station72 | [hatch log] i had a dream which was not all a dream

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

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 )

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[ Until he speaks, her fellow host is only on the periphery of Rogue's attention, a recognition of his presence and nothing more. When the words register after a moment, she can't help but laugh quietly to herself, amused by the advice and a bit charmed for absolutely no reason at all -- perhaps it's just her general good mood buoying everything up to keep her experiences pleasant. ]

I wear gloves all the time, so rings and bracelets really aren't my style anyway.

[ Her voice is on the quiet side, the vowels smoothed over by the soft southern drawl she's never quite lost, and there's an air of humor mixed in with the words. ]

You wouldn't have been able to save anyone.

[ The depth of Asuka's contempt and disdain is staggering, even to her. Lavellan's death is still a raw wound, not yet scabbed over, not yet given time to knit and heal and the sheer arrogance and bravado of some idiotic newcomer to arrive and disdain them, disdain her, is beyond forgiveness. ]

You're some stupid wanna-be - that's all.

[ She wants her words to cut and to wound, but she doesn't know if any of them have found the mark (or will; he seems confident). ]

I don't need you. We don't need you. We were fine before you got here and we'll be fine after you're gone.

[ There's real venom in her words. Heavy and insidious. ]

( You let go. )

[ Definitely not that simple. The situation would be vastly more tolerable if Mat was at least good at putting up a solid, quiet wall, but they're stuck without even that.

He's not unsympathetic to the gritted teeth and low-key threats. He'd been in the same boat when he'd first arrived; still was, on rough days. There's some level of patronizing satisfaction to be had in recognizing the progress he's made versus the progress Bakugo's yet to make, and it's that sense of muted superiority that helps him stay calm more than any real self-control. ]

( How many of you are there? )

[ Mat could probably guess. He probably knows, deep down, exactly how many new threads have been added to the weave whether he's met them or not. But he's old-fashioned, and he'll take conversation (even the bristly kind) over leaning into the nest's unsettling bonds. ]

[ She too had slept in the gardens, when she had first arrived... She had all but refused to have anything to do with their living quarters, in favor of burying herself in the foliage of the circle gardens. She has her own place now, isn't found in the communal spaces so often, but she's been known to show her face. To come check on the plants, she certainly can't just abandon them, although she is forced to every time they leave for a mission. She's learned to trust the Station to provide for them.

Ilde knows all about nightmares too. There are so many of them floating throughout the Nest, the many horrible incidences of their lives, to say nothing about the gruesome things the Enemy had sent to try and destroy them before they could take on their new mantles... ]

Would you like some water?

[ A soft voice as she awakens, from a polite distance away. ]

[ There's a twinge of remembrance when she speaks, the lilt of her accent calling something else to mind — nothing good. Women on leashes, heads bowed. She sounds like the Seanchan.

Mat's response is slowed for it, and he watches her for a moment as if there's anything to see that isn't just piles of robes. He's tempted to look in other ways, to let his curiosity go digging; he doesn't. He's rude, but he's not that rude. ]

What, even before all this?

[ "This" meaning said robes, which he encompasses with a vague wave of his own gloved hand. He's clearly not a fan of having to stay bundled up. ] I'm burning these gloves the first chance I get.

[ It's good that he doesn't try to go digging, she really isn't a fan of rudeness of any kind and it would have ruined the good impression he's making. Of course, he wouldn't have found all that much if he'd tried to look — she might be a young host, but she has experience shielding her mind from telepaths. There's a great southern plantation house holding all her secrets and the hundreds of psyches trapped in her mind, it's just in need of a bit of repair at the moment. ]

I don't blame you for that one bit, sugar. I've just never had all that much choice in the matter. [ Not for the last seventeen years. ]

I'm not here to save you. If you can't do that for yourself, what's the point of you?

[ Self-determinism, self-motivation, one's own fragile connection to their life and their security and their will to keep on going - some people just don't have that, and he's suspecting that there are certain members of this nest that just don't value themselves enough to do better, become stronger, fight smarter. Live on, so they don't leave the weaker ones behind. It's a terrible way to think, but it's all he knows.

And it's -- difficult to reach him, because his entire being swells as he talks about winning, as though there's a deep, burning pride within him that hinges on victories, on attaining them and claiming them. One after another, because that is what he does. That is what he is consumed by. Victories. Wins. The power in being an unbreakable icon. ]

That's fine by me, I don't need you either, [ her venom is matched by his fire, however bold he is, his temper is rising. Rapidly, uncontrollably. ] The only way you're going to get rid of me is if you do it yourself. You think you can make me? Are you gonna' give it a shot?

It's called a disguise for a reason, you know.

[ His tone says I don't care, and his own hood's drawn back when he takes a seat in the sand beside her. There's a comfortable amount of space between them, but he's close enough to make conversation easy in spite of the wind.

It's difficult to tell if the taste of smoke in his mouth is second-hand or if it's just hers, bleeding across the link. Either way, he's jealous. There's a short pause as he watches the kindling of bright orange near her fingertips, idly taking in the small details: thin roll, white paper. It looks like the one Kaji had shared, which is why the question that follows isn't a complete non sequitur. ]

Are you from Japan?

[ The sugar is clearly nothing personal — just a turn of phrase, habit. That doesn't change the fact that he's had enough of pet names to last him a thousand lifetimes. The brief bristling of annoyance is at his own expense for caring, not aimed at her. It's also quickly muted. ]

Why's that? Don't tell me you'll die if the sun touches your skin.

[ He's joking. He hopes he's joking, anyway. Vampires have yet to be a practical threat in his lifetime, but he doesn't want to stack the odds. ]

[ No, it's not at all personal, but it becomes that when she notices the spark of emotion from him. There's something there, some reason for him to react poorly to her words, and she makes a note to try to not use it with him. It won't be easy, but she will try.

Her mood noticeably sobers a little at his joke; she knows it's that, a joke, but she can't help it. ]

No, but others might if they touch my skin.

Then the vegetable delivery.

[Darlene makes a show of flipping open her pack so she can check the inside of the flap, like there's something super engaging about that. Maybe it's stupid to carry on with the whole spy-versus-spy thing, keeping up a conversation about shady shit while doing something mundane. Maybe it's especially stupid when basically everyone around you can wiretap your freaking brain.

Still.]

Honestly? It is almost weirder that they weren't dead.

[ Mat gets the sense that he's made some kind of misstep when that unbridled enthusiasm's dampened, though it takes him a moment to realize why — not what he's said, exactly. Just the baggage it's dug up.

There's a beat of indecision, a tangible struggle between curiosity and leaving well enough alone. Men teach cats curiosity, but cats keep sense for themselves. Curiosity wins out. ]

You make it sound as if you've got some kind of curse.

[ His tone's sober without being particularly heavy, cautiously toeing the boundaries. He thinks there are some Aes Sedai men would die from touching, but the turn of her mood makes it clear it's not her choice. ]

I seriously doubt it.

[A garden. The Garden State. Darlene's mother didn't have a garden. Other moms did. Tomato plants in cages. Soft leaves poking through a chain link fence. Damp earth. Flowers. Smoke.

Beyond this chick, Darlene can see green. It's in the hallway now, too, somehow, like some kind of aura thing. She realizes she hasn't seen green in hours, at least. Probably longer. How long was she in the friggin' pod? When was the last time she was in a park?]

Where did you come from?

[She doesn't remember passing a door. Maybe she did. That feels like a specific kind of crazy she isn't sure that she wants to confront right now, even in the hypothetical.]

I used to think it was. I sometimes still do.

[ It takes a decent amount of effort, but Rogue shrugs off the darkness that's begun to settle around her. There's no need for it now — she's not a prisoner anymore, nor is she being hunted by soldiers and Sentinels. She has a purpose again, the open sky is a truly beautiful thing to behold, and he doesn't mean any harm with his curiosity.

A moment passes, two, as she recalls how to reach out through the connection they all share. It's caution that leads her to sharing the information this way, born of years of hiding and a fear now of what might happen if anyone learned their group isn't who they've said they are. ]

( It's a mutation, a difference in my genetics. It was common in my world. People were born with it and the difference became apparent as we got older. )

What?

[When Darlene laughs at him, it's neither kind nor particularly unkind. More bemused like, what the fuck.]

No, weirdo.

[If she digs in, she can feel some slight tingling of familiarity, enough to suggest that he's trying to make some connection. She doesn't give enough of a shit to dig deeper, half because she's wary of exposing herself in return.]

Are you trying to make a joke or is this some pickup line, because I gotta say: I do not give points for quote, unquote, "originality".

[ Mat's experience with the symbiote is about as limited as it gets. Things get shared simply because they're there, and things get said in about the same way they're said out loud — with deliberation, and thought. The idea of smoothing someone else's edges with his own self-control is still foreign, but the idea of offering sympathy in his expression and voice isn't. Not that she can see him. The intent translates anyway, practiced or not, and their connection's kept calm like a hand offered for balance.

Mutation and genetics sounds like so much nonsense, but he gets enough from context. Caution colors his thoughts as he follows her lead and switches over to the mental link, parallels to his world going hand-in-hand with his own baggage. ]

( Sounds like the Aes Sedai. If they'd have enough sense to be wary instead of arrogant, that is. What sort of power's kept at bay with a pair of gloves? )

[ Ah, another one of these, so stubborn and rude. She wonders why she bothers sometimes, but then it is also no particular strain on her. She can keep whoever she wants out of this garden -- hers, private. Darlene would never find this door again if Ilde did not wish it. Her only regular guest is Cathaway. All the others are gone. ]

From down the hall.

[ Not a lie, only a vague evasion. Indeed, there were many hosts who did not comprehend -- or were not ready to comprehend -- some of the Station's little secrets. ]

[ Well, at least it got a laugh. Not that that's what he was aiming for.

It takes a great deal more than mild judgment from some random woman to shake his pride, and amusement colors the link even as his brow furrows in confusion. ]

Your tabac. [ Welcome to stupid fantasy English, Darlene. He tips his chin up slightly, nodding towards her cigarette. ] The only person I've seen smoke like that is from a place called Japan. So no, it's not a— what's a bloody pickup line?

We were all new here, once. Some people forget it faster than others...

[He hasn't. He won't. Not if he wants to hold onto who he is. The reason he's so closed-off now. So thickly held back from everyone else. It's safer for them.]

[Still, he thinks nothing of offering a hand in greeting. Left, of course. Out of pure habit than anything else.]

Shiro.

[ *a child]

[He's taken aback. For a moment. By the hand reaching for the right one. Fingers faltering short of taking it in greeting himself. At length, he relents. Accepts it. And shakes the newcomer's hand.]

[That's what he was going for here, right?]

Not a... what now?

[ in Juno's defence: it's been a long day. it's been a long fucking year, honestly, which is the reason he'd give for how little attention he pays the person speaking to him, even when something at the back of his mind is clamouring for his attention. he feels fragmented, moving on auto-pilot and so far from his body it's like operating a puppet. he only focuses just enough to parse what she actually wants, and his scarf — sure, why not. he can do that. ]

Pretty rude to ask a lady to just hand over his clothes like that. [ but he's pulling it free to give her, because it's hardly going to matter when they're all shapeless, veiled figures; and as soon as he actually gives her his attention, feels something bright and new on the edges of his awareness, he freezes.

he'd avoided the pull he felt in the chamber because he's had enough of a bad experience with telepathy not to let it lead him anywhere, despite the magnetism of it. told himself that there's only one kind of bait he's still stupid enough to take and without that — the cologne and the velvet laughter and the long, lean silhouette — he's not that much of a sucker. there's been some educating done since then. on the Nest and the Brood, the information that some people will feel different, closer. he wouldn't have known what he was looking for, but this is definitely a different feeling to all the others wandering around bleary-eyed and confused when they woke up fresh, every loud, rough-edged collection of thoughts he's collided with so far. this one feels like it clicks.

oh, absolutely not.

Juno bristles, and while it might only show on his face by the way his eyes narrow and his mouth tightens, on the inside the deep dark pit of his mind grows spikes at its distant bottom. clusters of shrapnel, broken glass, barbed wire — a mess of sharp and keep out. he doesn't think he can actually extricate himself from the way the symbiote seems to want to spill over into her, open him up like a dog showing its belly, but he'll make it fucking unpleasant. even though a place in Juno Steel's heart is worth absolutely nothing at all, he only has so much of it to ration, and nobody else is getting in.

he shoves his rich purple scarf at her as if he didn't just get hit with that nauseating realisation. his head trying to reel in on a line he hadn't even known was there and his heart clawing to get away from it; what a fun reversal of things. ] Purple's not really my colour, anyway.

[ Stir crazy. That's the word. After the adrenaline-filled few days spent looking over her shoulders for knives in the dark, monsters stirring behind walls, not to mention the yet undiscovered Enemy, the current seaside holiday mood has her stomach in a twist. Anxiety breeds in the absence of actual threat, becoming bigger than its source.

It it with this twinge of tension in her mind that she hovers by the door leading to the workstation, gaze cast outward onto the hallway, but attention tuned in to Darlene. Her tone is teasing, as if pretending to be flippant might ease her worry. ]

Do you need a lookout? An alibi?

[ juno's fingers uncurl from their grip and peter's slide up a little more to his forearm. the touch is light, the barest pressure to remind him to stay in the moment. he breathes out a little bit and shakes his head of the dull throbbing that ebbs a little bit, pulls out as juno seems to pull in. he'll let him for now because he's containing himself (in whatever manner suits him best) and at this current place and time? they need to remain steady.

it does hurt in other ways, but peter swallows it down easily because that's what he's always done. it goes into a box, it doesn't come out. he won't burn on it, won't set himself on fire just to quash it, but it won't leave him.

he angles his mind on the both of them here, met in the middle where juno splinters off into segments that might have fit together at one point and now brush against one another irregularly, parts and pieces missing. it's almost too much to touch right here in this moment, it's barely a glance that peter takes of it all before hauling back, the physical touch is connection enough, something he doesn't want to lose just yet.

he hums a little bit instead of lingering. ]

It involved dodging an airborne bed, imploding light fixtures, and falling out of a window. Typical day that ends in "y" if you ask me.

[ straight and to the point, that's just enough without having to mention a place, without having to dredge up something ugly in an inopportune moment. he can be bitter and petty, but truth is, he's neither of those things where some would say he ought to be. ]

I couldn't see what it was, it was pure brute force. Something... [ something, he doesn't know, the voice knocking around his mind furiously, telling him to jump ] I didn't like it, but my only option was to jump an trust that whoever it was that was waiting at the bottom would catch me.

[ there's a bitterness to that and it slides out from between the cracks of his words. no squares left on the board. no choices left of his own to make. only a leap of faith into something he barely knew. ]

[ surprising himself, Juno huffs — that little breath of half-laughter, not quite a scoff. this is familiar, just... Nureyev's quips, light and bickering. everyone on the Station had been raw and nervous, grating against him almost unbearably, and to keep his own frayed endings from getting any worse, he thinks he might have shut down in places. gone on auto-pilot, the way people do in the wake of a tragedy. ]

Some deal, huh. [ he wouldn't even know Nureyev's bitterness from the taste of his own, but he can hear it in his voice, and that's settling. it reminds him that they're on the same side here. even if only by necessity. ] I'm no lawyer, but it kinda seems like there was some fine print missing in the agreement.

[ all of it is a shitshow; he thinks he could take the conscription, though, the mission and the life-threatening circumstances, any of that would be a fair trade for Hyperion's safety, with the caveat that Juno would never fight for home again. but the hivemind. the telepathy — Juno's thoughts are ringing with that, rejection of it, revulsion. he can't stop thinking about Miasma and she's a cold, dark thing in his head in a way that Nureyev never had to touch, a way that Juno still feels sometimes. terrible, inhuman, unfathomable. he thinks of her resolve and it makes him nauseous to have this thing in him again, sickness that he can't crowd out with Nureyev's proximity, his voice, his — well, the cologne is gone.

he wishes they didn't have these stupid disguises. he could deal with the painful sting of staring down Nureyev's cold, polite mask for a while, if it meant seeing him. ]

Well, at least I hear this particular tumour shouldn't take out any eyes. [ he's hilarious. ] Lucky for me, since I'm running low on the genuine article.

[ a jagged blade of a thought, how useless he had been on the Maia King case without the one talent that makes him worthwhile, his restless frustration with the thing replacing it, the ache in his socket and his temples. cyclops on his tongue like a poison. ]

[ his voice gets a little lighter, a fragment of sharp-toothed sarcasm underneath; like they've done this backwards, like Bakugo is somehow building him back up by coming at him this way. ] I'd put my money on "break something" and that's about it.

[ surprisingly, there's very little in the way of real disdain blooming here. it's all irritation, superficial, his fingertips filled with a static buzz that usually heralds him throwing a punch — which he's not going to do, he doesn't pick fights with teenagers. that flint-spark in Bakugo's eyes is terribly familiar, though. Juno is no stranger to vicious and spiteful, still has to swallow it down some days and doesn't always succeed.

but god, the way the kid looks down at him makes his teeth grit. he has to skirt away from a mind like that, even where the new thing in his head seems to make it easy to push; he had to try so hard to get in when he was using the Martian telepathy, it's strange trying to figure out how to move away. shrugging it off when a feeling that isn't his (guilt, easy to mistake) drops into his head, physically rolling his shoulders back like that will help. it doesn't hurt that it also reads as being willing to stand his ground and fight if he's pressed. ]

You took the deal when you came here, like it or not. "Come with me if you want to live," right? [ he has resentment in him for that, burning bright against the sullen, dark mood that makes up the backdrop of him. live or certainly die isn't a choice, even less so when there's more than you that hangs in the balance and nothing else you can do. ] And it sure seems to me like there was more to the fine print than that, so odds are they've got us collared well and good.

[ and because of that vague sense of connection, the fact that this is so easy where he once had to push until he gave himself a goddamn aneurysm: ]

I mean, assuming you're enjoying the same psychic tumour in your head as I am.

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

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3! ! ! !

immediately mentions your other character, awkwardly

lmao nicely done

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2!!

3!

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