driftfleet | 02. this is my life now

Who: Gendry
Broadcast: NEVER
Action: On the Iskaulit and the Golden
When: August

The Golden

He'd went to sleep in his nice comfortable bed on the planet, completely oblivious to the notion that the fleet would be leaving that very same night. It was simply one of those things for which he'd had no intention of worrying about it. He woke with a start later because his augment was designed for one thing, which was to tend to the ship's engines. So when the ship began to sound just a bit ragged, he instinctively rolled off the floor the Atroma had unceremoniously dumped him in.

So they were right. He muttered some curses, then pulled himself up to his feet and went to work. After an hour making careful calibrations and monitoring the sensor readings (thank gods he'd learned to read!), he was finally able to return things to what he thought was comfortable. He would afterwards reflect that he really had absolutely no idea what he'd been doing, but the important thing was that the ship hadn't blown up and that this was about the best anyone could hope for. Though as he looked at the contents of what he had to work with, an idea had begun to come to mind.

Some days later, his crew would find him having already removed many of the panels off the stove as he tried to find a way to increase the heat. This was only his preliminary efforts, but he was fully convinced that he could cobble up the components he would need to make a workable forge up here in space. He had the experience, the knowledge, and absolutely none of the permission required to make it a reality.

(tl;dr: find gendry tearing up the kitchen, working on the ship, or paying a little too close of attention to what the exercise equipment is made of.)

The Iskaulit

At some point, someone had the decency to tell Gendry that he wouldn't have to live the rest of his life confined to one tiny ship trying to take things apart in order to stay busy. Instead he was able to live his life confined to several ships, one of which was large enough to be its own sort of marketplace. So one shuttle ride later and he was there!

There was absolutely nothing that interested him. The purpose of the gym eluded him, he didn't want to meditate, he barely could read so books were right out, he wasn't feeling particularly devout, and he hadn't been long enough away from the planet to feel particularly sentimental about seeing plants being grown. So that only left the space bar. With the well practiced ease of a man who spent an awful lot of time on a medieval world, he ordered an ale. What he received wasn't quite as frothy or watery or dirty as what he was used to drinking, but it was certainly a beverage. Eventually a few drinks later and he finds himself sitting on a bench in the public art display, staring at the mural of an artificial sunset.

(tl;dr: gendry can be found at the bar, checking out the art exhibit, or otherwise just wandering the iskaulit taking in the sights for the first time..)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I know."

Voice a little strangled, she paused to clear her throat, looking to the deck as she lost some of her composure. The deaths in the Temple were just more blood on her hands that she would never be able to wash off, but the hurt she'd caused people who believed her to be a good person was much harder to consider.

"Ahsoka is-- I mean to say that she was... close to me. We've been through a lot together. I don't know why I hurt her."

"You believed in something."

It was the only answer he could supply, even as he had long become disillusioned with believing in anything. But when he had, then perhaps he would have done the same. Hadn't that been the reason he'd been willing to part ways with Arya?

"Mayhaps too much."

"I suppose that does sound right, yes," Barriss agreed, still not looking back to Gendry. She wasn't sure why this wasn't an easier conversation to have, but it caught her off guard. Maybe she'd never really been the collected Jedi she thought she was.

"I'm a healer, you know. Or I was. I think the Atroma have been nice with giving me the science augment, since it's a lot of things I already know, or close enough. The only blood I ever wanted on my hands was that of someone I could save." Finally looking to her crewmate again, she spread her hands out to her sides. "And instead I'm this."

He had, by this point, worked through all the residual feelings of mistrust and betrayal that had been imprinted on him. Suspicion still rang deep, but that was all him, because he naturally suspected everyone of being in some way being motivated by some ill intent. Except now that her actual ulterior motive was laid out and exposed, it didn't seem nearly so bad as his own imagination might have painted it.

"You do something bad." It was only a statement, one free of any judgement. "Least you had reasons for it. Some, they don't need reasons. What matters is you don't break."

That had her huffing out a breath of air that might have been something like a laugh, if it wasn't so pained. She appreciated Gendry's straightforwardness, giving her at least a moment to force herself to really think about this, without being face to face with another Force user. It wouldn't last, she wouldn't hold him to helping her in any way, but... for a few seconds, it could be cathartic.

"But I feel as though I already have," Barriss said, shaking her head. "I have my reasons, my beliefs, but I don't have a solution, just... more chaos."

All of it was something he was still chewing on, weighing what he thought he felt about it against when he felt he thought about it. But any desire about trying to be cross with her about the whole thing had withered up shortly after letting it all out. She was lost, as much as he was before being pulled away from Westeros. Only he'd never managed to find himself, despite everything else he'd learned. All this thinking was reflected in his wrinkled brow, his his wide grimace, and the uncomfortable way with which he fidgeted with the screwdriver still in his hand.

"I'm no healer. Wouldn't know where to start if I was. But I know how to fix things. Armor, swords, even this stove here. But you can't fix people." He tapped the side of his head with the flat end of the tool. "At least, not when they're broken up here. You don't look to be there. Not yet."

"Not ever, I would hope," she said quietly. It sounded like wishful thinking now. Some part of her had been aware of just how much the war was weighing on her, how she'd be concerned to see it in anyone else, in a clone or a friend or someone who could be her patient. Now that she knew what she would do in the future and had time in her head to think about it here, Barriss wasn't sure where healing or redemption might be.

"But we'll see about that, I guess. I've never heard of anyone being like this and not just... being a villain on the other side."

"What's so wrong with the other side?"

Gendry couldn't fully confess to have come to forgive the other side in Westeros, but he had been plunged into another war for which he never had any stake. Having seen two sides thrown into that war had made him question what the sides even meant. His so-called enemies among the Unseelie had never seemed all that villainous.

"Of the Republic? More politicians who don't care about the lives the impact? The other of the Jedi are the Sith, corrupt powermongers who feed on darkness and despair and their own self gain above all other motivations. No one wakes up one day and decides they want to be a villain, do they?"

It was best left a rhetorical question, but Barriss was sounding upset now, like there was something stuck in her throat she couldn't quite dislodge. She knew too much about the fate of the Jedi - about the Sith that would destroy them and then bring balance to the galaxy, at whatever cost - to know if she even wanted to be one any longer. If she even deserved to be one, for the thoughts she had and the actions she would take. She found herself worrying that she would agree with the Sith, even as she had to acknowledge the fact that Sith were where Jedi so often went when they fell.

If there was one thing he understood, it was those in power with little concern for those that got stepped on in the way. From as best he could understand, all the wars had broken out because one man died, followed by another. Two men dead and the resulting war killing thousands more. One of them was his own father and he would only too readily admit it wasn't worth it.

"Might be they do, when they realize being a hero gets them nowhere at all."

"I think that's the most convincing argument for the Sith I've heard yet," Barriss replied without thinking, a light (the sort of light that means that someone has given up and levity is their only option) tone before she could realize just what she was saying. Joining the Sith wasn't meant to be something she considered.

"Not that I intend to, of course." Even if Gendry himself didn't understand the full implications of her considering aligning herself with the Dark Side, she owed it to Ahsoka not to think like that. "It's just frustrating, trying to be a hero when heroes never get a chance to win for more than a day at a time."

He didn't really need the full implication. She had called the Sith corrupt powermongers, which was as close as 'basically nobility' as he needed to hear to decide to decide he didn't care for them at all. They might as well have been called Freys.

"Heroes die. Might be they live longer in stories, but the real ones don't. They die or become something worse. Being neither is better, in the end."

"I do have to wonder if it's as easy as that, though." Being neither. It sounded like sitting out, like just watching, and Barriss wasn't sure that she could do that, either. Jedi teachings may have been all about putting thought before action and contemplative meditation, but she'd always been so much more comfortable knowing that her actions and reactions were the best ones for the situations. When that was possible, at least. Maybe it just wasn't any longer.

"If you're neither a hero or a villain, what even are you?"

02. this is my life now

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject