tushanshu_logs | [EVENT] ONCE MORE TO THE OPEN SEA

Entry tags:

[EVENT] ONCE MORE TO THE OPEN SEA

Characters: ALL
Date: Throughout August
Location: Hatal from 1st-16th, Keeliai all month
Situation: With Tu Vishan once more awake, hurried preparations are made for the departure from the continent.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings in subject headers as needed.

August starts much the same way as July ended, cold and stuck, but within a day or so a change is evident: at night, the bioluminescence of Tu Vishan's shell begins pulsing, in a bright, specific pattern.

Deciphered, the pattern counts down, pointing to the 16th. The citizens of Keeliai have that long to prepare, to finish their business and make any farewells they need to, before Tu Vishan resumes the itinerant lifestyle to which he was so long accustomed.

The waking of the turtle means, broadly, joy in the city, and also a bustling sense of busyness, as people who had grown comfortable in the patterns of Tavimbi-and-Keeliai find it's time to go their separate ways and rush to get affairs in order. For all that it's a departure, it's hopeful, coming as it does at a time when the state of the city is shifting as well, toward something perhaps more unified.

Tu Vishan is awake. The turtle moves.

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At the head of the turtle, Rey can't help but lean forward toward the edge to get a better look at how high up they are and how fast they're traveling. It still takes some getting used to, the idea of moving from place to place this way, but the open sea is more than a refreshing change from her years of solitude on Jakku, and there is a certain degree of inner calm that she achieves as she stands and looks out toward the water, the wind in her hair and the sun bright and warm on her skin.

She tilts her face into the wind, standing on the very edge of the precipice of the turtle's head, and extends her arms outward, imagining she's a great bird taking wing into the air — no longer confined to the dirt and sand, free to fly anywhere she chooses.

Kylo Ren is not the kind of person drawn to places which promise peace and tranquility, but his interest in Tu Vishan has brought him here anyway. There is something exceptional about this place, and he needs to experience it for himself.

And of course Rey of all people had gotten here before him...

He scowls at the three buns at the back of her head, but it's hard to muster any proper anger with the turtle's influence working its magic on him. "Are you trying to throw yourself to your death, scavenger?" he drawls. "I'd be disappointed, I was looking forward to doing the deed myself."

It had to be Tu Vishan's influence that made him feel a twinge of unease at the thought of her falling to the churning water deep, deep below them.

She should have felt him before she heard him, but in her somewhat-euphoric state of calm, his voice startles her so much that Rey stumbles and nearly loses her purchase on the edge. She catches herself at the last minute, regaining her footing and shooting him a glare to rival his own death glare — and for Kylo Ren, that's no small feat.

" — Disappointed?" she sneers, folding her arms under her chest in an effort not to betray how fast her heart is beating from that near-fall. Now she feels like a perfect idiot, having let him sneak up on her and see her closing her eyes and pretending with her arms open wide like a child.

"Why don't you come up here on the edge yourself, then, and see how long you last?" Her scowl turns saccharinely-sweet. "I'll make sure you don't fall to your death, don't worry."

Edited 2016-08-06 16:20 (UTC)

"Do you think I frighten so easily?" he sneers right back, but then realizes that she probably meant something different. The closer he gets to the true head of the turtle, the harder it becomes indeed to feel disappointment, or anything negative at all.

Peace wants to settle within his heart, and the Light Side feels stronger than it has been in a good long while, while the Dark... He doesn't even dare reach for it, afraid that he would find nothing but intangible shadows.

"This is disturbing," he notes, still holding on to his scowl by sheer willpower. But he joins her right there at the edge, and barely even gives a thought to violence at all. Kylo peers down at the churning waves far, far below them, and instinctively uses the Force to steady himself. Not that he's scared of heights, but.. Just in case. They are very high up indeed. "I never realized how far we are above the ocean."

Part of her agrees with him, about the 'disturbing' aspect; the pull at the turtle's head here is visceral and can be felt throughout her entire body, not just in her mind but in her heart. But Rey lets herself surrender to it much easier than he does, and already despite his presence — which isn't inciting her to violence at the moment, only a strange sort of unsettled fascination — she feels as though calm is taking root inside her, making a home within her chest.

Ren stands beside her, looking down from the height of the turtle's head at the churning water several hundreds of feet below, and out of the corner of her eye she sees him holding himself steadily while looking down with the sort of unbridled interest she's had, here.

She speaks up again, knowing he'll hear her over the rushing wind when they're standing side-by-side like this. "When I stand here, all I want to do is look out at the horizon and the sky. At where it is we're headed." She blinks, her expression mirroring wonder. "I've never felt this much freedom, before."

"Freedom," he muses, and for once he just can't muster any scorn or anger, or anything negative at all as he speaks to her. It's rather frustrating, since it's not like he feels indifferent towards her. It's not the detached professionalism of when his interrogation subjects are trying to antagonize him either. He is just... calm. Relaxed.

It's kind of nice, or would be, if he didn't know in the rational part of his mind that he was not supposed to enjoy feeling calm. Tranquility fueled the Jedi's powers, not the Knights'. But he couldn't get upset about that either.

"Is that what freedom means to you? Being able to..." He frowned, peering at her from the corner of his eyes. "It can't be open space, you had enough of that on Jakku. The water? Or traveling?"

She hears that, in his voice; beside the calmness there's a distinct lack of indifference, an absence of stoicism despite what are probably his best efforts. Rey finds herself absently wondering when he's ever felt such tranquility, before this moment. If ever.

Her brows knit together in a frown as she shakes her head, still looking out over the horizon. "It's not about open space." There was far too much of that on Jakku, despite her tiny home she'd made in the AT-AT; there had been nothing lonelier than looking out toward the horizon and seeing absolutely nothing.

"It's not being tethered, to something." She's careful to use correct wording: something, not someone. "It's knowing that I don't have to stay where I don't want to be, waiting for someone who's never going to come." Her eyes grow far-off and wistful as she says it — even here, even now, she still feels a pang of remorse for the family she would never fully remember and never know.

"It's no longer being under someone's thumb, and being able to live my life, finally." She glances at him again beside her, just a quick peek. It's hard not to, when he's so still and calm like this.

Waiting for someone who would never come... He felt an answering pang in his own heart, albeit softened now by the tranquility that refused to be shaken off. He hadn't waited in the same manner she had, not so literally, but in a way... He had so often felt like he was waiting for a hand offered to him. But that thought led to thinking of what had happened when the offered hand finally came, and he shied away from it, focusing on Rey again.

"Living your own life must be nice," he said, unable to keep some wistfulness out of his voice. In some ways the peace made it harder. Maybe this was why the Jedi sought it - this tranquility ripped away the comforting veil that anger provided you, all these comfortable little slights to hide behind. "I..." He swallowed. "I think you're very lucky, to have this chance. You're right to treasure it."

And while that path would never be his again, he could look at her, and take in the sight of her so peaceful, for once not bristling and ready to fight as soon as she was in his presence. His own doing, of course, but he treasured the change anyway. And tried not to blush as he recalled how he had looked at her when they took the pink Lucid...

That pink Lucid crystal? Was heretofore never to be brought up again. (Far, far too embarrassing, the way she'd felt her face flush and her entire body respond to his nearness.)

Rey turned her face to him fully, still standing beside him at the edge, the wind ruffling the stray wisps of her hair and tousling the voluminous locks of his. Like this, he too looked for a moment that he could be free of whatever shackles held him, whatever had prompted him to do such horrible things. Things that perhaps he regretted, that he hadn't wanted to do but had been cornered to when all other options were rendered unavailable.

The wistful tone she heard in his words prompted her to reply, brows lowered and serious above the dark intensity of her eyes.

"You could, too," she offered quietly, hesitantly, uncertain whether it was the right choice of topic to broach — but in her own reckless way charging on into it anyway. "Be free. Of him." Of Snoke; of all of the trappings that bound him so tightly to the First Order.

"He's not here," touching a finger to her own forehead to imply his, "any longer. Is he?"

Here and now, standing at the edge of their little world with his mind feeling clearer and Lighter than it had in a very long time, it did indeed seem possible to be free. Kylo swallowed hard, his eyes found and held hers. "I..." He licked his lips. "I can feel the Light Side here. It's so strong." He frowned. "Or... it feels like the Dark Side is no longer shouting so loud that it drowns out the call of the Light."

Here and now, he heard only the Light. Everything seemed possible, he just knew better than to believe in impossible things.

Kylo let his gaze stray into the distance. Such a vast expanse of ocean before them. The emptiness of it should frighten him, but maybe... Maybe he understood what she'd meant when she spoke of feeling free here.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest, it didn't feel quite as childish as hugging himself. "My Master can't reach me here. But it's just for a little while. I will return to his side." He shook his head firmly. "I chose my path, scavenger, I chose it all these years ago and I won't stray. I sacrificed too much to falter now." And for the first time, he could think of that sacrifice without feeling overwhelmed by it, and shying away lingering on it.

As she watched him speak, Rey felt the lightness in her heart grow heavier, for just a moment — despite feeling how strong the pull of the Light was at this place, despite not having his Supreme Leader whispering incessantly in his mind, Ren was stubbornly clinging to his path as though it was the only choice for him.

She looked back out at the water, at the vast expanse of horizon before them. The breeze ruffled the flyaways of her hair, but she didn't move to draw them away from her face. "I'm sorry to hear that," she replied calmly, a far cry from the usual anger she would have met his response with. "Perhaps one day you'll realize that it doesn't have to be this way — that you're not trapped, like you think you are. That you're still free to make different choices." She gave a brief shake of her head.

"Sacrifices aren't in vain. They're not a scorecard to be tallied." Not like the endless etchings she'd painstakingly carved into the inside of the AT-AT, diligently, every single day of her isolation. "They don't own you."

"But they are, and they do," he insisted, his voice still so calm and now hushed again. And without that cloak of anger to hide behind, it was impossible to wholly hide his anguish, even though that was dampened as well by Tu Vishan's magic. "When other people made the sacrifices..."

He trailed off, even now finding it hard to think of these things. He clung to fistfuls of his black robes, and busied himself with looking into the distance again. Maybe if he concentrated hard enough on the waves he would stop seeing the red gleam of his saber, stop...

"He loved me, at the end. But I killed him anyway. It was too late before, and then I killed him. It can't have been for naught."

The recollection of Han's death was a gravid enough subject that even Rey felt a momentary sense of despair and sadness. The influence felt there at the turtle's head was powerful, but not powerful enough to erase the emotional impact of that moment.

"He did love you," she reiterated, her voice still eerily calm despite her emotions. "He did what he did, because he still loved you." She turned her head to look at his profile again, her eyes widening in the sudden understanding, the realization that the serenity of their location had finally afforded her.

"And it wasn't for naught — he saved you, from completely falling to the Dark side. Didn't he?" She swallowed heavily, the notion solidifying in her mind. "It should have been the act that cemented your devotion to the Dark, to Snoke, and...it wasn't, because he proved to you that he still loved you."

Edited 2016-09-02 05:33 (UTC)

"It..." Even here, in this place of tranquility, the pain reached him, though it was muted and felt like something far away. He could have almost pretended that it wasn't his own pain at all, only he was far too familiar with this desperate tightness in his chest to fool himself so. "It didn't change anything," he choked out. "I remained with my Master. I'm still his."

Except he wasn't, was he? He was here now, walking a path of his own making. And it wasn't the path Snoke would have chosen for him.

"I will give myself fully to the Dark Side," he vowed, "just as soon as we return to our world... I was on the way to my Master when I was taken. When I meet him I will finish my training. I fulfilled the task he set me, he will see now that I'm worthy of his teachings. I can finish my grandfather's work!" He turned abruptly to Rey. "I met him here. Darth Vader, not Anakin Skywalker, but Darth Vader. Just for a few days, when I first arrived. He..." He pressed his lips together.

He had spoken of so many things Kylo hadn't quite been ready to listen to, mostly about his Master.

She watched him carefully as he spoke. Ren was still devoted to the Dark, or so he claimed — but she could feel the conflict within him, the Light that still clung to him despite every effort on his part, and especially now with the serenity they'd both found at this place.

" — He wasn't Vader," she finished for him, shaking her head as she recalled the man she'd heard had inhabited Keeliai for a short while after she'd arrived. She'd met Padme, but not Anakin himself — and she regretted that deeply. "He was Anakin Skywalker. I spoke to his wife."

He shook his head strictly. "No, no, it was Vader, mask and suit and everything...! It was before your time. He talked to me. He listened to me. He..." His face looked anguished as he struggled with overwhelming emotions. His hands balled into fists at his sides. "If he had stayed, he would have taught me to be a Sith. But he was taken, and all that was left was the Anakin Skywalker my grandmother called her husband. A stubborn and hostile man, Jedi to the core. I spoke to him only once, but I wish I had never spoken to him at all."

It had been such a bitter disappointment, meeting Anakin had been nothing like he had hoped and pictured, and they had barely been able to be civil to another.

If it had truly been Vader and not Anakin, Rey thought perhaps she would have liked to meet him, as strange and disturbing as that meeting would have gone.

She frowned lightly, tranquility tempering her anger at his words. "You're just as stubborn and hostile, you know," she reminded him, never one to give him anything but the honest, brutal truth. "I didn't speak to Anakin when he was here, but Padme was intelligent and rational...and also kind. There was likely much more to him, too, than simply being on the side of the Jedi."

A thought that eased her mind, as well — because while she currently felt calm and at peace, the turmoil she often felt at other times made her wonder if she was at all suited for the role of Jedi padawan.

"Maybe," Kylo admitted reluctantly, "but I wasn't willing to listen as long as he was stuck in his Jedi ways and did nothing but berate me." It was odd how he could analyze himself now that anger didn't immediately cloud his senses. What a little bit of calmness did for you...

He sized her up, thoughts straying to yet another instance when calmness would have served him well. They had both chosen not to speak of it yet, he couldn't help wondering if Rey had already forgotten all about it.

"You're stubborn, too," he began cautiously. "You never listen to me... except that one time, while we were all affected by the potions..." And yet he had been interested in completely different things than recruiting her.

Rey had been watching him intently — up until he mentioned that day, and then she averted her gaze, her face heating up in slow increments. She could feel his eyes on her as he spoke.

Even their location couldn't completely calm the tide of emotions and excitement and turmoil that welled up in her, with that single remark.

"...I think we can both agree that there was something else influencing us that day," she said tersely, wishing he would change the subject, and at the same time wishing to pry into his mind to find out what his innermost thoughts were on that subject. "We weren't ourselves."

Especially with the way she'd seemed to so easily embrace the Dark side, that particular day; it was her fault they'd gotten their hands on the illegal Lucid crystals, to begin with.

He stiffened, alarm prickling down his spine even here with the unnatural tranquility blanketing all his emotions. But how could he not feel alarmed by Rey speaking of that instance? Even if he had started it. But somehow he hadn't expected she would pick up on it - he should have, he realized now, as if she were ever the type to back down.

"You're right," Kylo said, his voice just as terse as hers, "we weren't ourselves."

And that should be it. That should be all there was to it. Case closed.

But it wasn't. He had been trying to tell himself all along that it had been nothing but chemicals, and yet here they were.

He regarded Rey from the corner of his eyes, though he pretended to be watching the sea. "But you were more yourself on that day than you ever are when you play at being a Jedi. You could be so much more, Rey. The freedom you could know..." Yes, better to speak of Light and Dark than speak of the headiness of their kisses, or how he still woke up craving more.

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[EVENT] ONCE MORE TO THE OPEN SEA

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sorry this is late!

<3

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