Calibrations Waiting Room Mingle

[trpmods]

WHO: ALL HE ROWS
WHERE: The Secret Tunnel, which has become the Calibrations Waiting Room (or was it always...?)
WHAT: Mingle log for literally anything you'd like to take place in the waiting room between sleep cycles during the event
WHEN: June 3 - July 10
WARNINGS: Please mark individual threads with warnings

For those that have heeded Ga Re's warning, the door within the secret tunnel - which looks suspiciously like the hatch to one of your shuttles - is wide open, waiting for you. You walk through... and the door behind you disappears. You’re now standing in a cavernous, cold, white waiting room. There are hallways leading off the main corridor with names above each. One of them has your name and will draw you toward it, inevitably.

And on the wall, in pink, running letters is written this single greeting:

‘Welcome to Calibrations’.

The secret tunnel has become a large waiting room with chairs, tables, and the same food dispensers available in the shuttles. There are also communal bathrooms - one for each gender - with several toilet stalls and shower stalls in each, including basic shampoo and soap dispensers, like you might find in a hotel. The water isn’t hot, so hopefully you don’t mind lukewarm showers. Somehow, at least, it never goes cold.

Branching off the main waiting room room are the labeled hallways. At the end of each short hallway is a door, with the same character’s name written on them. Anyone can enter any room, regardless of the name written on it. Everyone has their own room, though of course people can share. Each room has a simple bed (approximately queen-sized) and a set of drawers.

You can opt to spend time in your room or in the larger, common waiting room. (And if you do, you can thread it out here!) But every 16 hours, you'll feel a compulsion: You need to sleep. Right now. You find yourself going into your room (or someone else's, if you really want). But you’re drawn to the bed. You can’t help but lie down. And then, you fall asleep.

Comments

Cloud Strife

[backoff]

Tables

Cloud sat at one of the tables in the large waiting room. Where else was he going to go to eat? He didn't want to make a mess in his room even if that would be equally hard to do. Sometimes he wanted to avoid the bedroom in general. His eyes drift on his food of choice. It'll end up most likely being the same thing for a while. There's something else as he leans back against the chair. "I could really go for a hot shower."

It's stupid to even state something as a muttered request. It's a phase that all of his friends said at one point or another. He sits in that more relaxed pose knowing he'll be here for a while.

Hallway

He's right outside of his room sitting down on the ground with his back against the wall. Cloud has his legs together with his arms resting over his knees. His posture would suggest something might be bothering him but maybe he's ultimately tired. Sleeping had been restful and being somewhere in a quiet spot that wasn't his room was extremely hard to do. The hallway sometimes helped provided that small private corner for a brief period of time. That time would be when people weren't in their rooms and where somewhere else. There was peace that could be found or quiet when needed.

Cloud makes sure to move his feet to those that needed to pass on by without getting tripped. He needed a place to clear his head but he knows that kind of place doesn't really exist at the moment. Not even his own room could provide that.

Wildcard

[ Need something of Cloud? Come get it here. ]

Hallwaaaay

[out_of_order]

The pair of feet that come up next pauses rather than navigates around the blond on the floor, but given how short the owner is, it's not too difficult at all to see the figure himself. BD-1 only stands about a foot high or so when he's not on tip-toe.

He comes up by Cloud's boots, hooting inquisitively. It's not too long before he's joined by another set of boots, these belonging to the red-haired padawan.

"Everything all right..?"

[backoff]

BD-1 grabs at his attention with the hooting. Cloud's a bit confused by the sudden greeting of the robot. Once he sees the other pair of boots he looks up at the red-haired padawan.

His glowing light green eyes seem tired but they're half way open. It could be a squint due to looking up.

"As well as it could be...?"

[out_of_order]

Said padawan gives a faint grin at that. "Guess that's as fair an answer as anything," he replies, nodding. "There's gotta be more comfortable places to sit though."

BD-1 looks between them before moving a little closer to Cloud's feet. He seems to be trying to size his boots up before crouching so he can hop up onto one.

Catching the movement of his buddy, Cal glances down with a bit of a laugh. "BeeDee, hey! You that bored? -sorry about that," he adds as he looks back at Cloud.

[backoff]

Cloud gives the padawan a long squinted look before dipping his head to the side looking away. "Not to many places to go to clear your head without running into everyone."

The robot pulls Cloud's attention back on him. He lifts an eyebrow while waiting for him to hop.

"BeeDee?" He looks back up at the padawan. "It's fine. We can see if he can. I'm Cloud Strife." He does a thumb point to his door in case Cal wanted to realize where he was as well.

[out_of_order]

"True enough," Cal admits. "I guess your room doesn't quite cut it either?" Clearly he can relate. "I try meditating in my room but I can only do so for so long."

He nods at Cloud. "Yeah, this is BeeDee-One. I'm Cal. Cal Kestis." He smiles as BD-1 wiggles and makes the jump, his little feet shifting to keep his balance once atop the man's foot. The droid beeps cheerfully.

"Nice to meet you, Cloud," Cal translates, while he also stoops over to offer his hand to shake.

[backoff]

"No. I spend too much time in it." Cloud isn't joking, he spends a lot of time in it. Other times he is wondering the halls or places that would be easy for him to get back and forth from. "Meditating? Does it help at all?"

He moves one hand down towards BD-1, his index coming for one of his eyes but stops short. Cloud then pulls it away to take hold of Cal's offered hand in a hand shake. "Same, Cal."

[out_of_order]

Given that they've got little enough places to go, Cal can't blame him. "It does a little. But I'm really not that used to doing it for so long." Having a bunch of anxious people around also doesn't help, but he's not surprised that people have been restless in here.

BD-1 tilts his head, but as Cloud brings a finger towards him, the little droid leans his head back. What, what are you doing person. He gives a little shake once the man retracts his hand to shake Cal's.

"How long have you been here? Only arrived recently, right?" And then to be suddenly thrown into something like this. "The Agrii really need to work on consideration of others," he sighs.

[backoff]

Cloud shakes his head a bit at that. Maybe it had been too quiet. He's not too sure on meditating. That's not something he did at all.

After letting go of Cal's hand he moves it down with his palm facing out for BD-1. He hovers it a bit above the robot. Cloud's wondering if he'll leap up onto it next. "What is BeeDee?"

"Yeah, I haven't been here that long." The hours of the day is different too. He's used to long journeys, walking for endless hours when needed and sleeping when they needed to recover. But a lot got dumped on him at once. Arriving here, meeting Reeve, requesting from the replicator and it not giving the request, learning about the life source of the planet, the warning and then being locked in a tunnel. It felt like a science experiment. Cloud would do anything to keep his mind from that or to clear any ill will of thoughts. His life is hardly moving slowly.

tables

[theladyofwinterfell]

Sansa has spent so much of these calibrations inside memories she's cherished and loathed and being awake almost seems like the dream at the moment. Being awake, though, means she can have her baby with her and she keeps James so close every morning she wakes, spending hours with him before she seeks anyone else out.

She's still starving most of the time, though, so she has James in his sling when she seeks out the ables and when she sees Cloud, she gives him a little wave and laughs at the idea of a hot shower.

"Gods, yes. I would stay in a shower for an age."

[backoff]

Cloud sits up at seeing Sansa but tilts his head at seeing the sling and James. New life on this planet? His lips pull into a faint smile but he's still a little confused. From the way Sansa talk she's been away from her own world for a while. Would that be the same for him?

He gives a wave back to her while nodding to her.

"I'm getting tired of basically almost cold showers. Hot ones would provide a better overall clean feeling."

[theladyofwinterfell]

"Hot anything would be nice," Sansa says with a laugh. "But they don't like to make us too comfortable, I don't think. We'd start to actually like it and then we'd be too happy, now wouldn't we?"

It's mostly a joke but she knows Cloud is serious from how he'd been with with her in the calibration so she'd like to try and make him smile.

[backoff]

Cloud is a mixture of serious while opening his mouth at her. A brief of a smile spreads his lips.

"Oh, we couldn't have that." Cloud hadn't really been all that comfortable since he got here. It's a way in his life that he's used to. He tries to not let things get to him. He'll try to figure out what to do.

"Down here it's different. It almost feels like training in some way." He shrugs. The army put you through all sorts of random training, missions, monsters and through mental courses.

[theladyofwinterfell]

"It does, doesn't it? Training for what, I do not know, but it does seem to be preparing us for something even if we don't know what that something is." She clutches the baby a little closer, needing his comfort to brace her against the unknown both outside and within the calibrations.

"I try not to worry myself with it or I would worry all the time. It's not something I can let consume me because I wouldn't be able to do anything else."

[backoff]

"I know in my world they had their SOLDIERs train in battle simulations that seemed all too real." He notices the way Sansa holds the baby closer while also stating how she can't worry too much. It's true, most of the time he would be like that as well.

"Hmm. I will have to remember that." Because he's good at letting things consume him.

[theladyofwinterfell]

"Well, for now we just have to live our lives as they unfold. I hate that because I'm someone who likes to plan for every eventuality and plan for the worst case scenario no matter what happens," Sansa says, "But no matter what I do to plan, I cannot account for what the Agrii are going to do."

She tips her head a bit. "They do seem to be kinder than the Atroma were - they're the ones that gave us the ships. They used us for games to amuse one another. The Agrii are...different, somehow."

[backoff]

"We're stuck in a tunnel, with a large common room, with rooms that are showing everyone our memories." Cloud tilts his head to the side while looking at her. "There's not much we can do but wait this out. However you want to do that."

He doesn't want to intrude in that matter. But there's no point to planning if they're stuck somewhere with no real way out. "I saw the ships. How do they work exactly? I didn't really get a chance to go inside of one. And what do you be that they are different?"

Tables

[tempredmental]

"Mn... that sounds nice."

Keith hadn't meant to overhear him, but too late now. Besides... expressing a desire for a hot shower wasn't exactly some deep dark secret.

"We do have access to the ships between missions... maybe, once we're out of here, I can use the one on my ship to get that in." He shrugged. "There are also the hot springs, but, if you're looking for privacy, the ships are probably a better bet."

[backoff]

No one means to overhear others. Cloud openly said it even if he didn't mean to. He looks over at Keith while giving a nod to him.

"How do the ships work exactly? I didn't really go back to them prior to ending up in the tunnels." He had other businesses to attend to and keep himself busy. Since he didn't know how else they worked, he didn't really feel the need to go back there.

"I will keep all of this in mind. Ships sound where I would want to be for that." Hot springs weren't really for him, he'll give everyone a ten second countdown before he needed to get out.

[tempredmental]

"Oh, well..." Clearly this wasn't the same Cloud Keith had met previously. He considered it... "The ships only open if you're assigned to them. So, you go over, and there's a panel by the door that you can use to open it. If it's your ship, it'll open up for you. They have showers in there." He shrugged.

"They're not really 'working'... so much as they don't fly unless the Agrii want us to go on a mission. When we're here, they're kind of in like a lockdown mode. I last used the pilot datapoint that's in the hangar, and so I have the knowledge to fly it, but I can't get it off the ground unless the Agrii let us." Keith's tone was annoyed at that part. He wasn't happy at the tease of having a ship, but not being able to take it anywhere.

[backoff]

Cloud didn't know anything about the ships or Keith. He tilts his head to the side as Keith goes to explain. Of course the Agrii hold more power than what had been told to him. Cloud's slowly finding out more and more about them. It feels as if the Agrii hold their cards. Cloud wonders there could be a different outcome to this pulling heroes to a planet that needs saving. "I see. I didn't know that they only open to those assigned to them. I will have to give it a try once we're out of the tunnels."

He considers what Keith said about having the knowledge to fly but not being able to fly them at will. Cloud frowns at that. "Is there anything else that comes with that knowledge of the datapoint? The Agrii seem to hold too much power." And there's not much that they can do about it. Cloud can only take care of what's in front of him for the moment. He wouldn't mind having some extra information on the pilot datapoint.

[tempredmental]

"Yeah, actually. It's more knowledge than having the pilot augment for Drift Fleet had," Keith said. "I can do basic repairs and stuff, too. Like, I know more about how it works, and can sort of fix stuff if it breaks, I guess? Also, I remember all the upgrades the ships had back in Drift Fleet, but none of them have them right now, so it's kind of useless knowledge at the moment." Keith shrugged.

And it was all good, Cloud. Keith didn't mind answering questions. That was easier than, say, making small talk.

[backoff]

Cloud caught the words Drift Fleet. He wonders if there might be more of them here. "I'm not familiar with any of the augment you're talking about. I was told a bit about Drift Fleet." But knowing that repairing and stuff for the ship does hold his interest and he may give it a consideration. "Is there a reason you went for the piloting datapoint?"

Anyone could be curious about that. He looks at Keith studying him a moment before giving an introduction. "My name is Cloud Strife. How long have you been here and how long were you at Drift Fleet?"

[tempredmental]

"I'm Keith. I'm actually a pilot back home, so it felt familiar. Drift Fleet didn't give us a choice like we have here, though. It just assigned us. I guess I was lucky to get something I already knew." As for how long... Keith looked thoughtful for a moment. "I um... a few years now, I guess. It's hard because I went home and came back a few times while I was in Drift Fleet. So time feels a little... mixed up." He shrugged. "As for here... probably a year or so... I was in the first group of arrivals."

[backoff]

"What were the other augments that you could get assigned to in Drift Fleet?" Cloud wondered what other similar events might be happening. Keith and a few others already knew about the calibrations from coming from Drift Fleet. "Did you remember your time from Drift Fleet when you went back home?" Or did he forget? Will this time here be remembered?

He rolls his lips together anxiously. "How many others are left from the first group of arrivals? From how long you've been here, you must have seen people come and go often."