to your stations, and may the Force be with us

[protectingthelight]

Who: Amilyn Holdo and YOU.
What: Holdo settles in at Riverview, has some awkward conversations, and generally has to deal with being here after mumble mumble spoiler mumble. Feel free to tag in off a prompt, or roll your own. Also, there will be comments for threads with specific people.
Where: Various locations including but not limited to: housing, government buildings, around town.
When: Over the first week or so that she's here.
Warnings: 'ware spoilers. I won't include any here, but threads will no doubt include them of necessity.

1. Community housing
If you live on the eighth floor, you will probably see Amilyn fairly regularly. She cuts a pretty unmistakable figure, being nearly six feet tall and with that purple hair and all. She's hung up her Republic-style gown for the time being (saving it, maybe, for some suitable occasion), but even with her civilian clothes she still wears her bracelets and rings.

2. Government offices
Amilyn shows up for work pretty much the day after she gets her assignment. So if you work as a community ambassador—congratulations, you have a new coworker. She's diligently setting up her workspace and getting caught up on all the latest news.

3. Entertainment and shopping district
All work and no play and all that stuff. Amilyn goes for walks, taking in the new sights and sounds, maybe stopping for a bite to eat somewhere interesting.

4. Wildcard
Feel free to suggest anything!

Comments

[protectingthelight]

"Oh."

It's not a word; it's an exhalation. The news is a shock, but somehow, surreally, not a surprise. Amilyn had always felt that young Ben had the seeds of something extraordinary in him, just—the thought is horribly, bleakly funny—not like this.

There's nothing to say. All she can do is get up from her chair and kneel next to Leia's, and fold her friend into her arms.

[protectingthelight]

"Very new. I'm still getting acquainted with the place and with people here ... and the interesting problem of encountering people from our world from different points in time." She sighs a little. Her expression is rueful, but it's not his fault. "Including you."

[protectingthelight]

Fair.

[ A pause. Then, daring a little: ]

Suffice it to say, we have a little in common, you and I.

[realists]

[ this woman is all gentle lines and delicate curves, bright and feminine and soft by choice when jyn's only inkling of femininity is her eyeliner, which is as dark and muted as the rest of the clothes she favors. physically they have little in common.

which means their commonality is something else and jyn can feel it, as present as the crystal around her neck, dense and solid. she doesn't want to have that in common with anyone else. ]

Someone asked once, on the public network, how many of us there were. There are many.

[hylights]

She watches Amilyn in silence for a moment, pondering her words. It's a sentiment she can relate to - Zelda had not expected to end up here either. She isn't sure yet how she feels about it, or how much she feels about it. There's just too much to consider.

"Maybe with some time it will be easier to think it through? There has been a lot to take in already, and I find I haven't had the time to think of much else besides learning about this place."

[oldladyleia]

Leia doesn't want to cry, and she's trying quite hard not too, but when she's folded into her friend's arms, the General lets out a shaky exhale, one that goes back to the time when the two of them were teenagers, and the first time that Amilyn had needed to hold Leia like this because she had lost a loved one. Then, like now, she had lost him to the dark side of his own choice, and Ben had done the same.

But she knows that unless the full truth is out, she'll never be able to look her friend in the eye again, so she just breathes softly: "he killed Han and it's all my fault. I never should have had Luke take him. I should have listened to what he wanted."

[bythehand]

Different points in time. People have mentioned it from time to time, there was a brief section in orientation about it. He hasn't really run into it yet.

Rey and Poe were maybe a day or so ahead of him, they both remembered Rey heading out to find Luke, but-- well, he wasn't in much of a position to be sure either way.

"Including me. How do you know that for sure? Did we meet?"

[protectingthelight]

[ Amilyn is quiet for a moment, considering this fact. She smiles, faint and a little melancholy. ]

What a strange sort of second chance this all is.

[ Also, is it just her imagination, or is the bubble different in color somehow? Like a soap bubble fading and thinning right before it pops. ]

[protectingthelight]

"I'm sure it will. I imagine everyone's got their own version of culture shock to work through. I can't even say that mine's more acute than anyone else's." Her glass is empty now; somehow she finished it, amid all this. She gets up to return it to the sink. "Have you learned anything particularly interesting to you?

[protectingthelight]

"Leia."

She leans back a little, cupping Leia's face between her hands. Not forcing her to look, but trying to keep her from shrinking, curling in on herself. "Leia. Don't blame yourself. You made the decisions you thought were best at the time, with what you knew. I know it all seems perfectly clear now, but—Leia, dear heart, your choices didn't force his. He chose his path. He made himself who he is now. He chose to listen to the Dark instead of the Light. If he'd stayed with you? He might have found another way to fight you and Han. Or not. We don't know, we can't know. But it's not your fault."

[protectingthelight]

"...Not exactly."

She fiddles with the end of her scarf, twisting it in long fingers.

"When I came from ... you'd woken up, after being treated by the medics." She pauses. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not say what happened next. I don't think it's particularly helpful to anyone, to tell them their future."

[evasives]

It's a grim relatability: resistance until the end. He always knew he was going to die for the Rebellion, so really, the only strange part is he gets to be aware of that after the fact.

He gets it as soon as she says it and understands that she is dead too. The part of him that sounds like Jyn's influence is tempted to say something stupid like welcome to the club, but he resists. "My entire life was rebellion, in some form or another." He does wonder what it might have been like, after the war, had he lived. "You should use this as a second chance. That's what I am trying to do."

[hylights]

"Oh, yes," she replies eagerly, relishing the subject. "The technology here is much more advanced than what we have today in Hyrule. I've seen some things like it in what we've excavated from the ruins, but nothing on this scale."

The ancient Sheikah had made many marvellous things, but only so many could be salvaged. Even fewer made to work again. Being in a city like Riverview is as close to a theme park as Zelda's ever going to get, with her fervent interest in technology.

"Like this," Zelda pulls out her phone, putting it on the table. "I'd no idea these could be so common or easy to use!"

[protectingthelight]

"That's my intention," she says. Her gaze drops, not out of shame or embarrassment—humility, rather. "I spent my first two days here asking myself why. And then I realized that was the wrong question. You already know what the right question is—and the answer to it. You just said it."

[evasives]

He's not sure how he feels being so candid about death with her; she's a stranger. But she is also someone who lived and breathed resistance. It makes it a little easier.

Cassian huffs out a very dry laugh that's really more of a sigh. "I have been here a few months now. It was not an easy question for me to answer for myself either. You've got much more of a head start."

[protectingthelight]

"Lucky for me," she says, which is sort of a self-deprecating joke if you look at it the right way.

What a conversation to be having in line at a cafe. And now they're being looked at expectantly, that unmistakable are you going to order or stand there all day look, and she nods toward the counter.

"I hope I'm not keeping you too long."

[bythehand]

Well hey, at least he knows he'll wake up for sure with the Resistance. That was a... mild point of concern. The kind that hits a person at three in the morning when they can't sleep.

"That's fine," he's quick to say. He can't say he's not curious, that it isn't something he's going to be wondering about now. There's always a bit of a push to get that information, to be able to know. But it's fine if she doesn't want to get into it. It's her choice to make. He's not looking to force someone's hand.

"Pretty sure there's nothing I could do about anything from here anyway. Don't think it would do me too many favors."

Especially if it's less than ideal news.

[protectingthelight]

She smiles a little. "If I were in your shoes, I'd be thinking the same thing." Perhaps he'll find out one day—there are ways, she knows. But she's not going to dwell on it, not now.

"Well, I must say, I am pleased to meet you, at last. And I'm grateful for your help."

It only occurs to her after she's spoken that she's inadvertently given something away: the fact that she and Finn will never meet, not in the normal order of things. Perhaps he won't notice. Or at least be good enough to stick to his word, and leave it alone.

[bythehand]

He takes note of it. That they haven't met, as far as experience back home is concerned.

Maybe not quite that they never will, yet-- something that will probably trickle in as a realization later on, the way things do when it's quiet and late and he can't sleep.

He takes note. He doesn't push it.

"Pleased to meet you, too. Properly." Not just as one stranger to another, but at least as two people from the same corner of the same galaxy. "And I was happy to help. Those things have been getting out of control."

[protectingthelight]

She glances up as another drone zips by overhead, carrying what looks like a bunch of fruit. "I'll have to have a word with the authorities," she says. "My official job title is Community Ambassador, so I suppose this is as good an area as any to exercise whatever influence I have." She smiles. "Speaking of which—I should let you go. I think there's a briefing I need to be at in a half hour."

[oldladyleia]

These are things that she's tried to tell herself over and over. That Han had told her. It wasn't only the need to keep secrets from everyone that had broken them up, but the guilt that they both were feeling and that the two of them kept trying to tell the other wasn't their fault. But they both took heavy blame, even as they tried not to blame their spouse. People had told her over and over by means of consolation, that it happened with a lot of married couples, but no one had understood then.

And Leia didn't know how to make Amilyn understand now. Those there's sadness in her eyes, it's firm but insistent, when she speaks. "I should have put him first and I didn't. I put the galaxy ahead of him. He hates me for that, and he's right too."

[protectingthelight]

Sometimes Amilyn doesn't quite read people correctly, but she's known Leia for so long that she can see where her friend is, and that trying to argue her out of it will only add to her misery. So she only says, "I'm so sorry." And draws Leia into her arms. It's all the comfort she has to give.

[evasives]

"Lucky is not the word I would apply to it." He is all about that dry and self-deprecation method to dealing with death.

He offers a quick but genuine apology to the woman at the counter, but fortunately there doesn't seem to be anyone else waiting in line.

"You are not, but we should not hold up the whole store either. If you are in communal housing, I suppose I will see you around. You will forgive me, however, if I am not always in the mood to discuss the future."

[oldladyleia]

Leia just lets Amilyn hold her for a long moment, burying her face in her friend's shoulder. She doesn't cry, but it's the closest to it that she ever allows herself to get. Her father had told her that she could survive anything, and she could survive this. Taking a deep breath, she just pulled back and touched her friend's purple hair. "No matter what the circumstances, I am very glad that you are here with me."

[protectingthelight]

She smiles. "I'd be surprised if you were. But yes, I'm sure we'll meet again—and if there's anything I can do to help in my official capacity with the local government, don't hesitate to come find me."