open ( ☄ ) across the sea of space, the stars are other suns.

[realists]

WHO: Jyn Erso & YOU
WHERE: Around the ship
WHEN: The first few days after her arrival (Dec 28-31)
WHAT: Getting her bearings, exploring, etc, etc.
WARNINGS: SPOILERS IN COMMENTS PROBABLY; mark in the subject line if you don't want them and I will steer clear. I will match format as well, so come at me.

--

[ 001 - HANGER BAY ]

Jyn knows something familiar from home is in that hanger bay and it drives her insane that she can't reach it. Which is probably what draws her back to the door morning after morning, checking to see if the doors will open.

They do not. She kicks them. They still do not open.

Something something put your freakin' dog tags on and get over it, Erso later and she gets inside to peer at the other ships, but mainly it's to throw herself on Cassian's U-Wing and just sit there. It's a study of pointlessness since she can't go anywhere on it, but it's from home and that's all that really matters.

[ 002 - TRAINING FACILITIES ]

Her trips to the training facilities garner better results, at least if you consider siphoning off excess energy through a violent explosion of fists and feet to be something better. The training dummies fare better than, say, a person would, but it's honestly hard to tell if Jyn would pull her punches with a person. She works herself until her limbs are shaking and her muscles are strained to breaking point and then simply moves on to the next apparatus.

The circuit she makes quickly becomes her standard, even when she ventures into the gym late into the night. Boxing, running, climbing, running again.

She's hooked into the climbing wall when her fingers slip and she goes flying down before the auto belay catches her and jerks her to a stop with a hastily aborted shriek of surprise. She kicks the wall. It does nothing.

"Damn it!" She jerks on the belay to lower herself down but finds herself... stuck. Which is just great. She jerks at it again. Jerks at it gently like maybe if she is nice it will give in to her. Guess what? It doesn't. Stuck and only half unwilling to wrangle herself out of the harness to climb down freely, Jyn glances around for someone else to press the button from the bottom. She tips all the way back until she's basically upside down and calls out, "Hey! Could you give me a hand?"

[ 003 - SHOPPING CENTRE ]

Maybe, maybe, if her assigned job wasn't as an exterminator, Jyn would actually work. She has no particular distaste for bugs and parasites, but she also doesn't have any real need to work with them on a daily basis. Not being incredibly social doesn't mean she wants her companions to be bugs.

Still, she works at least one single, solitary shift for the extra credits only so she can paw around the shopping center without dragging Cassian away from his own job. His own much less generally offensive job. Meandering around a market is not something she ever had time for, usually striking with precision and retreating. Now she wanders, unsure of how to find what she's looking for.

The confusion doesn't look comfortable on her expression, eyebrows knitting together in annoyance.

Comments

[genice]

"Captain Andor?" He glances at the ship again, smile this time more of a wondrous expression. "I hadn't thought to look for his ship in the hangar." He hadn't thought to look for anyone's ship in the hangar, though by now he knows there are a few in possession of the people brought here through anomalies. It doesn't make sense, strictly speaking, but he doesn't see that stopping the anomalies caused by the engines from occurring exactly as they willed.

He steps closer, weighing pros and cons in the blink before he holds out his hand, smile much warmer than before. "I take it he's not around right now. What's your name? He's talked about a handful of his friends from home. I hadn't expected to be able to put names to faces, but I'm glad for the opportunity." It meant having a piece of the familiar (and the heart) with Cassian. He can't find greater sadness in that than joy.

[realists]

A tiny smile twitches on her lips, wry and amused. She'd just been teasing Cassian about not being a captain anymore and yet here is some stranger referring to him as such.

"He's at work," she answers easily as she ponders his following comments. A handful. She'd bet money on who those handful of friends were, could probably count them on one hand. "I'm Jyn. I didn't realize he's been talking about us."

[genice]

Cassian Andor: a man who keeps introducing himself as a Captain, ergo continues to earn the title. It's a private joke to Victor as well. Not mean in spirit, but respect is something he'll extend to others until he's decided otherwise.

"Ah, Jyn!" The blue flower crown comes to mind, and he smiles, eyes softening. Blue is a favoured colour of his own. He can admit the nostalgia touches part of his thoughts even now. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I wouldn't worry about what he has or hasn't said. Missing our important people is only natural." He keeps his hand extended for a beat longer, then lets it fall back to his side if still unshaken. Different customs for different people, right? "Coming out of a warzone to here has to be a shock to the system."

[realists]

She doesn't even realize he'd held out his hand until he let's it fall but she doesn't feel overly upset about it, she was distracted by thoughts of Bodhi and Baze and Chirrut and a very sullen droid who would be so annoyed that he didn't get a flower crown too. Besides, this is hardly the worst impression she could have made.

Hitting Melshi in the face with a shovel after violently kicking him in the ribs was the worst impression she's made. This week.

Skeins of shock ripple through her eyes, wondering just how much Cassian had told Victor about their lives. Enough, it seems. She shouldn't be surprised. He's far more sociable and generally better equipped to hold a conversation than she is so of course he would have talked about his friends, like normal people do, and about his terrible life, like normal people do. Jyn is the catastrophe that holds everything in until it explodes violently. Toward Cassian.

"Waking up at all was the biggest shock. The rest is manageable." By the extremely dubious coping mechanism of not thinking about it at all.

[genice]

He watches her, letting it be casual. Victor's used to reading the people around him for cues on how to act; he's more reserved about his personal thoughts and feelings when he's aware that they're being watched too closely. He's uncertain what degree of attention the people of this ship pay, or eve care to pay. Thus far there's been no indication that the newest anomaly arrivals are anything other than kept out of the loop of whatever the higher ups in the crew were managing in day-to-day and emergency situations that wouldn't make sense to new arrivals anyway.

But his study of her shock, and the way she replies, is lost in the wake of him hearing and interpreting what she says. Waking up at all was the biggest shock. It's enough to prompt him into speaking without thinking, opening his mouth to say, "Oh." Pausing to let his brain catch up, then breathing out in a softer, "Ah."

He runs his hand through the fringe of his bangs, allowing himself to look almost sheepish, and a touch at a loss. "You weren't expecting to still be alive." Less a question than a statement. It makes sense, in the sad, disconnected way that any war claiming lives makes sense. Nothing about it needing to be sensible, but the loss of life being inevitable. Wars liked to ignore the cost, or the politicians did, or they wrote it to sound far more magnificent than the hard reality. Not like his Motherland didn't do the same; which is fine for him to say, if less anything he wants to hear from outsiders. (Life goes that way.)

[realists]

"No."

The Empire didn't leave survivors and Jyn knew the moment she saw the shadow of the Death Star, the shadow of her father's creation, that it was her end. The irony is not lost on her.

But she was with Cassian and that was okay.

She touches her necklace idly, thoughtful. "It could have been worse. It would have be quick." Letting her hand fall, she straightens up to all her diminutive height, pushing her hair back from her face. "What else did Cassian tell you?"

[genice]

Death is such a stark reality. In and of itself, it's nothing remarkable. It is perhaps the single most common denominator in all the world (or universe, now) that he's aware of existing.

So he finds himself letting one hand settle on his hip, the other resting over his heart. He can't help the way he plays with the ring on his finger, rolling his thumb over it, keeping pace with the whirl of his thoughts. "Oh," he says, lips lifted into something of a smile. "That there's hardly any entertainment out on the front lines. That some colours reminded him of his important people. That it's been some time since he's just been able to socialise. Normal things, for the most part."

His brand of reassurance; nothing that had been incriminating. Not even talking about concerns with the ship they're on now, considering if anywhere, the hangar does and doesn't seem like the place for those discussions, airy as they might be. "Oh! We talked about ice skating."

[realists]

Jyn nods like she understands, pulling herself into the better topics bit by bit. Red for Chirrut (and the Jedi and her mother, even if they're not his important people and that's another thing entirely), idly wondering if Cassian exploited all of the few entertainment avenues soldiers usually had at their disposal (she'll never ask because she pretends she doesn't care), and so it takes her a few moments to catch up.

Her nod stills right in the middle, head canting in question. "What's ice skating?"

[genice]

Hah, ice skating. Victor grins, hand coming up to flip his fingers in a circling motion, hip cocked out to the side. "In general? Strapping boots with blades to your feet and sliding across ice. Figure skating, which is what I've done competitively the last, oh, near twenty years of my life? Involves a high degree of athleticism and performance with those boots strapped to your feet while you're gliding across ice. Not a sport I've found all that many are familiar with here."

He doesn't find it a surprise. Even back on Earth, it was a niche sort of sport; though people were aware of ice skating, fewer knew much to anything about figure skating, or any of the other associated ice sports.

"It's a fun activity for most people. Something you might do in the winter. Many parts of the world I'm from have distinct seasons, and winters the further North or South you travel can get some dramatic snowfall."

[realists]

Sounds fake, but okay.

The planets in her galaxy tend to have one or maybe two distinct weather patterns so she's idly fascinated by the idea of such distinct seasons that it only snows certain times of year. Jedha was a cold desert, Eadu was full of storms, Vallt was snow and ice and wind, Coruscant was temperate, but artificially so and all year long. Obviously seasons exist but there isn't such a huge difference between as there would be on, say, earth.

"There's nothing fun about ice." Jyn hates being cold.

[genice]

Tell him about your one biome worlds. Talk about sounding fake... they could out loud judge each other's world experiences! Sadly enough, it would probably be a bonding exercise.

He quirks up his eyebrows, chuckling after a half second. "Depends on the ice, but fair enough. It's certainly not for everyone."

[realists]

"I don't like the cold," Jyn offers as if that will make up for her judgment about his life's work. But, look. The cold sucks. She can't imagine ice skating being much fun if it's on, well. Ice.

Clearly he and Yuuri should teach Jyn and Cassian.

[genice]

It's a brilliant plan — sic the lovebirds on ice on the lovebirds (??? plus one) from space. (Oh, but how he has offered to Cassian already. Your day will come, Jyn.)

"I find it easier to handle than the heat, but I was born that way." Born Russian, he means, but it hardly carries the same weight when Russia as a concept is meaningless to Jyn.

"Layers are second nature. Anyway, I don't want to keep you distracted if you're busy. Say hello to Captain Andor for me?" He poses it as a question, lifting his eyebrows and cocking his head to the side as if he's asking, will you?

[realists]

SHE'S NOT AN OWL.

She could say something about how both she and Cassian were born on ice planets (and Bodhi on a freezing desert -- talk about fake weather) but Victor is blessedly ending the conversation and Jyn isn't going to fight that. She'll fight everything except her unsocial tendencies. Even if her expression becomes colored with idle puzzlement at the idea of being a messenger to Cassian because they're basically a packaged set.

It's tragic that she's never experienced something that simple.

"Yeah, alright." Wait wait, how would anyone but her and Baze end a conversation? Where are those social niceties she learned when she was a toddler? Which, incidentally, was also the last time she used them with any semblance of sincerity. "It was nice to meet you."

[genice]

Who called her one? Dreadfully good hunters, those birds, but dumber than dumb. (Sorry, Athena...)

He pauses, long enough to shoot her a sincere smile. "Same, Jyn. See you around!"