ataraxionlogs | twenty-eighth jump;

Entry tags:

twenty-eighth jump;

CHARACTERS: Any and all.
LOCATION: Gravity Couches and beyond.
WARNINGS: Maybe some swearing, or even some violence, and more than likely some implied (and possibly explicit) nakedness.
SUMMARY: Another month, another jump, another round of new faces.
NOTES: It could just be the standard sensation of air on wet skin, but if you bother to check, you might notice the steam rising from your body, barely there and gone within a minute. By the time you get to the showers, it will be clear that it's not just taking you time to adjust. The room is cold — colder than usual, but no worse than the last jump. While it's nothing dangerous, it's certainly motivation to hurry through the usual routine and get dressed quickly.

It's getting closer.

YOUR EYES ARE OPEN.

KEEP LOOKING.

You wake up in darkness.

There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're deposited on the floor of a stark, sterile medical bay.

You are not alone.
There are others who have come before you, others who are awakening beside you. Some may be familiar to you, perhaps even friends. Others have much less amiable plans. Some are merely alien and inexplicable, but there are always those who might mean you harm.

After you catch your breath and your vision returns, you notice a number on the inside of your forearm. Maybe it's a familiar number. Maybe it means something. Maybe it's just a number. But the number—completely unique to you—is a tattoo, and it does not come off.

If you enter the room adjacent to the medbay, you will find a small locker with your number on it, surrounded by rows upon rows of identical lockers. Inside, you will find a few of your personal items, a communications device, and a ship's uniform in your exact size. The comms device is fully powered and connects directly to the ship's network; it's your only means of communication beyond physical conversation. Upon turning the device on, a neutral, automated voice will say, "Please take the blue lift to the passenger quarters." Any other attempts at communicating with the rest of the network are met only with static.

This is your welcome party.

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[For far too long he'd kept his distance from everyone as best he could while feigning a warm personality, but now Tony starts to think that it might be worth taking the first step himself. It's why he doubles back to the pods after getting washing up and getting dressed.

The man on the ground has the look of the recently arrived.]

Do you need any help getting up?

[That's what people do to be nice right?]

I don't think so.

[ wanda takes a moment to assess her body. if she were with souls, she would be able to answer with certainty -- no one would ever insert a soul into a damaged host body. the damaged host would be discarded quickly and painlessly, and an undamaged body would be found. but she's with humans, and she doesn't know what her friends did to pet to get her to the caves, or what happened between then and now to get her here.

after a careful cataloguing of all of her limbs, pressing her hands to her face and head, she looks back up at the man and shakes her head. ]

No, I'm alright. Disoriented, like I said, I can't really -- remember much, everything's fuzzy.

[ her own memories should be coming back to her easier now, but the life she remembers best is still pet's. memories of her time in melanie's body are there, they're just... distant, harder to reach. if only she had some awake, she's sure she would feel better.

she has a sudden thought, and her eyes widen, her hand going to touch careful fingertips to the man's arm. ]

Are you hurt?

[ wanda listens to the woman intently, her expression never changing. a ship in the sky? well, she wasn't aware that they were opening up ships for humans to travel on, but tranquility definitely seems like the kind of name a soul would give to ship. maybe the souls found her and are taking her back? maybe they think she's a wild human, maybe these are all wild humans and the souls are rounding them up. for what wanda can't imagine, but souls would never hurt anyone, so she's not afraid. not really. the only thing that concerns her is if they got her friends, too.

her face betrays none of her inner monologue, and she smiles pleasantly up at tauriel when asked her name. ]

I'm Wanda, Tauriel, it's nice to meet you. Thank you for helping me. Is that all you know?

I did -- we're in space?

[ space travel isn't anything new to wanda -- souls have been travelling through galaxies for ages, even in her mother's mother's memories. the spaceship itself isn't a surprise to wanda, then, it's the inhabitants -- she sees no souls in cryotanks, no spiders to run the ship. that's not how she remembers it being.

are these souls around her, or humans? she can't tell. ]

How did we get here? I remember... I remember my friends, and then nothing.

[ jared and melanie wouldn't do something like this to her, wanda is certain. for one thing, they haven't the means, not hiding away in the caves like they have to. ]

[ honestly, elena is just as not-surprised as katherine is -- of course katherine gets here right as she's working things out with damon, and she's just narrowly escaped death, and jenna and ric are getting ready to get married. how could the world work any other way? ]

I don't know, I've always known him to come in right when I need him.

[ elena's tone is icy, her posture just riding the line of aggressive. she doesn't like that katherine's here, and she doesn't like talking about jeremy with her. probably she shouldn't have said anything at all, but... well, she wouldn't have wanted to go through her first jump without a familiar face. ]

Have you been told what's going on here, where you are? I can give you the rundown if you haven't.

I - sorry.

[But he's rotten at this; he just ends up feeling bad for freaking her out, and his brow just gets even more furrowed and he looks down and tucks his hair behind his ear and feels bad further for being so undemonstrative -

And so, after a moment, without looking her in the face, he reaches out and just grips her forearm. It's an awkward, self-conscious gesture, and it's quite weird, but it's as close as he'll get to hugging her in welcome.]

I'm - glad you're back. Forgive me for saying so.

[ She moves to approach him, Lady by her side - the sound of something clanging against the metal had initially drawn her attention, so that when she finally makes her way down the rows to where he stands, head bowed and body braced, she can see that the tension in his shoulders has not fully abated.

Rather than reach out to him instantly - though the instinct is there, the urge to offer something more than words rising up from within - she lingers near, hovering in his periphery so that he will recognize her presence. Perhaps she will address him once he lifts his head. For the moment, she chooses to remain silent beside him - until she notices the state of his hand.

Still without speaking, she reaches out to rest her fingertips against the back of his hand, inches away from the bruised, tender knuckles. ]

[ She is all too accustomed to the experience of another jump - the uncomfortable sensation of something in her throat, the confinement of the pod quickly followed by the sudden release into the air. She recovers her breath easily this time, after an experience she imagines is rather not unlike that of being born, over and again. Next to her, Lady snuffles and then shakes vigorously, trying to free herself of the blue slime matted into her fur. She will have to spend several moments in the showers cleaning her direwolf, though Lady tolerates the experience with remarkable patience.

It is the sound of someone calling out for another that draws her mind out of deciding what to do next, and she immediately moves to lend assistance. It was not very long enough that she found herself in a similarly helpless state, confused and alone - until she'd discovered family here.

She secures a towel for herself and another for the other young woman, gently wrapping it around her shoulders. ] Allow me to assist, my lady.

[Any other day and he might lean against the hand on his cheek. Any other day and he'd be quicker to fight this feeling down, to smile at her and dismiss it, put it all away until later. Emotion isn't something he usually has time for. Comfort, he doesn't need comfort, even if it's from someone he likes a great deal.

But today, it's not any other day. The anger that had seized him only a moment ago has not faded--it's there, hot, working at him--but there's a numbness, too, that spreads through him, and when he thinks of leaving, going out into the ship, going back to his room where James and Remus both ought to be--]

I can't leave.

[Can't. He hates that word. What kind of coward can't face up to this? Because he will have to face it, and soon. His eyes flick over Lucrezia's shoulder, staring beyond her, like maybe James will still come around the corner--but he won't, and the twist of pain deep in Sirius' chest renews his anger.]

You don't have to. You've got-- people, you've-- [It's a stupid protest. He sets his teeth together and shuts his eyes, a moment, breathes out, harshly.] I can't leave yet.

[Sirius' mouth twists, and his fingers loosen before they tighten again, curling into fists, away from Pess. But he stays hunched, he doesn't straighten up, and he doesn't say anything. He stares down at the floor, furiously, a muscle working in his jaw.

Eventually, though:]

'Course he is.

Edited (i wasn't done enter key!!!) 2014-02-09 15:41 (UTC)

[Something in him wants to shove away from her--fiercely, more fiercely than perhaps he ought to. Something in him wants to fight this feeling down, fight away from her--and either smile, and be all right, or else go off and leave her here, because he can't do this. Being without James is like missing some crucial piece, like a clock that's missing a certain gear, and he can feel it wearing away, in him, somewhere not so deep, somewhere so close to the surface it's painful.

He lets her step in close, he lets her put her hands in his hair, and his hands come up--loosely, awkwardly, not pressing against her so much as resting. His nose is against her shoulder, and he stares, blankly, through her, beyond her, a muscle working in his jaw.]

[He's too focused, still, drawn so tight that he nearly jumps out of his bloody skin when he feels that touch on his hand--and he looks up, wild-eyed, staring around at--

Alayne. She'd stepped in so close and he'd not noticed her. Perhaps in another moment he would have at least looked around and seen her, or perhaps he never would have noticed. Everything in him is focused so furiously inward--only now he's staring at her face, and he knows he probably looks pale and mental, wide eyes and clenched jaw, anger and sadness etched too deep for him to try and correct. And he hates that. He should be able to correct it. He should be able to fight it down--but this is James, missing, and that wound is so raw that he can't manage it just yet.]

I'm--

[The word twists out of him, flat, miserable; he swallows, hard.]

Don't.

[She's had enough of this kind of shit. What little he knows of Alayne, he knows that she doesn't need more. She's meant to be smiling. And he wouldn't know where to start with that right now.]

What was what for? —Stop it.

[ arya pushes nymeria's head away when she tries to nibble arya's hair. with a noisy exhale, the wolf sits back, fixing her golden eyes on elizabeth. she studies the woman, and if her actions seemed otherwise her eyes give proof this animal is not tame, then seemingly dismisses her with a shake of her great head.

leaving the shower running for nymeria, arya turns around, towel pulling tight around her. ]

Where'd it go?

[She nods. The other woman is awfully familiar to Bela. She met someone who looked like her last month but it's not Elena.]

It's fine. Happens to everyone at least once. I'm not always the most cheerful when I come out of the pods.

[ There are things seen, glimpsed but not entirely explained; she'd witnessed pieces of his past, knows his allegiances and his dependencies. She hadn't quite been willing to ask him what he'd seen of her, which memories of hers he now holds alongside of his own. Not all of them are pleasant. Some of them leave her with a hollow feeling, as though she is witnessing it through the eyes of another. To be Alayne, she'd had to separate herself from Sansa's memory, and refused to glance back.

She is not always smiling.

To see him like this, jaw clenching as he nearly grits out the words - she very nearly recoils, curls in on herself. She is not afraid, but that does not mean she will ignore caution. ]

You are hurt.

[ The more she thought about it, Bela had began to realise that a grappling hook could become handy in a place like this. More often that not, the lockers had provided the passengers with useful crap, sometimes even a few horrific things. She hadn't received anything in months so she was beginning to think that her luck had run out. Still, at least Bela had her cat.

All she really can do is tell him what she knows, what's happened over the course of her time here as well as other passengers. Personally, she believes that there's a heck of a lot that they don't know, but the ship and whomever ran it liked to keep them in the dark. Literally sometimes. ]

Yeah, definitely prepared. That thing could save your life one day. [She's wondering if she should just outright tell him about the monsters, the fluctuating temperature and the malfunctioning bridge. Most people she had encountered needed a little more time to adjust to their new situation and Bela didn't like bombarding them with all the scary information until they had done so.

But he seemed oddly okay with the whole thing.]

You said it's been used once already? What kind of place do you come from? [In other words, is his world 'normal' or not? By normal she means that magic or monsters or aliens, etc, don't exist.]

[Two years. Her twenty fourth jump.

It was somewhat terrifying to think that she had been here for so long and had gone through a lot in that time- both good and bad. Reflecting on her experiences now didn't cross her mind as she was still groggy from the jump. Instead, Bela gets showered and heads to the lockers to get dressed, searching for anything that might have turned up in her own locker.

She comes away empty handed and makes her way to the medical bay to get some painkillers and a few other necessities. Bela shivers, frowning at how cold it was. Just when she thought the temperature would finally go back to normal, it's still going on. Okay, time to get a move on from the medical bay and look out for people she knows, check if they're still around.

Her thoughts are still a little jumbled but Bela knows that each month she spends here is another month of being alive. She was soon to be dead back home and not everyone knew that. Sometimes, she thought about telling more people but what would be the point? To gain sympathy? The ship was dangerous for everyone, but not everyone had a life back home.

Bela had made one for herself here and intended to keep it that way as long as she had breath in her body.]

[ annabeth has stopped looking.

two months, two jumps, and she can't take it any more. she used to spend hours just wandering around the pods, looking. not for percy, because she stopped hoping percy would show up ages ago, but for another brunette. another head of hair. two months, and annabeth made too much eye contact with everyone else. with all the people she met who knew wichita. who knew wichita for longer. it wasn't worth checking - annabeth reasoned - because even if wichita did come back, the chances of her remembering were slim to none.

annabeth wasn't sure she would handle that.

so she stopped looking. went through the motions of the jump and the shower and getting dressed, maybe she stuck around a little longer in the warm water of the spray just to waste time. maybe she was just moving a bit slower that day. either way, time passed and she was just trying to keep herself moving. get clothed and get to the lifts and then back to ~~their~~ her room. easy enough, when she set it out like that, not so easy when she turned the corner to the lifts and saw someone already waiting for them. someone that made her stop right in her tracks and wait. wait to see if it would pass, if it was just another hallucination. ]

Wichita?

She nods. There's only one, it's the one that has her piano in it, and she's pretty sure it only exists because of her piano. It's the only thing that's kept her sane, lately.

Well, as sane as she usually is. Which isn't terribly.

There are a few instruments on board. But the piano is there.

[She doesn't know how to fix this. She knows, better than anyone, that there are pieces of the heart that don't mend when they're removed, she knows that Sirius is broken in a way that matches the holes inside of her. It's not why she chose him, but it's proving, more and more, to be a reason she stays.

She backs up a bit, looks him in the face, and doesn't smile. There is nothing to smile over, is there? Instead she takes his hands for a moment, squeezes, and lets go to get her slate.]

You should come stay with me. We don't have to talk.

[It is one thing to her merit, and that is that Seraphim is blessed with silence.]

[Clearly this person, whoever he is, has never had a cat. Because the moment he tugs she does something that anyone with a housecat would recognize - she takes her weight off the towel for a microsecond and then pounces on it, the full weight of her on it.

She makes an inquisitive noise, deep and loud, but not particularly menacing.]

[And Edgeworth - looks away. He's quiet a long time. Finally, he manages:]

I'm - sorry. It's not fair. Not when - just last month.

[Not when you just lost someone; that's what he means, haltingly and inarticulately.]

[Yuri's eyes move up to the man standing over him, non-responsive at first. He gives the stranger a long, hard stare -- almost judgmental -- as if expecting him to dissipate into thin air like all good illusions do.

When that doesn't happen, his lips twitch as he finally deems it necessary to speak.]

I -- no. [He doesn't, not really; despite the sick feeling in his stomach and his overall disorientation, he feels as if he can still stand. And so he does, pulling himself to his feet, frowning at the pod goo that drips to the floor as he does so.]

I was having difficulties believing if any of this was actually real.

Edited 2014-02-09 19:56 (UTC)

[When the tiger pounces, Yuri retracts his hand back -- like anyone would in regards to the safety of their limbs. At the noise the tiger makes, he only scoffs at it, light and barely audible.]

Are all tigers so stubborn?

[The "tiger" that flashes through his mind, however, is more human-shaped, but the statement is accurate nonetheless.

Not that he's really expecting a reply, it's spoken for the sake of irony alone.]

Edited (because. icons.) 2014-02-09 20:08 (UTC)

You were in the bridge.

[ it's a guess. eyes narrowed, fingers curled into nymeria's scruff, arya scrutinizes emma. ]

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Page 19 of 113

twenty-eighth jump;

pods

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are they? that's what i get for ragequitting that ep before the end, whoops. IGNORE THAT THEN

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lockers

pods!

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it's cool, no need to edit c:

Bela Talbot | Open

lifts.

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pods.