riverviewlogs | open ✧ moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars

Entry tags:

open ✧ moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars

who: jyn & anyone
what: more memories to paw through
when: oct 9 - oct 23
where: it's all in ur head
warnings: death, blood, violence, terrible names for stuffed animals, rogue one spoilers if you still haven't seen it?
notes: if you'd like to turn any of the visions that have a visual representation into dreams, feel free to do so.

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( vision / flash ) lah'mu

[ it comes quick, hurried, panicked. pigtailed braids thump against shoulders and small, strong legs thunder across the damp green grass of lah'mu, of home. the backpack full of toys thumps bounces uncomfortably, always threatening to slip off thin shoulders but there's no time to stop and readjust.

it jumps to inside, feverish packing. it's time to go, but the stuffed animals and toys can't be left behind! stormie and koodie and sniksnak must come with, reassurances muttered to the stuffed animals as they're shoved into the backpack.

i love you, stardust and a hug, and it's over. ]

( vision / flash ) tamsye prime

[ "saw tried to keep her identity undercover, but i suspect she may be--."

fear balloons, but saw moves so quickly and the traitor drops like a stone. the fact that he's still breathing is a surprise. the ensuing fight is fast and sloppy, weapons drawn from hidden nooks that wouldn't be noticed, a knife in a boot, a blaster ripped out of a storm troopers arms.

but then the tie fighters come, a glimpse through high windows. the empire will destroy the entire planet just to get to one man and one teenage girl.

a green beam of plasma hits the power cells lining the walls and the world explodes, coalescing in saw's screams of agony as twisted metal and fire rain down, blood pouring from his body. ]

( dream ) jedha

[ "saw, if you're watching this, then perhaps there is a chance to save the alliance."

jyn hasn't seen her father in something like fifteen years, give or take a couple, but here he is, standing in front of her. a million emotions war inside of her but she stands still and listens to the recording, jaw tight and firm against the onslaught of pent up emotion.

"perhaps there's a chance to explain myself and, though i don't dare hope for too much, a chance for jyn, if she's alive, if you can possibly find her... a chance to let her know that my love for her has never faded and how desperately i've missed her.

jyn, my stardust, i can't imagine what you think of me. when i was taken, i faced some bitter truths. i was told that, soon enough, krennic would have you as well... as time went by i knew you were either dead or so well hidden that he would never find you. i knew if i refused to work, if i took my own life, it would only be a matter of time before krennic realized he no longer needed me to complete the project."

jyn sways on her feet, legs unsteady.

"so i did the one thing that nobody expected: i lied." jyn listens as her father explains how he lied so well that no one would suspect him of setting his revenge inside the empire's greatest weapon: the death star. she can't look away as her father goes on to explain the flaw he'd built into the weapon, so small and yet so powerful.

"jyn, if you're listening." her head jerks, choking on a sob as he addresses her directly, not even knowing if she would be there. "my beloved, so much of my life has been wasted. i try to think of you only in the moments when i'm strong, because the pain of not having you with me... your mother. our family. the pain of that loss is so overwhelming i risk failing even now. it's just so hard not to think of you. think of where you are. my stardust."

jyn crumples to her knees as the recording abruptly cuts off. ]

( dream ) eadu

[ rain blurs her vision but jyn doesn't stop climbing. her father is on that platform, or will be, she is going to make it up there whether cassian wants her to or not, not matter the pressure in her chest and the way her arms burn with the effort of pulling herself up so many ladder rungs. eventually her fingers find purchase on the platform and she hauls herself up, attracting the attention of a storm trooper. still half on the platform, she grabs his leg and gives a yank, sending him falling over the edge.

she doesn't look to see how he landed, she hears the crunch of his body hitting the ground hundreds of feet below them.

across the platform she can see her father. she creeps along the crates, keeping herself hidden in the shadows. the rain helps, even if she has to swipe her hand across her face, keep readjusting her grip on the blaster as she takes careful aim at krennic.

suddenly the sky is alive with the roar of starfighters, alliance jets firing on the platform with the flare of laser cannons and the wail of eadu's alarm. jyn ducks behind a crate, breathing heavily in the suddenly smoke filled air. her eyes water and she squeezes them shut to block out the images of bodies charred by the blast, as if closing her eyes will shut out the pained keening of injured imperials.

she pokes her head up, searching for her father and he's there, unsteadily pushing himself upright, alive. jyn runs. two more x-wings circle in, the platform lit up with red fire like some kind of nightmarish hellscape, jyn shoulders aside an officer, hurdles the burning body of a storm trooper.

"papa!" she screams, voice ragged and cracked.

galen turns to look at her, seeing her for the first time in nearly fifteen years. and then the world rends apart in an explosion. ]

( vision / flash ) scarif

[ it smells of blood and death and salt, stumbling across the sand, carefully turning cassian away from the bodies of fallen rebels on the beach. they've already seen too much.

the walk to the shore seems too long and impossibly short at once, the horizon blotted out by the swelling white glow of the death star's shock wave. it could be a sunset. cassian's leg buckles, but there is no more sand to be found so here is as good a place as any to abruptly stop.

a murmur of "your father would be proud of you" and clasped hands before an embrace that seems to stretch into infinity, swallowed whole by the blinding white light until there is nothingness. ]

( closed dream ) lah'mu

[ the girl huddled in the high grass can't be more than eight, clutching a kyber crystal in one small hand, hair plastered to her cheeks from the damp air, maybe tears. she watches, careful and silent, as her father speaks to the man in white, cape billowing behind him. she watches, hunched and small, as her mother approaches the two men with a bundle. she isn't close enough to hear them, but the crackle and sizzle of blaster fire rings clear and true, as does galen calling out for his wife.

jyn chokes back a sob, eyes glued to the fallen figure of her mother, the way her father crumples to gather her up in his arms. she doesn't move until she hears the man in white calling for his death troopers.

"they have a child! find it!"

she runs, short legs strong and sure as she races down the path to the hideaway, her satchel slams against her back, pigtails slapping her cheeks as she checks to make sure the death troopers aren't behind her. she keeps running until she makes it to the cave, prying open the hatch disguised as a rock. she throws her bag in first and climbs in after, carefully closing it behind her and hovering by the top, looking out through the crack as death troopers search the cave.

they leave empty handed and jyn creeps the rest of the way down into the tiny hole. the dark doesn't bother her but she shakes the lantern, lighting it up so she doesn't feel so alone. she clutches her necklace, the one her mother had just given her, and squeezed her eyes shut.

it's hours until jyn hears something, fear splashing across her expression as the hatch is lifted open, but it's a familiar face and a sob escapes her.

"come, my child. we have a long ride ahead of us." saw helps her out of hatch and when she slips her small hand in his, he doesn't let go, squeezing it gently and looking down at her with a frown. "we have to go."

saw brings her back to the house, acrid smoke from a fire making her eyes water as saw searches through papa's things angrily, making a mess of her papa's neat work space. she helps saw find all of papa's hiding places but they're all empty and jyn mournfully looks at the dolls the storm troopers had shredded as if abommy the gig held her father's research.

jyn left the house first and heard something heavy fall before saw closed the door. saw walked so quickly away from the house she almost had to run to catch up and suddenly there was an explosion, a rush of warm air as jyn turned to see her home in flames, fire licking at the damp grass. saw kept walking.

saw questioned her on his ship, about papa's work, what he studied, but jyn didn't know. he studied crystals, like her necklace, but saw already knew that. that couldn't be why the empire wanted galen so badly they sent a star destroyer for him. jyn couldn't answer and she looked at saw, his red-rimmed eyes and his heavy sigh. he looked at her, offered a reassuring smile.

"i don't know what to do with you, kid." ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[it's the kyber crystal that gives it all away, at least until he notices a much younger galen erso in the distance too. cassian feels like these dreams are nothing but pure invasion of privacy, and even if it's jyn's, who is sleeping right beside him outside of it, he still feels like he needs to apologize when he gets the chance.]

[jyn looks so small and scared, and it's not just her father here. it's her mother too. before he can speak or ask if this is indeed lah'mu, the blaster fire breaks out, and he watches lyra erso fall down dead.]

[find it.]

[he looks to the real jyn beside him as the smaller dream!jyn takes off running, and he's usually so good with words, but they fail him now. it might be easier if it wasn't a dream, because at least in reality he could just roll over and tug her in.]

[ cassian may be watching her younger self running away, watching her, but jyn can't seem to look away from her parents, even when the dream moves with her running. she keeps watching until her parents disappear in a foggy haze, lost behind the hilly peaks of her childhood home, faded back to memory.

lyra wasn't there when she and saw went back and part of her wants to call out for her past, tell her to turn around and go back to mama. instead she finally looks at cassian, finding him already looking at her. ]

It was my mother's. The crystal.

[he has seen her clutching the crystal several times over now and has long since realized it's value to jyn was insurmountable. but now he knows. it's a small piece of her mother, possibly the only thing she has left of her.]

[the tiny jyn runs and hides in the shelter, and cassian hates to admit how smart it is, because what a terrible thing for a child. the galaxy has ruined so many lives.]

She was a scientist too, wasn't she?

Natural sciences, [ jyn clarifies, flinching when the death troopers stalk inside the cave, looking for a tiny human child like she's prey.

jyn had packed so many things into the cave in her mind, shoving it all down in their tiny little shelter to protect herself from all the pain her memories brought. a defense mechanism. when it had broken open all those emotions and memories had spilled out, but it was nothing like reliving the moment so completely.

she wants to vomit for the fear that wells up in her chest when the death trooper marches right past her rock. is that the one that murdered her mother? what if he finds her this time? they do sometimes, in her nightmares. he stalks back out of the cave, relaying to krennic that they found nothing. ]

[it fits, with all the other little bits and pieces he's picked up about jyn's life, the fragments of her parents. he wants to get out of the dream and take jyn with him, because while he wants to know more about her, he doesn't want it to be like this.]

[she looks like she's going to be sick, terrified even though it's only a memory. he hates stormtroopers. the troopers file out to continue their search elsewhere, leaving the small jyn tucked away in the cave. safe, relativity speaking, if not undoubtedly traumatized. how long was she down there? who got her out? he suspects maybe saw, but the time ticks by and he doesn't want to ask.]

[cassian reaches out instead, gently brushing his fingers against hers. he'd just take her hand, but he doesn't know if she wants that comfort. it's an offer.]

[ jyn doesn't take his hand, but the contact grounds her, even if the dream melds into darkness. she doesn't take his but two of her fingers curl around his and that is close enough in the darkness.

eventually the younger version of herself, tiny little panted breaths of uncertainty the only indication that she's there, shakes the lantern on, illuminating the small space. it's cramped and jyn's stomach twists realizing that she and cassian are in the space her parents were meant to occupy. instead, she was very alone.

she looks away from the little girl quietly crying, clutching the light like it's all she has left. ]

We used to practice drills, so I would know what to do when they came for us. [ when. because it was never really an if, as much as her mother tried to make it a game, jyn knew. ]

[he lets her decide whatever sort of contact she wants, but he's glad she finds some sort of comfort in it, however small. it's unnerving in the dark, and he's an adult. cassian looks to the real jyn, as though giving the smaller one a sense of privacy. she doesn't need privacy. she's completely alone.]

[there's no surprise it was a when. however many years ago this was, the galaxy was already crawling with awfulness. his parents had their own drills under the pretense of games. not for the first time, he wishes this was something she chose to share with him, not stolen because of a glitch in the system.]

Smart. All of you. [cassian that sucks for comfort. he opts to jump ahead of this lonely moment instead of questioning her on it.] Saw is the one who finds you, isn't he?

[ she nods, swallowing back her discomfort. ]

He brought us here, when we left Coruscant. [ she'd sat in the cockpit with him, her tiny little hand grasped in his, as they drifted through the outer rim. saw had allowed jyn the idea that she'd chosen the planet all on her own, but time and age offered her perspective.

hours pass in the fluid, compressed nature of a dream and jyn jerks when she hears the creak of the hatch being opened a moment later, the tiny version of her sucking in a gasp. and then there is saw. he is so much younger than on jedha, strong and fit. a scar cuts through his left eye, making it look sleepy, and rain streaks his bald head. even when just his head and shoulders are visible, he cuts an imposing, impressive figure but the tiny child looks at him like he's a lighthouse, a beacon.

"Come, my child. We have a long ride ahead of us." she hesitates, but takes his large, dark hand with her tiny, pale one and he hauls her out of the hiding spot. ]

We have to go. [ jyn says the words at the same time saw mutters them in the past like a grim echo as the dream shifts again to saw and jyn standing outside her smoking house, jyn and cassian a few feet behind them. ]

[he recognizes saw as soon as he appears, far younger but no less determined looking. the frame of light around him is a beautiful sight after so long in the dark, he can hardly blame the little jyn for being so awed. cassian is feeling a little of it himself.]

[his heart sinks at the sight of the smoking house, even as he recognizes immediately who did it. it wasn't the imperials. it's a saw gererra and partisan tactic. her childhood home was just burned before her eyes, and even though cassian understands why, it's just another dot on the list of terrible things to happen today.]

Where did he take you? [more questions, on the future rather than dealing with what they're seeing in the immediate. it still seems easier, distracting. if jyn wants to talk about any of this, she can, but he's not going to force it out of her.]

Wrea. [ some kind of fondness settles in her chest as she watches saw firmly (but with a gentleness she knows almost no one else has ever seen), pulls her away from the smoking house, leading her back to his ship and trying to shield her from the bloodstained grass she keeps looking over at.

moments later they're in the cockpit, standing behind where saw and jyn sit, her little frame dwarved by the copilot's seat, strapped in safely while they hurtle through the blue-grey streaks of hyperspace.

"I don't know what to do with you, kid."

the way the dream skips along makes jyn a little dizzy, trying to force her own memories to catch up and she idly murmurs: ] They'd sent a Star Destroyer after Papa, [ looking out the window like she'll be able to see it through hyperspace before it abruptly ends and blurs and the two of them are standing outside Saw's base, a door carved into the rock.

wrea is cold, the air smelling like salt from the ocean that surrounds the craggy, rocky island. tangled scrub brush litters the flat ground around a broken comm tower, and metal squeals unhappily when the door opens, accessed with a biometric lock. saw is telling the younger version of herself what jyn tells cassian, gesturing up at the asteroid belt that dots the dreary sky. ]

Smuggler's Run. 's why Saw liked it, too hard to get to and the natives scared people off after the Clone Wars, even if they stayed off the island.

[ she'd never met a wrean. sad. ]

[he can hear the little bit of fondness in her voice, and it both surprises him and doesn't. he knows how important saw was to jyn, even if initially he only saw how that connection could be used. it's a new side to it now, getting to see such a smaller version of jyn and understanding entirely from the get-go why they would have gotten so attached.]

[he wants to say something about the destroyer, about how when it's used the empire means business, but it doesn't feel anything close to appropriate. it just tells him how desperately they wanted galen erso.]

I've not been to Wrea. [until they jump there in the dream. he takes in the sight of it curiously, because it's not like he'll ever get the chance to see it otherwise.]

Smuggler's Run kept a lot of people from the area. It's not a surprise he would have chosen such a place for a base. Draven and Organa suspected, but I do not think they ever sent anyone to confirm the location. [it's not like the rebellion was big at that point. it was just a string of little rebel cells, saw's included, and cassian happened to have been found by draven, plucked from one anarchist cell to what was essentially another. how old was he? 12? 13? already deep in training, just what he assumes jyn is about to start.] Is this the only place you lived, with him?

Yes. [ she nods, curling her free arm around herself to stave off the chill of the salty planet. ] Idryssa wanted him to join the Alliance, before it was called the Alliance and was just an alliance. He would have been furious if she'd given away his base to them.

[ she doesn't remember every visiting them either, but she was eight, she's forgotten a lot of that.

and someone had come when she was twelve, but she didn't realize they were with the budding alliance, she just thought he was another one of the men obsessed with the heroic image of saw gerrera. ]

[he wants to wrap his arm around her when he sees that she's cold, but somehow testing her boundaries doesn't feel like a good idea right now.]

[but wrea. she lived on wrea for a couple years then. he wants to ask her more about it, about what she did. he vaguely remembers a couple of times in the fledgling alliance where they talked about saw, the people who wanted him to join and the people who didn't. the hot debate. but it's jyn life he wants to know now.]

I can't imagine he would have stayed, if the Alliance knew where he was. [he hesitates a little, even as he gets a little peak into the house he assumes she called home during those years.] What was it like here?

Quiet at first. It was just Saw and I. [ saw who is shuffling around collecting things while jyn watches. he opens a door to an old office with boxes pushed up against the wall and jyn peers in briefly before his large body takes up the entire door, dropping a mattress on the floor. ]

He taught me to fight. He couldn't stop what happened to my parents, but he could protect me.

[he's trying. that's what strikes him about saw as the pair of them shuffle around, as he sets the tiny jyn up in her own space. he didn't have to. he could have just taken her in and thrown her right into it, but he looked after her himself.]

You do fight just like a partisan. [he noticed from the start, honestly, but it's different knowing saw was directly responsible against the sight of him with her very young self.]

[cassian may not have always agreed with the partisans, may have thrown his lot in with the rebellion, but that was a matter of circumstance wasn't it? the people who found them as lost children guided who they became as adults in a war torn galaxy.] I am glad, that you had him.

[ the tiny room is sad, honestly, the only other furniture a small desk with a datapad on it. it's pitiful compared to the warmth and cramped coziness of her room on lah'mu. saw takes the blankets from jyn's arms and drapes them across the mattress, turning to look at the little girl with an expression so anxious for approval that jyn feels like her heart is going to break.

instead she wakes up with a start, fingers clutching cassian's shirt, tears dripping down her cheeks. it's only really been a couple of months and she never gave herself time to grieve. she wipes away the tears now, ignoring grief. ]

[he's seen worse rooms, and better, and he's sure jyn is the same. but to an eight year old, how small and empty it must feel in this moment.]

[but then jyn wakes up. cassian follows within seconds, because he almost always does, but he feels especially tuned into her now. her hands are curled into his shirt and he doesn't hesitate for a moment in pulling her in close, wrapping his arms around her before she tries to wriggle away.]

Jyn. [he says her name softly, firmly, carefully all at once.] You don't have to hide anything from me.

I'm okay.

[ she's not fine, but she is pretty okay considering. she doesn't feel like she's going to throw up or really burst into tears, it's just a general emptiness. it doesn't stop her from curling into him when he gathers her up, pressing her damp face to his chest. ]

[he does not entirely believe her. all things considered, he can tell just from holding her that she's not in any sort of desperate state like other nightmares put them, but he worries anyway.]

We don't have to talk about it. [but they could. if she wants to. if she ever wanted in the future. he hopes she picks up on that. he adjusts his hug around her into something more comforting, his thumb idly moving against her.]

What's there to talk about?

[ she didn't mind his questions and she doesn't think she would mind them now, but she doesn't know if she wants to just aimlessly talk about her mother's murder and being taken in by saw. ]

[he doesn't want to say her feelings because that's gross and also it is the one surefire way to make her leap from the bed.]

[but he 100% means her feelings. he did just see...a lot about her, a lot of her core memories. maybe once in a while they should try to process these things...?]

Anything else you might want to tell me.

[ she shakes her head. nope. nothing more to add to this. it isn't that she doesn't want to tell cassian more but that's too much with nothing to direct her and she decides she has nothing more at all to add to the conversation. ]

Anything else would have been in my file.

[he recognizes immediately she doesn't want to share more yet, and he doesn't push it. everything they just saw was a lot, and it wasn't even his own memories. there's lots of information in her file, but it's just data. it's not how she felt, how she feels now.]

[he nestles her in a little more. it's all he has to offer her instead.]

Okay.

[ she feels shitty, cassian! ]

I just want to sleep, [ she complains, frustrated that it keeps eluding them because of these fucked up memories. wait.

she sits up. ]

Your jacket, where is it?

[obviously!! but maybe she would feel less shitty if she like, idk, talked about it.]

[he's startled when she suddenly breaks from his hold, blinking up at her.]

Are you cold?

open ✧ moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars

lah'mu.

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