#ex:event

Before:

There has to be someone way to stop the broadcasts and they won’t stop until they figure it out. 

Maybe that’s why Merei steps outside the comfort of the command center. There came a point where one had to accept that something needed to be done other than stare at numbers until their brain and do handstands to make the blood rush back to it. 

They say “I’ll go,” as if they are born for this.

In the hours before they leave they seek some guidance from anyone who can give it. There can be anything waiting for them Eadu.

During:

On the ride to Eadu Merei sits doing their best to curl into themselves and takes in every story that anyone is willing to share. Nobody is more intrigued about legends of the past than them. But they are first and foremost a storyteller, prefers the back and forth of conversations to silence. “I heard a rumour….” They attempt to hide the gears turning in the brain constructing it in real time. Merei can turn into a thing poetry but nothing has been harder to edit than this. 

When confrontation begins they don’t hesitate to run. It is a state of being, they have never known stasis. So they grab you (or maybe you grab them ) and together you’re off. 

There is nothing more beautiful in the whole galaxy than the Kyber Crystals. It stops them in their tracks and immediately takes their breath away. ( Are the lights reflecting in their eyes or vice versa? ) Collecting them almost feels wrong, but Merei does all the while thinking of all the lightsabers they will become a part of. No two of them will be the same, each an extension of the self, and everyone in the ship must already have a blueprint in their head. Right? ( They wish they could same. )

To think under different circumstance they each would traverse this cave and would come out on the other side having overcome a weakness and holding a single crystal. Maybe they moved their head too quickly but seconds feels like minutes and everything goes blurry. The air shifts.

The past can be rewritten. It is possible to never know loneliness or grief or sadness. It is possible to live without fear. Merei is the living proof. So they collect as many Crystals as they can carry with a glimmer in the eyes and a smile as wide as the gulf. ( and if delicate hands begin to tremble surely that must be out of excitement too. )

Aftermath:

Once it seemed that they’d live at the heart of the cave if someone let them but when the order to return to ship comes they are the first one there. They travel home with the same energy they arrived: to meet their gaze is to think that even the most benign detail is the most important thing in the world; eyes widen in awe and soften with empathy. Gather round it’s story time and they’ve had a burst of inspiration. It might be their best one yet. 

There is no sense of relief until the rebels from Coruscant return. They have different kind stories. There is little comfort in ghost stories but to involved in theater is to be constantly haunted. Merei doesn’t expect you to pour your heart out to them, but there is warmth in their eyes and not a trace of pity in their tone. Not everything needs to be an adventure to worth being heard.   

Before the missions: Noa is the one that will have said outright that the Padawans and the youngest of them need sabers, and they need to reclaim as many Crystals as they can take from the Empire, the Crystals corrupted in their hands. The Empire’s playing with something more dangerous than they know, and more than the Rebellion could face them.  She used to take Padawans to Ilum, prepare them for the Gathering, no one has to wonder if she’ll be coming along now to Eadu. Years of solitude eats away at the soul, at bravery. But she is still alive, and she's not done with hope yet. Let the Force help anyone that thinks either they will get to kill one of her own. None of their youngest would have gone to Eadu unprepared.

On Eadu: If you knew Noa as a Padawan, or a Knight, you might see a familiar image in her now, scaling walls in a hurricane, the way she holds her lightsaber against the Inquisitors like she wants the fight. A hand to the ground, did you notice her waiting for them, staff already drawn? She’s more reckless on this mission than she’s been in decades, and it feels right on her. Noa is not a general, she is not a body in the Rebellion as she is in the Order. Jedi Master. She earned this title, no matter how young she was when given to her, no matter if perhaps undeserved. No matter for all that died because she was still healing. No matter all the regret, and the failure. She’ll demand control before saying a word, telling you to run. She can feel them, when her hands brush metal, the hum of the galaxy abused. She can tell you where to go, but she will not help anyone overcome the fear the Force will demand.

Aftermath: She’s the last to board the ship’s loading ramp, waiting until the last moment after all others have made their way inside the hull. After debriefing the rest of the Order and the Council, she’d be right in the middle of helping the others make their sabers. Another, she knows to do far too well; the right tweaks to make sure the saber won’t explode just upon ignition, how to know which metal is the best for which Crystal, which tie to the Force. She’s home here, doing this. 

Before the missions: Since Jedha, Mathias’ life has gotten a lot more difficult. Old employers; people who have tried to kill him, have stopped chasing after him because they thought he died in front of them. His face across the galaxy means old employers are searching for him and the Empire’s able now to piece together the web of crimes he's created. All while facing the consequences of what he did to the Jedi. For the first time, he's had to stick around to see the effects of his actions, the pain they cause. Rishla holds onto his saber until he proves he's worthy of his title of a Knight, something he already knows the answer to, but he’s still here.

On Eadu: Mathias is a thief, has never passed the Gathering and has never made his own saber. The one he used was stolen from the Temple during Order 66. This will be his first time too finding a Crystal, even if he doesn't know going in that he will. He doesn't consider himself important enough to the Force, to the galaxy, to have that call. And realizing it is still too frightening because it requires being more than he's willing to be. Facing the Acolytes, he'll fight them head-on with no weapon but knives, hoping their lightsabers will go through him so he can turn the weapon against them, hoping he can be a good distraction from the others on the mission. He’s killed an Inquisitor before, they won’t be his greatest fan. The fear he must try to overcome here is his fear of being numb, of feeling nothing. A Crystal of his own will shine within one of the Empire's weapons when he begins to think maybe has more to feel than pain and more to give than it.

Aftermath: He won't build his lightsaber with the others, because it doesn't feel right when Rishla still holds on to his stolen one. He's found a shining Crystal, but he's not worthy yet of being a Knight, or perhaps even a Jedi. Instead, he'll stand to the side, give tips on what makes a good weapon and on how to hold the saber like it's an extension of the arm, but he'll keep his distance. The saber’s blade would have been indigo, if he made it.

Before the missions: The increase of distress calls and relief missions have kept Atticus busy, to the point of exhaustion. All made worse when he's already a person that doesn't rest, and thinks bringing calm, focusing on anything but his own mind will bring him just one moment of peace. Any family he still has left alive are within the Rebellion, in X-Wings and on the ground, he has no home he's worried about burning to the ground. No people he cares for that aren't in the Rebellion. This means, he's concern for those he cares for grows, however, in these hard times, makes him kinder than he already is.

On Coruscant: This mission is suicide, and that's exactly why he's going. Because he's one of the last few that can heal broken bones on someone else's body in the few blinks of the eye. However, he does this without fully expecting all he'll face, the demons that wait for him just floors above. He slides through narrow vents, the slits between laser grids, too easily. Showing all he learned during the Clone Wars, and over a decade within the Rebellion. He's doing more tonight than returning home, because the Vaults are the same place his former master, Kai, first attacked him. Where they became a slithering thing together, Atticus still unknowing they're upstairs, doesn't know they're alive. Just thinks the sense he feels from them now is an old memory. Will you get to see him now, disappearing from sight, unmoving, drowning? If you look too deeply into his eyes, maybe you'll get to hear the laughter of a mind shared by two. He'll lose hours in his memory, lose contact with reality.

Aftermath: There's a lot of grief for him that follows the mission, feeling all Kai sent him, feeling all his memories, and just feeling all the danger of the mission. He's going to confine himself to his office in medbay, when not working, wanting to disappear and not be seen. Just to recover, and to keep secret all he struggles with. He won't make it to the briefing afterwards with the rest of the High Council and the rest of the Order, say he had patients waiting.

During the announcement.

Osira feels that something is wrong before she hears it. She’s never been to Jedha, but the names Bail & Leia Organa make something go tight in her chest. Being with rebellion as long as she has, she knows those names well, knows how important they are. She isn’t a fighter. She’s never been a fighter. But her lightsaber hangs heavy at her hip. She is a Knight now, one of the few left with training in lightsaber combat, and a gift for renewing other’s strength. The emotions of the rebel base wash over her, and something tells her has to go. They ask for volunteers, and she raises a shaky hand.

During the extraction.

She stands in the crowd, only meant to be backup, to offer support if things go south. The crowd thrums with emotion, tension building and building, anger and fear, so much of it, all pointed in the same direction. Osira’s hands ball into fists. She cannot meditate here, cannot do anything but be swept away by the waves of feeling. The crowd wants to scream - she wants to scream - instead, she whispers.

“What if you’re wrong?”

She doesn’t mean to say it; it just falls from her lips like an exhale, giving life to the thing so many around her feel. And then the whisper begins to echo through the crowd, begins to get louder. She presses her hands to her mouth, she hadn’t meant for this. But it’s too late, the dam is breaking. She feels it, watches it - the anger building, the tension rising - whispers turning to shouts.

And then, the sound of blaster fire, of lightsabers igniting, of civilians shouting. And then, chaos.

Aftermath.

With shaking hands and a pounding heart, Osira finds herself back on the ship, horrified at what has happened. She should never have come. She should have known. The dread and fear of the New Order seeps into her bones - knowing they’ve been found, that their faces are known - but even they are overcome by an emotion all her own. Guilt. She does what she always does, she goes to those most tired, offering any strength she can. But her hands tremble. She speaks in whispers. She doesn’t dare look her fellow rebels in the eye.

A loose outline of what Osira’s been thinking, feeling, and doing during the first event. Either like this post so I can reach out to you or send me a message (either here or on discord) if you’d like to get a thread going!

During the Announcement:

He’d lost his mind to routine in the Pits. He’d lived the same day, every day, for longer than he can count. Interminable, the days of rising with the sun to kill all day to lying awake under stars reliving each death; time became meaningless as the endless days bled into each other. Or maybe routine had broken him before that - under the Stormtroopers careful rotation of torture devices and endless loop of the same questions, Fein forgot his name, forgot his past, forgot everyhting but the fact that he did not know the answers to the questions they asked. 

Routine was something Fein was learning he could not abide, so when they asked for volunteers he raised his hand without a second thought. 

During the Extraction:

He did not know the people standing on the stage. He did not know why the rebellion was so tense, why every second felt like it stretched thin on the edge of a knife - near to bursting. He did not understand why this mission was so important, but as he stands by the stage looking up in a face so much younger than his, his hands itch at the hilt of a weapon he’d forgotten how to hold. 

He doesn’t blink when Matthias leaps for the stage. When his brother moves, he moves. They fight together, and the world shrinks beyond them until it contains nothing but the two of them and the fight around them. Its only when Llewyn and Rishla are calling for the retreat that he’s forced back to reality. 

His face looms down from the screens above, back-lit by the blue light of his lightsaber, he wishes he could say that he doesn’t recognize himself, but Fein always was intimately familiar with Nightmares. 

Aftermath:

Ashamed of his actions and fearful of the implications of the rebellions new notoriety; Fein is lost. He seeks solace in the hangar bay, throwing himself into work on the ships and the fighters (almost as if he were looking for atonement), or in the Temple throwing himself into his training. He’s seen even less during the day, choosing instead to walk the halls when there are fewer eyes to see him, fewer people to point him out as the cause of their newfound peril. 

A loose outline of Fein’s internal thoughts and feelings, as well as his actions during Event: Revenant. If you’d like to have a thread, either send me a message (here or on discord) or like this post and I’ll message you! 

Announcement

His life froze for a brief moment as Kal heard that Bail and Leia Organa were captured by the Empire and were to be executed. He had never met either of them, but he had heard many stories about the two and their bravery. He wanted to do anything he possibly could to help them, but he wasn’t sure what a cargo pilot could do until he heard that the Rebels were going to Jedha to save them. 

Extraction

Perhaps it was his experience as a smuggler pilot and maybe even his experience on the occupied Jedha and sneaking around the planet that led to him being chosen to help pilot the small ship to Jedha. He’d made sure before they left that they knew he had been to Jedha many times during his life. 

Kal stayed with the ship while the Jedi went to the execution. He kept everything prepared to leave at any second, and he nervously sat there, listening to reports of what was happening. Before he knew it, he could hear the guns and shouting and he knew that something happened and he prepared himself for take off for whenever they were all able to return. 

Aftermath

Kal’s heart is still racing as he’s back on the base, and he can’t help but wonder, what else can he do? 

Llewyn made his point clear from the beginning: I won’t help you lead this. Those days were over from the moment he had resigned from the Jedi order and a moment of weakness didn’t change that. Instead he sat back almost completely silent except to acknowledge that he understood what she said and confirmed what he was willing to do for the mission.

If anyone had any thoughts on the choice llewyn couldn’t tell as he avoided anyone’s gaze and made a point of not looking Rishla in the eyes. He knew she had thoughts, she always did, but she was also smart enough to know it was better this way. It was possible that she didn’t care at all since she had been the one to find him in the first place and that was enough to solidify that he was no longer the person who fought by her said.