maskormenacelogs | jannat al-ma'wa [OTA]

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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]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Here's what we're doing…

Each of them—Jyn, Revan, and Cassian—had one or two times a week to teach whatever they wanted re: physical discipline or self-defense. Jyn and Revan could be as pre-planned or spontaneous as they wanted. Cassian's would probably change session to session, each focusing on whichever elements of his unarmed combat—cribbed from so many sources, including his Separatist and Alliance trainers who themselves had patchworked them—he could thematically link. All that was guaranteed at any session was the start time, the end time, and which instructor would be there.

Some of Jyn and Cassian's class times, they co-taught, or assisted one another, and their sparring was so immediately popular that they set aside another timeslot for them just to give demonstrations.

Kaytoo hadn't been tapped as an instructor. (If he wanted to be one, that would be an intriguing prospect and a conversation worth having.) He would be called upon very frequently to help with demonstrations, spot-check and supervise students' self-directed and/or group practices, and just about anything else he wanted that fulfilled his long-neglected combat progamming, as long as nobody got hurt. Which Cassian knew with certainty was also something Kay was fully capable of.

Cassian came to many of Jyn's and Revan's classes. Not as any kind of "supervisor"—now that the place was running they were all of equal rank—though he had mentioned that if Jyn ever taught her baton fighting, Cassian wanted to learn it; and if anyone was going to instruct in meditation, for which there was demand, Revan was the likeliest candidate. The Force knew neither Jyn nor Cassian were talented in anything approaching it.

—Also: batons or blunt staffs were the only kind of weapons that would be permitted inside.

It was all just magnetic to him. It… seemed to be working. For Jyn, Kay, and Cassian: skills they had been programmed with for war, seeming to give people a much-needed level—or no less valuable moment—of peace. For Revan, if Cassian's understanding of the Jedi was remotely accurate—hopefully as they'd been part of his inspiration for this—"martial arts" as a way toward peacekeeping, externally and in oneself, wouldn't be such a difficult or astonishing reconciliation.

Something Jyn had said, in suggestion or in passing, raised the question if they could add elements that weren't combat-based. He'd said to Jyn at the outset, Nobody would say going to the dojo had solved their problems, but it seemed to help. But… Jyn, Kay and Revan had skills that were applicable to some specific issues—like obstacles to formal education and job opportunities. …Beyond the underlying premise of help other kids not be abused or used. Give them a space to feel confident, powerful, and safe. Help them look for options where it may feel like they don't have any.

He'd talk to them all, see if they thought it was ridiculous, for a place like this, people like them, to incorporate things like… perhaps… Jyn teaching computer programming or technical writing; Kay, statistics or logic; Revan, robotics or ethics… anything else they would offer. It was hard for Cassian to see any of his own noncombat skills as positive, but hosting sessions for the kids to choose their own topic of discussion, and then simply moderate, couldn't be harder than trying to keep a council meeting remotely productive. (…There we go, re: Cassian's skills: playing the structure of conversation without affecting the content.)

As regulars amassed, more sessions could be added, striated for age or level of advancement. Though still relatively easy to proceed instinctively, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the room, not to exploit or defeat but to choose the matter of the day.

People still referred to Neojedha as a "dojo". Including Cassian by now, though his inclination had been to remove themselves from that term. None of their styles matched the origins or expectations of it… and if it wasn't a covery identity then Cassian didn't like doing things under a banner he wasn't going to adhere to and didn't properly understand. But their usage was apparently compatible with how the imported (…ha) term could manifest in this country; it was already their nickname; and the continuity didn't seem to disappoint. Might even feel like a restoration.

He still didn't take the original wall hangings out of the chest he'd stored them in. The students were told about them if any of them wanted to do something with them.

In their place, whoever (out of Kay, Jyn, and Revan) wanted to, had helped paint a few words on the front window and the walls, in ~~Basic~~ English and (no matter that they mainly aimed to serve those without the powers, protections, and visibility afforded imPorts) Aurebesh.

Out front, of course: Neojedha.

Over where the training and exercise equipment was kept: by Malbus.

Over where the floor was padded for meditation: Îm Way.

Over the residential apartment cum first aid station cum office door: Rookery.

Edited 2017-06-23 12:19 (UTC)

Of course an imPort business also had a secret identity.

Though Haven was more… a protocol.

If any of their students—or any of their friends or family, or anyone else they saw fit to tell the password—needed somewhere to regroup, catch their breath, find their feet… be hidden and/or defended.

(One didn't need a war to create such need. And this part of Maurtia Falls wasn't so removed from things Cassian had seen on Kafrene, on Jelucan, even Coruscant—on an organizational level. What could happen domestically was… literally… universal.)

The two tiny residential apartments (…compartments, really, for size) were for the staff to nap, bathe, or eat between sessions. But Jyn, Kay, Revan, and Cassian all had other homes to go back to. So those rooms could become safehouses. Not long-term, they were only big enough comfortably for two people each. But perhaps long enough for the instructors to try to help.

And considering the instructors were two former child soldiers, a security droid, and a Jedi… between them, they suspected they could keep someone well defended and well-advised.

Indeed, part of a Haven invocation would include at least one of them (Kay by default) moving into Neojedha to act as security for as long as necessary.

What Cassian didn't know how to do, but Kay, Jyn, and Revan, separately or together, certainly would…

"I don't want someone to have to be here at all times," he said. "But is there a way to make Haven available all the time? For instance…" He pulled out his imPort-issue compad. "None of them have one of these. The devices they have can't access our network. But could we set up a console by the entrance that could reach one of our private channels with the right access code?" Something that could also be passed by word of mouth. Probably start with Fulcrum.

Edited 2017-06-23 12:18 (UTC)

Cassian had talked to Jyn about a habitable back room with hopes of later expansion, for a second, into the vacant space next door. Less than a week after opening, the landlord of the block surprised Cassian with a grant to some of that footage. The siblings who owned the shop on the other side had been spreading the word and the whole community were so happy to have the dojo reopen—the neighborhood had changed so much without it—they'd collected the money as an opening gift. So between finishing the place for opening and then launching into the next phase of the work, mostly singlehanded (unless/except when Kay or Jyn or any other volunteer swung by), Cassian hadn't been returning to De Chima almost at all.

He had no intent of moving out of 003, nor of suggesting Kay or Jyn do so. He liked their house, he liked Veronica, he liked the woods.

But it was already very useful, having one finished living quarters—a workstation, also a small basic 'fresher, food appliances, and a bed—for him to use during the conversion; and for any of them to use once the place was up and running, not to have to Port to another state to take a shower or a rest between classes, or overnight. The idea that he, Jyn, and Kay could all stay there at once if they wanted, in their own separate spaces, was reassuring.

And it made the most sense for them to have separate spaces, for their own wellbeing and possible protection, and so the dojo apartments could be turned into a shelter for anyone else as needed. If one of their students or any of their friends or family ever needed somewhere safe to hide, find their feet, or catch their breath.

…There wasn't a specific deadline to finish that back room. It wouldn't interfere with the rest of the facility. It was mainly that Cassian needed something to throw himself into, beyond the operational hours of the dojo itself, to get his head back on.

He hadn't kept a secret, from Jyn or Kay, what had happened to him and Han. They may not have needed him to find a way to articulate, beyond the level at which he'd been able, why it had shaken him worse than far more serious fights had done in the past. They probably understood it at least as well as he did, and better because they were less likely to muddy the issue with the kind of self-recrimination Cassian excelled at.

The fact remained that it had been a month and he was still having trouble meeting eyes or being touched. …Even by Jyn. Except when she held him when he broke into tremors in the night and tried to help him get back to sleep.

He hadn't been avoiding her by staying in Maurtia Falls.

…Though the dojo had been up and running for two weeks, now, going extremely well. And he was still spending more nights there than in De Chima. —And not actually sleeping. (If he was sleeping, he'd definitely be doing so with Jyn.) Just still, trying to sublimate, working on that other room.

He doesn't seem to be around, though, when Jyn comes into the finished quarters—theirs… with the once-joked though still hovering possible nickname of the Rookery, just as the exercise and combat equipped area was by Malbus and the meditation area was Îm Way.

(Though when he'd told her he'd soundproofed it all—rationale: Haven—he may not have specified that included the wall between the sleeping area of the apartment and the fresher. So she wouldn't hear if the shower was on.)

Edited 2017-06-23 07:22 (UTC)

At any point throughout the weeks before and after opening. Random hours. Cassian will be in and around Neojedha—out front, in the back alley, on the fire escape, on the roof… doing security and maintenance checks, upgrading or repairing something, talking to the neighboring shopkeepers, just stretching his legs…

Edited 2017-06-23 12:16 (UTC)

Patience had always been something with which she struggled. It wasn't that she didn't respect other people's spaces, or paces, or whatever it might be - it was always more that her mind was often working a double or triple the speed of most other people in certain capacities - such as, solving puzzles, forging shipping codes and scandocs, running through rote equations as a means of meditation, etc. But she knows the value of the virtue. Knows its importance. And she's seemed to have tapped into a much larger reserve than she ever thought possible since arriving in De Chima.

When Cassian had returned from his night out with Han, shaking and unable to look her in the eye, her mind hadn't wandered to thoughts of infidelity (not like they had an official "title" of any kind, nor did they really need one to understand what they had with each other) or anything of the sort. She knew from the thousand-yard-stare that it had been something war-related, something that had dragged him back into the role and life he'd been trying so desperately to leave behind. She hadn't said much while he hugged himself and went statuesque on the staircase (an alarming sight, to say the least), muttering things that didn't quite make sense or weren't quite words. He spoke to himself in Yaval more than Basic, and it was another clue that told Jyn that, whatever had happened, it'd hit him in his core.

So, she'd tapped into her patience. Her love. She held him until he'd told her what had happened. She kept her twitching fingers at her sides in the moments that touch was too much, too intimate, too intense. She tucked her burning lips underneath her teeth whenever he subtly drew himself away from her. And when she woke in the middle of the night - sometimes because of natural sleeping rhythms, other times because of her own nightmares - and reached her arm out to feel the cold side of his bed, she grabbed his pillow and curled her body around it - letting the lingering scent of him fill her and remind her: patience.

The dojo was greater than anything she could've anticipated - not only for the hard work and labor that Cassian had put into it, but for the joyous reception of the community. She'd spent the weeks since its opening breezing through her work (now not as focused on detracting from her average time as she was hovering around 30 minutes) and heading over almost immediately afterwards. Sometimes to observe, other times to teach, other times still to coordinate and organize. She hadn't really had much of a chance to investigate the backroom Cassian had mentioned, but on this particular day, she had the extra time and the spark of curiosity.

She slips in, shutting the door behind her, and meanders around its perimeter slowly - hands clasped behind her back like an officer inspecting the barracks, purpose in her steps - though the softness and warmth on her face would set her apart from any likeness of any sort of high-ranking official. She can't help but admire the hard work he's put into it; it's truly quite an extraordinary space. She eventually finds her way over towards the bed, perching herself down on the edge of it, before allowing herself to flop back with a huff of air.

Edited 2017-06-23 07:28 (UTC)

The fresher door opened, releasing a puff of steam—which was interesting: he usually kept the water too cold, now that he didn't have to—and Cassian emerged into the apartment proper. Still very damp, stark naked, and, one of the rarest of rare instances, totally blind to his surroundings (and Jyn's presence) from being in the middle of towelling off his hair.

In the time between Jyn collapsing down on the bed and Cassian (unbeknownst to Jyn) emerging from the shower, she must've dozed off and floated in the strange purgatory between fully restorative sleep and the waking world. The sound of the fresher door stirs her slightly, eyes still sticking together until she manages to groggily and lethargically peel them apart in response to the noise she can't quite place. She begins to yawn and rub at one of her eyes when she scans her surroundings, subconsciously searching for whatever the noise had been that had woken her, when she's greeted with the .. startling (but not at all unwelcome) sight of Cassian's naked form (which she knows in the fraction of a second from sight alone).

"It's a good thing I'm not prone to getting flustered," she murmurs lightheartedly, voice still thick and scratchy with lingering sleep.

He's abruptly in a more defensible stance, towel in hand as if he could weaponize it. (…and… yeah, he could.)

Though he relaxes, subtly but sheepishly, at the sight of her. …For all his distance has, as damnably usual, not been about her, it's probably nice to see (and it's nice for him to feel) an easy warm smile on his face at seeing her.

"Did you remember the key code, or break in?" he asked, with gentle teasing. In honor of her being more than capable of both. Wrapping the towel unhurriedly around his waist as he crossed toward her.

Though the keycode was a long and alien (Terran-specific) one: b o d h i s a t t v a

Edited 2017-06-23 07:52 (UTC)

Jyn's body tenses in immediate reflex at his shift to defense. She isn't afraid of him hurting or attacking her - not by any stretch of the imagination - but the ingrained movement towards self-protection is a very hard thing to shatter. Almost as quickly, whatever tightness of muscle that might've lurked evaporates, rendering her into a puddle as soft as the light in her eyes at the sight of him. She has no preference as to whether he's clothed or not, so long as it's him and it's her in the same room.

Of course, she isn't going to be hurrying and urging him to toss on his clothes, either.

"Mm, thought about the latter," she replies, matching his teasing, but with a hint of seriousness in her voice. "Mostly to see how possible it would be and if it would be a security concern down the line. But since it's my first time to the flat," she explains as she flips onto her side and props herself up on a bent elbow, "I thought I should enter properly."

"Yes, that would be wonderful for you to check," Cassian agreed, reaching her. "Later." He knelt beside the bed, resting his arm on the mattress near hers.

It felt like he hadn't seen her in years. His own fault entirely. But… perhaps he'd managed to wear himself out enough with physical labor, or just scorched all shadows momentarily out of himself under the too-hot water, or perhaps because of the safety of the phantom guardians and fulfilling promise of this place, or… who cared what: for this moment he actually could feel like he was in the same room with her. Not separated by a cold, biting mist.

"Hello," he murmured redundantly. Not quite touching her, but charting the galaxies in her eyes like a pardoned exile. "I've lost track of time. Is your class about to start or already over?"

Edited 2017-06-23 08:23 (UTC)

It's strange, to be in a place without biometric security measures, so she isn't entirely sure how useful her lockpicking skills would be in this world - but if the flat was to be used for those who needed the very thing it'd been named after - Haven - then Jyn's certainly going to try her hardest to ensure that there's the utmost protection for whomever might be staying here in the future. This includes how easy it might be to bypass the code to gain entry into the space.

But he's right, she thinks. Later. There's plenty of time for that (and what an odd concept that is, even still).

Her fingers shift themselves, almost of their own volition, to barely brush against the skin of his forearm. They mostly run the outside of themselves against him, a silent confirmation of his physicality and solidity.

It does feel like years since she's seen him last, she agrees - and perhaps even longer since she's seen the warmth staring back at her from his eyes. They'd been so hauntingly barren and desolate since the night at the bar; the thought of it now could steal the air right out of her lungs if she lets it. But she doesn't; she focuses on the man that's in front of her, the one whose galaxies so perfectly align with her own.

"Hello," she replies, softness abound in face and voice. "Ended a bit ago. Was apparently more tired than I thought; seems I might've fallen asleep once my head hit the mattress." She could say something about how little she sleeps whenever he isn't beside her, how the nightmares terrify her so deeply that she often dreads the mere act of trying to fall asleep, how she spends more time staring at the ceiling than resting, but - doesn't. Instead lifts her hand enough to place it firmly and securely on the back of his forearm, palm pressing gently against him, fingers loosely curling around the circumference.

It doesn't matter, how little or much she's been sleeping. Not with him here, right underneath her touch.

He lifts his other hand. Hesitates a moment. Then brushes back her hair and traces the side of her face.

"I'm so sorry," he said quietly. "I keep doing this to you. …I don't even know if I'm out of it now or if this is just… remission."

…Of course… it could be said… any period of peace was always only going to be a remission.

…no, not "only". There was nothing "only" about that. It was still a miracle.

He didn't know how to tell her. He could barely formulate it for himself. I'm never alone. I'm always watched. I'm always judged. Anything I do that's not working as hard as I can to justify what I did to them feels like just too great an insult to bear…

Maybe she knows.

…He'd been free of it for a while. Did that mean it was possible to free himself again… or did something as dire have to happen externally as had happened to them on Scarif…

grim, sardonic: never thought of the Death Star as the cosmos's worst STERC machine

…which was an option that hadn't occurred to him to look at in this world. …He didn't think he wanted to. Try this—Neojedha—first.

Edited 2017-06-23 08:51 (UTC)

"You aren't doing anything to me," Jyn responds with a firmness in her tone, lying underneath the softness that covers it. "You're doing it to yourself more than anything." It feels like an observation with the weight of Kay-bluntness attached, but it's no less true. By extension, yes - his actions have affected her; case in point: barely coming back to the house and sleeping here instead, hardly looking at or touching her over the course of the preceding month, withdrawing into himself and into the project to prove -

What, exactly? And to whom?

She knows, even without the telepathy and the received signals in her mind like a comm tower, the expectation he's set for himself. The threshold he's created to somehow atone for his past misdeeds, the lives he'd taken, the things he'd done in the name of the Rebellion. She knows that he's been living underneath the shadow of his former life, never able to move quickly enough or efficiently enough to scurry out from under it. Never in its entirety, never to completion.

She leans into his touch, places her hand on top of his.

"I wish -" She hesitates, chewing her lip for a second before finishing, "I wish you'd treat yourself as kindly as you treat me. As you treat Kay. As you treat so many other people."

Other people haven't done—That's irrelevant… He's seen it… he's seen so much of it… it didn't matter what anyone's catalysts, they always thought they were worse or less deserving than anyone else… and if he did meet someone with a past like his—Like Kay? How closer could one get?—he wouldn't necessarily condemn them…It was different because of……things other than the events and actions themselves…?…Mightn't that serve either point…? Still spiralling. Stop.

Stop.

Ever since reprogramming Kay, Cassian's found it helpful, hopefully less in dissociation and more as an actionable model, to imagine his own mind as a positronic one.
New subroutine: try reasoning with self as if it was someone else
It wasn't even a new idea, but he… hadn't reached for it until Jyn said it.

Jyn. Stop me.

Cassian closed his eyes and lowered his face to their joined hands.

You can't wait to not be afraid, he'd said. Or someone had said to him. Or both. Mid-firefight. You can't wait to feel certain or steady or bold. You don't have to.

You just have to act.

GET

UP.

Muffled against the mattress and her skin, he said, "If you still want to sleep… can I join you?"

Edited 2017-06-23 09:31 (UTC)

As his head lowers, Jyn's other hand lifts to gently smooth down the damp hair at the back of his head. Through the coldness of the residual moisture, she can feel the heat radiating off of his scalp. Her hand slides down to his shoulder blades, resting gently but with purposeful weight, squarely between them. The grip of her other hand, the one still with his, tightens slightly. The reminder - I'm here; I'm still here; I haven't left; I haven't gone; you haven't lost me or pushed me away.

"You needn't ask," she replies softly, bending her head to kiss the back of his. "Whatever bed I'm in is always open to you."

He'll always ask… but he also is thankful to know and believe the answer.

Streamlining the motions, he slid the bedclothes out from between Jyn and the mattress, then moved forward to lay himself down beside her, refolding the sheet and blanket over them both. His hand ended on her hip, resting and moulding to its curve, anchoring and gently pulling their bodies together.

Through her clothes, could feel the slight vibration of his muscles—remaining tension—but the deeper, slow release of breath. Relief at the feel of her after too long an absence… not just from her presence but from being able to feel it.

Edited 2017-06-23 19:48 (UTC)

Jyn shifts her body over a bit to allow him space, left arm stretched out across the bed for him to rest his head, right arm up in beckoning acceptance and entry. It falls gently around his shoulders as he slips in and fits against her, and there's a quiet sigh of relief at the (silly, she knows) feeling of it all still falling into place so effortlessly and easily.

The hand belonging to the arm that wrapped around him finds the space between his shoulder blades again and rubs, gently and rhythmically. The other rests along his bicep.

"Not that I had any doubt," she whispers softly, "But this turned out to be a wonderful space. I can't imagine how thankful the community is for what you've done."

Before he'd started isolating himself this time around, there had been times she'd held him like this and he still hadn't been able to unlock.

(She and Kay could compare notes… the times Cassian would come back to the U-wing from a mission—not all of the ones he wouldn't take Kay on with him, but always such a one—and couldn't be reached no matter what Kay said or did; couldn't uncoil from crash position in the one safe place in the universe. The times he couldn't not bring the invaders in with him… or it didn't matter he'd return to the ship, he hadn't returned to himself.)

Now his body loosens and relaxes as it hasn't in weeks. His head sinks into the cradle she made for it, turning to lightly touch his forehead into the curve of her neck. The arm he left between his own body and the mattress shifts a little, so his hand slips under her waist there too, exerting gentle, caressing pressure in answer to her hand on his back. Both his hands, on either side of her, followed a soft gravity, connecting and drawing them by their cores.

His lips and breath moved on her skin as he answered. "I can't believe it turned out to… not just… be self-serving. A way to justify what we can do… keep myself busy. People acting like we're giving such a service. Not… them giving us—"

(By us he meant him—erred on the side of sharing credit rather than assuming blame.)

"—the gift of purpose."

(The one Jyn's given Cassian three times.)

She feels the increasing fluidity of his muscles, of his body, of his bones. She swears she can feel it trickle out of the pores of his skin, bathing them both in its leave, pooling somewhere in or under the mattress. She thinks that if she tries hard enough, she could see it evaporating above their heads - fluttering and ascending like those colorful winged insects they'd seen at the swearing in ceremony they'd gone to the previous month.

Consciousness and limb and breath and beating blood blur into one another again, naturally and without hesitation and without urgency. The hard edges of her body bleed into his, blending them together seamlessly and effortlessly. A tiny shudder runs itself down the length of her spine, settling in her coccyx, before racing back up and out of the top of her skull. She had had patience; she had fought against every instinct in herself, the one that told her to run, so she could trust in him, trust in his eventual return to her arms and her heart.

But she'd be lying if she said he didn't feel some semblance of relief at feeling reunification like this and realizing it could still be done.

She tilts her head to the side to rest her cheek against the top of his head, allowing her eyes to close.

"I can," she says without a trace of doubt. "This place is obviously very meaningful for them, and I'm sure that if they had the means, they would've got it up and running themselves. But they didn't - and you provided them that. You each needed each other in your own ways, and I'm grateful that it's worked out this way, for both of you."

The grocery store next to Neojedha is owned by 이은지 / Lee Eun-ji and 이정희 / Lee Jeong-Hui, an elderly (by their own standards) sister and brother. They like their neighbors, say hi to all of them whenever they see him, sometimes donate soft drinks or snacks for their classes; but can't be bothered or are too amused to call them by their real names. Eun-ji calls them "Cash, Jane, Reagan, and Bucket"; Jeong-Hui calls them "Andy, Joan, Ravi, and Robocop".

Edited 2017-06-24 07:23 (UTC)

He brushed a smile against her skin. "All of us, I hope…"

After another moment, "I always think we should talk about the others. But I don't know what to say. You knew as much of them as I did."

"Yes, all of us, eventually; it's okay to take this for yourself, just for now. Just this once. You put so much work into getting this place up and running," she replies, hand at his shoulder blade coming up to tousle with the strands of his hair. "Mm. For as tethered as we were, we .. really knew nothing of each other, did we?" Her eyes blink themselves open to stare at the ceiling in thought. "I'd wanted to ask Bodhi about my father, on the ship after Jedha. How they started talking, how my father had convinced him to defect from the Empire, all of it. I couldn't bring myself to do it, though; not after seeing the state he'd been in."

He starts to open his mouth in reflex to point out that she's the one continuing to fund the place and did work promoting it… but of course, she knows that (she was there!) so he closes it again and follows orders: smiling, sinking further into her.

One of his hands shifts gently to press the small of her back.

"Kay may have spoken more to him than we did," murmured Cassian. "I wish I'd told him… Kay actually complimented him. Twice. I don't know if he could have appreciated how exceedingly earned that had to be."

She murmurs softly at the press of his hand, further melting into and onto it and him.

"I'd begun to think Kay was more or less incapable of giving compliments," she teases with a quiet rumbling of a laugh on the heels of her words. It isn't lost on her, at least, of how rare a thing it was and is for Kay to have bestowed kind words on a human at all, let alone twice. "No; I'm sure he didn't think he earned them, even if he had known." Bodhi Rook; Imperial pilot; defector; catalyst; rebel. "I'd always sort of wondered what Bodhi might've been like before Saw had gotten to him. Before he'd had his memories tampered with."

*I, May, am Korean American. This set up was discussed with Cassian's writer in a brainstorming session on Plurk. I'm drawing on my own knowledge of Korean culture and its people to give voice to 이은지 (who, in my head, is more of an ahjumma than a halmoni) and her brother, 이정희 (also more of an ahjussi than a haraboji). Given that I've determined 이은지 to be more of an ahjumma, she'll be written as such - lovingly, with affection, with admiration and respect - with some of the lovable traits that make ahjummas who they are. She will feed you all of the food and then tell you you're getting fat. She does daily exercises in the park with her ahjumma friends and calisthenics in the morning. She is far too gossipy and judge-y on everyone's life choices but her own. She is not a woman you want to mess with.

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Page 1 of 6

jannat al-ma'wa [OTA]

1. Neojedha (OTA)

2. Haven (closed to Kay, Revan, Jyn)

3. The bridge (closed to Jyn Erso)

4. Outside (OTA)

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c/w Cas doesn't know enough about mental healthcare options and should

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<- roles reversed

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5. NPC neighbors

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NOTE*