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

open; mid event

[theladyofwinterfell]

Sansa has conflicting feelings both about the memories she's shared of her own and the ones she's seen with others. She's felt as if some were lucid dreams, dreams she could touch and manipulate, and some have simply been seeing those memories over and over like her brother Bran says he can do.

James is fussy this afternoon and she's trying to calm him. People must surely be on edge just now and she tries to hush him as quickly as possible. She doesn't want to go into her bedroom, afraid she'll fall asleep, so she tries to hide her body with her hair as she tries to nurse.

"Hush, sweetling," she says, almost desperate. "We must make do just now, all right?"

Re: open; mid event

[doubled_speed]

"Need help?"

Tommy approaches Sansa slowly, his expression soft. If nothing else, he doesn't mind helping family. He is careful to stay very still, trying not to let his energy and frustration over being trapped leak into his movements.

"I'm told I'm good with kids. I could, like, watch out for him for a bit while you take a nap here in the waiting room."

[theladyofwinterfell]

"That is a tempting offer. Let me finish nursing him and see if you can settle him before I go to try and nap. I keep worrying he'll bother someone because he's so small and can't help himself."

Sansa hasn't been frazzled necessarily but she has been stressed and afraid that James will make everyone else cross with her. Perhaps that's simply borrowing trouble.

"Has he been a bother to you?"

[doubled_speed]

"Anyone bothered by a baby can deal with me," Tommy dismisses. "Because it's stupid. The baby doesn't know what the hell is going on. Just knows they want things."

So no, it doesn't bother him.

[theladyofwinterfell]

Sansa finishes with James and maneuvers her baby sling so she can take it off and give it to Tommy. His help is genuinely appreciated and her face is utterly relieved.

"The sling I made can be moved around several ways. However he's most comfortable for you - he likes front to front and being cradled. I don't know that I'll go to sleep but I do like the idea of not carrying him for just a little while. It's hard on my shoulders and neck."

[doubled_speed]

Tommy's very cautious of moving the sling and James closer. Once it's there he starts bouncing, just a tiny bit.

"I'm several times stronger than a normal human. I should be fine."

[theladyofwinterfell]

"You're lucky, then. I always have some sort of body ache these days. I suppose it is because having a child makes you older than your years."

Eventually, some of the pain will melt away and she knows that. Other things, though, will have left their mark on her permanently. She rolls her neck and shoulders a bit to ease the stiffness.

"I do love him more than anything, though."

[doubled_speed]

Aches makes Tommy frown. He doesn't like that idea at all. But he does keep moving to keep James calmer.

"You'll be a good mom if you remember that."

[theladyofwinterfell]

"I try as hard as I can. It will be harder when he's older, certainly, but I remember my lady mother and how she used to be. I want to be as good a mother as she was."

Tommy seems to be good with the baby himself and Sansa cocks her head, a smile on her lips.

"You are very good with babies. Little brothers or sisters?"

[doubled_speed]

"Well, you just call and I'll come help, provided there isn't a greenhouse crisis. He's my, what, cousin? Nephew? I don't even know," Tommy answers. But he's going to help support the little family.

"Me? Only if you count Billy. But I spent a lot of time with his little brothers."

[theladyofwinterfell]

"We'll call it nephew. Our family is strange as it is," Sansa says.

"But I think you're old enough to be an uncle if you want to be. A boy needs good uncles to look up to, after all, and I can't think of anyone I'd rather James look up to than you or Billy. We'll have to make a tapestry with the family lines at some point because I think I've even forgotten how I refer to people anymore."

She grins at him for a moment. "I can't put Tony on there, though. He'll need his own tapestry to himself because I don't think I could get him to share space with anyone else."

[doubled_speed]

"Damn right it is," Tommy agrees. And he is going to be here, to help her with the kid, as much as he can. Because soon enough she's going to need more help than she knows, and Tommy's got time.

"Don't know how to make a tapestry, and my family's a mess. The worst sort of mess. But, uh, it gets complicated with Tony."

The guy had dated in Tommy's family a few times.

[theladyofwinterfell]

"Does it ever. I've never met a Stark who isn't one of my Starks. It doesn't matter, though. Wanda was one of my first friends here," Sansa says. "And her family will always be my family. Even if it's difficult sometimes, having close friends and family around make being away from home easier. It does for me, anyway."

Sansa does miss the North a lot and homesickness pangs for her more than she'd like to admit. It's easier when she has friends to talk to, though, and Tommy is one of those.

[doubled_speed]

"It's probably not that easy on her either, running into me and Billy. WE're not what she signed up for."

But Tommy didn't sign up to help with a kid either, but that didn't stop him from trying. He says just pleased over how baby James is starting to quiet down.

"Well, the important thing about family is that you can always find more of it. If you really want."

[theladyofwinterfell]

"That's very true. I've found a wonderful family here," Sansa says. "And I think of you just as dearly as my blood kin back home. Sometimes family is made and not given."

She looks at how James has calmed and smiles. "He really likes you, though."

[doubled_speed]

Thinks of some of them as dearly as... was she referencing him? No way. Not possible. But he smiles back, nodding lightly over her remark.

"Doesn't like me. Likes the motion. Think about it. When babies are in their mommies, they get lots of motion and movement, right? Like, when you walk, it's rocking them. And when you talk, the low murmurs are there to soothe them. And the heart beat too. It's all these small, soft things all around them."

Speedsters: they think in terms of motion. It's useful sometimes.

[theladyofwinterfell]

"I've never thought of it that way," Sansa says. She taps her lips for a moment, thinking, and decides to dedicate that to memory for when James won't sleep at night and she can't go wake Tommy up to rock her child.

"It does make sense. Gods, but I did wobble when I was carrying him. By the end I could barely walk straight."

[doubled_speed]

"I guess people don't? I always think about moving," Tommy shrugs, which bounces James a bit more and doesn't bother the guy. "I've heard people say babies sleep better in moving cars. That's probably part of it. The way the whole thing vibrates around them."

It's soothing. Not being still. Babies have all this stimulus and the ones they process most easily are touch. Until they get older.

[theladyofwinterfell]

"We don't have cars back in Westeros," Sansa muses. "But I've seen them since I've traveled in space. There's so many things I've learned that those back home could never even imagine. I think I'd like to drive a car someday. Or pilot a ship."

She hasn't been able to do either, unfortunately, but perhaps someday she'll get a chance.

"Luckily I do know how to care for a child. That was something they prepared me to do my whole life."

[doubled_speed]

"Well, you could pilot here if you wanted to," Tommy points out. The ships. If they ever get to control them for real. But taking care of a child.

"Helping kids is a more useful skill, if you ask me."

[theladyofwinterfell]

"It certainly is for me," Sansa says with a laugh. "I've cared for children before. I thought myself a proper little mother when my youngest brother was born and begged to help my mother and our nurse with him."

Rickon had been so sweet then. Sansa misses him so much and misses Winterfell keenly - but Winterfell as it was, not what it became.

"I just didn't expect you to know so much about it. I learn something new every day."

[doubled_speed]

Like baby dolls, except with real kids. Almost hilarious. But really, it's not. Because those people aren't here for her now.

"I don't know a lot about a lot of things. Sometimes I know something a bout a few things. It's... balance I guess. I'm fast, so I can experience a lot of shit, and think about things too.

[loyalspirit]

Wen Ning appeared to be restless and unsure of himself as he hung around the waiting room. There were so many people he didn't know. He also didn't know what exactly was going on or why they were waiting. He was hesitant on meeting people and kept to himself. He chose to sit in one of the corners trying to avoid being noticed.

Only he caught sight of the young woman with a baby and couldn't help but smile in her direction. He was surprised to see a baby among the crowd. Still babies meant life and hope and a good sign.

He was suddenly reminded of his family back home and felt very homesick at the moment. He fidgeted with the end of his long sleeves of his robes.

[theladyofwinterfell]

Sansa doesn't know this man's face but she thinks if anyone new has shown up in the middle of Calibrations, they must be confused and bewildered. He has a kind face, to her, and she wonders where he might be from. He looks like how men and women from Yi Ting look in her world.

"You can come closer if you'd like. He's the only child here so I know you might be curious. Of course, you might also be trying to figure out how to get as far away from me as you can in case he cries," she teases.

[loyalspirit]

Wen Ning gave a nod in understanding, slightly startled that she had noticed him watching. He was so used to members of his sect ignoring him regardless if he smiled or gave a nod.

After straightening his robes, he approached her and gave her a polite bow. "I was surprised to see a baby here. I didn't see any children here and had wondered." Wen Ning replied in a soft tone that was heavily accented.