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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[ At the beginning, it'd been partially for himself and partially for others, because he didn't want to be in their heads any more than they wanted him there. Now - well, now it's mostly for the others, especially the new arrivals. Sam's always believed in privacy, believed that one of the most important things about sharing pieces of your life is only sharing them when you're ready, and only with you who choose to.

He learned that at the VA, during his own struggle with talking about his shit and trying to help other people with theirs. So many things he learned there are surprisingly adaptable to sharing a mental connection to a ton of strangers.

But now he huffs out a soft laugh, and there's the faintest hint of agreement. ]

Yeah, they really could. Not really an attitude I've seen a lot when people first get here, though.

[ Except for people who come from worlds that're pretty damn shitty, really. Or ones like him who've accepted the choice they made to come here, to work to protect their worlds. ]

[ Try as she might, her own shields aren't strong enough to completely keep everything in. The great plantation house she'd built all those years ago with Charles is in desperate need of repair, cracks in the walls and broken shutters letting bits of her filter out into the world. She can deal with that though; it's the psyches that have to be kept locked away.

Those cracks are why he'll be able to feel the shadow that falls over the beacon of joy she'd been exuding. Just a shadow though, nothing like the deep pit of darkness she'd struggled to stay out of for so many years. ]

Those people probably haven't seen the kind of worse I have. At least, I sure hope they haven't.

[ No one deserves to go through what she did. At first, she might have made the choice to come here in order to give Erik and Charles a chance at succeeding in their plan, but now... Well, now she's beginning to grapple with the idea that maybe her world isn't worth protecting. Others, though — all the other worlds in all the universes, those are the ones she'll fight for. ]

[ The shadow he can pick up from her is enough to darken a little even through his shields. He's not gonna pry for more, not if she doesn't want to talk about it, but - yeah, there it is. Pretty damn shitty it is.

And not only a shitty world in general, but it sounds like personally shitty, too, and Sam - well, Sam's never been able to not respond to something like that. Especially when it feels a hell of a lot like she could use a really long hug.

He doesn't reach for her, because as tactile as he is he knows a hell of a lot better than to go grabbing at people he's only just met who may or may not be dealing with their own issues.

Instead he shifts, widening his stance and opening his arms a little as he asks permission. ]

It's not gonna make whatever you're coming from better, but can I?

[ There's no easy way to describe what goes through Rogue's mind at that simple, immeasurably kind offer. In the first seconds that follow after she realizes just what beautiful gift he's trying to give her, she wants nothing more than to accept and hold onto him as tightly as she can. It's been so long since she last had someone give her hug, since anyone has really touched her with any sort of real kindness.

But if she accepts, what then? Even just the thought of receiving a touch like that, something she's longed for for years, overwhelms her -- how much worse would an actual hug be? Would she be able to hold herself together in the face of that, or would she just fall apart at the seams in front of the entire group? What a great first impression that would make. ]

I want to say yes... [ But she can't. She can't risk breaking into pieces when she needs to focus on getting settled into the mission, and especially not when it would mean subjecting the others to her trauma. ]

Thank you, so much, but I can't risk it.

[ He waits while she struggles with the offer, taking a little bit of extra care to make sure their connection is narrow enough not to pick up on any of it. There's a hundred or so reasons to hesitate over something like that, and he doesn't want to pry into whatever hers are when she's still processing through them.

Sam keeps his open stance, but lets his arms shift back down at her response, an easy acceptance.

Except she'd said she can't risk it, and he can't help but focus on that. ]

What're you risking?

[ She shouldn't have said that. It's giving away too much, showing how broken she is under her carefully crafted disguise, and not just the one made of fabric. All her life, she's worked hard to hide how hurt she is, how affected by the words and actions of others. And after learning what she did just a few days ago--

No. The doors are slammed shut on that thought and she physically shakes her head against it, shifting her stance uncomfortably and realizing in frustration she can't tuck her hair back, rub her neck, take off her gloves and put them back on again. The costume is suddenly constrictive and, lord, isn't she giving a wonderful impression to this man whose name she doesn't even know yet.

Time to fix that. ]

It doesn't matter. [ Well, it does, but there isn't enough trust between them yet for her to let him in on that side of her life. Holding out a gloved hand, she forces a smile in both action and thought. ]

My name's Rogue. It's nice to meet you, sugar.

[ It's clear enough that she's uncertain, uncomfortable, but that's not exactly a surprise. People don't like talking about this kind of stuff in general, let alone with someone they just met on an alien planet after waking up in a hive mind.

Their fucking lives, man, no wonder a good chunk of them have some kind of PTSD or other issues.

He takes her hand when she offers it, grip warm and friendly, even if there's no way he's gonna let her saying it doesn't matter go. ]

It does matter. You matter, but I ain't gonna push. I've had enough of my own crap to know better. But you settle in a little bit, decide maybe there's some shit you wanna talk about? I'm a pretty good listener.

[ The disguises make it hard to let his smile show, so he opens their mental link enough for the impression to come through. ] I'm Sam. It's good to meet you, too, didn't mean to drop some more on you in the middle of trying to get a handle on all this.

[ Once he gets to know her, Sam will see that it's not so much the waking up in a hive mind and traveling to an alien planet that she has trouble with, but rather the talking about her problems. No one wants to hear about her issues, they never have, and he won't be any different in the end.

Still, she savors the way he says that she matters, the feeling of his hand in hers. She commits it to memory to hold close when those shadows return and she starts to forget again what friendly touch feels like. She's grateful to him for the offer of a lended ear, even if she'll never take him up on it. ]

This? [ She gestures to the world around them, and in the direction of her head then his to indicate the symbiote and their new connection. ] It's not all that strange. Well, I suppose it is, but my life's been on the strange side for a while now, so it kinda seems like just another day.

[ Or maybe she's so broken that she doesn't notice just how strange it really is. ]

[ That - that'll be familiar, actually, in more than one way. Both from his own experiences and from the people he's worked with back home as well as his friends here.

Telling people that you'll be different, that you're not going anywhere, that they can trust you? That never cuts it, not for things like this. And it shouldn't. It's on Sam to prove it, not just talk about it, and he doesn't mind doing it.

For now, he lets it go, chuckling a little at her comment. ]

I'd ask how your life was on a level of strange including aliens and symbiotes and a mental connection with strangers in the middle of an intergalactic war, but I'm not surprised at the strange shit everyone's got going on anymore. Hell, my world had superheroes and Norse gods and AIs and aliens.

[ She's always been the one standing in someone else's corner, offering support and listening to all their problems. A lifetime of trying not to be a burden and being burned by those closest has taken a toll that won't easily be undone. If Sam can prove it, though... she won't mind him doing it.

So her estimation of their motley crew was correct, then. All of them with crazy lives left behind, and even crazier ones ahead. It's kind of comforting, actually, and she gives a shrug while wearing an amused smile that can be felt if not seen. ]

We didn't have Norse gods or aliens, but there were more than enough superheroes to go around. And supervillains, and your Average Superpowered Joe.

[ They've got time. Which might not necessarily be a good thing, considering it means that Sam's one of those who doesn't think they're getting back to their worlds any time soon, but it is what it is. It means he's got no intentions of going anywhere, and he doesn't mind how long it might take to show that.

He meant it when he said she matters.

So he thinks nothing of easing back, settling into something a little more appropriate for first meeting conversation. ]

You're gonna feel right at home here, then. Even those of us who didn't have superpowers before've got 'em now.

[ Sam isn't alone in believing that this war they're fighting will continue for some time. It's not the first war Rogue's been in, and she can tell that this scale is so much grander, so it's entirely possible that her life will end before they see the end of this. But she's fine with that - there's no other life waiting for her return, no loved ones to get back to. This is her life now, and in some ways it's just what she needs. A purpose, a way to do good again. ]

What was your life like before this, if it didn't include superpowers?

[ It's a purpose, all right - some days Sam's just not sure what kind of one it is. But the friends he's made here, they're worth fighting for, and he still wants to do his best by the people of this planet who didn't ask for any of this.

Her questions makes him chuckle a little. ]

Hanging out on a team of superheroes, trying my best to keep up with the ones who did have them and doing a pretty damn good job at it, if I don't say so myself.

[ He pauses, breathes, runs his thumb over the silver wing charm on his wrist - and centers himself the same way he had when he took the next step and first started talking about Riley.

His smile is bittersweet, even if she can't see it. ]

Breaking out of an underwater prison after our government decided to use people's fears against us.

[ He reminds her of some of the baseline humans who had fought by their side in the war. It hadn't mattered to them that the mutants had special powers, or blue fur and tails. They'd all just been people, fighting for the life they thought was right. And they'd done a good job of keeping up too.

And then her breath catches at the rest of his description, her throat tightening a bit as her shields shake, like the sides of a house being battered by a storm. It's too close to home, too much for this conversation, and yet she can't stop from following the path laid out for her. ]

Our prisons weren't underwater; they were in parks and fields, in cities burned to ash and-- places that used to be home. Because people were afraid. [ A part of her is tugging back on everything, scrambling to hide everything she's already revealed, not ready yet to have others know. But another part just keeps barreling forward with no sign of stopping. ]

I'm sorry you had to go through that, sugar. I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone. [ Not even the people who had put her through it. ]

[ It's never mattered to Sam. Far as he's concerned, there's no difference between any of the Avengers, aside from their particular skill set that made them such a damn good team. They were all just fighting to make the world a better place, to protect the people who just wanted to live their lives.

Well. There's a difference between him and Stark, but that's a different complicated mess.

Sam knows the moment that he's hit closer to home than he thought. Mentioning the Raft - it'd been part because he doesn't want to hide it any more, because he needs to work through and that comes with talking about it, and part because he knows damn well that you can't tell someone it's okay to open up and be vulnerable if you aren't willing to do it first.

His mind brushes against hers on instinct, not looking to get entrance or even to pick anything more up - more of an acknowledgement, understanding in the form of warmth and a flurry of feathers.

He remembers what he'd told Shiro - people are afraid of what they don't understand, and they're always looking for someone to blame. It's too easy for those to combine. ]

Me neither. There's more than a few of us here who know what that's like, and it's too many. Sounds like you know even more about that than me. [ But she's already said she's not ready to talk about it, so he pulls back a little. ] And it's also a real shitty first time conversation; I promise I do know how to talk about other things. Can't promise it's not just bird puns though.

[ That brush against her mind is so like what Charles used to do, but also... different. More comforting with its warmth and those feathers, and she sinks into briefly, taking that momentary comfort and wrapping it around herself.

Because he's right: she probably does have much more experience than he does when it comes to those darker parts of life, and she's grateful it isn't the other way around. She survived it; he might not have. But she pushes all of that aside and focuses on what's important. ]

I do enjoy a good bird pun. [ The thread of flirting in those words absolutely amazes her, faint as it is. A glimmer of who she used to be, the woman hidden beneath layers of trauma. A reminder of who she wants to be again. ]

[ When he feels Rogue settled into it, however briefly - he keeps it there. It comes easy to him now, staying out of people's minds but lingering around the surface, offering a steady source of support if they need it.

There's so much of Bucky in him these days that he finds it hard to differentiate, sometimes, the hum of the programming in the back of his mind and the feeling of fighting it - but that's separate from the Raft, from his complicated experience of what it means to him.

But that's a conversation for when it's not their first time meeting, for when Rogue's a little more settled - for when she feels like she's ready, however long that may be.

Now, he definitely picks up on those hints, and there's a slow, playful smile - or the impression of one, with their disguises. ]

Yeah? I usually wing those kinds of things, so you might end up egreting it.

[ All of this, the mental side of things, is the easy part for Rogue. She's spent so many years around telepaths, empaths, and having people in her head that it's more than second nature to her. The intricacies of the mental links with the rest of the Nest may take some practice, but she's not shying away from the connection like so many of the others, and this is one of a very few times in her life that she's grateful for the experiences she's had that are now making this adjustment easier. Experiences that allow her to laugh at Sam's words, the sound bubbling out of her in a way it hasn't in a very long time. ]

Oh sugar, you are just delightful.

[ Sam's never had to deal with telepaths - but he's no stranger to getting familiar with the way his own mind works, and how to retrain it, and it's come in handy when figuring out the symbiote link. He respects the people who shy away from the connection at first - hell, he was one of them - but it's... nice, that she doesn't.

That he can settle around the outskirts of her mind and not have to pull back.

The fact that she has a really nice laugh doesn't hurt, either, and he's going to count it as a win that he got her to laugh. ]

You're pretty damn pheasant yourself.

[ And there's that laugh again, courtesy of her new friend. She hopes she can count him as such anyway, that they become friends, because she could sure use some and he seems like he'd be pretty good at the job. ]

Why, thank you kindly. [ Her drawl purposefully thickens on those words, and then she shifts gears, moving the conversation along. ] So, birdman, how long have you been part of all this?

[ Long as Sam's got any say in it, she can sure as hell count on him for all of the above. He's maybe only known her for about ten minutes, but he's already figured she could use more reasons to laugh, and damned if he doesn't want to give them to her.

He hums in consideration to her question. It should be an easy one, but, well. Nothing's easy in the Nest. ]

Time gets harder to keep track of when you're jumping planets, and it doesn't work like usual on the Station. But this is my third mission - technically, I'm another of those that got dropped in the middle of a mission for my first one.

[ Time hasn't been easy for her to keep track of anyway these past few years, so she's not overly bothered by that. There's no reason for her to worry about tallying up months as they pass, since she's not in a hurry to get anywhere in particular. For the others though, the ones with lives to return to, she can see how that might be irritating. ]

What were the missions before like? And-- Are there a lot of us that come through here?

[ Did their predecessors die, or were they sleeping somewhere like Helen had been? ]

[ It used to bother Sam, honestly, half because it reminded him too much of the Raft and half because he wanted to know how long he'd been here, even if he wasn't sure he had plans on going back to his world.

It only bothers him now that it's harder to keep track of things like when holidays should be, or birthdays, or anniversaries. ]

The first one - we were covert, too, though not as bad as this. We were in a city called Concordia, and there was a lot of political shit going on there, mostly about whether AIs were people or not. The Enemy'd gotten involved with one of the anti-AI groups and suddenly they had a hell of a lot of power and resources. We found the Enemy's contact, but he was killed mid-interrogation, either by suicide or... something else. I wasn't fast enough to keep him alive.

[ I felt him die, he doesn't say, keeps that locked carefully behind his shields - he hasn't told anyone that, and remembering the sensation makes him shake out his hands briefly before the settle. ]

Second one was less complicated. Some intergalactic competition was going on, and the prize was something that Cathaway said we'd need down the line. We had to get it. [ He huffs out a soft laugh, and his tone is fond even as he insults people. ] Buncha dumbasses ended up getting themselves caught doing some recon on where the prize was being kept, we had to break them out and make a run for it. As for a lot of us coming through here -

[ There's a soft, considering hum. ] Maybe not a lot. There's people like Rhan and Lyr - it was Nirad and Carata my first mission - who've been Hosts longer, who're off in small groups doing recon. On the Station there's never more than a few dozen of us, but... yeah, it cycles. There's only two people left who're here when I got here, and both of them have gone to sleep before.

[ Rogue lets the information fall over her, sifting through it and organizing the pieces in her mind for analysis later. The previous missions were connected but not, the overall purpose of their existence still the same but not the how or why. It's hard to say how she would have done on either venture had she been there - but since she hadn't been, there's no point in thinking about it anyway.

Looking at the assembled group led out to greet the new arrivals, she can't help but be a little sad at Sam's words. Only two of all this group. Just two, the rest asleep or--

This is what war is. It's something she has to remind herself, though she knows the lesson quite well already. ]

It must be hard. [ There's a sympathy in her that rises up to the surface, especially since she knows so little about him. Running with superheroes doesn't mean you can automatically handle a constant rotation of teammates in an intergalactic war. ]

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

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preemptively apologizes for the tl;dr

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