[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

[redheadcarrier]

There's "silence" from Asuka for a few beats. It stretches out. A buzz-hum of white noise and jagged emotion from her that seems to be destined to fall into something awkward and hideous. Then she finally moves again, stretching, head canted away so as not to look at him.

( I can try to show you. If you want. )

[raw]

Elliot isn't sure what's going on beneath the surface there, what the motivation is, but he doesn't tend to say what he thinks people want to hear so does it really matter?

( Okay. I'd appreciate that. )

A lot, actually, since his privacy is important to him.

[redheadcarrier]

( Fine. )

She glances up at him, gaze piercing. Maybe he can see that one bright, blue eye through the veil and layers of gauze. She's assessing him and despite her pain and heartache, there's a sharp focus to her that carries over as she stretches out. It's almost second nature now.

Weird.

( It's hard to explain. You sort of... have to build them. And learn how to filter it out. Like - I don't know. A sieve and water, right? You let through the stuff you want and block everything else. )

[raw]

( Okay. )

He needs something to practice with that isn't too vulnerable, decides on feelings of confusion since it's not like those are in short supply for him right now. Everything is confusing and insane if he stops to think too hard about it.

The next step is working out how to filter, sieve. But it's like trying to flex an atrophied muscle, or a toddler learning to walk; the instinct is there, even if it's not really his own, but in practice it's clumsy.

He shoves at her and she gets Who am I and What is real and How is this possible and he can feel that none of it was held back like he wanted, and so she also gets the sensation of frustrated swearing.

"Shit," he says aloud.

[redheadcarrier]

Asuka waits patiently, although one of her hands has settled against the table she's sitting at, fingers drumming against it with the faint sense of impatience. She's trying to help, sure, but that doesn't mean she's all that happy about it. But she's not that happy about most things these days, so she'll settle for mild distaste. She feels the confusion wash over her, a barrage of questions that aren't really questions, more a sense of why how who what. Her own shields go up and she turns them aside with sharp points.

( Look, you're not doing it right, it's - ugh. )

[ She leans forward slightly, frowning with a sense of intensity. ]

( Let me show you. It'll be easier. )

[raw]

( Okay. )

There's a sense of giving way: that Elliot is the type of guy to passively let something happen if it was easier. In this case, it's letting a cranky teenage girl boss him around.

[redheadcarrier]

Asuka is, unfortunately, not particularly gentle, but at least she's being direct about it. She filters into his head with a faint sense of disgust. Even being helpful, it still feels vaguely wrong and invasive. She's used to it by now but it's still not easy or second-nature just yet. Instead, she tries to focus her own memories and ability into him. The step-by-step process mixed with flickers of memory and high-strung emotion. There's a history to her presence here and he might get bits and pieces from it as she tries to help him build.

A stinging, bruising slap across the face.

Something cold and exhilirating, the scent of blood.

Bone-deep exhaustion.

Sharp, jagged anger.

Then it fades as she pulls away. That had to work. Right?

( You get it now, right? )

cw: physical & verbal child abuse

[raw]

Elliot is the kind of low self-esteem person who feels that disgust kind of personally — combined with everything else it's evocative of—

A golden-skinned, impatient woman stands over him/her/us. It's a strange upwards perspective, gaze travelling up her nylons, her dark pencil skirt and neat white blouse, the hand on the hip and the other with a cigarette perched in her fingers, dissatisfied mouth a moue of dark lipstick. Elliot/I/you/we are on the floor.

She reaches down and grabs one skinny wrist, hand so much bigger than his/mine/ours, yanks upwards heedless of the new flash of pain in the shoulder, counterpoint to the just-slapped bright and bruising ache across his cheek. He/she/we have gone limp, though, stubbornly passive.

"Get up, you worthless piece of trash," the woman sneers. "Stop crying. We don't have time—"

He slots the last mental brick into his mental wall, and it's an empty space between them, withdrawing not just that memory but all of him back to safety. He leaks, because even with her help he's bad at this, but she can't sense the relief and gratitude he feels at being given some semblance of a shield. If there was more to the memory, it's tucked back into its lockboxes now.

( Yeah. )

( Thanks. )

( I've gotta... )

End this conversation immediately, he doesn't actually say, giving a vague gesture.

cw: suicide

[redheadcarrier]

It hits her like a freight train. The image and the memories slam into her and she doesn't really have the time to throw up a barrier. It's like she's living it and it hurts. it stings. It reminds her too much of events in her life, although her situation was never active pain or abuse (except for that one bright, painful moment). No; hers was a quiet neglect and disdainful silence that let her drift on her own, without support, struggling to find a way to live and to be when she was so young that she couldn't reasonably do it on her own. This? This is different and terrifying in its own way.

When he finally walls it off, she gasps aloud and sways. There's a faint tremor through her and she almost wants to cry. What the Hell? Who would do that? In that moment before it's all locked away, there's a single image that gets seared into his head - a flash of memory, there for instant and then gone.

The sound of surf in her (their) ears, a blackened sky overhead. Someone (a boy, dark-haired, brown-eyed) is crouched over her (them), straddling them, hands around her throat and squeezing, choking the life out of her. They don't move, even as their lungs start to ache until finally one hand lifts to caress the boy's cheek-

Then it's all gone, shields up, walled off.

( Yeah. Yeah, you should. )

She's just as rattled. If not moreso.

[raw]

There's a moment where he hesitates, wonders if he should say something else, do something. But the crawling shame in his gut is more than he can handle, and her agreement solidified his certainty.

Maybe he'll find some way to thank her properly some time. But right now, he goes.