you can't save the ones you've caught in battle

[garbagepilot]

CHARACTERS: Rey, ota
LOCATION: various station locations
DATE: post-mission
CONTENT: decompression after the mission
WARNINGS: none as of yet, will add if necessary


[Sunlight room]

[Immediately after returning from the mission, this is where Rey goes. Her hammock is still hung up between two of the trees near the stream, she's glad to see, but even the sound of the water - clean and clear even if it is fake - isn't enough to temper her frustration.

Her anger. She's not frustrated, she's angry and not even the relative peace of the green is helpful when she knows it's all fake.

But it will have to do. She takes a seat, closes her eyes, and lets out an rushed breath before focusing on deeper breathing, trying to focus on the Force and the serenity she can find there.

It takes a long, long time. She fails many times and considers getting up to go break things in the simulation rooms, but finally, after nearly an hour, the last time she clothes her eyes and breathes out, she reaches the place she had been so desperate to find.

For anyone who enters the sunlight room after that, they'll find the peculiar sight of Rey sitting with her legs folded and her hands on her knees, floating a good ten feet off the air. She's frowning faintly, but she's at least in tune with the Force enough for this.]



[Kitchen]

[Her visit to the kitchen has gone much differently this time. Rather than tear the whole place apart and make messes on every counter as she plunders the cabinets for anything and everything she can find to eat, this time around she's very focused on her task.

This time, she's taking the time to gather things she knows she likes to make sandwiches. There's three made already, each one carefully placed to the side of the cutting board where she's slicing up another tomato for the forth sandwich only halfway assembled.

She's also currently got an apple in her mouth, the flesh bitten into and held between her teeth as she slices because apparently the act of not eating while she gets ready to eat is just too much to ask of her. There are other signs of her snacking as she made her actual meal too: a small bowl of berries, thinly sliced cucumber... a whole pint of chocolate ice cream with a spoon sticking out of it.

Her visit this time is less messy, yes, but no less chaotic. Upon noticing someone else has entered, she looks up, apple still in her mouth, and says,]

Oh. 'lo.

[A greeting, apple still in her mouth. Because of course. She does finish biting all the way through it and takes it out, at least, but does she bother to finish eating before she speaks? No. No, she talks with her mouth full as she gestures to the sandwiches with her knife.]

Want one?



[Tech room]

[It's been slow going since her very first few days on the Ximilia, each visit allowing her to get a little farther, but now she's got an almost entirely assembled lightsaber hilt sitting in front of her. Luke and Leia's are laid out to the side of it and she's sitting there in intense thought, tapping a delicate looking wrench against the table.

Tap tap tap, and then she sighs and crosses her arms on the table, lowers her head down to rest on them.

Can she really take apart the lightsabers of her Masters and repurpose them? Would they be angry with her?

Would they be proud that she took what they left behind and made it into something that reflected who she is?

Please pay no mind to the Jedi slumped over in the tech room surrounded by bits of metal and wire, it's just a tiny crisis of faith it's fine.]

Comments

sunlight room

[fuchsiative]

[ it's funny, actually. not long after the previous mission, clarice had holed herself away into the sunlight room to do just this — legs crossed, back straight, eyes closed, mind clear. it's a familiar sight, even if rey is currently ten feet higher than she could have ever reached on her own.

in truth, this is the second time clarice has stopped by. the first was near forty minutes ago, and rey hadn't moved once.

as she comes closer, she makes sure to do so as noisily as possible. best not to spook the other woman, after all. ]

Hey. How's the view?

[garbagepilot]

Oddly dark.

[Because her eyes are closed, eyyy.

The first time Clarice had stopped in, Rey had felt the presence of someone else in the room but had been careful to keep from reaching out. The impulse had been there, instinctive when she was so deeply enmeshed in the Force that it felt more like an extension of her own body than anything else, but she knows better.

And once she hears that voice, familiar and clear, she's very glad she had been careful. Clarice's initial reaction to learning that Rey had the ability to look into minds, to influence them, had been a clear sign that it wasn't exactly the sort of thing that made the other woman comfortable. She's tried to be more careful with it since then and now more than ever she feels like urge to make sure nothing else happens to set them at odds.

The girl throwing accusations over the network is something Rey has also not forgotten and she'd have to be a fool to not see how the rest of the crew might react if they knew exactly why half the infiltration team had had to find a way to transport that pointless android body. Add to that the last few weeks of unrest, well...

She's in her head too much. She can feel it, and she frowns faintly and opens her eyes so she can look down at Clarice.]

Sorry. Hang on, I'll-

[She floats down, quick but graceful to stand in front of the other woman instead.]

sunlit room ☀️

[tochnyy]

[ the sunlit room is still mal's favorite place to be, even though he's been spending his nights healing in an actual bed in his room. it's more comfortable than the backseat of the car and probably better for his back.

not that he's old enough to think of that, even if mal's starting to feel the effects of each heroic stunt or fall.

he makes his way through, dressed in a pair of swears and loose t-shirt that allows his skin room to breathe. he'd rather be shirtless but maybe later. there's a cool breeze, which leaves mal feeling a bit lighter. his hair's getting longer, not quite curls but long enough one could guess it coils now. he needs to get alina to cut it.

he's not quiet as he walks past rey, stops and watches her with his head tilted for a moment. meditation is lost on mal. too much quiet, too much thinking. he's seen her do this before though. ] How's enlightenment coming along? [ he's teasing. it's better to keep the mood light than think on the tension that's floating thick through the station. ]

[garbagepilot]

[It is better, and she can't help smiling when he asks that.

Truthfully, she might have already hit the enlightenment portion of her studies but when she starts to think too much about destiny and talent it kind of gives her hives.]

Want to come up and give it a shot yourself?

[She might be able to manage actually lifting him up with her but she's sure the second she offers that he's probably going to find some colorful way to tell her no thank you.]

Tech room;

[flickerandfade]

[ Megatron's mechanical bulk stoops to enter the room and he heads with purpose towards the opposite wall to begin sorting through one of the many bins, then pauses as he catches sight of Rey slumped over the work table. Surely, this isn't something that he needs to bother with?

Compassion wins out over his better judgement. ]

Are you well?

[ His electronic bass of a voice rumbles as he leans over her with a look of mild concern. ]

[garbagepilot]

No.

[It's dejected, grim, but all the same she lifts her head up to look over at the very unique voice speaking to her now. He's a Cybertronian, she recognizes quickly enough, but she doesn't know enough of them yet to put a name to an oddly soothing voice.

It's a little like if the Falcon could talk to her, honestly, and isn't that a comforting thought? It's enough that she can manage a small smile, tired though it may be.]

I'll be fine, it's just been a long month.

kitchen

[homeostatic]

Mornin'.

( though, technically, it's really after noon, but he woke up late so it's still morning. or something. McCoy takes in Rey's controlled chaos, and contemplates coffee, shuffling over to get a pot started. )

Mm. Is that one turkey? I'll demolish a turkey sandwich.

[garbagepilot]

That was hours ago, actually.

[She's always been an early riser herself, but it's been out of necessity for most of her life and after that just habit. Plus there's the undeniable benefit of being able to use the facilities of the Ximilia when everyone else is sleeping still. Much less of a chance of having to talk to anyone.

Leonard, though, is someone she doesn't mind running into.

As she's about to cut into the tomato again, though, she pauses.]

It could be, but I don't actually know what that is. You'll have to be adventurous and try it out.

kitchen

[oiorpata]

[ andy walks into the kitchen at - some time in the evening, she's not sure - donning a novelty tee that says 'women want me fish fear me' and comfortable leggings, ready to gather up her own chaotic meal. she takes one look at the army of sandwiches the young woman is building for herself and sees absolutely nothing odd about it. why wouldn't you make many sandwiches. snacks for later. ]

[ she walks over to the liquor cabinet and pulls out a bottle of vodka before the offer to share is made. ]

Not if you didn't make extra. [ she isn't teasing. andy understands the need to stockpile. ] What's on them?

[garbagepilot]

[It doesn't take much to make it clear that her new dinner guest is taking this feast just as seriously as it should be, and it does mean something to Rey when the other woman makes it clear her food stockpile isn't in any actual danger.

A hint, perhaps, at a shared concern for lack of food? Maybe. It doesn't have to mean anything at all, but it the courtesy is appreciated. More than that, it means Rey reaches for a plate to put one of the sandwiches on, sliding it across the counter to Andy.]

I can make more.

[Said warmly, almost fond. Bonding over food :')]

Various meats and cheeses? An assortment of vegetables as well. I kind of just picked at random.

[Sunlight room]

[spacedisaster]

[ Peter is no more frustrated with the mission than he is with the previous ones, which is to say he is at the same level of annoyed. Since Scorprions' bend , all of them had gotten progressively worse, his trust in the crew wavering, and his wish to socialize diminishing. However, there are people he still seeks, because he likes their company, wants to know them better, or is grateful for their presence. Rey, in this case, fits all the criteria

After checking how Blue was doing in the infirmary, Peter went to the kitchen and started cooking. He wanted to thank Rey for the help, plenty of people would have died had it not been for her healing powers, and give her a token of appreciation. Peter would have liked to offer her something more valuable, but the options they had while in the station were limited, and he figured that homemade food was the second best option.

He goes to her room first, but no one answers when he knocks, which prompts Peter to look for her around the station, carrying the food and drinks in a picnic basket. When he finally finds her, - floating, of all things-, he stares rather than interrupt Rey and break her concentration. She can probably sense him there, anyway. ]

[garbagepilot]

[Always, at all times, food is the best choice to show Rey that you care.

With her connection to the Force stronger than ever now that she's had the time to calm her nerves, she feels the approach of someone, can feel when she's no longer alone, but picking out the exact person is still difficult for her and it isn't until she feels this new presence stop so close to her that she realizes they must be looking at her.

So she cracks one eye open and smiles when she sees Peter, small but warm all the same.]

Hello, Peter.

kitchen shenanigans

[villast]

[ Booker was only slipping into the kitchen to grab a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet, maybe grab something to eat, and he's pausing when he sees the young woman. Sees the small feast and how she's waving the knife with her greeting. ]

You must be hungry. Unless you were expecting company?

[ He'll wait to snag one half for himself, instead uncapping the whiskey for a sip. ]

[garbagepilot]

Expecting- oh.

[It takes that question for her to pause and look at the amount of food she has made already and realize this is probably not an ordinary thing to see. She's certainly made enough for a small party, but-]

No, I was going to eat most of these. I can spare one, though.

sunlight room

[bossily]

[Clara's on her way to her little garden when she spots Rey. Floating as she clearly is trying to meditate. She almost keeps on going, not wanting to disturb her. But she spots that frown on her face and figures that maybe it wouldn't hurt to see if her friend needs to talk. It would be rude to see a pretty face fixed in a frown and not do something to try and turn it around.]

Rough day?

[She questions, knowing good and well it was a rough series of weeks for everyone.]

[garbagepilot]

[By now, Rey has spent enough one on one time with Clara that she's vaguely familiar to her in the Force. Not quite like Finn, but she's had the benefit of a year with him in close proximity to be able to pick him out in a crowd.

It's probably the fact that she's been thinking of Clara, of her garden, that makes it easier for her to recognize that it's her that's come into the sunlight room. The voice just brings it home and Rey can't help but feel a flash of pride for the improvement that she's made in her training.

Leia would be proud.]

It's better now.

kitchen;

[farr]

[ unfortunately, finding her way to the kitchen is a fairly common habit for rita too, since sometimes a girl can never have quite enough to sustain her appetite. though, when she enters, she's actually rather impressed to find someone that seems to rival her in terms of meal prep.

eyes wide, she's momentarily astonished before her gaze softens, an amused smile playing on her lips before she laughs softly. ]

I would love one.

[ she answers with that offer of a sandwich, stepping across the way to move beside her. ]

Were you having trouble picking? [ she asks, waving a finger around at the scattered bits of food around. ] I usually can't decide either. One minute, I'm snacking on a banana and then the next, I'm on my fifth or sixth drumstick.

[garbagepilot]

[There's something about this woman that strikes Rey as immediately maternal, only more youthful than the kind of mothering she's used to getting from Leia. It's the softness in her eyes, maybe, or the way she immediately goes along with the admittedly comical situation she's just walked into.

And, without a doubt, there's something about her that tells Rey to at the very least find a clean plate to put one of the less slapped together sandwiches on. Classy people don't eat off of paper napkins, surely.

And then with that addition, the number of drumsticks, she startles a quick burst of a laugh out of Rey.]

I have that problem with cookies. Even if I only mean to eat a few, I'll blink and be holding an empty carton just five minutes later.

tech room;

[kovach]

[ his nemex is, luckily, still in pretty solid shape despite the sort of hell it goes through mission after mission. it's almost strange for him to feel a sort of attachment to it when there's no real sentimentality to it, having just picked it up off of dimi's corpse back on bay city. considering the state of his decaying memories, it probably won't be be long before he forgets entirely where he'd even gotten it in the first place.

maybe that's why he's attached to it, like anything that provides some kind of existing memory matters on account of what's happening to him. it's why he makes sure to take care of it, heading over to the tech room for the purposes of cleaning it on, giving it a few touch-ups so the gun doesn't jam up.

he slows in his step when he finds rey there, slumped at the table with her head down.

(she'd surprised him, with how much sense he had about her, how much a lot of her reminded him of himself, that rebellious spirit that cared for changing the world for the better all those years ago. and she's got plenty of sass. he can always appreciate that.)

crossing over, he stands beside her, turning his back to the table to lean himself against it, nearly sitting against the edge. ]

Shitty place to take a nap.

[garbagepilot]

[She doesn't lift her head up at first, just gives him a noncommittal hum that somehow manages to sound exhausted and endlessly annoyed all at once.]

It's not so bad. Tends to be pretty empty, really. You'd think more people would take advantage of all these fun bits and pieces.

[Now she does sit up, reaching for the longer of the two lightsaber hilts so she can turn it over in her hands. It's good work, even she'd have to admit it out loud.]

I have picked up that most people aren't from worlds like ours, though. Explaining electricity is new.

Sunlight Room

[savingthrows]

[ It wouldn't be entirely inaccurate to say that Eleven is sulking. Kaidan is gone. And while there's rarely much fanfare about people vanishing off the Ximilia, this loss stings. She liked him - and he was her teacher. They trained together. And he'd taught her to hold back on the station, but never on missions.

The days of Eleven sleeping in the sunlight room in a makeshift blanket fort are long over, but she still returns here when she needs the comfort of pretending she isn't stuck in sterile white corridors that remind her of the lab. When she needs to pretend she's still free.

And when she spots Rey, hovering in mid-air, Eleven stops. Is pulled from her small misery by something that tugs on her curiosity. After a moment, she blurts out: ]

How do you fly?

[garbagepilot]

[That's a good question, actually. It hadn't been something that she had managed the first time she ever meditated the way Luke showed her, certainly, but over time it had just come so naturally that she hadn't thought to question it.]

Practice, mostly.

[But even as she says it and her concentration wavers, she loses a little altitude. There's nothing wrong with that, though, and from the voice she recognizes the girl from the network, the one who had struggled with normalcy. Now seems as good a time as any to take a break, so she opens her eyes and lowers herself back down until she's standing in front of Eleven.]

How are you doing?

wildcards for ladies club;

[choicely]

[ Yennefer's been very intentional about the rooms she's entered into ever since returning from the mission — a mission that she had been in the decisive minority on when it came to whether or not to stay longer on the sphere in question even after securing the orb themselves.

In the end, she hadn't been all that surprised that they'd been met with animosity; she's been chased out of several towns enough times to know that the typical response to a lack of knowledge is rooted in defensiveness and rejection. If they can't understand it, they'd rather not face it at all. Never mind the fact that there had been those who had been more than happy to benefit from certain abilities among the orbers when it suited them; as soon as it hadn't, they'd joined the call of others demanding their exit.

So perhaps it's no surprise that since their arrival on the station, Yennefer's made every intentional effort to prioritize rest and relaxation of both body and mind — and the latest setting that Itachi has somehow programmed into the simulation room is doing wonders for assisting in both of those things. She's slipped into the waters an untold number of minutes ago, only the tops of her shoulders visible above the surface, and her eyes are closed — but that doesn't mean she won't hear the sound of nearby footfalls, should anyone choose to enter in. Not that she's even bothered to try and secure the spot; she wouldn't know how to set a lock on the room even if it was something that had naturally occurred to her to do. ]

Well? [ She doesn't open her eyes; she's not sure it matters much, although she can feel whoever it is hovering tentatively. ] Are you coming in or not?

ladies club best club

[garbagepilot]

[The weeks after the discovery of the orb hadn't gone all that smoothly for Rey. She'd spent almost all of her time helping Bones care for the people who had been injured in the fighting, but as one of the people with visible powers even she had been a target for displeased whispers.

It hadn't escaped her, the way people would speak under their breath about her as she walked away after healing a broken bone, a laceration, a head injury. Just like on Jakku there had been so many so willing to use up anyone they could with no care for the shell they left behind.

And still she had tried. She's not proud to admit that her efforts had gone to the Fables and the orbers more than anyone else towards the end, but how could she be expected to be happy to be demonized for staying when she never wanted to? For helping people who ended up being nothing if not ungrateful?

Now, though, that planet is left behind to fail or thrive as it will. She hopes the Fables will be alright, but it's best to just close the book on that and move on. The simulation room is the perfect place for that, and she can't help the little laugh that escapes her when Yennifer is so very, very blunt.]

Well if you're going to ask so nicely.

[There's undisguised warmth there, even as she slips out of her clothes with no hint of shame. She's got her own array of scars, clusters of them on her arms and hands, but even those being on display doesn't seem to bother her.

Undisguised warmth because it is so much easier to deal with people who are straightforward and a little unkind. There's no having to guess at anything and that's just as relaxing as the water that she slips into, settling in a few feet away with a pleased sigh.]

Whoever invented these is a genius.

im wildcarding u cant stop me

[firstroar]

Is that you, Rey?

[he can feel a familiar presence at the edge of his consciousness - not bodily close, but emotionally so. having another Mu-like Force-user around is such a comfort...and novel enough that Blue can't help but call it out each time he gets a sense of her; hopefully she can get used to that.]

sunlight room

[romancekiller]

[clarke had already made herself at home in the sunlight room because she finds it a bit too stifling to be elsewhere. the last mission hit a little too close to home for her, especially in the aftermath of all that happened but she has been trying to keep herself busy or distracted from thinking too much on it.

she is just walking through to find a more secluded spot but eventually she finds herself coming to a stop, her eyes widening as she looks towards rey in surprise when she sees her floating in the air] Oh hey— sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you.

kitchen for ultimate chaos — ;

[karaoqi]

[ Shang-chi is just here for a snack, in between his hour of training and heading back to his room to chill for a bit. Weaving through the kitchen, he finds his way to one of the cabinets housing crackers or something of that nature, and offers Rey a friendly smile when addressed.

(Look, she was holding a knife, she looked busy, he wasn't going to interrupt until spoken to.) ]

Uh — hey.

[ Eyes go to the tub of chocolate ice cream ... then back to Rey in the midst of slicing tomatoes, while a small stack of cucumber lies in wait. Maybe they're all meant to be eaten separately, but after some of the people he's come across here? He wouldn't be surprised if it's ... not that. ]

You didn't put the ice-cream in with the cucumber and the tomato, did you? That's gonna be a weird combo.