ARRIVAL LOG 004

[larkers]

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: New Amsterdam
WHEN: Night of August 05
WHAT: The fourth arrival
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Coercion and loss of autonomy. Further notes at end of log.

> ARRIVAL LOG #004

Awareness comes to you in blurred snatches, cloudy fragments of sound and light, color, sensation. Hazy and difficult to grasp on to, but slowly aligning into focus. A series of regular, rhythmic beeps. A medicinal, astringent smell. The sensation of movement, a low hum and accompanying vibration under you. Your eyes are heavy, hard to keep open, but in the glimpses between slow, dark blinks you see four people in black body armor seated opposite you, as well as a man in dark gray scrubs. You realize there are others next to you. All of you in white scrubs, hair recently cut but at various stages of growth, restrained by straps across your chests, arms, feet, holding you to the bench under you. To your left, an armored interior door, two more people visible, the movement of streets passing through a windshield. You try to open your mouth to speak, but it's as if your tongue is coated in tar, and you manage nothing more than an empty parting of lips. The vehicle stops. The guard opposite you stands and comes to unbuckle you from the bench, helping you to your feet. Your limbs feel wooden and heavy, slow to move. One guard opens the back of the vehicle, bright sunshine and the rushing sound of a crowd flooding in, a heavy wave of warm air. The nurse moves to stand at the back, checking each passenger over one by one just before they're helped out of the vehicle, quick and methodical. He doesn't climb out after you, moving to sit as the last passenger is unloaded. The guards keep their heads down. Their actions are quick, firm, but not entirely unkind. Once all the passengers are out, they climb back into the vehicle and close the doors. The engine powers up again, and then the bus is gone. You're left alone in an alley, with no idea of where you are or why you've been brought here. The sound of the crowd nearby carries on uninterrupted. Music, chatter and laughter, the occasional sound of a large splash into water. At the end of the alley opposite to where the van left you, the street opens out to a wide artificial river. Gathered on the banks, on several boats across the surface and in the water are hundreds of people: a giant pool party under the blazing summer sun. ◉ Though entirely capable of independent action and thought, new characters will find themselves completely, unquestioningly compliant to any verbal statement which could be taken as a command or request.

> THE PARTY

The message from El comes the same as previous: insistent, not waiting for any active attempt to open it. Scrolling within your vision as if being written while you're reading it. Who's ready for bus #4? Looks like they want you to have some fun this time, they've dropped them off right on top of the river party. Someone get down there and find them before they fall in, please. The New Amsterdam River Party is a near annual event, scheduled for whenever the heat begins to really climb. Located roughly at the middle of the river's length, six large boats take anchor, blocking any water commute for the day. Smaller boats move between them and the river banks, taking any passengers who'd prefer not to get wet back and forth. The area is decorated for the occasion, with several huge palm tree and mermaid sculptures curving over the river, flashing in alternating neon colors. Curling strings of bright lights are strung between them, dangling low and promising a truly flamboyant light show when the sun goes down. For the moment the the focus is fun under the sun. Colorful floats, balls and slides are strewn across the water and banks, with a wide array of water pistols, balloons and slings available at stalls. Beach umbrellas offer shade along the banks, and music blares from the boats, where food sellers have booths and tables to feed the crowd and provide plenty of cool drinks. Lifeguards take posts, watching everything with careful eyes, and large, marked stalls declare themselves to be skincare centers, handing out free sunscreen and reminding everyone to regularly reapply, especially if they've been in the water. In all the colorful, skimpy swimwear and sunglasses, six bewildered people in white scrubs are sure to stand out. Hopefully the citizens are having too much fun to care, but with such attentive lifeguards and event security around, it would be best to find the new arrivals in the crowd as quickly as possible.

> THE SAFEHOUSE

Access to the safehouse is a hatch hidden behind stacks of empty storage shelves in the back of an abandoned supermarket in an outer district of the city. The immediate area is similarly abandoned, empty stores, flanked by several blocks of dive bars and clubs which cater to more niche tastes. A place where people can come and go unseen, or, if seen, not spoken of. A dark haired woman called Gaby is ready to greet the new arrivals and get them settled in, brusque and no-nonsense – she'll be open for in depth questions later, but will advise everyone to ask the people who brought them in for the beginning bits of information. ◉ The safe house is a large open space, filled with rows of basic cots set up to sleep a large amount of people. Basic, but outfitted with everything necessary for daily life. A few doors lead to back rooms for storage, medical care and a large communal bathroom, and past the long rows of cots there is a communal kitchen, fully stocked, and an eating area. Privacy is at a minimum. ◉ New characters will be asked to pick their beds, and provided with a change of (second-hand, mismatched and somewhat threadbare) clothes and basic toiletries. ◉ While there were previously also NPC occupants of the safehouse, natives to New Amsterdam, these people have now been moved on to somewhere safer. A few of their belongings remain, discarded or accidentally abandoned. ◉ Gaby will make it clear to all new arrivals that if they have any requests or queries, they should contact her or El. ◉ The drugs making new characters compliant will remain in their systems for a few hours after their arrival at the safehouse before finally beginning to fade. They will be gone entirely after a night's rest. In the meantime, they may want to be careful of what others say to them. ◉ New characters will be given rudimentary access to the network on arrival in the safehouse, but will not have their ID set up yet. They will be able to make posts and replies, but their messages will be anonymous and they do not have inboxes yet. ◉ New characters will not be allowed to leave the safehouse until AUGUST 09. These 4 days are for them to adjust, learn about the world they've arrived in from their fellows, and for El to speak with them and work on setting up their IDs.

> FINAL OOC NOTES

Welcome to Meadowlark, newbies! You're now free to post to the network and logs comms. To reiterate, your characters will have no IDs or inboxes, nor be allowed out of the safehouse until August 9 (November 16). At that point it's expected they'll have gotten a good idea of their new situation from their fellow characters, and will have discussed their background and job potentials with El in order for their false IDs to be set up. If you have any questions or ideas about how you'd like to get your character involved in the world, or if they'd like to join Morningstar, please head over to the plot engagement post and drop us a comment! For questions specific to this log, there is a thread below. Please check out our November calendar rundown for a look at things happening this month. As a reminder, AC for new characters will be 10 comments across 2-4 threads, while current characters will need to provide the full AC of 20 comments across 2-4 threads. AC will be posted on November 20 and close on November 27. If you do not reply to AC, you will be considered idled and dropped from the game. We will not post a warning list.

> NAVIGATION

Comments

wildcard - probably way after everyone else

[batricide]

[ Father was never a word Damian could define. Growing up it at meant the Batman, a beast of a man that defied all expectation. It meant greatness, it meant a bloodline of heroes - it was little more than a concept his mother kicked up to motivate him into being a better soldier. Because the actual Bruce Wayne was not a father anyone should want.

He hadn't known it at the time. Being a boy of all of eight, who had never had a positive interaction with any caregiver, he'd thought it all normal. His father had no patience and no understanding of how to interact with any child whose greatest trauma didn't mirror his own. He'd toed the line in their short time together out of fear, not a desire to do better.

Then, at ten, Dick Grayson was put in charge of him. Dick, who was nothing like either Talia or Bruce. Too soft, too gentle, too damn trusting. Damian could have killed him at any time and taken the mantle for himself, could have twisted and tricked his way out of any of the pointless activities he wanted to do - but he didn't.

Because while Talia taught him to fight, and Bruce taught him mercy, and Alfred taught him humility - Dick Grayson taught him what it was like to be loved.

A fat lot of good that did him in the end.

Now he's grown. Neither a perfect clone or mirror of either parent. More Talia's build than Bruce's, yet closer to Bruce's strength than hers. Her eyeshape, his color.

He enters the safehouse after most of the people have been gathered, after going one final sweep to ensure no one was left outside and uncounted. The moodiness of being here two weeks and being no closer to any answers shows on his face and in most of the interactions he has (but he tries, he does, he's bad at people not a monster) and only barely paying attention when someone walks out from the showers.

But paying enough attention to drop what he's holding and stand bolt upright. ]

Dick...? [ The voice comes out small and weak, shock wringing the bravado out of him. ]

this is so fucking rude

[preceded]

Damian.

[It's soft, gentle. More akin to trying to wrangle a skittish animal, than any way he'd addressed Damian before. The child he'd known, that he'd so unintentionally left behind- he'd been so full of pride, so brittle- the last thing he would have accepted from Dick was to be treated as any other child his age. He would have seen it as patronizing. More than anything, he'd wanted acceptance. Respect. He'd wanted to be seen as Dick's equal, his partner. Robin as useful to Batman as Batman was to him. He'd have lashed out at the tone and Dick would have lost any chance to help.

He'd had to make his affections more subtle, easier to swallow, until Damian slowly learned to see them for what they were. He'd had to speak to Damian as if he knew Damian could handle it on his own- and is if he were doing Dick a favour by not doing so. This? This is something else entirely.

This is no longer a child, but a fully fledged teenager. Something he'd missed watching happen, in this world and the other- apparently. This is a teenager that must have lost everything, lost his father and his replacement one all in one go. The way he looks at Dick- the way he speaks, it's so much more than grief. He looks haunted.

If there's one useful thing that came from his conversation with Jason, it was this. To know what he was walking into, to not be able to mistake Damian for anyone else- he'd be hard pressed to, with the way he's shot up in height, not quite enough to match Bruce or Jason, but still tall. The colouring, that slope to his nose- it's Damian and Dick doesn't have to wonder precisely how long that coma had been.

Just has to wonder how to navigate something like this without sending him running in the other direction. He'd barely known Bruce, when he'd died and he'd been left with Dick, because the last thing he was going to do, was send the boy back to his mother. He can see that the same is not true of them. Damian had loved him, when he'd lost him.

He bridges the distance between them, scant as it is- and pauses. Mouth opening slightly, and then closing again. Reaches out, instead, with both hands first, and tries again]

Come here. [Still soft, still quiet]

HYPOCRITE

[batricide]

[ He hadn't been allowed to attend the funeral. It had been unspoken - there had been no invitation given. No request for him sent. It had merely happened, and the understanding there was that Wayne Manor was his home no longer. They were not his family. Bruce Wayne could forgive the Joker for beating Jason Todd to death with a crowbar in cold blood, but he couldn't forgive his own son for an accident.

The last time he'd seen Dick - really seen him - he'd been a ghost. There hadn't been time to talk, things were going wrong and Dick was busy shepherding Billy out to solve the problem. One his father caused. There hadn't been time to speak, but he'd tried.

And It's okay, Dammian didn't absolve him of any of the pain or guilt. Because it wasn't okay. It would never be okay.

He'd taken the Nightwing costume. Hidden it under his bed in the Watchtower, never acknowledging that he'd stolen it when asked. Alfred had known, Alfred knew everything, but Alfred wasn't about to ask him to give up the one thing that he'd had left of him. Dick had given it to him from beyond the grave, probably saved him from dying at the hands of all those criminals while doing so, and...

And he's sorry, but it wasn't enough.

He doesn't have words then, when the costume had appeared on his birthday. When he'd nearly gotten himself killed running from all the pain. And he doesn't have them now, being confronted with the source of it.

He'd lost so much. Alfred, Dick, Jason, even Tim - his life was stripped away to bare bones, left bleaching in the sun. All he'd had was the Regime, and then the League, and then they too were gone. He had nothing for so long that he doesn't know what to do with any part of it returning.

All he does is step forward and drag Dick into a hug. It doesn't matter that they're in public, that people are watching, that his eyes are wet with tears. All that matters is Dick is warm and solid and alive. ]

i uploaded these just for you ♥

[preceded]

I'm here.

[It's soft, barely more than a whisper, as he folds Damian into his arms. Holds his little brother that is no longer quite so little. He couldn't lift Damian off his feet any longer, drag him close and tuck him under his chin. This one matches him in height, edging into a frame that's a little broader than his, and is nothing like the boy he left behind.

That Damian would never have been caught dead crying, much less in public, or to make so obvious a show of needing his brother. But, for Dick- his had never lost him, never had to make do without him at the time when he'd arguably needed him the most. And in the end- differences don't matter quite so much- whether this is a future he's yet see come to pass, or another universe that's so much more bleak than he ever imagined it could be- he's still Damian.

Still the person Dick had signed on to care for, to guide, to love. Whoever he might have had in that other universe, had undoubtedly failed him, from what Jason had said. But that doesn't mean that he has to. So with that simple, soft assurance- Dick slides one of his hands up Damian's back in a soothing sweep, coming to rest gently on the back of his neck.

There's sorrow there, a smidgen of guilt. He knows what it is to lose those closest to you, and it's not what he'd wanted for Damian- it was inevitable, with time and likely their line of work- but ideally, after what happened to Bruce- Damian would have been much, much older- well past needing him, when such a thing had happened. Dick might not have been ready to lose Bruce- but he can't deny he'd been left well taught, well loved, and well equipped to continue, if not navigate the legacy left for him.

More importantly than his wish that things could have been different, than the soft discomfort of opening a link he doesn't want to be able to have, no matter how useful- is love. Soft, and warm- and seemingly endless. ]

I've got you. [This time- he's determined for that to be true. To not let go]

[batricide]

[ The world has never given him anything. Regardless of what his bloodline may have promised, all it had offered was loss and hardship. He was the best because he simply had to be, because anything less would have been death. Uptight, on edge, always ready for a fight - the only time that had ever dropped had been when a better man than his father had worn the cowl. Dick had always known just how to play him, how to convince him to put down the weapons and allow himself a modicum of the childhood that had been denied to him. Convinced him to watch stupid movies despite protesting that it was for children, and allowed him the small freedoms to enjoy it without judgement or reminder that he should be better.

It was Dick who had broken down the walls around him. Allowed him to feel empathy without fear that it would be used against him, and allowed him to let himself become attached without fear that they'd be ripped away.

( the latter lesson had perhaps not been for the best, everyone who had been that for him - everyone but clark and vic - had turned traitor or died. )

The empathy link is only full of guilt and grief on his part. Love intertwined with pain. The wound is still raw, it doesn't matter that it's been years and he's used Dick's name as a weapon against his father (though no more so than was done to him, he thinks) and he's worn the costume, there was never closure. Never a resolution to the pain.

It's okay, Damian is nothing but an empty platitude when it was never okay again. ]

I'm sorry. [ His voice comes out strangled and quiet. ] I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. It was an accident.

[preceded]

Hey-

[It's still soft- but there's a bit more alarm there. He'd known- he'd known that there would be pain, that the love would be filled with it- the way that his is, when he thinks of his parents, when he thinks of Bruce- when he remembers the deaths of others, no matter how temporary or untrue they had been. In each moment, they'd felt real. He doesn't expect the guilt, or the depth of it.

If he hadn't know it wasn't his own- Dick feels winded, like something has been clawing away at his insides. It stuns him just enough that it takes Dick a moment longer to register precisely what Damian's been saying, past his apology. He didn't mean to?

Didn't mean to what? Nothing that Jason had told him, had lead to any indication that something more had happened- other than Damian's world had been bleak, that he'd been failed by those he'd needed- that he'd lost everyone who'd mattered. Did that mean something had happened since? Something he's afraid to lose Dick all over again with? He's not nearly enough information for this- but in the end, it doesn't matter.

This is Damian, hurting- and all Dick wants to do is smooth it away, as much as he can] It's okay. Accidents- these things, they happen. Whatever it is, we'll figure it out, okay?

[They're partners, remember? As long as Damian is willing to learn- to grow, there isn't anything he could do, that he couldn't come back from. That Dick wouldn't love him for. He squeezes tighter]

[batricide]

[ Whatever it is.

This isn't his Dick. This isn't the one who had endured his bratty temper tantrums. This isn't the one who heard him threaten to stab Jason to steal the mantle and tried to separate them, or who listened to every fight with Bruce and quietly took him aside when all had settled. Telling him gently that his feelings were valid, that he was valid when his father had only ever met his disobedience with stony silence.

But it doesn't matter. He can pretend. Just for a moment, he can pretend.

The tears flow noiselessly down his cheeks. He sucks in a shuddering breath, holding onto Dick tighter. Who cares if people see. ]

I missed you.