[ Reporting back on the conditions of the paths they'd seen between the Fracking Fields and the Boneyard Junction none of them had managed to reach quite yet. It had seemed straightforward, and her nebulous concept of rewards for accepting bounties had meant she expected little to nothing. When her expectations had been met, that was fine enough as it was.
Being notified to pick up a package from the Mayor's office, on the other hand, came as a surprise. Late afternoon brought her to their doorstep; she waits amidst the scents of sage and sunwarm tar, sickly sweet in the afternoon's gentle haze.
The haze she steps back out into, hat dangling at her upper back, is not entirely a product of the lazy afternoon sunlight. She walks with a wooden sort of unease, hands locked around the stock and barrel of a pulse rifle she refuses to allow to touch her body. At the same time, she doesn't extend her arms out in front of her, instead keeping them bent at the elbow as she makes her stilted progress back toward the Reverend's house. Why? She helped Shuyi and reported back on the paths that might have lead toward Boneyard Junction, if the rockslides and sinkholes didn't make them treacherous. Why? Guns, even guns that shoot light, aren't multifunctional the way a knife is, or practical the way unarmed combat could be. Guns were made to shoot; guns were violence, even if it was a violence that kept a family fed.
She's not a hunter. She's a fighter, but that has had nothing to do with violence until she was plunged into it here. First the insects in Oska, then the bandits on the train. Running across that man in chains all covered in injuries, all the dead bodies he'd been kneeling down surrounded by... the self immolation of Evan under attack from the sandworm, and the viscera covering him, the walls, herself, but not so much Urahara.
She shivers, and the shiver becomes a shudder, and the shudder brings on the nausea she has to swallow down. On some level she's aware of who she's looking for when she stops outside the Reverend's house. Anakin has become enough of a constant, someone she has to report to and perform for, someone who she doesn't want to let down simply in practice; Anakin, teaching her self defense, and the only person she refers to as Master (by request) while accepting the formality of such bonds.
She holds the pulse rifle in her hands, fingers white as she holds on tight enough that she can't run away. ]
Master Anakin?
[ Calling out from beyond the porch, not sure if he's there, or if it's Kung Jin, or if it's Arima, which of the Several Deadly Former Strangers Cum Teammates she lives with here. Not sure if technically she's talking to empty air. She supposes if she is, she can go hide this under her pillow and find him again later, like some strange denial of an increasingly difficult to understand reality.
She doesn't want this.
She doesn't want any of this.
Because if this goes too far, will she even be able to go home? ]
Chihiro? [ only one person calls him such ( kylo ren opting for the far more formal "master skywalker" ), but the upward turn that turns her name into a question is not due to not knowing who calls.
stepping outside, anakin frowns when he takes in her expression, deeper when he notes what she's holding. the sight is entirely incongruous. not because of her age ( children younger than she were given a lightsaber and taught to wield it. boys and girls not that much older picked up blasters and joined the adults in armed resistance. it was war, and it was awful, and there was no help for any of it. ) it's wrong because she had previously expressed her dislike for violence, and he respected it. it's wrong because she looks like she was told to hold a bomb; let go, it all goes boom. ]
What are you doing with that?
[ anakin recognizes it: one of the light pulse rifles the qorral favor. that answer, however, fails to explain why she has it. he holds his hand out, the right, always covered by a black glove up to his elbow. even when he meditates — dressed down to his undertunic and pants — he never removes the glove. ]
[ she steps forward, offering the pulse rifle over with the same care that's afraid of accidentally triggering some sort of violence she can't control. it's ridiculous. she knows the safety's on, she asked for them to check and show her what it looked like before she left. it still doesn't feel safe.
handing it over to an adult she trusts is an immense weight off her shoulders, one that manifests almost immediately. she breathes out in a sigh of relief once she's handed him the rifle, comforted by the familiarity of that black glove, his voice, the certainty that he at least will know what to do with a pulse rifle. her fingers twitch after she lets go. she massages one hand with the other, hiding the lingering tremor in her limbs by keeping them moving as she focuses on breathing. in. one two three. out. one two three.
then answer. her master's asking a question. it's not right to fail to respond. ]
I was told it was a reward for services rendered on behalf of ALASTAIR's mission objectives.
Did they run out of meal tickets? [ a little too dry for sarcasm; an inch too sharp to be wry. she's still upset. it's obvious in her manner; concern threads through her in the force. his hand, the one still made of muscle and bone, settles on chihiro's shoulder. ]
Let's go inside. Come on.
[ the reverend had given them all a firm discussion on what was expected and what was allowed. violence had ranked up there with drunkenness in his list of nos. anakin checks the weapon. the safety is on, but he takes it several steps further. the power pack slides out first. anakin collapses the rest of the rifle into its component parts. in pieces, the rifle is almost lost in the mess of parts that so frequently dominate his area. when and where he sleeps are good questions seeing how much of his time is kept busy repairing things for the reverend or others in town or making improvements for his own use.
with space on his bed restricted, anakin takes a seat on the bed that had been luke's. it has been kept as luke left it. just in case. anakin pats the spot next him for her to join him. ]
[ It's not a question that requires an answer; Chihiro breathes out with a sense of small relief as she feels his hand on her shoulder. More so as they head in, and he proceeds to take apart the gun, reducing it to its separate pieces. There's something fascinating in that deconstruction, something safer in the sum of parts being laid out and so easily seen.
The frightening realities in life are composed of smaller things. At times she forgets that truth. In such a simple way, he's reminding her of it now, her heart beating a little less hard, feeling a little less overwhelmed as he moves through his organised form of chaos, seating himself on the other bed. At his indication, she follows, turning to sit on the bed and use her hands to push herself further back until the backs of her knees hit the edge of the mattress. Quiet for a beat, she glances over to Anakin. ]
Master Anakin? The violence here isn't really going to end, is it.
[ She means with ALASTAIR. But she also means in Perdition's Rest, and enough has happened to her by now that she's pulled through by the skin of her teeth and the blessing of the preternatural abilities of others, it's hard to separate the two. ]
[ a very different girl on a very different world once voiced a similar question. as he had her, anakin answers chihiro. ]
No, it won't.
[ he has no intention to frighten or unsettle her. neither will he lie. perdition's rest has been dangerous, and a greater threat looms on the horizon. perhaps she could be sheltered for the duration of this mission. kept far away from danger. but she is not only a child, but a part of the team. more missions will follow this one. each has proven risky. of those anakin has been present for only one did not erupt in violence. yet the exception still demanded he take a lightsaber to defend himself and others from vicious alien plants and beasts. ]
You have a good heart, Chihiro. [ anakin regards her patiently. ] You're kind and clever. They're traits that will help you often.
[ his gaze drops, and moves away. anakin looks ahead of him, artificial hand resting over the real. ]
The galaxy is different. The people you find, [ he exhales through his nose, ] will be very different.
[ she has faith in that honesty. not because what he says is comfortable. she can feel how it sits in her stomach like a stone; heavy with its own weight and truth, but manageable, as it must be. her hands fist, pressed over her stomach. the gesture isn't entirely voluntary. it's not enough to shove the sensation away.
she swallows, watching him from the corners of her eyes. she accepts what he says about her, too, because it isn't anything she feels needs an answer. he says what he means. that's been her experience. if it's easy or not to live with is up to her to handle, not for him to mitigate.
she lifts her chin, turning her face his way. ]
Yes. But not everyone will be.
[ there's no uncertainty in her heart when she makes that claim. a fondness, mingled in with the unhappy resignation, the fear of what violence meant, of having to welcome some of that violence into herself, wraps around her heart, making it easier to breathe. not by much, but by enough.
like the gun could be taken down into its composite parts, so could most challenges. things start out small. they're a sum of their parts, not a singular, looming inplacability she's been thrust up against.
the galaxy is likely different. there is a great capacity for harm, self interest, greed, all the self-satisfied and centralized emotions. but that, too, is a flaw of any group. she's started understanding the differences in perspective and species interests. how those even who look alike don't think alike. how kindness can be more costly than cruelty to some. how indifference and apathy are easier. how derision is simple when it means less is directed at you.
hope, and a love that's both general and specific, and a determination. all those confusing feelings, and she chooses to hold those tighter, and closer, as she stills where she sits by his side. ]
For all our differences, kindness will exist in others, too.
[ like you. ]
Not everyone. I...
[ it's difficult to weigh the needs of those she cares for most against the need to not indulge and lose herself to the violence that's becoming more and more commonplace in her life. she'd thought Oska and the insect violence was meant to be the odd interlude. now she's learning, firsthand, it's the kinder one. ]
To protect the ones who matter to me, others will be hurt.
[ a question, asking if she'll be that instrument of harm. not through fighting, necessarily; not through physical violence. but there are other ways to generate harm or situations. there has to be more than one way to protect. ]
No one can make you into something you don't want to be.
[ anakin faces her, then. his expression does not change, voice remaining as even — falling into patterns established with his padawan, themselves ways he learned as a padawan from his master. ( obi-wan would remind him chihiro is not a padawan, not a youngling, not a part of the order. obi-wan isn't there. ) ]
You remember what I told you of the Jedi. How we are peacekeepers.
[ guardians of the republic and every system. a lesson prompted by innocent questions early one morning as they began their exercises. ]
Jedi fought no war. Every Jedi carries a lightsaber, but no Jedi would draw it without first attempting to negotiate.
War broke out three years ago, the scope of which the galaxy hadn't seen in a thousand years. [ he looks away from her toward his bed, to the plastipaper file containing the only information he has had on luke. adam's apple bobbing as he swallows, anakin bows. ] A peaceful resolution wasn't an option. We had to fight to protect the Republic, and we fought to bring the war to a quick end.
Other people were fighting too, to end the war. There is one senator you would have liked. She, like you, doesn't like fighting. She does everything in her power to avoid it. She would rather people listened to one another. When fighting is unavoidable, she tries to limit losses on all sides.
[ he looks to her again. ]
I can't promise you no one will be hurt. [ wryly, his smile lifting at the corner of his mouth that only just reaches his eyes, ] Not even a Jedi can see the future that clearly. But I can tell you that you if you don't want to pick up a gun, you don't have to. There is more than one way to fight.
[ not usually ways he opts for, but. they exist. ]
[ she listens to Anakin, taking in his words, his glances, the way he moves as if it all has some deeper meaning she's trying to take in. to her it does. she respects and trusts Anakin. as Master Anakin, and as Anakin, teammate, and Anakin, Jedi.
that he says there's more than one way to fight matters to her. it matters in a way that leaves her chest feeling tight, like she can't breathe, on the cusp of crying. her eyes stay dry. she breathes in, breath catching, but she doesn't shudder. she just accepts that it hurts and feels better all at once. ]
What's the senator's name?
[ that's an example that Chihiro would like to follow. she has fought for what she believes in, and she has negotiated, and she has found solutions before that didn't rely on violence. limiting losses... that's not ideal, but ideals have so little to do with this world or situation she's in now. any of the world situations she's in anymore. ]
[ anakin breathes the name almost softly, almost like a prayer. as evident is the way his expression gentles, the way a shine rarely glimpsed enters his eyes. his face transforms with just the mention of her name.
it was the most beautiful name he had ever heard when he was nine-years-old and couldn't stop himself from blurting out that he thought her an angel ( couldn't stop himself sneaking glances at her in the minutes before, so remarkable she had been. ) she only became more beautiful with time, her name music, as much the one she wore in public as the one shared secretly between the two.
he dreamt of the day he could declare it publicly. she is mine as I am hers. he dreamt. ]
[ she doesn't say anything after listening to how he says this woman's name. she just manages a nod of her head, to show she heard and is listening, and a hum somewhere in the back of her throat.
the things that come to mind, like, she has a nice name or, I think I'd like to manage to believe and live like she does are things she does not say in this moment. it doesn't quite feel right to.
she does smile, though. it's nice to see anakin in this light too, as someone who is capable of so many of the same emotions as anyone else. she doesn't really get what it means to be a Jedi, and thankfully doesn't need to, for the most part. but as someone motivated by what she feels, as someone who has saved someone she loved on the strength of that emotion, it's something she can empathize with in whatever degree.
he's managed to leave her feeling much better, less uncertain, and more convinced that it's okay to turn away from fighting as a first response. at least fighting with violence. as he says, and as she knows, there are so many other ways to fight. his words simply make it real outside of her own confused heart. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
action;
Being notified to pick up a package from the Mayor's office, on the other hand, came as a surprise. Late afternoon brought her to their doorstep; she waits amidst the scents of sage and sunwarm tar, sickly sweet in the afternoon's gentle haze.
The haze she steps back out into, hat dangling at her upper back, is not entirely a product of the lazy afternoon sunlight. She walks with a wooden sort of unease, hands locked around the stock and barrel of a pulse rifle she refuses to allow to touch her body. At the same time, she doesn't extend her arms out in front of her, instead keeping them bent at the elbow as she makes her stilted progress back toward the Reverend's house. Why? She helped Shuyi and reported back on the paths that might have lead toward Boneyard Junction, if the rockslides and sinkholes didn't make them treacherous. Why? Guns, even guns that shoot light, aren't multifunctional the way a knife is, or practical the way unarmed combat could be. Guns were made to shoot; guns were violence, even if it was a violence that kept a family fed.
She's not a hunter. She's a fighter, but that has had nothing to do with violence until she was plunged into it here. First the insects in Oska, then the bandits on the train. Running across that man in chains all covered in injuries, all the dead bodies he'd been kneeling down surrounded by... the self immolation of Evan under attack from the sandworm, and the viscera covering him, the walls, herself, but not so much Urahara.
She shivers, and the shiver becomes a shudder, and the shudder brings on the nausea she has to swallow down. On some level she's aware of who she's looking for when she stops outside the Reverend's house. Anakin has become enough of a constant, someone she has to report to and perform for, someone who she doesn't want to let down simply in practice; Anakin, teaching her self defense, and the only person she refers to as Master (by request) while accepting the formality of such bonds.
She holds the pulse rifle in her hands, fingers white as she holds on tight enough that she can't run away. ]
Master Anakin?
[ Calling out from beyond the porch, not sure if he's there, or if it's Kung Jin, or if it's Arima, which of the Several Deadly Former Strangers Cum Teammates she lives with here. Not sure if technically she's talking to empty air. She supposes if she is, she can go hide this under her pillow and find him again later, like some strange denial of an increasingly difficult to understand reality.
She doesn't want this.
She doesn't want any of this.
Because if this goes too far, will she even be able to go home? ]
no subject
stepping outside, anakin frowns when he takes in her expression, deeper when he notes what she's holding. the sight is entirely incongruous. not because of her age ( children younger than she were given a lightsaber and taught to wield it. boys and girls not that much older picked up blasters and joined the adults in armed resistance. it was war, and it was awful, and there was no help for any of it. ) it's wrong because she had previously expressed her dislike for violence, and he respected it. it's wrong because she looks like she was told to hold a bomb; let go, it all goes boom. ]
What are you doing with that?
[ anakin recognizes it: one of the light pulse rifles the qorral favor. that answer, however, fails to explain why she has it. he holds his hand out, the right, always covered by a black glove up to his elbow. even when he meditates — dressed down to his undertunic and pants — he never removes the glove. ]
Give it to me.
no subject
handing it over to an adult she trusts is an immense weight off her shoulders, one that manifests almost immediately. she breathes out in a sigh of relief once she's handed him the rifle, comforted by the familiarity of that black glove, his voice, the certainty that he at least will know what to do with a pulse rifle. her fingers twitch after she lets go. she massages one hand with the other, hiding the lingering tremor in her limbs by keeping them moving as she focuses on breathing. in. one two three. out. one two three.
then answer. her master's asking a question. it's not right to fail to respond. ]
I was told it was a reward for services rendered on behalf of ALASTAIR's mission objectives.
no subject
Let's go inside. Come on.
[ the reverend had given them all a firm discussion on what was expected and what was allowed. violence had ranked up there with drunkenness in his list of nos. anakin checks the weapon. the safety is on, but he takes it several steps further. the power pack slides out first. anakin collapses the rest of the rifle into its component parts. in pieces, the rifle is almost lost in the mess of parts that so frequently dominate his area. when and where he sleeps are good questions seeing how much of his time is kept busy repairing things for the reverend or others in town or making improvements for his own use.
with space on his bed restricted, anakin takes a seat on the bed that had been luke's. it has been kept as luke left it. just in case. anakin pats the spot next him for her to join him. ]
no subject
The frightening realities in life are composed of smaller things. At times she forgets that truth. In such a simple way, he's reminding her of it now, her heart beating a little less hard, feeling a little less overwhelmed as he moves through his organised form of chaos, seating himself on the other bed. At his indication, she follows, turning to sit on the bed and use her hands to push herself further back until the backs of her knees hit the edge of the mattress. Quiet for a beat, she glances over to Anakin. ]
Master Anakin? The violence here isn't really going to end, is it.
[ She means with ALASTAIR. But she also means in Perdition's Rest, and enough has happened to her by now that she's pulled through by the skin of her teeth and the blessing of the preternatural abilities of others, it's hard to separate the two. ]
no subject
No, it won't.
[ he has no intention to frighten or unsettle her. neither will he lie. perdition's rest has been dangerous, and a greater threat looms on the horizon. perhaps she could be sheltered for the duration of this mission. kept far away from danger. but she is not only a child, but a part of the team. more missions will follow this one. each has proven risky. of those anakin has been present for only one did not erupt in violence. yet the exception still demanded he take a lightsaber to defend himself and others from vicious alien plants and beasts. ]
You have a good heart, Chihiro. [ anakin regards her patiently. ] You're kind and clever. They're traits that will help you often.
[ his gaze drops, and moves away. anakin looks ahead of him, artificial hand resting over the real. ]
The galaxy is different. The people you find, [ he exhales through his nose, ] will be very different.
no subject
she swallows, watching him from the corners of her eyes. she accepts what he says about her, too, because it isn't anything she feels needs an answer. he says what he means. that's been her experience. if it's easy or not to live with is up to her to handle, not for him to mitigate.
she lifts her chin, turning her face his way. ]
Yes. But not everyone will be.
[ there's no uncertainty in her heart when she makes that claim. a fondness, mingled in with the unhappy resignation, the fear of what violence meant, of having to welcome some of that violence into herself, wraps around her heart, making it easier to breathe. not by much, but by enough.
like the gun could be taken down into its composite parts, so could most challenges. things start out small. they're a sum of their parts, not a singular, looming inplacability she's been thrust up against.
the galaxy is likely different. there is a great capacity for harm, self interest, greed, all the self-satisfied and centralized emotions. but that, too, is a flaw of any group. she's started understanding the differences in perspective and species interests. how those even who look alike don't think alike. how kindness can be more costly than cruelty to some. how indifference and apathy are easier. how derision is simple when it means less is directed at you.
hope, and a love that's both general and specific, and a determination. all those confusing feelings, and she chooses to hold those tighter, and closer, as she stills where she sits by his side. ]
For all our differences, kindness will exist in others, too.
[ like you. ]
Not everyone. I...
[ it's difficult to weigh the needs of those she cares for most against the need to not indulge and lose herself to the violence that's becoming more and more commonplace in her life. she'd thought Oska and the insect violence was meant to be the odd interlude. now she's learning, firsthand, it's the kinder one. ]
To protect the ones who matter to me, others will be hurt.
[ a question, asking if she'll be that instrument of harm. not through fighting, necessarily; not through physical violence. but there are other ways to generate harm or situations. there has to be more than one way to protect. ]
no subject
[ anakin faces her, then. his expression does not change, voice remaining as even — falling into patterns established with his padawan, themselves ways he learned as a padawan from his master. ( obi-wan would remind him chihiro is not a padawan, not a youngling, not a part of the order. obi-wan isn't there. ) ]
You remember what I told you of the Jedi. How we are peacekeepers.
[ guardians of the republic and every system. a lesson prompted by innocent questions early one morning as they began their exercises. ]
Jedi fought no war. Every Jedi carries a lightsaber, but no Jedi would draw it without first attempting to negotiate.
War broke out three years ago, the scope of which the galaxy hadn't seen in a thousand years. [ he looks away from her toward his bed, to the plastipaper file containing the only information he has had on luke. adam's apple bobbing as he swallows, anakin bows. ] A peaceful resolution wasn't an option. We had to fight to protect the Republic, and we fought to bring the war to a quick end.
Other people were fighting too, to end the war. There is one senator you would have liked. She, like you, doesn't like fighting. She does everything in her power to avoid it. She would rather people listened to one another. When fighting is unavoidable, she tries to limit losses on all sides.
[ he looks to her again. ]
I can't promise you no one will be hurt. [ wryly, his smile lifting at the corner of his mouth that only just reaches his eyes, ] Not even a Jedi can see the future that clearly. But I can tell you that you if you don't want to pick up a gun, you don't have to. There is more than one way to fight.
[ not usually ways he opts for, but. they exist. ]
no subject
that he says there's more than one way to fight matters to her. it matters in a way that leaves her chest feeling tight, like she can't breathe, on the cusp of crying. her eyes stay dry. she breathes in, breath catching, but she doesn't shudder. she just accepts that it hurts and feels better all at once. ]
What's the senator's name?
[ that's an example that Chihiro would like to follow. she has fought for what she believes in, and she has negotiated, and she has found solutions before that didn't rely on violence. limiting losses... that's not ideal, but ideals have so little to do with this world or situation she's in now. any of the world situations she's in anymore. ]
Thank you, Master Anakin. For telling me this.
no subject
[ anakin breathes the name almost softly, almost like a prayer. as evident is the way his expression gentles, the way a shine rarely glimpsed enters his eyes. his face transforms with just the mention of her name.
it was the most beautiful name he had ever heard when he was nine-years-old and couldn't stop himself from blurting out that he thought her an angel ( couldn't stop himself sneaking glances at her in the minutes before, so remarkable she had been. ) she only became more beautiful with time, her name music, as much the one she wore in public as the one shared secretly between the two.
he dreamt of the day he could declare it publicly. she is mine as I am hers. he dreamt. ]
no subject
the things that come to mind, like, she has a nice name or, I think I'd like to manage to believe and live like she does are things she does not say in this moment. it doesn't quite feel right to.
she does smile, though. it's nice to see anakin in this light too, as someone who is capable of so many of the same emotions as anyone else. she doesn't really get what it means to be a Jedi, and thankfully doesn't need to, for the most part. but as someone motivated by what she feels, as someone who has saved someone she loved on the strength of that emotion, it's something she can empathize with in whatever degree.
he's managed to leave her feeling much better, less uncertain, and more convinced that it's okay to turn away from fighting as a first response. at least fighting with violence. as he says, and as she knows, there are so many other ways to fight. his words simply make it real outside of her own confused heart. ]