jannat al-ma'wa [OTA]

[candor1]

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]

Comments

1. Neojedha (OTA)

[candor1]

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.

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

[candor1]

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.

3. The bridge (closed to Jyn Erso)

[candor1]

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.)

4. Outside (OTA)

[candor1]

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…

5. NPC neighbors

[candor1]

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".