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]

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..."

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

"We have a sky. And clouds," Haku calmed, "There are forests as well, since the Goddess came. I don't need a sea."

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

"Is it home?"

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

"It's mine."

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

"Your world wasn't destroyed?"

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

"The world I used to live in is gone," he murmured, "But this is my home now."

There was nothing more to say.

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

Did this boy really not have it? The longing that the Mu had felt for hundreds of years, for a shining blue planet... "There's nothing missing?"

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

Haku had never once dreamed of being anywhere else but wherever he was at the moment. Rivers are things of motion, running greedy fingers over the landscape, but they do not leave their riverbeds.

Not willingly.

"I used to, but not anymore. I found what I was looking for."

[hatesyourmom.livejournal.com]

"I'm glad for you."