[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]

[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.

[awfulcer]

[He gestures to the healed burns on his face.] Nah, the last one who tried to do anything passed out on me. [Besides, he doesn't want any of them to know exactly why he's a mess right now. He's already feeling like he's chugged ice water that Revan knows. Like it'd be an A-OK idea to just sink into the ground and let the earth cover him up.]

I just need to...

[There's a groove in his lower lip where he's been biting it the last few nights.]

...figure out what the hell I did that first day to hold it off a little.

[Look, Revan, he's down for you hitting him with one of those defective sticks.]

[therevanchist]

[Cold turkey isn't the best way to quit a severe addiction, Revan knows that much, but to her disappointment, they never did find a bar. She doubts Dixon could taper himself off, anyway.

She drums her fingers against her thigh, that frustrating feeling of having all the pieces but not being able to put the puzzle together tugging at her. After the revelations on the Leviathan, she never wants to be caught out like that again, but this can't possibly be as bad--no one's conspiring to keep the light from dawning on Dixon. Probably.

...The light.

"He aimed one at my head and the shield started glowing," followed by the previously sober Dixon behaving like he'd made it through half a bottle of some Tatooine moonshine on his own.]

Oh.

["I am an idiot," she doesn't say, because Revan never thinks that about herself.]

The shield.

[awfulcer]

What about it?

[Despite having more of the information, Dixon’s decidedly not as quick on the uptake. He takes a look at the thing, the Ebbing PD insignia basically mocking him every time he looks at it. The weight of things seems to fall on him, things slowly clicking into place. He hasn’t quite threaded the needle but he realizes she has.

He looks back at Revan like he’s expecting her to call him an idiot or something, preemptively hurt and defensive.]

You figure something out? [That kicked expression is replaced with something tentatively hopeful. Desperate and tentative.]

[therevanchist]

[Poor bastard. It must be tiring to be so defensive all the time. Revan hopes he notices soon that she hasn't taken any of the openings. Maybe he'll be able to relax a little.]

You used the shield and suddenly you felt drunk. What if it's a side effect?

[She stops herself from giving an example, since Dixon's shown a tendency to get sidetracked easily, and they probably don't have reflex enhancers where he's from, anyway.]

[awfulcer]

Of getting the shield hit? [He looks back between her and the shield, letting those pieces slowly come together. Less puzzle pieces than molasses coalescing.

He doesn’t want to get his hopes up. The last time he did that for anything they got pretty dramatically crushed. But he feels it, the rush of unconscious chemical in his body that prepares itself for both relief and disappointment. And he doesn’t particularly want Revan to be witness to either, but she’s here, so he just has to deal with that.

He straps his arm into the shield.]

Okay. Worse that happens is you break a stick.

[therevanchist]

[Worst that happens is she breaks his arm, but Revan doesn't let that cynical thought make it through to her expression. She's not certain how she feels about feeding Dixon's addiction, but how the shield works is information he'll need to survive, so she holds out her hand and one of the untested sticks leaps into it..]

Have you noticed your stance improves when you're holding it?

[It occurs to her too late that calling attention to the fact might have him tripping over his own feet as he starts overthinking things. Oops.

...Okay, that's probably not a concern here.]

[awfulcer]

Yeah?

[Oh, he's definitely noticed. He went from able to throw a punch to able to beat the hell out of a monster. It's an upgrade, to say the least. He settles into a stance that someone who'd been in combat with a shield for twenty years would take, effortless, familiar, even elegant. It's a far cry from his usual slouch and amble.]

I think it's trying to get me to keep up with the rest of you. ["It" being either the shield or the powers that be, which, if they exist, Dixon finds quite optimistic. If they really wanted him to keep up they'd have just scrapped that idea and gotten someone else entirely.]