Meet-n-Greet

[cityship]

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them are even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Several people are set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings. New crew-mates might see a tall man in green armor and snake girl among their number. There are also several authoritative-looking figures ready to introduce themselves.

There's a lot to tell the new people. It's going to be a lot to take in.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]

Comments

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

He reappeared a foot above the deck in a wide space filled with mingling people. He drifted gently to the ground, taking in the familiar vibrations of a large ship, the recycled air, the presence of so many people in one small bubble of life… He’d spent almost twenty years aboard an ark like this one, but there he’d known every voice that rang through his mind.

And all that had been before he had lain down to die…

He glanced around the room, but still, there was no presence that seemed identical to the voice that had spoken below. You have been Chosen. But he shouldn’t have been. That was Tony’s place now. And he could feel, like felt the absence of Physis and Seele and Keith, that Tony wasn’t here, wherever here was, which meant that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

“I need to speak with Stacy,” he said to the nearest cluster of people, and it surprised him how strong his own voice sounded. Only moments before, it had been almost impossible to speak, with a sword through his stomach and a deep wound to his shoulder; now that pain had vanished inexplicably, and he was refreshed, rested, awake.

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

Haku was standing there, two-legged for once, and when the boy appeared he simply looked at him placidly, like a cat examining a particular mote of dust among hundreds.

"Stacy is everywhere," he reminded the boy quietly, "We're inside her body."

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

"I need to know what happened," he said firmly. "I shouldn't be here."

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

Well, that was a very popular attitude, these days. Haku tilted his head slightly, to look at the boy more closely before looking away again, scanning the crowd with an unhurried thoroughness.

"Why?"

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

"Because I should be dead."

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

Oh. He was one of those.

The river-god turned and took the two steps to put him in reach of the boy without speaking. He was barefooted, and made no sound except that of his hakama, and even that inaudible in the social hubbub of the obs deck.

"You aren't dead. Here," Haku gave him a slim smile, and held out a hand, flat parallel with the ground, palm-up. The intention was clear: go on, touch it, "You see? Stacy saved your life. You've been asleep down there for a long time."

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

Jomy took the outstretched hand lightly. It was warm, reassuringly so. "How long?"

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

"I don't know," and he didn't, nor was he concerned over that fact. After a moment of warm contact, he withdrew his hand gently, as if to take back something that had been borrowed, "It's probably been years. People don't age, in the pods."

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

That wasn't his main concern -- he hadn't aged a day in almost twenty years, and doubted he ever would. "And Terra?" he asked, brows knitting.

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

"I don't know," he replied, as if he knew who Terra was. He didn't, but the urgency was as familiar as the next breath, "Those who survive, sleep until they wake here, like you. Most are still down there."

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

"Not a person," he explained, "the planet Terra. Humanity's home."

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

"I see," And he felt on his palm still, the place where they'd touched. It was an odd resonance, yet familiar enough...Haku frowned.

"It's here as well. Parts of it, in the city."

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

"The whole thing," he said, more urgently. "If it's been years, I need to know about that planet."

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

"No," And that was very certain, "You don't understand.; it's gone. Stacy only managed to save a few pieces."

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

"Gone?" he echoed urgently.

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

"You don't know," not a question. He was new, "The Ohm. They destroyed everything— Stacy, and the Daligig, brought us here, to be safe. We're all that's left."

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

"No."

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

"See for yourself," Haku suggested, quite unkindly. The world was harsh and terrible, and those who could not bear answers shouldn't ask questions.

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

"But we were so close!" he cried, "to saving that planet, to ending the SD system.!" The sacrifices they'd made, the corpses they'd left behind them -- was it really all for nothing? He'd spent two decades searching for that blue planet, and to hear now that all of it had been rendered fruitless in the end was almost too painful to bear, moreso than Grand Mother's last sword or Blue flickering out above Nazca. "What kind of monsters are the Ohm, to destroy humanity's birthplace? To slaughter the billions of beings on the verge of a new life--?"

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

"Not monsters," Haku replied, icy calm, and he spoke with the mind of a spirit, in which one day you might find yourself being hunted by a terrible force, and the next cheerfully exchanging pleasantries over tea.

A monster was a twisted thing, something that was not what it was supposed to be. If there was one thing that Haku knew for certain it was this: whatever the Ohm were, they were themselves.

"They're hungry. They devour the entire world and everything in it, then they go somewhere else and do the same."

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

He was projecting his grief clearly now; anyone on the ship with a hint of psionic ability might have felt the ache of it. "Everyone on this ship -- are their homes gone, too?"

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

"All but a few, yes," the affirmation was made with a sigh, nearly businesslike, "Those that haven't are only so lucky because they've made this their home."

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

"Space is no substitute for solid earth."

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

"That's your opinion," Haku bristled, deciding he didn't like this boy. After all, his own river wound through the city.

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

The obvious hostility took him by surprise; even after twenty years on the Shangri-La, he'd never stopped dreaming about the life he'd had on Artemesia. "There's no room for an open sky on a ship," he said gently, "for clouds, for seas, for forests..."