[hatch log] i had a dream which was not all a dream

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: Station 72; Hyrypia - The Red Coast
WHEN: DAY :025 - DAY :026
SUMMARY: Somewhere deep in the void between multiverses, a fresh clutch of Hosts hatches; getting them down to Hyrypia proves to be more complicated than usual.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

STATION 72
DAY :025

NEW HATCHES
YOU WAKE UP and the universe and you in it are 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. But 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. Some of these emotions might be 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 others very like you here, all of them somehow intimately familiar.

Welcome to Station 72. Beyond this room, the vast Station is quiet and still. It feels for all the world like a shell for some vast dark thing.

Eventually, a sensation manifests out of the hollowness:


PREPARE YOURSELF
THE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD is sound and sensation: a brilliantly warm shaft of sunlight through smoky glass - a gauzy curtain twitching in some summer breeze - the blooming pleasure of a familiar face after a very long time away. 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 small grassy lawn in the center of the lush, circular gardens where an aging woman waits on a stone bench. The pin straight sheet of her hair hangs like a graying curtain and the sensation from her is lovely and golden, real delight pouring through her like light through a pinhole camera. She smiles and sets aside the book in her lap.

"There you are. 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."


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 other than the people you woke up with there's a distinct lack of company 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? Otherwise-- well there's plenty of places to get lost...

By the simulated morning, a strange archaic ship has arrived on the Hangar. Its very alien pilots are in the process of unloading-- bodies. No, scratch that, they're clearly still alive, though in some kind of comatose state. One of the pilots - a pale female alien who calls herself Rhan - says, "Well, this is awkward. We were supposed to be done with this already. Uh don't mind us, darling. We'll finish up here and get on our way. In the meantime, why don't you go through your packs and get changed?"

She nods toward two trunks on the hangar deck where assortment of pre-prepared packs are waiting for each new Host. In each pack is a series of items, including a set of beautiful and very all-encompassing robes. Better get comfortable. Not hot on the fabrics or patterns in your pack? Mixing and matching with your new best friends is totally acceptable.

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

HYRYPIA - THE RED COAST
LATE DAY :026

A PURPOSEFULLY SUBTLE WELCOME
UNDER THE COVER OF DARKNESS, Collector and Lyr make their way through the barracks where the Hosts on Hyrypia are meant to be sleeping. It's nearing whatever the Hyrypian equivalent of midnight is; if you're awake, all the better. If not? Expect to be roused (gently and silently by Collector, rudely and abruptly by Lyr).

"Get dressed. We're going for a walk."

There's nothing quite so suspicious as bringing a bunch of reinforcements to the planet in the aftermath of a rather public murder, which means a highly ritualized midnight procession of Carbasuchians into the highlands. It's easier to secret a handful of newbies in an anonymous group, right?

That meeting in the dead of night in the rocky wilderness above the Red Coast bears even a passing resemblance to the strange occurrence on DAY :010 is probably just a coincidence. Besides, there aren't any mystery circles burned into the stone and grass here: just a stealth ship materializing out of the black night and touching down in a stony outcropping where it disgorges the freshly hatched (or newly reawakened) Hosts.

---

((OOC Notes: This log covers the hatch on Day :025 as well as the arrival of new Hosts on Hyrypia late on Day :026. Feel free to make your own logs and posts additional to this if you care to. You can find additional information pertaining to the Red Coast on the previous mission log (located here); newbies are welcome to utilize that log as well as it occurs within the same time period as the hatch.

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

[somnifacient]

[More fire against Noctis' calm, more sharp edges against his malleability. The skepticism, it doesn't quite fade, but it recedes just enough to give this other young man the benefit of the doubt -- the way he spoke, with such directness and confidence, deserved at least that much.]

Don't think anyone here expects anyone to coddle them. I'm just saying.

[Noctis isn't sure what hasty impressions this newcomer has already gotten, but he seems fairly set in them, one way or another.]

So what's a professional hero? You mean like... [He's reminded of the bright, colorful pages nestled within a comic book. Heroes toppling villains in feats of strength and good versus evil. Explosions and fight scenes that would make any young teenage boy grin ear-to-ear.]

A superhero?

[theycalledmeacurse]

[ Oh that's just what she likes to see. That brief moment of embarrassment followed by a smile. It gives her an impression of him that she likes, that says they'll probably get along swimmingly, and that's exciting in its own way. ]

I've never fished in my life, but I enjoy watching them. Seeing people find joy and purpose in what they do.

[ Her words have a smoothness to the vowels, a length to the sounds that speaks of a worldview suited to enjoying the simple pleasures in life. A southern outlook on life. ]

[somnifacient]

[It's refreshing and comforting, both her manner of speaking and the sensation of calm that it brings. That out there, watching those fisherman work, was just as important and fulfilling as their so-called mission; their bid to save the universe, as poignant as men trying to make a living off of the sea.

It's nice, for a change.]

I used to fish all the time back home. It's relaxing, waiting for something to bite; and then it's exciting when something catches at your hook, and you're wondering just what you might reel in. And you always gotta work for it, too.

[He chuckles a little at the memory.]

[iuno]

[ the way that Nureyev lingers, almost politely, doesn't entirely surprise him; and neither does the way his mind sits flat and serene like a pond, only disturbed by the occasional ripple of a feeling, diminished by the time it crosses the distance to Juno. what makes him flinch, though, is how plainly Nureyev lays out this bedrock of trust for him — for him, of all people. he screwed up with Nureyev and he chose to do it deliberately so that he wouldn't have to wait for it to happen, because it always does.

and it always goes the same way. it has ever since Mom. they realise that he's betrayed them, they never trust him again and there's no going back, no forgiveness. even the people that stick around, they're different because of him, colder and crueller, and they don't look at him the same way anymore. the pattern is so consistent he could probably make a calendar from it. finding Nureyev's trust for him as unbroken and certain as ever — no. no, no, that doesn't fit. that's not how this goes. ]

( You don't have to tell me to keep it simple. I— )

[ whatever else he'd been about to communicate, settling into that familiar bickering that feels so easy it's like letting himself sink into quicksand, is sharply derailed when Nureyev winces, obviously pained even with the robes to obscure him. and Juno's mind doesn't change by halves or creeping degree; the entire thing shifts, redirected full-force into concern and attention and a paler shade of the protective panic he'd unearthed from himself in Miasma's tomb. he hadn't known it in the weeks after without Nureyev around, but he doesn't think he's managed to untangle himself from that mindset yet, something (trauma) he hesitates to name.

he startles into motion, half-reaches before he thinks better of it and just stops there, caught— ] Shit, you alright?

[ his head hurts so much already from the deafening noise of the Nest and the Theia's new grip on his nerves that any further building pain doesn't even register for him. it's all just ache, and right now he's dealing with that from his heart to his bones, everything from heartsick to exhausted. another headache on top of that isn't worth reacting to. ]

[somnifacient]

[The waves churn as they speak, pulled between both Ilde and Noctis' impression of the sea. Two different outlooks, formed and defined by both. The sea could always be both -- calming and terrible all the same.]

I think there's a word for that. Bath...phobia? Bathiphobia? [Bathophobia.] Something like that.

[Noctis isn't one to continue to talk about things that make her nervous, even if it means walking away and speaking to the locals about what their legends might be. At least they could detach themselves from the lapping waves of the sea.]

But we could do that. Or find something else you'd rather do.

[theycalledmeacurse]

[ Rogue has always been a bit of a walking contradiction and she's long since learned to embrace. One day she might long for a grand adventure, and the next want nothing more than to curl up with a book and forget about the world. She can go from peacefully observing the locals at work to itching for a good fight, and she sees absolutely nothing wrong with her way of being. She had once, for a long time, and it's been a winding road to get to her present state of acceptance.

Luckily for her companion, she's not quite up to sparring yet, so her contentment is found in watching daily life in the village around them. Her attention focuses completely on him as he speaks, and she savors the experience he describes. ]

That sounds awfully nice. People where I grew up used to fish all the time, but there weren't many who saw it the way you do.

[huntsmachines]

I can respect that, but the reality is that we're all lumped together whether we like it or not.

[ He's so angry. He reminds her of a cornered machine, brimming with heat and fire and simmering anger. She can feel that emotional heat and the way he's throwing it in front of him, trying to build a separation between himself and well... everyone else. ]

That's not really my concern. We're doing what we can with what we have.

[ She smiles a little behind her veils, amusement rolling off of her. ]

Besides, you don't seem all that subtle.

[erbier]

Four months, I believe.

[ She used to count in days, waiting for the end of her world. The switch to counting in months, weeks, is a relatively new change in perspective for her. ]

Though I am not certain how long I slept, I will need to inquire with Cathaway.

[erbier]

[ The idea that there are specific words for specific fears amuses Ilde. Her entire life has been driven by terror, to break it down into any granularity seems paltry to her. ]

I enjoyed the weaving lessons.

[ A small smile. ]

It reminds me of the Nest.

[erbier]

[ Hmm. He isn't something that belongs to her. She can imagine too many repercussions for trifling with him, but maybe he'll be useful. If she's careful. Subtle. ]

( That's very kind, thank you, Shiro. )

[nastygram]

Because you're a technomage? Wow.

[Flat, sarcastic. But the other glimmering thread present in this connection is the one that is waving at Darlene, teased out like: in another context, she might just be telling the truth. Darlene has done her share of builds, prefers to be active in the virtual, decimating a firewall and not cutting her fingers on motherboards. She still knows the work involved.]

As far as I heard, that's a super special skill-set that we're not getting our hands on. Which checks out, considering the limits on this. [The terminal she's standing over. Darlene encompasses it with a wave of her hand.] You want to step up to the plate and see how far you get?

[nastygram]

Trust me, hon, there is nothing in your garden that is going to ease me. No matter how sweet your shrooms are.

[That being said, she hasn't walked away. The urge to book it is immediately obvious. The tingle of her mistrust is burning hot under her skin. She can't read anything unsavory coming along the line of connection, and she trusts that even less.

She jerks her chin. Move.]

Let me see.

[nastygram]

Damn, tiger.

[Over-inflated ego. Kind of cute. Useful. Exploitable. Darlene flicks through the tabs of categorization and sorts him accordingly. She is getting better at her firewalls, out of sheer determination--so each tab is harder to pick up on.

Deliberately, she shakes her hair out so it falls off her shoulder. Stripped down from her layers and scarves, she's a far less androgynous presence. Easy to take advantage of that.]

You tell me. Do I look like a nice girl?

[nastygram]

Right now? I am finding fuck-all.

[The interface is weird but not impossible to navigate--except where the blocks are. It's a block of inability, the ultimate can't. Darlene isn't calibrated for the work that could be done here. Nectar-less, she can only burrow so far.

But there's a way around everything. And if she has to exploit a little teamwork to get it, that's okay.]

What I want is a map. And then I want to figure out where they store the Nectar. I'm a team player.

[--Despite, presumably, what the severe lockdown of her mental connection suggests.]

[nastygram]

[Darlene answers, first, by exhaling in his direction. ( Good one, Sherlock, ) and here's more to smell. Should go without saying, verbally--but beyond quick cutting remarks, Darlene is still feeling a little wigged out by thinking thoughts into someone else's head--so she elaborates:

Do I look like I give a shit?

[It's not an actual question. There are a few good ("good", with requisite air quotes to denote sarcasm) aspects of the tingling mental hyper-awareness of every freaking person in their little club. One of them is that it's hard to be surprised when you can pick up on people and Darlene, tight with her personal security, is learning to be good at that.

The wanting is what broadcasts clearest. He wants what she has. Darlene knows what to do with that. She flicks ash off the end of her cigarette. A little ember spits with it, lands, sizzles against the rocks.]

Got anything to trade?

[redheadcarrier]

I'll start listening when you say something worth listening to, idiot!

[ This is escalating quickly. Getting out of hand. She should walk away from this and find something more productive to do or a different part of the beach to sit on. Anything that isn't standing here, with tension crackling between them and the urge to spit venom rising in her. She's not usually the type to get physically violent, anyway, but God, does she want to wipe that look off of his face. She wants to rub his face in it, to make him realize he's not special, that his arrival doesn't mean they're going to worship him as their savior.

That Lavellan's death wasn't her fault. That he can't just tear open a fresh wound like that and make her hurt all over again. ]

Japan.

[ Asuka sounds hateful when she spits the word. Not that it's really the point. ]

Let me guess, you were special or something? Well you're not. Not here. We're all a part of this stupid team and we're all stuck working together and we all have this thing in our heads-!

[ She's trying to keep her voice down, but that's a little difficult when your discussion is getting heated. ]

So you're not different! You're going to have to the exact same thing as the rest of us!

friendship is happening

[gunlock]

[he didn't expect to get a stone back on his hand, but prompto accepts this attempt to bridge an unknown gap of friendship with enthusiasm. he isn't one to say no, and this kind of reminds him of firsts walking out of insomnia into the wild unknown, not being good at much of anything for survival but learning over time with the guidance of others.]

Hm? Well, okay, but you'll be sorely disappointed.

[prompto flicks the stone up on his hand a few times before turning to stand on his side, aiming for nothing, and tossing the stone off into the water!]

[--it skips once, but anti-climatically drops with a glup sound into short, ocean waves]

Haa... See. Told you I suck.

[hands behind his head, he's embarrassed but also pouting can be heard in his words.]

[gunlock]

[prompto knows that feeling--and it's only augmented tenfold with their mental connection--of putting up defenses and getting ready to attack, only to forcefully stop oneself in the middle of it after reconsideration of the circumstances.]

Nah. You're good, buddy.

[he keeps his hands to himself, now, raising them in front to show that he meant no harm.]

Kinda sneaked up on you there.

Y'okay?

III

[ophidia]

[From nearby, a casual interruption:]

They say talking to yourself's the first sign of madness.

[There's a tone in it that communicates easily that he knows what he's saying is bullshit. It's an icebreaker. And a test. This guy has been nothing but sharp edges pointed outwards like a damn porcupine since he glimmered into existence in Richard's awareness, closed off, distant, and definitely all wrapped up in someone else. This is the first chance Richard's had to really scope him out, and there's a sense of it emanating off him: heavy, intense observation.]

3

[ophidia]

[He wasn't following her. Not in the crowd, anyway, taking another pass through the village, memorising the layout. When she breaks away, trailing the sense of irritation and being stifled, then he follows. Down an alley and through an archway into the small garden she's sought for refuge.

And when she tells him to move along, he doesn't shift. Blocking the archway, keeping any erstwhile wanderers from catching a glimpse of her bared face.]

Better me than one of them.

[A tip of his head back over his shoulder, indicating the alien culture they're supposed to be pretending to be a part of.]

[greentech]

[ Pidge mentally flinches and she withdraws. And she flinches a little in 'real space', too. That wasn't really expected. Yikes. Maybe she's getting too used to this being in each other's heads thing. ]

Well, we're trying not to out ourselves as aliens... so you might have to learn fast.

culture time

[wrackful]

[He's been coming down to the beach regularly. There's something soothing about the water, lets him stay put and think for a while without getting caught by the usual restlessness which would have him needing to move on too soon.

It's a surprise to feel her nearby. A surprise that turns him cautious, wary. He'd felt her wake up once before, but it had been so long this time that he'd not considered it likely to happen again. She was gone, just like his broodmates, so many of the others he'd met since first climbing out of his pod.

Maybe he wasn't going to say anything. Maybe he would've just left, waited for their paths to cross some other place. But then her panic's spiking, and he's reaching like a steadying hand before he can think about it.]

( They don't expect any of us to get in. Can't really swim in these things. )

[Not that he could swim out of them, either.]

[iuno]

[ meeting Darlene on the Station was a disaster, but if nothing else it was a warning about what he should expect from the Brood — the terrible gravity of it, enough to drag him out of his own orbit, and it's a feeling he doesn't want from anyone but Peter Nureyev. he flinches hard away from it, as if that's going to change anything.

that sense of being observed makes it worse. Juno knows what he is, a dark-minded, ugly thing, a poison — he doesn't need someone to put him under a magnifying glass and tell him that. he's terrible at hiding, though, at the idea of gathering himself up in a tidy bundle to be hidden away somewhere, so instead he does the opposite of that: lets the worst parts of him spill over in excess in an attempt to make his mind unapproachable. like an animal baring its teeth and hoping that draws attention away from where it's injured. ]

And talking to other people is the second, so it looks like I'm certifiable. [ he turns to look at the guy that interrupted him, hands in his pockets; deliberately casual from his posture to the light, quick way he talks, at odds with the heavy black tar of his thoughts. ] What do you want? Can't a lady have a conversation with his eye in peace?

[calhar]

[ Sympathy aside, he can't help the faint hint of discomfort as he processes what she's saying. Not because it's surprising. He's seen stranger things since showing up here, and he doesn't even have a grasp on his own powers yet; there's no saying judgment wouldn't make him a hypocrite.

It's familiar. The foxes hadn't had to touch skin, but they'd rifled through his memories and emotions fine in spite of it. There's a chagrined memory of people who aren't quite people, their ears pointed, their features fox-like; and of someone dressed in robes, same as the ones they're wearing now, the memory of his life being yanked from him like veins on a fish hook. His strongest emotions are in the past, though, and not here and now. There's no spike of fear or paranoia, no impulse to step away. She might get the sense that he's watching her hands, more aware and maybe more reserved, but that's all. ]

( I'm sure they've got gloves for sale at one of these carts. You know, in case you'd like spares. )

[ A little wary, a little grateful the fact that she's careful with her powers. He wishes, again, that any of this had to do with the One Power. At least then he'd have some defense against it, but he's given up on his luck making a comeback. ]

( You're in good bloody company, anyway. And not just because we're all stuck wearing gloves. )

[theycalledmeacurse]

[ The discomfort is expected, though she's grateful that it doesn't seem pronounced, nor does he appear to be cursing her name. Not that he knows it yet, but still. It says something about his experiences before this place, and perhaps since arriving, that he just sort of takes it in stride, offering helpful comments rather than interrogating questions. But no, those memories drifting along their connection, like dust filtering through sunbeams, offers a glimpse of a life full of encounters with people and creatures unlike himself. Maybe, if she's lucky, more of the others will be like him.

(She may not require their permission, but she does desperately long for their acceptance.) ]

( What do you mean? ) [ Perhaps it's because she's still getting her footing here, but she can't quite piece together what he means. Then she looks down at her gloves and shrugs slightly, enough to be noticed under all the layers.]

( As for spares, I don't have any money. I have another pair that I brought with me, though. ) [ There's a sense of regret and distaste with the words, for she'd much rather watch those grey gloves burn than wear them again. If only she had that option. ]