teela knew that her captors would have not let her go easy, even if they allowed her a false glimpse that she could. she fought hard to gain her lightsaber back and now, firmly gripped in her hand and pointed its own working end towards the floor. she would not activate it. she would not make the first strike, even if her injuries and her mind plagued itself with images of vengeance. her gaze was cold, hard, and, yet, filled with fire all the same. but as the rage burned in her veins, she would not let it drive her. it made one act rashly, irresponsibly in battle---though she had done those things. but now, holed up inside a first order base, those acts she had known too well would kill her. she did feel a certain fear, a certain anxiety of losing her life. but she would not show it, but that did not mean she would ignore the feeling. fear could drive you, no matter how mild.
teela cracked a grin, still finding room for quips, even as she faced a possible death.
〝---maybe that was my intention, trooper.〞
Prompt: Phasma deflects to the Resistance with absolutely no memory of her previous life as a captain with the First Order. Character of your choice (Rey, Leia, Poe, anyone) makes it their duty to accustom her to this new life and protect her from those who want to make her pay.
Summary: She remembers nothing, not even the sensation of memories that are now absent. Her being has been obliterated.
Notes: It was really an adventure to write from Phasma POV, with her having amnesia, so I loved it. Thanks for the prompt!
She is one point nine one meters tall, has short blond hair, blue eyes and a long scar on her cheek. The dark-haired, quiet little doctor tells the even smaller woman, the thinking one, that there are more scars.
The small woman has seen them when she came before, when they’d woken her. She sat in the corner, hands folded, and watched. She has a name, the doctor, does as well. She, her, herself, the tallest one in the room, does not.
At least, not any that she remembers.
The Doctor is identified as Kalonia, Major. She, herself, that she, recognizes military insignia. The small woman has none. She’s always quiet, always watching, listening. She speaks to the doctor, Major Kalonia, then leaves.
She needs security the first day they let her out. They follow behind her, a few steps, and the eyes of everyone follow much closer. They stick to her, is that because she’s an outsider? Was she that before she lost her name? Did she ever have one? She must have. Everyone else does.
She sits in the sun, watching the people with names scurry about, fueling their ships. They’re mostly X-wings, Y-wings, a few B-wing bombers. This is a military operation, one that seems to be rebuilding. The specs of the fighters are fresh in her mind. That she knows, and their weaknesses, their strengths, but everything that makes her is absent. Not blocked. She doesn’t have hints, or dreams, anything like that. She is gone.
The small woman said so. She remembers hearing her and Kalonia speak of conditioning, of constructed personalities, and how she had been someone important. Someone they needed.
They was the other they, the opposing force that the fighters were assembled to defend against. Us, was a military of some kind. She belonged to neither, now, but from the way she drew ugly stares, she had been part of them.
Now she wasn’t. Perhaps she had been tortured, turned, had her memory wiped. There was no reason to keep her alive if she’d told them all she knew. She knows a great deal about blaster rifles, technical things, but no one asks her questions. Kalonia, Major, Doctor Kalonia, speaks to her kindly, and doesn’t demand.
She waits three days for torture that does not come, because she’s physically healthy. She runs, lifts, can climb high in the trees around the base. She eats, perhaps more than she should, but hunger is one of the few sensations she can place.
She eats alone, runs alone, showers alone in the barracks, because when she enters with her security detail, the others go. A long, jagged pink scar runs up her belly, and more smaller, older one adorn her legs. She fought, perhaps all her life, to earn the marks upon her. Her fingers brush over them, remembering nothing, even though her fingers know these marks. The scars are hers, whomever she is.
On the fifth day, while she showers mud and sweat from her body after a run, the small woman enters, and begins to take down her hair. Pins slip from the wrap of brown and grey, and she sets them aside, shaking down her hair, which is far longer than she thought it could be. It’s not practical, falling down her back, but it’s so beautiful that she watches far longer than she should.
The small woman strips off her clothes, folding them neatly as she turns on the water and it is not polite to stare, but she can’t help it. She’s been so isolated, so purposely left alone that this vulnerability tugs at her. The small woman also has scars, a web of them on her left side, another on her arm, and her skin has seen many more years than her own. When she turns, she meets her eyes, then smiles, almost gentle, mostly amused.
“Usually they all clear out when I enter, so I know what it’s like. I hope you don’t mind.” The small woman runs her fingers through her hair and she shouldn’t stare. Looking down means she catches the faded marks on the small woman’s belly. She’s had a child, perhaps more than one. It would be rude to ask, impolite.
“No,” she says, and she does have a voice. Her inflection is different than the small woman’s, more like Kalonia’s. Are they from the same planet? “It is good to have company.”
“Your security detail doesn’t talk much.”
“No.”
“They never do.” The small woman gestures her head towards the door and fills her hands with soap. “Mine only speaks to remind that they have to go through a door first, or that I should take the long way through the tunnels.”
“Are you a prisoner?”
“Only feels like it sometimes.” The small woman begins to wash her hair.
She can’t drag her attention away, washing her own short hair was the work of moments, but this takes time, meticulous care. They stand naked beside each other while water falls around them. It’s hardly intimate, but the lack of fear calms her. She can’t be that terrible if the small woman isn’t afraid.
“Do you feel like a prisoner?”
“No,” she says, turning off the water and reaching for her towel. She dries her hair, still fascinating as the water pours through the grey-brown of the small woman’s own. “I am protected, though I am not sure from whom.”
“If you don’t know who might see you as an enemy, it seems like a good idea.”
“You assigned them.”
The small woman nods, shutting her eyes in the water. “Yes.”
“So you’re in charge of this unit.”
“You could say that. The small woman opens her eyes, and this smile beams. “Though it’s been a very long time since anyone has needed to ask.”
“Kalonia asked your opinions, the guards are deferential to you.”
“And you have logic,” the small woman adds, studying her. “What do you remember?”
“I can field strip a blaster in less than four seconds,” she says. “I am of unknown age, though likely around thirty-five, judging by my teeth. I have no children.”
“And I do?”
“Your scars.”
The small woman glances down, then nods, pointing to several scars on her belly. “Pregnancy, blaster, this was shrapnel,” she makes a face and gestures at the largest pattern of scars along her side. “Far too much bed rest.”
“Do you know mine?”
The small woman shakes her head. “Kalonia said you’ve seen combat, more than the average, but you’re in good shape, so you must be a good soldier.”
“Or lucky.”
The small woman gives her hair a final rinse and nods. “Or both.” She grabs her own towel and wraps it around herself.
She grabs another off the rack and hands it over, for her hair.
“Thank you.”
“Of course,” she replies.
“You have the accent of the Core Systems,” the small woman says, wrapping up her hair and then toweling the moisture from her skin. “That narrows down where you’re from.”
“Will you send me back?”
“Only if you want to go.”
She believes her. Standing with her wet feet in the showers, she believes the small woman genuinely wants to help her. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“Then you might as well stay.”
“Am I dangerous?”
The small woman crosses her arms and grins. “Potentially, though I don’t think you will be.”
“I’m not contagious.”
“You were never ill. You had been conditioned, it was broken, the recovery was not pleasant.” Her tone suggests the small woman knows something of what she does not remember.
“I remember nothing of me, of who I am. I can imagine three different ways to break past the guards and escape, but I don’t know where I’d go. The trees extend a long way, further than I’ve been able to run in a day.”
The small woman shifts her towel, then extends her hand. “And you’d be naked.”
“It would be markedly worse than remaining.” She takes the hand, which is dwarfed by her own fingers.
“Leia Organa, most call me general, but you’re not in the military.”
“I imagine referring to you by your name would only draw more attention than I already do.”
The general nods. “Yes, unfortunately, but not from me.” She gathers her clothing and starts to dress, putting on a clean uniform that resembles the one she wore in. Still no details, not insignia.
“What you we call you?”
“It is unimportant.” She starts dress, and unlike the general her outfit is exactly the same. All of her clothing is the same, olive jumpsuits, unmarked.
“But convenient.” The general pulls her shirt back on, lost in thought. “Do you remember any names? Anything you like?”
“I like the sun overhead, and the mud.”
The general smiles again, and shakes her head. “Can’t refer to you as mud.”
“Did I have a name before?”
“You did.”
“What was it?”
“Phasma.”
She tries that in her mouth, wondering what it was like to respond to such a name. “It’s not like yours.”
“We think it might have been given to you, with your position.”
“Phasma,” she repeats, but the name means nothing. It holds no secrets for her. “Who gave it to me?”
“Come on,” the general says, “I’ll buy you a drink and try to answer your questions. I don’t know much, none of us do, but after I tell you, I’ll buy you another drink, and you can decide if you want me to call you Phasma or not.”
