Bodhi Rook (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
onlyeverdoubted) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sixthiterationlogs2017-04-30 04:17 pm
onlyeverdoubted) wrote in sixthiterationlogs2017-04-30 04:17 pm
Entry tags:
Battered columns stand as silent monuments
WHO: Bodhi Rook
WHERE: Cabin 39, around town
WHEN: After the Obscurial Event
OPEN TO: Everyone
WARNINGS: Reflections on Jedha, including everything that might reasonably be supposed from a war zone being destroyed by mysterious death from above
STATUS: Ongoing
Bodhi's heard a bit about the mysterious boxes, but never given them too much thought. He's been here for months and not been bothered by one, and when this one appears, he's too busy fussing about Credence's appearance and the general mood in town to even get to it right away. When he finally does, he finds excuses not to open it. Not for any very good reason. He's just already on edge and something unnerving has been added to that. Only when he gets tired of feeling silly does he actually get around to opening it.
It takes a long moment to realize what he's looking at. There was a time these tools were as familiar as an in-flight repair kit would be now, but so incongruous it takes a long time to believe what his eyes are telling him. Three neatly wrapped bricks of pressed tea; plain and refined, smoky and dark; spiced enough to scorch an unwary tongue. The tongs, whisk, and tiny brazier, all plain, elegant iron. A little jar of gray, crumbly rock sugar. Four cups, thin and ordinary, faintly red under a shiny glaze.
They'd be a precious piece of a lost world to any NiJedhan, but to Bodhi, they're more than heritage. The tea shop is a distant memory, dreamlike and outsized through the eyes of the child he was then. War zones do not have warm, delicate shops where nibbly bits of local cuisine are served alongside marked up blends that make somewhat spurious health claims, every cup individually and ceremonially prepared at the table for tourists and monks and dignitaries and a few neighborhood friends. The store remained, since they lived above it, descending from elegance and charm to quick and unsatisfying lunches for conscripted laborers and then to a junk shop, when Bodhi last visited, every hint of the pretty tchotchkes and delicate tables gone, the smell of fried bread and spices finally chased out of the walls.
He's processed his own death. He's tiptoed around the others who fell, on Scarif and before, in the line of duty. But he's fled from any hints of Jedha, backpeddling fiercely at ordinary conversation that strays too near home, refusing to even engage enough to acknowledge a retreat. How could anyone handle a city gone?
He spends the better part of an hour just staring, turning over the little pieces of the set, too numb to feel anything. Then he darts behind the house to find decent tree cover to curl up and sob. He hasn't let anything out since it all began, not Galen, not Saw and his men, not the horrors of the burning beach and the certainty of failure, not the Death Star itself, and it's not just Jedha that creeps in at this first real outburst.
It doesn't feel like an ending when the tears stop, just that he's out for now. He cleans up a bit and returns to the house, and once he's caught his housemates (permanent and temporary), he sets off for town. Part of him wants to save every drop for himself, but that wouldn't be right. He's already carrying Jedha. If he can, he should offer the taste of home to anyone who wants it, and the memory of a moon can go on a little longer.
WHERE: Cabin 39, around town
WHEN: After the Obscurial Event
OPEN TO: Everyone
WARNINGS: Reflections on Jedha, including everything that might reasonably be supposed from a war zone being destroyed by mysterious death from above
STATUS: Ongoing
Bodhi's heard a bit about the mysterious boxes, but never given them too much thought. He's been here for months and not been bothered by one, and when this one appears, he's too busy fussing about Credence's appearance and the general mood in town to even get to it right away. When he finally does, he finds excuses not to open it. Not for any very good reason. He's just already on edge and something unnerving has been added to that. Only when he gets tired of feeling silly does he actually get around to opening it.
It takes a long moment to realize what he's looking at. There was a time these tools were as familiar as an in-flight repair kit would be now, but so incongruous it takes a long time to believe what his eyes are telling him. Three neatly wrapped bricks of pressed tea; plain and refined, smoky and dark; spiced enough to scorch an unwary tongue. The tongs, whisk, and tiny brazier, all plain, elegant iron. A little jar of gray, crumbly rock sugar. Four cups, thin and ordinary, faintly red under a shiny glaze.
They'd be a precious piece of a lost world to any NiJedhan, but to Bodhi, they're more than heritage. The tea shop is a distant memory, dreamlike and outsized through the eyes of the child he was then. War zones do not have warm, delicate shops where nibbly bits of local cuisine are served alongside marked up blends that make somewhat spurious health claims, every cup individually and ceremonially prepared at the table for tourists and monks and dignitaries and a few neighborhood friends. The store remained, since they lived above it, descending from elegance and charm to quick and unsatisfying lunches for conscripted laborers and then to a junk shop, when Bodhi last visited, every hint of the pretty tchotchkes and delicate tables gone, the smell of fried bread and spices finally chased out of the walls.
He's processed his own death. He's tiptoed around the others who fell, on Scarif and before, in the line of duty. But he's fled from any hints of Jedha, backpeddling fiercely at ordinary conversation that strays too near home, refusing to even engage enough to acknowledge a retreat. How could anyone handle a city gone?
He spends the better part of an hour just staring, turning over the little pieces of the set, too numb to feel anything. Then he darts behind the house to find decent tree cover to curl up and sob. He hasn't let anything out since it all began, not Galen, not Saw and his men, not the horrors of the burning beach and the certainty of failure, not the Death Star itself, and it's not just Jedha that creeps in at this first real outburst.
It doesn't feel like an ending when the tears stop, just that he's out for now. He cleans up a bit and returns to the house, and once he's caught his housemates (permanent and temporary), he sets off for town. Part of him wants to save every drop for himself, but that wouldn't be right. He's already carrying Jedha. If he can, he should offer the taste of home to anyone who wants it, and the memory of a moon can go on a little longer.
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"As for the tea, well." He rolls his lips in and stares down into the mug, the little bat fully drained to a puddle of specks at the bottom. "The tea, the cards--they're just tools. Even people who don't have the gift can learn the symbols, and sometimes that's all it is. Just a way to make you think your problems through and figure out your own head or heart from how you keep interpreting the signs."
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