[ she only heard the title in passing, never from saw himself. he'd practically growled when the name had come up and tiny nine year old jyn could picture it very clearly: an even younger saw, hair dark and full, streak of orange still orange and not gone grey with age, charging into battle through the jungles of his home planet. jyn had only even seen the streak of color when she was carefully shaving his head. ]
I doubt many people do. [ she hefts up the painting, holding it up to gauge where it should be displayed with it's gangly giraffe pair -- has poe seen cassian run? it that why he chose the giraffe? ]
You like it, though? [ Sure, he means the drawing, but the curiosity in his voice says it's just as much a question about the name.
He's had months, long and painful months to wrestle with the realization that he bought into Leia's legend with such complete devotion that she didn't trust him to think for himself. Jyn isn't like him, or at least the woman he knows isn't. She's too calculating, too smart, too in control of her own emotions to let herself get carried away like Poe so often finds himself being.
And she's cynical, maybe, but there's something in her that still loves the galaxy, the universe, or maybe just whatever world she finds herself on. It's in that journal, with its meticulous notes and drawings and scraps of flora and bits of feather or fur. It's in her relationship with Cassian, with Finn.
She's the kind of person who could love a title, imagine the force behind it, and not get caught in someone else's undertow. Poe admires her, maybe more than he's realized before now.
He clears his throat and leans over to say hello to Raddus as she minces up to the couch. ]
[ she huffs a soft breath, looking down at the picture as her mouth slants down in a faint frown. ]
He was ferocious, like a lion, and he made decisions no one should ever have to make. And he kept me alive, sometimes at the expense of other people. He was paranoid and distrustful and he knew exactly how war worked, even when other people tried to convince him there was still hope. People flocked to him and died for him, abandoned their homes and families and lives to fight for him -- not with him, for him.
And when I was eight years old he put a mattress in a tiny closet so I would have my own room.
[ she shrugs, looking away from the lion in her hands. ] They aren't wrong about him: he was paranoid, sometimes unhinged, he did monstrous things, he didn't believe in peace. Sometimes I think he was fighting because he didn't know of anything else to do. But he fought, when no one else would and he taught me to fight.
[ and that did work out to the benefit of the galaxy, even if not to jyn's own benefit. ]
[ Poe listens. He listens and tries to imagine Saw as Jyn describes him. Like Leia, in his way, in the way that people come to her, follow her. In the way they would willingly die for her. People in the New Republic could and did call her paranoid, a war monger, a rabble rouser, someone who only knew how to fight and to lead.
She doesn't have Saw's atrocities under her belt, but Poe has to wonder, if she'd grown up on a different planet, if she'd had a slightly different life--would she be different than Saw? 'Better' than Saw?
She fought when no one else would.
Poe's faith in her has had to grow back in the time that she's been gone. He looks at her differently now than he did before. But that doesn't mean he's lost all his instinct to revere her. He studies the lion as Jyn looks away from it. ]
Leia wrote to me and my dad when I was eight, after my mother died. They served together. Dad told me about it, about how they flew, because my mom never brought it up.
[ He's not sure where he's going with this. ]
She recruited me into the Resistance after I went AWOL on a mission, trying to track a supply ship stolen by the First Order. No one else would do anything. No one else would even acknowledge that they were a threat. Leia was the only one who saw it. She gave the rest of us someone to rally around, somewhere to go to try and stop the threat before it was too late.
[ He rubs his face. ]
Half the munitions we had to start with were either donated by wealthy patrons or stolen from smugglers after Leia collapsed an entire underwater smuggling station on top of one of her enemies and everyone else there.
[ He lets his hands fall. ]
My dad said once that good leaders aren't always good people. I think he was half-right. I think just about anyone can be good if they're given the chance. I think people who start good sometimes just get it ground out of them until the fight is all that's left.
[ He exhales a laugh. ] I don't know, I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. Maybe just that you don't have to try and justify what he did, or tell me why you still believed in him. He gave you a home. I get that.
[ jyn has a complicated relationship with saw. she was, to everyone that knew them, his daughter. she'd already been abandoned by one father, being abandoned by another broke her heart all over again.
she's not sure she's ever been good. some small, niggling thought in the back of her mind that sounds like the tiny, eight year old version of her says that if she were really good, even a little bit good, her parents -- all three of them -- wouldn't have left her.
poe's not wrong though. whatever good had been in her had been ground down to powder for years. unfortunately for the empire, it had been ground down into gunpowder. ]
There will always been someone in war that has to make the decisions no one else will. General Draven ordered Cassian to murder my father; he wasn't wrong. [ galen erso had too much information, too much intelligence and power within the complex mechanism of the empire. it was a the smartest decision he could have made with the information he had at hand. he's still a twat, but jyn gets it.
she breathes out a bitter sounding sigh. ]
I begged the council to go to Scarif. [ she remembers, quite suddenly, mon mothma's words to her. i won't forget what we did to you. ] But they were too scared. It was too big a risk on intel from someone who was less than trustworthy.
[ her shoulders lift in a shrug. ] The efficacy of leaders is only written after the fact and it's never objective. Saw was a Hutt's arse, but he saved my life, and then he abandoned me. Mon Mothma rescued me from prison only to force me into a mission where I got to witness Saw and my father die. In front of me. For nothing. Because the council refused to act until we didn't give them a choice otherwise.
Everyone's shit. Some of us are just more honest about it.
[ He's known too many good people to think that everyone is what Jyn says they are. He's seen too many of those good people die. All he can do is keep their goodness in his memory and make sure it stays in the memories of those who are left, too. People make mistakes, but there are more good people in the universe than shit ones. He has to believe that, or what are they fighting for?
Poe is absolutely sure that if he told Jyn she was a good person, she would probably laugh in his face, and not in the fun way. But he's always believed that good isn't something you are or aren't. Good is something you do. And as far as he's concerned, Jyn and Cassian have always been good to him and to Finn and to Rey. Maybe that doesn't make up for the bad they've done in their lives, in their own eyes, but Poe likes the people they've chosen to be.
He wraps an arm around Jyn's shoulders and gives her a little squeeze, withdrawing his arm and scooting away simultaneously so he can't get punched in the head. It's a smol hug. But yeah it was a hug. ]
[ jyn's nose scrunches up but she lets it happen, honestly. just lets poe half hug her without comment. because she's saving up her comment. ]
Bein' shit doesn't mean you can't do anything. Half the Alliance was shit people... just trying to save the world, even if they didn't think they deserved that peace.
[ lookin' at u, cassian andor.
the high council was people that decided they were Good because they were fighting the empire but they refused to listen to bodhi because he defected -- an indisputably good action -- and refused to listen to jyn because her father was an imperial science officer. the human (and inhuman) disasters on-board rogue one had no illusions that they were good people but they did something about it so they could live with themselves. ]
[ He'll be the one to concede the point this time. Or at least let her have the win.
Depression creeps in as he thinks about it, about an entire galaxy of people who heard the distress call of the Resistance and either didn't care enough or were too scared to come and help. He can understand fear. But how many of those people, those places, just didn't care who controlled them as long as they kept their own peace? ]
Being shit doesn't mean you can't do anything.
[ He huffs, a sound that's not really a laugh. ] But sometimes it's enough reason not to try.
Look, Poe. People aren't good or evil, there is no baby in the galaxy that is born inherently evil that's not the way things work. It's choices. You choose to do good things or bad things and at the end of the day you hope the good outweighs the bad.
[ she shrugs, gesturing idly. ]
Cassian and I have done terrible things. All the people on Rogue One had done terrible things, some in the name of the Alliance and some... not. Maybe going there was enough, maybe it wasn't. But it was our choice, to do the most good we could. A bunch of arseholes. If we can do it, you shouldn't lose faith in the rest of the galaxy. Now I've met my yearly quota of morose yet uplifting speeches so if you want to hug me again, you'll have to do it right now before I change my mind.
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no subject
I doubt many people do. [ she hefts up the painting, holding it up to gauge where it should be displayed with it's gangly giraffe pair -- has poe seen cassian run? it that why he chose the giraffe? ]
Saw hated it.
no subject
He's had months, long and painful months to wrestle with the realization that he bought into Leia's legend with such complete devotion that she didn't trust him to think for himself. Jyn isn't like him, or at least the woman he knows isn't. She's too calculating, too smart, too in control of her own emotions to let herself get carried away like Poe so often finds himself being.
And she's cynical, maybe, but there's something in her that still loves the galaxy, the universe, or maybe just whatever world she finds herself on. It's in that journal, with its meticulous notes and drawings and scraps of flora and bits of feather or fur. It's in her relationship with Cassian, with Finn.
She's the kind of person who could love a title, imagine the force behind it, and not get caught in someone else's undertow. Poe admires her, maybe more than he's realized before now.
He clears his throat and leans over to say hello to Raddus as she minces up to the couch. ]
Hey beautiful.
no subject
[ she huffs a soft breath, looking down at the picture as her mouth slants down in a faint frown. ]
He was ferocious, like a lion, and he made decisions no one should ever have to make. And he kept me alive, sometimes at the expense of other people. He was paranoid and distrustful and he knew exactly how war worked, even when other people tried to convince him there was still hope. People flocked to him and died for him, abandoned their homes and families and lives to fight for him -- not with him, for him.
And when I was eight years old he put a mattress in a tiny closet so I would have my own room.
[ she shrugs, looking away from the lion in her hands. ] They aren't wrong about him: he was paranoid, sometimes unhinged, he did monstrous things, he didn't believe in peace. Sometimes I think he was fighting because he didn't know of anything else to do. But he fought, when no one else would and he taught me to fight.
[ and that did work out to the benefit of the galaxy, even if not to jyn's own benefit. ]
no subject
She doesn't have Saw's atrocities under her belt, but Poe has to wonder, if she'd grown up on a different planet, if she'd had a slightly different life--would she be different than Saw? 'Better' than Saw?
She fought when no one else would.
Poe's faith in her has had to grow back in the time that she's been gone. He looks at her differently now than he did before. But that doesn't mean he's lost all his instinct to revere her. He studies the lion as Jyn looks away from it. ]
Leia wrote to me and my dad when I was eight, after my mother died. They served together. Dad told me about it, about how they flew, because my mom never brought it up.
[ He's not sure where he's going with this. ]
She recruited me into the Resistance after I went AWOL on a mission, trying to track a supply ship stolen by the First Order. No one else would do anything. No one else would even acknowledge that they were a threat. Leia was the only one who saw it. She gave the rest of us someone to rally around, somewhere to go to try and stop the threat before it was too late.
[ He rubs his face. ]
Half the munitions we had to start with were either donated by wealthy patrons or stolen from smugglers after Leia collapsed an entire underwater smuggling station on top of one of her enemies and everyone else there.
[ He lets his hands fall. ]
My dad said once that good leaders aren't always good people. I think he was half-right. I think just about anyone can be good if they're given the chance. I think people who start good sometimes just get it ground out of them until the fight is all that's left.
[ He exhales a laugh. ] I don't know, I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. Maybe just that you don't have to try and justify what he did, or tell me why you still believed in him. He gave you a home. I get that.
no subject
she's not sure she's ever been good. some small, niggling thought in the back of her mind that sounds like the tiny, eight year old version of her says that if she were really good, even a little bit good, her parents -- all three of them -- wouldn't have left her.
poe's not wrong though. whatever good had been in her had been ground down to powder for years. unfortunately for the empire, it had been ground down into gunpowder. ]
There will always been someone in war that has to make the decisions no one else will. General Draven ordered Cassian to murder my father; he wasn't wrong. [ galen erso had too much information, too much intelligence and power within the complex mechanism of the empire. it was a the smartest decision he could have made with the information he had at hand. he's still a twat, but jyn gets it.
she breathes out a bitter sounding sigh. ]
I begged the council to go to Scarif. [ she remembers, quite suddenly, mon mothma's words to her. i won't forget what we did to you. ] But they were too scared. It was too big a risk on intel from someone who was less than trustworthy.
[ her shoulders lift in a shrug. ] The efficacy of leaders is only written after the fact and it's never objective. Saw was a Hutt's arse, but he saved my life, and then he abandoned me. Mon Mothma rescued me from prison only to force me into a mission where I got to witness Saw and my father die. In front of me. For nothing. Because the council refused to act until we didn't give them a choice otherwise.
Everyone's shit. Some of us are just more honest about it.
no subject
I can't live my life believing that.
[ He's known too many good people to think that everyone is what Jyn says they are. He's seen too many of those good people die. All he can do is keep their goodness in his memory and make sure it stays in the memories of those who are left, too. People make mistakes, but there are more good people in the universe than shit ones. He has to believe that, or what are they fighting for?
Poe is absolutely sure that if he told Jyn she was a good person, she would probably laugh in his face, and not in the fun way. But he's always believed that good isn't something you are or aren't. Good is something you do. And as far as he's concerned, Jyn and Cassian have always been good to him and to Finn and to Rey. Maybe that doesn't make up for the bad they've done in their lives, in their own eyes, but Poe likes the people they've chosen to be.
He wraps an arm around Jyn's shoulders and gives her a little squeeze, withdrawing his arm and scooting away simultaneously so he can't get punched in the head. It's a smol hug. But yeah it was a hug. ]
no subject
Bein' shit doesn't mean you can't do anything. Half the Alliance was shit people... just trying to save the world, even if they didn't think they deserved that peace.
[ lookin' at u, cassian andor.
the high council was people that decided they were Good because they were fighting the empire but they refused to listen to bodhi because he defected -- an indisputably good action -- and refused to listen to jyn because her father was an imperial science officer. the human (and inhuman) disasters on-board rogue one had no illusions that they were good people but they did something about it so they could live with themselves. ]
no subject
[ He'll be the one to concede the point this time. Or at least let her have the win.
Depression creeps in as he thinks about it, about an entire galaxy of people who heard the distress call of the Resistance and either didn't care enough or were too scared to come and help. He can understand fear. But how many of those people, those places, just didn't care who controlled them as long as they kept their own peace? ]
Being shit doesn't mean you can't do anything.
[ He huffs, a sound that's not really a laugh. ] But sometimes it's enough reason not to try.
no subject
Look, Poe. People aren't good or evil, there is no baby in the galaxy that is born inherently evil that's not the way things work. It's choices. You choose to do good things or bad things and at the end of the day you hope the good outweighs the bad.
[ she shrugs, gesturing idly. ]
Cassian and I have done terrible things. All the people on Rogue One had done terrible things, some in the name of the Alliance and some... not. Maybe going there was enough, maybe it wasn't. But it was our choice, to do the most good we could. A bunch of arseholes. If we can do it, you shouldn't lose faith in the rest of the galaxy. Now I've met my yearly quota of morose yet uplifting speeches so if you want to hug me again, you'll have to do it right now before I change my mind.