I've Got a Bad Feeling About This - OTA

[kestreldawn]

WHO: Jyn Erso
WHERE: At the fountain.
WHEN: February 6, night.
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Grief, mention of death, depression, implied self-harm.
STATUS: CLOSED

---

Arrival
Blinding light.

That's the last thing that Jyn can remember. No, there's more: the wetness of tears, the feel of cloth and muscle and bone, the inevitable resignation at the end of her short life, and the reverberation of Cassian's heartbeat against her chest.

Cassian.

The name sears across her mind's eye like wildfire, a dagger in her gut, a sharp, hot pain that makes her body ache and her heart shatter. But before she can weep the way she wants to, before she can mourn the loss of him, of them, of the future ripped violently out of their grasp, she realizes she's in water. Her eyes open as widely as they can manage, but there isn't much to see, except the faint light overhead. Go up, she tells herself, her legs forcefully kicking with all of the residual strength she can muster. There's a way out, she can see it. Faint as it is, it's there.

When she finally breaks the surface, she's gasping and clamoring, the rush of the frigid air like needles in her lungs and in her throat. It almost makes her feel like she's suffocating, and the only thing she wants to do is get out of this -- thing. She thinks for a moment that perhaps it's a pond, or a lake, but as she stumbles out and off of it, she realizes that it's a fountain. A fountain? Her mind attempts to make sense of it all, but the chill of the air prevents her from doing so. All she can think now is to survive, that thing she's done so well her entire life, the thing she's so tired of doing. As she scrambles to her feet, it's then that she notices something strapped to her back. She pats the pockets of her drenched trousers, looking for her comm - not that she even imagines it might work in this place - but it's her first instinct to search for it. Only .. her pockets are empty. She's so disoriented that it takes her an embarrassingly long time to even realize that the clothes on her body are different. She considers plunging back into the fountain to see if her old ones are lost in the water, but even disoriented Jyn knows it's a bad idea. Who would she call, if she could find the comm? Who would hear her pleas and cries? There's no one left. She has nothing, not even the blaster she'd had those last moments on the beach.

Oh, the beach, she thinks, feeling her footing slip as she stumbles back into the darkness of her mind's eye. No, Jyn. Focus. You have to focus. She rummages through the pack and finds, much to her delight, a set of clothing for her to change into.

Change into dry clothes, she thinks, starting to create her checklist. Figure out where you are, find some food, find some shelter, check the area for danger, get some sleep.

There's a dull pain in her chest, squarely over what she thinks is her heart. It reminds her of what she's lost, it reminds her of what she might have had. It reminds her of her comrades, of Scarif, of Krennic, of Stardust. It reminds her of their mission. She presses palm to bone, willing the pain, the sorrow to leave. The ache pulsates with each beat of her heart, braying its despair. Emptiness, loneliness, it sings.

But there's no time to weep, the threat of tears beginning to sting the backs of her eyes. No, for now, she needs to survive.

Comments

[setup for later 'cause too excited to not… ^_^ ^_^ closed prompt for Finnick and Jyn]

[candor1]

[setup moved to here!]

[fishermansweater]

He'd come out for one last time for the day, out to check the closer fish traps because no matter how much uncertainty he now feels about engaging with the community here, he and Annie and Johanna need food. Annie's not certain yet what to make of the death of another one of their fellow tribute-captives so soon after the controversial meeting he'd called, and neither is Finnick, but he's uneasy. And uneasiness, for a Career, should be met by redoubled efforts to survive.

He'd stopped by the Inn to drop off an extra fish and check on the people there, but he hasn't stayed long. It's getting late, and he needs to get back. He's just about to cut off the path into the overgrown area around the police station to cover his return to the house where he and Annie have set up when he hears the sound of the water in the park's fountain overlaid by the tell-tale additional splashing of someone finding themself in the fountain, quickly followed by a woman's shouting. The shouts don't last long, but it's long enough: Finnick changes direction and heads into the park.

When he gets there, he finds a small, slender woman dressed in the same bright red that this place had seen fit to put him and Johanna in, and that he's wearing with his black coat and black knit hat. She's already digging through the backpack that their Gamemakers gifted her with, and for a moment, he considers letting her be.

But whatever his uncertainties about being part of the community here, he's not that cold. Not after the number of children he's seen freeze to death on live television from the comfort of the Capitol.

He pauses far enough away from her to show a cautious respect for her potential confusion and disorientation: though he knows everyone comes through the fountain unarmed, and he's carrying his spear, he doesn't want to have to use it.

"Looks like you've found the dry clothes."

[kestreldawn]

Jyn's wild gaze is scouring the landscape for her next move, her next motion towards survival. To another person, she might appear almost feral - her gaze burning into what's around her. The voice startles her, and she instinctively goes to reach for the blaster on her thigh, only to realize .. it's gone. Just like the comm. Just like her other clothes. She grunts a frustrated growl, feeling exposed and vulnerable: two of the things she hates the most. She sees his spear and backs away slightly, knowing that she can probably out-maneuver it, depending on how skilled he is with wielding it. Still, the business side of the spear isn't something she really wants anywhere near her body. Her stance is defensive, hands already balled into fists, waiting for the moment she might need them.

"Where am I? Who are you?" Her words are hurried, coarse, in typical Galactic Basic speech. The grit in her words would peel away his outer core to enable her to get a better look at what makes him tick, if they could. Her eyes continually scan around him, behind him. He might have friends, which would put her in a much more precarious situation than she's prepared for. She doesn't even have truncheons with which to defend herself. Even they would be better than nothing. "What do you want?" It doesn't dawn on her that he might be there out of concern, nor can she seem to acknowledge that this stranger might want to help, might not want her dead.

But if he'd known what she'd just been through, if he'd known what she'd just lost, he'd understand.

"How did I get here?" She almost spits the words out like acid. She realizes she's asking questions that are probably unanswerable, that she can't stop the words from spilling from her mouth combined with the mouthfuls of water that follow. She hunches over, hands to her knees, coughing up the last of what was buried in her lungs. She wonders how much more there might be, if it's residual ocean water from Scarif. She has the strange thought to look for the sand from the beach they'd been on, but she finds nothing. And then, without thinking, she exhales, "Cassian." It's a whisper of pain, of mourning. It's a name that carries every iota of sorrow she feels in every cell of her body. It's the symbol of everything she almost had. Everything she wanted. Everything she's lost.

[fishermansweater]

Finnick doesn't know where she's come from or what she was expecting, but he knows that look. He's seen the wild, check-every-corner, find-the-way-out darting eyes over and over again on television, during the Games, or during his classes at the Career Academy, or while he's been watching the reruns to keep his memories of past games fresh. He's seen them in person, just before he killed, killed kids who were just scared, forced to be in the arena with him and just wanting to be home again. He's worn that look himself.

Desperation.

She reaches for a weapon that isn't there, and he finds himself glad for the fact that they're all stripped of their possessions when they come here. It means he's carrying two knives and a spear, and she has nothing. Anyone with that look in their eye is the kind of scared that can lash out without thinking. He's seen too many tributes get themselves killed that way.

Besides, he'd felt the same as she had when he'd arrived here, so he understands the bitter lash of questions, where, who, how, exactly the things it makes perfect sense to ask, but she asks them like she doesn't expect to believe the answers.

All that, though, is derailed by the whisper he hears as she looks around at the grass around her, with a disorientation that seems greater than most people when they arrive here.

Cassian.

Cassian had been screaming for someone when he'd arrived. He'd asked Finnick if there was any hope of someone showing up here, and he'd asked about someone he'd been with before he arrived. Asked with a sort of flat resignation that had no hope in it, but desperately wanted some hope.

Finnick, in an exaggerated gesture, places his spear on the ground, and stays a little crouched, to be closer to the level at which the woman is hunched over, breath catching in his chest in a way that has nothing to do with the cold, caught in a tension he doesn't want to examine too closely (he remembers the feel of Cassian's hands on his hair, Cassian's lips under his, Cassian's body close to him, and he wishes he didn't).

"What's your name?"

[kestreldawn]

Jyn's ears pick up the delicate sound of his weapon touching the ground, and she isn't sure what it means. Is he merely going to lunge in with his hands instead? Maybe he pities her, sees how pathetic she is, figures a death-by-impalement might be overkill for a woman who can't seem to catch her breath, a woman with no weapon, a woman with nothing. But she hears no approaching footsteps, no shifts in his weight to suggest he'll use a back leg to catapult towards her. Instead, she hears hesitation.

She isn't sure what it means.

What's her name? Why would he bother knowing if he's only going to take her life? She can't make sense of why he would break a rule of warfare: don't humanize your enemy. Keep them anonymous, keep them disposable. It makes it easier when the last breath leaves their body, and you know that it's at your hand.

She turns towards him, brows stitched with confusion and the furious workings of a mind fumbling to catch up. Eyes gently waft down to the spear on the ground, then back to the man's face. There's something there in his gaze, that she can't understand, can't quite place. It looks like regret, like sadness, like -- fear?

"It's Jyn," she finally says, resignation in her voice. If he's going to drive that spear into her heart, he might as well know the name of the life he's taking, if he wants to know so badly. A spear to the heart doesn't sound so bad, she thinks. She wonders if it's more or less painful than a blaster bolt, if she'll bleed out instead of instant death. But maybe she deserves that, for being here while the others weren't so lucky. "Jyn Erso," she adds, finally standing up straight. She holds her arms out in a low V to either side of her. "If you're going to kill me with that thing, you might as well just do it."

[fishermansweater]

He knows that look, too. The wariness, the way she looks at the spear then at his empty hands. She's acting like she expects the rules of the arena to apply here -- no rules except not to humiliate the Capitol or move before the countdown's finished. Sometimes, there are small acts of mercy. We were allies once, we are district partners, I feel sorry for you ... all of those can be reasons for a tribute who logic says should kill to show mercy instead.

That's not what he's doing here. Kylo Ren's death was caused by their arena, their Gamemakers. Nobody has been killed by one of the other people here, and he's not going to be the one to break that peace, as strange as it is to him. This truce has stretched for weeks into months, and though he's still tense around the others here, still cautiously watchful, he no longer expects an attack at every move.

He's just prepared for one, which is why he's only put down the spear, not the knives. But he doesn't want her to know that. He's not trying to trick her: he owes her this, if she's who he thinks she is. He owes her this, and he owes it to himself, to Annie, to Cassian. Cassian who'd been so ready to tear himself apart, who'd wanted to know if Finnick would use the weapons he carried to kill him, if asked. Cassian, who'd looked so heartbreakingly lost when he realized the person he was looking for wasn't here.

Finnick waits for her to answer, his stance loose and easy, although he could move in an instant if he needed to defend himself. He's giving her the chance not to force him to defend himself, and she doesn't. She studies him, she moves, but it's in a gesture of surrender, not defiance.

And when she answers, the name she gives is the name Finnick heard Cassian scream in anguish when he'd arrived.

"I'm not going to kill you," he says, quietly.

"I know Cassian. He asked about you when he showed up here."

[3ofswords]

It's near dark when some part of him--animal brain, conscious mind, a shred of common sense--turns him away from the scene of Ren's death. The electrified body, blood blown out of its boundaries and mottling the flesh; the ominous gorgon's head burned into what remained of the roof; the smell of wood smoke clung to his clothes and hair. He'd wandered south at first, ash and sweat streaked, eyes leaking against smoke and charged air, hair stood up and his coat lining singed apart from beating down its second burst of flames this week. If he had the energy for worry, he'd fear for his room, but instead he only wonders if his own death is still waiting around a corner.

Where did the spirit go, when it left the body. Could the body leave it first, to come to a place like this? He was following the places he'd walked with Ren, finding the tall tree again, and probably imagining anything he felt touching the lowest branch. He's beyond even his usual exhaustion, drained to delirium, half-tripping on the paths his feet find through muscle memory alone.

The fountain is almost always on his way back to the inn, and there's an echo of his own heaviness walking ahead of him. Not walking: knelt, hand in a pack, a dripping silhouette. Kira hasn't the breath to sigh, hasn't the energy to be anything but a moth hitting another in the night, drawn by the same flame.

Grief, and the body or spirit's directive to outlive it.

Ren is gone and this person has appeared. Cut us down and another shall take our place, or something like it. She won't know him from any other slightly singed man walking up a strange path, and he doesn't know her from any other half-drowned apparition of this place, but he comes to a swaying stop in her reach and holds out a hand: "It isn't safe to be out here right now; I came up out of that fountain over a month ago, I can show you where to go."

[kestreldawn]

Jyn's been crouched in the same, pathetic position, like a crumpled piece of paper, for longer than she realizes. Her consciousness seems to switch on and off on a whim, her eyes focusing and blurring with each flick. The list she made falls apart, re-materializes in a different order, disintegrates, comes back with words missing or things that don't matter anymore. Transmit the plans, she thinks, Transmit the plans to the Alliance. Stardust. He named it Stardust. And then as soon as those thoughts appear, they're gone - and she's back to, find shelter, find food ..

She can't make sense of it, her brain like a scrambled, knotted piece of string, things connecting to things that they shouldn't, things detached from things that should be together.

The voice doesn't reach her, not right away. She's still staring off at nothing, though her gaze is angled towards the pack. Or maybe towards the ground. Or perhaps something in between. But then, as brought back from the dead, she comes to - hears the voice seconds later, turns her head towards its source. She hallucinates a visage of Cassian for the briefest of moments, her eyes lighting up with unadulterated joy, only to be extinguished with the renewed realization that he isn't here.

"Why isn't it safe?" a voice asks, not realizing it's her own. She manages to force herself to a standing position, knees aching from having been angled so harshly for so long. "Who are you?" There's still a bit of defensiveness in her, though not nearly as much as there would be if she were in her right mind. Her gaze flickers with something dark, something hidden. "Where am I?"

[3ofswords]

While it isn't as cold as it was when he arrived, while he'd been cultivating a case of exposure before he even woke in the fountain's depths--the charge in the air has been building for some time. He doesn't know how to say: a man died of lightning. Yes he does, he knows he does, but there's a numb tingle in his lips and his limbs. Too tired, too much information. The air is dry and crackling on his skin, and her feelings are not very different.

He shakes his head, but that isn't an answer. "You're in a canyon full of dried out brush from a long winter, and lightning storms have already set two fires and--"

Killed a man.

"I'm going inside, if you follow I can tell you more, or someone else can, just. Don't stay out here."

[kestreldawn]

Jyn doesn't trust strangers. Who would? Logic tells most, except perhaps for naive children, that strangers bring the potential for harm, for injury, for death. And yet, despite all of Jyn's better instincts, she makes a motion to follow him. Perhaps it's the sadness in his voice that she can easily recognize, calling out to her own grief she's harboring in her gut, or maybe it's the simple act of compassion and kindness, of thoughtfulness, that has her feet pointed in his direction, the pack slung over one shoulder, her eyes expectant.

"Lightning storms," she repeats. She's not sure what good that information will do, but it's there, now. Tucked away with all of the other bits of information she's learnt throughout her life. Aim steady, keep both eyes open, go for the head or heart to kill, go for the limbs to maim .. She shivers, both from exhaustion and from the chill of the air slithering through the wet fabric clinging to her body. "I'll follow," she murmurs.

[3ofswords]

Having not waited for the compliance, Kira hears the words at his back, too tired to consider giving it or not giving it. Sometimes it's a gesture, today it's just oversight: Ren had given him the knife and tried to show him how to use it, how to think about his body. Ren had tried to teach him to be aware of threat in the present, since he could no longer sense them in his immediate or less immediate future.

Just the people around him, their shifting moods, maybe a split second of anger before the action. No one's attacked him at the fountain yet, but he's heard of altercations, misunderstandings.

He still thinks a show of trust goes longer than watching his back, with no skills to protect it. He's still too tired to really give a shit. "There isn't much danger from the people here," he says truthfully, the Inn within sight between the brush and trees as they carry down the path. "Everyone here woke up in the fountain, same as you, and we're still trying to figure out how or why. But it's just starting to come out of winter, and we've had a couple of earthquakes, fires."

There should be nothing stopping him from saying two deaths, but the solid weight in his chest isn't ready.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy's still combating her rather strange ice powers, but she has them under control. Rather, she's managed to make it so that she's not immediately causing any long-term damage with a twist of a finger, but she's still doing her best to work on it. She's on her way to a clearing to work on creating large swaths of ice in the hopes that it will preserve food in the future when she sees the look on the young woman's face in her path.

That's a look she herself wore not too long ago and Peggy would be remiss if she didn't try and offer her some help. "If you want, I can take you somewhere warm while you look at what's in that bag," she offers.

[kestreldawn]

The voice startles Jyn out of her survival-and-pain standing coma she's falling into. Eyes bordering on rabid dart to its creator, and Jyn immediately stands, hands balled into fists, ready to be used should the need arise. She's been fighting, fighting for so long, that she simply assumes every subsequent person she meets is there to bring her death. Maybe that wouldn't be all that bad, she thinks, the wound in her heart ripping itself open again. She wonders if there's blood seeping into the rest of her body now, as her heart leaks itself into the void.

"What?" she hisses, brain struggling to catch up to what she's heard. She's offered you help, Jyn, she reminds herself, this other, tamer half of her consciousness that has tried to stay soft in the face of death and war. At the mention of warmer temperatures, a shiver runs through her as if on cue; she hadn't realized how chilled she was until the mention of warmth.

She's feeling sheepish, now. Realizing this woman's there, offering her something kind. Surely she can't be blamed for her reaction in these trying times? She gathers the pack from the ground and buries it under her arm. Instead of words, instead of an apology, she merely nods at the woman, eyes twinkling something desperate and needing.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy doesn't mind the tone, simply raising her brows as she waits expectantly for an answer. She gives a nod the moment that the other woman stands, gesturing for her to follow her. She takes her in the direction of hers and Stella's house, mainly because it looks as though the other woman needs more privacy than the inn can truly afford. "I'm Peggy," she introduces herself, as she notes the shiver in the other woman's body, wondering if she'll ever feel the cold like that again.

It's so terribly odd how she wants to feel the cold like that again, and yet, here she is.

[kestreldawn]

Jyn trudges a few steps behind her, her feet and limbs like stone. It's like a dream, all of her movements met with resistance, slow and barely moving. But she's trying. She is. There's a certain kindness in the woman's voice, one that echoes something familiar - her mother, perhaps? Can Jyn even remember her mother's face, her voice? She knows she's projecting, now, desperate for some maternal warmth in this stranger - but she thinks that the look a little similar, somewhere around the eyes.

"Peggy," she repeats. It's an odd name, one she's never heard before. "I'm Jyn," she replies quietly, shifting the pack to be on her shoulder instead of under her arm.

[womanofvalue]

She feels like that's a name she might have heard before, but shakes it away, telling herself that she's just mixing her up with Jean and names are becoming familiar to her. "Good to meet you, Jyn," she says, gesturing for her to come inside. "I've got a bit of a fire going, which should be good. I know the weather here is quite chilly." Peggy herself happens to be a touch icy, though she doesn't intend to lead with that particular fact, odd as it is.

"There ought to be some spare clothing in your bag," she says. "You could borrow something of mine, if it's not to your liking."

rolls in here super late

[repressings]

They've been arriving more frequently, Credence thinks. He's not a scientist, he can't quite come up with facts and figures, but he's noticed how it seems nearly every walk he takes to Mr. Graves' house, there's someone in the fountain. Maybe he's just getting out more? Or maybe the observers know something they don't.

Regardless, it's not the new arrival's fault. She seems pretty in a classic sort of way, even if her hair is drenched. So much so that he stops in his adventure--though he normally would, regardless of whether or not the person out of the fountain is pretty--and stares.

Surely, by now, Credence would be able to do something other than watch new people emerge, mouth agape, head tilted slightly to the side? He blinks rapidly, nearly owlishly, and when he calls out it's from a good distance away from the fountain. His voice is quiet, his version of loud being a regular person's normal, inside voice as he calls out:

"Miss?" And, because he just blurts it out--it's her pretty eyes, it's how sad she looks-- "There's fire and food."

hooray! better late then never, always! <3

[kestreldawn]

Jyn's ears are still roaring with the residual current of water that forced itself in, on her ascent from the fountain. She's nodding her head to either side, trying to force the liquid out, but it feels a bit like forcing pudding through a straw. She thinks she can hear a voice - somewhere - but a part of her wonders whether she's merely imagining the sound. It doesn't quite occur to her that her arrival would've caused a bit of a ruckus to anyone in the area.

Her eyes scan the area like a pair of built-in quadnocs, and it's then that she catches the sight of what appears to be a man not too far off. She squints, attempting to bring him into better focus, but the dim lighting and the distance between them make it a bit difficult to do. What she can see already is that his eyes are honed in on her, and she can feel their invasive burning on her face, her skin. It makes her fall into a defensive stance almost immediately - back erect, shoulders squared, arms not quite relaxed at her sides ending in loose fists, feet planted firmly a little wider than hips' distance. The strap of her pack hangs loosely in one hand.

"Come again?" she shouts, though she makes no attempt to move towards him to avoid the shouting match. She isn't quite sure that she wants to.

[repressings]

Something shifts. The pretty girl with haunted eyes has shoulders that are suddenly squared, and Credence, skittish on the best of days, folds more and more into himself and his jacket.

It's okay, he tells himself. Most of the village have been kind to him. And he is a good distance, far out of striking range, at the very least. Nothing will happen. Whether he happens to the girl or the girl turns out to be violent, Credence can't tell.

He does take a few steps forward--maybe she is just wary. Maybe she's woken up like this before, too, with no memory of why she's here, panicking and afraid like he'd done before his arrival here. Credence forces his voice to raise, though still maintains a healthy boundary between them.

"Food and fire," he repeats. "And there are others like you who have come out of the well."

More than usual. Enough for Credence to worry.

[kestreldawn]

Despite the distance, Jyn can see the way he seems to crumple on himself - making himself as minimally intimidating and threatening as possible. She wonders if it's a ploy, a tactic - one she's seen before - to lure her into a false sense of security and dominance. Although he's playing the part rather well, the "shout" of his voice barely above an audible blurting, she doesn't let her guard down. Not entirely, at least.

Her shoulders relax ever so slightly - her hands are no longer fists. But her feet remain the same distance apart, her back is still straight as a rod. She's taken down bigger foes before, and multiples at a time. Of course, she hadn't just miraculously come out of a fountain, dazed and disoriented, in those situations.

Still, best to make do.

"Others?" Her eyes dart quickly to their surroundings, looking for these supposed others. There's a heavy, dreadful feeling that prays it isn't just the two of them in this strange, strange place. "And where am I, exactly?"

[repressings]

"I don't know," Credence confesses, and takes a few steps back. His feet crunch in the snow, hiking boots stark against the white, and he inclines his head towards the direction of the inn. The less he talks, the better, especially around new people.

"I wish I knew," He says finally, taking a few more steps back, clenching his fists to alleviaite his nervousness. "We call it the village. We call came out of the fountain, too."

And, after a pause: "It's okay. It's scary, isn't it? Like--like you're doing something, and then you're just... here."

[theroadremains]

The window in the room Casey shares with Kira is often open, a sign that the secondary inhabitant has taken to lingering on the roof. Lately, with the skies clearer than the previous month, he's up there hours into the night, watching the stars appear and wondering over how they got there and what they really are. Not embers, as he had initially believed and feared, but something much larger and farther from them than he could imagine.

When he slips back into the room, his boots settle on the ground with a soft sound, and his eyes catch the form on the second bed, the one he had grown accustomed to laying empty and untouched. He freezes, one hand still on the outer pane of the window, the other on the sill, and his body leaning back into it, as if considering the option of retreating back to the roof.

Plenty of people have cautioned him against sitting outside. The lightning was sure to get him. But he preferred the risk and knowing whether or not the camp was on fire, than the relative safety of not knowing indoors.

His eyes dart past her to search for Kira, but he's gone. Casey fights the jerk of panic, and his eyes snap back to Jyn. It isn't the first time there's been a stranger in their room. Credence had not seemed a threat. He remembers Kira's words, tries to find comfort in the promise that no one had yet slipped to violent solutions in the camp, and forces his body to relax enough not to remove his nails from where they had bit into the wood.

Perhaps if he's quiet, he can slip out unnoticed, but his heavy boots and many layers of overlapping types of fabric aren't well suited to the silent shuffle out of the room and better to know the stranger is awake than have them sneak up on him from behind as he attempts a retreat or lounges on the roof a while longer.

So he clears his throat instead, ready to jump out the window if it becomes necessary.

[kestreldawn]

Jyn's never been a very good sleeper in so much that she can never seem to relax enough to deaden herself to the world. Sleep is a basic necessity, but she takes no joy in it - there's no warm, fuzzy feeling when crawling under the covers or the radiating heat in the morning after a night full of burrowing. It's a way to recharge, to regain strength, and to self-heal for the next day's battle. It's nothing more than survival, and she's never been able to treat it any differently. This means her nights are generally dreamless, though some are known to force their way through the net when she's particularly exhausted. When she's at that point, running on fumes and beyond, it's like her brain doesn't have the energy required to keep the dreams (and nightmares) at bay.

A lifetime of being a child of war means that her sleep is shallow, her ears ever-alert to what is going on around her. Sometimes this bleeds over into her subconscious while she sleeps, if a dream happens to take place - like when someone in the real world is talking and she dreams the conversation from someone else. But generally, the electricity in her brain is never fully at rest - her muscles snap like a rubberband whenever needed, and she can leap out of bed and be dressed for a fight in a matter of seconds.

But since arriving through the fountain, she's found that her exhaustion exceeds anything she's ever felt before. Even the worst days (weeks, months) under Saw or when she was fending for herself can't compare to what she's feeling now. It's an exhaustion that's seemingly sucked the marrow out of her bones, made her frail and brittle and weak. She's the husk of the woman she once was, and her body feels like it.

Somehow, the sound of a clearing throat reaches her - like a needle through fabric. The sharp end of it pricks something in her mind, forcing her eyes to snap open. A lifetime of reflexes spark in an instant, and she's launched herself out of the bed with mad eyes darting for the source of the sound. Her hand reaches for the blaster that's no longer on her thigh, a reflex deeply engrained in her personhood - and it makes her growl quietly.

She immediately spots the shape by the window, and it takes a few seconds for her to realize it's a stranger. What appears to be a man.

Her body is slightly crouched, ready to scrap if necessary. Hands are at either side, arms bent out slightly, fingers twitching for the impulse to crumple into fists. Her eyes burn in the darkness of the night outside the window.

"Who are you?"

[theroadremains]

The reaction is something he's seen and even given on many occasions, and he lets her get through it, only tensing and considering an escape, but not flinching or reacting beyond that. When her question finally comes, instead of an immediate attack, it's a relief. He points toward the hammock with a slow motion, and when he does speak up, his voice is low and he talks with the rough rasp that makes itself known far more heavily at lower volumes.

"I sleep there." He offers, and pushes forward enough to take his weight off the wall and window, keeping his side to her and his eyes on her as he moves along the wall to the far back corner, following it along the room with slow and measured steps, just enough that he can see the floor beside Kira's bed and check for signs of blood or a body. There's nothing there, and it relaxes him a small bit more. Kira is fine he's sure. It doesn't help much, though.

"You're new?"

[kestreldawn]

Jyn recognizes his attempts at making himself less threatening - his slow, methodical movements, the deliberation of his speech, the gravel and volume of his voice. While she recognizes that he might very well be attempting to demonstrate these things as a means of preventing a violent reaction on her end, she also knows that it's a tactic employed by many with ulterior motives - meant to lull the other into false securities and false relaxation. She can't know for certain which motive is his, and until she does, it's better to be on guard than to trust and -

The hammock. Her eyes quickly flick over to it before resuming its cautionary watch, like soldiers at a keep. Her eyes follow him as he moves, her body slightly adjusting as they do, but her overall stance doesn't change much. She still looks defensive, ready for whatever he might try - if he tries anything at all.

"Arrived earlier this evening." Jyn suddenly remembers her conversation with Kira: There's an unclaimed bed in my room, you can use it until you find something better; I share the other with a very quiet young man; You don't really need to worry about either of us. It doesn't take long for her to make the connection. "You're Kira's -" her tongue hisses to start the beginning of the word "cell mate," but she wonders if that's the right term. It feels enough like a prison, but she knows it isn't - not really. "Room mate."