sixthiterationlogs | 03. (Not) Shooting Things

WHO: Baze Malbus and OTA
WHERE: Outskirts of town, 6I
WHEN: September
OPEN TO: Any and all
WARNINGS: Look out for flying projectiles

After a couple weeks of being too sick to do much, Baze is getting back into life in 6I, despite the lingering cough and occasional shortness of breath. He's checking his traps in the morning, offering to fix anything people need that's broken and that he can figure out... and attempting to shoot things.

Two weeks of being confined to one building means he had a lot of time to try and carve bow staves and whittle arrow shafts, and to try and twist strings out of cloth, leather strips, and guts from fish and rabbits, anything he could get his bored fingers on. So he has three bows put together, and he spends at least some of his time every afternoon attempting to shoot things. "Attempting" is the operative word, there, because only one of the bows is remotely serviceable and that one was an experiment with bending the staff the other way when he hadn't really intended it to work, and his arrows-- merely sharpened and straightened sticks, at this point, since he wasn't going to waste stone or metal on tips when he's just learning-- don't fly very well.

There is a lot of cursing going on, when one catches him at it.

Of course, he's also available at the normal places: the inn, helping in the kitchen or attempting to whittle some better arrows; around the village, carrying things or pausing to cough or catch his breath; up on a roof battering down leaks; or peering across the divide into 7I, though he doesn't spend much time there. He may be attempting to shoot foxes sneaking across the border, but again, he's not that great at it.

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"If they hadn't taken them away." She spoke in a brisk tone as she fished covering the fox. Wanda knew that something would most likely dig up the dead creature. So, for the sake of completion, she rolled a decent size rock over the dirt to prevent it from being dug up and eaten by something else.

It also marked the grave in a rather elegant way.

"We had people who could do that," Baze offers, stamping his foot down on the rock to press it into place. "Not on the moon, the Jedi didn't bother with Jedha much, but in the galaxy."

"Who are the Jedi?"

She had obtained her powers through experimentation and knew that the technology was alien. She was forever connected to it's source and not at all surprised to hear that there were people in the galaxy who were able to do the same things though she wondered if it was on the same large scale that she could usually work.

"One of those religious orders following the Force," Baze explains. "But they had powers like that, and other powers, and were considered warriors. They are extinct now," he adds, "losing a war with the Empire." He'd only ever met one once, when he was much younger, before the world turned on its head.

Wanda wasn't surprised to hear about a war. It felt as if war was the natural state for any civilization, no matter where they were from. "I'm used to war." She paused before deciding in a rare moment to elaborate.

"I was created and trained to be a weapon. My abilities defined me for years and now they're gone. I'm not sure how to see myself."

He glances back over at her, brows up a little, but expression... maybe a little sympathetic, once he processes what she meant there beyond "created and trained as a weapon". "That is hard. Redefining yourself as something new. It can be done, though." He did it once. He's still trying to manage it a second time, without Chirrut to center himself on and a rebellion to perpetuate.

"I know." She had done it twice now.

Wanda was stubborn and while the world constantly beat her down she constantly rose up to fight it. She didn't give up. She had too many reasons to keep trying, for herself and for her brother. She wouldn't let his death mean nothing.

"Everyone seems to be at war." In one respect or another.

Baze shrugs. "Someone always decides they want more power than everyone else." He doesn't get it, that thirst for power. But he knows it exists, and hates it, because of what it did to his home. "Those people are never happy. Not everyone is like that, but it only takes a few."

It only took one person to push the world into total chaos. Wanda didn't think that it was something as simple as a single being wanting power. Yes, power was usually the cause of most struggles but there was more to it than that. Money. Control over freedom. Pain, loss and revenge for the loved ones and situations that had been stolen from you. The most terrifying foes and the ones that believe that they are doing the right thing. Not for power or lust or greed but because they believe in something above themselves.

Those people are truly terrifying.

"I have learned. . ." She began speaking in a soft tone, the ax that she had used hanging limply in her hand. ". . .that peace is only the time between wars." Wanda didn't believe that there was a thing in the world known as peace. "This canyon. Whatever its purpose. Has been peaceful." Probably the most peaceful time in Wanda's life.

"I don't expect it to stay that way."

Even that seemed to circle back to wanting more power, in the end, whether the power was to supposedly make the world a better place, or not. If you didn't want power to do something, you would have no need to take it from someone else. "None of us expect it to stay that way," he agrees. "Why do you think I am trying to make these?" He hefts his useless homemade bow at her. Snares are quite good enough to catch dinner-- albeit a lot less fun-- but a real weapon can make him dangerous again, even with the weight loss and the trouble breathing that lingers after his sickness.

Wanda has seen a lot of fighting, she had grown up with it, and while the innocent are caught unaware by conflict, those who prepared for battle were always likely to find one. Her and her brother had been preparing for one battle but because of those preparations, they found themselves fighting a more terrible enemy.

Not to say that Baze was inviting conflict, but it certainly felt like it. "You should look at the inn to find arrows. Making them and shooting them are very different tasks." She wouldn't be able to help him much in either since she was still learning herself but she wished him well in his attempts.

As far as Baze is concerned, it's still best to be prepared. Making a bow and arrows isn't exactly an act of war, or a deal with a metal devil, and it will make him feel better-- give him something to focus on. Even if it is frustrating, and people keep reminding him of how bad he's doing at it. "So I am learning," he grumps at her. "I will talk to Clint and look at the inn. And maybe next time I will actually hit the fox instead of your trap."

He'll leave her be, if that's what she'd prefer, heading back into 6I and leaving her traps alone, unless she decides to walk the same direction.

03. (Not) Shooting Things

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