[HATCH LOG] IS ANYONE THERE?

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: Station 72
WHEN: Day :150
SUMMARY: Today is the day you wake up.
WARNINGS: None; will edit if necessary.

A MOMENT AGO it seemed like you willingly took the hand of someone beckoning to safety.


NOW YOU WAKE UP in one of many chambers of Station 72’s nesting deck. If you had wounds, they’re (mostly) gone; if you had doubts they are - for the split second between dreaming and waking - gently reassured. This is correct. This is right. You’re safe here. The only question is what here is exactly.

The compartment you find yourself in is small, though gently padded for comfort with enough elbow and head -room to not be wholly claustrophobic. Still, it’s difficult to re-orient yourself; the best way to get to the chamber’s built in ladder and down to the smooth, polished white floor of the nesting is to simply roll over onto your belly and go out feet first.

First thing’s first though: get rid of that tube running from the rear wall of the chamber to the base of your skull. The moment you’ve done that, there’s the sensation like a rubber band popping - a string in your hand being jerked. The headache that punches in falls like the heavy end of a hammer - not serious, but surprisingly abrupt - as a of combination confusion, resolve, anxiety, certainty, delight, and fear and expectation finds you. In fades after a moment, churning to a low dull pressure and a faint hum. It’s feels like standing outside the door of a small party, sounds muffled and incomprehensible. Some pieces rise and swell above the others then fall again. Strain your ears and realize you’re hearing nothing at all.

On the plus side, you’re not hooked into the compartment anymore. Slide out and onto the ladder, though not too fast or you’ll miss the small cubicle built into the wall near the mouth of the chamber. In the cubicle are all the things you brought with you, every small piece you own of the home you left behind. There’s a neatly folded pair of something like white pajamas there as well. They’re definitely in your size, though you have the option not to wear them since you’re still in the clothes you left home in. Granted, for some of you that might not exactly be a blessing. Your clothes haven’t exactly been laundered or repaired, so best hope you didn’t bleed or sweat on them too much during your escape.

Sliding free from the chamber pod and stepping out onto the ladder, you’ll find yourself in an open space. The room is broad and pale and clean, its sloping walls featuring dozens and dozens of holes like the one you just wiggled out of. There are more ladders and a few other people climbing down, or stareing, or already down on the nesting deck’s floor but the sixteen - seventeen, including yourself - people present would hardly fill even a sixth of the room’s available accommodations.

The noise is louder when you near any of the others. It’s as if you've entered the party yourself. Identifiable now is the low wash of feelings, a hum of emotions that only serves to make the slight headache worsen. They feel genuine. They feel like they could belong to you. Still, that pressure in your head doesn't worry you --Shouldn't it worry you? Does worrying - about the headache, about the world and people you left behind, or the strange place you’re in now, the odd collection of people you’re with and the fact that you feel strangely drawn to five or six of them - make the headache better? Or worse?

If you manage to push the sound aside and listen with your true ears, you'd notice you can't hear anything besides this small group of fellow hosts: their footsteps, their oddly sharp breathing. There’s no sound of traffic, no wind in the trees, no birds, no hum of a ship. Only circulating air and silence.

You may not know what a brood is, but finding yours is easy. There are minds among these strangers that call to yours, their voices louder than the rest, their feelings sharper. The nearer to you they are, the more comfortable you feel. Is that strange? You don't know them, but you do. There are few answers to be found on the nesting deck.

Eventually you will have no choice but to head out of the room. There’s only one way out that you can see: up through a spiraling hallway that arches overhead. When it opens again the space seems slightly less alien. There are doorways of a kind lining the walls and each one opens to a small, nearly normal room. There are no doors, so it's easy to see all the rooms are vacant. In seventeen of them there are items neatly stacked on the bed. Most are hygiene supplies. Some of them - a toothbrush, comb, razor - may be familiar to you. Others less so. There's a flat horizontal ledge beside the bed with a small light and a single drawer. Another table, apparently built into the wall, sits across the room with a chair. A mirror is on the desk; it’s slightly mundane and not quite to the Station’s style.

This room is yours for the moment. It doesn't mean someone won't want to trade - or take. Beyond this life support deck stretches the rest of Station 72. It is quiet and and twisting and perfectly inert.

At its most familiar, the Station is merely a still, empty ship with broad chambers and gently mottled light. At its worst, it’s an Escher painting of strange angles and bizarre platforms that seems grown as much as built. There are many ways to many places and while it seems all doors and passages open to you, there’s an unshakeable feeling that the space doesn’t quite match up - that there’s even more to the Station which you can’t yet see. Don’t get lost!




For now, you reach the floor of the nesting deck. When you do, something blooms in your mind. A voice, disturbingly lacking any identifying traits but warm and comfortable like sweetened milk, says:

( ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬...There you are...▬▬▬..Welcome to Station 72 ▬▬. )

If you follow the thread of that voice, you’ll eventually find your way either to Cathaway on the bridge or The Prince in the training wing.

---

((OOC Notes: Welcome to Station 72! Feel free to check out the SETTINGS page for more information about the Station. If you have any questions about the setting itself, feel free to ask them there; otherwise, please direct all questions to either the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages.

Prince’s top level should be live in the evening! Keep an eye out for it if you want him to give your character the introduction spiel instead of Cathaway.

Happy hatchday, everyone! :) ))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[adamance]

[That stubborn (or so she perceives it to be) shift of his head upward is enough to tell her that they aren't so different. Strength, and the projection of it, can only come in so many forms. After the bellowing of her voice, she can tell that he's uneasy. She's on edge, trying to find the core of herself at the heart of all of this.

She doesn't think she can. She doesn't know if she can.

Lexa lowers the dagger back into its casing, but her fingers remain wrapped tight around it. If Ren looks, he'll see that her knuckles are white with the tension moving through them, contrasting against her tanned skin.]

None of us know. Not yet. [Her speech is clipped, and there's a depth to it that makes it clear that she's trying to sound more powerful. Lexa is used to adding that depth to her voice, and she wants to seem strong at the moment.]

But you're not entitled to what's inside of my mind. No one is. [Even if arriving here, she's believing that she agreed to the opposite sentiment.

But she can't really fault him for that.]

[narcissithstic]

[Correct, her assumption (he is, beyond reason, stubborn down to the marrow of his bones) but it is a current that carries between them - no longer echoed by a connection cut abruptly short. Without any true means to defend himself, pride is the only reason for his rigid posture as he takes a few, tentative strides forward towards her. Distance closed by degrees.]

Someone must know. [A mutual enemy, a potential ally - the difference matters little when they wander vast corridors like lost children, severed from the lives they once knew.] You cannot fault me for refusing to do nothing.

[adamance]

Is that how your people gain information? [The strides toward her make her uneasy, but that's only because his presence is so overbearing. Lexa is not a tall person, even if she is often surrounded by people who are. But his mask, uniform, and height all make her uncomfortable.]

You pry it from their minds when they may be willing to give it to you otherwise? [She assumes that it's a cultural choice. Her shoulders are rigid, head tilted so that she isn't necessarily looking up at him—instead, she's trying to look both regal and imperious.]

My people don't have that ability. [Before today. This secondary thought blooms in her mind.] We'll harm others for what we know, but only when our hands are forced. [Though ... it used to be a lot more common to resort to violence. But Lexa wants to project the changes she's made to her people's culture, even here.]

[narcissithstic]

My people-- [He echoes, too near to scoffing in bitter amusement. If there was such a thing as his own kind, beyond the ashes of his predecessors, they existed beyond his grasp: no peers, no kin, only adversaries and allies, held in play beneath Snoke's raised, ready palm.] are too far from this place to be reached without a conduit.

[And he feels none of it now. Blinded, deaf, suppressed where the Force is somehow barred from him.]

It may already be too late to salvage what anarchists and dissenters have done to them in my absence.

[adamance]

[Lexa hesitates, in part because that hadn't been what she had asked. But he's not thinking clearly, and the way he speaks of his people is worrisome—as if they lack any reason to have faith in him. She recalls slipping away with Clarke just before the missile hit, all in an attempt to ensure that both of the leaders would make it out alive.

(And because she cared for Clarke. Never forget.)

But it had never been her assumption that her people would turn toward anarchy in her absence. No matter how unstable the coalition is because of Lexa's recent decisions, she knows that her people would not stop believing in their commander. They would know she had a reason for stepping away.]

Then they have no faith in you. Do you try to force them in line as well? [Chastising him comes easily, but that's because she's been raised to be a leader. She feels like she's fairly qualified on this subject.]

[narcissithstic]

The dead keep little faith. [Sharp and biting, like turning her scolding back in on itself: only one of their ranks defected, a cancerous spot against a pristine backdrop. And all it took, it seems, was that one soldier to bring their work-- the work of more than a single lifetime-- crashing down on its head. The rest were loyal. The rest were pure, and valued.

His thoughts drift only briefly to Captain Phasma and her pristine armor; she had not been there at the end - a single, fleeting pang of regret, however necessary. Were she and her troops still capable of breathing, no force in the galaxy would rot their might.

But he cannot know for certain beyond the immeasurable, immediate death that threatened him before his departure.] I forced nothing from them that they did not give willingly in service.

And I have no desire to abandon them now, however few may yet remain.

[adamance]

[The truth is, she doesn't follow. His second set of words is closer to what she understands (though she doesn't know how much they are forced to give willingly in service—just the same, some would say she's hardly one to judge the stormtroopers given the culture of her society). But she doesn't understand how ... deceit plays into that.

Curious, and always willing to press when she's seeking an answer, she does exactly that:] Then why do you speak of deceit?

[narcissithstic]

-Dissenters-. They preach chaos and call it peace, they fight to stand in the way of order - and when I was forced from 'my people', they had struck a blow against us.

[A massive, bleeding wound, from which they would have recovered in time. At least so long as Snoke still drew breath, something Ren trusts holds true despite no longer feeling his presence. Despite being more than a galaxy away, stumbling blind, deaf and dumb throughout the corridors of a foreign ship.

The thought grates like sand, scrubbed back and forth across vulnerable skin.] They are traitors, liars and thieves; here, I can do nothing to stop them.

[adamance]

A war. Brought to you by people who claim they know better. And now, you can't restore order now that you're here. What remains in your wake might topple. [Lexa enunciates much of this clearly as she processes it. She understands, even if their circumstances are different. But as a leader, she knows about strikes, and she knows about the need to come together at the end of it in order to pull themselves together.

Without their leader, she wonders what will happen to her people.

Truthfully, she doesn't know. She fears knowing.]

Find your answers here. Their deceit won't reach us here. [This order comes too easily. But orders come naturally to Lexa.]

[narcissithstic]

[It's a pause that promises her estimation is true enough.]

Your name. [He could, after all, ask for clarification in regards to the details of what he'd seen when he glimpsed into her thoughts, but given the neutral territory they both share, even Kylo Ren can admit that she is right: they have more pressing matters to attend to.

Matters where an ally to call on as a potential resource might be beneficial.]

[adamance]

[They are one and the same in seeing these connections as mutually beneficial. The idea of them working as a faction to find answers and return to their worlds is a solid one. They both have to return to restore order, after all. A similar cause is something to build upon, even if his presence (and his voice) is still inhuman to her.]

Lexa. I am the Commander of my people. [Her title is there to declare her significance, and why she must return home. She expects that he'll understand her perspective.]

And yours?

[narcissithstic]

Kylo Ren. [She is not a commander, but the Commander, and therein lies the difference. A promise he's made no mistake in acquiescing to neutrality: claiming such a title often requires skill, resourcefulness without buckling hesitation - traits that would do nothing but play in his favor.

In turn, he does the same:] Master of the Knights of Ren, sole apprentice to the Supreme Leader.

[And with that formality out of the way, he redirects their mutual attention.] Should I uncover anything useful in my search, it will be yours.

[adamance]

[It won't be the first time that she hears the term "master" that day, only this time there's enough context to know that it isn't meant the way she'll later perceive it. Her eyebrows knit together temporarily at the terminology "Supreme Leader," as it doesn't sound like any position of command she's ever heard. But she'll look into that later—if she has to.

What she does put together is that if he serves as that Leader's sole apprentice, then he must be important. Her people never risk having a single apprentice, so this shows a great deal of confidence in him. No matter how many mysteries arise around his existence (the voice, his appearance), she can trust in his competence.

That will have to be enough. Lexa never trusts easily.]

The same to you. [A beat.] Find a way to remove yourself from your own bonds of emotion, and the others will bother you less. [It's futile advice, as it's hardly helping her. Hardly, but it could be worse.] You'll have more clarity moving forward.