good evening tungle i feel it’s a nice random reminder to drop on by that ketsu is a complicated individual who may mean well at times but is consistently overwhelmed by her vice of greed and as a result is a generally selfish individual. she isn’t partaking in the rebellion because she wants to per se, she wants to help sabine. she joined on the persuasion of sabine. and that means that since sabine has temporarily suspended her involvement to instead work on resolving the issues on mandalore, ketsu will withdraw as well to help her.
judgement isn’t something he’s well versed in. he’d been on the other end of such a thing on numerous occasions,simply because of his personality or attitude… the way he carried himself, and how he handled certain situations. he’d been accused of a lot, accused of being a lot. this isn’t something he wishes to do to anybody else yet he knows this entire circumstance is very much taking that path. sabine wasn’t his daughter —— not by blood, anyway, though family wasn’t necessarily who you were born with, but rather who you’d die for… and he would die a million times over for the young woman.
tongue is bitten when the other speaks, the mug of tea placed on the nearest flat surface with a gentle sigh. he isn’t really trying to be mean, and it certainly isn’t in his nature… not unless the other party is deserving of it, and she doesn’t strike him as such. good intentions weren’t always executed in the best way. he often had to remind himself that he’d lost his way years ago —— he wasn’t the kindest person in the galaxy, and he’d hurt plenty of people himself. physically and emotionally. it was human nature.
❝ she’s as much my daughter as she is to her own father. i would turn this galaxy upside down for her. ❞ hands push against the armrests of the seat, form raising to his full height, and arms fold across a broad chest —— action not meant to be intimidating, merely habitual to who he was. ❝ you would protect her no matter what it costs, right? understand that i would do the same. regardless of what that means. you hurt her… i don’t know much about it and honestly, it isn’t my business. ❞ his gaze meets her then, brows softening. ❝ —— not everybody gets second chances. don’t ruin this one. ❞
family is, on her spectrum, a rather taboo subject rarely ever brought upon. not even sabine could pine information from her no matter how persistent ---- it simply went unspoken. one would ask what became of them and what became of her, because surely something had happened to make her so calloused and mean spirited. and she would reply that they were as good as dead ( half a lie ) because as far as she needs to be concerned, they are dead. irrelevant. and not missed. this negativity does not derail her common sense in knowing a good family when she sees one; sabine seems anchored here, she has harbored herself in this company after being down trodden on luck and wounded in more ways than one. this pleasing realization would be enough to bring a smile to ketsu’s face were it not accompanied by the ugly, everlasting reminder that she is the cause for this predicament.
somehow, the same instinct which had forewarned her that kanan did not like her much had been correct on the relation assumption; he is something of a father, truth be told. maybe not by looks -- but it is an unbreakable kinship, a bond that could not replicated or replaced if ( stars above forbid ) it were lost. unconsciously, a flicker of relief emanates in her violet eyes as she watches him set the tea down. although, honestly, why had she been preparing herself for him to toss it at her? still, the pacing in her heart is uneven and quick. it really feels as though she’s dealing a proposal situation, which . . . someday . . .
❛ ----- trust me, i’ll shoot myself dead ‘fore i screw up another chance like that. ❜ the quip is spoken brightly and confidently, although dread reeks hidden somewhere. she is absolutely petrified of ruining everything once again. she doesn’t even know how she could do so, she just fears she will. her hands are shaking but she abruptly hides them by closing them together, the hold tightening ‘til a practical death grip. ❛ y’know i figured that about you, the whole father thing. she doesn’t exactly say it but she’s got a way of showin’ it, of showin’ that she cares. so all that stuff you said ‘fore about turning the galaxy upside down and whatnot? i hope you know she’d do the same for all of you. ❜
❝ what d’you think? ❞ hands gesture around the bedroom —— it isn’t anything spectacular, but she’s finally making it feel more like her own. the addition of having ketsu with her on krownest has helped. ❝ it’s not as nice as the one on the ghost, but… it’s more, uh. ❞ her gaze averts here, and she coughs, mentally kicking herself for leading in like this. ❝ more private. ❞
brows slowly raise up, nodding along with the conversation as it poorly trails onwards. this situation captures the stark difference between them ; whereas sabine lacks the skill in dropping subtle hints, ketsu is not subtle in general on any subject. she tells things as is. still, she’ll play along if only for the other’s sake. but if this drags out into another painful few more minutes, she is going to outright suggest a change of scenery. preferably the throne room.
❛ yeah, i can tell. ❜ nodding along slowly, finally answering after a few awkward seconds of silence. the small she gives is a small, funny looking one as its the best she can manage without bursting out into laughter. the art of flirtation does not become them, it seems. not everyone has refined mastery skills in romancing. ❛ so ---- any other changes? softer mattress? waterbed? silk sheets -- ? ❜
mouth had begun to form around the phrase ‘not really’, though he’d stopped himself, bit his tongue and looked onward towards her. trust was a rare commodity in this galaxy —— rarer than even the most pristine crystal, and undeniably just as valuable. sabine hadn’t been his biological daughter. perhaps he wasn’t in the right when it came to his judgmental tendencies… or the necessity to protect. this girl, unfortunately, hadn’t struck him as having the greatest of intentions. ❝ what gives you that idea? ❞ he finally speaks, distracting himself with the stimtea in front of him, gaze adverting elsewhere as he takes a long sip.
she has dealt with far worse in conversations, and there are certainly far worse ways to promptly crash and burn said conversation. an incessant warning arises in her head that he is going to probably lurch the stimtea in her general direction as a convenient burn -- honestly, the advantages and getaway excuses are open opportunities. except he doesn’t strike her as cruel; the very thing which she is trying to convey to him as well. but she knows she deserves every bit of skepticism & judgement as opposed to the tolerable welcoming she had been dealt with otherwise.
❛ well, believe it or not, subtlety ain’t your forte. i picked up on this a long time ago. ❜ a soft laugh, a reactionary response. by no means is she taking this a joke, and her gaze turns solemn thereafter. ❛ look i ---- i want you to understand i’m trying. i really am. i hurt her, i know i did. and i can’t change it, hell, i don’t know if i can fix it. but i’m trying and ... i want you to like me, to trust me. ‘cause i know that means a lot to her, you mean a lot to her. ❜
❛ sure, we had some bad times. but the good always made up for it, didn't it? ❜ a somber smirk, but one with lingering friendly smugness. ❛ -- 'sides, now we got nothing but the good ahead of us from here on out. ❜
there’s still an awful lot of darkness that lingers around the edges of their history, a lot of bad blood that stains the pages and threatens to seep into the ones that have yet to be written. she doesn’t know if she can say that the good has made up for the bad, because the bad is still there ( never forgotten, despite being forgiven —— the bad left more than physical scars, after all, ones that even the best healers can’t repair ). but she doesn’t say that. instead, ❝ mostly. ❞ is her response, said with the softest of smiles curling one corner of her mouth.
she doesn’t know what the future holds —— she doesn’t know how to look towards the future instead of keeping her gaze turned to the past ( it happens when one’s born into a war, she supposes: it happens when one grows up under the thumb of the empire ).
it’s going to take time. the empire has fallen, but there’s damage to be dealt with, first ( is it the damage that can be repaired? she has her doubts ). she supposes all she can do is continue playing her part —— continuing leading her people, continue building now that the practices are no longer outlawed. continue to heal and grow with ketsu.
so she nods, extending her hand to lace fingers in-between ketsu’s own. she ignores the feeling that threatens to surface, that threatens to remind her that good things seldom last where her happiness is concerned. she shakes her head; it’s a happy time. a time for celebration. she swallows down every horrible feeling, and smiles ( more genuinely, now ). ❝ you’re right. for once. ❞
a woc with a prosthetic right arm due to an bounty hunting incident gone wrong and still years later occasionally struggles with handling / coping phantom limb syndrome
a lesbian in love with sabine wren.
a dedicated individual who works very hard alongside having the ambition to be affiliated with organizations she wants to be part of
a former member of black sun who immediately discarded said membership
a current semi-undercover intel source / member of the rebellion
both of the former above being because sabine gave her the chance to do right
someone who has made many mistakes but tried her hardest to do as much as she can to fix them
❝ how did this happen? ❞
❝ ---- somethin’ stupid. happened a while back. ❞
❝ how? ❞
❝ it doesn’t matter. it’s done. it happened. ❞
truth be told, she has so few memories of the event. it isn’t as though these are repressed. she experiences a strange feeling of lightness in her chest, that then sinks further and churns into something of a sickening in her stomach. so long as she does not think about it, the ill feelings leave. but the sight of burnt bone and torn flesh, what little recollections she has are images which spring forth in blurred, wavy flashes. and she feels nothing, truly.
so long as it is covered up.
there are other priorities. she is hard-pressed for time and fixated on the other issues in life, mostly pertaining to the forces which want to end hers. adrenaline is an endless supply that causes her muscles to coil and tense, it will come back to haunt her in the later hours of nightfall by a soreness that is soothed only by laying down. she doesn’t focus on it, because it is pain by an extension, and pain is nothing more than a distraction. if she fixated on pain so much by any means she would never be able to function, never be able to sleep, never be able to do much of anything.
oh... wait.
she laughs it off. because, again, she hardly remembers it. it goes away, the issue is resolved beneath layers of clothing and finalized with a seal of her armor. one minute it exists, in the next it doesn’t.
the entirety of her right arm, shoulder proximal to hand. she recalls bits and pieces. it had been a tense shootout, something had gone wrong on someone’s end. recall the quota; black sun gives no second chances. but everyone out here in these badlands have two policies ---- 1) no snitching and 2) no surrender. it was never going to be easy. at some point there’s a bomb. is it hers? is it someone else’s on someone’s side that happened to roll by? there’s an early detonation, she thinks. and there was never a warning. perhaps no one had seen, no one had cared. fighting amongst them is unlike fighting alongside sabine; looking out for one another and remaining keenly aware of the environment. where one’s senses failed, the other supported. she chose to enter the lion’s den alone and found herself running with packs of hyenas, self centered and sadistic. but sadism does not make up for in account to experience, nor to wisdom. in one instance she is alone, in the next she is engulfed by fire.
she’s fairly sure she screamed. who wouldn’t? it’s unreasonable, inhuman to not to. she can boast her pride all she likes in her stride and in loud words, but only a fool would claim invincibility in the instance it happened. all she knows is she was engulfed. it was a brush of warmth so sudden, escalating in seconds to scalding white-hot. it was so intense it was a pain she could not comprehend, her nerve cells were vaporized as well as bone. had the armor saved her life or had it been a curse ---- ? damned for what she had done to sabine beforehand. leaving one for dead is almost as rotten as being in a deathless state, longing for a merciful end. but one cannot beg for this, it is the quickest way to lose honor. and death without honor is an unspoken horror, going against everything she stands for.
in her clouded visions which lasted for no more than a few seconds or so, there had been something in front of her. it was within arm’s reach ( ha! ) but made no effort to grab for it. or perhaps she had and failed to realize she was staring in the face of her own limb torn from her socket as a result of the impact? nothingness followed. darkness followed. she does not know who found the goodness within their heart to not leave a comrade for dead and to bring her back. she does not know how properly treated her arm was, although an inkling of a feeling lingers that it had not been done by a professional nor med-droid. some days there was pain. there was a fire that she could describe to no one. she was screaming again, she was trapped in delusions. there was something still there. if she closed her hand, she made a fist, there were fingers curled beneath palms and there was blood pulsating through the veins traveling through that arm. something had to be salvaged, but then she looks in the mirror and sees the remnants of a mortified stump beneath bandages.
the prosthetic had brought her relief to an extent, yet agonized everything further.
it fueled the fires of her delusions further for weeks on end, although she was cautious to keep these to herself. this incident nearly destroyed as a whole. aside from the near death incident. it could have cost her the hard-earned membership, the affiliation that she so desperately sought for. all the sacrifices made, all the promise reckless destroyed only for this last bit to be forsaken from her hold. uselessness. ( she would rather kill herself than hear those words ; and then she remembers she has said far worse to others. to someone else. ) rehabilitation is odd to think about. because nerves seemed alighted once more and something was there, a weight had been added and balance was restored. adaptation is her forte or so she likes to think.
retraining, relearning, remembering the aspects of fighting. the methods she had been using for all of her youth, for as far back as she could remember. all of those had to be adjusted. that was where the frustration in the recovery process lies. and even then, she still does not like to dwell on the memories -- let alone speak of them, no matter how much sabine persists on her end for an answer -- because she simply cannot. she can’t. talking about it as a whole and having to think long and hard causes long cold ashes and lingering embers to conjoin, to reignite. she is not in pain by any means but her face is restrained, she is withholding something here.
please don’t ask me these things again.
it is only fair. sabine remembers two brown arms, not one and the other a semi-worn looking silver with all the good nuts an’ bolts in place of skin, wires as opposed to a pulse. it’s permanently cold no matter what she does, and she has tried on her end to do whatever she can to warm it up somehow. but how is she supposed to know if it works anyways. for sabine, it must be like sleeping in a stranger’s arms. although, a malicious side cannot help but add, a stranger’s arms is more welcoming and more deserving than yours.
❝ it just happened. ❞
❝ it wasn’t supposed to. ❞
❝ y’say that like you could’ve stopped it. ❞ ❝ if i had been there, i could’ve. ❞
. . .
abjure:
/abˈjo͝or,əbˈjo͝or/ ( v. formal )
solemnly renounce (a belief, a cause, or claim)
renounce:
/rəˈnouns/ ( v. )
refuse to recognize or abide by any longer
reject:
/rəˈjekt/ ( v. )
3rd def. fail to show due affection or concern for (someone); rebuff.
synonyms for reject include: shun, discard, abandon, forsake, desert.
these are the words which mark her; these are hideous, black stains that cannot be erased from her record much as how blood never washes off from one’s hands. but the difference is with the latter, at this point in time, a sense of indifference has overcome her by now -- the methods are mundane routines exercised based on a need to survive.
survive:
/sərˈvīv/ ( v. )
continue to live or exist, especially in spite of danger or hardship
some nights she reminds herself that she had no choice. if needbe, the blame is thereby processed onto sabine -- but she tries to refrain from thinking, let alone saying aloud, her name. to speak a name creates an image, it draws a memory stomped into the dust. all things buried can resurface, whether by years of weathering away and rising with the rain or by shaking hands that impulsively claw at the ground til’ fingernails crack and bleed against all odds, to revive what once was hers. sabine. there is a face in memory and a mouth on her mind; but that face is crinkled, eyes clouded and brimmed by tears, and her mouth -- when not curled into a scowl rightfully turning her away -- is unable to hold back unruly sobs.
you did this. a motto, spoken in repeat over and over ‘til the pain wears off and instead it sounds monotonous. she has yet to achieve this goal. instead, she finds herself speaking it so many times until basic no longer sounds coherent and her tongue is twisted ( the influence of alcohol on the fitting occasion may be partly responsible ) and finds herself wondering what the use is. you did this to us. she is an artist so here is the blank canvas, here is the soft clay in her hands to mold as she pleases. here is the task ; paint sabine into something she is not. the character of a story, the aspect of life which ketsu has control over. craft her into a selfish character who, because of morals or weakness or what have not, she was holding back. sabine is the reason she would not have been able to reach her dreams. their dreams. ours. you ruined us.
you left.
how could sabine have been the one to leave when she was on her knees. she is a true mandalorian and she will die on her feet before she ever crawls on her knees. how could sabine have run in the face of danger. how could sabine have turned her back at any point in the event when her eyes were on her the whole time, when her eyes never left even as ketsu’s had turned away -- the severing of a rope, the end of a dynasty. it was childish. it had been a game. she had held her back. but had it been all that bad? ketsu cannot think of a single thing that had been missing in their lives, the sole striking difference between the so-called adventures with sabine and the present.
uncertainty was nothing new. together, they became fixated on surviving day by day. stressful as it might have been, it taught them a few things. it taught ketsu things she could have never learned even as one of the former top students of the academy -- second only to sabine. appreciation had been a foreign concept beforehand. now they knew it in the form of solace, of a secure shelter with functional heating, and a meal or two to get them through the days. entertainment was cherished amidst laughter from insight jokes and harboring on melancholic memories, nightmares were tolerated, a respected space of privacy given to the other when needed to be left alone. that never lasted long. warmth shared between them as they slept, clinging onto one another’s forms like anchors drifting in place; unsettled, but grounded. while not wealthy, there was enough. there were bad times, sure. but were they really all that bad? the good had outweighed it for the most part, the good would redeem it. the good would always come.
regret
/rəˈɡret/ ( n. )
a feeling of sadness, repentance, or disappointment over something that has happened or been done.
you ruined us.
( and by that point in time, ketsu is no longer thinking of sabine as she repeats this motto. )
dededos
areudirty
vaporwave
turnnoffyourmind
titsay
jacobvanloon
