sixthiterationlogs | Under a sky, no one sees Waiting Watching it happening

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Under a sky, no one sees Waiting Watching it happening

WHO: Bodhi
WHERE: Around town, the inn
WHEN: Forward-dated to March 18
OPEN TO: All!
WARNINGS: None, will update
STATUS: Open

The storms didn't bother him a bit--he had far more on his mind when he first arrived, and wild weather has always been a bit of a specialty of his. The odd little flickers of light excited his curiosity, but he's known planets with much odder bits of phenomena. The soft, wet cold is just as unusual by his standards. Fog is kind of fun. Not, it turns out, the best thing to wander into alone, not when he can't trust his memory to race away to unsafe places, when shifting shapes and unpredictable dimness can so easily evoke... Well, he learns not to stay too far after the first time out.

Aside from that, he doesn't give the little lights or insects or weather much thought. He has Jyn's crisis to deal with, after all, and while he has yet to really find his niche, he's always intent on staying busy, contributing enough with odd jobs to justify the time he spends meandering physically and mentally. He doesn't try to avoid the little lights.

He notices the fever itself. He was a sickly kid, and he's not particularly sturdy now, but what he lacks in immune system, he makes up for in resilience. He moves a little more slowly, takes a few more breaks, but he keeps going. The other symptoms come on more slowly, and these, Bodhi doesn't notice. He's always sure he's doing everything wrong and that if anyone knew the truth they'd hate him. He glances to the side too quickly to see shifting shadows that couldn't be there more often than he'd like to admit. It's a little bit of a bad day, but he's not feeling well. It'll work itself out.

There are slips he doesn't usually make, though, or not without checking carefully to see if anyone's around. Talking to himself--a low, constant murmur, hard to make out any individual pieces. Drumming his fingers in complicated patterns against each other and whatever satisfying surface is nearby (actually, he's done that all his life, but if people notice they sometimes ask, and he gets flustered by having no answer). Long moments that, left uninterrupted, stretch on and on of just being... absent. It's so easy to slip back under, let bor gullet have him. Keeping his head together is the hard part.

There's nowhere he really does belong, and he winds up in the trees and the fog over and over again, but once in a while he gets lost near the inn, his usual base of operations.

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Bodhi relaxes a bit as he considers. Paging through a mental index of sorts of music is as soothing as thinking his way through hyperspace calculations or card counting. Harmless, repetitive, unlikely to make trouble for him. (Actually doing the card counting usually does--he's decent at it, but not at dealing with the fallout when people notice. But in theory it's like meditation.) "N-no, I don't think do. I had... I had a decent recording collection, but, well." Like the rest of his very small life, abandoned when he set off under Galen's orders. Maybe it's stupid to miss his music and holovids more than just about anything else, but what else was there? He lived in pilot's seats and cantina booths. Nothing meaningful left behind. It's a wonder the empire even noticed something so small and insignificant disappearing.

Because Credence is there, he pulls himself out of it. "I, um, I didn't know you... you sing?" That's a skill itself. One Bodhi does not have. He likes doing it, actually, but only strictly alone, because his voice scares banthas.

Bodhi had a music collection. Credence feels a twinge of something he's sure is jealousy, and he wonders what type of music he listens to. Popular music, maybe. Credence can picture him with a victrola, tapping his fingers rhythmically like he'd been doing before. Tap-tap along with the drums. Tap-tap-tap-tap to the melody.

Credence's gaze sweeps over him, and he tries not to look too scrutinising, but he's not convinced the other is alright at all. Maybe he imagines the sweat on his brow because he wants to convince himself. Maybe Credence is just slowly losing it himself.

"I don't sing very well," He corrects mildly, "But when you're worshipping, it doesn't matter. Or.. That's how it's supposed to go." Credence's smile thins. Mary Lou didn't seem to think that way--but Mary Lou always looked for an excuse.

"Do you sing hymns, in space?"

The signs of illness don't retreat, but the conversation is, as ever, fairly soothing. talking like this takes the worst of the edge off, makes the horrible things chasing each other through his head seem more distant and faint. Maybe that's not a good thing. Maybe that's just more of what's left of bor gullet, taking a chance to wreck some more memories, make what's real harder to remember, but... But he doesn't have the energy to resist, if that's the case. He needs it to be quiet.

His fingers are still twitching a bit, but he moves his hands to fold around each other, so it's only a slight pressure of fingertip to knuckle, not so obvious that he's being weird again.

Hymns. It's a new word, but the second time Credence says it, there's enough context to take a stab at what it means. "Um. Chanting and mantras were, I mean, are--" Just because niJedha's gone and the temple with it doesn't mean there aren't other places other people, Jedhans who were off planet--"That was more for the monks to do. I, well, I haven't... There weren't any regular temple lessons since I was six. I could have forgotten things." He's very sure now that he has. If Chirrut or even Baze were here, they could help, but he has so little to hold onto. The occupation made even his family's practical sort of piety dangerous, and there was no way to practice in even the smallest ways in the Academy, not safely, and maybe he was just a coward, but there's no changing it now.

Credence mimics Bodhi's hands, clasping his in front. Weird is relative, and with Bodhi, Credence is never really sure if they share a certain type of nervous, empty oddity about them or if maybe they're both not strange at all and instead just understand each other. He finds himself not caring, either way.

"Monks and temples," Credence echoes, and there's a hint of wonder in his voice, a definite curiousity he can't quite sate. It's the same tone he took when discussing space, or planets. It sounds exotic, different, and Credence likes different when it's someone else.

"Why did you stop?"

"The... The war hit Jedha all at once, and the temple was gutted first. First thing. Most of the Guardians, um, most of the Guardians died early, the Imperials got to looting right--right away." Not for the first or hundredth or last time, he wishes for a good, stiff drink. It's easier to talk about the first fall of NiJedha, the one he's had most of his life to come to grips with, than its final destruction, still raw and not the slightest bit dealt with. "It wasn't safe to--Well, children talked. Aapti and I knew enough, I think. I think that's what they thought. No need to go, um, calling our attention beyond the basics." He's not quite making sense, but it's hard to tell that right now, and often, once Bodhi starts talking it's very hard to know how to stop. "After my father died, I never heard trust the Force from my mother again, and...There's nothing for it now."

Credence doesn't understand much of it. Bodhi is a fascinating person, full of intricacies and little things that remind him of a ball of yarn. Even if that yawn has been frayed and pulled at, it's just as tightly wound.

He does know enough to recognize he's stepped across boundaries, and Bodhi won't hit him, he knows, but he still feels a knee-jerk reaction.

"I didn't mean to upset you, I'm sorry," He mumbles, and he's not quite sure if he even has or not, but he'll take a gamble. Dead fathers and mothers are, generally, quite upsetting. So are people swooping in and destroying everything.

Credence should know. Maybe not on the same scale, but he's done the same thing to his own sister.

"Maybe you can go to the church here? It's for Christians, but it's also for anyone, I think. Maybe, um.. Maybe even your Force God."

"That's not--you didn't." Bodhi hates thinking he's distressed people who don't deserve it, and Credence certainly doesn't. The fact is it's nearly impossible for him to talk about any of his past without stumbling into sensitive subjects, of course. It'd be stupid of him to expect not to have to run up against these things.

He's not wholly unfamiliar with the idea of gods. He's a good listener and well traveled, within his little circle. Besides, it's a kind offer. Catching himself before he gets deeper into not very believable denials, he manages a particularly crooked, unsteady smile even for him, but an honest one. "If that's alright, I... I think I'd like that." No one in Imperial space would dare let on his own religious allegiances, but there are other ideas, and most of them seem to create the right kind of space. "I don't think, no, I'm s-sure I haven't meditated properly since I was eighteen..."

Bodhi's honest smile is met with an equally tentative, equally genuine smile right back. With Bodhi, he feels there are no secrets, even though they both have plenty. Even if they don't really know each other.

Credence hasn't smiled in a while.

"Church is meant for everyone," he assures. "I could go with you, if--I mean, if you want me to. I've never meditated before, though. How do you do it?"

As miserable as he's been since he got sick (the only thing he's recognized as being wrong with him), the kindness of the offer strikes much too powerfully, a wave of comfort that knocks him off his metaphorical feet in his current state of weakness. His eyes warm and the smile deepens, and some of the rigidness slips out of his posture as he leans a bit closer. He's not a one for unsolicited physical contact, but the space between them is maintained much less strictly all of a sudden. "I... wish I could teach you a bit more... I only know the very basic--the beginnings. It's, um, it's a way to breathe, mostly, that... It brings you closer to the Force. To what you're, um, supposed to be."

Bodhi leans closer, and Credence can't help but think it's like some sort of conspiratorial whispering conversation they're having. He wonders if this is how people with friends feel, sharing pieces of information like secrets when it's nothing more than casual conversation.

He has friends now, he realizes. He has Kira. Maybe he can have Bodhi as a friend, too.

"What's the Force? Is he the God?"

The faint air of ever-threatening panic is still there, but it's holding off for now, electricity in the air that can't quite gather the power for a storm as long as he has Credence to focus on. He's never known someone so calming. "There isn't... Well, maybe some people have ideas about that." He's never run into an idea that links the Force with a particular deity, but the pilgrims he so vaguely remembers came from all over the galaxy. Everyone has their own interpretations. "The Force is... It's energy and power, it's part of everything, well, especially everything that's alive, but--" He doesn't really feel up to this, but at least it's pleasant material to stumble through. "Some people are sensitive. They can feel it, use it to do things. I saw a Jedi once--from down the street, and, well, when when I was little--she caught a falling window box before it hit someone just by looking at it. Not me, of course. But that was, um, some people thought meditation made ordinary people able to sense it, too."

Energy, power, people sensitive to it. Credence's brows furrow slightly, and his lips part, heart hammering in his chest. Is the Force another word for magic? Is Bodhi from a world of wizards and witches, too? He swallows, not realizing his throat is dry and trying to suppress a surge of delight when he explains the window box.

Surely, Bodhi is talking about magic. Surely, they just call it something else? It's alright to tell him?

He debates this in his head, the word Jedi unfamiliar, but he may as well be another word for magic user.

"Did the Jedi get hunted down?"

Bodhi nods, the movement tight and muted. Not the official story, but the true one. The fact that there are no Imperials to hear him doesn't make it easy to say so.

It doesn't feel like his story, so it takes him a moment to decide how to start. There were Jedi in NiJedha all the time, drawn by the crystals and the temple and, according to popular wisdom, particularly fertile recruiting territory. Force sensitive children were supposed to be very common, though he has no idea if that was actually true or just something old people said if you caught them being chatty. But while there were certainly Jedi, they were visitors, important ambassadors, honored guests, but they weren't really part of the city the way the Guardians were, no matter how long they stayed. "They... They're supposed to be gone. All of them. I don't know if it's, well, there aren't enough to change things now."

Credence is quiet for a few moments. It's not because Bodhi has said anything bad, but because he feels like what he has to say next is probably very important. At the very least, with the way he's acting, it seems like it means a lot to the pilot. Credence respects that, even if he's not sure about his own faith anymore.

"Maybe they'll come back," he reasons. "One person can change an awful lot."

The thought is a kind one, even if it doesn't land with much weight. He hopes Credence is right, hopes there's a future with solemn, robed knights from all around the galaxy protecting a free and secure citizenry. But they'll never visit Jedha again, and Bodhi won't be a witness to that return. The second thought seems selfish in comparison to the first, but he's always like that, isn't he? No wonder it took him so long to defect, no wonder he accomplished so little when he did...

The spiral of dark thoughts distracts him, and his reply is far more unguarded than he'd usually be to Credence. He tries to keep everything softened and straightforward when they talk, as a rule. "I hope you're right. There might be a bit of the galaxy left to save by the time they turn up." He regrets it as soon as he hears his own tone. Bitterness is for tamping down deep somewhere in the same little box with all the other inconvenient feelings.

There's a little shift, and maybe it's Credence's imagination, or maybe Bodhi really does sound a little despondent, but Credence feels a surge of something. It's rare, it's strange, and it's similar to whenever Modesty gets scared in big crowds and he holds her hand. A protective sibling feeling, maybe, except Credence is the same age as Bodhi and neither of them are pinnacles of sanity with which the word 'protection' nearly always matches up with.

"From what you say, Bodhi," It's Bodhi, and not Mr. Rook, "the galaxy is an awful big place."

But this isn't a good subject for him. So he leans forward, like he's telling a secret. "I think there might be something sweet in the kitchen. Would you like to help me look?"

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Under a sky, no one sees Waiting Watching it happening

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