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[ Wash, not knowing that Nick has already forwarded the group's files on to Hope, wanted to let him know what they found. Just in case he does check the network today, because that would be a shitty way to find out. He looks stressed and tired on the feed, like this has been weighing on him ever since they made the discovery; because it has.

He also feels like he's not the best person to break bad news to anyone, but hey. He's what they've got, most of the expedition wasn't even willing to discuss it in public. ]

Hey Hope... we're back........ not sure if you even knew we left, but I was out exploring with a group and we found something that I want you to know about before we tell the whole city. We know what's changed your previous Hosts' demeanor, the ones attacking us.

Thank you.

[He does not like talking about this, because he doesn't like thinking about it, but it must be done.]

One of your companions has already passed the information along to me. It is - terrible.

Oh... I didn't know, I'm sorry to bring it up again. It was horrific, yeah.

[ But he's talking to a being with magic abilities, maybe the Hosts aren't doomed. Maybe it's not like Wash's implant, that would be so very difficult to remove. ]

Is there anything you could do for them? Heal them somehow, remove the implants..? I guess we'd have to get one to you for you to know?

I think that I would be able to heal them, both body and soul, if they were near me for long enough. If you are able to capture more, I will use all my skills to try.

[ There's a brief delay in messages as Wash figures out who managed to capture a host, a tiny game of telephone with Nate, but then he's back. ]

I'll do my best to help round them up. Talk to Newt about what they did, where they found them. I want to help.

I will do so. Thank you in advance for any help you can give.

( Kate's been something of a fixture in the temple this month, absorbing the lingering effects of the temple until they push out the remnants of being possessed by Rage's anguish. Most of the time, she's quiet, sitting on the floor or working out, letting hope wash over her, concentrating on all the good they've done.

The Door's fragments have been returned to it, there's hope that they might just leave, eventually. They've survived this long... And she's met people who've become almost as important as the ones back home.

They might just make it.

It isn't until one particular day, sat on the floor stretching her legs out, that Kate actually deigns to pipe up with some actual words. )

What ending do you want?

( She knows hers: the Null no longer a threat, exterminated, and able to return home. But what about the gods? And, most importantly, what about Hope? He is the one who's been keeping them all alive and in good shape for all this time. )

[When people want to hang out in his temple, Hope lets them. Though he generally does not interact with them unless asked to, he doesn't mind the company. At least his temple can be a comfort to someone.

So he doesn't appear, or even really notice her, until Kate speaks. Then he's there, as if he'd been there the whole time.]

I want us to be safe. I want to be able to send you home, and restore our hosts, and begin to restore my people. If it were peaceful, I could - it would take years, but it would be possible.

( Their people... Of course. With all the efforts to find the still living hosts, and all the talk about those beings, reviving them, she'd almost forgotten that there's a whole race of these cloud beings out in the universe, scattered into pieces. Kate remains on the floor of the temple, swinging her legs back up towards her as her head tilts towards Hope.

Strange, she used to hate him so much and now he's the most palatable one here. She grew to enjoy talking to him, until... Well. Everyone knows what happened with the invasion. )

Would it? Thought they were blasted into pieces?

( She wants to ask him what he'd do with the Null, but curiosity begs the indulgence of this turn. )

Yes. It would take a very long time, likely longer than one of your lifetimes, to even begin the process. We do not have the safety or the time for it, but if we were safe I could return another Hope to us. We could work together to find more, to restore our species.

[He is quiet for a moment.]

Some of us are gone forever, but not all.

( She mirrors his silence, perhaps unconsciously. There are others, but they're not these gods. Other Delights wouldn't be the Delight they've lost. Kate never could forgive her for what happened, for the death of a friend or the nightmare of those two weeks. (It'll be worse next time, whenever that is, she's sure, and — maybe, just maybe — it's a good thing that they've faced the Null once, that people have experience fighting these things...

Or maybe that's just the Hope talking. Who knows.)

Still. Knowing she's gone and not merely imprisoned is strange. Could the outcome have been worse? Certainly. But the finality is... odd. Nothing here has ever really been final. Not even people going home. )

...Hope you get to.

( And it's still so strange that Kate can truly say that she does hope for that, in the same way it was strange to hope that the Creatures back home would be able to experience a peaceful existence after Rosenberg died. She spent so much time and energy believing them the enemy, and now—

Well. Now she's here talking to one of them as easily as she talks to anyone. )

What about the Null? What would y'do with them?

I also hope so. It is what I most dearly wish for.

[The question of the Null is a different one, and he is silent again for some time before answering.]

I would wish that we could live together peacefully, as we once did. It is not in my nature to wish death upon anyone, especially after coming so close to it so many times. But I don't know how that could happen, and I know that none of my companions agree. Pragmatically, we must find a way to escape them for good or we must destroy them.

Me either.

( Admittedly, Kate is not the go to person for creative solutions in making a hive-mind of murderous robots back off. The pragmatic answer is easier, and it's hardly as though the Null have given her (or any of the city, if you asked her) a reason to try and keep them alive. )

Not sure how we destroy all of them.

( Sorrow's words of just how far the Null empire stretches still comes to mind. It's one thing to defend the city, to destroy the immediate forces coming for them, but there's a whole world of difference between that and destroying the source.

Maybe that isn't possible either.

... Well. She'll have to shelve that worry, leave it at the back of her mind. That's the kind of cynical, paralysing thought which spirals into what's the point arguments and stops action. And she doesn't want to go back to that, not now of all times. )

But we'll try.

( Before, the gods had each other and their people. Now they have... well. These people. These people from such vastly different universes that Kate can't even begin to count them, with powers and ideas at their fingertips that no one else has. Who knows what ideas may lurk in the minds of the other residents of the city? And, well, Kate has to believe they can do more than simply be food for the gods, that there's some sort of difference they can make in this fight, or every bit of effort they've exerted in these last few years would be pointless. )

video; ~2/22 just before his network post

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[action, forward dated to may 29th]

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