TFA daemon AU
So the actual fic based on this idea is pending, but here’s a “deleted scene”. (i.e. This part is getting cut, but I like it, so I’m sharing it with you.) Enjoy!
DK-724 is angry.
DK-724 is angry.
She’s never been this angry in her life, flushed and shaking with rage. The blue and cream-coloured bird on her shoulder digs his talons into the thick material of her undersuit and lets out a piercing shriek that echoes through the dense forest around them.
The bird. Her bird. Her daemon, her soul, and those bastards took him from her. They took him away, and then they took everything else that made her a person. They beat and carved and coerced her into the shape they wanted, and they marched her out to be cannon fodder.
She’s angry, and these assholes from the Resistance aren’t helping, no matter how much they say they want to.
“I know what you’re going through. I really do,” FN-2187 tells her. He introduced himself as Finn, but she knows who he is. He’s the traitor that started this whole debacle. He’s the reason she knows how much she’s lost.
He’s also the one who let her daemon out and gave her back her soul. She’s too angry to be grateful, but she can’t make herself hate him.
“You don’t know a godsdamn thing,” she snaps. “I might be a deserter, but I’m not a traitor. I won’t play soldier for the Resistance.”
“We’re not asking you to,” says the man standing beside FN-2187. “We can give you a place to stay til you get your bearings. That’s all.”
DK-724 doesn’t know his name, but it’s not hard to guess that he’s The Pilot. The troopers say he somehow seduced FN-2187. The TIE pilots say he’s the best fighter jockey they’ve ever heard of and a holy terror to see in flight. The officers don’t say anything, just make faces like they’ve been offered a plate of shit to snack on.
“I don’t need your help.” She doesn’t. She has her daemon and her blaster. That’s enough.
To her surprise, FN-2187 agrees, “No, you don’t. The last thing you need is somebody deciding what’s best for you, but I promise having someone to help will make it easier.”
She’s about to say she doesn’t want to make things easy, but it occurs to her that might be a little petulant. Her daemon shifts on her shoulder, watching the two men warily.
“Easy? Better?” he suggests, and DK-724 shakes her head.
“We don’t need them,” she says. “We’ve got each other.”
The bird rubs its sharp beak gently against her temple. It should feel strange. Affection is such a foreign notion, but she can’t imagine anything more natural than this closeness with her daemon.
The Pilot’s daemon, an obnoxiously orange astromech, hovers nervously behind him, while a canine creature with deep red fur paces the ground in front of FN-2187, both so different from the daemons of the First Order officers, with their muted colors and cold poise. If anything, these two daemons are more like her own than the others she’s known.
Movement catches the corner of her eye.
There’s someone else there, out of sight in the trees.
Her daemon shrieks, and every hair on her body stands on end.
DK-724 trains her blaster on FN-2187. “This is your idea of helping? Setting a trap?” she demands.
FN-2187 takes a step back, and his daemon growls. “What? What trap?”
“It’s not a trap,” The Pilot says quickly. “Our friend is watching in case we need help. That’s all.”
He moves toward her, and her daemon hisses and raises its wings, threatening. The little astromech warbles, but it’s FN-2187’s daemon that stalks forward, snarling.
What happens next, happens so fast, none of it makes sense until after it’s over.
Before she can even think of stopping him, her bird launches himself off of her shoulder with an ear-splitting cry, talons stretched toward The Pilot’s face. The person hiding in the trees rushes at DK-724, and she brings her blaster around to fire. She has just enough time to register the small woman sprinting toward her when a cold stab of pain cuts her entire being in half.
FN-2187 barrels into her, and they both hit the ground hard. DK-724 scrambles for her blaster, but the strange, cold feeling makes her numb and clumsy. It hurts. Everything inside her hurts, and she can barely put up a fight as FN-2187 wrestles away her blaster and levels it between her eyes.
“How we doing, Rescue?” he calls to his daemon. DK-724 looks over and blinks, wondering if she’s been hit on the head.
The creature has changed. Instead of the pet-sized guard dog, the thing is now a big feline animal, a jungle hunter with long, terrifying teeth, its crimson coat brindled with darker red. It stands protectively over The Pilot, who is on the ground looking stunned, and it has the bird pinned under one heavy paw.
DK-724 can feel the weight as if the creature was pressing on her own chest. The cold inside her is the feeling of her daemon in pain.
“Stop. Please stop. Let him go.” She’s not begging. She won’t beg, but she can’t let them hurt her daemon.
FN-2187 nods, and his daemon gives a parting snarl as it lifts its paw. Instantly, the cold vanishes, and DK-724 can breathe. The bird flops to his feet, hissing and cawing, while the big cat curls itself closer around The Pilot and growls low in its throat.
“How did it do that?” DK-724 asks sharply. Her bird rushes back to her and scrambles to his place on her shoulder with a half-hearted snap for FN-2187. She runs her fingers absently through his feathers, still glaring at her captor. “How did it change? How did it hurt me like that?”
Behind her, the small woman from the trees says, “You really don’t know anything, do you?”
It’s not an accusation or a commentary on DK-724’s ignorance. Instead, the woman sounds like she pities them.
No. Not pity. She’s sad for them. She’s sad for all the same reasons that DK-724 is angry, for all of the unknown loss and loneliness.
FN-2187 sighs and lowers his blaster. “I didn’t know anything, either,” he says, as much to remind the woman as to inform DK-724. Crouching down, he gestures to the big cat now coiling around The Pilot’s knees, at once content and protective. “This is Rescue. That’s Poe and BB-8. This is Rey, and Hinge is around here somewhere.” Addressing the bird, he asks, “Do you have a name, yet?”
The bird answers with an earsplitting shriek, and FN-2187 leans back in alarm. DK-724 laughs, and her daemon nudges her temple in agreement.
“Shriek,” she says. “His name is Shriek.”