agogelogs | THE AMAZING BASE.

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THE AMAZING BASE.

WHO? Everybody!
WHAT? Welcome home, nerds.
WHEN? Outside time and space, in the aether between dimensions.
ANYTHING ELSE? There is also a fish. Please warn in subject lines for anything beyond physical violence and move to a personal journal if things go beyond PG-13.

MYSTERY FISH;

question the mystery fish

DEPARTING GALLIPOLI

The order comes the day after the Marie Antoinette sets sail:

PACK UP AND GET READY TO MOVE OUT. WE'VE DONE ALL WE CAN HERE.

DEPLOYMENT: BASE.

WE NEED TO RESTOCK. BE PREPARED FOR MORE TRANSFERS ON ARRIVAL.

STAY SAFE. TIME-STEP EXPECTED TO BEGIN WITHIN THE HOUR.

FOR THOSE OF YOU NEW TO COST: FIND A SECLUDED SPOT AND TRY NOT TO EAT ANYTHING BEFORE THE JUMP.

The Time-Step

The transfer begins like a vibrating heat on the collar bone, just a hum of sensation.

But the vibration spreads. Veteran COST soldiers often refer to this phenomenon as "the buzz". The feeling builds, not unlike standing near a great engine or the wind-rattled branches of a massive tree. There is a long moment of motion sickness and you can't be sure if the world is shaking you from the inside out or the outside in. It may be better to close your eyes against the growing nausea, as the world blurs out of focus.

A star shines in the distance. You may hear the faint rustling of leaves. Some swear they hear voices in this moment, indistinct words echoing off nothingness. Others say they feel a touch of the divine, that the eyes of the eternal look down upon you. Ancient bones rattle just out of earshot, cold and brittle and nothing more than the suggestion of sound. Or maybe it's only an illusion, brought on by the powerful technology grafted into your skin.

One thing is for sure: One moment you are here and the next you are not.

The shift takes you from whatever solitude you could find aboard the Marie Antoinette to the temperature-regulated hallway of what looks like a very poorly put together space station. Droids rush up and down the long hallway, fixing broken bits of machinery or just chattering with each other. A few crows sit on high ledges, looking down and watching. Someone mutters something about a centaur around the corner.

And you might just notice, provided you were in Gallipoli long enough to acquire stowaways, that the parasites lurking on your skin are mercifully gone.

For new arrivals who didn't experience Gallipoli: You, too, will appear in this long hallway, filled with droids and crows and humans (still filthy and clad in ANZAC uniforms, carrying battered equipment from the first World War). And you'll be wearing the minimal COST-issued athletic underwear and holding whatever one item you were allowed to bring. Surprise!

READ THE BASE INFOPAGE.

home away from home

Those who have been to BASE before may find a strangeness to it all: BASE seems...still. The windows show a verdant world instead of the usual aether (though with the typical paranoia), and the halls are bereft of all but a few crows. A man stands at the end of the long hallway you arrived in, waiting for you to get your bearings before he speaks.

Except, you know, he's not a man. He's a centaur.

"It's been barely a week since you left, by my reckoning. But for you, I'm sure, it's been much longer. Still, much has changed. You may have noticed we are...becalmed. This is due, it seems, to an error in our ways. We kept something that does not belong to us, several wild creatures that are meant to be free. They seem to have psychically called out to their home, and their home responded; we are now somewhat stranded.

"But let me explain—the Aether is the nexus between worlds and times, but it is not a dead thing. Creatures live in it. We have crashed onto the back of one such creature, a mighty beast, as large as a small country and entirely undiscovered. We have found why the creature has intercepted us: we have accidentally taken captive some of its children. Shapers, the wild creatures I mentioned, it seems they form a symbiotic bond with the creature, and live happily within its stomach."

He frowns, considering this.

"Shapers, I should mention, are creatures that briefly infested our fair BASE. The issue was dealt with, though we kept some for experimentation. The coelacanth took issue with this, it seems. It can speak, of course; we are stranded very near its head, and if you wish to ask it a question, I implore you to do so. The creature is older than creation—older than me—and only speaks once to any creature it encounters. It's said its wisdom brings kings to their knees."

His eyes crinkle in humor.

"My name is Chiron and I am the caretaker of this place, for those of you whom I have not had the pleasure of meeting. More importantly, I am a trainer and a teacher of some experience; if you wish training or schooling of any sort, do summon me. I will be happy to assist."

He's easy to contact, often found in the library, the training area, his capsule, or elsewhere in the station, attempting to fix what he understands and arguing with crows.

"We intended to spend this time exploring, for this is a rare opportunity to discover more of an entirely uncharted world. I hasten you to see if anything on the coelacanth can be of use, but be careful. Take only what you need, not what you may want. I intend to learn my lessons well; these creatures are not pets. Takes food, water, and any materials of use to us for our survival and perseverance, but no more. We task you with this: explore the coelacanth, and see what of it can be understood. Bring us back samples, but do try to interrupt the natural habitat as little as possible. We are guests here."

He bows and the action shows a slight limp in one of his back legs.

"I would join you, but I am far too old for such activities. Still, do pepper me with any questions you should encounter. I am always available on the network, or in person, within this hulking mass we call home."

And then he leaves you to find your capsules and rest.

CAPSULE ASSIGNMENTS

Once you've found your room and settled in—perhaps taken a shower, collected clothes, and eaten—a droid will approach you with camping equipment and give you a brief explanation of how to access and use the database. It's time to get your gear and go.

Of course, you can decline. You can stay and tend to the fort, maybe try and clean up this patchwork jumble of metal and machinery. But seeing the sights on the back of a giant fish flying through non-space? Who can say no to that?

the undiscovered country.

BASE's airlocks open into a lush valley, vibrant with color and rustling with life that has thrived on the coelacanth's back for millennia. It's a striking shift from the rot and gunfire of Gallipoli, unmarked by shrapnel, bombshells, and never-fresh air.

No, the air here is clean in a way that can leave you breathless, untouched by pollutants and stirred into a gentle breeze. It's a marked departure for anyone used to a more modern Earth or rough equivalent; letting the air sit on your tongue leaves a crisp, unsullied taste behind. And the whole forest feels alive, in a way that reminds you of how small you really are.

A white crow perches in a tree near BASE's exit, too high up to properly engage but a stark contrast to the bright leaves around her. She merely watches recruits come and go with a shrewd eye, feathers fluffed against the light chill. There are other crows scattered throughout the wilderness, some easier to find than others as they flit through the trees, sit on camping equipment, or hitch rides on the hoverbikes.

Besides those brief flashes of black feathers, however, you're left unsupervised.

Try not to fuck up anything too badly.

EXPLORE:INFOPAGE|DATABASE
talk to a fish | destruction report

NAV. NETWORK LOGS OOC MEMES PLURK

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's something about the way she's hugging him... tight and lingering, not just a simple embrace, not just affection.

His arms go around her, and he holds her head against his chest with the palm of his hand.

"It's all right." His voice is hushed. "We don't have to go back there."

It's not even that she fears going back. Gallipoli in and of itself was miserable, far worse than the rainy days of France, or the deserts of Jerusalem. Even being kidnapped was bearable in a way she cannot describe, for there was not the constant booms of violence, the fretting of fleeing into tunnels and wondering if she would ever see sunlight again.

She doesn't know how to tell him any of this. She, who can usually voice so very many things.

But now that they're back in Base, in a private place that feels too claustrophobic and safe all at once...

"They didn't let us sleep," she mumbles against his chest. "The rooms always shifted, light shined in our eyes if we nodded off."

If they didn't let her sleep, that means she hasn't slept in days -- not more than a few hours here and there. He shifts his embrace so that he's not only holding her close, he's also holding her up, if she wants.

"I killed as many of the ones in wolf masks as I could."

Firing on the Turks: he hadn't enjoyed that. Hadn't enjoyed being party to taking out men at their base, either -- ordinary sentries just doing their jobs. But after Daenerys's abduction and return, and Jon's conversation with Kebechet, there had been some mild satisfaction to fighting the Regency troops. The outcome, in the long term, might be good, might be bad, he doesn't know. But it was like he'd been told: someone's children were a threat to the Regency, and the Regency had tried to keep them from ever being born.

"You need to eat and sleep. We'll stay here for a few days, until you have your strength back."

Something like this had happened to him before, when he made his way back to Castle Black as fast as he could with three arrows in him. She's not wounded like that, but even so, it will take more than an afternoon for her to recover.

It speaks to the fact that she finally feels safe enough in here that she's able to mention those intricate details. Not the interrogation or the illusions, but of the day to day moments. Not all of them, either, for speaking of it means reliving it, and much like very many other things she's lived through, she's no desire to look back. It's a start, though.

"A shower, first." When she lifts her head, her face and eyes are dry, albeit, tired. "You've chicken bits in your beard, and I feel as if bugs still crawl all over me."

She doesn't argue about resting for a few days. The thought of adventure out on the creature they've crashed upon sounds even more exhausting. Suffice it to say, she's had enough adventure for a time.

"You saw the others?" The other captives. "I only saw Ashitaka and Noctis."

"I don't know who was or wasn't a captive. Those two, because they were taken from Mal Tepe when I was with them." He didn't do enough to stop them from being taken, not if they were snatched from under his nose like that, and his tone makes the sentiment clear. "But not the others."

After a beat, he pulls back from her a little. "Chicken bits in my beard?" Frowning, he begins to wipe at his beard with the palm of his hand. "All right. We'll leave this one here, for now, and make for the showers."

Where are his things? In the wardrobe, probably, and the trunks. He doesn't move towards them yet, because his arm is still around her.

"That's what you get for a kiss hello." This time, the tease comes a bit more willingly, less deadpan. "You don't think he'll try to eat a crow if we leave him to himself, do you?"

The question's forgotten when they move on to the subject of captives.

They didn't know who was taken? That makes her frown. "Mordred was with me. Rey was with Noctis. Kylo was with Ashitaka in the cells when Mordred and I were escorted out."

Did that mean the others hadn't--she stiffens against him, pulling from his hold. "We have to find them."

"Never noticed him trying to eat crow -- it might have been a problem at the Wall if he had. Anyway, I don't think Young will get in his way."

On the subject of captives, he says, "Ask Grothia if she knows who was taken and if they got them all back. We got different messages when we tried to contact you. Robb's told me he was missing in action... there was never anything to say that the Regency took him. Yours told me you didn't exist."

Who did he see on arrival?

"Mordred is here. Noctis -- that's Dave Sky, isn't it? He's here. I don't know the others, not by name."

"Young picks fights with Irriella," she mutters, "What's to say she won't with Ghost?"

So that leaves Rey and Kylo for those she hadn't seen. And she knows they have a history, having overheard enough during their captivity. Her eyes go unfocused as she sends them both messages, quick little check ins she should have done far sooner, but hadn't, because she'd been swept up in other details.

And soon enough she's reaching for him again. Unsure of whether to hug him, smooth his brow, or to merely grab his hands upon the mention of Robb. Robb. She'd completely forgotten.

"Did Grothia tell you anything about him?"

His expression becomes bleak.

"He's gone. Not dead -- not any more than -- " He stumbles over his words, cuts himself off. "But not that, just gone."

Which means he's dead again, for now. Jon had hoped that Robb might come, or their father: If they can bring her dead husband, it may be that they can bring my dead father, or my brother. But in each case, they're gone again.

"Young must have had something to do with Ghost being here. She didn't have much to do with Irriella. All we can do is see how she does with him."

Edited 2018-03-19 03:30 (UTC)

She looks away, watching Ghost as he chews happily at the chicken corpse. No matter where they turn, the dead haunt them. Part of her almost wishes that none from their world had come, at least it would have spared Jon the heartache of losing his brother a second time.

But that is a cruel thing in and of itself to think. Aren't the moments they'd shared before Gallipoli worth it? She hopes they were.

"Another thing to worry about later, my love." She can be strong. She will be strong for him in his grief. "If there's a way to discover what's become of Robb, we will find it."

Her fingers curve around his forearm, gently coaxing him into movement.

"Shower and rest. You'd said much the same."

Robb's appearance in COST had followed so swiftly on the heels of Drogo's second death that Jon had always assumed it might be brief and temporary, but it's true that in many ways, it was better than not seeing him at all. Frustrating, too, if Robb's intent was that Jon should have been his immediate heir... had he taken all those knife wounds for nothing?

But if Jon had become King in the North instead of the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, he would never have gone to Hardhome. He wouldn't know, he wouldn't have seen. Thousands more Wildlings would be in the Army of the Dead. And that's just the tip of it: the consequences would have been much broader than that.

All it really comes down to is that he's had the chance to see his brother again. Wouldn't some people give everything they had for that?

As Daenerys's fingers wrap around his arm, he gives her a hesitant nod.

"All right. You should sit, if Ghost will let you around."

He moves towards the wardrobe, shuffling around the direwolf in a little dance, and when he gets the door open, he stops in surprise -- then laughs. His gorget and his armored leather tunic sit on the floor, next to a small mountain of furs.

"They've got my armor back to me. After all this."

If she sits, she might not manage to get back up. Besides, watching him try to dance around Ghost is enough proof of how much a failure her own attempts will be. So instead, she chuckles at his expense.

When he laughs, she's settled against the doorway, considering the bathroom and the door down the hall. Who shares the capsule with him now? Who shares hers?

"Your armor?" That makes her think of her own bedroom and what might be sitting in her closet. But the thought's interrupted when she notices something atop his pillows. "Jon. Is that an egg?"

He glances over to where she's looking, and indeed, there's an egg of some kind on his pillows. Not the color of any egg he's familiar with, though.

"It is."

He gathers some clean clothes from the closet, and a towel for each of them, then moves to the bed (which involves more shuffling around Ghost) to examine the egg. It's covered in intricate carvings, as if it's been formed from embroidered lace.

Even more shuffling has him back in front of her, handing the egg to her.

"This one doesn't talk, unless it talks when you break it. Seems half a shame, though. It's pretty. Not much use, but pretty."

The shuffling, strangely enough, proffers far more amusement than she'd thought possible. Jon Snow is a number of things: a king, a warrior, her lover... but the way he dances around his wolf is so ridiculous, she can't help but chuckle.

The amusement lasts, even as she carefully takes the egg, examining it from every angle.

"You can't break it." Still with enough energy to muster up a scandalized look. "What if there's a hatchling in here?"

"I don't think there's a hatchling... it's carved. It's light. -- What was funny?"

"We didn't think mine were anything more than stone."

Ever see Dany hunker down in plain old stubbornness? Well, you've got a front row seat for it, Jon.

"You are."

"Me?"

Please explain, love.

"I'm not going to break the egg unless there's a reason to break it. And if we do, maybe it would be better to do it out there."

Holding his pile of clothes, he gestures vaguely with one hand in the direction that he thinks is "outside."

"Yes, you."

Gonna have to convince her to spill the beans, lover boy.

"It's too pretty to break." Ah, and now there's a moment of sentimentality, as she traces some of the lace patterns on it. "Can't think of a reason why you'd want to."

And with that said, she slips 'outside.'

He shrugs at that. Sometimes things are funnier than they ought to be when you haven't been sleeping well.

And then she slips out the door of his room with the egg.

"If you bring that back here, I'll put it in the trunk."

He means the box at the foot of his bed.

"No," she says, voice echoing as she slips out the bathroom and into the stairwell leading out of the capsule. "It'll break in the trunk, Jon!"

He follows her out the door.

"We'll be lucky if it doesn't break in the box in the shower. It might be safer here."

"Are you sure you're not just trying to get your egg back?" she asks over her shoulder. Stubborn. How on earth do you love this beast, Jon?

She leads them to her capsule, now, fully intending on depositing the egg in a wolf-free zone. And also to grab some of her own clothing.

"You could just ask for it."

How does he love the most perfect woman in any world etc etc etc. It's extraordinarily difficult, particularly when she insists on running away with his mysterious decorative egg.

As they enter her capsule and her room, he glances around.

"Look." He dips his head in the direction of her pillow, where there's another egg.

Edited 2018-03-20 01:45 (UTC)

The things he makes him suffer, she is a monster. The worst. Run away Jon Snow, you know nothing of the dragon's beastly ways.

A noise of surprise in the back of her throat. She looks far too pleased, cutting him a smug look. "Now we've two. They'll keep each other company."

What even, Dany?

More than that, however, is her sharp inhale as she lifts one of the dresses sitting atop her bed. "This is from Meereen!"

So with the egg in one hand, and the indecently cut Meereenese dress in the other, she turns to face him, holding the thin fabric against her front.

If he ran away now, she'd still have his pointless but ornamental egg, wouldn't she?

Still, it's good to see her in a brighter mood than the one she's been in for the last few days.

Her gasp gets his attention, and when he turns his head to look at her, he blinks in surprise. There really isn't very much to that dress at all. He's never seen anything like it.

"Is that for sleeping in?"

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he looks like a snuggly hamster with that icon

BLUE STEEL

ZOMBIELAND

OH, DANY.

FOLLOW THE BOOTY JONNY BOY

IT'S A REGULAR POULTRY FARM

BLOW THE KAZOO

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