[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

[justttkidding]

[ There's silence between them. Not uncomfortable, but thoughtful. He can't tell what she's thinking, though he has his guesses, considering the circumstance. Everything turns inward, in times like this. As much as he differs from normal people, he still has a tendency to do the same. Something instinctual in going over the options, over the history, what needs doing, what they can afford to do.

Part of it has been drummed in from years of work, part from being a contractor. The last bit, he knows that's always been in place. The mind needed a foundation to grow from, after all. ]

November 11. [ A soft laugh, understanding. ] Odd, I realize. And to whom do I owe the pleasure?

[skaikru]

( it's a struggle to pull herself from the depths of her own mind, and even once again engaging in passable smalltalk, it's a struggle not to crumple back in on herself; successfully crushed under the weight of the world. a deep steadying breath drawn while he talks helps. and while november 11 doesn't sound like a real name, she'd arrived on the station with the blood of a girl named after a faded destination distance sign in her veins. so really, was there any room to judge? )

Clarke Griffin. ( and while custom dictates they shake hands here, she has no interest unwinding her arms from around her stomach. so they'll have to make do with polite nods, and a distinct lack of nice to meet you's. ) Do people just call you November, or Eleven?

[justttkidding]

[ Clarke doesn't seem intent on shaking hands in greeting, so he doesn't put his out for it. Instead, he acknowledges the nod, returns it with a polite one of his own. He should offer a pleasantry, but he thinks this isn't the time or place.

They're somewhat past that point, at any rate. ]

Either, but usually November. [ Eleven was normally reserved for April or sometimes Decade. ]

And you, Miss Clarke, what did you do before here?

[skaikru]

( that is — a relatively simple question with a not so simple answer. there is no exact, succinct word or phrase to describe the nuclear apocalypse that had taken place nearly a hundred years before her birth, the trials and tribulation of an interim generation surviving in space with no hopes of ever seeing earth outside of aging picture books. there's no short and sweet summary for a crash-landing on earth and fighting for their lives against a world hell-bent on their destruction, and people with a mixed bag of agendas. hers is not a story that can be condensed, and her role in failed victories and successful tragedies didn't make for lighthearted conversation clarke was so adamantly trying to force here.

so she skirts the polite inquiry as best she can. ) My world was a lot like this one. ( different in a handful of important ways, but the gist is much of the same. they'd burnt their dead, this isn't her first funeral pyre. it's shrugged off stiffly. ) What about yours? Besides being shot at by the Russian mob.

[justttkidding]

[ More land not to tread. He gets the picture. While he should be frustrated at the lack of headway, he simply shrugs it off. It's something to return to at a later time. Because he will. He's patient and has a long memory.

And in some ways, it's cute. Clarke reminds him a porcupine. ]

It was Earth, so, varied in geography and topography. We did have something unusual happen a number of years ago. [ November's gaze and voice seems to go distant, remembering. ] Scientific anomalies. They called them Heaven's Gate and Hell's Gate. No one was really the same afterwards; our real sky disappeared, replaced by some odd illusory version.

[ He huffs a laugh, coming back to himself. ] That likely sounds bizarre.

[skaikru]

( that does... sound... really weird.

a welcome distraction, perhaps, but weird. under the veil, clarke's brow furrows, her confusion palpable and edging towards curiosity. she hadn't intended to pick the newcomer's brains. in fact the goal of essentially assailing them all with her melancholy and blunt 'advice' (hey, don't die) had been in hopes of avoiding any possible future scenario where it was their body on the pyre, and their hacksawed autopsy weighing heavily on her mind. but november is so forthcoming, and it's difficult to resist trying to line up his recounts of reality with similar instances in her own world. nothing matches, and thus it's near impossible not to pry. )

Like an apocalyptic event? ( that's familiar, but gates. ) Or were they real doors?

[justttkidding]

[ He doesn't mind the prying. Because he's distanced himself from what happened. It's all easy to recount now, to go over the big picture and the little details– he'd been quizzed enough after he returned from South America. Every nation had gone full bore, trying to get their hands on as much information as possible. The United Kingdom hadn't been any different, especially when a handful of their collective agents had become something else. Contractors (monsters, they'd whispered). ]

More of the former. It's hard to say if there's any physical manifestation of a gateway, since getting in is nigh impossible. Only specific research departments have clearance and only the strongest of wills come back out.

[skaikru]

( it's like groping around in a pitch black room, stumbling into a wall and aligning herself with it to better reach the door. finding commonalities among various members of the nest is always something of a pleasant surprise, providing insights — maybe a glimmer of the logic behind why they were all grouped together, and lending to her increasing suspicion that none of them had been saved from the enemy just because the hivemind could. who better to circumvent the end of the multiverse than those who were familiar with world endings?

clarke's looking at him harder now, entire body angled to give november her full attention. despite the obstructed line of sight, everything about her demeanour still manages to be piercing; thoughts honed and chin tilted just enough that if they weren't wearing veils they'd be making solid, heady eye contact.

if she strains and allows the pigment of his thoughts to color a mirrored self portrait, clarke can even formulate a hint of what the man looks like beneath layers of fine cloth. those eyes she's staring at so intently, she'd bet they were blue. )

But they didn't kill everyone? ( that's a little at odds with her idea of how apocalypses usually went. sure, there could be survivors, but enough that the world hadn't abandoned their civilized outlook and still had mafias or old world languages like russian? that's different. )

[justttkidding]

Not everyone. Three quarters of South America is a deadzone, along with anyone who lived there at the time. Only a portion of Tokyo is the same– not nearly as many casualties.

[ There are enough photos of the aftermath, from drones and machines. November remembers seeing them, freshly contracted, and shrugging it off like it was logical. Of course people would die, isn't that what the result of all war was? Death?

Never mind that this hadn't exactly come from war. It'd been something different. If he believed in any higher power, he'd think it were a punishment from God. Many people did, judging from the amount of cults that formed and still existed. ]

They're worried it might happen again, on a larger scale. Truthfully, I'm more concerned they're going to try and off people like myself.

[skaikru]

( their ideas of the nuclear apocalypse don't match up, the timing and events aren't right, and yet it teeters on the tip of clarke's tongue to tell him the world ends on a very large scale sometime in the future. or had, at sometime in her past, long before she was born. and it hadn't been any highly revered god, just a highly advanced ai hellbent on saving the world, even if that meant destroying it in her quest to solve overpopulation. it'd be convenient to credit the symbiote for her sudden and strong desire to force their respective worlds together in a fashion that made sense, to connect — but it isn't entirely the bundle of white nerves eating into their brains as they spoke that's to blame.

but that unconscious want is brought to an abrupt and screeching halt at that last sentence. because clarke's over-cautious, and words like — )

People like you?

( — always held more meaning than they let on. )

[justttkidding]

[ In part, he was trying to see if she would catch that last part. If she hadn't, he was prepared to glaze over it. And now, he's still tempted to lie. To say something about him being English or make it into a big joke.

At the same time, there's a practicality in being honest. It's not like he can hide for very long, not if he's here for an extended period of time. His powers would come out sooner or later, whether it was because of a mission or because of something else entirely.

November opts for the truth. ]

Contractors– I, or rather we've got powers of varying sorts. Flight, control over fire, over the weather. It makes people without rather nervous.

[ Well, not just because of the powers but because of a very important detail: ]

Part of that comes from our general lack of emotion, I suppose.

[skaikru]

( truth or not, clarke is... rather skeptical of the proffered explanation. the teeth sucking, gaze narrowing as if to pierce through any potential layers of bullshit with the sheer force of will sort of skeptical, at least before realizing that it was pointless. they'd all supposedly been endowed with a ranging selection of superhuman powers upon their arrival here, and although clarke has yet to discover her own, it suddenly isn't quite so much of a leap to imagine worlds in the far off distance where such people existed before their untimely inclusion in the nest.

the weight of disbelief lessens slightly, through a haze of wary caution remains. mild clarification might be necessary before she runs off accusing yet another virtual stranger of being a sociopath. )

As in you don't show any, or don't feel anything?

( in a way, maybe that would be preferable. the comforting shock blanket of ambivalence instead of the suffocating quilt of loss and pain that currently stretched across the camp; centered on this poor excuse for a party and poorer excuse for a burial rite. )

[justttkidding]

A little of both. Mostly the latter.

[ He doesn't need to see her face to feel the suspicion. Or the disbelief. If he hadn't lived it, he'd be in the same shoes, a little unsure as to whether this person was telling the truth. Before the gates, he never would've imagined it could be possible. That the whole sky as they knew it would disappear. People getting mysterious powers, leaving their families and previous lives behind at the drop of a hat. And that instead of a sense of wonder at the sight of a falling star, it would be a gnawing feeling of dread. Another contractor down, another life snuffed out for everyone to see. ]

It's part of the price. Assume supernatural powers, lose all of your regret, guilt, joy. [ November spreads his hands, as if to illustrate the point. ] The only lucky thing is that people are still intent on carving out their ambition, which generally keeps weapons like us in careers.

[skaikru]

( that sounds like a severe misuse of the word lucky, but she bites her tongue. chews at the inside of her cheek in contemplation, tilts her head ever so slightly. )

So you don't feel — ( us, our emotions; the blanket of grief and anger, the suffocating aura of fear and loss. any and all of the heady emotions that crowded their gathering space, that admittedly rolled off clarke herself as she continued making no attempt to conceal her dispassion of the events of this world, or the latent ache of loneliness in the wake of alienating all her friends in one fell swoop just the night before.

it's a lot to communicate in words, a big question to ask. she absently gestures around at the mass of host bodies for emphasis instead. )

— any of this?

[justttkidding]

[ Maybe it is misuse of lucky, but that's the only thing that comes close to describing the situation with the contractors. They're not exactly fortunate. That's too nice of a term, really. ]

Mm. [ The sound is inconsequential. More of thinking it over than any kind of affirmation. How does he describe this? ]

Imagine you're watching a film. Or perhaps a stage play. Everyone on the stage is experiencing emotion, acting it out. But you're simply part of the audience. It isn't your emotion. Something more muted instead, as though there's a disconnect.

[ November shrugs. ]

Simply put, I feel things in a muffled sense. It isn't enough to affect me or my actions.

[skaikru]

( another double barbed manifestation of luck, perhaps. clarke isn't certain whether to feel envious of the added layer of dissociation from the overwhelming swell of emotions of the nest that threatened to burst at the seams or pity — because what was life without feeling? she can't quite imagine existing without the various vivid passions that colored her every move, swept her up high enough to laugh or dragged down to new depths of despair on the daily. )

That sounds —

( lonely. sad. )

...I guess that might make it easier for you. To adjust here. ( it's only been three weeks, clarke can still vividly recall waking up and feeling ripped open and vulnerable, struggling to distance herself from the sharp tug in her rib cage that threatened to pull her into the thoughts of others and leave her there, wrapped up in the wants and desires of others. all her fear and confusion amplified, mirrored in everyone around her. it's easier now, with methods taught to block out others. but that buffer — she imagines it would have been nice.

under her breath and rueful: ) You might not feel like you're losing your mind completely.

[justttkidding]

[ Of course he knows how this has to sound. Contractors, devoid of emotion, watching their lives pass them by without remorse, without really actively living in it. If they weren't monsters, maybe they'd garner more sympathy. Or perhaps pity.

He isn't sure if that would be better or worse than how they're regarded now. ]

Maybe, maybe not.

[ Only time would really tell, wouldn't it? His emotions will be muffled, but that won't be the case for everyone here. He's already felt some of it; the sharpness of Richie's sarcasm, his annoyance. The blanket of grief that hangs over the nest right now. It isn't his but it still feels close enough to be. ]

Perhaps just losing my mind partially, then?