[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

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Sam is... definitely not objecting to watching Bucky hurriedly strip off the disguise, dropping the fabric where ever it falls. Or to the way Bucky drags them both down onto the bedrolls, and Sam all but plasters himself against Bucky, arms wrapped around him and hand settling at the small of his back.

Shitty doesn't seem strong enough for how bad the last few days have been, and it's not like being here like this with Bucky is going to make anything better - except it is, at least for right now. He wants - he wants so many things, honestly, but he pulls back from all of them, lets himself focus on right Bucky. With how many of the things he wants are centered around Bucky anyway, it's pretty damn easy to let himself get lost in them.

Bucky needs him. Bucky needing anything is a hell of a huge step, but the fact that it's him - it's a little overwhelming, but Sam's selfish, too, and he wants. He wants to give Bucky what he needs, wants to try to make him feel safe, just for a little while, he wants Bucky.

His hand strokes up Bucky's back and down again, half for comfort and half because he needs the skin to skin contact. ]

( I'm here, I've got you. )

[bracchium]

[Bucky curls around Sam in an instant, arm wrapped about Sam and pulling him close. He doesn't want to think any more about the conversations he's had tonight, or the worry that Sam might be next. Out here, away from it all, he can fool himself into thinking none of it exists. Out here, all that exists is him and Sam.

If Sam needs skin to skin contact, Bucky won't stop him. In fact, Bucky is pulling off his shirt before he realizes what he's doing. That, too, goes into the pile of fabric before he re-centers himself around Sam here and alive.

Alive. Heart beating. Skull intact.

Alive.

Sam's got him and he's got Sam. That's all he needs.]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ They're both fooling themselves, probably, but Sam doesn't give a damn right now. He's got Bucky, and they're far enough away that most of the Nest is quiet, and he can only feel those he has a stronger connection with enough to be comforted - just in case - and he can let go.

Do what he's always telling people to, maybe make himself not hypocritical, be what Bucky needs and give himself what he wants.

They're alive, they're here, they're together, and - and Bucky's taking off his shirt, and there's no way he could hide the little thrill of attraction that he feels there. He tugs off his own shirt without even thinking about it, letting it fall to the side.

He leans in until he can press his forehead against Bucky's, reassured by the solid weight, and kisses him with just the barest brush of his lips against Bucky's. And he means to keep it brief like that, to stop there, but...

But Bucky's in his arms, warm and alive and with a whole lot of bare skin, and Sam just wants to touch, wants more contact. He presses a kiss to Bucky's jaw, to his good shoulder, his collarbone - over his heart, and he lingers there, feeling it beat under his lips. ]

[bracchium]

[If Sam can fool himself, then Bucky can, for now. In the shadow of the alcove, with the noise of the Nest quieted, he can forget about the mission, about everything. He'd meant the act of removing his shirt to be comforting, but now Sam's mirrored him and Bucky can't help but stare, echoing that spark. He remembers the sensation from the hotel bar on the Waypoint, when their knees pressed together.

When Sam leans in closer, Bucky rises up to meet him and their lips clash briefly. He's not ready for Sam to move lower or to see the mass of scars that cover his chest. Most are bright white, but the more sensitive ones radiate from his bad shoulder like jagged, purple sunrays. However, Sam doesn't touch those and Bucky breathes an uneven sigh of relief.

He's never quite sure what he expects with Sam, but he's not ready for his scars to be touched. Not now.]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Sam's own torso is a hell of a lot smoother, save for a faint scar here and there from an errant knife or bullet, and the knot of burn scarring on his lower back from earlier versions of his wings. He's too caught up in instinct, in pressing in closer to Bucky, to really register Bucky staring at him, though he sure as hell feels the way that spark echoes.

There's a murmur in the back of his head that he's not thinking clearly enough to say out loud, an echo of you're fucking beautiful because it's Bucky, and Sam'd known he was doomed to find just about everything about the guy really damn attractive from the day Bucky made eye contact and smirked at him and Sam felt his breath catch.

Then his mind catches up with him, and Sam tilts his head back enough to smile at Bucky, slow and playful. ]

( Yeah, I know. Hard to handle all this looking good at once. )

[ He can feel where Bucky's not ready for him to go yet, and no matter how much he might want to explore all of Bucky, he holds back. Instead his hand strokes up Bucky's good side, palm warm and fingers spreading gently to rest over his ribcage. There's a curl of warmth to his side of the link, an invitation for Bucky to touch as much as he wants - hell, to do whatever he wants, even if that's 'pull back and take some time to get adjusted.'

Sam may like flustering Bucky, but he doesn't want to overwhelm him in a bad way. ]

( Take as long as you need, Bucky, we got no where else we need to be right now. )

[bracchium]

[Bucky doesn't know what to say in response, to either Sam's playfulness or patience. He leans back to allow Sam to stroke up his good side, away from the jagged teeth that mar his other side. Even with that spark, even with Sam's gentle touch, Bucky's unsure of what he really wants, other than to hold Sam in close and make sure no one touches him. So, he quietly curls his arm around Sam and tries to tug him in close. Just be here. Just be here with me.

Nothing else needs to happen and Bucky's not comfortable with anything else either.

And with that comes the usual spike of guilt. He can't be what Sam wants all the time, can't seem to figure out the best timing for anything.]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ He follows when Bucky tugs him closer, lets one arm wrap around Bucky and the other rest between them, hand on Bucky's chest as he breathes.

Just be here, Sam can do that. He strokes a hand soothingly over Bucky's back, no intent, just - he's not sure if he's giving reassurance or seeking it, maybe both.

He's always figured that Bucky's not ready for anything else, that he doesn't want anything else - that he may never want anything else. Having it confirmed - it doesn't matter, and Sam'd feel guilty at making Bucky feel uncomfortable, but there's already one of them spiking guilt.

Instead he breathes, slow and even, in to the count of seven and out to the count of eleven. ]

( I don't care. All of that, any of that, it'd just be bonus, Bucky, I don't need - ) [ Sam pauses to collect his thoughts, to try to make his mind make some kind of sense here. ] ( It doesn't matter. You matter. )

[bracchium]

[The remains of Bucky's earlier headache begin to sneak up as Sam strokes a hand down his back. He was exhausted and stressed beyond measure even before Lavellan's death and now everything surrounding his passing has made it worse. All he wants is to lay out here away from all the deception and disguises and lying, with Sam, his broodmate and dearest friend and comrade. There's something more, a love that roots deep inside him, but that won't necessarily make him want something physical. He's not sure he even can do something physical if he so wanted.

Sam says it's all bonus, but that's not how it feels.

Tonight, he only wants to exist, nothing more.]

( Sam. ) [He tucks his head against Sam's, unable to find any more words.]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ There's a tiny pulse of warmth as Sam's symbiote ability activates - not enough to take the headache from Bucky and transfer it to Sam himself, just enough to sooth the pain a little. He's gotten better at this and it comes a hell of a lot easier when it's Bucky.

This is a conversation for later. For when they're both a little more stable, for when they're not exhausted and disgusted and just done.

For when Sam's not still a little drunk, and can do a better job at making how he feels make sense in words.

Right now, all he's got is how he feels, and he lets that wash over their brood bond - that all he wants is this, to just be here with Bucky until they both manage to fall asleep. ]

( I'm here. No where else I want to be. ) [ He rests his head against Bucky's, pulling his hand away just long enough to grab the blankets and pull it over them both. ]

[bracchium]

[As the edge of his headache curbs and subsides, he nudges Sam. He doesn't want anything transferring that he can handle himself; for good or for bad, he's been designed to take a lot of damage. However, he's not very proficient with feelings and Sam has too many of those right now for Bucky to provide a voice to all of them. His hand rests in the small of Sam's back, fingers spread to get as much skin-to-skin contact as possible. Here.

This is all he needs right now. Not relief from the headache or to be told everything's okay, because it's not okay. He only needs Sam here and now.]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Sam lets out a huff, reaching up to tug lightly on one of Bucky's braids when he nudges him. ]

( Didn't transfer anything, sunshine, just took a little bit of the edge off. I'm getting good at the small stuff. And you know if you're in pain and there's something I can do to help that don't hurt me, I'm always gonna take it. ) [ He opens up his mind a little so Bucky can feel it that he's being honest - if there ever was a twinge of pain transfer at Sam using his ability, he hadn't noticed, and it's long gone.

And he keeps it open, widening their connection until he can sink a little more into their brood bond - wings tucking themselves around Bucky, a quiet invitation to come in, to focus more on the shared space that's just there's.

Sam's never been one to tell Bucky that it's okay when it isn't - and it's not okay. None of this is okay, and he honestly doesn't know when it's gonna be okay again. But it's - they're here.

They're here, and they're together, and the rest of the Nest is a dim echo, and Sam just wants to shut it out even more, to curl up here with Bucky under the blankets and let himself disappear into their brood bond. ]

( It's you and me. There's no place better than that. )

[bracchium]

[Bucky grumbles all the same, despite Sam's response. He doesn't like the idea of Sam hurting in his place or Sam hurting because of him. Beyond the broodmate connection, his deep relationship with Sam won't allow him to stand by while Sam hurts in his place. He wonders if Sam feels the same way, but as soon as he settles more into their connection, the more he realizes how dumb his question was.

That exhaustion still hangs heavy on his bones, weighing him down where he lays on his bedroll.

So, for now he'll take Sam at his word, that this is where he wants to be. Carefully, he shuts his eyes, opening his ears for the sounds of the world around them; he'll hear if anything approaches.]