Monthly Catch-all

[warfares]

WHO: Kylo Ren and you!
WHERE: New Amsterdam
WHEN: July 1st – July 10th
WHAT: Taking advantage of his newfound freedom, Kylo Ren decides to poke at some tentacle monsters and drink hot chocolate. More or less in that order.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Disturbing content, primarily: blood, gore, tentacles and the amputation thereof. Violence may come up, depending. Will add warnings as needed.

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( 0 0 1 ) » SAFE-HOUSE

[ It's late – or perhaps it's early, when Kylo Ren slips from his cot and pulls on first his borrowed clothing and then his boots.

He heads directly for the hatch.

Climbing the ladder takes far longer than he'd like; before New Amsterdam, bruised ribs would be a fleeting inconvenience. Fuel to drive him forward, if necessary; easily healed, if not. He had followed Clarke's instructions as best he could but shied from doing more than that.

Above, there's a pack stashed and waiting. He collects it quickly, checking its over its contents and before pulling it onto his shoulder. He has a rough idea of where he's headed. With any luck he won't be gone for a few hours. Hardly long enough to miss. ]


( 0 0 2 ) » SAMPLE GATHERING ( cw: eventual blood, gore )

[ He finds what he's looking for several blocks away: two crab carcasses – the smallest little more than a bloodied pulp, scattered across an alleyway. Even the most desperate scavengers seem to have given them a wide berth. 

Good. 

He sets down his pack and pulls on a pair of surgical gloves. There's a more than good chance that he'd waited too long, that there's no venom left to risk, but he's not taking any chances. Even without the venom there'll be something to salvage, to use, to trade.  And while buying goodwill is still a largely foreign concept he is willing to learn, if necessary. To play along for the moment as long as it gets him answers. ]


( 0 0 3 ) » SKY PARK

[ Later that week, the city begins its mourning in earnest.

Ren slips through the crowds like a scalefish, hood raised and eyes keen. He buys a hot chocolate from one of the many street vendors – lured in by the promise of something not containing insects for a change – and sips at it intermittently as he wanders.

Eventually, he finds himself in one of the city's sky parks: a lush, green place that is untouched by the grief of the city below. He thinks, absurdly, of Chandrila. The home he'd given up alongside his name. He remembers being lead through a park much like this, years ago, his small fingers tucked into his father's calloused palm. He shakes his head, as if to dislodge the memory, then murmurs – perhaps to himself, perhaps to anyone nearby: ]  I don't recognize half of these plants.


( 0 0 4 ) » WILDCARD
 
[ feel free to pm me or hit me up at resurrectionist for plotting! ]

Comments

[warfares]

Yes.

[ Scissorfists and caw-crabs, mostly. What they lacked in size they more than made up for in temper and appearance ㅡ an adult scissorfist could easily have put one of these things to shame.

He passes her his knife, then reaches out to find some purchase on the shell. Gold ichor continues to spill from the beast's mouth, spreading across the the floor of the alleyway. Smearing across his boots and his clothing. They should collect some of it, he thinks. It is why they're here. ]

Move the pack and bring one of the containers. [ As he says it the crab tips, landing awkwardly on its back, exposing a chitinous underbelly. The "apron" is large, round, but without a second body to compare it too he could only guess at the gender.

It's irrelevant, anyway. ]

[forcevisions]

[ The knife's out of her mouth so she can speak clearly, but while he talks, she spits to the side because now her mouth tastes like that brackish gold fluid that it'd been bleeding. Awful. Hopefully not poisonous. She stuffs the knife into the back of her pants then instead and moves to rifle through his pack for a container.

He seems to know what he's doing. It's strange to realize he's so methodical and intellectual about all of it. She'd seen hints of it in how he'd tried to analyze their bond, but this — It's different. Rey hasn't had access to anything like that, so it's fascinating in a way to watch. She drags the pack over and hands him one of the smaller containers, which looks better designed for fluid. ]

I'm gonna grab a piece of the tentacles. [ Divide and conquer, right? ] Do you want the skin or should I look for some kind of ducts? [ Her experience with poisonous creatures is mostly functional, not academic. ]

[warfares]

A solid piece, about the size of your palm. [ He plucks the container from her had, unscrewing the lid and then bending to catch some of the fluid. ]

Best to let Morningstar handle the rest. [ They would have a better idea of what to look for, perhaps. Hopefully. He's more or less running on a hope and a prayer right now. ]

[forcevisions]

Sure.

[ She feels ... guilty.

Not markedly. But enough. He'd already planned to do this and pass it to Morningstar, and she'd come out here accusing him of betraying them. She has to remind herself that she'd had every reason to, that it was perfectly reasonable, and that she's cut off from the Force too. He might resent her for sneaking up on him 'blind,' but she's just as limited.

So she's quiet while she fetches a container and cuts off a chunk of the tentacle's tip, plopping it wetly into the specimen container. He'd had all this equipment and everything. Morningstar probably already knew what he was doing. She looks at her fingers as if to gauge if the gloves are going to wear through. They're useless gloves, really. Too thin to protect from much of anything, and they feel oddly slimy on her skin. And dry at the same time. ]

All set over here.

[warfares]

Good.

[ The smell is ... well, it's certainly something. Not rotten, per se, but definitely not natural. Best not to linger.

When he pulls back his hand and lifts the container up to the light, he decides that there's more than enough to test ㅡ possibly several times over. He twists on the cap, making sure it's secure, then heads back to her. She's staring at her fingers, clearly troubled. ]

Here, [ he says after a moment, extending it to her, ] I can take care of the rest.

[forcevisions]

[ She takes the container and looks up at him. He shouldn't be able to surprise her, she thinks. Not anymore. But it does. ]

I'm not leaving.

[ Said bluntly, almost a little offended, as though she thinks he's trying to get rid of her as she takes the sample container from him and starts to stow both back in his pack. ]

[warfares]

[ There's a moment's pause as he considers her, considers pressing her to leave when she is so clearly unsettled, but decides against it. Instead he lifts his chin, an acquiescence to her wishes, and says: ] Pass me a knife, then see if you can collect any of the venom ㅡ [ a gesture toward one of the remaining tentacles, the moisture beaded across the surface of the skin making it shine. ]

Carefully, though. I won't be able to carry you back to the safe-house if you succumb.

[forcevisions]

[ It rankles her.

She knows that it shouldn't. He is only pointing out what they have both already known: that vows exchanged over the firelight in a hut on Ahch-to were just desperate whispers, souls reaching out for something. They didn't stand in the light of day. They are alone, even if she has refused to leave him to that fate with the very intent to drag him back over her shoulder if she has to. She has assessed his bulk and weight and decided herself capable.

He refuses the burden. She's, as a result, moody in how she hands over the knife and grabs a fresh container, occupying herself with the effort of milking venom from a tentacle that is not venomous so much as poisonous and therefore a mostly useless endeavor. The secretions stick to the wet skin. She tries to scrape them away into the container instead.

Her motions are made vigorous by her hurt, the reminder that she is as alone here as she had been on Jakku. Surviving by only her own hand. No Finn or Chewie or Leia or the Resistance. And not him, either. They'd both decided that. The one person who she'd allowed herself to believe understood that bone deep loneliness feels far away, almost foreign.

She clings then to Clarke's insistence that they were each other's people now, that they were all in it together, that they would take care of each other. Rey and Mei certainly had, when it counted. She has people, she tells herself. Just not those she's used to. ]