moons, planets, stars, galaxies. black holes and nebulae, supernova and the silent howl of the planets dotted across the galaxy as she knows it, and beyond to the universe. when she sleeps, outside of the nightmares and terrors that torture her mind, she hears the whispers of the worlds beyond, the stars calling to her. come home. and she is tempted, each time, to join them in peace. take a ship in the dead of night and fly off into oblivion. she would die like that, but without fear. the thought brings her a sense of calm.
“then it… would be easy,” she says slowly, trying to find the proper words, “to get lost in ourselves.”
tone slightly questioning, fingers lifting to push hair behind her ear. “to never fully understand others, if all we see are the stars in their eyes.”
He is star stuff, and galaxies swam within him. Just as it did in everyone else, it only seemed to be more literal in his case. Infinite impossibilities made possible by thought. The brain is an endless wonder where galaxies and universes are born in seconds, destroyed in milliseconds, and reborn in nanoseconds. He is one with the cosmos, an impossible thing made possible.
“It was meant to be inspiring.” He chuckles, “That we are full of possibilities and endless chances. That we are beautiful as stars. But perhaps what you say holds true too, yet I do not think that we were meant to ever fully understand any one person.”
❛ it… it wasn’t all me. ❜han solo, finn thinks, legendary rebellion gen no, smuggler. but a hero all the same. chewbacca who lost a friend, and general organa who lost a son and husband.
war is made up of these personal losses that never seem like sacrifice until you’re standing at the finish line counting the scars you’ve just barely escaped with. he is for the first time thankful that his training kept him distant from his fellow troopers ( not the ones in his immediate squad; he’d cared for nines, zero & slip regardless of how it made him a PARIAH in their eyes. ) he can’t imagine what it’d be like to mourn the blood shed by every death out on the battlefield.
not all soldiers have the choice to die for what’s right.
some can only fight, and lose, and be ground up into blaster fodder in the army they were bred to die in. raised from earliest memory to believe what they were doing was justice.
❛ but… you’re welcome. and it’s great to meet you. i’ve heard a bunch of you nova corp guys but never met one of you in person. the resistance is lucky to have you on their side. ❜
Richard nods; though the words are unsaid, the sentiment is reflected in his own eyes. Too many times, too many times he’d have a victory that felt hollow in the wake of so much loss. A win, as it is classified by so many, yet, among that many, there wasn’t a difference in winning and losing either.
There are no winners in war. Not really.
He may be sick of it, endless years of the repetitive cycle. (When was the last time you rested? When was the last time you ate? The thought both his own, and the caring voice in forever embedded his mind.) Yet, he knows he is trapped in it, by it. Unable to comprehend being able to do anything else, unable to in good faith drop everything he’s ever worked so hard for, unable to abandon something that was in essence his very nature. He’s done this for too long, took pride in saving and protecting people, to ever imagine retiring. People like him don’t retire. They die, more oft than not in a blaze. (He would know, he’s already done it before.)
Which is why he even finds himself here, fighting the good fight.
And meeting this man, who wasn’t a stormtrooper. Someone who broken conditioning to become his own person.
“As they are you. The outcome would have been very different were you not present.” He doesn’t need to state what that would be. The Nova is certain they both can picture it well enough; the destruction and terror that the First Order and their deadly weapon had wrought upon the universe, when Hosnian Prime along with its planetary bodies and whole system had been destroyed with just a push of button. He looks down in the memory of the people he’s lost there, and everyone else in this war between the light and the dark, before managing to compose himself and raising a question, “What’s your mission here?”
At first it seems like the technique isn’t yielding much result ( and he wonders whether he should move on to step 2: adding a slightly piteous whine to the mix ) but then Lucky catches the slight motion of the head. Success !! He moves from his previous spot, padding over to the man’s table, keeping his speed regular – can’t seem too eager either.
“ruff?”
Oh, the meal does smell good from here. His stomach lets loose a remarkably well-timed rumble, and Lucky wags his tail hopefully.
Richard smiles at the noise the dog emitted then, wondering just when did it have its last meal. Judging by the loudness of it, it wasn’t recent at all. He himself, know how it feels to go without food for long periods of time, though the cop is conditioned better than others to tolerate the hunger. Lifting the plate of the table, (already more than half consumed by his own perviously grumbling stomach), before gently sliding it over on the slightly dusty floor to the canine.
The action is followed by a frown, a thought spoken aloud, “Where ’re you from?” His hand moves to ruffle the other’s fur, but hovers there waiting for some sort of signal that conveyed the dog’s consent.
She doesn’t need anyone to tell her to get out of the way. Rey’s running away from the fire fight because she doesn’t deal with Tie Fighters; the First Order only means trouble, and in the Outer Rim? Anything goes. Troopers are falling from the sky in their transport ships and she’s not about to get in the middle of it. And yet she misses the fact that she’s running into the flames all along; when a stranger zooms past her, the scavenger skids to a halt and hides her head with her hands, eyes quick to open and search for him – was it a him?
It was. And he managed to eliminate the shots that would’ve taken her head off.
“How did you —-?”
There wasn’t time to explain the scientific theory behind the act for there was hardly time to have a talk about gravity and energy, so a curt answer is all he can give the stranger, hoping it is enough.
“Altering the gravity around them.”
He calls back simply as he maintains airborne, speeding through the air like a rocket, pulling a trial of sand behind him as a result. Energy pulses of his own are discharged with precision, taking down a couple of troopers before slamming directly into one, pushing him along with multiple G-Forces, bringing him up, up, up into the sky. A sharp downward turn brings the ground to his face, and they crash into desert ground, leaving the trooper a wrecked mess, while he escapes unharmed, immediately flying back to the other, a question broadcasted to her.
It’s barely a laugh, bit-lipped and suppressed, but it’s been acknowledged. ‘NO I’M JUST– they’re certainly scraping the bottom of the bacta tanks for cheerleaders. GOD DAMN.’
Oh, but he doesn’t acknowledge her quip, and frankly he doesn’t really care. She can laugh all she wants, once she’s behind bars and he can actually get round to getting the more important aspects of his duty done.
❛ i… was part of the assault on starkiller, yeah. ❜ he remembers snow, the taste of the cold biting sharp enough in the wind to leave chills like teethmarks. the rest… the rest is a nondescript blur of scarlet light & searing heat.
finn watches with a nervous wariness as the stranger completes his scan. validation of his identity, he assumes; there’s no reason for it, but he’d rather not jinx his luck. it’d be awfully tragic for something to go wrong on his FIRST MISSION.
❛i’m finn. one of general organa’s people on the inside. who are you ?❜
He tilts his head, the mere mention of the name of base always seem to fill him with a combined sense of dread and hatred, even as destroyed as it was, (and even in the wake of all that he had seen and experienced); he is, after all, star stuff. And a weapon that harnessed the power of stars (to collect dark energy; appropriately ironic considering which side they were on) was something that shouldn’t be allowed to exist, oh he’d have blown that weapon to hell if he wasn’t so far off in galaxies away and too busy with his own array of missions. “Glad that horror is gone. You have my thanks.”
Soon as they’re done with the scan, and Richard is assured of there being no threat from the other — not that Finn couldn’t be lethal when the need arises — he relaxes further (not completely, never completely), and finds it fit to introduce himself.
anYWAY all interactions with tfa (and prob other star wars) characters where richard’s nova prime (and not in my star wars au verse aka v: the force; it’s calling to you) and working with the resistance and the jedis will be tagged as both my main verse aka v: i’d do it all again and arc: an awakening
He mumbles but all the same grabs the fellow passenger’s arm, non-plussed and already bored of sand, sand everywhere. No communication. No broken bones. No idea which horizon will lead them to more monsters or the glimmer given by the officer’s coordinates, formerly attainable from his wristlink . Shame the wristlink is currently digesting in the belly of their attacker.
‘Help me move this thing off its side, will you?’
‘The barge - it’s kaput. Fixable, but,’ Established with the kick of his boot and the hollow vibration of dust chortling out of the generator. ‘needs a little convincing.’
He’d taken the barge originally because stealth was a more important factor than time; after all he couldn’t very well fly in and attract loads of undue attention. Word is quick to get around, especially around these parts. Look at the state it is in now though. Stealth is one thing, but waiting to get this up and running? That’s too much time to lose, and immensely more than he could afford.
A frown mars his forehead at the estimated time needed to fix this and he weights the advantages and disadvantages of the current option and the other, finally settling on a decision even as he helps the other with the barge.
He’s still knee deep in sand from the up-kick of the twitching mutt’s hind legs; watching its decapitated bone maw click and drool about three feet away from a body racked with blaster hits. He lowers his weapon in order to crawl out the dune. ‘I need a drink.’ Not a lie but not a thank you, either.
He glances down to check he’s still in one piece, (well of course he would be — else he’ll probably be in pain, but just to be sure either way); and turns his attention back to the separated body of the Howlrunner — what was left of it anyway — and he cringes when he sees the tail still vaguely twitching above all else. A laugh erupts from within him then, “Doubt you’ll find one in this wilderness, unless you have it on you.”
