ataraxionlogs | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( it seems like a relatively safe bet that no matter what elena is or is not expecting to result from this, the response she gets is not one she might have seen coming, momentarily startled but a beat later very clearly and decisively enunciated: )

Get out of my face.

( you crazy person is strongly implied. )

I don't know you, or your mother, but I quite like personal space.

[ well that... is definitely not what elena was expecting. she blinks, her pupils returning to normal, and then frowns. she really doesn't seem like isobel, but she couldn't be compelled, either... maybe she's a vampire? maybe there are more doppelgangers? elena's head hurts just thinking about it.

so instead of thinking about it, she summons up an apologetic smile, taking a large step back to give the girl some space. ]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude, I was just -- you look a lot like my bio-mom.

[ which still doesn't explain the intense reaction, she's aware, but please just go with it. ]

( some of the tension in her shoulders recedes, at least marginally, and contrarily the bizarre exchange almost puts her in a better mood - here is something she can control, at least a little bit. people have to back off if she tells them to! that is almost like she isn't helpless and lost and a complete mess. )

I'm usually only compared to my own relatives.

( sometimes the ones she's not supposed to know she's related to, which is just delightful. )

Sorry, I guess it was just -- a trick of the light, or something.

[ yes, elena is lying through her teeth, ilde how did you know? she keeps the smile plastered on, going from apologetic to helpful in an instant. if this isn't isobel, then she needs to be shown around and given the rundown on what's happening here, and elena could use any excuse not to think about what happened on the bridge. ]

You're new then, aren't you? Do you know where you are, or has no one explained it to you yet?

Edited 2014-02-11 09:01 (UTC)

I know I'm not where I ought to be.

( after that, things get a little vague and alarmed; she's not yet convinced that this is real. she doesn't want it to be real. )

None of us are. But if it makes you feel any better, sometimes this place is better than wherever you came from.

[ speaking from experience, ilde. even with the bridge incident, elena wouldn't go back to mystic falls if you paid her. ]

We're on a spaceship called Tranquility somewhere in outer space. It brings people from all different universes every month during what's called a jump -- that's what's just happened and why you're here.

( Ilde...isn't fond of London, granted, but she's not quite ready to say that space abduction is better than being safe at home with few needs unattended to. her life may not be ideal, but she's conscious of how privileged it is, even if she can't see the full extent of that from the inside. )

Different universes?

[ life on the tranquility might grow on you, ilde -- sure it's a deathship, but it's a deathship where you might see family you've lost and fix mistakes you made before you came here. it's all a matter of perspective, and elena is trying to keep an optimistic one. ]

Yeah. I'm from a place called Mystic Falls in Virginia, but I bet it doesn't exist in whatever universe you come from.

[ as well as a couple other things from home... ]

( vampires and werewolves and witches, oh my-- Ilde would say that they don't, and in a manner of speaking, wouldn't precisely be wrong. they aren't, after all, quite the same as those elena's more familiar with. that, however, is semantics. )

I wouldn't know, I've-- not really spent much time in Virginia. Or America.

( she has been to the US, but even if Mystic Falls did exist, it's not exactly on the destination list for charity balls and the concert tours that come with them. much of the time ilde's spent overseas - and that's a lot of time - has been in hotel lobbies, ballrooms, boutiques and the backseats of town cars. her memories of places exist mainly as glances out windows and where she bought a particular purse or coat. )

You'll just have to trust me, then.

[ which is something elena knows is hard for some people -- hell, it would be hard for her to trust someone she didn't know, and she likes to think she's a pretty open, friendly person -- so she smiles. ]

There are people from the middle ages here, and elves, and things like that. Werewolves, vampires, that kind of thing. I'm guessing they don't have those where you come from?

[ implying that they do where elena comes from, but she's never exactly been good at withholding information from people. she keeps secrets because she has to, because people will die if she doesn't, but it seems like a better idea to warn ilde instead of send her out into the ship with no idea what she's getting into. ]

( trust is a concept with which ilde isn't very familiar, but that's not something she feels compelled to point out. in this instance, she doubts it's unique. still, thus far none of this is doing anything but reinforcing how much she really wants it to be a hallucination of some kind. this has to be bullshit, right? right. fuck. )

I'd remember if I dropped acid. I'm sure I would.

( ... welp. )

[ and that gets a laugh. that's... probably the funniest reaction she's ever seen anyone have to this place. ]

I'm sure you would, but I promise, this isn't a trip. It's all true. I can prove it if you want me to.

[ how exactly she plans to prove it, elena isn't sure -- vamping out right here would probably just scare the poor girl. she could whoosh behind her, but that'd be too obvious in this crowded a space. whatever, she'll figure something out. ]

twenty-eighth jump;

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