The Force shall free me (Theovan, Old Republic LARP)
The new crash brought an influx of Force users and abundance of corpses in the Boneyard for them to mourn quite stoically. Van bounced around the grey Force users like a hyperactive puppy. She was eager for knowledge, standing on a shaky foundation cobbled together from selective teaching, hearsay, and intuition that never fostered discipline or independence. She had lived under strong leadership since she was 7. She clung to recently found aspirations of neutrality. Her eagerness had pulled at the end of a leash, and she was unsure of what to do with no one holding it. Someone could have grabbed her collar if they wanted a dog. No one did.
Within a week, Van slipped the collar like a cat. The sulking, moping, and hissy fits she'd thrown when she first arrived gave way to excitement at having choices. Patrolling, scavenging, defending repairs -- working to eat wasn't a matter of taking constant orders. There were expectations and limitations, but no personal guidance. She threw herself into a fight against droids because it needed to get done, and threw Force lighting because she didn't want to die. She spent time in the Sith shrine considering how to use power to gain freedom rather than just survival, and what that even meant. She fought the worry that it was too late to learn how to fit in without falling in. Where she lacked a plan, she had reactive determination.
She was told Iteration was a terrible place and it wasn't possible to have been somewhere worse. But under control had been, in very recent hindsight, somewhere worse. She did not want to go back.
Iteration, Derriphan (May 2018)