[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

[regalled]

Yes. Such as birds. Fish. They hatch together.

[It's a simple explanation, but he preferred simple. Concise. Nevertheless, he knows one simple answer to one of a hundred questions would not satisfy, so he is unsurprised by her initial response.

If the slight raise of his eyebrows is any indication, he is more surprised by the second. Or insulted, perhaps.]

Is your head clear? Do you find it easy to focus? [He knows the answer already. Although he has not felt it himself for some time, he has experienced the echo of new hosts countless times. The noise was too much, the lights too bright, the scent of their own skin almost enough to drive them mad. But this is a learning experience. Most things were.]

To expect everyone to be ready to hear and understand at once is folly. The process affects each Host differently. Some wish to know everything they can immediately, others wish to only know that they are safe, that they may rest for some time until they adjust to their new senses. When they are ready, they seek answers.

[A pause, a lecture ended. Arms coming up to cross over his chest as he looks down at her.]

You are ready. Would you like to know why you are here?

[adamance]

[Finding his first question to be rhetorical, Lexa shifts her weight so that it's evenly distributed throughout her entire feet. It makes her steadier, less inclined toward a flight instinct that may have proved necessary here. His lecture frustrates her, but she knows her emotions are getting the better of her.

(Are they her emotions? So many of them feel foreign, like they don't belong—she doesn't like them one bit.)]

The answer is more than just "my safety," [she supplies, ensuring that he skips that part. Lexa has already rested her hopes on that belief, but it's not enough for her. There may be others who are glad that they are simply alive, but surviving doesn't fall in false hopes. Hope comes from knowing facts, from being able to perceive the situation fully. It doesn't come from dreams.]

I'd like to know. [She's less commanding this time, softening her words carefully. Part of that is because she's avoiding another lecture (she gets enough from Titus on a regular basis). Part of that is because she wants to appeal to him diplomatically, and is at least testing him at the same time to see how he reacts.]

[regalled]

[He doesn't appear to find issue in the tempering of her words, regardless of whether it is true to her thoughts. He simply nods, allowing the empty silence of the ship to reign a moment longer before he launches into one of the many slight variations of the same words, equally true.]

You are here and you were hunted for the same reason. Your mind is perfectly suited to being a Host. The thing that hunts you hunts us all, and the only chance you have to survive it is the one you have been given. A symbiote has bonded to you. It is your connection to the Nest, to your Brood. It has changed you, made you capable of more than you were before. It is a weapon, and if you chose to wield it well it can keep you alive.

[It is not much more than her safety. There was more, but be waits, expecting further demands. What she was interested in, in particular. Herself, these people, her home. If he was willing to he could know without waiting or asking, but he was not.]

[adamance]

[Much of this makes very little sense to her. Lexa knows what the word "symbiote" means, but not in the sense that it is known here. She knows about symbiotic organisms because of knowledge that has passed through the years since before the Earth burned, but how much she knows is limited. Her people are not ones who have made a lot of scientific advancements, and even if they had, she was and would always be a warrior first and foremost.

(Even if the first Commander had been a scientist. Lexa doesn't know that now.)]

Why was I hunted? Is it to prevent my mind from being taken by symbiote, or do they have their own set that they would like to supply me with? [That's the first question. Her head cants forward.] And what are the costs of wielding it? Will the strength it gives me be something I can bring back to my people?

[regalled]

[He doesn't respond immediately, takes the time to carefully consider her questions. Suspicious-minded, which was wise in many cases.]

We do not know why, but it is thought that the danger we pose to them is cause enough. And they wanted nothing more from you than your death.

[As for the cost- what is there to tell her? Nothing that was not colored by his experience and his opinions. Being totally candid with his own view however was not always the best choice so early on. To warn them away too thoroughly would only make things more difficult for him in the end. And yet-]

It is easy to lose yourself. Whether that is your wish or not, only you can decide. As for that, it is doubtful. If you return, they will find you there. They will tear through your people and your world to find you. And if you manage to gain the ability to hide yourself from then I doubt you would wish to return.

[Eventually she would find that even if she could, she wouldn't return. Further cost. She had not died, but she wasn't who she had been. None of them were.]

What else do you wish to know?

[adamance]

["Lose yourself." Lexa can only imagine what that means, and that makes her hesitant to embrace this new power. Asking for clarification on that would be wise, but she is able to piece it together from there. She knows of the reapers and what the Mountain Men did to them to control them. Though this is different, it's the same, as well.]

You gave us no choice. It's one thing to abandon our people, and another to take on these symbiotes. You see us as weapons. [Though her tone is level, even, the accusation is clear: and she's directing it pointedly at him.] And ... Hosts for weapons. [Soldiers. Expendable. She's leaping to conclusions, but frankly, that's how she would see it. She's no stranger to circumstances like this.]

I assume your goal is to use us to destroy them. What's your plan?

[regalled]

[There was a time he would have answered just as impulsively, let the unbalanced flow her words bring rise through him, allowed he indignance and the offense give answer. In his youth he had been unbalanced. And still, at times- but for now he takes the buffering of her words I'm passively, only the slightest shift of his shoulders to betray the emotions he closes down on.]

Assume less. If that were true you would place yourself in a precarious situation by saying such.

[But as it is not true, she only risks being an annoyance to a man annoyed by many things.]

You could not survive here without the symbiote. This place was not designed for minds unconnected. And even if you could you would be satisfied to merely exist aboard this station until your days ended? We give you the chance to do more. If you wish to consider it the cost of your rescue that is your choice, but we will not force you to fight, and we will not force you to help.

[The words come out perfectly level toned, the speed of their delivery only increasing by short degrees, until he reaches a point that he stops. Breaths. Centers himself before continuing.]

That is not our plan. You cannot destroy what you do not know. All we can do is attempt to thwart their interference where we find it, when we are capable.

[adamance]

[From where Lexa stands, the issue is this: they created a place where they could not survive without the symbiote. The Mountain Men had resided inside of the mountain safely away from the world outside, and they had created conditions to avoid that outside world and even thrive by taking people from it. But she doesn't point that out, too calculating to feel as if she should press that issue.

She'll bring it up later with Clarke. Clarke is the only one she trusts, even if trust has little place where when others are connected to her very mind.]

Then you won't be allowing us to return home. That's the true price we pay. [Lexa had given up the fight for a reason, believing that if she left, she would be able to return another day. At the time, it had been a simple choice, partly for the sake of her people. She could bring the spirit of the Commander back to them.

Perhaps she shouldn't have assumed then, but there wasn't exactly a lot of time for discussion. Or questions. Or anything else.

She resents that now.]

[regalled]

You may return, if you like. Death is a choice all are free to make.

[It is as close to humor as he is likely to get, the edge of something like sarcasm burried in pure and honest truth. They were no jailers, holding reluctant, self-righteous children captive.]

But I would suggest you consider whether that is what you really want.

[The number who had chosen that option was thankfully quite small. Their decision was a burden on their brood and a waste of the Nest's already sparse resources. Still, there were worse outcomes. He had seen many of them.]

Would you like to know anything else, or would you prefer to continue with your assumptions?

[adamance]

It is not an assumption to value something that you do not. I'm not here for my life alone. [Lexa has a feeling that so many others are the same. Clarke may have still come if she could just protect her people from herself, but Lexa's circumstances are different. That the two of them could have that disparity means that it must exist among the others. Should she really be so grateful for her life? As the Commander, she's always known that her time would come, and when it did, she would understand that.

This isn't how it's meant to be. The line of commanders shouldn't end with her.]

Fighting is not a problem. Your people have forced us to abandon our people. We have to take it on your word that we were the only ones being sought. What proof do you have to offer that they continue on safe without us? [Lexa knows that there is no "safe" in her world, not with the conflict between Skaikru and her people, but she would know the difference.]

[regalled]

But you believe the rest of us are?

[He doubts very much she has considered the rest of them. She seemed almost admirably single minded, a difficult feat when the minds of new hosts were no doubt tugging and pulling and coaxing her to distraction. Focus was something he typically praised, but he knew well enough when a conversation was leading nowhere. It's not something he delights in.]

We have forced you to do nothing. If you would like further confirmation that their interest was in you beyond what you saw with your own eyes, then I suggest you seek out Cathaway. [She could show her truth, although Prince doubted that this Host would appreciate it.]

And since it seems you have nothing further left to speak but accusations and unreasonable demands I would ask you to leave me to my work. Return when you are ready to listen and to learn.

[adamance]

[That's because at the worst of times, Lexa is single-minded—and it's blinded her in many ways. Falling back on old habits in the face of discomfort is what comes easily, both for her and her people. They know what they know, and what she sees here is a man who refuses to understand that she has no reason to trust this arrangement. She hadn't spoken of the others (but then, they weren't her people to consider, not beyond Clarke), but she felt no need to defensively correct him on that point.

She had said her part, and as far as she was concerned, he willfully misunderstood her. Pointing out that he simply didn't want to answer the questions she had asked feels futile, and a waste of her time.

Judgment seeps from every part of her, radiating as if she has any right, as if she knows better. It doesn't occur to her that she might not. Lexa has to have absolute faith in her beliefs and authority, and she has to reject any doubt (even reasonable doubt).

So, her statement is simple and clear:]

The other lure? [She doesn't specify that she's referring to Cathaway, but if she has the proof Lexa seeks, then Lexa will find it. It's as simple as that.]

[regalled]

[He doesn't dispute the title, as near as it seems to lie to insult. She had been that, many times. Not maliciously, but there was a comfort to be found in her presence, the promise of the Nest, like a sweet scent on the air.]

The one who calls. She can show you what she has seen, whether you believe it is your own choice. [What she has seen. What others have seen. Countless memories resting at the tips of her fingers, a river deep though to drown in. What other proof could they have than that?]

[adamance]

I will find her.

[It is in Lexa's nature to abruptly leave conversations, and she does the same here, as if she's actually giving the impression of doing it of her own leave and not because he dismissed her. Her movements are swift and certain as she leaves the training wing, and the further she gets from Prince, the more she calms, comforted by some ease of direction.

Even if she fears it will be a dead end.]