riverviewlogs | after the rain, comes the rainbow [open]

Entry tags:

after the rain, comes the rainbow [open]

who: Kylo Ren and OPENNN
what: Catch-all, featuring some open prompts from the TDM.
when: The month of April.
where: Here and there
warnings: Nothing yet

i. disaster relief
[ If it weren't for the lingering complications from his gunshot wound to the shoulder, Kylo Ren would be going on river expeditions and fighting giant reptiles and amphibians.

He would be, except Dr. Whale already lectured him and refused to budge the last time he'd demanded medical clearance. Apparently, pushing through pain in an attempt to force his body into recovery had only been making things worse for his arm and shoulder, in the long run.

So he has to take it relatively easy and stick to the prescribed physical therapy exercises until the doctor says otherwise. And that means staying behind as the city floods and tales of giant creatures lurking in the waters spread.

He's never been one to find contentment in sitting around and doing nothing. (Even if the action he tends to take is... you know, the wrong action, at least he's usually doing something.) So, in an attempt to curb feelings of restless agitation, Kylo... actually volunteers for the citywide relief effort. His arm may need time to heal, but he's still strong enough to assist in evacuation efforts, or in the setting up of temporary shelters, or doing any odd task where he can rely on the Force and worry less about hindering his arm's recovery.

Just don't expect him to cook or serve food. He's not feeling that helpful. ]

ii. routines
[ And since he's still stuck on the dreaded Desk Duty at work, Ren's mood-- as he goes about his daily routine-- is even more sour and gloomy than usual. Which is pretty impressive, considering his usual state is miserable enough.

So here's that catch-all prompt for seeing the scowling, overgrown emo kid at the gym (where he's still going to work out and spar as best he can, or go through his physical therapy exercises, if nothing else), or sulking around a coffee shop (don't judge his latte order) with his nose stuck in a journal as he jots notes down. Or at a library. He spends time at libraries, too. And just about anywhere, really. Outside, when it's not raining, because he's taken to communing with the Force out in the park. ]

iii. choose your own adventure
[ And if that last prompt wasn't broad enough, here's the wildcard choose your own adventure option. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ There's... a piece of glass in his hair. Ren plucks it out and stares at it, wondering when that happened. Must have been when one of the fellows in the bar tried to break a bottle on his face (the Force keeping it from actually shattering on its target). Ah, well. That fellow's on the floor now, unconscious, with the rest of his companions, while Ren and Val have been unceremoniously booted from the bar under threat of police involvement.

With a snort, he flicks the glass away and looks at Val. At least the alcohol in his system has him relaxed enough that he's not as awkward as usual around her. Plus, he's wired from the bar fight, wide awake and in high spirits. ]

You have some blood on you. I think-- oh... Yeeeaaah. [ He peers at her, then snickers. ] That's not yours.

Edited 2018-04-21 01:30 (UTC)

[It's not the first time Val's been kicked out of a bar for fighting, and it most certainly won't be the last time, because she's not the kind of person who learns a lesson with such paltry consequences. She leans against the post of a streetlight, watching Kylo pick the glass out of his hair, and when he leans in to peer at her, she furrows her brow, putting a hand to her cheek, and—]

Oh. No, s'not. None of those—those cowards could've managed it.

[She wipes the blood off as best she can, studies it on her hand for a moment, and then unceremoniously reaches over to wipe it off on Ren's sleeve.]

[ That is so uncalled for. But he's buzzing too much to get upset. There's just a quick frown, and he wipes at his sleeve with a gloved hand. BUT IT'S TOO LATE. The damage is done. ]

I don't want a coward's blood on me. Warriors. Where can we find some warriors?

[ Kylo no. NO MORE FIGHTS. ]

[She doesn't seem at all bothered by his sudden bloodthirst; in fact, she laughs, tossing her head back. She feels damn good, after letting off some steam. She feels relaxed.]

I'm a warrior. You can try to fight me if you want.

[ He seems to consider for a moment. Valkyrie has him beat in experience. Age. Strength, possibly. BUT HE'S DRUNK AND HAS THE HEIGHT ADVANTAGE, this'll totally work out.

So, he smirks (totally inherited from his father), even though somewhere in his mind, he's aware that he's very likely going to get toppled like a black-clad tree. ]

Okay.

[ Are you ready for a drunken attempt at a headlock. ]

[He might be nearly a full foot taller than her, but Val doesn't flinch when Kylo comes in for a headlock. In fact, she's grinning; this is her idea of fun, after all.

Almost automatically, her hands come up to grapple with his arms around her neck and shoulders; one worms its way behind her and under his shoulder, and then she's bending forward, exerting pressure under his arm, one foot rocking forward as she tries to flip him over her and onto his back.]

[Unlike Kylo, Roy is out in the thick of things - in fact, he'd jumped straight into it the moment word went through the Perimeter Guard that people were needed to help fight the things coming out of the river. Thing is, Roy's got so much going on in his mind right now, between stuff back home with Jason abandoning him, and coming to a whole new world where he's still got stuff going on with Jason, that he's more than willing to think about literally anything that isn't those things.

Saving people from giant alligators and fangy frogs seems like a great way to get his mind off his issues.

And it totally is. He's leaping around, jumping between beachside stones and half-submerged houses, where he perches on the roofs and draws his bow over and over, expertly putting arrows into scaly skulls. When one of the crocodiles breaks away from the river, fleeing one of the teams carrying a bunch of laser weapons. Roy goes after it at top speed as it barrels its way toward a row of tents where volunteers are handing out food and supplies, which is probably the worst place it could possibly be going.]

Holee freak! Come on, seriously?

[As the crocodile slams into one of the tents, he hears the round of shouts and screams from inside while he powers his way toward it.]

[ Kylo Ren, helping a pair of children who were separated from their parents in the flooding. It sounds so absurd it might as well be the stuff of First Order propaganda. But he isn't the complete monster his enemies regard him as. Even the 'innocents' he's killed or ordered the deaths of hadn't been so innocent in his eyes. The villagers of Tuanul harbored enemies of the First Order, and so their execution had been deserved.

These children are innocent, and they're lost and afraid, and that's enough to stir his compassion where many of the other victims of the floods don't. So he's making sure they've got food, water, and clean clothes, and trying to offer assurances however best he can.

So of course, just as the children begin to calm a little, an enormous reptile comes hissing and crashing into the tent, jaws snapping and aggression obvious.

It's massive. Too big to throw with the Force. And though his every instinct tells him to stand his ground and fight despite the orders to take it easy on his arm (Ren even ignites his lightsaber, fully prepared to do it), the shrieks and cries of the children behind him remind him of his priorities here. Protect, defend, and keep his temporary charges alive.

With a snarled curse, he moves back, herding the children out of the tent with him, and sends the temporary structure crashing down over the beast. The canvas shroud should hinder it for a few moments, at least.

It's a very temporary solution, but he's just trying to buy time to at least get the kids out of the crocodile's path.

...

Even if what he truly wants is to just kill the damn thing. ]

[Thankfully, Roy has less than zero idea of what Kylo Ren 'should' be like. All he knows is that when he bats aside some of the collapsed canvas, he sees a guy all in black with a couple of kids, notices that the guy is standing between those kids and the rampaging supercrocodile, and that he's kicking down the rest of the shelter over the monster.]

Hey, dude, I'm gonna use an incendiary arrow, keep them back okay?

[He yells it while he hoists himself into a tree a few feet away from the collapsed structure while the crocodile thrashes around in the canvas, tangled, a perfect shot. The way he says it doesn't really imply the guy doesn't know well enough to run away from an explosion - it's more about making sure he's aware there's going to be one.

Crouching on a low branch, he pulls out one of his incendiary arrows, nocks and draws his bow in a few split seconds, aims for long enough to suck in a breath and check that the guy and kids are out of the blast radius, and releases the arrow. It's little more than a flick of red through the air, and then there's a concussive explosion of sound and fire.]

Crap, good thing it's raining!

[Swinging down from the tree, Roy jogs over to the guy, stepping delicately over chunks of crocodile.]

You okay, man? The kids okay?

[ Kylo looks to the man, making eye contact for the briefest moment-- his attention's still mostly split between the crocodile and the children, but he hears the stranger loud and clear. Ren may have never seen an incendiary arrow in action before, but he knows what to expect just from the name.

He extinguishes his lightsaber's blade and hooks it on his belt quickly, to free himself to hoist the smaller of the two children in his arm. The other, he takes by the hand as he moves them away from the beast-- and the imminent explosion. And with the luxury of distance, he can see the man in the tree, the flash of movement, then the explosion that consumes the giant reptile. Ren, for his part, manages to shield any wayward debris from reaching them, stopping it mid-air, just feet from where he and the children stand.

It's quite a sight. Even the children forget their brush with death long enough to cheer over the explosion, and the show of the Force. ]

They're... [ He looks at the kids again, as if to be sure. ] unharmed. And so am I.

[ Ren sets the younger one down again and pulls up the hood of her rain poncho. What he wouldn't give for his mask right now. Then at least his hair would be dry in the rain. In any case, he fixes Roy with a look that's a mix of curious and somewhat grateful. ]

Your timing couldn't have been better. [ So... uh.... ] Thank you.

[ Can you tell he's not used to thanking anyone for anything? ]

[The lightsaber? That's cool, and he's totally going to ask about it later, because holee freak, who doesn't want a glowy laser sword. But right now he's got bigger reptiles to fry, so he's focusing on making bbq alligator steak out of the river monster.

Doesn't stop him from noticing how the guy shields himself from the heat, debris, and chunks of monster guck from hitting him and the kids. Neat trick.

Not the point right now, though, as he finally gets past all the rubble on the ground and crouches down to look at the kids while the guy pulls up her rain jacket hood and turns to look at him. Grinning, Roy gives the girl a thumbs up and then stands up, rubbing his gloved hands (pointlessly) on the back of his red leather pants before holding one out to the other man for a shake.]

No sweat, it's what I came out for. Nice to meet you, uh...

[A pause, and then, brightly.]

I'm Roy. Roy Harper, aka Arsenal.

[ OOC: From the April TDM! ]

[ When it happens, it's as if he's lost a piece of himself.

The Force is silent, and its absence cuts straight through to his very core. The world around him-- the galaxy-- becomes muted in an instant, not just in sound, but in every respect.

He'd thought of himself as no stranger to loneliness, but he never knew just how it could feel to be without the Force. True isolation, weighing so heavily on him that he doesn't know if he wants to cry or put his fist through the nearest wall.

A lost little boy with nothing and no one to lose.

When Sheppard had called him that, it stung, but he didn't fully believe it to be true. As long as he'd had the Force, he had something. But now, it's all he can think, that taunt replaying over and over until he could scream.

At first, he tries to go about his business, to hide his distress. But when that becomes too unbearable, he seeks out secluded places, close to nature, to try to meditate and reach out to the Force. And then, when he realizes others are suffering from the same loss-- not of the Force, but of other senses, seemingly at random-- he at least finds some small comfort that it isn't just him who's being... punished. It's bigger than him.

A small comfort, yes, but not enough to ease his mind. He can't live like this. There must be a solution... And, as he tries to find it, he'll be agitated, even more emotional than usual, and just... generally a wreck.

HOT MESS COMING THROUGH. ]

Edited 2018-04-21 23:52 (UTC)

[ It happens and he panics. He screams. Nothing and nothing and nothing (except a painful throat that was healing). Prior to losing his hearing it was a normal day but, as per usual, nothing makes sense on this awful moon and he has to take the rational approach after mildly freaking out, yet again. The network has a few mentions of sensory deprivation but no cure, nothing he can find at first glance. Engrossed in the broadcasts that he tries to lipread whenever text isn't employed, he doesn't hear a thunderous approach or tense up as a result.

Hux continues to pet the kittens napping on his desk, only startling when they do as the workshop door bangs open. Still, he hears nothing. ]

[ Oddly, it doesn't even occur to him-- not until he's here, anyway-- that Hux may be going through the same thing he is. In the moment, Ren only seeks him out because...

Because he wants to spend time with the kittens. There's something soothing about them, and he imagines that perhaps he won't feel so alone and cut off from the world if he could just be near them for a little bit. Like when he was a boy, really. When the other children began to fear him, even when he was at his uncle's temple, training to become something he didn't want to be... Animals, with their gentle, calming presence, and their utter lack of judgment. If they feared him, it was only because he was human and they were wild and skittish. They'd fear him the way they would anyone, not in the way his peers feared him.

It's stupid, he knows. And he's sure he'll have to argue with Hux and deal with all of that tension, too, which he's hardly in the mood for. It's almost a relief when the general doesn't seem to notice him when he enters-- or perhaps he did. Ren wouldn't know without any obvious tells, his perception dulled as it is without the Force. ]

Hux. Hux.

[ Well, now he's growing annoyed. At least the kittens are acknowledging him, which seems to get Hux's attention more than Ren's words did. ]

Don't ignore me!

[ Unless he isn't being ignored. ]

[ Following Annie's sniffing at the end of the table, he stiffens instinctively to see a dark figure there, barely relaxing once it registers who it is. ]

Ren? What are you doing here? [ He speaks a few notes louder than usual, unsure of his volume. ] What do you want?

[ He furrows his brow, noting the oddness in the way Hux speaks. ]

I wanted-- [ He clenches his fists at his sides, unsure how to answer without sounding like a sentimental idiot.

Oh hells, who cares. Hux seems to have bigger concerns right now, anyway. He won't care. ] To see how they were faring. [ A nod to the kittens. ]

What's wrong with you?

[ Blunt. SO CARING. ]

[ Squinting, he becomes far more aware of how Ren's words must slur together with his accent than he usually would; Ren is usually loud enough to be heard no matter what drivel he says, and yet Hux can't tell what the kriff those mumbling fat lips are saying. ]

You want the cats? [ That has him standing up and stepping around the table, in front of the kittens on his workspace. Ren isn't taking them!! ] I can't hear a word you're saying, you need to annunciate.

Closed to: Valkyrie

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i. disaster (relief)

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Catch-All: A Touching Story [OPEN]

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CW: Sex, violence, alcohol abuse, and poor life choices.

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