[ jyn hums a questioning noise, rubbing her eyes even as she reluctantly pushes herself to sit up. their room is dark, but the soft blue glow illuminates enough for her to see the crease between his eyebrows. she flicks on one of the sconces, bathing the room in a soft golden glow, and pushes her hair back from her face. ]
Okay. [ a yawn interrupts her, covering her mouth before she can continue. ] Tell me about it?
[ cassian doesn't know how to even begin to explain it. but he knows jyn won't push, lets him sit with it for a few moments, still trying to collect his thoughts, trying to understand whatever he just witnessed. ]
It was a lab, I think. But it was like I could not figure out who I was, like I was in several places at once.
Strapped to a bed. Inside some kind of compartment. And then awake, but sedated. The last part - [ he taps at his chest, still glowing. ] - it was like someone was moving to put something in my chest. Where it glows.
[ jyn does, in fact, take notes. lab, compartment, sedation, the blue thing, she'll flesh it out later when cassian provides more details but her notetaking has always been a kind of shorthand. ]
A swiftlet? It's a bird. [ she looked it up, putting in the legwork for him. she projects a picture of the diminutive bird between them, seeming to sit in her palm while jyn inwardly cooing. ] Another bird.
[ the thing about details is it doesn't feel like there were many in this dream. that's what makes him think it wasn't necessarily his, not entirely. cassian is detailed to a fault sometimes. ]
Another bird for our collection of avian themed names. Someone's a big fan. [ he's still touching his chest, like he'll suddenly figure it out via the contact. ] Whatever they were doing to my chest, they called the device a Swiftlet. It was meant to control me, control what comes next, through the use of it. And not for the first time.
[ he is trying to take his own notes too, but they're mostly jarbled. good thing they'll share after. ] Yes. I think you are right. It was there, later in the dream too. The ground moved underneath it.
Sorry, I should go through this step by step. For both our sakes. The problem is it was so... hazy, is one word for it.
Like the earthquake, [ she agrees, despite there not being a statement to agree with. she knows they are thinking the same thing and her eyes dart to his chest like she can see through it to the scar on his back, mouth slanting down solemnly. ]
I don't need order to understand you.
[ it's easy to slot things into place with cassian and he already said it was as if he was in more than one place at once, but she can just as easily step in to focus the memories to see if he can pluck out more details from the dream. ]
[ he likes when she says what he was thinking, even if it opens up several more questions. he's been after what might have caused it for so long, and now he may have... witnessed it? ]
[ cassian closes his eyes when she tells him too, already feeling at ease from how easily she moves along with what he says. he can still feel her next to him, but with his eyes shut, he tries to visualize it, before he forgets any details. ]
The overlying question was just... who I was. I was trying to figure it out. [ what exists in more than one person at once? in more than one place? ] Having a physical form felt wrong.
I got the sense I was... split into pieces before, by whoever had this Swiftlet device. Splintered. They wanted to repeat the process.
They wanted to control me. Direct me, take me from where I was, where I wanted to be. It wanted to break me, again. But I wanted... to be whole.
[ this is the weirdest part, in jyn's opinion, playing therapist to emotions that weren't even cassian's (especially because she sometimes doesn't care about other people's emotions, full stop) but it's good to know all the information. ]
But when I fought against the Swiftlet, I could feel other people waking up. Almost like it was all at once. Like we were connecting, coming to life piece by piece.
Someone died, I killed them with a piece of metal. And then another was cut down trying to leave through an exit. But it was all me.
Then all the doors were sealed, gas filling the rooms to slow it. There were other scenes of this gas stopping people. That is where the shaking came in - the ground had started shaking under a medi unit, but the gas stopped it. I saw pockets of air on fire. I saw someone stealing the life from a nurse. The gas was meant to put it all at a standstill.
[ he finally opens his eyes again, looking over at jyn. ] It sounds like our powers. Not ours, but all the displaced.
[ that reminds her of another dream, not hers but one she'd read about. she scrolls back as she listens, better at multitasking than she gets credit for but 90% of the time she is on the network, she is also at work and her work is stellar.
pun intended.
her head snaps up when cassian says the gas cut everything off, expression wrinkling in concern. the implications of an airborne anything being able to stop people or powers is unsettling. ]
It does sound like our power. Did it feel like it wasn't your choices or actions, like you weren't Cassian? Watching through someone else's eyes?
[ he is trying to transcribe his own notes, trying to make connections, but he doesn't want to forget anything about what he dreamt, and that seems important first. there are as many very concerning things about the dream as there are curious ones. like he couldn't figure out how to explain it, he doesn't know how to begin to analyze it. ]
I think it ended with me. Like I was in a machine, like the medi-unit, in the facility. It all faded out, dimmed and vanished.
Right before I woke up now, with you, it was like the question was posed again, about who I was. But it was more like... who was I now, as if it had changed again. It was like I was everyone.
[ who was he now, in a body. in more than one body. it sounds eerily like a byproduct of the empathy bond, being able to feel everyone, but her brain twists that backwards. maybe the empathy bond is a byproduct of the original feeling.
if pieces of the whole were spread amongst them... ]
When you said you were inside a compartment, was that the medi-unit at the end or was it, were you-- [ she huffs, fingers dancing together in front of her as she tries to verbalize the strange idea stuck on her tongue. ] Was it like you were inside the Swiftlet device?
No. I was everywhere before the Swiftlet too. But it was only after the Swiftlet where everyone seemed to... wake up. I think it was the medi-unit both before and after, because of the same humming sound.
[ he also thinks of the empathy bond, maybe because he is still touching jyn, still glowing. the displaced are already interconnected through the bond. it has to be related. ]
It was like they wanted to use the device to control me. They only used the Swiftlet on one person, but when I was that person, it was like my refusal to comply... sparked in others. I could feel myself breaking again, and I wanted desperately to be whole. I kept thinking, "not again, not again." That is when everyone seemed to connect together.
A rebel even when you're asleep, [ jyn teases, one hand falls to rest on his knee, the other lifting to press between her eyes, expression scrunching up. ]
It's the same idea we keep hearing. Unity, connectivity, community. Other words that end with -ity. [ her lips purse, tone going dry, ] A bridge.
[ she breathes out slow, moving back to the topic at hand. once they are completely done with the dream they can go back to the theorizing. ]
Close your eyes again. Do you remember anything you felt? Was the bed metal, was the medi-unit warm. Did you hear anything, orders or words or people coming in and out? Were there any particular smells that stood out, the gas maybe? Could you taste?
[ saw used to do this practice with her; when your eyes are closed, your other senses have to do the work for you. she had never been particularly good at the exercise when she was eight, but she'd excelled at it in prison. her cell always tasted cold. ]
Edited (it was repetitive ) 2020-04-20 23:17 (UTC)
Good. [ an affirmation for his memories, not that he didn't feel anything, though she supposes that is good as well. not really forefront on her mind, despite being very protective of cassian. ]
Stale air means the gas doesn't linger, no need to ventilate.
[ concerning, no trace would make it impossible to, well, trace. ]
[ how strange a feeling to know he was there, but also not be sure? he feels like he's starting to ask the question himself. who was he, in the dream? ]
That is the thing. I do not know if I was myself in the dream, not for sure.
I felt a desperate desire to figure out who I was. It was a constant question. Each time the perspective shifted. At the beginning of the dream. At the end, right before I woke up.
[ and she feels that on a deep, personal level. she knows cassian does, too. you don't spend more than half your life under assumed names and miraculously arrive with a stable sense of self when you finally claim your given name again. ]
I am not sure it was entirely my crisis this time.
[ she started it, and cassian is a master of self-deprecation. though he's not sure that qualifies, for once. both of them, hiding their real names for different reasons. ]
In the beginning, it almost seemed like they knew once before who they were. [ he frowns, so wrapped up in the back and forth perspectives that he'd nearly forgotten the start. he closes his eyes, yet again. ]
I slipped away. Unnoticed. Resting, from what was once the weight of the world. [ and cassian at least recognizes what that feeling is like. it's heavy. tiresome. ] There were others who pulled back too. My... creation changed. Evolved. On its own. There was something I was a part of.
And then the question was about who I was now. Where I was now. That is when it shifted into the facility experience.
[ he must. her eyes drift down, fingers stretching out to touch the soft blue glow that appears despite nothing being in his chest. nothing physical, at least. ]
The paintings in Oslo, they showed this in St Oleg and Harold or whatever.
[ both wrong, doesn't matter, the implication is clear. humanity tends to have a desperate desire for power and st olaf and king harald had that power once, according to the paintings, at least. if that power pulled back, slipped away...
jyn doesn't doubt humans would take it by force. ]
Is this what I get for not giving a shit about gods?
[ yeah he gets it. he and jyn are alike that way, taking in this world's mythologies and divinities and subsequently not caring. it's like his dream came down and gave him a swift kick of 'gods are real.' now that the dream is out, he finds his thoughts are already scrambling to make sense of it. the blue glow is still lighting up the room, like it lit up all those murals. ]
[ the glow was very much present in oslo. in all four areas the displaced ended up with the gates, evidently. ]
There are always people who want power. If these figures and gods exist, in whatever capacity, their power would be hunted. Especially if it was... already shared.
[ jyn sighs, abruptly (and fairly melodramatically) throwing herself back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. ]
Maybe that is what they tried to wake up. Another-- ugh can we think of a different word besides god.
[ what she hates the most about the concept of deities is the superiority, the supremacy that comes with it, just because of a perceived power, and that isn't easy to divorce from the idea of gods. they need a placeholder word. ]
Maybe if we think of it like another species, with their powers as a genetic evolution.
[ not as dramatically, but cassian lays down again too, wanting to stay in close. there is nothing on the ceiling to stare at, but it does let him try to envision the dream. ]
Either wake these... beings up, or whatever the creature was. Maybe both. Spinetail wanted to wake up a beast, right? I thought of something as my creation. If it had power, it makes sense for people to chase that too.
[ why are there so many goddamn birds. ]
Meadowlark for the beings, Spinetail for the being's creations.
[ drily: ] I suspect Henries would have more information.
[ but that guy had to go and be both a dead end and dead. her fingers tap against the mattress as she thinks, mulling over who might have the appropriate information.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Okay. [ a yawn interrupts her, covering her mouth before she can continue. ] Tell me about it?
[ she'll take very sleepy notes. ]
no subject
It was a lab, I think. But it was like I could not figure out who I was, like I was in several places at once.
Strapped to a bed. Inside some kind of compartment. And then awake, but sedated. The last part - [ he taps at his chest, still glowing. ] - it was like someone was moving to put something in my chest. Where it glows.
Have you heard the word Swiftlet before?
no subject
A swiftlet? It's a bird. [ she looked it up, putting in the legwork for him. she projects a picture of the diminutive bird between them, seeming to sit in her palm while jyn inwardly cooing. ] Another bird.
[ she makes a note of that, as well. ]
Was it medi-unit? The compartment.
no subject
Another bird for our collection of avian themed names. Someone's a big fan. [ he's still touching his chest, like he'll suddenly figure it out via the contact. ] Whatever they were doing to my chest, they called the device a Swiftlet. It was meant to control me, control what comes next, through the use of it. And not for the first time.
[ he is trying to take his own notes too, but they're mostly jarbled. good thing they'll share after. ] Yes. I think you are right. It was there, later in the dream too. The ground moved underneath it.
Sorry, I should go through this step by step. For both our sakes. The problem is it was so... hazy, is one word for it.
no subject
I don't need order to understand you.
[ it's easy to slot things into place with cassian and he already said it was as if he was in more than one place at once, but she can just as easily step in to focus the memories to see if he can pluck out more details from the dream. ]
Close your eyes.
no subject
[ cassian closes his eyes when she tells him too, already feeling at ease from how easily she moves along with what he says. he can still feel her next to him, but with his eyes shut, he tries to visualize it, before he forgets any details. ]
The overlying question was just... who I was. I was trying to figure it out. [ what exists in more than one person at once? in more than one place? ] Having a physical form felt wrong.
I got the sense I was... split into pieces before, by whoever had this Swiftlet device. Splintered. They wanted to repeat the process.
They wanted to control me. Direct me, take me from where I was, where I wanted to be. It wanted to break me, again. But I wanted... to be whole.
no subject
[ this is the weirdest part, in jyn's opinion, playing therapist to emotions that weren't even cassian's (especially because she sometimes doesn't care about other people's emotions, full stop) but it's good to know all the information. ]
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No. I don't know. I still felt unsure of myself.
But when I fought against the Swiftlet, I could feel other people waking up. Almost like it was all at once. Like we were connecting, coming to life piece by piece.
Someone died, I killed them with a piece of metal. And then another was cut down trying to leave through an exit. But it was all me.
Then all the doors were sealed, gas filling the rooms to slow it. There were other scenes of this gas stopping people. That is where the shaking came in - the ground had started shaking under a medi unit, but the gas stopped it. I saw pockets of air on fire. I saw someone stealing the life from a nurse. The gas was meant to put it all at a standstill.
[ he finally opens his eyes again, looking over at jyn. ] It sounds like our powers. Not ours, but all the displaced.
no subject
pun intended.
her head snaps up when cassian says the gas cut everything off, expression wrinkling in concern. the implications of an airborne anything being able to stop people or powers is unsettling. ]
It does sound like our power. Did it feel like it wasn't your choices or actions, like you weren't Cassian? Watching through someone else's eyes?
no subject
I think it ended with me. Like I was in a machine, like the medi-unit, in the facility. It all faded out, dimmed and vanished.
Right before I woke up now, with you, it was like the question was posed again, about who I was. But it was more like... who was I now, as if it had changed again. It was like I was everyone.
no subject
[ who was he now, in a body. in more than one body. it sounds eerily like a byproduct of the empathy bond, being able to feel everyone, but her brain twists that backwards. maybe the empathy bond is a byproduct of the original feeling.
if pieces of the whole were spread amongst them... ]
When you said you were inside a compartment, was that the medi-unit at the end or was it, were you-- [ she huffs, fingers dancing together in front of her as she tries to verbalize the strange idea stuck on her tongue. ] Was it like you were inside the Swiftlet device?
no subject
[ he also thinks of the empathy bond, maybe because he is still touching jyn, still glowing. the displaced are already interconnected through the bond. it has to be related. ]
It was like they wanted to use the device to control me. They only used the Swiftlet on one person, but when I was that person, it was like my refusal to comply... sparked in others. I could feel myself breaking again, and I wanted desperately to be whole. I kept thinking, "not again, not again." That is when everyone seemed to connect together.
no subject
It's the same idea we keep hearing. Unity, connectivity, community. Other words that end with -ity. [ her lips purse, tone going dry, ] A bridge.
[ she breathes out slow, moving back to the topic at hand. once they are completely done with the dream they can go back to the theorizing. ]
Close your eyes again. Do you remember anything you felt? Was the bed metal, was the medi-unit warm. Did you hear anything, orders or words or people coming in and out? Were there any particular smells that stood out, the gas maybe? Could you taste?
[ saw used to do this practice with her; when your eyes are closed, your other senses have to do the work for you. she had never been particularly good at the exercise when she was eight, but she'd excelled at it in prison. her cell always tasted cold. ]
no subject
[ it's easy to do as she says, her hand on his knee grounding him as he closes his eyes again, tries to throw himself back into the dream. ]
The room was cold. The air was... stale. I think that was true for every room. Everything was very white. Sterile.
The situation with the Swiftlet, I was in the center of the room. Sedated. I do not remember feeling anything physical, at any point.
no subject
Stale air means the gas doesn't linger, no need to ventilate.
[ concerning, no trace would make it impossible to, well, trace. ]
Okay, last question. What did you feel like?
no subject
That is the thing. I do not know if I was myself in the dream, not for sure.
I felt a desperate desire to figure out who I was. It was a constant question. Each time the perspective shifted. At the beginning of the dream. At the end, right before I woke up.
The beginning wasn't me at all.
no subject
[ and she feels that on a deep, personal level. she knows cassian does, too. you don't spend more than half your life under assumed names and miraculously arrive with a stable sense of self when you finally claim your given name again. ]
-- did they feel anything else?
no subject
[ she started it, and cassian is a master of self-deprecation. though he's not sure that qualifies, for once. both of them, hiding their real names for different reasons. ]
In the beginning, it almost seemed like they knew once before who they were. [ he frowns, so wrapped up in the back and forth perspectives that he'd nearly forgotten the start. he closes his eyes, yet again. ]
I slipped away. Unnoticed. Resting, from what was once the weight of the world. [ and cassian at least recognizes what that feeling is like. it's heavy. tiresome. ] There were others who pulled back too. My... creation changed. Evolved. On its own. There was something I was a part of.
And then the question was about who I was now. Where I was now. That is when it shifted into the facility experience.
no subject
[ he must. her eyes drift down, fingers stretching out to touch the soft blue glow that appears despite nothing being in his chest. nothing physical, at least. ]
The paintings in Oslo, they showed this in St Oleg and Harold or whatever.
[ both wrong, doesn't matter, the implication is clear. humanity tends to have a desperate desire for power and st olaf and king harald had that power once, according to the paintings, at least. if that power pulled back, slipped away...
jyn doesn't doubt humans would take it by force. ]
no subject
[ yeah he gets it. he and jyn are alike that way, taking in this world's mythologies and divinities and subsequently not caring. it's like his dream came down and gave him a swift kick of 'gods are real.' now that the dream is out, he finds his thoughts are already scrambling to make sense of it. the blue glow is still lighting up the room, like it lit up all those murals. ]
[ the glow was very much present in oslo. in all four areas the displaced ended up with the gates, evidently. ]
There are always people who want power. If these figures and gods exist, in whatever capacity, their power would be hunted. Especially if it was... already shared.
no subject
Maybe that is what they tried to wake up. Another-- ugh can we think of a different word besides god.
[ what she hates the most about the concept of deities is the superiority, the supremacy that comes with it, just because of a perceived power, and that isn't easy to divorce from the idea of gods. they need a placeholder word. ]
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[ not as dramatically, but cassian lays down again too, wanting to stay in close. there is nothing on the ceiling to stare at, but it does let him try to envision the dream. ]
Either wake these... beings up, or whatever the creature was. Maybe both. Spinetail wanted to wake up a beast, right? I thought of something as my creation. If it had power, it makes sense for people to chase that too.
[ why are there so many goddamn birds. ]
Meadowlark for the beings, Spinetail for the being's creations.
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[ which was ...something, though kriff knows what. maybe a creation, maybe a particularly vivid fever dream, a simulation, mass hysteria. who knows. ]
Was it a thing that you created or was it people?
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[ he hadn't done a lot of digging in zerzura, more concerned about getting out. more concerned about how he'd gotten sucked in too. ]
I thought of it as my own creation, but there was no sense of what it actually was.
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[ but that guy had to go and be both a dead end and dead. her fingers tap against the mattress as she thinks, mulling over who might have the appropriate information.
which might be the source of ren's information. ]
You're not going to like my suggestion.
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