htormak:
The caf has thoroughly burnt his tongue but, really, it’s not the worst thing to befall him after a trip to the mess hall. The sharp bite of it jolts him back awake long before the caffeine itself does, the half-lidded set of his eyes widening in spite of the hour. It’s late — early? — and he can feel it in his body, in the way his back stiffens and his leg becomes increasingly difficult to force along at a normal, steady gait. But there’s still work to be done, recruits to help process, a base to rebuild, and no one has ever accomplished anything by simply lying in bed.
It isn’t until he reaches a desolate corridor that he allows his injured leg to relax a bit, less focused on making it match the uninhibited range of motion of the other limb and more on just reaching his destination, steaming mug of a bitter, dark liquid cradled carefully in his right hand. It’s in this corridor that he encounters an outstretched pair of legs a few yards in front of him, a sight that gives him pause but doesn’t particularly surprise him. It’s not uncommon to find the occasional weary recruit or exhausted medic seeking a moment of quiet reprieve in some secluded corner.
What does surprise him, as he approaches, is the detached, unblinking gaze of the figure — a young woman. Shellshock? It wouldn’t be a stretch to think so; the events on D’Qar unfolded so quickly that some are still trying to process how, after such a stunning victory as the destruction of Starkiller Base, their own headquarters could be overrun and abandoned. Or maybe it’s just something else entirely.
“What’s this, then?” he asks, supposing that with the right set of ears his tone could be taken as gentle — or as gentle as it could be, in any case. Genuinely concerned, even. “Hm?” The lieutenant crouches, ignoring the stiff ache in his leg as he tries to determine if he’s ever encountered this woman before. “This is a shitty hour to be awake at.” A pause. “You been assigned a bunk yet?”
It takes Reiko a full minute to register the footsteps encroaching on her, the telltale presence of another human being in an otherwise sterile hallway. She hears the creaks and groans of leather and fabric- they’re at her level- he’s at her level, she recognizes, but who is he? Familiar and unfamiliar, a face not entirely processed in her ruinous oblivion of a memory. What else was new?
Still, she makes the slightest effort to skim through her limited array of faces; there’s the people at the medbay, but he looked too rugged to be a medic. Older, wiser, his hands probably calloused with the sheer workload of being in his position- what position?
she’d go in circles forever like this.
Instead of playing mind games with herself, she sticks to a near painless, resolute way of speaking, and perhaps he would not think her rude; just strange and painfully unfortunate.
“A while ago. I’m not too new. Just,” She pauses, looking for the words. “Lost. Lost at the shittiest hour to be awake at, I suppose, whatever hour this is. Shouldn’t you be finding yours?”
