"I don't know. I have to. I have to keep running. I have to find -"
Safety? It doesn't exist here. Your comrades have left you. Left behind again, forgotten, discarded, unwanted. You should've expected this.
"No, no, no, no. Stop it! STOP IT!" The heel of Jyn's hand rises to the side of her head as she continues her steady pursuit of the ever elusive safety, thudding against her skull so loud it echoes around her brain, jolts the grey mass a little in its cavern. It thought it had been safe in there, too, hadn't it?
Stardust, stop. Please.
"Papa?"
This isn't you. This isn't the life you had. This isn't the life you'd known. You aren't back on Onderon. You aren't with Saw any longer. Please, just -
SILENCE, ERSO. How does it feel, knowing I took everything from you? Not once, not twice, but three times?
"Twice. You didn't take Cassian away from me, not in the end, Krennic." The name somehow coagulates into something coherent on her tongue; she knows that name. She knows Cassian, she knows who he is, knows the softness of his face and the warmth in his eyes.
You aren't safe here, Darkness hisses, using its murky fingers to blot out all light from Cassian's face in her mind's eye; he's nothing, he doesn't exist, did he ever? Keep running. You have to keep running.
"When do I stop?" A cruel, malevolent laugh - Darkness' lips curl and twist, revealing the galaxy in its mouth - meant to be hidden, meant to be concealed, meant to be swallowed. The galaxies of Cassian's eyes, Light whispers before its silenced again.
You don't.
Until the stitch in her side makes the simple art of breathing impossible, Jyn runs - when she hits a canyon wall, she turns, redirects herself, and continues running. When the exhaustion has finally slowed her, when the agony in her muscles and the blisters on her feet have finally grown strong enough to silence the delusions in her harried mind, she stops. Finds the cover of trees and brush. Back pressed to the cold earth, underneath the sparse canopy overhead, she sees the stars for what feels like the first time in years. Something lucid in her wonders if they're the same from home - if there are far off battles and planet killers and pilots never to return to their families. Her lips mutter words, names that would be meaningless to those here -
Saw. Maia. Staven. Codo. Mon Motha. Draven. Bodhi Rook. Chirrut Imwe. Baze Malbus. Until finally, settling in as though finding home, she whispers, Cassian.
-------THE NEXT DAY-------
The sun-speckled rays are what first stirs her out of sleep. Her body is still riddled with fever and ache and, now, a variety of bug bites she'd apparently slept through the night before. But Darkness' voice grows weaker as Light begins to conquer, reclaim its territory from its tethered enemy and counterpart. Two halves of a whole.
Legs no longer willing to run, she limps her way about the area - stomach grumbling yet strangely satiated, blisters screaming with each push of her foot against them. She hobbles, on and on, until finally -
She's somehow found her way back near the cabin where she'd encountered the stranger who knew her name and wore her mother's necklace around his neck, but instead she belly-crawls under the porch of another cabin - the one furthest from the center of town. Rolls onto her back, lets herself be consumed by the strenuous, blazing fire in her lungs, the needles in her legs, the imagined wound at her side still loitering from the day before.
She needs to find food. She needs to find shelter beyond the cover of trees.
"He isn't coming back for you," she whispers to herself. Saw, Galen, even Krennic - "He isn't coming back."
. TAG FINNICK .
"I don't know."
Then why are you running?
"I don't know. I have to. I have to keep running. I have to find -"
Safety? It doesn't exist here. Your comrades have left you. Left behind again, forgotten, discarded, unwanted. You should've expected this.
"No, no, no, no. Stop it! STOP IT!" The heel of Jyn's hand rises to the side of her head as she continues her steady pursuit of the ever elusive safety, thudding against her skull so loud it echoes around her brain, jolts the grey mass a little in its cavern. It thought it had been safe in there, too, hadn't it?
Stardust, stop. Please.
"Papa?"
This isn't you. This isn't the life you had. This isn't the life you'd known. You aren't back on Onderon. You aren't with Saw any longer. Please, just -
SILENCE, ERSO. How does it feel, knowing I took everything from you? Not once, not twice, but three times?
"Twice. You didn't take Cassian away from me, not in the end, Krennic." The name somehow coagulates into something coherent on her tongue; she knows that name. She knows Cassian, she knows who he is, knows the softness of his face and the warmth in his eyes.
You aren't safe here, Darkness hisses, using its murky fingers to blot out all light from Cassian's face in her mind's eye; he's nothing, he doesn't exist, did he ever? Keep running. You have to keep running.
"When do I stop?" A cruel, malevolent laugh - Darkness' lips curl and twist, revealing the galaxy in its mouth - meant to be hidden, meant to be concealed, meant to be swallowed. The galaxies of Cassian's eyes, Light whispers before its silenced again.
You don't.
Until the stitch in her side makes the simple art of breathing impossible, Jyn runs - when she hits a canyon wall, she turns, redirects herself, and continues running. When the exhaustion has finally slowed her, when the agony in her muscles and the blisters on her feet have finally grown strong enough to silence the delusions in her harried mind, she stops. Finds the cover of trees and brush. Back pressed to the cold earth, underneath the sparse canopy overhead, she sees the stars for what feels like the first time in years. Something lucid in her wonders if they're the same from home - if there are far off battles and planet killers and pilots never to return to their families. Her lips mutter words, names that would be meaningless to those here -
Saw. Maia. Staven. Codo. Mon Motha. Draven. Bodhi Rook. Chirrut Imwe. Baze Malbus. Until finally, settling in as though finding home, she whispers, Cassian.
-------THE NEXT DAY-------
The sun-speckled rays are what first stirs her out of sleep. Her body is still riddled with fever and ache and, now, a variety of bug bites she'd apparently slept through the night before. But Darkness' voice grows weaker as Light begins to conquer, reclaim its territory from its tethered enemy and counterpart. Two halves of a whole.
Legs no longer willing to run, she limps her way about the area - stomach grumbling yet strangely satiated, blisters screaming with each push of her foot against them. She hobbles, on and on, until finally -
She's somehow found her way back near the cabin where she'd encountered the stranger who knew her name and wore her mother's necklace around his neck, but instead she belly-crawls under the porch of another cabin - the one furthest from the center of town. Rolls onto her back, lets herself be consumed by the strenuous, blazing fire in her lungs, the needles in her legs, the imagined wound at her side still loitering from the day before.
She needs to find food. She needs to find shelter beyond the cover of trees.
"He isn't coming back for you," she whispers to herself. Saw, Galen, even Krennic - "He isn't coming back."