sixthiterationlogs | i'm pinned down by the dark; makes my head pirouette

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i'm pinned down by the dark; makes my head pirouette

WHO: Jyn Erso
WHERE: By the fountain/Jyn and Cassian's Cabin
WHEN: Future-dated to March 16, late afternoon/evening
OPEN TO: OTA/Cassian (Separate thread posted for Kira)
WARNINGS: Mention of war, blood (sort of self-harmy?), violence (Will update as needed)
STATUS: Open

// OTA - By the Fountain //

It had been a mistake, realized too late: attempting to climb the precipice in the northern part of town. She hadn't been doing it for any reason other than pure curiosity - wanting to know first-hand whether the stories she'd been told held any truth ("no one can leave," "everyone who tries is struck down," "the only way out is by death").

Even more foolish had been her attempting to do it alone.

She'd reached about ten feet up when the first floating orb wafted by. She hadn't thought much of it until another one showed, then another, then another - until they practically congealed around her in a brilliant, blinding burst of light - and for a moment she thought, the air sucked out of her lungs -

Scarif. The Death Star. It's happening again.

And in her panic, she'd begun to flail her arms while trying to maintain her grip on the rock's surface, not realizing that this would agitate the insects - or that they would retaliate against her.

It had been one sting - a little zap of pain on the side of her neck. She swatted, bringing palm to skin with a resounding slap. Then it was another, on her left arm - then four more through the fabric of her shirt on the expanse of her back. She leapt down from the crag, covering the back of her neck as she tried to run away, tried to escape the incessant daggers masquerading as flying insects.

It's when she reaches the fountain that the hallucinations and paranoia begin to set in.

She is back at war, back in the jungles of Onderon. She reaches for the blaster at her thigh only to discover it's been lost - or worse, taken. She ducks for cover in a small patch of trees, heartbeat thudding loudly in her ears, breathing short and furious. She trembles, petrified of an unknown enemy, wondering where the kriff her comrades have gone off to; have they left her behind?

// Cassian - The Cabin //

She hadn't told anyone where she was going that morning - not even Cassian. Part of it was because she didn't wholeheartedly believe in the danger, despite the warnings she'd received. Part of it was because she knew the reprimanding sort of look he would give her if she had told him - the silent worry glittering like a galaxy behind the blackness of his eyes. She couldn't stand to see it. So, she'd ventured out alone - didn't lie or come up with an alternative excuse, just said she would be back later.

After the attack, she eventually finds her way back to the cabin - some dull, weak part of her brain remembers it - knows it's familiar. She still sees the jungle, still feels the oppressive heat and the stink of rotting vegetation, but there's something in her, underneath the layers of fever and projected surroundings, that knows this place is safe. Or safer than the rest.

She's crouching, hiding underneath their porch - taking cover from imagined enemy fire that feels more real than the dirt pressing against her belly. Mutters and curses to herself that she's lost her weapon and has been left defenseless, not realizing the volume at which she speaks.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Finally the words cut. He's more or less content with his own inadequacy in most of the areas that would matter to Jyn--or much of anyone else. He's a competent pilot and a decent gambler with a few other hobbies that go on in his own head for the most part, and it'd be stupid to go through life expecting that to impress anybody. Besides, she's not herself. He's much more focused on getting her somewhere safe than taking offense.

But there are truths he's much less comfortable with, most of which truths hinge on Galen. Honestly, this is the sort of response he probably deserves without hallucinations in the equation. Fear of questions like how dare you and what gives you the right has driven him to noncommital, vague answers to all Jyn's inquiries about her father. Every moment with Galen feels stolen from the lost daughter, everything he knows about the man, every memory rightly belongs to someone else and someone better. To Cassian, he could babble about the easier memories, try to prove his rights to someone, if not himself. To Jyn, well, he wouldn't dare if not for this.

He really hopes she doesn't remember this when everything's fixed, as it certainly will be.

He's struck silent for a moment, unable to hide the abject misery that crosses his eyes. Then he swallows and rallies. He doesn't know what she's picturing, but he knows how long it's been since she saw Galen, knows he can't try to prove himself with any easy information. "Not... not much of one," he says, very soft, clearly wishing the earth itself would swallow him up if that'd honorably get him clear of this. "Least--least worst option. H-he had a message, I...Knew him a little, and that, there were--from inside a secret base with Imperial eyes everywhere, not a lot of choices..." Good, now he's as compromised as Jyn.

She thinks he might ditch all talks of Galen - and, honestly, it'd be a relief if he did. She's spent her life hating him - hating him for what he'd done, hating him for forcing them to leave Mac-Vee and Beeny behind, hating him for leaving her, hating him for letting her go, hating him for forcing her to become a child soldier when all she'd wanted was to play pretend battles in the dirt on Lah'mu. Every ounce of her, every cell in her body vibrates with this acrimony, this anger.

And then - here comes this man, this pathetic excuse for a man - fumbling over his words, looking like he'd get blown over by a strong gust of wind - invoking her father's name like an oath, a prayer, an entitlement.

She clenches her jaw, teeth practically cracking under the pressure, threatening to explode like little supernovas in her jaw. Eyes are narrowed, searing straight through the husk of a man opposite her. Chest heaves with the ragged, furious breath, the influx - or is it the deprivation? - of which makes her dizzy, makes her feel vaporous and flimsy.

But when he continues - when tales of the father she'd had stolen - no, the father who'd willingly deserted her - come rushing forth from his mouth, she's unable to tamp down the engulfing rage. The flames spout from every orifice on her face, practically melting the skin away to reveal the hardened muscle and bone underneath.

She rushes forward, hand coming up to grip him by the turquoise of his shirt with violent intentions.

"Who the kriff are you to even talk about him like that? You're a defector from the Empire, then, are you? Then you're just as miserable and traitorous as he is."

He's sort of glad at the manhandling. Not that he isn't scared. He's pretty sure she could break him in half, and he couldn't possibly fight back if she decides to try. But at least that's just pain. Pain is a problem, but it's simple and easily faced. He keeps his hands firmly out of the way, leaning back a little out of sheer animal instinct but otherwise forcing himself to stay calm.

Be easier if she'd just hauled off and punched him, though. He'd been so sure this would get her to come along with him, or he'd never have tried, and now he's made it worse. He can't see why, not when he knows so little about Jyn before, not when he only met her after she saw the message. Clearly things are tense and the relationship isn't what it should be, but it mystifies him that Galen's name doesn't at least soften her. Her indignation at Bodhi for not being worth it, for having what he doesn't deserve, that would be fair, but turning that spite on Galen--

Ridiculously, he wants to defend her father for a moment, has to remind himself that the only goal here is to get her to follow him somewhere safe. And she's not in her right mind anyway. "I'm--I'm a way out, right now, that's all that matters. Th-think whatever you want about the messenger, but you should... get someplace safe." Handing her over to the captain has become not just the best plan but a necessary one. Bodhi needs to collect a few thoughts to stuff back in the neglected trash bin of memory. Jyn first, then his own stupid problems.

"And you expect me to believe you're going to bring me there, eh? A waif of a man who's sympathized with my deserter father? A man who's so easily invoked Galen's name as though calling upon some Higher Being to force me into reverence and piety? I'm supposed to trust you, am I?" She lessens the gap between them, nose hovering near nose, the verdigris of her eyes as brilliant and destructive as the birth of a star.

She'd disintegrate him with them if she could.

She uses the hand gripping his shirt to shove him back rather violently, the oppositional force enough to make her stumble back a few steps.

"And just where would you take me, exactly? Where would the lackey for the All Important Galen Erso take me?"

Well, that's more or less his reaction. He tries to see where she's coming from, but what parallels are there? He had a decent, unremarkable childhood, by Jedhan standards--father gone too young, mother distant and reserved since he'd joined up even though there were no better choices, a sister who'd become a kind stranger--what does he know about what Jyn must have gone through? The thought lets him excuse her, absorb the venom she's spitting to cope with later.

And he doesn't actually fall when she shoves him. He's doing better than might be expected.

He does stumble back further than he should and recover clumsily, but he'll take what he can get. "Someplace safe." He's honestly not even sure. There's always someone at the Inn, maybe someone who could go and find Cassian, but taking her straight home has merit, too. Neither is likely to mean anything to her now.

"You don't get it, do you?" she retorts, a snort of patience wearing thin and a temper flaring. A hand goes to rest at her waist, shifting her weight to the corresponding foot. She looks unenthusiastic, bothered by an irritating and insistent child who can't be reasoned with, can't be held to adult standards. "Someplace safe doesn't exist. It doesn't exist here." She uses her free hand to gesture to the world around them. "Onderon hasn't been safe since before the Clone Wars."

He's encouraged. Not by what she says, but condescension is a better attitude than punching. And Onderon. He doesn't know much--the Imperial policy isn't exactly to publicize ongoing failures as propaganda--but he's a pilot. A decent mental index of planets develops naturally. Now, he can't assume she's hallucinating something coherent, that she's reliving some specific event and he can logic her out of it, but it gives him something more to work with. "Safe is relative. Inside is... Cover's better, anyway."

"And when they strike?" she asks, gesturing now to the skies overhead. "When they strike and locate the structures and they blast the kriff out of them, what then? When the building comes tumbling down, crashing in on top of you, crushing you like an insect, how safe will it be then?" She sighs - a long, drawn out exhale containing the name of everyone who's ever wronged her. Suddenly, she considers him - air swirling around her head shifting colors, from red to something more muted. "What's a defector doing on Onderon, anyway?"

Well, he can't argue. Bodhi's sense of tactics is essentially... nil. She'd know. But that's another good sign. She's thinking logically about something, sticking with the same ideas. He'd have less hope, he reasons, if she were leaping from irrationality to irrationality.

A good theory that completely fails to supply a reasonable answer for her objection. "Helping." Meaningless, yes, but he doesn't dare try for a more specific story that would have to be a lie and could very possibly make her angry again. Actively angry, not this low-burning aggravation.

Her eyes narrow at his response; he's being purposefully vague, she can feel the hesitation dripping off of his words. Can hear it in the unsteadiness of his tone. There's no part of him that willing trusts him, not if he's going to continually dodge and elude her questions by avoiding direct answers. She takes another step forward, her fevered eyes trying their hardest to focus but mostly unable to do so; they're red-rimmed, gaze unrelenting, and there's a tremor in her fingers she can't quite shake no matter how hard she tries.

"Helping? Vague answer. Helping whom?"

She's certainly got him there. It seems unfair that not in her right mind, addled and afraid and with something terribly wrong, Jyn is still much smarter than he is. He has to respect that, even if it makes it much harder to even hope he'll be able to get her to follow him. He almost mentions Galen again, but he's pretty sure he narrowly avoided having his teeth knocked out for that, and he's almost prefer she'd gone through with it. "You."

That's not the answer she's expecting.

So much so that when the word leaves his mouth, she stumbles back a few steps - regathers herself as best she can, fingers twitching for the trigger that doesn't exist as they hang loosely by her sides. She resorts to pacing - a few steps back and forth - seemingly forgotten about the nervous man only a few feet away, now arguing with herself and what appears to be, to an outsider, a voice only she can hear.

"How do I know if I can trust him?"
You don't.
"But why? He doesn't feel like a threat."
Very few things feel and appear what they really are. What if he's a spy?
"And what if he isn't?"
What if he's working for The Man in White? He's from the Empire, isn't he?
"He said he defected."
And you believe him?
"Yes, I do."
If you go with him, you're going to get yourself killed.
"I'll deal with it."

Abruptly, she turns back towards him, lessens the space between them. Gestures vaguely towards him and wherever he might lead her.

"Help me, then."

He can't believe that worked.

He doesn't believe it for a long moment, watching her pace and mutter to herself (that looks awfully unsettling from the outside, doesn't it?). The logical assumption, based on the behavior and on what she actually says, is that he's made it worse. He even leans away a little when she turns her attention back on him.

And then it seems he's won, and he's caught unprepared. He blinks at her for a long moment. He knows he needs to take her to people, preferably to the captain, and the important question is the inn, which he knows well but will have a lot of people around and could make it worse, or the home she shares with Cassian, the location of which he's a tad fuzzy on and which won't have any help if the captain isn't there. But it'll be quiet, and hers, for whatever that means right now. "I, um, this way."

Jyn makes no other sound - at least not towards Bodhi - as she begins to trail behind him, arms tugged tightly around her torso, eyes digging through the ground with each step. She's still muttering to herself - more apparently nonsense to the voice only she can hear - though the murmurs aren't quite loud enough for anyone whose ears aren't pressed against her lips to hear.

"Why did you defect from the Empire?" she finally asks, eyes and attention still to the dirt passing beneath their feet, though the rise in volume and the specificity of the question indicate she's asking the man leading her, not the ground below.

Murmuring a bit is a completely acceptable activity by Bodhi's standards, and he goes very carefully and quietly anyway, not wanting to risk making her resist his help again. He's happy to exist as unobtrusively as possible as long as it's doing some good. And maybe shielding him from a few more painfully perceptive barbs on Jyn's part.

He jumps a little at the question and pauses for a moment, debating his answer. There's one big answer, one with cool, deep eyes that were tired and hunted and wise and saw right to the core of him, one with a soft voice just as often turned to minutiae about crystallography as the ethics of rebellion and the possibilities therein. That's an answer that might get him punched, and one he doesn't want to risk again, for his own sake as well as Jyn's. So that leaves a lot of little things. He can't sort them out and also pick the ones he thinks will work best to keep her calm, not in the moment.

"Little things, one after another," he says softly. "They... they built up, once I left the Academy, especially. You can forget things there. I--I think that's part of how it's made. You don't think about home, or what's outside, and then..." Well, that's not going anywhere. "The most ordinary things turn into, um, into horrors. You realize a cargo you flew of specialized fuel cells is--is powering a prison camp." A deep breath. "A graduate from your year disappears off her route, and no one wants to talk about it." His voice raises in pitch a bit, even as it falls in volume, and the words come faster. "An arrest turns... turns into a summary execution. Right in front of you, and-and-and the troopers don't even look at you even though you were in--you were in the same place and just as suspicious, because there's the right patch on your flight suit, and--" He cuts off suddenly, unable to bear his own voice anymore, half forgetting Jyn's trouble as memories threaten to creep back in.

Her eyes flit over to the back of his head every so often while his voice drowns out all other sound: crunching of leaves, dull thud of earth, snapping of twigs. For all of its interruptions, and stutters, and staccato delivery, the continuity of it is oddly comforting for Jyn. Something consistent to cling to while her mind worked so furiously to keep the voices and holograms of days long gone at bay. It's almost like she's clinging to the last drop of lucidity the fever's allowed her, and something in Bodhi's voice keeps her there - something is familiar, in the voice and in the man himself. She isn't why or what or how, but it feels a bit like reuniting with a friend after many years.

Not that she's had friends. But she imagines this is what such an event would feel like.

Prison camp. Gaze snaps up as her feet refuse to move further.

"Prison camp," she murmurs, now resuming her pattern of pacing and mumbling to herself. "Prison camp. Prison. Prison. Prison camp." It's like she's stretching over an impossible crevasse, one foot precariously balanced at the edge, arm extended to its limit, fingers gliding across the surface of what she's meant to grab onto. "Arrest. Arrest. Prison camp. Vallt. Separtist prison." Closer, closer she edges. "Prison camp. Labor camp. Twenty years. Twenty years in a labor camp." Fingers tap dully against her temple, eyes squeezed shut - almost. "Wobani. Liliana Hallik. Tanith Pontha. Jyn Erso. Erso. Alliance." Eyes snap open, find Bodhi - something like recognition is in her eyes for the first time since he'd found her. "B-Bodhi?"

It takes him a moment to realize he's left her behind, caught up (dangerously, painfully) in the trap of his own memories with no need for a psychedelic bug bite. The rise of her muttering to distinct (if somewhat odd) words catches his attention and he turns, keeping an eye on her as unobtrusively as he can. There's no immediate indication that she's changed for the better, but this is definitely a change, and he watches her pacing nervously. How's he going to get her to walk with him again? Some of the words are familiar, some are not, but if she's getting lost in some new way...

And then he hears his name and makes himself turn his eyes to hers. He only holds it for a moment. Long enough. Caught on the edge of his worry over her and the looming menace of things he can't let himself remember too vividly, the sudden turn for the better feels discordant. He almost doesn't believe it, and a rare, nervous quirk to his lips is something like a smile, but not quite. "Jyn."

"Bodhi, how did I get here?" Her voice feels like an echo, reverberates like the way it does in her dreams and nightmares when she's small and alone, calling out and wishing for her Mama and Papa. She remembers the dream in the cargo hold after Eadu:

Jyn lay on her back, dead, in their Coruscant apartment while Lyra diligently packed gear for some one-woman planetary survey mission. Lyra nearly stepped on Jyn as she grabbed a portable scanner off the dessert table.

"Oh, for--" Lyra shook her head, reached down, and pulled Jyn upright ...

"Mama?" she said.

Lyra laughed and poked Jyn on the forehead with one finger. "You need to not lie down in the middle of the floor. I'm going to trip and fall and land on you, and your father's going to blame me when you bruise."

She went back to packing. Jyn watched her. "Mama," Jyn whispered again, "I don't know what to do."

Lyra held up a hand for silence. She reviewed the contents of her duffel, nodded with satisfaction, then walked slowly to Jyn's side. She smiled gently, sadly. "I know, sweetheart," she said. "But you're a big girl. You have to decide for yourself."

--

"You're your father's daughter," she said. "But you're not just that."

--

Lyra whispered in her ear, so soft Jyn had to strain to hear it: "The strongest stars have hearts of kyber."*

"Bodhi, where are we?" And then, as quickly as the lucidity begins to coagulate, it begins to disintegrate. "Why aren't we on Onderon? Where's Saw? Where's Maia, and Staven, and Codo? Did they leave me?" There's something like need in her eyes, something like desperation and sorrow. "Did they leave me, Bodhi?"

* taken from the Rogue One novel by Alexander Freed.

He's hopeful, for just a moment, on the point of explaining the little bit he can and rushing her along home to safety. The hope only last a few seconds before she makes it clear that while she might be a bit more present, she's not quite with him. But if she's asking him for help, then maybe he still has a chance of helping her. The names don't mean anything to him, but without the hostility, maybe he can rely on being vague and quiet and nudge her the right way.

"You're not alone, are you?" he says softly, liking the sound of that, though he doesn't know if it would work on him, and he's just regular paranoid. "Come on, I'll take you home." He regrets that one as soon as it's out of his mouth. He doesn't really know much about Jyn--more than he did, but not much--but he's pretty sure home isn't a concept that works for her any more than for him. Probably less. He tries to look reassuring, but he does it without eye contact or getting anywhere near her, so it's not all that effective.

"I'm not?" Jyn asks, brows gathered and eyes burning with fever and confusion. A terrible combination. The electricity of her mind is slowed significantly, so much of her energy going to defeating whatever is plaguing the rest of her - but after a few moments, she understands. She isn't alone, not technically, not with Bodhi nearby. Of course, the bigger kind of alone, the existential kind, is a different beast all together, and is a beast she's spent much of her life attempting to out-run.

There's no running here, and it's only a matter of time before it finds her again. Sniffs out the scent of her fear, her pain, her sadness. Hunts her down, sinks its teeth into her neck.

Jyn stops walking, eyes glowing with incredulity and suspicion.

"Home?" Even the sound of the word feels like a language she's never heard. "Where are you taking me?"

Does he dare bring up Cassian? She knows who Bodhi is, but this has been such a strange, piecemeal thing, little bits of the Jyn he knows (and many of the Jyn he doesn't know at all, which is probably most of her, realistically) surfacing at random. "Someplace safer than wandering around alone when you don't feel well." Leaving aside what's going on in her head, she doesn't look well. He's always been prone to getting sick himself, and recently, well, he's got encyclopedic knowledge of various ways bodies fail their owners. It's a solid argument.

She murmurs something like an agreement, though it's more out of exhaustion and lack of other options than complete compliance with his plan. Her feet drag lazily through the dirt, sometimes hitching in the patches of mud that litter the ground. She curls her arms around her torso, hunching over as though stabbed in the gut.

"How did we get here, Bodhi?" She might as well be a child, spent and wanting nothing more than the comfort of a familiar toy, the embrace of a parent, trailing behind an adult who seems to know better.

In the broader sense or more specifically? Which would give her more comfort? He suspects the one with a better answer. Or at least an answer that isn't just a shrug. "I found you walking out here. That's--I think you're sick, that's all, and you'll remember, um, when... When you're better." He hopes. He even thinks it's true, because he knows something about missing memories, and while they may not all slot in right where they came out (his head feels full of jagged broken edges on the best days), brains are complicated and full of information, and inertia alone seems like enough to correct the worst of it.

"Sick? I got sick?" Jyn pouts a bit, disgruntled at this new revelation. Jyn Erso doesn't get sick. She gets injured, wounded, bruised, beaten, and battered - but she doesn't get sick. She angles her head back up, looking at the back of Bodhi's head silently for a few moments as she continues to follow him as the weak hold on lucidity begins to slip away even more. "Where's Papa?"

Not the part he expected her to argue with. Bodhi knows he gets sick more than most (something to do with the lack of sleep, stim dependence, terrible diet, or constant and relentless stress, possibly), but everyone gets it sometimes, right? He wouldn't have been thrown by protests that she could deal with it, but the simple observation? That just seems like irrefutable fact.

At least he doesn't have to defend it. Unfortunately, he has to do worse. He brought this on himself, trying to play a trump card that turned out to be a joker. His jaw sets for a moment before he says, without much inflection, "Not... I wish he was here, but he isn't. You, um, you've just go me for now. Sorry." It's a heartfelt apology.

i'm pinned down by the dark; makes my head pirouette

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sorry bodhi