#||starter||

@hillsfmsstarter

Plotted starter for @corruptedforce

When the news reached the holo-net, Sabé had been far too busy recovering from pushing a 9 pound baby out of her body with only a midwife droid trying to tell her to lie down, which she didn't do because no droid was going to tell her what position was the 'convenient' position to give birth in, to check or even care what a certain Naboo senator and her —now ex— husband might be up to. Afterwards, she'd been too busy with becoming a first time mom to even think of scrolling through the holo-net until two weeks after her sweet Marek was born.

'Senator Padmé Amidala seen spending the afternoon with Baron Rush Clovis.'

It was almost scary how, despite being able to count the times she'd been in the same room as Anakin —without there being a Queen/Senator they had to protect in the same space as them, and including Marek's conception— with the fingers of her hands, Sabé could tell so much just from that sentence and the picture that accompanied it. Padmé was shown walking around some Coruscant area, her arm hooked with Clovis' and her head resting on his shoulder as an easy smile pulled at her lips. She looked happy.

If Padmé and Anakin were still a thing, the headline would be 'Local Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker seen attacking Scipian Baron in public.'

It took her another day of pondering her options and the pros and cons of each one before she made a decision: she'd tell him about Marek. After all, if he wasn't married anymore for whatever reason, the weight of the unsuccessful marriage wouldn't be on her or on her son- or at least she hoped so. She could always shoot Anakin if he decided to try and place any of the blame on her son, that was for sure.

Sabé contacted R2D2. She'd had to scrub that astromech clean so many times the 4ft tall scrap pile owed her more than a few favors. Though today she only needed one: she needed him to give her Anakin's comm-code. Surprisingly, Artoo was quite willing to help her. So eager it made her suspicious. But she had other things to worry about and no time to overanalyze the usually sassy droid's sudden agreeableness.

As she sent a call request to him after putting Marek to sleep, she almost hoped he wouldn't answer, entertaining the possibility that he was too busy with Jedi stuff or freshly-divorced-man stuff to answer.

Plotted starter for @betaofthedead

It'd been years since he'd been this close to a city and James would be lying if he said he was comfortable. But Clementine had asked for his help especially, even after everything that went down between them, after how he scared them and —in a lesser level— they scared him. Yet here they were, giving each other a second chance, and it was going pretty well up until they arrived to the city.

Nothing had happened, but that didn't stop James from being on edge as he stood outside the gates, at least four people standing over the gates and whispering to each other told him they weren't keeping watch, but talking about him. James kept his eyes down, grip tightening on the leader of his mask as his fingers rubbed against the seams in an attempt to comfort himself. He reminded himself that he could leave, Clementine told him so herself when it became clear the amount of time she and AJ would spend in there was undefined.

And he did– kind of. James didn't leave the main street right in front of the gates, but he did move farther away from them, finding a comfortable spot to sit on an old car that was more rust and plants than vehicle.

James took a deep breath, keeping himself busy making another hole on the old guardian leather that was his mask to pass the rope that tied it shut because some had grown too wide and made it impossible to tighten it properly. He was at it until the breeze changed and blew his way, making the familiar smell of rot and fresh blood reach him. His brows furrowed as he looked first towards the gates, finding nothing; then the other way.

Plotted starter for @kylo-wrecked

The First Order was, unfortunately, not the only group of unpleasant people the Resistance had to deal with. For a group that preached so much about order and control, they sure had a big problem with pirates, even bigger than the one there'd been under the New Republic's rule.

But then again, from what Voe had heard from General Organa and Master Skywalker, Nar Shaddaa had always been a wreck of a planet. Located in Hutt space, the 'smugglers' moon' —as people called the moon that orbited Nal Hutta— stayed true to its nickname by being home to the lowest of the galaxy's scum. It also stayed true to its other nickname: Little Coruscant, by being one big city encompassing the entire surface of the moon.

Voe hadn't ever liked the ecumenopolis. The lack of nature and crowdedness of it all made her skin crawl. But this time around, that feeling of uneasiness went deeper, deep enough for her to realize that this was not about being surrounded by metal, concrete and people who looked at her like she was offending them just for existing in their close proximity. No, it had something to do with the force.

Hennix's lightsaber felt heavy as it hung from her hip, hidden from sight along with her own by her long cloak, as she went from one location to the next. General Organa had informants all over the galaxy, and Nar Shaddaa was no exception. But people here were less willing to cooperate, a mix of wariness and opportunism made them prone to making her waste her time trying to pry information from them. She'd ended up threatening more than one in her search for not just any pirates, but the pirates.

After all, General Organa still held some affection for Han Solo, and they couldn't have pirates coming for him at every stop if he'd be a part of the Resistance. That is why General Organa sent Voe to Nar Shaddaa- to fix the mess her ex caused by taking loans from the wrong people.

But that feeling in the force didn't subside. A pressure at the back of her head, like the beginning of a migraine mixed with a sudden paranoia. It made her green eyes glance around rapidly, seeking a reason for the feeling, while her chest feel tight, her pulmonodes working twice as hard to deal with this feeling, making her artificial heart race.

Plotted starter for @wexarethewalkingxdead

They didn't get any kind of warning of what was coming for them, there was a tension in everyone after everything that had happened, after taking so many strangers in, after the barn, after their dad died, everything just seemed to be falling apart and that night was when they finally hit rock bottom. The dead swarmed the farm like the insects in the summer: quiet, fast, and unstoppable because of their numbers.

Susie was in the house with her mom. Patricia clinging to her and Beth like she was afraid just letting either of them go would make her end up a meal for those things. Carol rushed in and told them they had to get out, they didn't even have time to grab anything. On the porch, Lori was calling out for Carl, and Hershel was shooting as many of the walkers down as he could, but there were too many. The barn was on fire, and despite that, the RV drove around it and stopped at the back.

Last she'd heard of her twin, Rachel was going to the RV with Jimmy, just to have an excuse to get out of the house.

She didn't think, didn't take so much as a second to consider the possible consequences of her actions. Susie slipped from her mother's grasp and bolted for the barn, running as fast as her legs would take her and barely dodging a few of the walkers that threw themselves in her direction. Susie made it around the barn in time to watch Rick and Carl running away, but her focus quickly went to the window that opened on the driver's side, her sister's upper body sticking out as sheget desperately tried to get out.

"Rachel!"

"Help me!" her sister sobbed.

Susie ran to her, grabbing her arms and pulling to try and get her out, but something yanked her back, then Rachel screamed, her nails digging onto Susie's arms as she held on for dear life. Both sisters cried as they stared into the other's eyes, and Susie couldn't do anything but watch as her sister was pulled back into the RV by too many walkers to count, blood spraying on the windshield as Rachel's screams turned to gurgling noises, all that was left of her twin were the bloody lines her nails left on Susie's forearms.

Starter for @betaofthedead

It seemed that everything that could go wrong did. Jesus couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this afraid, not for his own safety, but for the safety of those around him. He could go out on his own and face any threat, even get himself in some quite big trouble when he wanted to, without as much worrying much that he might not make it out alive. But when it came to the lives of his people, just the thought of losing any of them made his blood run cold– or perhaps it was the concerningly low temperature. It wasn't usual for it to be this cold this time of the year and yet here they were, struggling through a fog so thick they couldn't make out a discernible shape of a walker in front of them until it was at arm's reach. Perhaps global warming had always had something to do with the weather in Virginia.

Jesus realized that not all of his uneasiness came from the threat on his people's lives. No, something was wrong.

It started subtle, a whisper that didn't belong to ananyt voice he was familiar with, so soft he would have  thought he was imagining it if it wasn't for the fact he wasn't the only one who reacted to it. One of the new women, Yumiko, stood close and her head snapped in the same direction as his did when he heard it. So no, he hadn't lost his mind yet.

The second option wasn't much better: there was someone in the fog with them, and they weren't a walker.

He kept moving ahead, tackling and stepping on the head of one of the walkers that got in his way before kicking another to the ground. He didn't bother to end the second one, his eyes focusing on two silhouettes that stood ahead. One was Aaron, he could tell because, well, he knew Aaron way too well at this point, but the other one was a complete stranger, tall, menacing, closer to Jesus than it was too Aaron, but approaching Aaron while he was distracted.

Jesus didn't think. He ignored what might have been a: "What are you doing?" from Yumiko and rushed forward, dodging a walker that got in his way in his efforts to get to Aaron before the other shape in the fog did. When that proved fruitless, he changed direction, instead charging at the large figure and ramming onto its side.

Muscle memory took hold of him and his hand found its way under the leather flap of a trench coat, closing around the handle of a knife that he swiftly pulled free of its sheath, holding it half behind his thigh as he stepped back and watched the figure regain its– no, his balance, reaching with both hands under the very trench coat Jesus had just reached under of, and only finding one weapon.

Starter for @mercyprevaild

Old folk said things always got worse before they got better. If that was true, then Lucille was certain the world would be a fucking amazing place once this shit was over, because she couldn't imagine how much better than it used to be the world would need to become to balance the fact she'd woken up from surgery to literal corpses that were roaming the streets and eating people.

Days passed in that damn hospital and it became more and more clear an "if things got better" situation than a "when things got better" situation. But at least she wasn't alone.

She'd found him in one of the halls near her own bedroom's, a bed placed in front of his door might have been what kept him from being shot like most everyone else who hadn't run away or hidden when they had the chance to had been. Her fellow apocalypse survivor wasn't much of a conversationalist, considering he was in a coma, but he was a good listener, and Lucille... well, she appreciated the company even if it was just a nameless man on a hospital bed. Keeping him alive gave her something to do other than wandering those halls and making sure doors and windows were closed.

It wasn't a permanent option, she knew that. Most of the dead had been locked in the cafeteria and that was were most of the food was, all that was left around the hospital were snacks from bending machines and those bags of liquid food or whatever they were called for the patients, which she was tired of even before the world went to hell. She'd have to move on eventually. But for now, this worked.

Or at least it did until, one morning, she went to see how her fellow survivor was doing and found the door open and his bed empty. She'd seen a enough people die and get up for her mind's first thought to be the worst case scenario.

It wasn't hard to separate the two halves of the saline bottle hanger and grab the lower one with the base to use as a weapon. Lucille's heart hammered inside her chest, mind racing with the possibilities of where the man might be, if he'd creep up on her, if she'd survived this long only to get eaten by the very person she'd been trying to keep alive's reanimated corpse.

And to add insult to injury, she didn't even know why he was there, didn't even know his fucking name, only that he had a gunshot wound. She might have been keeping a criminal alive.