ArchivedLogs:White Noise

White Noise
Dramatis Personae Hive, Parley, Joshua
In Absentia	2013-10-18 '
Location <NYC> 403 {Geekhaus} - Village Lofts - East Village
There's kind of a college-dorm feel to this place, though some of its occupants have left college behind. Entering the apartment finds visitors greeted by the perpetually messy living room, a mismatched assortment of couches and chairs (and milk crates) surrounding the wide table in the center. The wall holds a range of posters; some political, some sporty, some from video games, and a string of white lights strung over the kitchen doorway might be a holdover from Christmas. A widescreen television stands against the wall opposite the couch, shelving beside it holding a host of video games from different consoles. More shelving beside the windows on the far wall carries stacks of board games, as well as sourcebooks from various RPGs. The kitchen adjacent is just as cluttered, its table unfit for eating due to its perpetual covering of books, papers, cereal boxes, projects; the fridge is usually sparsely populated. Ketchup. Beer. Not a lot of food. There are two bedrooms here and one bathroom situated between them, split between the three people who live here. A polite treble of knocks comes to the apartment door, hosted shortly by an identifying flutter of sof'mind like a passing cloud of powdery grey moths. Rustle-rustle-rusle-sle... << (/ferret/.) >> Is what it feels like. By the time Parley is opened to, he's standing mild, one hand set rather modernly on a hip, the other hand raised up to adjust the ferret draped across the back of his shoulders for safe keeping. Visiting hours are begun. Hive doesn't open the door for Parley -- that would be Dusk, /proprietor/ of Ferret. But Hive is there all the same -- Geekhaus at the moment is a /loud/ cacophony of minds, but then, so is so much of the Lofts. There's a movie playing on the television, a game of cards at the kitchen table, a cluster of people grouped around a laptop who have about a /year's/ worth of cat videos to catch up on. In the middle of all this, Hive's own din of minds fits right in, a cluster of overlapping thoughts and emotions in which /Hive/ himself is a complete nonentity. If he notices the new entrant he doesn't register it, neither in thoughts nor in any shift of his glassy-eyed vacant gaze. The ferret in his lap looks up, though. Alanna has been sleeping there -- zombie!Hive makes a very /comfortable/ immobile cushion! -- but her nose twitches at the scent of other!Ferret. Perk? SNIFF? Her little beady eyes scan the room excitedly. Ferret. Meet... FERRET. The wedge of Joshua's pink nose rises as well, waves upward, back, forth, whiskers shoved forward attentively. He stalks forward until Parley has to absently catch him, mid-deliberate-topple. Joshua is /there/ as well, awake, present, jostled and far more dry, far beneath the exuberantAnimal surface - relieved to see Hive. It makes the presence of both newFerret and oldHive in one place an alluring direction. "There, you see." Parley is murmuring, his mouth lowered to speak words into the back of Joshua's scruff. In mind he - is cautious. Like a sparrow circling an air freighter. That eats meat. And has TENTACLES. Flitting down feather-light for a moment at the far edge to sort of marvel. If mental machinations were manifested physically, his would be to lick a thumb and flip along their surface tips like a man counting out the number of cards in a hand. << (...so many.) >> Wryly said. Like -ah, what a /bounty/. << So many, >> echoes in whisper-soft chorus. From Hive, presumably; he's drinking in the minds around him without even thinking about it, raw psionic potency so amplified by his stable of minds that it's fairly impossible for him /not/ to be eavesdropping. And then, << Ferret. >> He marks this casually. Taking note. Joshua. Ferret now. Alanna topples off his lap onto the couch, bounding straight up the side of the small girl asleep on the couch beside him, clambering up the arm of the sofa to open her mouth wide in animated huff of greeting. BOUNCE. Bounce -- slidethunk, as she falls off the couch's arm. << You enjoy this. >> It's -- a question? Maybe? Maybe a passing idle notice, of Parley's mind flicking along the others. Whatever it is, it lacks inflection, just a bland flat thought drifting up and vanishing again into the crowd. << (i don't know.) >> Parley admits, hand-over-hand trying to keep hold of Joshua as he simultaneously tries to POUR free to go investigate Alanna. There is apparently MILES of ferret to run through before Parley turns him loose. He tries to be gentle in setting him down, which does nothing to stop Joshua from trundling off at mach-5 to bounce up against the side of a chair, circle around the side of Alanna, his front end pausing while his rear end bounces a few more hops further in a rotation. The deep /pull/ of Hive's mind earns a slightly shaky exhale, a guilty appreciation of its raw /power/. The smokey fringe of his parameters surrender to it on contact, drink /back/, to pull in the heady mix -- But just as easily, these same pieces... tear loose, or perhaps are /snipped/ loose, and dissolve back to him in a breathless rush. << (...do you?) >> << Enjoy -- >> Though Hive is the one who first offered this word, he echoes it back in uncomprehending blankness. He's still and quiet, a serene counterpoint to the exuberant ferrets; Alanna is rolling right over herself in her eagerness to go investigate Joshua. And by 'investigate', mostly 'jump on, bite at ruff of neck. Topple over again.' Hive's mind drinks in the surrender of Parley's, thin tendrils curling through it in reflexive searching. And then withdrawing, when it dissolves once more. << We don't know. >> Slowly, bowing his neck, Parley places his palm against the leftward side of his forehead, squashing down the dark hair beneath; his eyes close softly with brows /furrowed/ down on them, the sides of his mouth pinching slightly upward, all in that single razor moment of Hive searching deeper. It's a very hard, introverted smile, shadowthoughts and memories echo faintly within (one, clear and prominent for a single moment, a powerful mental voice musing with a hard /push/ inwards, << -Like a hot knife through butter- >> ) -- and then, the withdraw. And Parley's hand DRAGS down his face with a vague shaky laugh-sound. HHhhaaaah. Down on the floor, Joshua is making with a wild ferret-thrash that leaves no room for SPINE, chew-mouthing at Alanna and then pausing for a moment to very industriously chew-groom at his own flank. Then he's forgotten to be fighting and goes barreling off across the room SIDEWAYS. Alanna takes off after him. BOUNCE-hop-bounce/pounce/, mouthing on fur when she catches him up and then hurtling off /ahead/ of him to go from hunter to prey. Ducking through legs. Crashing into table. Righting herself to bare her teeth so savagely back at Joshua. There's nothing there for Parley's searching to /find/, so many other minds tangled together that they blend into white-noise devoid of individual personalities. With wardance in the background, with movies and games and the sounds of life all around him, Hive just fades back into backdrop. A lapping ocean-roar of background psionic noise, so steady and everpresent that it washes out into meaninglessness. Lapping at the shores of other minds, fading back away. The ferrets' charging dance stumble-trip-bounces over one of his feet. And then moves on, washing past him where he keeps his unmoving post.