Cassian Andor (
candor1) wrote in
maskormenacelogs2017-06-22 11:30 pm
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jannat al-ma'wa [OTA]
WHO: Cassian, Jyn, K-2SO, Revan, OTA
WHERE: Neojedha in Maurtia Falls
WHEN: huh? continuity? (your choice)
WHAT: The dojo opens (multithreads welcome)
WARNINGS: facepalmingly pompous mun!wish-fulfillment re: community service and indie start-ups; any of the reasons someone might need a shelter situation; PTSD sublimation; TL;DRing up the tauntaun. 1 and 2 are kinda infodumps. 3 (knowing us)could did get smutty. 4's accessibly friendly!
P.S. on taking cultural references from karking everywhere (title: Arabic, passcode: Sanskrit, setting: Americanization of Japanese, characters: none of these…) Cassian's trying to avoid cultural appropriation without even knowing the term; I'm stomping carelessly through the tulips. Hopefully not to conflate any of the cultures or schools of thought. Thinking more of The Cloisters: a museum Frankensteined from many different religious sites and relics, exploring the differences and finding underlying agreements, resulting in a space that feels secularly holy.
1. Neojedha: the dojo (attn. Jyn Erso, K-2SO, Revan, OTAnyone who wants to stop in while the place is active)
2. Haven: the safehouse (closed to Jyn, Kay, Revan)
3. The Bridge: between them (closed to Jyn Erso)
4. Outside: the street, the back alley, the fire escape, the roof, etc (OTA - WHAT a proper prompt)
5. The world: NPC neighbors and friends (if you ever come while they're closed and ask the neighbors about the dojo's staff, this is the info you'll get)
[+ image references: Colleen Wing's Chikara Dojo from "Iron Fist" …babeh]
WHERE: Neojedha in Maurtia Falls
WHEN: huh? continuity? (your choice)
WHAT: The dojo opens (multithreads welcome)
WARNINGS: facepalmingly pompous mun!wish-fulfillment re: community service and indie start-ups; any of the reasons someone might need a shelter situation; PTSD sublimation; TL;DRing up the tauntaun. 1 and 2 are kinda infodumps. 3 (knowing us)
P.S. on taking cultural references from karking everywhere (title: Arabic, passcode: Sanskrit, setting: Americanization of Japanese, characters: none of these…) Cassian's trying to avoid cultural appropriation without even knowing the term; I'm stomping carelessly through the tulips. Hopefully not to conflate any of the cultures or schools of thought. Thinking more of The Cloisters: a museum Frankensteined from many different religious sites and relics, exploring the differences and finding underlying agreements, resulting in a space that feels secularly holy.
1. Neojedha: the dojo (attn. Jyn Erso, K-2SO, Revan, OTAnyone who wants to stop in while the place is active)
2. Haven: the safehouse (closed to Jyn, Kay, Revan)
3. The Bridge: between them (closed to Jyn Erso)
4. Outside: the street, the back alley, the fire escape, the roof, etc (OTA - WHAT a proper prompt)
5. The world: NPC neighbors and friends (if you ever come while they're closed and ask the neighbors about the dojo's staff, this is the info you'll get)
[+ image references: Colleen Wing's Chikara Dojo from "Iron Fist" …babeh]
no subject
"I'm not. I'm not trying to… do… anything. I can't always control—be in control… Not everything I do is a plan. There's no objective. I'm not trying to leave. I don't want you to leave. I'm less a ghost here than I was ever. I spend every day choosing not to fight the same battles. I don't go tearing after Dooku and Grievous and Hux and figure out who's in Constellation and try infiltrate them or fight them or crack them or murder them or take them down even though I'm afraid—because I'm afraid—they will bring it all back; but if I do I'm helping them do it, making a possible future the definite present; the only way to guarantee my involvement is by creating it, even though it means surrendering control… I'm teaching children and trying to give Kay a fulfilling life and finding a way to accept that I can take what you're willing to share with me because it's so much better than anything I could ever have without you and because refusing it isn't being selfless it's denying what you chose and deserve so much more than anyone too so how to reconcile that what I want and what's best are the same thing for the first time in my life… Even though I'm afraid focusing on it blinds me to what might take it from me but I'm not Anakin Fucking Skywalker. I'm not going to give up what I have for fear of loosing it. I can see the bloody idiotic self-defeating self-fulfillment that is. We can do everything right. You can do everything right for me. I can do better than what I thought my best could be and this still might happen. I don't know if I could choose to put it away. I don't know. I don't think someone should. I never let Kay make the shots for me even though he could do it better because I needed a friend not an alibi or escape or a weapons upgrade and if you're going to murder someone your hand should fucking shake. Maybe I can't let go of this or maybe I refuse maybe they're the same thing I don't know—maybe I'm trying to give you this choice. I tried to make it for you myself by keeping this away from you. This is it. This is what I tried not to put on you. My keeping it from you was the plan and the choice. And you understood and you let me and you waited and you took me the moment I turned back to you and you were amazing and it hurt you and I don't want you to protect me from your pain even when I'm causing it so I understand what it means that you want the same… I don't agree with myself and what I feel and that doesn't matter… There's no plan. Reprogramming Kay was like becoming a parent and now we're teaching children and I want a child with you so badly, if you wanted me to give one into you and help you both grow and get to meet another person with your sarcasm and your eyes, but it doesn't matter if you might or might not because I once chose to kill the future that I wanted so much it might keep me from giving it up when I had to and. I don't know what I'm saying, Jyn."
no subject
Cassian, I'm - I'm just a human. I'm nothing more or less than anyone else. I've done things I'm not proud of. I've had things done to me that shouldn't have happened. But I'm still only human. I'm not anything more than that.
If I were to answer your question now, given that I don't have an answer for it based on who I used to be, I would say that no - I don't think I would've been better off with Hadder. I don't think that I would have wanted to .. settle down, have a family. How could I live with myself for bringing a life into the galaxy we lived in? War-torn and constantly full of death and destruction. I probably would've been doomed to repeat my parents' mistakes. The Empire would've figured out my identity eventually; they would've made the link between me and my father. They would've tracked me down, hunted me. I would've had to have put a child through what I was put through - never staying on the same planet for more than a year, never having friends outside of inanimate toys, never feeling secure, never knowing stability, never having any idea of consistency.
Even if Hadder could have - and would have - done his best to try and protect me and our hypothetical child, it wouldn't have been enough. Just as what my father had done hadn't been enough. There's no "enough" when it comes to the Empire. You know that as well as I do. I probably would've met the same fate as my mother, staring down the barrel of a blaster and the mask behind it." She pauses to catch her breath, aware of the fact that she's no longer shaking. She takes a step forward.
"I choose you, yesterday and today and tomorrow. I'll always choose you. You mean so much more to me than your ability to give me a child that I don't think I'd want to begin with. You - you make me feel safe. Safe in a way I've never felt before in my life. You give me hope. You ground me when I feel like I'm going to vaporize into thin air." Her shoulders shrug, heavily, matched with the sigh that escapes her. "You told me 'welcome home' once, and I knew that I was. For the first time. I knew that I was. It wasn't on Yavin, it wasn't in the temple.
I knew I was home because my home was - is - you."
no subject
…It was so strange that… that came with… a fragment of… relief.
Another 'what if', not consciously recognized but long unaddressed: her new power and his ability to share it. Dying together… somehow not the issue. Somehow still part of them. But sometimes gnawing at the back of his mind: could they have been together like this without the intervention, independent of themselves, of telepathy?
His back had been to her for his torrent. Rigid and brittle. He slowly faces her as she speaks. Still drawn in on himself. But attending.
"Actually," he said, so quietly the ambient sounds of the room and the world came back with it, "I assumed you wouldn't want kids. Strategically, this works out. It's a mismatch we'll never have to overcome. Even if you did, I know that's not my worth to you, and there are options beyond biology… and given the opportunity, the full reality, I might not actually choose it either.
"Let me just…"
Words… which…
He violently shook his head.
It's not a test. It's not an assumption. It's not about you. I just kriffing hurt all right… and… nanites or telepathy or dying or you… this is a reaction I've never allowed myself to try before… and perhaps it's wrong, perhaps there's middle ground I need to learn about between suppressing and letting it just unleash on you… and perhaps you're right that there is one ulterior plan of just… seeing what happens when…
He shook his head more slowly.
Out of words, now. Out of thoughts. No idea what he'd even want to happen next.
Lifepod ejected into void. At some point it could be collected. It didn't have its own steering or propulsion abilities, so it would have to be.
He tries to imagine the people whose names are on these walls. How they'd punch him. Baze outright, Chirrut unexpectedly, Bodhi with big eyes.
Maybe he'd just needed to feel this for a moment. He'd never let himself acknowledge or grieve.
Maybe he'd just done something unfair and wrong to Jyn for no good reason. And he knew it wasn't a deal-breaker but he would still have to face it when he stopped spinning.
Maybe they could both be right.
Maybe she could hit him in the head and make it stop. How these feelings didn't go away even though things were good.
no subject
She wonders if Eun-Ji is pressing her ear to the wall, trying to listen to as much as she can.
"I just wanted a quiet life. One where I didn't have to keep running. One where I could be a part of a family that didn't get themselves killed, that didn't .. ignore me to lose themselves in theorems and equations and missions and warfare and death tolls. I just .. I just wanted someone - someone - to stick around. Just once. Not for a year, not for seven, not for eight." Hadder and Akshaya, Galen and Lyra, Saw.
Jyn exhales and lets her body fold along with it to her knees, eyes still glued to the visor which she's been futilely trying to repair with the heat and strength of her fingers.
Maybe this is what they both needed - exclamation and vibrating vocal chords about all of the things they'd lost, all of the things they'd had taken, everyone who'd died. Far too many. Maybe they each needed to feel the very things they'd been ignoring, shoving down further and further into their gut with no thought of consequence or the fact that seams aren't meant to be under so much pressure. But now, she feels this volcanic rupture in her gut - one full of sulfur and bubbling lava. Hot, searing, nauseating.
Her eyes close, and the next time they open, she's no longer looking through her own cosmic gaze but rather, that of a large, dark creature.
no subject
He knows he's capable of following her, sharing this as well… but doesn't.
Instead, he moves forward
and kneels in front of her.
Bowing his head to expose his neck, his spine,
to her.
no subject
Sign of submission.
It starts with a rumbling, rhythmic growl - mostly as a result of coming to terms with its existence in this small room. It paces while it thunders, from left to right, mouth slightly agape to assist in the absorption of smell, multi-hued eyes honed in the man. Its thick, heavy paws thud against the wooden floor with each step, small scuff marks left with each scrape of its claws. Its long tail hangs loosely from the base of its own spine as it slowly approaches.
It circles around the man's back once, then again - this time coming to inspect with heightened olfactory senses. It can smell the sweat coating the man's skin, can memorize the molecular signature of his scent. It circumnavigates around him half way, this time coming to sit in front of him. A few high-pitched chirps echo next, sounds of recognition and beckoning, as it lays itself down on the ground, paws neatly resting in front of its chest, the tip of its tail gently twitching.
no subject
But why draw the lines at powers. None of this is anything you had in the last life. If you're grateful for any of it, be grateful for all of it.
The beast lies down, and Cassian closes his eyes.
His hands which he'd laid empty palms up, he turned over at last to grip his knees.
It's hard to sit with himself. But in this place, with this creature, he tries.
…The thread distant and delicate in his mind. I am one with… the Force is with…
It can't be his mantra but he uses the memory of Chirrut's chant as a focus, to push everything else at bay.
They're still sitting there as the sunlight fades, and the only light now with them is an insufficient but silver outlining of the next building's electricity.
no subject
As the light fades, the creature blends more and more in with the shadows of the room. The only clear indications of its presence are the huffs of air through its nostrils, the sweeping sound of its tail against the ground, and the subtle glow of its eyes.
Once close enough, it nudges at one of the man's hands with its snout, then dips its head down and forward, rubbing its forehead against his knee. Another rumbling vibrates the air, but this time, it's obvious it isn't one of aggression. It would be recognizable as a much louder version of the purring they'd shared while transformed into the smaller feline creatures weeks before.
After a few rubs, it flops down on its side, resting its heavy head on the top of the man's thigh, the one connected to the knee it had rubbed - glowing, incandescent peering up at him curiously.
no subject
But this… Maybe because she's more powerful than him now. Jyn in person could always hold her own against Cassian. In this form, she's now risen from Cassian's level to Kay's: could kill him with instant ease.
He ignores all the whispers of what it says about him that that makes him feel… safer.
Because it was never the threat of the other person that tortured him. It was his potential threat to them.
He couldn't quite bring himself to pet her the way he would an animal that… didn't have the woman he loved inside it. Even though he's runs his fingers and nails over her in human form in a not dissimilar way. There's a lot of grey area (isn't there kriffing always) between infantilizing and sexualizing, which he is actually very adept at navigating with other sentients, but… this in-between with this creature who's also Jyn, it's just… safer, for him, to remain still. Be the one acted upon, not the one who acts.
Except… the body language she gave him now. The trusting pose, the physical contact, the luminous eyes.
Slowly, he extended his open hand where she could see it coming, moving it to hover near her face. Available for her to guide him as she liked.
no subject
The creatures cranes its neck to sniff at the hand with interest, the cold mucous covering its nose a stark contrast to the heat radiating off of his palm. It can smell the fabric of his clothes on it, the various things he's touched throughout the day, and - interestingly - the lingering scent of .. Jyn.
Another beckoning chirp pierces the silence (though, like this, silence can never really exist so long as there were other lifeforms outside and inside of the walls) before it presses its forehead against his palm again, grunting in what would easily be interpreted as joy or happiness. It lifts itself off of the ground again and knocks its body into and against the man, first with one side of its body then the other, before coming back in front of him and flopping down again, half-laying on the man's legs now, belly up. A large, weighty paw stretches up in the air before relaxing back down in a bent pose, the other reaching to tap his hand.
no subject
And was unaware of the tears slipping easily down his face until one dropped onto her dark fur.
no subject
It watches him with careful curiosity, eyes almost unblinking and practically alight of their own volition. It stays this way for a second or two before it rolls itself away from the man and onto its belly, shifting into her normal, human form.
She always forgets that her clothes melt off when she transforms, but she doesn't seem to care - even with the threat of a voyeur somewhere across the street. Or, worse, the Lees peering into see what all the strange noises have been. She crawls her way back over to him, before kneeling and stretching her arms out towards him as though needing to understand their mechanics instead of paws, and wraps them around him.
no subject
"I'm sorry," he says in a thick voice. Not for all of it… he needed… possibly they needed… some of it recognized, some of it let out… acknowledged, remembered. But— "I shouldn't have brought him into it." That had just been… weak. It was good that Jyn hadn't had to die before experiencing love.
no subject
But .. that being said, I don't - I don't want you to not tell me things, out of fear of hurting me. Getting angry, getting upset, they're .. they're okay. They're normal, I think. If we're going to make it, if we're going to last, we have to be able to talk about all of the things we'd rather not." She turns her head to brush her lips against the crook of his neck with affection. "Even if it's hard."
no subject
He could misstep and they would… survive.
A new life indeed.
He didn't think about it; no mind to psychology or power moves or implications as such a gesture would always carry in his past, with anyone else. Just feeling the chill of the night on his own face and her bare skin and instinctively wanting to counteract it. He sat back and pulled off the light sweatshirt he'd put on over his undershirt after class. He put it around her, instead. His arms returning to encircle her, with it.
"Thank you," he said quietly. To all of it. To letting him be wrong. To having that be all right. To everything else.
He hoped not to repeat this often. (Ideally not at all. But he didn't need Kay to tell him the probabilities on that.) He would still try, perhaps more than he should, not to let such pain come out at her where she would inevitably feel it too. But being able to do so, both with her blessing and in his own capability… was… remarkable. Far beyond what had been possible last life.
He kissed her again, closer to her shoulder this time, before smoothing the cotton sleeve properly up her arm and holding her in it, against him.
"And I don't know what animal you were," he murmured again after a moment. "But thank you for not eating me."
no subject
Still, chasing away the chill is nice, and it draws up a hushed giggle out of her.
She hums a response to his gratitude, as if to say she knows. She understands. She's with him (all the way).
"I'm not entirely sure myself," she replies with a bright chirp of laughter, in earnest this time. "It's strange, having to share a brain with a creature you don't even know. But if it helps, the thought of turning you into food was never even a possibility." She pauses. "Was I that large? I couldn't really tell."
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That was surely not what (if pretending anything) had been intended.
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".. What?" That's not the analogy she would've expected, but - she supposes it makes some sense. She can understand it, then. Her size, the similarities. She lets out another trickling laugh. "Well. .. Anyway." She'll remember that.
"It felt oddly powerful. Unlike what we'd turned into in the forest. Yet - it kept wanting to hide. Go unseen and retreat into shadow. It didn't want to be out in the open."
no subject
His hands ran over her back again, smoothing the soft fabric against her, generating a little warmth. "…I probably shouldn't try to interpret the… causality of… why that form from that reaction." He was still grateful for it even while feeling guilty for it. Both could be true.
For a moment, his hands' pressure deepened, holding her closer to his chest. "…do you still feel…? we could go in back. Or go home." He was ready to collapse and spend the night right here. But no matter how shared he'd like this place to be, he was aware it was still dominated by his intentions and designs. He'd readily go back to De Chima and be in a more equal-to-Jyn-dominant space.
no subject
She leans forward, pressing her cheek against his shoulder.
"I'm tired; I think shape-shifting exhausts me." Which makes sense, given that her entire form changes. "In back would be good."
no subject
She leans her head on his shoulder; he leans his on hers in turn, their necks crossing the way… indeed, feline life forms he's seen on several worlds tend to do.
He turns to kiss her hair. Then levers himself controlledly to his feet, so halfway up he can wrap his arms around her and (unnecessarily, but enjoyably) lift her to hers.
He takes another moment, with both of them upright and his arms still encircling her, to kiss her.
It's a relief to have her back.
"I do like cats. But I like you this way best."
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"Human form always seems strange whenever I come back into it," she says, moving up to her toes to kiss next to his mouth. "I like you best."
no subject
I like you has a warmth and caress too… that actually makes him blush. One doesn't always entail the other, after all. And it feels… good to… Well: he thinks of love as a need. "Like" seems like… a choice.
It gives him a feeling of lightheaded, coretingling warmth to be… chosen.
All right, focus.
It had been more of a hoist before; feeling her unsteadiness, and the invitation of her grip, he readjusts his arms around her to a firmer support. Putting not just his arms around her, but slightly pulling more of her weight onto his body. He doubts she wants to be picked up entirely (and it would likeliest be a fireman lift if he did; tiny as she is, he's slight too) but they can walk together—give her four legs again.
As he returns this kiss, stray hair tickles their faces. He reaches up to brush it away, expecting it to be hers, and finds it's his own. He doesn't look in mirrors unless he has to—he learned to shave blind years ago—so he'd lost track of how long it had grown. Usually he hacks it off himself (also not looking in a mirror) with whatever blade is to hand. The sudden impulse may come of still wanting to atone, or reiterate trust, or give her an offering—a physical piece of himself… but he goes with it. He makes a point of tugging the hair out of his eyes, while smilingly meeting hers. "Maybe tomorrow you could help me with this…?"
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Just as having her in his life rather than him living it himself is in every way an improvement.
He's not sure if he wants her to hear that thought—as usual, seems like too big a burden to put on anyone—but somewhere along the line he'd surrendered and decided to be thankful that he couldn't really filter such things away from her. It wasn't just up to him to control… what information was shared. Which was good. It no longer should be.
He kissed the top of her head, her face, then shifted himself and pulled her warm against him to start walking them around to give the locks a final check, en route to the living apartment. The setting for his current line of thoughts, which were assessing how drained her body seemed by the conversation and transformation, and assessing whether he'd warm her some food, start up the shower, or just tuck her into bed. Knowing as ever she was more than capable of tending to herself and surviving on her own. Taking achingly great satisfaction that he could be a part in her not having to.