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old but unfamiliar faces
"We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once."
The Ingress has pulled you in. Your body experiences several sensations at once: being pushed forward as if a hand is resting on your back, momentary and startling blindness, a gentle ringing in your head. You have difficulty discerning whether it is hot or cold, but where you have been prodded is noticeably warmer than the rest of you. Some may suffer from dizziness while others are perfectly fine. Once equilibrium has been reestablished, you will notice you are standing on a long platform and that the room is filled with a soft cerulean light. It's slightly humid and dark despite the glow around you, and nothing is familiar. Shortly after, you are led out and toward the medbay.
Inside this room, you are given a physical scan and offered a contract to sign that states you are now part of the crew of the Moira with a specific job. Any questions you might have would be answered in a straightforward manner as well as an explanation about how the Ingress, the thing that has pulled you onto the Moira, is broken and bringing people here unintentionally. This process also consists of a complete work-up of medical history and current health, and afterwards, you are given your MID, a device that is integrated into your hand or wrist with only the slightest pinch. From there, you are guided out of the medbay and to your living quarters.
At first, this month seems no more unusual than the previous one for those who have been aboard the Moira for any amount of time. The crew who had landed on the slaver outpost were rescued, and with everyone aboard, the ship has pushed forward into the darker parts of the Runoff. Anyone arriving through the Ingress follows the same routine—moving from the Ingress room into the Medbay for their physical and contract before being assisted by seasoned crew members and helped to their assigned decks. But all familiar things must eventually come to an end: two final travelers come through the Ingress. The first, and most noticeable difference between them and all the others, is their clothing. Both are dressed in standard Moira uniforms, though they bear the insignia of one sharing the same rank as Captains Cúrre and Thán. After a moment to take in all the people on the platform ahead of them, one of the two latest arrivals approaches one of the Ingress panels and begins to manipulate the controls. The Ingress completely shuts down. Unlike before, however, there isn’t an imbalance felt across the ship; everything remains normal and stable.
Utilizing the computer systems located in the Ingress room, they send out the following message to the crew via the MID:To all those aboard this vessel: I am Ira Phirun, assigned captain of the Moira. First Mate Egan and I will be commandeering all rights to the ship as soon as word is sent to those currently in charge. Expect a more detailed report as soon as all records and logs in Navigation have been reviewed by myself and the First Mate. All questions will be answered in a timely matter. For now, there will be no interruption of daily routine or reprimand if conduct among ranks is broken. Thanks for your time. Heading to Navigation, the Captain and First Mate, for seemingly unknown reasons, approach Navigator Manasseh and have her show them all records and logs of the Moira. Those working in Navigation when the Captain and First Mate arrive will see Mana greet them in a professional manner. Oddly, the Captain and First Mate act very familiar with the Navigator. They review all documents, but when they come upon news that the Ploiatos is on board, their mostly friendly demeanor shifts quickly. The Captain issues a sharp order, unintelligible to those who are close enough to overhear parts of their conversation, and without any warning at all, Mana loses consciousness and collapses right there on the bridge. Within minutes of this happening, the ship as a whole falls into a low power state with basic functions only. Mana’s MID alerts Medbay, and without hesitation, Captain Cúrre places her in cryo with strict orders to those who work there not to disturb the unit.
As promised, the Captain and First Mate soon address the crew.☄ lights down low The lighting has dimmed in all the rooms and halls, the normally crisp air that is pumped from the vents low, and all machines and tech are running at half-speed. These effects can be found throughout the ship. Water in the showers remain hot for only a few minutes before reverting to cold. Recreational equipment powers off not long after it has been turned on. The sanitation and water filtration systems require an hourly manual reboot, and all unused areas of the ship have no power allotted to them until a crew member steps inside. Even then, most functions are not optimal. It’s as if the Moira has been transformed into a dark house with only a candle flickering on the window sill. ☄ reuse & recycle The Captain and First Mate are quick to establish that this is a new regime and go about making the ship and its crew more efficient in the wake of their change in course and the low power state of the ship itself. This means they will systematically inspect each occupied barracks room and leave notes for what needs to be disposed of or stowed away. Unlike before, this is no longer a pleasure cruise, and each member of the crew is a guest on board; they will not tolerate useless clutter. Anything seen as unnecessary will be either placed into storage in the Cargo Bay or disposed of through the airlock. This new need for efficiency also extends to the need to conserve resources until they reach their destination. The showers are set to an automatic timer to minimize water waste. Those few minutes of hot water are all a crew member is now given. Meals are smaller, bordering on ration sizes, and luxuries are done away with entirely in order to preserve supplies so that the ship can go longer before needing to dock at a planet. ☄ new jobs, same faces The Captain and his First Mate, as expressed in their addressing of the Moira, explain that work efficiency is a priority. Applications for a head of the following departments will be accepted for a short period: Navigation, the Tower, Medbay, Defense, the Hold, Sanitation, Ingress work, and the Galley/Mess Hall. (Here.) After reviewing what they receive, one head of department will be chosen and tasked with helping crew find positions relevant to those departments and their own skillsets. They will be allowed to retain any positions that they held before that aren’t ship-functional jobs, but they will have to be done in leisure time. In two weeks time, they’ll be accepting department position applications which will be approved, and all those that do not apply will be assigned in accordance with their initial work application. They will also choose three individuals to act as guards of Ploiatos to ensure that there is a rotation available at all times. Will you choose to follow this new decision and promote yourself into a position of responsibility? Or will you simply wait for a reassignment?
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hownkai) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thisavrou_log2016-08-01 12:13 am
no subject
Us?
[He stops short, eyes wide once again with worry. Is this--is she--leaving?]
Padmé, I...if you'd just...if I could, I...I didn't mean--
[Every justification, excuse, and even warning tries to come out at once, desperate and more than a little pathetic, but he would grovel a thousand times over if he had to. He deserves to. He can't think straight with that fear latching onto his paranoia, and lingering guilt over everything Leia has told him.]
If it's better that I leave--
[Can I do it? He'll have to.
He wouldn't.]no subject
Oh, but even with that thought, even with the knowledge that settles within her head, information that only she has, never once had she meant that negatively. They are different here, each changed by experiences that the other has not had. It doesn't diminish or change their love nor does it mean that they are each writing their own story in a different language. It is merely a diverging of paths that ultimately always come back together in the end, as it always has.]
Ani.
[There is that shake of her head, knowing how it must have sounded to him, and her hands are there again, cupping his face. Her heart beats for his, each breath he owns, and her voice softens, gentle and coaxing.]
That isn't what I meant, my love. I just- everything. Everything that has happened in such a short time. [Yet she pauses again, knowing that she isn't explaining herself very well at all. At home. Here. Him. There is a suddenness to it all, not that she is complaining, but some things do take time to adjust to. She might leap off the deep end at times, but other occasions see her waking in step by step.] If you ever leave, a part of me will die.
[Does die, but even stars fade out in the end...]
no subject
But he does doubt himself. And the weight of that shameful expectation.
He breathes out, shaky, and turns to press lips to her palm, like a sunflower turning with the warmth and light. It's with a slow nod that he drags his gaze back up to meet hers, and all he finds there is the same love and concern he always has. He's being ridiculous.]
I'm sorry. [For everything. Here and now and then and what will be.] You're right. I'm not going anywhere. I could never--the last thing I could ever want would be to hurt you.
no subject
Padmé can see the thoughts on his face, read him although she has not a speck of ability with the Force. They are attune, although she would be remiss if she hadn't noticed the cracks in their lives before. A strain had been there, although Padmé would never have guessed that it wasn't the pressure of the war that had bogged him down. Only too late had the truth been known.
Just how far Palpatine has his clutches in to him now, she doesn't know, and she knows better than she just blurt out everything that she knows. There are some things that are easier said and others that will take time. She is a strong woman, but she is, in the end, only human. She won't fail him this time, she vows, as she feels his lips against her palm.]
I know you would never hurt me on purpose Anakin. I know, my love. I know.
[Because it hadn't been him who had raised his hand to her, who had squeezed. He is there, she knows, that Anakin that she loved, but for now, he is still here and she makes that oath to herself. She will not let him go in to the darkness again. Seeking to draw him back out, Padmé does inquire.]
Tell me about the ship. About what has happened.
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[There's so much, and in this, too, is change. Constant change, and seemingly rarely for the better. But this, this is a bright light in what is far too often the opposite of anything good at all.
He takes a deep breath, still taking her in above all else, ignoring the shame of the doubt that he'd allowed to settle in. Second chances upon second chances, all of them he hardly deserves. He won't let this happen, not this horrible future that hangs above his head, ruthless in its hovering.]
The ship is--I've seen better managed. [Which could remain unsaid, and in most cases, probably should.] The rest is complicated.
[She isn't. This isn't. He reaches up to take her hands in his own, pressing his forehead to her own. They'll never make it to the right deck at this rate, but the ship can wait.] I prefer this. Us. If he could give the rest of this up, I would, in a heartbeat.
no subject
Even for him though it is a rather lacking answer. The rest is complicated. It doesn't tell her anything, aside from the fact that it is complicated, but as Padmé looks to him, those questions are banished. He knows something, although he doesn't know his role in her death. That much is clear, yet there is something that weighs upon him.
Times, as much as Padmé hates to admit it, has lost most of it's meaning to her. There are no meeting to attend, to bills to amend. Whatever duties she has had are no more. The Republic she serves, is no more.]
I'm here now, my love. We both are. Whatever comes our way, we'll meet it, together.
no subject
Leia is older than I am. [And to think that used to be the strangest part.] I didn't want to believe it, you'd never said anything about--she looks so much like you.
[Can they keep it here? Just pretend the last four months haven't happened? He swallows back the part of him that wants to leave it here. She deserves to know. Whatever she already does, to not say anything would be tantamount to lying, and he's just declared himself against this.]
We know more about the future than we should. Palpatine, the war, us. What we leave behind. [He searches her eyes them for some flash of recognition, some understanding. Even if he doesn't want it. He knows she's aware of the war in more stark and horrifying familiarity than a visit to the ruined Jedi Temple could ever quite instill. But there's something beyond this that fits between his fall and the future their daughter has outlined, and--] I won't let this happen.
[
If he has a choice.]no subject
There is a small tug on her lips at that statement. There is one thing about learning that you have a daughter, but it is something completely different to learn you have a full grown daughter.]
You learn shortly, my love. You'd been gone so long, and I couldn't just send a communication about it. It just- doing it that way didn't seem right.
[The look of joy that had flooded his face is easy enough to recall. Her own trepidation had been eating away at her, and yet how his face had settled on sheer pleasure. Had settled her heart.
Although it is hammering again when he starts to talk once more. If she could but unravel what exactly he means... But he can't possibly know it all. Only three had been there. Only three knew what happened... Two don't know though. Not yet. And the understanding is in her eyes, a deep rooted sorrow that flashes, although she doesn't look away, but stands firm.
Her thumbs brush against his cheeks and there is that acceptance of fate upon her. That gentle love for him doesn't waver in the least, although her voice is soft but steady.]
I know.
[Two little words that encompass it all. She knows that he won't, and she knows of the Temple.]
no subject
The small smile he offers with that nod is soft, wistful, and far off. He can imagine it, the way she says it. The threat of the Council notwithstanding, he'd have been elated. (It's stranger, so much so, when that news comes from a woman a year your senior who looks the spitting image of your wife and carries a surname of one of her closest colleagues. How the doubt had spiked, another piece of guilt added onto a pile that has grown so frighteningly since he's arrived here). Elated with the thought of a child on the way, a very permanent symbol of their union. Blessings, the both of them.
Or, he imagines he'd think so if the idea had been posited to him in the traditional sense. From his wife, without the interference the Moira provides.]
No, I would have wanted to hear it from you. No one else.
[In that sense, keeping it a secret is still perfectly logical. Almost desirable even. They don't have to share. This idea of family is theirs alone, this love is theirs alone. Private until it can no longer be hidden.
But there is none of that here. No privacy and far fewer secrets.
Still, the idea of receiving that news otherwise still makes him scoff, amused.]
Can you imagine Threepio trying to explain that for you?
[The droid might be his, a product of his own hands and "luck" and skill (and scrap hunting), but he's well aware of the finicky thing's persnickety personality, lost to minor, useless details in too many circumstances to be truly appropriate for any diplomatic setting, let alone one with any urgency.
Still, the amusement fades, quicker once he sees that realization dawn in her gaze, a reflection of his own unsettled discord staring back at him. There's a sadness in it too, so much of it that he'd give anything for her to never have another reason for it, to never experience such upset.
He won't say it. Won't "diminish" her as she's accused him before when he gets overprotective and pushy over details he has no control ove--Force, he is his droid.
With far less tact.Her feelings are her own, insomuch as he doesn't have the ability to tell her to control them, especially not when controlling his own has always been such a point of contention.But the day he figures out how to right this so that grief never approaches again, that's the day he'll have discovered whatever his real purpose as the "Chosen One" is. And if he has to choose between them, destiny might as well get used to the idea of disappointment now.
Padmé's happiness is paramount. He would set stars ablaze for this.]
What did I ever do to deserve you?
[This is a debt he'll never repay. Even with a lifetime of fixing the mistakes of a future he should know nothing of. In the face of his awful breakdown of everything they hold dear in their lives and in each other, and she doesn't back down. Whether its faith, resolution, or sheer determination, she doesn't waver. (Even when something is still clearly wrong.)
This is graciousness that simple thanks can never cover.]
no subject
She had been so frightened and so worried. It hadn't been something that they had ever truly talked about. Yet it had dawned on her that she was not only the wife of Anakin Skywalker, but the mother of his child. Even in moments of worry, that very fact had sent a small shiver of pleasure through her as no matter the galaxy around them, that child was a part of both of them.
In person though, and not over any communication. Yet it had taken so long for him to return that a part of her had started to wonder if he would return to her with a babe already in her arms. Only Palpatine's kidnapping had changed that, and Padmé wonders, now, just what his plan had been for that. To end the war so that he could start his new regime?
It earns a small and tiny laugh, but a laugh regardless.] I don't even think Threepio realized what was going on.
[He is a droid, yes, but even Padmé knows he is far more than that, that Anakin has made him far more than that. He had been built when Anakin was young, and he had not been a medical droid. At the time time, he had been fussy enough to be a mother hen without even realizing it, without even knowing what it meant. Yet Threepio had been cherished as a member of her staff and she could remember that day Anakin had presented him to her. Not as a gift, but as a friend to be taken care of.
But that soberness comes. For all the light, there is still a shadow with it all. His own dreams have led them down their path, visions just as of his mother. While she hadn't dismissed them exactly, Padmé hadn't understood, hadn't known, just where they would end up. She would never have thought to be out in space let alone on Mustafar, yet brick by brick, each piece had fallen in to place, until suddenly there was the picture and she wouldn't say that any one event brought her right there.]
It's not that, my love. Never that.
[A strength to her voice, because it has never been about deserving. With him, it has always felt right, as if she hadn't even realized a part of her was missing until he came striding in to her apartment beside Obi-Wan. It is a warm memory, that, of his words in all their awkwardness. He had grown, and yet there had still been that childishness to him, yet he had been endearing at the same time as frustrating in his attempt.
And she had denied it for so long, pushing him away and keeping it close to her heart, but already he had been in it, as illogical and ill-founded as it had been.]
You are the other part of me, and without you, I am not whole.
no subject
The Force doesn't care to deny this. Has not ever denied it, when he's known of their intertwined destiny long before the Jedi Order ever imposed a rule against it. The Force has a Will greater than all of them, even the Order, and what kind of savior--what kind of Jedi--would he be to deny it?
But sometimes, especially facing all these terrible things he's supposedly meant to do, it feels too big for him. Too generous. But she sounds so certain, and he can't deny her either.
The Force's Will be damned if it disagrees.]And without you, I am lost.
[After a moment in that embrace, longer than it should be, he takes her arm in his own once again, with a small, light smile and a...wink?] Which is lucky for me, tour guide is not my calling.
no subject
Padmé has always had that stubborn streak and has always stood by her beliefs even if others questioned them. Her instincts have often taken her down the correct path, and while sometimes there might be hindrances in the way, she has come to trust them, as she did with Dooku, as she did with her faith in Anakin. She can be there, not behind closed doors in the privacy of the residence, but in public, to offer what need be offered, whether support or a soft reminder. Anything, and everything.
She breathes him in, body, mind and soul, and oh. Yes, there is a small laugh at that. There he is again, the man she wed and loved, with that charisma that draws eyes to him, who people seem drawn to, to simply be within the same vicinity as he. There is a delicate squeeze given upon his arm, the corner of her own lips twisting ever so teasingly up. Small steps. One at a time. But always forward, she promises herself, and while there may be times when a pause is required, never backwards.]
Unless I'm looking for the engine room, I know better than to ask.
no subject
[It's an easier hurt to poke at when it's not much of a secret. When it's so distant, and even the mention feels closer to home and normalcy than much of this ship does.
They start walking again, moving forward, and the subject drops. Always forward.]
What do they have you doing on this bucket of bolts this time?
no subject
Those steps put distance between where they had been and where they are going. Each one seems to ground her a little bit more, to make her almost believe that everything had been just a dream. She's not one to live in fantasy though and acknowledges that it has. At least for her, but that doesn't alter this moment, unless she decides to linger in the past, remain focused solely on that memory, never to move again.
That isn't Padmé though.
Glancing up at him, she gives that soft hum, not failing to not his this time comment. She does watch him, curious as to his reaction to her answer- about whether it is the same or if it is different.] Apparently I am to be a Counseling Operative.
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He nods, wholly unsurprised (especially in that this feels far too small for her...that all of these positions feel small, period), but still, he can't quite quell the curiosity:] What kind of "counseling"?
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And when she does answer that, it is clear that she has studied the job description enough that she has, more or less, memorized it. Then again, the first five or so time she had read it, it simply hadn't sunk in to her mind at all.]
Listening to, and recording, crew members' problems or concerns while maintaining an awareness of any psychological needs.
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He doesn't doubt she'll be better at it that the Order had. She's always been better at it. But it's something he thinks of as a point of intimacy, not...not something shared.]
You've governed an entire planet and they have you worrying about petty things like--if they're not even going to be shy about using us, they could at least pretend to know what they're doing.
[But he's not bitter, no. Not one bit.]
no subject