𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚗 ✧ 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚋𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚜

[realists]

who: jyn erso & open!
what: flooding, monsters, flowers, miniatures
when: late march through april
where: around the quarantine
warnings: violence for monster/sparring threads & frighteningly adorable tiny children

---

( and ideas, they flood, they stretch the universe. )

Comments

ｅｖｅｒｙｂｏｄｙ ｗａｓ ｋｕｎｇ ｆｕ ｆｉｇｈｔｉｎｇ ✧ ｏｐｅｎ

[realists]

[ jyn loves the rain. she loves the sound of it on the windows, she loves the smell of it in the air, she loves the feel of it on her skin. it reminds her of the misty climate of lah'mu, air more liquid than not. she loves the flooding less, but it gives her something to do at work so it's not too much of a personal hardship.

she goes out on the daily as part of patrols of the fence once it starts shorting out, mostly as the muscle because what jyn doesn't know about massive flooding and the electrical components of the fence could fill the library of alexandria. she has a niche and this is not it. but she can swim and she can fight so throwing herself into the fray isn't unusual.

during the evacuation and rescues, jyn is happy to lend a hand in getting people out or slipping through small openings to save that one precious family heirloom from the water, perks of being a relatively small person. when it comes to fighting the monsters that rise out of the deep, she approaches them with the same intensity she fights everything.

quick, ruthless, aggressive, reckless. the jyn erso way. ]

ｄｏｗｎ ｔｏ ｔｈｅ ｒｉｖｅｒ ｔｏ ｐｒａｙ ✧ ｏｐｅｎ

[realists]

[ later, when everything seems to have calmed down by the river and the flower festival has begun, jyn watches the river spirit procession until it goes horribly wrong, resulting in some poor citizen's brand new crocodile trauma. after the first horrifying procession, jyn volunteers as part of the guard for the rest of them.

she likes to see the culture of the moon in person and it reminds her for inusagi. before it too went horribly wrong and ended in a massacre. hopefully, she can try to stop that from happening again this time.

when a tiny child hands her a basket of flower petals she takes it at once, because when a child hands you a thing you take it, that is just the law, she doesn't make the rules. she is then treated to a very stern and serious instruction on how to throw the petals into the water. most people seem to throw them in a dusting on the top of the water but this little one takes a handful and drops them beside her with purpose. barely any of the petals even make it to the water, dotting the riverbank in clumps, but if that is how she deems it be done, who is jyn to tell her it's wrong?

which is what finds jyn dropping petals on the ground every time the little girl looks back at her with that same hilariously serious expression on her little face and mumbling under her breath, ]

Why am I doing this?

[enfoldings]

Why not?

[ Jyn is met with a bearded smile, and Alex comes awful close to winking at her, basket of petals in his own hand. He's tired, still--he'll always be tired, he thinks, for a very long time--but Meg is here. He has family. He has love, and that's all he needs. He looks down at the little girl, and this time he does wink, lifting the basket, raising his brows, silently asking to be taught. ]

Same thing as an invisible telephone. When a kid hands you one, you answer it like it's the president on the other line.

[realists]

[ jyn collects a number of useless details of this man before she even really decides to pay attention to what he's saying. greying beard, jovial tone, the easy teasing that reminds her of a much younger saw. no, it's probably only the beard that has her distracted.

this lack of attention means she's equally half distracted when she answers. ]

I don't normally... spend time with children.

[ not that she doesn't adore them, obvious by the way this little girl wrapped jyn around her little finger, but she didn't have loads of time with small children in her life. ]

[enfoldings]

[ He doesn't blame her for giving him the once over - he's an older guy, for one, and he probably overstepped some sort of personal boundary without realizing it. He figures as long as he keeps his voice good natured and friendly, which is natural to him anyway, they'll be alright. ]

You seem to be doing just fine.

ｇｏｎｎａ ｂｅ ａ ｆｉｇｈｔ ｔｏｎｉｇｈｔ ✧ ｃｌｏｓｅｄ

[realists]

[ jyn likes to keep in shape; it's half simply a product of the rest of her life and half what turns out to be a really good therapy for what is probably some sort of depression she will never seek actual medical help for. she runs on the daily, she take advantage of the perimeter guard's gym when she's not out, she has a punching bag in the apartment for pre-breakfast boxing.

but while all the exercise is some form of stress relief, jyn's real enjoyment is from sparring. saw had gotten her started when she was eight with a number of mostly bludgeoning weapons and she'd never quite stopped -- there's just something deeply enjoyable about beating up her friends? she knows most people underestimate her due to her small stature and she enjoys the eye-widening surprise when it finally clicks that she can successfully kick a grown man's ass with glee.

she shakes out her shoulders, bouncing around on the mat with a ruthless little grin on her expression. ]

Come on then. Hit me.

[ or at least try. maybe they've moved on to weapons now, something she and rey do on the regular. although rey and her staff are exactly evenly matched against jyn and her truncheons so those matches go on and on until one of them is tired enough to call it a draw. ]

[evasives]

[he likes sparring with jyn.]

[close quarters combat is not cassian's thing per se, but he's capable in a bind. jyn is ruthlessness incarnate. they don't often spar to win so much as spar to test his limits. he knows jyn could probably wipe the floor with him if it came down to it, because his strength is in subtly, is in shadows. hers is a blunt force trauma.]

[it gives him a good work out, stretches his muscles. sometimes he's sore after, but it's not because he fell several stories, it's because they fought well. it makes him feel better, knowing he can still fight.]

[he wrinkles his nose despite the grin on her face. the whole point is trying to hit the other person, but it doesn't mean he has to like her saying it so blasé. he nonetheless slips in closer anyway, aiming to land a hard blow on her arm - not the bad one, at least.]

[realists]

[ with a blaster, cassian could end her on the spot. on the mats however, jyn has the upper hand. she knows that cassian was trained, obviously, she can see it in the way he moves, familiar from some of the people that drifted in and out of the partisans, and it would have been remiss of the alliance not to train their soldiers, but he wasn't trained by saw.

it's the few more years of experience that he has on her that evens them out, she thinks. not to mention the inches and pounds, but that didn't stop her when she was a preteen so it's certainly not going to stop her now. cassian isn't reece, though, so she doesn't want to hurt him. it's for fun and physical therapy.

his hit lands, but she twists away enough that she doesn't take the full force of his follow through, dancing back. saw had tried to instill in her the instinct to block but it was always pushed aside in her efforts to power forward and end the fight so now that she isn't fighting for her life and fighting for fun instead, she's trying to reteach herself all the lessons she learned when she was eight. ]

Melshi hits harder than that.

[ untrue, she hit melshi with the shovel before he could even think about reacting from being kicked. ]

[evasives]

[he doesn't miss, but the force of it carries him forward when she steps away from it to avoid most hit. he's familiar with her taunts, so even a name drop about melshi doesn't do much for him beyond get him to roll his eyes.]

[and maybe he just uses that aforementioned force again to swing himself back around towards her. his arm flies out and collides with her stomach, hard enough to send her stumbling, and he kicks out his leg to use her own momentum against her in an attempt to trip her.]

[winscenario]

[ Jim's been in his fair share of fights. Actual, very real fights, or serious bar brawls that ended up with him getting kicked out and/or passed out somewhere. He's no stranger to being on the receiving end of a well-aimed blow, and it's never really put him off from fighting or sparring.

Actually, if anything, there's a part of him that really enjoys the feeling, that rush of adrenaline. He doesn't really start fights anymore at least, but if the chance for a friendly spar presents itself to him, he sure as hell isn't about to turn it down.

He does get the feeling it might be more than just a simple friendly spar with Jyn, but again, that hardly puts him off. Far from it, really. He chuckles, sidestepping a little and shrugging, looking casual and distracted even as he studies her stance. ]

Alright— if you insist.

[ His blow isn't really meant to hit her just yet. Not because he's holding back, mind, but because he wants to gauge her reactions first, see what she does in response to a certain move, angle or speed. ]

[realists]

[ it's friendly! it just happens that jyn's version of a friendly spar does double as an actual fight so who knows what will become of this. there is a distinctly agreeable way about her at the moment, calm and enjoying herself.

jim swings but it's soft and she simply dances out the way, surprisingly light on her feet when she is usually something of an immovable object. she's definitely waiting for jim to come to her though, she knows she has to use her small stature and lightweight to her advantage and that means not pressing in when she could force her partner to come after her. ]

Come on, Jim. Don't baby me.

[winscenario]

[ You know what's a good thing, is that Jim won't mind that in the least himself. Nothing gets his blood pumping like an actual fight (and getting beat up lbr), and he'd hate being treated with baby gloves too. He'll enjoy this a lot more if she doesn't hold back.

Which is why he really shouldn't hold back, either. Well, not that he was planning on doing that. He's seen her fight; he knows he doesn't have to.

He grins and chuckles at her words, tilting his head a little. ] Wouldn't dream of it.

[ With that he lunges forward again, still keeping some of his guard up in case she comes at him, but mostly putting his strength to his next hit, aiming a closed fist at the inside of her shoulder. ]

ｙｏｕｎｇ ａｔ ｈｅａｒｔ ✧ ｏｐｅｎ

[realists]

[ jyn had picked up the flowers from a local and thought nothing of the pale blue flowers, breathing them in and then setting off to bring them back to the apartment. she'd put them in a vase and pet the cat and handed one off to cassian to smell and one thing led to another and now she's six years old and wandering through a town she doesn't recognize, looking for her parents. she doesn't seem to be putting much effort into it, however, full of the optimism and curiosity of a new planet that is so green and bright and colorful it reminds her of lokori.

eventually she is found by someone that recognizes the jyn erso in miniature despite her round cheeks and sunny disposition.

then of course begins the ordeal of keeping a six year old with sharing and shoving issues occupied without having the house set on fire or any other small children winding up with black eyes that follow them into adulthood. luckily she is easily occupied and seemingly content to play by herself and with her own toys, but unluckily she doesn't want to share those toys and.... she never sleeps.

god speed, paige tico. ]

[ragnarsson]

[Guess who also has gotten reverted to the status of being a small and difficult child? Jyn's favorite Viking. He's six years old with the same blue eyes, adorable, and happy in a way that he lost as he got older and angrier. He's in a little wagon that Dodger helpfully built for him to get around in, but occasionally, Ivar just reverts back to the way he's always gotten around, and crawls.

He sees the girl near him playing with some toys and becomes interested in them. They don't have anything that looks like that back in Kattegat. He crawls over to her using his arms.]

Can I play too?

[Honestly, he knows there's usually a fifty-fifty chance of being told yes. The children at home don't like to play with him either because he can't keep up in their usual physical games.]

[realists]

No.

[ jyn says it immediately, hugging her fluffy white toy to her chest as she sits in the grass. her handmade dolls had been having a wild adventure through the fearsome onderon jungle (the dandelions), riding lions (sniksnak the shaak) and gutkurrs (what looks like a twisted piece of aluminum foil), but she supposes she can get back to it later. this can be a commercial break. carefully, she selects a toy this new boy can use, holding out the blue tufted humanoid figure. ]

His name is Hazz Obloobitt. He's a Dressellian. [ which are not a blue furred species but she is a six and she doesn't give a fuck. ] He's a pilot! I haven't got any ships.

[ragnarsson]

[Ivar looks a bit put-out and sad when Jyn immediately tells him no, but then she seems to change her mind, and he perks back up. He's very much the same way when he plays with his brothers. Sigurd isn't much fun to play with sometimes when he gets all mean and the other three will exclude him.

He's not sure of most of the words she's using, but people use different words for different things, so he takes it all in stride.]

What's a pilot? [He doesn't know that word. In his mind, when she says ships, he thinks of the wooden ones with sails that move over the water.]

[evasives]

[he's not quite sure how he got here, in an apartment that's far nicer than anything he's ever seen. even back home on fest, where his house was a real house with a roof and walls, there weren't as many plants or nice pieces of furniture, and there certainly hadn't been a little girl.]

Do you know what planet this is?

[his accent is even more pronounced as a ten year old child, and even if he's trying to act polite, he's still suspicious. not even other kids can be trusted so easily!! he squints at the flower in his hand, then tosses it idly to the couch. he's been taken to this place, probably kidnapped. maybe she's been taken too, but it's hard to tell.]

[realists]

[ this isn't jyn's home on lah'mu, but it's full of green like lah'mu and her toys are here so... it is reasonable to her that maybe they moved in the middle of the night again. but wouldn't mama and papa let her pick the planet again? they let her and saw decide last time, it isn't fair that they didn't let her decide this time.

and who brought them! what if it was saw and she didn't get to speak with him? he was very busy, he never visited. now she's sad, thinking she missed saw when they inexplicably moved in the middle of the night and apparently adopted a boy. she hugs longee closer to her chest, shaking her head. ]

No. Why are you in my house? [ her own accent is rounder, softened by her father's accent and youth. it doesn't occur to her that this wouldn't be her house because her toys were in it. obviously that makes it hers. even if her parents aren't in it. ] Can you reach the juice on the counter?

[ priorities. ]

[evasives]

[he wrinkles his nose a little bit. sure, he knows kids don't always know where they are, but the planet you currently live on seems like something someone her age would be aware of!] If it's your house, how come you don't know what planet this is?

[in spite of himself, he looks over to the counter where the juice is just... waiting. he could very easily get it, but what if this isn't her house?? what if it's fake juice??] I could.

[avoids reaching for it just yet on a language technicality.]

ｔｉｐ ｏｆ ｍｙ ｔｏｎｇｕｅ ✧ ｏｐｅｎ

[realists]

[ jyn doesn't want to share with strangers, she barely wants to share with friends. she barely wants to share with herself. she's made a point of trying to learn the culture of the moon, but this one is just too much. she's lost too much to want to remember it, to walk to talk about, to want to memorialize a lifetime of loss. again and again, over and over, she's lost everyone she's ever loved. even bodhi had gone... home? she supposes. to the afterlife? to see his family, hopefully. to find everyone he had lost.

she's avoiding all the impromptu story time circles, trying to keep to herself, but she doesn't want to be holed up in her apartment so she finds herself in search of something to at least make this holiday easier.

alcohol.

she finds alcohol and finds a seat at the bar that fits her perfectly and she perches there for the better part of a few hours every day so she can avoid all of this and, at the very least, numb the memories she doesn't want to linger on. running doesn't work because her usual route is peppered with memorials so booze it is. ]

[volitaunt]

[ Poe has missed her at their morning runs. He's missed her for almost a week, which is how long it takes for him to clue in to why she might be hiding.

Poe might not be emotionally bright, but he's also not entirely stupid.

So he goes looking for her. He asks Cassian first, but Cassian just gives him that blank-faced "I dunno" expression that Poe is now aware means Cassian does know, and he isn't telling, and he doesn't care if Poe knows he isn't telling.

So he's on his own, but he has an inkling, and that inkling is alcohol. He's made the acquaintance of plenty of bars over the past month! He still has the bruises from some of the fights! He can't even blame the bouncers for giving him the hairy eyeball when he says he's looking for someone.

It takes a few days, but eventually, he finds her. And once he does he's completely at a loss as for what to say. He's not even sure what drove him to look for her, except that she's always the steady one, she's always the one pulling him out of his bullshit, and for a while when they ran together he couldn't stop looking at her and seeing those round eyes in that round face, a child and her doll asking about stormtroopers.

So he slides into place next to her and smiles at the bartender. ] Tonic and lime, please.

[realists]

[ jyn makes a noise so she has clearly noticed him sitting next to her. she does not immediately acknowledge him, however, eyes on her tablet. she's not going to drink alone and only stare at her glass, she's not pathetic. she's reading.

eventually she comes to the end of a sentence -- and then a paragraph, and then a page. she isn't wholly invested in speaking to anyone else so she lingers in her book until she decides she's put poe through enough, rolling her head to look at him, expression already drier than the deserts of jedha. ]

I'm dead. Are you here to tell me a story about me? [ his answer better be fucking no. ]

ｃａｌｌｉｎ' ｉｎ ｓｉｃｋ ✧ ｃｌｏｓｅｄ

[realists]

[ she had made an over-enthusiastic statement months that of course she couldn't get sick, they were already dead. cassian had pointed out that she was incorrect and jyn decided to ignore him and it had worked out fine for months because she hadn't gotten sick.

and then one day.

one day, her throat itches. her head throbs. she's sweaty and chilly at the same time. it turns out that jyn erso can very much still get sick. it also turns out that jyn erso has absolutely no idea how to be sick. how does one sit still? how does one not work? she can't work, she can't exercise, she can't even sit up for long periods of time, and it's the worst thing. she's bored and ill and sick and tired of being sick and tired.

she intermittently texts her friends to put her out of her misery. none of them are good enough friends. ]

[evasives]

[this is new.]

[when jyn gets sick, he resists the urge to make a callback to her "i don't get sick" remarks, mostly because she looks so miserable he can't bring himself to. he just makes some soup, and then more soup. he's never really taken care of a sick person before.]

[the new part is when he too falls sick, just two or three days later. he's so grumpy that even when they're both bundled up in blankets, sprawling on the couch in a pile of sullen illness, he nudges her through all the layers and disregards his prior promise not to tease her.]

You jinxed us. I am only sick because of you being sick.

[realists]

Don't... [ jyn whines, drawing out the word as she squirms away from him. or tries to. okay, she just shifts her arm a little bit like that will stop him from prodding her again. ]

My skin hurts.

[ he can't blame her for this. she would give him a cold because she's a jerk but she would never give him whatever this terrible illness is. she would rather die than be this sick again. just take her now. ]

I hate being alive.