[OPEN] It has not occurred to her to question the singing statues

[therevanchist]

Who: Revan & Anybody
What: Revan gradually returns to protagonist form
Where: Melai Temple and environs
When: Melai Temple downtime
Warnings/Notes: probably none, will warn in subject lines/edit this if that changes

For Simmons:

[When things finally calm down and Revan can slip away to a quiet corner, she drops cross-legged to the mosaicked floor to give healing one more try. The gash on her thigh especially is going to slow her down if left to heal naturally, and that's assuming she doesn't pick up an infection, so time to make this work. The temple has been fortified by the light over who knows how many centuries, and if she can't get her act together here, it's not happening anywhere. She stills her thoughts, stepping aside to let the Force take over and knit the parted flesh the way any Jedi should be able to do, and...

...nothing happens.

The Force is there, at least, the aura of the temple peaceful around her and the life of the forest vast and deep to the edges of her perception. She can feel the minds of the others, follow the rise and fall of their emotions, pick out individuals...Dixon, Arturia, Simmons--

--her eyes open.]

Hey, Simmons. You need something?

Open:

A. Calm Blue Ocean, Goddammit

[The most basic of Jedi disciplines is meditation, but Revan hasn't been anything approaching serene lately, and the peace of the temple is an enormous help in calming her thoughts. That's why she's floating cross-legged in the air near a cluster of the singing statues, eyes half-lidded and hands upturned on knees. The more advanced practice also involves levitating objects, which is why she's raided the kitchen for the few loose things things in the temple. If you were looking for that cookpot or paring knife, you might find it floating in leisurely circles in the air around a Jedi.]

B. What's Big and Sticky?

[Revan can use a saberstaff, which is basically the same thing as a quarterstaff, except orders of magnitude more effective and cooler. Unfortunately, it looks like she's stuck with the latter for the time being, unless she starts stealing weapons from other party members, which seems antisocial. Instead, she's gathered a stack of appropriately sized and shaped branches from the forest around the temple--look, it's kept her out of trouble for several hours--but the problem is, she doesn't know what you want in a wooden weapon besides presumably not being rotten and full of questionable bugs. She does know wood has to be dry to be useful for anything, so at least she hasn't pissed off any forest spirits by uprooting a bunch of saplings, but beyond that, progress has been limited.

That said, not having the faintest clue what she's doing hasn't stopped Revan from picking up her candidates one by one to whack them against a tree. The latest one snaps, half of it going flying, and Revan shrugs and tosses the other half over her shoulder into a growing discard pile.]

Nope!

C. What Do You Mean I'm Not the Main Character? (Wildcard!)

[Revan does not handle idleness well, and with no shipboard maintenance tasks to do, she's rarely still. Sometimes it's something constructive like exercise or lightsaber forms, but just as often she's wandering aimlessly...poking into anything unusual, looking over people's shoulders, striking up conversations, offering to help regardless of what might be a total lack of qualifications. She will make friends or die trying.]

Comments

[therevanchist]

[That's a more fraught question than Dixon is in any position to realize, but Revan just snorts. It would incredible if she still believed the cover story the Council had spun for her fake identity, anyway.]

Jedi are raised by the Order. I've been trained to fight since I was a kid. You didn't have combat training before you got here?

[It's a ridiculous thing to lie about, so she has every reason to believe him, but that doesn't make it less weird.]

[awfulcer]

You mean like when you were a teenager?

[Dixon gives her that squinty skeptical look like he's got some qualms with her story but isn't sure which angle to go at it first. Not that he doesn't believe her, but that he kind of wants to use the wiggle room in her statement to turn it into something less awful than what it sounds like.]

Well, I mean, at the academy, but that's just basic stuff. Not like what the rest of you all were doing out there with those things. Hell, not like what I was doing out there with those things.

[therevanchist]

Apprentices get paired off with a master at thirteen or so, but Jedi training starts from the day you enter the Enclave.

[What? All of Revan's problems with the Order are what they did to her when she was a grown-ass adult. Based on what she's heard, it seems like her childhood had gone just fine.]

[awfulcer]

Wait. What?

[It's like he almost was expecting her to confirm his hopes that oh, right, she didn't mean that. And then she feinted.]

And how old are you when you enter the Enclave?

[Please say "thirteen, it's a really short turnaround", he wishes. It would still be...wrong (Dixon can't dredge up another word, but eloquence was never his strong suit), but at least not full-on pre-teen wrong.]

[therevanchist]

As soon as you're identified as Force-sensitive. They won't take anyone much older than ten or eleven, though.

[Seriously, Dixon, what's wrong?]

[awfulcer]

They start training you at ten? At the oldest?

[By now Dixon does look genuinely horrified. When he was ten he was still licking batteries. The idea of being in any kind of training for combat at that age is something that jars something deep inside him, that presses up against that tiny bit of a moral core buried down in there.]

Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you people?

[therevanchist]

[That's...vehement, and Revan blinks, taken aback.]

The risk of falling is much higher if you start late.

[At least according to what she remembers, but she can't guarantee the texts she was shown during her refresher training are the entirety of the Order's exploration of the matter.]

Are you picturing some kind of boot camp? That's not what Enclaves are like.

[awfulcer]

I don't know, you tell me what I'm supposed to picture!

[Once again he clings onto the hope that there's some kind of miscommunication going on, like she's saying "combat training" but the Enclaves are some kind of summer camp. He knows that's not what's happening, but it's the kind of fleeting fancy that gives the illusion of rightness in the world for a hot second, and he's always had a soft spot for those.]

[therevanchist]

Dixon, we're a monastic order. Enclaves are entire communities. It's like living in a village.

[A village run by heavily-armed celibate warrior monks who make decisions based on their hallucinations visions, but, y'know, whatever.]

What's wrong?

[She doesn't need the Force to tell he's horrified, but it seems so disproportionate.]

[awfulcer]

Living in a village where they got kids learning combat like it's the Hunger Games?

[The way she's so totally calm about it is even more unsettling than if she acted like she were traumatized.]

What's wrong is kinds are supposed to have a childhood! [He jabs a finger around, not really at her so much as just in her general direction.] There's supposed to- that's what they're supposed to have! Not getting soldiered up!

[therevanchist]

[What's a Hunger Game.]

It's sparring, not a pit fight.

[Trust her! She's done pit fights!]

We also learn... [stuff] ...Meditation. First aid. Droid repair. Nobody's turning kids into soldiers.

[Seriously, do you have any idea how bad she is at following orders?]

[awfulcer]

Yeah, what, first aid so you can go combat train more? Because that’s what that sounds like.

[She’s so unfazed by it that he wonders again if he’s seriously misinterpreting. Maybe the magic translation is messing up. Maybe her words mean something different on Jupiter than they do here. But it explains enough about her demeanor that he believes he’s right.]

Your people are fucked up. [He plants his hands on his hips, knowing that there’s nothing he can do now about whatever travesty her childhood was.] Are you okay?

[He’s serious - and honestly concerned - with that last question.]

[therevanchist]

[Oh come on, Dixon. Cub Scouts learn first aid, which Revan would absolutely point out if she knew what a Cub Scout was.

However misplaced, his concern is touching. No one's asked her how she's feeling since they escaped the Leviathan, except to accuse her of being a loaded gun pointed at the Republic. She smiles at Dixon, the expression warm, lighting up her whole face for a moment before the answer to his question makes her grow rueful.]

I'm pretty far from okay, but it's got nothing to do with my childhood.

[She's not going to leave that hanging there, though the pause is slightly too long as she figures out the brief version.]

There's a war on. My crew and I had just escaped the enemy flagship when I found myself here, but we had to leave one of our own behind.

[Sighing, Revan rubs the back of her neck.]

Every minute I spend here is making things worse for her, and for the Republic.

[awfulcer]

[It's been such a while since Dixon's made almost anyone smile that it kind of catches him off-guard. He doesn't know when things got so serious in life. Once upon a time - probably when he was about the age Revan was in the Enclave - he had this sort of idea that being a cop would mean getting kittens down from trees and returning purses to robbery victims in the street. That being an adult meant freedom and the ability to choose your own life and go wherever you wanted.

It involved a lot more happiness than the world has now. He doesn't know why he had those ideas, nor does he remember when exactly they disappeared.]

Well your childhood probably didn't help. [He rubs the back of his neck in an unconscious mimicry.

He didn't really think about the fact that other people might have things to return to. He doesn't. He was up and ditching everything to go on a roadtrip that was likely to end with him in prison or dead, and he was satisfied with that. No one's hanging on his return like they are hers.]

It's not your fault you're stuck here, unless you know something I don't.

[therevanchist]

[Let's not discuss the childhood she doesn't remember at all.]

I know it's not my fault...but still. I'm here, I'm needed there, and it's not a great feeling.

[Shrug. Revan might not be able to do anything about it, but lying to herself about how she feels isn't going to help. She can do bloody-minded stubbornness, but fake optimism is outside her range.]

How are you doing?

[The absolute smoothest of subject changes.]

[awfulcer]

[He can tell when someone wants a subject dropped, and so he does. If Revan's one of those people who doesn't particularly like being vulnerable, he won't push it.]

Pretty fucking shitty. Actually. [Hey, she was honest with him, he'll be honest with her. Besides, while Dixon doesn't particularly like being vulnerable either, he's also really terrible at covering up his emotions, or managing them in any way at all, really.]

[therevanchist]

[Snort. Revan appreciates that level of honesty. Everything about their situation is awful and no point pretending otherwise, especially when you factor in what she suspects are Dixon's deep-seated personal problems.]

Anything I can do to help?

[Having known him for at least a whole day at this point, she's guessing he probably doesn't want to talk about it.]

[awfulcer]

Only if you know where to get a case of beer and some cigarettes.

[It’s the first time he hasn’t blamed it all on some bullshit flu. The truth is, he’s scared himself with how bad this has been. He didn’t realize how vitally he needed the toxic fuel that wound its way through his every routine. He’s spent the last few sleepless nights thinking that he’d kill a man, he’d convert to religion, he’d drink Purell, he’d huff glue, hell he’d shoot dope if it would give some relief from the all-consuming longing in every cell of his body. Every nerve shaking for a buzz.

The good news is that shame is nothing unfamiliar to him. That part at least is old hat.

Before she gets the right impression about what he’s saying, he tries to backtrack and probably makes it even more obvious.]

I really wasn’t drunk at that first...thing, with the group. I know it looked it.

[therevanchist]

Sorry, must have left 'em in my other robe.

[She glances over at the brown garment hanging off a tree limb.

Revan's never been close to someone with the DTs, at least not long enough to tell it's different from some other illness, but she does smell a rat, or the Star Wars equivalent thereof.]

So what what was going on? That wasn't a concussion.

[awfulcer]

I figured. [That she was useless for that particular need, at least.]

I don’t know what it was. I was tangling with the space rock asshole and he aimed one at my head and the shield started glowing. [And he felt that sweet poison nectar flowing through his veins.] And I figured I just got hit in the head a lot recently, and then I was all fucked up and everyone was talking at me. I don’t know, I didn’t just get brain damage here. I’ve been kicked in the head a lot recently. And I ain’t been sleeping, so.

[Seriously, this has not been a great month for him.]

[therevanchist]

The comedown from combat stims can be bad, but I've never heard of anything doing that. Usually you just get the shakes. And it wears off fast.

[Why yes, she has extensive experience with battle drugs, and mentions it like it's normal.]

I might be able to help you with getting to sleep, at least.

[Revan doesn't like having to qualify that with "might," but she has no idea how well she'll be able to manipulate minds here.]

[awfulcer]

Me neither. But I've had the shakes days now and this is separate.

[He taps the corner of his shield against the ground while he talks, a furrow in his brow, feeling like he'd footing around in the dark missing something.]

Shoot. I've been close to just having someone crack me over the head again.

[therevanchist]

You are aware "asleep" and "unconscious" are different, right?

[It's an important question, but Revan's distracted trying to figure out what's going on with Dixon. She glances down at the shield as it makes noise. All this talk of altered states...]

Dixon, are you in withdrawal from something?

[He did ask after alcohol and cigarras. She's riding out the caffeine headache, herself, but he seems much worse off than a caf addict.]

[awfulcer]

[The pause that follows her sentiment makes it clear that he kind of wasn't aware of that. Like, he was aware that they weren't exactly the same, but any attempt to actually explain the difference would have been met with a shrug and a blustering excuse that he's not a fucking doctor.]

No. [It's legitimately the most unconvincing lie he's ever told, and he's been a solid user of 'the dog ate my homework' since it ever occurred to him that he could pretend to have a dog.]

[therevanchist]

[Okay, Revan is just going to pretend he said "yes," since even if he weren't the worst liar ever, she can feel the dishonesty radiating off him through the Force.]

One of the healers might be able to help.