ataraxionlogs | thirty-first jump;

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: There is something very easy about waking from the gravcouches this month. The sensation of being watched is absent, and so is much of the sickness - even for those characters who entered Engineering in February. Instead the jump feels comfortable, the stasis fluid warm on your skin, the medbay lights not too harsh as you emerge amongst your fellow passengers. The sensation may be unnerving in its strangeness, but there will be a deep feeling of being well-rested, calm and content, that will not be completely lost no matter how much you question it.

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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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mr. -

[The man is unmistakable. Edgeworth had spent more time texting with Mr. Graham, and speaking with him over the phone, than he did speaking with him in person - yet even so, Edgeworth would not fail to recognize him. And Edgeworth is focused, still, on his recent experiences; he is still shying away from contact with others, avoiding people - yet he can't back away from Graham. Not when the man is reappeared, nearly miraculously, wholly unexpectedly - ]

Mr. Graham. Did you only just return?

Only just.

[ he confirms. it's definitely an experience, tumbling out of the pods freshly nauseous and confused, just as he had been starting to acclimate to them. ]

[ he still makes no move to touch edgeworth, though he's looking him over again, sharp-eyed. ]

I - I am very glad to see you once more.

[Awkward and more than a little overwhelmed with emotion, Edgeworth drops into a bow. But, still not fully healed, his ribs feel that bow; at once, he jerks back up, a reaction to the unexpected pull of pain, and then clears his throat from embarrassment.

Hastily - even though he knows that Graham isn't exactly one to comment on the ungracefulness of a bow - ]

Did you return home?

[ considering will isn't even from a culture where bows are a thing, he's willing to let it slide. though he's forming a picture of edgeworth's injuries that concern him more than they perhaps should. ]

I did.

[ a grimace. he doesn't want to talk about it. boy does he not want to talk about it. but at the same time, will is practically incapable of real deception; lying does not come naturally to him, so he finds it difficult to just brush his experiences aside. ]

I didn't do much.

[ spent a lot of time in a cell, and a little on trial. ]

Seems like you've had more excitement here.

[Excitement is a word at once appropriate and grotesquely inappropriate, so much so that his nerves at figuring out how to respond appropriate to the comment overwhelm him a moment and he just looks helplessly at Will. After that moment, he looks down at his feet and mutters:]

Yes. Rather too much.

[A moment, and then he changes the subject jarringly:]

Your dogs are well?

[ will isn't tactile, but he wonders if he should put a hand on edgeworth, somewhere; the shoulder, maybe, a reassuring grip. his arm twitches abortively. ]

They're all right. It's good to see them again.

[ perhaps that gives too much away, but he doesn't care. he wishes he could talk to them somehow, know whether or not they missed him, if they somehow remember the span of time without him. or had they simply gone blink to blink, jump to jump? ]

Pess end up with a new socialization buddy?

Tyke's dogs have been all right for her. They're quite...pack-like, though. It doesn't fit so well with her mindset.

[Not that Will's aren't a pack, exactly; it's just that Tyke's are more disciplined. Military, often, like herself. Will's are easier.

Still, that - ]

Did you not see them at home?

thirty-first jump;

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