forty-fourth 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: Awareness comes to you slowly in the smothering quiet of the blue fluid. In the light piercing through from the medical bay you realise there's a shadow, a figure stood at the glass of your gravcouch, a hand pressed to the surface just above your face. Fear spikes through your gut as waves of alien sensation crash into your mind, a rage that feels endless, all-consuming, furious, molten hatred that you know is for you.

When the fluid drains, door sliding open to deposit you on the medbay floor, you remember it. Remember it coming again and again, like a nightmare that plagued your sleep over and over, leaving you with no respite, no rest. Days. Perhaps even longer.

You remember that the light coming through from behind the shadow was red.

New arrivals will find messages spray-painted in red across their lockers telling them not to follow their tattoo numbers, and instead to find a room on Floors 001-010.


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ＹＯＵ͘ ̨ＷＡＫＥ̢ ̧ＵＰ ́ＩＮ ＤＡ̛ＲＫＮ̢Ｅ̕ＳＳ̶

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.

ＹＯ́Ｕ̴ ̧Ａ̨ＲＥ ＮＯＴ҉ ̷ＡＬＯ̨ＮＥ҉

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.

ＴＨ̀ＩＳ͜ ̶Ｉ͠Ｓ͡ ͘Ｙ̵Ｏ͝ＵＲ ̕Ｗ͝Ｅ̛Ｌ̨Ｃ͡Ｏ͝Ｍ͏Ｅ Ｐ̛ＡＲ̴ＴＹ͜

Comments

[queasycrow]

This news brings about what is almost a mental short circuit, confusion visible behind his eyes even if his expression remains fixed. He thinks, in a way more sudden than he has in years, Bethany?, but that makes no sense at all, and something about this place tells him that that's not what Fenris means, nor does he mean Leandra, even if he's not got a clue what else he could possibly mean.

Contrary to popular belief, Hawke is not a stupid man. This time, he doesn't say the stupid thing.

Like what? Or, you're not making sense, even if that's a valid question, and that's an incredibly valid statement.

"Then I suppose this would be a bad time for you to get to know me," he guesses, with a sort of gesture that encompasses his slimy, naked self, and the slimy, naked selves around them, and the universe at large, delivered easy as if part of him doesn't want to grip Fenris by his shoulders and shake him. He goes on, anyway. "Hawke, Garrett Hawke. Champion of Kirkwall. Rallying cry of mage freedom across the land, but we've both agreed by now no one's perfect. And I'm rather sure I know you."

[judex]

"I don't doubt it," Fenris says. Resentfully. He'd prefer to doubt it. But he'd prefer a lot of things, including to not be here at all, to have Hawke (the real one) back, to not have an audience or anyone to answer to if he made short work of the bearded imposter—

He wouldn't really prefer that last one. He's furious, and he's directing that fury at this pseudo-Hawke without any regard for how fair that might be, but he's not murderous. (Not knowing about the magic helps with that; there was no eye roll at mage freedom, not while there are more important things to be upset about, but there was a discernibly heavy and irritated exhale.) He pays no attention to anyone's slimy naked body. That part is normal. The ship is up to something less normal, meanwhile, and he'd like to not be dealing with this and that at the same time.

"Sebastian is here. He's been here almost as long as I have. I'm sure you have questions."

Ask them of him, is the implication. This is not the kindest thing to wish on either of them—because Sebastian was so recently furious at Marian, because if Garrett's life took the same path as hers then Fenris can guess that his is the more familiar face and the friendlier relationship—but Sebastian doesn't work for Security, for one thing. For another, he's better with people. Sort of.

[queasycrow]

There's a cynical tip at Hawke's brow at the prospect of seeking out the Starkhaven priestprince -- but not as much as Fenris extricating himself, a quick glance to the numbers reading on the elf's arm indicating to him he's one of those that came before, which seems impossible. They hadn't separated.

They'd thought about it. Hawke had thought about it.

But now that he's here, it seems ludicrous to part ways. "And I know you have answers," he insists, even if he knows that pushing and shoving with Fenris only goes so far. Sometimes, he can't help it. "You're really going to have me ask him to give them instead?"

[judex]

"Yes," Fenris bites out, "I'm really going to have you ask him to give them instead."

He's beginning to get cold, skin goose-pimpling where it isn't too burnt and ore-infused to do so. Maybe some of the chill is psychosomatic. The ship has never gotten to him, really. No more treacherous than a world with shapeshifting demons, not much more mysterious than the Fade. People come and go here all the time, with or without their memories intact, and Fenris never thought too closely it. He assumed Hawke would come back because Hawke always does--from fighting dragons, from the Fade, from anything--and they would carry on, or else she was gone forever and he would deal with the loss and carry on himself.

This never occurred to him. This is getting to him.

That's why he says, "Her name was Marian," instead of something less personal, like I have a job, I have to go. "She disappeared two months ago." And now this Hawke is here. Fenris is aware on one level that Hawke couldn't have anything to do with that, didn't intentionally set out to assume someone else's name and life, but on another level—the level governing his tone of voice—the accusation is there anyway.

[queasycrow]

Hawke is cold too, but it seems like an inconsequential thing to have to worry about when Fenris is showing all the signs he's about to sashay away at any moment. If maintaining conversation means being cold for a little while longer, he'll take it.

'Marian' doesn't quite register. Entirely unfamiliar. He's still thinking it in terms of some long lost family member he didn't know about.

What does stick is 'two months ago' and while he had guessed Fenris had already been here, however that works, a sense of scale had eluded him, and a ripple of concern seems to register behind his expression. The accusation passes straight through him, both lacking anchor but also a bit like a brisk wind, settling chilly between them.

"How long have you been here?" he asks, a bit stupidly, his focus suddenly winging around from his own questions and concerns to the state of his friend.