La paz llegará, el amor siempre vivirá—No me ames, mas quedate otro dia

[candor1]

WHO: Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor, Bodhi Rook, Finnick Odair (independent threads)
WHERE: Cabin 56, the woods, the spring, wherever else happens
WHEN: Feb 6 through now. "Ten days in the [new] life".
OPEN TO: Jyn, Cassian, Bodhi and Finnick
Quick apology for what a first-love middleschooler I've been being IC and OOC, with me neglecting and Cassian unable to gear shift at all away from Jyn! (Turns out we're super OTP, quelle surprise) Thanks for forebearance, and sorry, guys…!
This might help with moving back into the rest of the game from that first obsessed flush of her arrival. Mainly prompts for kestreldawn and I to multithread several CR developments in a single post, rather than a slew of logs.
WARNINGS: PTSD (both helping and triggering one another—and worrying about that), exchanging war/life/traumatic stories, issues they haven't thought about in decades resurfacing 'cause this is so new and everything's getting unlocked, smut (though surprisingly happy/healthy), treating physical injury (possible self-harm convo), reproductive choices, panic attacks
STATUS: Open

1. the next moment (Jyn and Cassian in their cabin)

2. that night (same)

3. in the next few days (Finnick and Cassian at the spring)

4. in days following (Bodhi, Jyn and Cassian TBD)

5. today (Jyn and Cassian, cabin and forest)

Comments

[candor1]

Though his hand remains entirely gentle on hers… it's with a bit too much suddenness and violence that he shakes his head.

"Neither of us could know that."

Even without the war…

There was no without the war. No moment in his life had been unaltered by it… had been less than wholly defined by it. What ifs were worse than pointless.

But before becoming the full of what it would make of him,

(knowing how immediately young that could start to influence a child and how and why it shouldn't)

there were still his own parents to go by

—.

He shakes his head again.

But more softly this time.

Deliberately puts his focus back on their joined hands. Lets them reel him back.

Until he can speak again more gently. With an element of apology in his voice. "…Sorry. I… you know." Looks up at her finally, meaning it and wanting her to see that he did. "But. Thank you. For… thinking that. Of me." Whether he agreed or not, whether it worried him that if untrue she could be disillusioned of it, or worse, made vulnerable for it… still. It was very moving to know she could think that way of him.

His thumb moved across the back of her hand, trying to say what his voice couldn't.

[kestreldawn]

The violence in the shake of his head makes the hand that was placed against his cheek recoil, like his skin had somehow became fire, burning her. She loosely clenches and unclenches her fingers, before letting it rest in her lap.

It feels like a scolded child - needing to withdraw itself in order to be punished.

She feels, then - suddenly and all at once - how impossibly young she is.

Although forced to grow up at an impossible speed, although forced to learn the ins and outs of combat, warfare, weaponry, stealth as a means to deceive - she'd never learnt about life outside of what it meant to be a soldier. And it's here, now, that she feels a flare of anger for what she had taken away from her.

It isn't just Galen, it isn't just Saw, it isn't just Lyra - it isn't just Cassian (current situation temporarily suspended) and the rest of their squadron. It's the person she could have been, perhaps should have been, had things been different.

And she knows Cassian has lived the same life. Marred and scorched and singed by blaster bolts, by Operation: Everything. She wonders how often he mourns the child he'd been.

It made no sense to think of them in terms of anything aside from what they were, what they are now. Parenthood was never meant to be a part of that - and even now, when faced with a future not under the raining flames of war, it would never be theirs. Just as well, she thinks. That life was never meant to be mine.

She offers a slight shake of her head in reply, slightly dismissive, slightly - well, embarrassed. That she'd let those words slip out of her lips without thinking them through. Although beginning to shed the weight of the armor's she worn all her days gives her aching body reprieve, she finds it also overwhelms her - like the shield around her mind, the one that could process, release information strategically and to her advantage, has somehow been tampered with, weakened. Things that she knows, somewhere, shouldn't be let go of come rushing forth before she can stop them.

"I shouldn't have -" she starts, then stops, physically biting the edge of her tongue to make herself pause. "I shouldn't have said that." There's an apology lurking in her words, however concealed. "It wasn't right of me, to suggest it .."

/as ever, thought I'd jump things ahead, but will change in an instant if she wouldn't go along!!/

[candor1]

He may not be able to consciously parse whatever expressive signals he can pick up from her muscles and limbs, but they're clearly feeling the same way: suddenly, as they were never ever allowed even when they were, excruciatingly young.

He touches his forehead to hers momentarily… then raises it to once more strategically scan the room.

Making the long cold walk back to the bed right now is unthinkable. (Far worse than the crossing of a rocky wasteland on foot over ten days which left him with muscle deterioration from dehydration; shinsplints, two sprained ankles, and three broken toes.) But staying seated on the cold hard floor, with plumbing accoutrements digging into their backs, isn't optimal either. Immediate options… all right… the water wouldn't heat yet, not without a more self-defeating walk and quest to find and stoke the right fire… so next best thing.

Pressing a quick kiss to her temple, he stands, keeping hold of her hand a moment longer, and does another quick search of the room. In short order, he finds all the towels and lines the bathtub with them. He holds out his hand to her again in invitation. And, if she takes it, will lower them both into the tub, to take her closely enfolded into himself, intertwining them both, warming the fabric with their bodies, in the makeshift nest/cradle.

So secured, feeling her warmth in the hollows of his arms and chest and legs, keeping her as enfolded as won't be claustrophobic/entrapping, and allows them both to breathe, he finally speaks.

"I asked you to tell me something from your past before," he said. "I…" how to word this without displacing or abdicating responsibility… from the known fact it was his own need driving both times… "…can tell you one of mine, now." …Didn't quite work but perhaps she'll understand the quality of his voice, his heartbeat in her ears.

noooo this is beautiful (and fml, i lost the tag i just wrote ._.)

[kestreldawn]

Jyn exists in the proceeding silence, feeling hollowed. It's a relief, in a way, to be able to exist without necessarily feeling like a kettle that's about to explode - but it's also exhausting, bearing one's self to another person - even if that person happens to be Cassian. There's an exhaustion in her bones that transcends physical labor, or the intensity of adrenaline withdrawal after a night like her arrival. And underneath the layer of fatigue that's settled within her, there's something else -

The faint tensing of muscles, always on edge and always on guard for the first hint of needing to excuse herself - needing to run as the first, dreaded syllables leave Cassian's mouth: "It's best if you .." - "I think you should .." - "You need to .." So that her heart, her ears will not be able to hear the word that follows, the one that would demand her exit, demand her removal from his hands and his body and his life.

So when he stands, she braces herself for the moment - calculates how quickly she could grab her clothes and bolt through the door. But the words never come - instead, he rustles around and puts things into what she thinks is the tub (vague outlines in the moonlight, lack of memorized house geography). And then his hand is there, again, in front of her - calling out to her, reaching for her. Willing her to join him.

Eyes lift, hand mirrors. Skin against skin as she unfolds herself and stands, easily falling into the curves of his body with hers. Her head leans back against his shoulder, arms comfortably weighted by his.

A cocoon.

The symbolism of the act isn't lost on her - they can shed their old lives, who they had been before - be together now, here, in a life they'd never thought they could have - and come out on the other side happier, lighter, trusting.

She hums an approving note as she angles her face more towards his neck, closing her eyes - content. What a beautiful thing, this is - she feels she might burst open, break free of the tether-and-twine of bone and sinew.

<3 <3!

[candor1]

He turns his face to rest his cheek against her forehead, relishing the feel of her head filling the space between his shoulder and neck. The rest of her between his arm and ribs, across his stomach and chest.

Evolution is an idiot, part him thought, making our most vulnerable, indefensible, compromised positions feel the most matchlessly safe…

But it is and he does. Safer with her than he's ever been in a steel subterranean bunker fully armed.

…

It's not something he's ever put voice to.

Not to anyone. Not even himself. Not ever.

Not even when pressed to do so for debriefing, rehabilitation, or under threat of courtmartial.

He says it aloud now, needlessly, unbidden, for no explainable reason. Probably when he shouldn't. To her.

"Draven recruited me when I was sixteen. He oversaw the development of my career. After two years of reeducation, he put me with my first field unit. All fresh agents. I was the most junior. It's standard practice—for us to learn with and from one another. All our code names were colors so we were called Spectrum. We worked together for a year. Every hour of every day. Sometimes with no one else available to us at all. Usually no space between us even when we wanted it. …I suspect you know the dynamic. Though compared to the rest of my own experience, even in guerilla cells… the social experience was… concentrated.

"Since I was the youngest, they took it on themselves to train me… not just in combat and espionage. In every aspect of the kind of life we would have as operatives. I thought out of tribal-initiation psychology or boredom, but probably part of the point of team training. No one can understand what kind of life it is except by living it. That was close as one could get before making the full commitment. Making the choice. While there's still a chance to turn back—find another way to serve."

There are certain things there's no coming back from. Unfortunately, that also means they are things you can't understand until they happen.

"So… among other things… Her" name—? "codename was Blue—"

Why are you telling her this, who wants to hear about a predecessor, good or bad…? there's no comparison nor should be, nor should it be implied… it's lose-lose either way… she can't want to know…

That's a terrible place to stop but he can't help taking a moment. To hold Jyn closer and breathe and marshall his thoughts. It seems he's going to tell this story even though he clearly thinks it's a terrible idea.

But it demands to be told. And never yet had been. So… get rid of it, at last, now.

He continues with a note of humor in his voice. That, given what he's about to say, probably shouldn't be there. "I think they played Sabacc for me. To choose who would give me my first experience." (All of them—Narede, Dorosz, and Blue [gender blind].) "I don't know if Blue lost or won."

He suddenly remembered Narede's expression at the time—and now in a new light. They'd all cruelly assumed that she was jealous, in a way that hurt but she'd never admit. Now, he wonders if she hadn't felt suddenly that she'd doomed him to something she felt powerless to prevent…

"It wasn't good."

Nothing like tonight. But even though tonight had been exceptional… trying to put that into words never quite worked, even if he could switch gears out of his slightly distant, chilly recounting to reallow the deep, intense warmth and affection that tonight with Jyn inspired… letting that open would make continuing impossible, and for some damn probably mistaken reason, it seemed continuing was going to happen.

"I could tell even without basis for comparison. And in retrospect… we ended up together for a while and I never knew how she felt about me. …Which… turned out to be the point: none of us really knew. I'll never know.

"We were…"

…okay, worse, place to pause still. But now he has to stop again to slow his heart from its sudden thudding.

—When in an entirely new tone, he suddenly whispers, "I don't know why I'm telling you this. You can't possibly want to know. It's not right… I shouldn't have said that much already—"

The feeling again: I'm doing something unforgiveable to her, this could have been beautiful and I just killed it…

ohhhhh the spectrum squadron ._.

[kestreldawn]

Jyn's floating in a strange purgatory between sleep and wakefulness, comforted by the warmth and undeniable security of Cassian's arms. They cradle her, make her soft, make her feel things she's never before felt, either by forced circumstances or by choice. The slow, steady drum of his heart against her back, marching in time with hers, feels like a lullaby - reverberating deep within in her, bringing her back to the last time she'd ever felt a modicum of safety - back on Coruscant.

But when his voice fills the air, the words gathering in a fog around them, it stirs her back to the land of the living. Her eyes flutter open, wanting no part of her to be absent from listening to the delicate sound of his heart opening to her. Allowing her entrance.

How little they knew of each other, yet how connected ..

She'd expected perhaps a story about his family - she'd assumed he'd had no siblings, but he had to have had parents at some point in his life - and so she'd mistakenly expected for him to perhaps share some distant, far off memory about one or both of them.

But as the words tumble, adding to the cloud which surrounds them, she realizes that the story will be different.

Very different.

There's a buzzing in her chest as she realizes what it is that he's sharing - not only for the sheer vulnerability and intensity of it, but for the content, as well. The buzzing grows into a vague roar as she realizes the discrepancies in their first experiences - how acutely unfair it was for his to be due to a gamble, as though he were nothing more than a thing to be toyed, played with.

As though he were not a person, full of choices and desires of his own.

As though such a thing were nothing more than a handful of Credits.

There is a jealousy underlying all of the buzzing, of course - how could there not be, however ill-outlined? But she knows she has no claim on the feeling, has no claim on who or with whom he'd been in the past. She barely feels as though she has claim on him at all, in any form or way - constantly in a state of terror that he'll ask her to leave is evident of that.

When he stops, she pulls his arms tighter - turns her head to kiss the edge of his jaw. She won't force him to tell her if he'd rather not - there's nothing good to come out of that - but she'll offer him the opportunity.

"You were .. ? -" her words cut off by his whisper. She shifts, allows herself to turn towards him as much as she can in the confines of the tub. Brings her hand to his face, finds his eyes in the dark. "I won't make you tell me; I never want -" she pauses, finding her words, "I never want it to be demanded, between us .. forced. I respect your privacy." Her thumb runs over his lips. "But please don't assume what I want and don't want from you; I want to know everything you want to tell me. Doesn't matter what. I want to know."

D'aww, you validate me… ^_^

[candor1]

He raises his hand to cup hers where it touched his face; turned and kissed the inside of her palm. Gratefully taking the reassurance, the permission, she gave and forcing himself to respect it by believing it. She can take it. And too late anyway. You've started, worse to force her to imagine from there than to stop.

…And dams can't burst selectively. He couldn't stop.

Finish it.

He kept his hand covering hers, not in force but in entreaty for hers to stay in place, so he could keep his face slightly pressed into and occluded by it.

Though his eyes were open, looking sightlessly into the dark.

"We were in a hostile zone to aid extraction of another operative who'd been compromised. Immediately, the situation wasn't what our intel had prepared us for. We split up to reassess, confirm status of the asset, and regroup. But when we rendezvoused… Blue wasn't there."

Narede's head snaps to stare back at them. The dawning realization, utter horror, far too late, in her taut, bloodless face. Beside Cassian, Dorosz's muscles tense, and his heart seems to stop.

Cassian's voice went more distant still. It practically echoed. "We didn't know… the asset was… someone close to Blue. She intercepted the intel before the rest of us and went off mission. Tried to make a deal to ensure the agent's survival herself. Forgetting, like so many do, something they themselves had hammered into me. You can't deal with the Empire. Because they don't deal fairly with us. We didn't know when we got there but the asset was already dead." The next words sound strange in his mouth because they aren't his own, they're Draven's. "It probably wasn't the letter of the deal, almost certainly not her intent—" Back suddenly and harshly to his own: "but what else could she think would happen by giving us up for trade…"

"No," Narede starts.

Then around them, the planet seems to explode.

"I survived because they all saved me. One by one. I don't know why except that…" Same words, opposite implication, as before: "I was the youngest."

And everything they'd done to him for that reason was proven, then, to indeed be in the hope against hope of his getting out.

I wouldn't. I'm sorry.

"Green—Dorosz—went first pushing me out of the way of the ambush. Red—Narede—went trying to give me cover. I still wouldn't have made it except… Blue showed up after all, from the wrong side of the lines…"

And she'd stared at him, face utterly blank, eyes empty and hollow and flat all at once… that dark hair of hers streaming like ribbons… her physical beauty that had so bewitched his teenage idiocy despite her own blunt attempts to get him to understand that that was meaningless, had no bearing or reflection on anything about who she was in any actual respect; Dorosz's suggestion that if he was going to fixate on anyone he might find a far more constructive partner in Narede; and Narede herself always fair and honest and good to him regardless of that icy sliver of injury in her eyes…

"…and bought time for me to get clear of the blast zone before she blew herself and the Imperials up."

He'd always wondered from then on why he was only issued a Lullaby pill and not a personal detonator. …But hers hadn't been standard issue. She may have made it herself. Perhaps—undeniably. On some level she had known.

"I only knew because Draven debriefed me. The part he left out, that I confirmed on my own, was that enough had been left of Blue to do postmortem analysis; and her blood chemistry was consistent with pregnancy."

There wasn't enough, of course, for genetic testing. But even had Dorosz been attracted to partners on the female spectra—and even were attraction a necessity always for needing connection or distraction or wanting to break up monotony—by then they had all been in close quarters without relief or sufficient privacy or individual shore leave for five months. He couldn't find a way to pretend it could have been anyone else's.

"That's when…" (despite there being plenty of other non-permanent contraceptive options for most genders, used by agents whether or not they ever had relevant assignments, he'd gone for the irrevocable) "…I applied for sterilization. Draven rejected the request at first. I had to wait a few years before applying again. To convince him I was sure. I could never do my work at best if that kind of victimization—even at the presentient cellular level—was remotely possible."

His color, by the way, had been Black.

Black and Blue. If it hadn't been obvious enough they spelled doom.

"By the time I was finally rehabilitated and cleared for field duty again… I was nineteen."

Though his loyalty and devotion to the Rebellion was undiminished, possibly even cemented, and one of his greatest strengths and services involved the recruitment and training of others, at which he wouldn't have been so exceptional without the charisma and drive/ability to connect with people exerting itself no matter how much suppression the Empire and the Alliance and he himself had done; nonetheless, he'd never work in a team or with a partner then on. The only exception made for a droid he'd reprogrammed himself.

Until Rogue One. Until Jyn.

He finally lowered their joined hands, to reveal that somewhere in there, his eyes had closed.

"I don't know why I told you," he said again. "Except that I've never said any of it before. And… …and I want you to know."

a billion times over <3

[kestreldawn]

As if she hadn't been all along, the end of Cassian's story makes her inhale a sharp breath - the rush of oxygen to her brain making her skull feel like static. She feels everything and nothing all at once, only instead of it being from her sudden arrival - Cassian's existence coinciding (again, beautifully) with hers - it's for him. About him. About what was taken away from him so cruelly, so heartlessly, by a galaxy some strange part of her still longed for.

She thinks back, back to when they'd evacuated Eadu. The weight of her father's corpse still on her skin, in her muscles. The wildfire rage she'd felt burning away everything she'd ever been - how she'd thrown the blame on Cassian without hesitation. The pain and disappointment in his eyes when he'd told her he'd been fighting since he was six years old. The open-palm of guilt and privilege smacking the wind out of her.

How could she have known, that this was one story out of the hundreds, thousands that came together to create his life? How could she have known then?

She rests her head back against his shoulder, eyes trailing up to stare at the non-descript ceiling. Processing. Simmering.

She wants to say everything all at once, all of the things screaming in her ears, her head. She wants to cradle him like a child and exorcise every demon from his life. She wants to make the scars that muddle his body disappear with nothing more than a touch of her hand. She wants to leech out the darkness from his past, replace it with beauty and wonder and love. She wants to scream, curse the name of everything and everyone who'd ever dared to hurt him.

She knows that she can't.

She knows it's impossible.

But what she can do, what she can give him - is a life, now, for however long it might end up lasting (forever, she hopes) - that has all of those things. That is full of beauty, love, light, happiness. Tender touches when they're least expected, fingers through his hair, lips on every part of him she'd dare to explore (all of it), laughter until his belly aches, soft glances from across a crowded room and in the solitude of their home.

She turns her head again, presses her forehead against his cheek. Closes her eyes. Listens to the rhythmic sound of his breathing, wonders that they're still able to.

"I love you, Cassian," she whispers - a pale attempt at trying to convey everything she's feeling, but the most succinct culmination of it all.

[candor1]

His eyes had been bone dry; only at her words does a tear fall.

"Te amo, Jyn," he murmurs back. Wrong idiom; impossible not to recognize as the same sentiment.

He puts her hand against his chest so he can free his own to run under her hair, cradle her head.

For a while, they just breathe.

Telling the story was like having something huge and heavy surgically removed from his chest cavity. He feels now like… post-op shock, semi-medicated, blood loss. …But… peacefully.

The towel-lined bathtub could be an escape pod floating away.

From wherever his consciousness had wound up (somewhere near a ceiling that still shielded them but had stretched to be higher up than could be measured), Cassian murmured, "So, that was my first time. You?"

[kestreldawn]

It feels strange - wrong, almost - to be able to exist like this. Without the threat of war, without the looming shadows of the growing Empire and Resistance, without the inherent and urgent need to survive in the most catastrophic of circumstances. Floating in the atmosphere of heartbeat and breath, a voice comes back to Jyn - violently, demanding attention.

"Jyn, if you're listening .. My beloved, so much of my life has been wasted. I try to think of you only in the moments when I'm strong, because the pain of not having you with me ... Your mother. Our family. The pain of that loss is so overwhelming I risk falling even now. It's just so hard not to think of you. Think of where you are ..

She tries to silence it, tries to ignore the first time she'd seen, heard her father since she was seven.

It frightens me to imagine you grown, somehow working to oppose injustice in the galaxy, whether from a laboratory or a starfighter; it frightens me, and I think the Rebellion could ask for no better friend.

Her eyes squeeze shut as her breathing shallows. His words are etched forever in the cavern of her mind, her heart - the one where she had once kept the disgust and hatred meant only for Galen - that now felt emptied of their sharp, dangerous weapons.

"Yet if it isn't so? If I'm wrong, and you left the Rebellion and Saw behind but this message still finds you? You make me no less proud, Jyn. If you found a place in the galaxy untouched by war - a quiet life, maybe with a family - if you're happy, Jyn, then that's more than enough.

Is that what this is?, she wonders. Is this the place her father had imagined for her, dreamt for her - a place untouched by war - with the family she'd found in Cassian? Had Galen meant to exclude himself from that grouping? Hadn't he been her family, once?

The gnawing, eroding guilt begins to seep its way back into her, compounded by the rage she'd felt listening to Cassian's story. She wonders if Galen would've wanted the same for Cassian, had they met - would have seen the echoes of his daughter in a man promised to the Rebellion from such a young age. She thinks he would have, she thinks he would have liked him.

His words force her out of the overbearing fog of her mind, and she's grateful for it. Breathing returns to normal, she thinks the tremor in her hands has left (if they'd been tremoring at all). She exhales the breath of a laugh, turning to again kiss his jaw.

"You were there for it."

[candor1]

He starts a little more upright to stare down at her. The mixture of astonishment, disbelief at being astonished, knowing-it-was-irrational-but-belated-should-I-have-known-did-I-do-you-justice-well-enough-alarm, and… something else… in his eyes… "What?"

…something like a fresh overwhelming of love.

[kestreldawn]

Jyn thought it had been obvious, her lack of experience. Her lack of knowledge. The tentative nature of her movements, the urge to conceal herself (yet also bare every part of herself to him), the panic and confusion as the remnants of him and their bodies left hers - she thought they'd all been glaringly, obnoxiously obvious. She knew her way around the curves and angles of a blaster; not the human body.

She wonders if the look she sees there, in his eyes, is what she hopes -

Or what she fears.

She flicks her head, nodding ever so slightly.

"It - it was my first." A thick, slow swallow. "You were my first." There's the grating feeling of guilt, now, at realizing the discrepancy between their first times - how undeserving she is to have experienced something so beautiful, so intrinsically breath-taking - while he lived with the demon he'd let loose into the room only moments before. "I - should've told you, before."

[candor1]

He shakes his head slightly, protesting her admission of guilt where none existed, and in his own wonder (body-language and… coordination -wise, she's giving herself far too little credit)… and before he can speak again he needs to kiss her. Thoroughly. Deeply.

When their lips part again, with his face still close to hers, his fingers gentle on her cheek, he says, "I hope I… there are questions I could have made clearer…"

…while his expressions and body and voice continued radiating his surge of achingly, warmly protective and humbled: …thank you…

[kestreldawn]

Her limbs feel heavy and viscous at his kiss - the depth of it, the intensity of it. How Cassian had managed to still remain so warm, so inherently good despite everything he'd seen and experienced - Jyn couldn't understand. His edges had remained sharp and brazen, more out of pattern and protection and need, but everything that lay beneath - it was whispers in the darkness, the kiss of heat and light as the sun rose. How privileged she is, to be able to see, know, love all of it.

She knew her own life had been hard, in its own way, but comparatively, she felt like - No, don't compare; you can't compare. It will destroy you both.

A quiet, breathless sigh escapes her at the parting, her eyes closed and her tongue rolling out to capture whatever might be left of him.

"I can think of no one else I would have rather it been," she whispers. "Only you."

[candor1]

He'd be blushing again if the blood needed wasn't busying itself elsewhere. "Sorry," he murmured, unable in this cocoon to very well hide it from her, "ignore that… It's just… I'm glad it was… what you wanted. And now I get to learn what else you might want with you."

[kestreldawn]

If there'd been enough light, Cassian would've seen the playful smile reach itself across her face like sunlight, the glimmer in her eye to match, the flush of her cheeks at the feeling of him. Instead, knowing he can't, she takes his arms, wraps them around her protectively - then places one hand on her hip, the other on her breast. Her lips find his neck, press against it.

"Don't apologize," she breathes, teeth nipping at his skin.

[candor1]

She can feel his smile (and shiver) in her skin. As his hands and lips are prompt to follow her lead.

Already held so closely by the basin, the transition is seamless, and movement almost entirely restricted… so different from the room-filling urgency of the first… and for all that, no less intense. But now, again, they don't seem to be in a cabin in a forest on an unknown continent on a less-known world. They could be anywhere and everywhere, time- and gravity-free, and had always been there.

CLOSED

[kestreldawn]