annexedlogs | Relief Log #2

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Relief Log #2

I. In The Aftermath

After the mission is complete, the new recruits are invited back to Central Command for a patch-up and celebration to let loose and socialize a little bit.

The first order of business is the patching up. Anyone who was injured is welcome to go to the Hospital, if the injuries are more serious. Everyone else, those with smaller injuries like scrapes and bruises, minor cuts or burns or abrasions, are welcome to come to the Infirmary in Central Command. There will also be attendants that tell returning new recruits that if they'd like to learn a little first aid and tend to their comrades, they can also head to the Infirmary.

In the Infirmary, anyone who's not injured but shows up will be instructed in basic first aid so they can tend to their teammates and friends. Nurses will be rotating around to check in on people and make sure nothing is more serious than it looks, but generally, the new recruits will be encouraged to tend to their teammates in order to encourage group bonding.

II. A Fine Meal

On an evening a few days after the mission is complete, all the extra-universal new arrivals will be summoned to one of the large meeting rooms in the Central Command for a feast. When they arrive in the room, it is decorated with orange and brown streamers and fall iconography - bundles of twigs and dried flowers, bundles of fragrant herbs, dried pumpkins with faces and fall scenes carved into them, and other decorations. In the center of the room there is a large table laden with delicious-looking fall foods - poultry birds so large they had to have been roasted on a spit, huge roasted portobello-style mushrooms, mashed tubers, gravy, stuffing, bean casserole, candied yams, mooncakes, boiled spicy crayfish, roast herring, various types of stews ranging from traditional stew to fish stew to mushroom stew, and tons of desserts like tarte tatin, ice cream, apple crumble, pumpkin pie, and almost any other fall food you can think of.

Characters will be invited to sit around the table and feast together, while quiet music plays in the background, facilitating conversation. Some of the rebels have volunteered to keep restocking the table as people wander in and out to sit at the table and eat in rough shifts, and these volunteers will encourage characters to share things they're thankful for, things that make their lives better. All of those things that make life worth living, that make the fight worth fighting.

On a table near the door to the room, there is a stack of beautifully cloth-wrapped bento-style boxes that characters are invited to take with them. They are told by volunteers that these boxes aren't just leftovers for later, but a necessary component of the night's test of courage. They encourage characters to take one and participate, as it's a particularly bright feather in the cap of anyone who undertakes it.

III. The Skyclad Light Show

Once the feasting throughout the late afternoon and early evening is about complete, characters will be invited out into the courtyard of the Central Command for the evening's entertainment. The courtyard is essentially a small but beautiful park, with benches, patches of grass, a few ornamental trees and gardens, and plenty of places to spread out a blanket (provided by friendly volunteers!) and watch the show. And what a show it is!

Every year around this time the Skyclad take magical lights that trail behind them, and put on a spectacular light show in the sky. Streaks of vibrant color follow each hoverboard as those riding them in the sky flip, twirl, dive, and perform other feats of hoverboard artistry for the crowd below. The show goes on for about 45 minutes, with the Skyclad twisting and twirling, drawing beautiful designs against the evening sky.

Characters who really bonded with their hoverboards and took to tricks and flips and kicks after the mission would have been invited to participate, especially if they were interested in joining the Skyclad. The Skydance, as they call it, is quite highly choreographed to avoid midair collisions, all with the goal of producing something truly beautiful and ephemeral. Try not to choke!

IV. Night of Remembrance

The final tradition of the evening is a solemn remembrance of the warriors who have fallen in the fight against the Sylphid. After the Skydance, volunteers would have set up another table of those bento boxes from earlier as well as little bags containing 5 mandarin oranges, and would brief the people in small groups about the traditional Night of Remembrance. The Night of Remembrance is a really big deal among the Witches, and is a great opportunity to prove yourself if you're looking to gain respect and rise up the ranks, as it's also partially a test of courage. The tradition involves taking leftover food from the feast to the shrine at the cemetery in the Mages Sector in order to 'prepare a feast' for the dead and honor those who have fallen, and offering oranges to the fallen along the way. The food must still be at least a little warm when it's presented to the spirits. Sounds simple, right?

Once characters who wish to participate find their way to the cemetery, they will discover a couple more volunteers with a variety of lanterns. For some reason, nothing electric, battery-powered, or at all technological will work in the cemetery, and they haven't for as long as anyone can remember. Any light source must be either very old-school or magical in nature, and texting someone for help would be completely impossible. But why would you need to call someone for help?

Well, it wouldn't be a test of courage without a little danger, right? On this night, every year, the spirits in the cemetery are stirred up and come back into the land of the living. Yes, ghosts do really exist. The ghosts have a variety of temperaments - some of the ghosts are very pleasant and will chat with people for a while before accepting their orange, some are playful and mischievous and will play pranks on people coming into the cemetery (these pranks are sometimes harmless and sometimes very not-harmless), and others are angry and resentful at being dead and won't hesitate to viciously attack interlopers. Some of the more unfriendly ghosts can be calmed down with pleasantries and shows of respect, but others cannot be and will continue to attack interlopers until offered one of the oranges that they've brought.

There are two types of lanterns available: traditional lamps that are simply a candle in a glass bell that can be easily carried with a ring on the top, and magic lamps that attract spirits and appear as a glowing blue-green orb floating in a glass bell fitted with a ring for portability. People carrying traditional lamps are seen as quite brave, but those who take a magical lamp are absolute legends.

Participants will need to take a bento, some oranges, and a lantern of either variety, present the oranges to various ghosts as they make their way to a shrine on the other side of the cemetery, where they will set out the food from the bento as beautifully as possible...and don't let that food get cold, or your offering will be worthless - who wants congealed gravy and soggy stuffing?! At the shrine, they will find an assortment of delicate beaded charms attached to the branches of a large weeping willow tree. These are protected by magic, and can only be taken by someone who's completed the tradition. They will light up a different color depending on what kind of lantern the participant is carrying. These charms will provide a one-time magical boon to whoever takes them.

Characters carrying traditional lanterns will find their charms lighting up orange and these charms will, when used through the calling of a keyword by either Heba or Tian characters, summon the spirits of the dead in an area with a radius of around 50 feet to attack an enemy or group of enemies. The keyword can be set simply by speaking it to the charm. This charm can be offered to another person as a gift or kept for the character's own use, and can be used only once. If the charm has been gifted to someone, it will turn red, but will still be functional.

Characters carrying magical lanterns will find their charms lighting up blue and these charms will, when carried on a character's person, provide one resurrection from death without the loss of memory that usually comes as a side effect of resurrections. This charm can be offered to another person as a gift or kept for the character's own use, and can be used only once. If the charm has been gifted to someone, it will turn purple, but will still be functional.

Regardless of which charms are given, characters are encouraged to show them off as evidence of having participated in the Night of Remembrance. Anyone who is gifted one of these charms should be grateful, they are regarded as high-value gifts to be given only to someone you care about a great deal. Many people, regardless of whether they've earned the charms themselves or been gifted them, will attach them to their network devices to show them off.

NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Discussion isn't needed. The Force knows, and bonds transfer emotion. Vader could sense what neither of them seemed to be able to say.

"She would have great teachers in Queen Organa and Senator Organa. And her sprite is quite like her mother's. Padmè lead a counter invasion at fourteen, with a handful of teenage girls, an ageing Jedi well past his prime, a Padawan, an exslave boy, and only a dozen royal guards who had no combat experience. The invasion was designed by Palpatine, who used his knowledge of Naboo's pacifistic culture against them and backed with the wealth of the Trade Federation. And she won." His voice barely changes - but his feelings? It borders on worship.

"If he's a like me as he's been shaped to be, he won't want that seat. And he's can be nudged on the right path."

Vader's probably going to have to be the one to clue either of the two of them in, in that case.

Rey listens with increasing interest as he speaks of Padmè, and for not the first time feels a pang of regret that she hadn't gotten more of a chance to talk to her. She would've had some applicable advice to the situation back home, Rey's sure.

As far as Kylo's desire to rule the galaxy goes, she's less certain.

"If he doesn't want it, he's got a strange way of showing it. He could've walked away."

With me, she doesn't say aloud, though the thought's right below the surface. Now that they're no longer at odds with one another she's begun to accept that maybe Kylo's intentions had been closer to her own than she'd thought.

Can't he just smack them both upside the head?

"That's not as easy as you think. This has been his entire adult life. More. After a time, you've done so much, given so much, walking away doesn't feel like an option anymore. That ship has long since jumped to hyperspace and left you in it's wake." Was he talking about Kylo or himself? Or both? And how much did that matter?

Someone probably should.

Rey is quiet for a long few moments as his words sink in, during which she regards him with some seeming new understanding. Perhaps she's starting to see that the similarities between him and Kylo aren't necessarily bad.

"How do I help him see that it isn't too late to choose another way?"

What would you believe?

Give him time then.

Vader is quiet for longer than Rey was, looking straight ahead. But it's not difficult to see the almost violent twitching of this muscles where they attach to the cybernetic bases, even through his clothing. It's not difficult to feel him either, the hurt, the betrayal, the rage, the pain.

'Then you are truly lost.'

"There isn't a way back for me. It's too late." It's resigned. Not angry or prideful, just resigned. This was his life. "But it needn't be that way for him. Give him an anchor which won't yield it's hold, not to anyone, not even him. Know, believe he's better than the worse he's ever done, don't let go. It's a battle he must fight, but one you have to win. The Dark lies. It whispers beautiful promises or screams terrible fates, but it's all a trap. And I made my pledge. But it. He. Can't have my grandson."

"He'll listen to you. He and I have hurt one another; that makes it complicated. But he looks up to you. And I don't think it's too late for either of you, not as long as we're here."

Rey isn't sure she's capable of being that anchor, not when they're away from here. Not when he's faced with another choice. Not when she doesn't have anything to offer but herself.

Her only hope is that they have enough time in this place to come to understand one another. If she can get him to actually want to meet somewhere in the middle, she'll deal with the rest of the Resistance once they're a factor again.

"And here I am supposed to be the blind one." He knows how they react to each other. "But I am trying to help him. This isn't an existence I wish for him." And he knew what Palpatine would do.

Those Dark Side aligned aren't likely to compromise, but there had been exceptions. He can nudge, and he would.

Rey isn't going to argue the point; she and Kylo have to work out their issues with one another on their own. But that doesn't feel impossible anymore now that they've managed a few reasonable conversations. She supposes she has Vader to thank for at least part of that.

"You're not what I expected. I think I misjudged you before."

She can hardly be blamed for that, considering that everything she knew of Vader was secondhand and singularly focused on the negative. But she'd nearly made an enemy of him at their first meeting, and it was only by chance that she'd managed to correct her initial assumptions. She isn't quite apologetic, but there's an acknowledgment in her expression all the same.

"While we're here, if you ever need my help, I'll do what I can."

That doesn't mean she'll do murders for him, but maybe he can stop doing surgery on himself when there are Force healers around?

Long ago, Vader had had a conversation with Padmé, about how if people didn't agree, they should be made to. Vader still believed that. He was, however, working on doing it with something less than smacking at differing forces with his lightsaber.

At least, in this case, it seemed to be working.

"People aren't meant to know me. I'm a threat, a weapon of the Empire. Not a person. I gave that up when I became this." The Sith inside the suit.

"I am grateful and I will remember." Given everything: "I will also come to your aide if find yourself in need."

"If I didn't believe you were still a person, we would be having a very different conversation."

Probably one with threats and lightsabers. Or at least a whole lot of cursing. She still can't say she likes Vader exactly, but she doesn't hate him. That's still a surprise.

"It's still strange to think that you'd help me, but I do appreciate it."

Even if she feels a little bit like the worst Jedi ever for striking a truce with Darth Vader -- but if Obi-Wan Kenobi could do the same, she certainly could. She had no personal grudge, after all. Things might get awkward if Luke ever decided he needed her help to stand against his father, but she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

"You can believe as you wish, but if you ever question what the price of being in my position in the Empire is, do not forget I truthfully told you." And yet, he still, firmly believed the Empire was good and could be a force for good.

Just not under Palpatine.

"I have an ally within the Empire. A grand admiral. He believes in the face of a greater threat it becomes imperative to shelve any other conflict. Over time I've come to see the wisdom of his tactics and I've adopted it here. We have a much greater threat than any differences we may have at home. You are also important to my family, which makes you important to me. I offered Obi-Wan a chance to stay out of our conflict a long time ago. He didn't take it then, but he seems to be now."

"I know what you've done, but you forget I also know what you've yet to do."

Anakin Skywalker died in the Light. Leia had been skeptical, but Luke had firmly believed it and Rey chose to latch onto that belief herself in the absence of anyone who could tell the unbiased truth. However, it raises a question she hadn't considered fully until just now -- if perhaps a different ending were possible for Vader. If there could be a world in which he walked away from that final conflict. If Kylo could grow up knowing his grandfather from the start.

It's something to consider. There won't be any way to know unless she goes home to find everything changed, and maybe that's for the best.

"Master Kenobi cares for you. I can't imagine he'd seek to harm you here without a pressing need to do so."

That much had been obvious since Obi-Wan had kept Vader to recover in his hut. She didn't know the entirety of what had passed between them over the years, but it was clear that they weren't enemies here.

"That I find in doubt." Given how often there were never witnesses to his actions.

Returning to the Light wasn't something he even thought about, really. Dreamed of but didn't seek out. He didn't believe it was possible, no Jedi believed it was possible, not even one who had known Revan in all his glory. Why would he believe in it?

"He's a Jedi. He cannot not care for me. It's in his nature, compassion, even for things long lost." The Grand Inquisitor wasn't alone in knowing how to hunt Jedi. "But what he deems a pressing need and what is a pressing need may not be the same. Striking a blow against me isn't easy for him and he's never faced me without sorrow. I don't intend to be the cause of more of it for him, but just existing as I am does."

The things that made it into official accounts were bad enough that if she hadn't met the man, she would've thought him irredeemable, too. In spite of what Luke thought; Luke hadn't been the best judge of character when she'd met him. But she isn't here to argue Vader back to the Light.

"As far as I can tell, you're the only one who refuses to see good within yourself."

It's irritating, really -- she'd have found it much less complicated if he were entirely lost to the Dark. As it stands there's still a part of her that feels like she's betraying herself and everything she stands for by having this conversation. But given what he'd said about Obi-Wan, maybe not. Maybe she was doomed to care even for those who were beyond saving.

That got a huff of amusement anyway.

"Leia hates me. Not the child who was here, but the adult who also knew me." Just to throw that out there.

"Yoda might have sent Obi-Wan to kill me no matter what the chances, but Obi-Wan believed him too or he wouldn't have come." That might be what convinced him he was beyond saving. Or maybe it was Mustafar and all its violence. "I don't want my grandson boxed into a corner, as I am."

Didn't that mean he could care about others and want the good for them and betray the idea he was beyond help? Probably. There's an ocean of self-hatred in Vader.

"I think that both Leia and Obi-Wan have a sense of duty that forces them to put their own wants aside for the greater good."

Leia, certainly, had served the galaxy far more than herself. Obi-Wan had gone into hiding for years, but she imagines that's so he could fulfill his responsibility to look after Anakin's children without placing them at further risk as much as it was out of any sense of wanting to abandon his role as a Jedi.

"For the past year I've thought that either Kylo or I would have to kill the other. That was my duty; to do what Leia couldn't. Regardless of what it would do to me. I tried as hard as I could not to care for him in that time."

And failed spectacularly the instant she spoke to him here, despite her best efforts. She's not as strong as either Obi-Wan or Leia. She hasn't yet learned how to close her heart to what it wants.

"Leia is a Princess. Politicians must be that way, if they are to be trusted at all." There was certainly a strange note of something to his voice. Even the Force around him seemed to dim. Not Darken, but dim.

Padmé and Queen Breha had spoken of it once, how they wanted their children to be friends. He - given the cultures of the nobility and royalty of both planets - had suspected they had been thinking of more than friendship and towards future political alliances. But one thing he knew both women had spoken of, together, is how Padmé's child would at least not be beholden to a Throne, and if their child sat on one, it would be that child's choice. Not something they had thrust upon them, unlike Breha and Bail's child. Not that he doubted they would have prepared her well (despite herself at times).

But there is still a part of him, even more present after having met Leia, having held her in his arms, having wiped dirt and grease from her hands and cheek, having braided her hair, which screamed that wasn't what was meant for his child. Not the life of a politician.

Not their child. It wasn't meant to be a burden on their child's shoulders.

"I would rather like to believe Kylo isn't a duty to you now." He deserves better than that, he doesn't say but thinks. He's not supposed to be a pawn in this, not supposed to be a tool for someone else's goals, even if that is what has happened. Rey didn't deserve that to be her life either. "You aren't a duty to him. What you have, between you, it is such a rare opportunity, for both of you. If you can both manage to take advantage of it, everyone's ideas and wills be damned."

"I trust Leia with my life. All of us do who are left. She's why we keep fighting."

There were so few of them now on Ajan Kloss, though there were supporters spread throughout the galaxy who could only help them in secret. She didn't doubt that many of those supporters did so only because it was Leia; she was a very difficult person to say no to.

"Kylo and I... we haven't had time to really know one another. We're not even sure why our bond exists to begin with. I care for him, and I believe he cares for me, but beyond that -- I don't know how we're going go forward when we return home."

She'd promised to help him, but what that looked like was anyone's guess. Joining the First Order wasn't happening, and she's reasonably certain she can't drag him back to the Resistance unless something dramatically changes while they're here.

"I can understand." His men felt the same way about him after all.

"Then why waste the chance you have here? To get to know each other, to explore your bond, and why you may have it." To him it seemed foolish. "None of us know what the future holds from here - the Force is damningly silent on that matter. It tends to mean there's too many thread of possibility to predict an outcome."

"I don't intend to. I was wrong to shut him out; I'll admit that. Maybe we could've avoided the past year's conflict."

If one of them had stayed their hand a moment longer on the Supremacy. If she'd reached out to him, or even allowed to bond to stay open for more than the space of a few seconds. It had hurt too much, and the dreams kept warning her of what she might become with him at her side.

"We spoke a bit more about everything after -- when I found out about my connection to Palpatine. All this time I thought he just wanted to add my power to his, but I don't think that's all it was anymore."

The fact that he'd just wanted her with him for herself, and not for what she could do, was baffling. They barely knew one another. But it made a difference to how she would've reacted. She would've kept talking to him. It's a mistake she can't unmake, but perhaps a bit more trust in their bond was called for.

"It's possible." Probable he thinks but there's no reason to heap it on her head.

Especially if she was being trained as a Jedi, she'd have been taught he fear him.

Between what she says and what she feels he can intuit a few things. "I had known Padmè," I had, not Anakin Skywalker had, "all of ten minutes when I hold her I'd marry her some day. Sometimes you simply are called to a person and you figure out later why."

Rey's face flushes almost imperceptibly; whatever the reason for her bond with Kylo, it's not like that.

(It definitely, absolutely is like that.)

"Have you ever heard of a Force bond that just happens without two people even having known one another before? Especially one strong enough for us to speak and appear to one another at great distances?"

She hadn't found anything in the Jedi texts thus far, but she hadn't gotten a chance to read them all the way through before she was brought here. And she and Kylo haven't yet had a chance to discuss the why of it all.

"A Force bond that strong may be a Dyad. They are exceptionally rare but equally powerful." He doubted she'd find anything in the Jedi texts.

Still he answers without thinking. He knew what he hungered for, he could easily understand Rey doing the same.

That makes her perk up with genuine interest, any implications of why she and Kylo may care for each other forgotten for the moment.

"A Dyad? I haven't come across any mention of that in the Jedi texts -- though of course they're only one set of books out of who knows how much that's been lost. How does it work?"

She's already found out that they can appear to one another, and she's reasonably certain they could learn to control it more precisely if they practiced.

"I only have seen it a handful of times in Jedi texts. Which is unsurprising - it wouldn't normally develop in the Jedi. Part of ones' Knighthood Ceremony is cutting all bonds with others, which would nip such a bond quickly." Well. It was what one was supposed to do, but it had been an open secret that Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan maintained their training bond long after Anakin was knighted.

"What the limits are partly depend on the individuals bond. Obviously the more trained and more powerful the pair, the more powerful feats possible. If theory it could create a pair who are singular beings. Two who are powerful enough to act as one, even over vast differences." The academic conversion was easy. Easier than the previous one.

Relief Log #2

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