[It wasn't like he and Seth had done any better, and they were used to going up against monsters and demons.]

[justttkidding]

Maybe not. Kaiju are not my specialty.

[ Genre clusterfuck is right. But unlike Sean Connery or any other iteration of James Bond, he's got an added advantage. One does not live in the era of Heaven or Hell's respective gates without seeing some truly weird shite.

Including himself, really. ]

I do, however, have experience with the X-Men. That must count for something.

[ophidia]

[Raised eyebrows, incredulous, but there's an air of good humour that hasn't dissipated. This is comfortable. Quicker than it ought to be. Quicker than it ever has been, for Richard.]

Now you're just screwing with me. [Except he'd be able to tell if he was.] Mutants?

[justttkidding]

[ They’re hitting it off, easy and uncomplicated. November is used to having to work to get people to relax, to having to spend more time. This is quick, like their symbiotes have dug the claws into the empathic parts of their minds. Linked up like twins. ]

Scout’s honour. I was in the process of chasing down someone who could cause explosions from whatever he left handprints on. Concentrated and precise. Very showy. [ And because he doesn’t have a reason to withhold: ]

More interesting than being able to freeze liquids on contact. But we all have our ups and downs.

[ophidia]

Iceman the spy.

[He's impressed, though notably not shocked or sceptical. He's seen more than enough weird shit since being introduced to the existence of culebra to easily accept explosion and freezing powers.]

Has to make you popular at parties, right?

[The man who could provide his own ice.]

[justttkidding]

The very one.

[ And Richie's comment does make him laugh. A soft, almost polite one. Even if he is amused by the idea that he's some kind of xmen. He's familiar enough with the comics, at any rate. ]

Depends on who's at the party. Some people have been the ice, much to their misfortune.

[ But you know, details. ]

There is a downside. With great power and such; I've a compulsion after using any of my power.

[ophidia]

[There's some reassurance in the casual talk of using this ice power on people. Richard could have assumed from the whole spy thing alone that November wasn't likely to baulk at any necessities of violence, but it was always nice to have confirmation.

Compulsion catches his attention in a different way. Cautious, but almost expectant. A suddenly pointed curiosity bordering on hope.]

Have to balance it out. [It'd make sense even without his own closer understanding.] But you're not about to tell me it's eating a whole tub of Ben and Jerry's, are you?

[justttkidding]

[ Just as Richie is reassured, November is as well. Perhaps it's the connection that's allowing the leak over, but he chalks it up to the same logic– neither of them are shy about violence. It's something he files away, knows it will come in handy down the line. ]

Ah, if only. Would that really be punishment? It seems like one would be hard pressed to say so, unless they're lactose intolerant. [ Which. Ok. Yikes. ] I have to smoke cigarettes. A truly revolting thing.

[ophidia]

[Punishment, he calls it, and then talks about having to smoke cigarettes. In the moment Richard's reaction splits: a slow, wincing kind of feeling that plays out sharper than the darker thing that twists behind it.]

Looks like you're stuck with revolting. [Sliding a hand to his jacket inner pocket, flashing a corner of the silver cigarette case that lives there before tucking it back in. He's a casual smoker, he doesn't need one right now.] At least you'll know where you can bum one, if it turns out you have to ice anything here.

[Apologetic, almost, but clearly not enough to take revolting as an insult or even a reason to quit.

It helps that in that moment, the idea of having to smoke cigarettes had ranked pretty damn poorly against needing to drink human blood to live.]

[justttkidding]

[ If November believes in anything, it's karma. Because while there's never been any tangible, touchable evidence of it working behind the scenes, things have looped back around too coincidentally for it to be anything else. Over the years he's seen things play out that could only be described as a karmic reaction to something done previously. Whether it was months or years in the making or occurring almost immediately after.

This, he thinks, is definitely karma.

Of course he'd share headspace with a bonafide smoker. He resists the urge to sigh and instead gives Richie more of a blank look. ]

I brought my own, thanks. [ A specific brand that had the word DEATH emblazoned on it in capital letters. ] Frankly, I was let off easy in the grand scheme of things— not having to break my own fingers or drink children's blood. I don't fancy the insidious creep towards cancer though.

[ophidia]

[November doesn't look - or feel - particularly pleased. The sensation comes almost like a fracture in how they had been, so far, further exacerbated by the mention of children's blood. Richard's face pinches in disgust, immediately. That was specific, and abhorrent, and a touch too close to the bone.

The break in the easy talk stings, and in the wake the need to withdraw rises. Richard's used to this feeling, of having displayed some unwanted element. He lets distance spill and grow between them, and it feels normal.]

You know what they say. We're all gonna die of something. [Richard's list was just shorter than most, and cancer didn't have a slot on it. He wasn't inclined to give up the enjoyment of smoking for November's distaste, just like he'd never shaped his true, real behaviour into anything other than himself to please anyone else.] But I'll keep my second-hand away from your lungs, iceman.

[He's moving, then. Turning to walk away. A little abrupt, no real closing remarks. That's normal enough for him, too.]