apparare | i found something in the woods somewhere.

i found something in the woods somewhere.

open post.
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[ Her reply came in the form of a nod that was stiff enough to show some reflection on the matter went into it. One hand rested against her ribs as if to prod at the wounds, taking stock and measure, but she dropped it quickly enough to dismiss them. It did her no good to voice her doubts about whether his were really tolerable or not, not when he'd only scowl and argue, and they needed to climb down regardless. If he was indeed exaggerating his health, then he could suffer for it.

With that bit of nastiness estimated, she opened up the leather pouch on her hip and began to root around the cable lines she'd kept in there since she needed them to rappel into a felled AT-AT. The cord was a fibrous sort of metal that allowed for flexibility as well as sturdiness, and she pulled the coil out with some relief. Dirt from Jakku still clung in the joints where the thin fibrous wires bonded, and Rey found herself surprised to feel a sense of wistful nostalgia as her thumb brushed it off. ]

Getting down will be quicker than getting up was, at least. Then we can rendezvous with the rest of the fleet. [ To call it a fleet was generous, but Rey felt they deserved a bit of generosity for the miracle of their mere survival. ] I'm sure General Organa already has a plan for what to do about Hapes.

( By Kylo's estimation, he could be visibly bleeding from the head and Rey's response might ultimately be the same. It might be colored with a little more concern for her own well-being as it now relates to his as a result of this feeble, wavering line that binds them, but he cannot and will not imagine a world in which her solicitude extends to his own health as a separate unity born of some measure of sympathy, never mind the comparatively kind hand that she has shown him since everything went to hell. Or improved, depending on the perspective. As it stands - as Kylo stands, as it were - while the injury to his leg smarts as if teeth had been sunk into it only moments prior, it will endure as well as either one of them will: stubbornly and without pause or reflection that there might be any option otherwise. What other choice do they have, in the end, other than to be fine?

Rey's hand flattens against her side, and he doesn't miss it, nor does he miss the alien pull of pain as if felt from layers of thick wool, pressure through gallons of water, the warmth of skin through a foot of glass. Kylo offers no reaction, no indication that he has noticed, no comment, for once, to contend with the weight of what he knows in direct contrast to what she offers. Which is nothing, though that's hardly a disappointment. Instead, he takes a balanced, measured step toward her, mindful of the distribution of his weight as it relates to the rocky, uneven terrain. )

Delightful. ( He's just as careful to keep any trace of anything from his tone as he is in trekking across the landscape, regardless of whether or not Rey has immediate access to the churning whirl of his anticipation regarding any mention of Organa. One extended meeting has hardly done anything to assuage the argument in his own head he refuses to acknowledge whenever the topic comes up, never mind the consequences of their conversation under the velvety darkness of nightfall only hours before. His neutrality is wasted on the flatness his voice inflects, however. Not even Kylo can pretend to be anything other than absolutely thrilled at the prospect of joining up with the Resistance, the turn of events he and Rey have been following for hours, days, notwithstanding.

He eyes the cable before catching a section of it in his hand, rolling the feel of it between his fingers as if testing for weaknesses. ) How confident are you that it will hold?

( ooc: I just want to drop a more cohesive note and apologize for letting this + everything else dangle. Your last tag actually came the day I was in the ER with my dog who later got diagnosed with lymphoma - the same week my grandmother died lol - so it's been legitimately difficult for me to focus on more than one thing at a time. As a result most nights I am just like I'LL GO TO BED NOW INSTEAD OF DOING ANYTHInG, but hopefully as things stabilize I'll be able to find a rhythm. Just in time for school to begin for you again!! So no worries about getting back to this and I hope today I'll be able to get back to our other thread, too! ♥ )

[ They are both foggy enough with fatigue—not just physical, but emotional and mental—from the constant fight and flight for their life that a mental fog entrenches them, dampening pain and distress alike. Certainty in General Organa's preparation is the only levity that she has to hold onto, and she lets it steer her like a beacon to the edge of the cliff, where she peers down to assure herself that the cord will stretch as long as they need it to.

It will. And once she's decided as much, she looks back at Kylo Ren and her expression creeps towards something uncertain. ]

I've used it to haul up probably three hundred pounds of equipment before. The two of us should be no problem. [ Perhaps at the same time, they will strain it, but she prefers that to the possibility of either escape and abandonment—unlikely, given that he would have disappeared in the night had he planned to at all—or ambush by Ji (in a scenario where she had survived the mine) or her followers at the bottom. Rey tipped her head to acknowledge the small window of ineffectiveness in her estimate. ]

It'll hold. [ That's what Han would say. She realizes after she says it, drops her gaze in a momentary remembrance, and turns from Kylo again. ] If you're worried, you can always hold onto the cliff on the way down so you can catch yourself if it snaps.

[ ooc; OH GOODNESS yeah that would wreck anybody's concentration and creativity. :( i'm so sorry! and I hope the wave of badness is over and that you find a good routine to help you find some kind of normal. ]

( He narrows his eyes at her, a slight tension creeping in around the corners there, the same expression appearing at the corners of his mouth and bleeding down into the tight line that his shoulders perpetually find themselves gathered in, making the severity of it undoubtedly even more tense. Arms held down at his sides, his hands curl easily, naturally, into fists, and Kylo makes a noise somewhere between a snort and a grunt. Because what she's implying is not that he might be worried, but that he might be afraid, and given the history that particular topic of discourse has had between them in the past, he's eager to prove how incorrect that assumption she had made is these days - never mind that it had been right, never mind that she had pulled it out of his head as easily as selecting a holo to watch before bed, never mind that they have both done and seen things in the last few days that should prove such a statement void. )

You weigh ninety pounds soaking wet. ( Not strictly meant as an insult but admittedly spoken like one, his penchant for undercutting and sniping in the face of adversary being what it is. A childish remark for a childish perception of inferiority. He isn't afraid. He also doesn't weigh three hundred pounds on his own. ) If you've hauled twice that in junk before, I assume there won't be an issue. ( Even so, regardless of how mired in one another's thoughts they've managed to become, to say nothing of how they've needed and continue to need to cooperate, he won't be going first just in case Rey decides she would prefer him as a stain on the canyon floor.

He takes a step forward and bows, one arm held toward her. ) Ladies first.

( ooc: it has definitely killed a lot of my creative drive the last month, that's for sure. Weirdly I think when school starts again my brain will jump start as that routine does list toward normal. But thank you for being patient all the same. You are honestly great. ♥

[ Her mouth had opened to argue before she realized the futility of the task; at this point, bickering with him came as a reflex, one rooted in the principle of the matter, anathema to reason. She resolutely schooled that impulse into silence, and the effort showed in the set of her jaw that bordered on a childlike pout.

(She was not ninety pounds, and he damn well knew. He only wanted to irritate her anyway.)

Still, despite the posturing maturity of her silence, she made a show of stomping over to the edge of the cliff, dismissing his overblown invitation by refusing it a second glance. She tethered the metal cord to an ancient tree, wide around the base, by using the clip at the end of it. The click of metal satisfied her of its sturdiness, and she backed up directly to the edge of the cliff and peered over, not with wariness, but with careful estimation.

It was a long way down. She hoped he knew what he was doing without her up there to guide him; she didn't want to scrape him off the mine floor. ]

Don't fall.

[ The order made no attempt to disguise that her concern was for her sake and not for his: she refused to examine the concern on a deep enough level to consider what the loss would actually do to her, considering the steely bond between them. Could death break something like that?

Rather than think on it, she tipped the arch of her feet over the cliff, knees locked, and staggered downwards into ninety degree angle against the wall. Then, once steady, she took a few large bounds to scale it, gliding down the wire without trouble in a show that was more guided falling than anything more profound. ]

( Despite the flare of smug satisfaction at the expression on her face, Kylo is almost relieved that Rey doesn't follow up with some aggrandizing comment of her own, intent and content as they typically are to pursue argumentative lines of discourse so long as they extend into territory that doesn't shake the world around them like the slight tremor in the ground before a tripwired explosion. He refuses to let his guard down as a matter of pride and principle, but there is no disguising the fact that he is exhausted - they both are, beaten and bloodied, and it's a testament to their willpower - perhaps Rey's more than his - that they haven't gone for the other's jugular. That bone-deep weariness that he feels as an echo under his own skin might as well be reason enough for him to press his mouth into a thin line as he watches her secure the cable before tossing a flippant remark his way before disappearing over the edge of the cliff as if she has done it a thousand times before.

If the etches on that rusted durasteel wall that he had pulled from the bleak, lonely wasteland of her mind were any testament, it could easily be three thousand.

Rey is lithe and agile despite the pack of muscle that she carries underneath her skin like knotted cable, fusing with white bone and standing out in whipcord definition as she propels down the side of the rock with ease. Her descent is seemingly unburdened and hardly cumbersome; Kylo's own path down is not so graceful, though to his credit, there is no anxiety or trepidation that claws its way up from his gut to squeeze at his throat. He sinks like a stone, unused to the pull of gravity, unfamiliar with the steps required to scale the gritty surface with the elegance and relative ease that Rey seems to display below him. He easily weighs closer to a hundred pounds more than her than he doesn't, and while the cable holds on his descent, it's less than graceful, to say nothing of his dismount.

He could slow himself with the Force but he doesn't see the need to expel any excess energy, which results in him overestimating the distance between himself in the ground. As a result, he stumbles forward somewhat once his feet hit the ground, a sharp twinge running the length of his thigh and down into his knee. Once he's regained his footing, Kylo looks at her directly, as if daring her to say something. )

[ If Rey glided to the ground, Ren clattered like breaking glass. He came down with such force that Rey stepped back quite suddenly, ready to clear herself of the blast radius when he tumbled, but he caught himself at the last minute so that the worst of the force was absorbed in his knees instead of spread out in a stumble and fall.

It felt reassuring somehow to watch him fail, as though she hadn't already cut him down and wrangled him enough times to reassure herself that the buffed sheen of his exterior was an illusion.

When she caught his gaze, she held it for a moment, considered a smug aside, but eventually settled on the safe assumption that whatever freeing sense of relief and superiority she got from his indignity would be conveyed to him without the trouble of words—finally, she had found a pleasant side-effect to the bond between them. It was petty of her, and for a moment she deigned to bask in it.

The ghost of a smile touched her lips, present only in her eyes and the barest sliver of the corners of her mouth, and she turned away from him, calmly leading the way from the edge of the cliff without another word on the subject. ]

There are protocols in place for when the Resistance is forced to scatter like this. Encoded missives with coordinates for a relay point. [ The closer they drifted towards the Falcon, the lighter she felt. Decades of sand had washed off quick. The short day's grime felt heavy on her skin now. ] But …

[ She glanced back at him, wondering if he'd already drawn the same conclusions. There was every chance they'd assumed a betrayal on Hapes, second-guessed Kylo Ren's short leash, and decided they were better off without risking contact with the young Force-users. And Rey, a second mistake. If he hadn't, it was writ across her face now. ]

( He at least has the dignity not to stumble - or, rather, the pride not to let the impact's jar against the damage done to his leg do anything more than seeing the momentary disruption of his balance. He still holds onto the cable, though it's less a matter of functionality or hoisting himself up into a standing position and more a matter of doing something with his hands, and only lets go of it in order to stalk off once Rey turns on her heel and begins leading them away from the cliff's edge, skulking behind her for a moment like a cat who's just had a bucket of paint dumped over its head. The weight of the last few days certainly presses down on his back and shoulders as though that were a reality, and for as much as he might be able to blame it on the physical exertion and toll that it's had - not solely on him, but on the both of them, a constant, endless feedback loop threaded over and over and over until distinguishing lines blur and the edges fade away - Kylo knows that it's more than that.

The Supreme Leader is out there, somewhere, the other remaining Knights are out there, Organa is out there. Requisite detours and the kinds of potential setbacks that Rey describes, as the length of his stride catches up to her enough that he has to slow in order not to pass her, are only delaying the inevitable: not necessarily a waiting punishment or conviction, but a choice. He'd made one here on this moon, when he'd turned against former allies in a bid to not only protect himself but the girl walking next to him, but it had been a separate continent from the decisions that he knows are waiting for him, for the both of them, when they rejoin the hobbled-together Resistance fleet.

Rey's feelings of superiority, that smug satisfaction that had manifested in the moments before she'd set off, are replaced by something more tuned to the nature of their circumstances the closer that they come to where they'd touched down the day before. Feelings that are reflected and reciprocated in himself, despite the pounding of his subconscious telling him to disregard it. He grunts. )

I suppose you'll have to take your chances, won't you. Trust that your word means as much as you want to believe that it does. ( The comments are meant to be biting, a critical review of her place among the ranks of other Resistance fighters. Instead, it sounds more resigned, and Kylo chances a sideways glance at her face, swallowing before gesturing back toward the direction of the ship. ) There's no way of knowing until we know.

( What they might do should her doubts end up confirmed, he has no idea. He'd think of something. )

[ And certainly, she did hope. More ardently than she would have before they'd touched down on this rock, to her surprise, for as much as she loathed the connection between them and the pain it had caused her in the tunnels, resented him for how entwined their fates had become, she also understood what had taken place here.

It was not the same as turning his back on Snoke to free himself. Untethering himself was a different endeavor, one that she felt was independent of his role in the Resistance, in her life, in Luke's, regardless of her attestations to Leia in his defense. He wanted freedom, and they had given it to him. But here, he reiterated his disloyalty, not to protect only himself, but her as well.

Or maybe she's just grown resigned as he has, accepting that his fate and hers are written together now and making more palatable the notion that they might both be lepers of their respective causes, left to make their own place in this war. ]

Bright side. [ She pushed a cluster of bushes out of the way to open up a clear view of the Falcon. She felt better just seeing it. ] If we're unwelcome in their ranks, you won't be imprisoned anymore. Just on the run. [ She was trying her best, as she always did, to make the most of a shitty situation. By coincidence, this entailed roping him into the same rough optimism. Glancing back at him again, she furrowed her brow. ] Actually, come to think of it, I'm not sure if that's better or worse.

[ It was a cold day in hell, surely, for Rey to want a break from flying, but her arms tensed up in anticipation of the requisite levering motions. The cramped cabin space she still found comforting, the sight of the Falcon that she considered her roving home, and the promise of a new horizon line to stare out at. Unfamiliar. No sand. ]

( If Rey felt better by simply looking at the scrap of bolts and poorly soldered wires waiting for them underneath the canopy of decent camouflage, Kylo, certainly, felt worse. Adding insult to injury, given the dull throb currently traveling the length of his leg. Dull like the edge of a blade still sharp enough to cut but not without enough force exerted to break the skin to the muscle and bone beneath, like gnawing hunger displaced after too long spent without some sort of compensation, discarded as a necessity rather than a convenience. Too much had attached itself to that ship for boarding it again to be of no consequence, and although he had, by that point, spent enough time on board to diminish many of the ghosts lingering within, the prospect of doing it all over again still left a sour taste in his mouth.

Or maybe that was just hunger tinged with the reality that Rey was proposing, for however misguided it seemed. All at once, it felt like they were back on opposing sides, lines of cooperation diminished not as a result of their mutual compliance but as a reminder of the world they lived in, where they had come from and where they were expected to go. Ripped apart but still connected, a vast, great length of spun wire spanning the galaxy between them. )

You can't honestly believe that the Resistance will let me go. ( His voice, despite his effort to be contrary, to be vindictive, to be arrogant, wavered somewhere in the middle, regaining traction enough to offer a smooth conclusion, even though the thread that it hung by was threatening to snap. Two Knights dead - maybe; how could they be sure about Ji? - would be enough to seal his fate with the Supreme Leader even without the effect that the bond had on him, without what he'd done as Rey had guided him through layers and layers of subconsciousness. Without Rey, and whatever compassion he'd been accused before of having for her, what that meant in conjunction with the tumultuous fall his father had taken over the side of that bridge. What he wanted, put more simply, although if prompted Kylo still wasn't sure that he would have a complete answer.

None of which answered the question on the Resistance's side, whether or not his actions would be enough to construe him as anything other than a war criminal to be put down or imprisoned. Rey's view held enough optimism - and not just for him, but for the both of them - to set his teeth against one another in a sharp grind, but Kylo instead only bit the inside of his cheek, quelling the burn of his doubt somewhat. ) They aren't going to let me waltz out to fade into obscurity, just as they aren't going to cast you out because you think you might be more trouble than you're worth. Especially if they think that I've betrayed them - betrayed you. Organa wouldn't stand for it, and neither would any of those people that you've determined merit enough of your attention to call them friends. ( Despite the level determination to get him to see otherwise, he refused to relent to something that might only momentarily assuage the lingering fear and trepidation, and chose instead to linger in the comfort of his own attached perception of reality. The First Order would certainly not relent, and the Resistance would be stupid to do so as a matter of principle.

Waiting for the ramp to descend and allow them entry, Kylo turned halfway to her. ) I think it would be worse.

( Drifting aimlessly, no purpose, no goal, nothing to strive toward, nothing to snuff out. Just another face in a crowd. )

[ The smooth voice he used to goad her with his fate seemed to assert that he valued spite and proving her wrong more than his own life—perhaps, though, it really just meant he saw little value to his life anymore in the first place. It didn't take much, then, to value anything above it. The glance she cast his way worried over him, absently, more out of uncertainty for what his callous irreverence could mean for her than anything sentimental. For better or worse, the Force intertwined their fates, fibers weaving some great tapestry. She could not imagine what image it would reveal, not yet, but every missed stitch gave her cause for panic. ]

Does that make you an optimist, thinking they'll have us back? [ She offered it aloud for no reason other than the amusement it gave her to think of how that jarred against her contrary observations of him. The thought crinkled her nose, but her expression remained too grim to even entertain the notion of a smile, and when the ramp finished its hydraulic glide to the ground, she did not waste a minute before hiking up into the cabin.

Being linked to him as she was forced her into an uneasy dissonance climbing that ramp; to Rey, it represented the closest thing to a home she'd known off that spit of desert in Jakku that she'd tethered herself too for a decade too long, but to Kylo Ren, it was a prison of unpleasant memories. It made her stomach turn, and she shucked his emotions off stubbornly to try and alleviate the discomfort it posed.

Even when she was sure the emotions clouding her mind were only her own, though, she felt the acute certainty of his preference: prison, indeed. The isolation of floating through space as a nobody was immeasurable. She'd felt it herself, the loneliness it brought, hated her environment but felt trapped in it, as anyone seeking a life of obscurity might. Power had fostered in her a pride which had likened her as much as anything else to the one-time enemy that accompanied her now as her only ally. ] We'll need to keep communication channels open and pop out of hyperspace to try and pick it up. If I had to guess, they'd at least have D'Qar broadcasting. We can start there.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

i found something in the woods somewhere.

no subject

well a month later i'm the worst rper in the land

that's a weird way to spell best ???

you are legitimately too kind

routine is suuuuuper good for mindset i'm both fatigued by school and glad it's back

now i'm back. from outer space. i just walked in here to find you with that look upon your face!

now that you're back in the atmospheeere drops of jupiter in your haiiir mixes pop lyrics nbd

this is fine it's just the remix duh

club mix ntz ntz ntz

hahah this semester is killing me. i'm sorry if this tag is garbage. december can't come fast enough

honestly sets all of 2016 on fire is it over yet