continually / unexpected.

jyn erso of rogue one: a star wars story. adored by sam. operating within the kingdomcome rpg. 

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cassian:

He knew that Jyn wasn’t happy about the idea of resting – of him going out and doing something while she sat here and did nothing. They were too much alike, he knew he would be just as miserable if the roles were reversed. And maybe it made him a hypocrite to want to leave her here for her safety, but maybe he also didn’t want to be alone if he lost her. MAYBE HE JUST DIDN’T WANT TO LOSE HER. There were worst crimes.

  His lip lifts upward into a light smirk when she threatens him – a huff of a laugh in his throat, “Where else would I go?” he inquires; though, he truly had no plans of leaving her to her own devices. He was the one who had asked her to stay with him. The fear of losing her was real, whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not.   She’s then grabbing his jaw, and it catches him off guard – on instinct, a hand coming out to grasp firmly at her wrist; grip only loosening when the knee jerk reaction wears off. His brows twist inwards in what seems like confusion – she’s looking for reassurance, despite the unreadable expression on her features. Was she afraid? He had never experienced the fear of someone else of losing him. He was just a number, just a soldier, just a spy – … another rebel lost to the fray. Wasn’t that all he was to Jyn as well?   “ – of course I will come back,” he tells her, his voice without edge this time – his grip on her wrist loosening more so until it was featherlight.

    “I know.” Jyn’s voice rings with warmth she offers to few others. She never dreamed she could ever trust somebody the ways she trusts Cassian, never allowed herself the strange intimacy of letting her walls be taken down by another person in such a way. It’s terrifying -- it’s why she had all but rejected him when she first found him in this strange place where the dead walk the earth. It is why she had wanted to shy away from him. After Scarif, Jyn had changed -- but she still held the fear of intimacy deep in her heart.

    And though Jyn is still afraid, she knows she can be braver than the unfounded fear that settles inside her chest. And so, Jyn kisses him, though perhaps not as softly as she could have. There’s still a fire in her chest that makes her want him in ways she has only just begun to understand. But she tries to be soft for him. Cassian, who has seen the worst of her fire, the worst of her vulnerability as she has seen his own.

    Cassian is everything to her, she knows. Jyn can’t deny that her best friend is somebody she would die for again and again. She’d rip the sorrow from his chest and crush it between her fingers if she had to. And, perhaps, this means that she loves him after all.

    He’s hardly going off to war. She would see him within an hour, at most, if even that. He is more than capable of handling a few walkers that could stray across his path.

    But Jyn still appreciates the ways he wants to take care of her -- and the ways in which he manages to make her stronger, even now.

[starholstered-blog]

@mercyprevails // starter !!

    Jyn took down the last of the two walkers on her own, a swift plunge of her blade into the sides of their skulls, finishing the job with satisfying efficiency. Wiping the blade on her pants, Jyn peers over to the girl -- Sansa -- with a guarded expression.

    “D’you have one of these?” she asks, holding up her blade. “They come in handy. Quieter than blasters, too. And good if one comes too close like these poor bastards did.”

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@suchdarkmatters ( Magnus ) // starter !!

    “We live on the fringes of an apoctalyptic wasteland, and you’ve still got the time to put on makeup. I...can’t say I’m not impressed.”

    Jyn doesn’t wear it herself, but the effort is certainly something to behold. His fashion sense, on the other hand -- Jyn isn’t sure what to make of it. Isn’t sure what to make of him as a person in general.

    She only knows that he does seem kind. 

    “You’ll at least be one step further from insanity than the rest of us, won’t you?”

[grrrlmusic]

The Alien | Manchester Orchestra

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@svnxcursed ( groot ) // starter !

    “Hey -- watch out!” 

    Do walkers even eat...things like him? Jyn isn’t sure. She only knows that several are lurching towards the tiny tree-thing as he plays near the dirt on the edge of town. Faster than anyone could see, Jyn’s blaster is in her hand, firing three quick shots to the walker’s heads as they drop beside the tiny plant. With legs. And a limited vocabulary, it would seem. They had come within inches of him, their snarling, bloody jaws ready to rip him apart before Jyn had stepped in.

    “You alright?” Jyn kneels down, peering at the tiny creature, so unlike anything Jyn had ever seen, even in all her travels back home. She wonders what planet he’s from, when it’s startlingly clear that he must be terribly far from home.

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sarah:

She’s thinking. Always thinking. How is she going to get home? Will she ever see Toby again? He’s growing to be such a strong boy and she fears the last time she saw him would be just that. The last time. One hand is rubbing at her forehead, meal forgotten as her mind eats away at her last bits of sanity. The Goblin King is to blame here. It must be him! Who else has the power to take her away in such a manner? When Jyn speaks up, she’s snapped out of her brain and is placed harshly back into the present moment. She looks to her, a small smile gracing her lips as she shakes her head. Say what you will, that girl can eat. Almost as if she’s been starved her whole life.

“No–. No, you can have it.” A simple answer. Sarah is far from hungry, despite food being scarce she can’t force herself to eat in these times. Not when they’re all being hunted. Despite not wanting to return to such unpleasant thoughts she can’t help but ponder why Jareth would drop her in such a dangerous world. Perhaps this was his revenge for her beating him. Pink lips purse as she sits on that one. “Where do you think the walkers came from?” The woman asks, turning to look at Jyn once again. “Do they have anything like that where you’re from?”

    Jyn gives her a warning look, mildly offended at being denied food. Nevertheless, she pulls her arms close, pursing her lips as she watches Sarah carefully. A quiet girl -- somebody Jyn likely would not befriend. Though, nowadays, Jyn knows you can either be a loner or get better at making connections. And connections keep you alive. Or, at the very least, keep you from going too crazy.

    “No,” she answers after a moment. “And I’ve seen a lot of things. But all this? The dead getting up and walking around...eating people...it’s new. It’s weird. I’ve seen a blind man see things better than anybody with sight...androids dying for their masters as though they actually felt something for them. But never this.”

    Jyn shrugs, eyeing up Sarah’s food once again as she huffs an exasperated sigh. “I’ve stopped trying to understand it.

[starholstered-blog]

I’ve been away for a bit, but does anyone want a starter?

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webbedshots:

leia shook her head at the question of if they know each other. “not personally, no,” she offers a small smile. “my name is leia. when you were around i was probably known as ‘princess’ leia. but now i tend to go for the title ‘general’.” though she was still a princess, that never changed, but she had never been one to let her title give her an ego. “believe me, you and the rest of your team, were crucial to destroying the death star and taking down vader. we couldn’t have done it without you, which is why i’m quick to thank you for all that you did. we held a memorial after everything, and i got familiar with the names of those we lost. i tried to go around and give my condolences to any remaining family members i could find.”

  “Leia -- “Jyn’s eyes blow wide, blinking in surprise as she looks the other woman over, as though taking her in. “Cassian told me about you. You received our message.” With a flash of taught emotion coiled deep in her stomach, Jyn remembers how she cried when Cassian had told her that their message had been received. How, because of them, the Alliance had won, not once, but twice. The thought of a memorial only makes her look away, remembering the faces of those they had lost that day; Bodhi, Baze, Chirrut, K-2SO. Cassian’s men whose names Jyn had never learned.

   General Leia had given them hope. Jyn is no good with heartfelt confessions. Nor is she good with expressing herself in the ways that she sometimes wished that she could. But this is something that mattered to her.

   “Cassian and I had been ready to die on Scarif,” she told her quietly. “The rest of our crew -- they died too. We had no way of knowing for sure if the plans had been received...but you heard us. If we had known that then...” Jyn shakes her head. Nothing would have changed, of course. Nothing important, anyway.

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cassian:

   Cassian was having to resist rolling his eyes at her as he helped her back to sit down – lowering her gently before kneeling in front of her to take her ankle gingerly in both of his hands, scooting her pants leg up to see the discoloration fully before he flickered his gaze up to her and giving a huff of a laugh. “Stop squirming, then,” he tells her; gently probing at the swelling with two of his fingers.    He keeps his attention on it, supporting her foot by this point on the heel of her shoe, “No,” he starts, the teasing out of his tone by this point, “But you definitely sprained it. You need to keep weight off of it for a few days – at least until the swelling goes down, or you might irritate the healing.”

   At this point, he’s now gently lowering her foot back down and standing, “Probably need to find something to wrap it – and, if we’re lucky, maybe something for the pain. I can go looking, and you can rest here.”

    She doesn’t want to rest. And she most certainly doesn’t want Cassian treating her like she’s some broken child. Rationally, Jyn knows people get hurt all the time. They had gotten hurt during their missions for the Alliance, though not seriously. They live in a world infested by the living dead -- a sprained ankle is not going to change Cassian’s view of her.

    The pain, she knows, along with her clumsy way of having received her injury, is making her cranky and irritable. And despite how far they’ve come, despite how far she trusts him, she still feels uneasy being taken care of.

    “Well, at least I know you’re comin’ back for me,” she says with a huff of breath. “You do that -- you come back. Otherwise I’d crack you upside the jaw.” She tries to show him that she’s teasing beneath her irritability. She doesn’t think she’d ever have to do such a thing to him. Wouldn’t dare. Not when he has such a lovely way of holding his face that makes Jyn feel like a girl again --

    Kriff it. Jyn takes him gently by the jaw, studying his face with a blank expression. Debating her choices, here. 

    “You are gonna come back, right?”

[starholstered-blog]

@withoutrequiem ( cassian ) // starter !

    Jyn has a decent pain threshold -- she can handle a hit. She can handle a blaster shot, given that it didn’t hit any place critical. Or a joint. But there’s something about a sprained ankle that turns her into a growling, whimpering mess of pain and frustration that she can’t quite describe. Quite truthfully, she’d rather have been shot. 

    Grunting, she allows Cassian to support her, laughing bitterly at the irony of the situation -- the last time they had helped one another walk had been a moment of tragedy. Now, Jyn is simply being a baby when the two of them both know she’s had worse. Far, far worse. It still hurts.

    She’s watching Cassian expectantly when he settles her down, raising an eyebrow when she allows him to look at it. 

    “Don’t think it’s broken -- “ she growls, pressing her lips together. “It just hurts. Ow -- don’t touch it there, quit it!” She swats his hand away with a grit of her teeth, suddenly hyperaware of their closeness. They had been close when they had looked up at the stars and talked about their past -- closer than they’d ever been since Scarif. But now, Jyn feels hyperaware of it -- like an itch she can’t ignore as she keeps her gaze locked on him. 

[spntunes]

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cassian:

   Cassian kept help but release a soft and pleasant chuckle when she speaks – as the mirror of words he had spoken to her on the beaches of Scarif was not lost upon him. He ducks his head down, envisioning his mother as he remembered her with a ghost of a haunted smile against his lips. He didn’t know if her words were true ; but, coming from someone like her – it felt nice. He had never been told such; and it merely just .. made him think.

    He then sighs, looking back to her in silence for a long moment when she speaks again ; I just hope it wasn’t all for nothing. He could more than understand her hope. HOPE – he had had the same, that his entire life that he had been spent fighting hadn’t been for nothing. That something had been done with his life ; something positive outside of all of the bloodshed that followed him like a shadow. “There is a woman here – her name is Leia Organa. PRINCESS Leia Organa, of Alderaan. She was also with the Rebellion. She .. – .. seems to be from our world’s future.”    He watches Jyn as he speaks, pausing before continuing, “ … she says that we won. That –…. the plans, they helped the Death Star’s destruction; twice. That, eventually, it helped lead to the downfall of the Empire. … – they won, Jyn. And they never could have done it without what our team did ; what you encouraged all of us to believe.”

    A tremor passes through Jyn, accompanied by a sudden tensing of her shoulders as she stares dead ahead, looking at nothing at all. So they had been successful -- not only in delivering the plans, but in toppling the Empire once and for all. Destroying their catastrophic evil, not only once, but twice. Jyn can’t look at Cassian. Not now. Not when hot tears are spilling from her eyes and down her cheeks, making her frustrated with herself which only makes her cry harder. Silently, she weeps, her shoulders hitching, giving away her compromised state of mind.

    And all at once, Cassian’s would-be final words to her come rushing back;

    Your father would be proud of you, Jyn. 

    And for the first time since that dazzling flash of light at the end of the world, Jyn knows that he would be. All she can do is nod, clenching her teeth as her chest wracks with quiet sobs, unable to identify what it is that she’s feeling -- only that she had never felt quite like this before.

[starholstered-blog]

cassian:

          Cassian gives a small, barely audible chuckle before speaking, “– I was not under the impression that you were afraid of me. I did not think that you were easily frightened,” he muses, looking over to her with a slight raise of his brow before looking back up at the sky.

        “ – I learned more about you between Jedha and Scarif than I ever did reading your files,” he admits softly after a moment. “I know that you were born on Vallt. That when Galen Erso went into hiding, he took you and your mother to Lah’mu after escaping Coruscant. I know that you were under the care of Saw Gerrera from the age of eight to sixteen, and then you were on your own. Undisciplined. Unpredictable. Reckless.” The corner of his lip twitches before he drops his eyes from the unfamiliar skies.     “I grew up on Fest ; it’s an Outer Rim planet - covered in ice. It was Industrial – probably still is, but it’s under Imperial Rules now. My mother was a brilliant woman, she worked in a research facility there until the Republic Army raided it during the Clone Wars. After she died was when my father and I left. And I’ve been fighting ever since then.”

    Cassian is right -- Jyn Erso isn’t afraid of much. But the thought of closeness, of intimacy or companionship frightens her, as for so long it had remained uncharted territory. Cassian Andor, a man who was once a stranger to her, finding the intimate details of her life would have frightened her once upon a time. Would have made her feel vulnerable. But it scarcely bothers her anymore. 

    “Well anybody who gives a sixteen year old a loaded blaster and leaves her homeless to fend for herself is bound to be a bit reckless and unpredictable,” she points out with an amused snort. “But...yeah. That sounds about right. My fascinating life story, all laid out for the Alliance to get their paws on.” But the thought of the Alliance makes her uneasy, another hasty glance up at the stars.

    “Your mother would have been proud of you, Cassian,” she tells him earnestly, her voice dropping to scarcely above a whisper. “I just hope this wasn’t all for nothing. I hope somebody heard us on Scarif. I hope we really did...win. Made our parents proud.” She had never really cared about the approval of her parents. But since Jyn had truly made something of herself, she had wanted to be something beautiful. Something proud and strong and fierce as the sun -- something that made her parents’ deaths and everyone else who had fought and died for a chance for freedom worth something.

    That maybe Cassian’s parents deaths could be worth something, too.

[universeartistpost-blog]

[sakura-haruka]

#the way they look at each other

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cassian:

    “There isn’t much to tell,” he admitted when she mused that he had never spoke about where he came from. “Pick up any holo on the history of Fest around the time of the Clone Wars and that will likely be more than enough – I left when I was six. And then that was it –” he gives an unceremonious shrug of his shoulders as he allowed himself to trail the thought off.     In the middle of a war like the one with the Empire, there was no time for learning someone’s past. What was always important was who they were faithful to then – their pasts didn’t and shouldn’t matter. During the Clone Wars, both Draven and Mon Mothma – whom were two of the few people he respected greatly – were both on the side he was fighting, they were both part of the Republic. Their pasts – and his past with the Confederate – despite he might still feel about it all, didn’t matter. No matter, that when it came down to it truly, both sides LOST. It was merely an illusion of what would become the Empire that the Republic won. It did not win, it merely became tainted.    He huffs out another soft laugh when she insisted that she wouldn’t have taken the stuff if she had known it was his ; and, he assumed he wouldn’t get much more of a better compliment from the likes of her. “You do not know that,” he challenges with a light quirk of his brow, expression now slightly unreadable as he looks to her when she claims he’s not as big and bad as he came off to be. He had done some terrible things for the war – the one where they belonged – although, he was sure she had done some terrible things as well; which was likely how they mirrored each other so painfully well. But, even still, he felt at ease around her – it was a curious thing, as he could not remember the presence of another person causing such a feeling for quite a few years ( with the exception of Kay, but one would argue that those circumstances were different – ).

    Still, Jyn seems amused. “Well at least I know now that Fest is where you came from. I’m sure you read all about my detailed file back on Base; probably know more about me than I do.” Which she’s not entirely upset about, seeing as its him. “I know I can read about Fest -- I just think normal humans talk about their past lives. Y’know. Every now and again.” Jyn passes another look up at the stars, sighing gently as they glint against the inky sky.

    “Oh don’t you start,” she says with a purse of her lips, biting back a smile. “You’re no worse than me, Cassian. Nothing about your life can ever convince me you’re as icy and tough as you think you are. Or maybe I just don’t know you well enough.” She feels silly, but for entirely different reasons now -- she’s teasing Cassian. Dancing around the edges of what is and likely not acceptable conversation topics. And Jyn is well aware of how well she’s hovering around that edge.

    She knows Cassian has done terrible things on behalf of the Alliance -- even if she doesn’t know what things. Jyn knows he’s done things he wishes he could forget. Just as Jyn has. But there is nothing that Cassian could have ever done that would change her view of him now.

    “Nothing about you scares me,” she concludes. “Not anymore.”

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clementine:

as her gun is snatched from her hands, clementine’s face scrunches up into a scowl. “what the FUCK, lady?!” she yelled, shooting her a glare. “give that back! it’s my gun.” she crossed her arms over her chest. “i’m nineteen. i’ve had that gun for years - back when the apocalypse started where i come from and i was just a kid. i’ve been using them for years. i know how to handle it and take of myself.” she was trying her best to calm down, but it wasn’t really working. “can i please have my gun back? world’s ended, lady. i’d like to be able to protect myself and my brother.” so the last part was a lie, but that wasn’t something the other needed to know as two sets of brown eyes stared at her, one belonging to the boy practically attached to clementine’s hip.

    Nineteen. The girl isn’t a child. Not by any means. Jyn gawks at her as though she had just been struck. If she really is a child in Jyn’s eyes, Jyn should really be looking at herself, instead. Jyn had been taught to use a blaster -- and to use it well when she was a real child, scarcely older than eight, already being taught to kill. Jyn lowers her arm in defeat -- defeated by a girl who is scarcely younger than her. A girl who has a brother to protect.

    And slowly, Jyn hands the gun back to her.

    “Sorry,” she mutters. “You just -- I. You’re right. I overreacted.” Jyn sighs, wiping a hand down her face with a mumbled curse.

    “I’ve just seen things that make me a little jumpy any time people younger than me are swinging weapons around -- but you’re safer with it. And I’m sure your brother is too. I was shooting guns when I was only eight. Sometimes I forget that I’m not that old.”