twenty-eighth jump;

[ataraxites]

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.

Comments

[outliver]

[ He is perhaps the one person she is actively looking from among the crowds. If she's surprised about something is the fact she does not find it surprising to find him there, back to her, tense as only Stefan knows how to be. The thought comes in suddenly and without permission: just which Stefan is this? Ever since the guy ended in Mystic Falls again he had had so many emotional struggles it was like trying to win the Russian Roulette of Emotional Issues with him.

So she comes by slowly, making her presence obvious to him. He's nervous, she can tell, so he'll be vigilant. It's better this way, since approaching him too suddenly could end terribly.

So she's just going to stand over there for now. ]

[salvatus]

[Working together to destroy Damon's plan doesn't mean much, not to him, anyway, nor had her instance that he needed to let at least anger in, if nothing else. She'd needed him to make Klaus suffer, keep him occupied- no more, no less.

It's only chance that made it in Stefan's best interests as well. So it isn't out right hostility that he greets her with, when he notes the slow steps towards him, or actually turns to take in her appearance- but it's not exactly pleasant either.

Just one more item on a list of things going wrong]

Katherine. [The what do you want, is totally implied]

[outliver]

I come in peace. [ She's quick to raise her hands, an amused expression on her face. So he's from some moment when they weren't in neither good nor bad terms? Or is he bidding his time? Dammit, this is what happens when you can't live a honest life. ]

Just making sure you're not about to go on a rampage over here. I'm sure you'll prefer anyone else of the fine people from back home to explain things to you.

[ And she allows a soft huff of annoyance. ]

[salvatus]

You never do.

[There's always something else in it for Katherine, and the last thing it ever results in for anyone else is peace. It usually comes along with a body count, with someone that taking the fall for her. With her running back into hiding no worse for wear]

I heard the explanation several times. [He neither wants it from them, or from her. But he's a little bemused despite himself, at her huff of annoyance. Jealous, darling?] Before they showed up.

[outliver]

I certainly try though?

[ Something? Come on, why is so hard to play nice? She actually wants no answer to that question, thank you. ]

Surely your puppy eyes got more than one person to give you a hand. What's the last thing you remember, then?

[salvatus]

There's something to be said for it.

[Nothing good- but something. It's the most he's in the mood to give. He might have humoured her a little, after their last encounter- because even if the favour she'd done him suited her own ends, it had still been one. But that was before their next encounter happened in space, distracted from the path she'd set him to]

Why don't you tell me? [Please Katherine, it wasn't going to be that easy no matter who you were. Why don't you guess?]