a good space boy from a good space family (pethdorn) wrote in incompletedata, @ 2017-09-28 21:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | star wars: canon: poe dameron |
WHO: Poe Dameron [ narrative ]
WHAT: Just one of those once and future things
WHERE: The passage west of Cave C.
WHEN: Afternoon, Day 5.
WARNINGS: Hunger Games.
Poe had been all too ready to leave their little camp behind. It had served them well for the past few days, a relatively safe haven that was, whatever else could have been said about it, warm - but if there were things more important than not getting his head smashed in with a pick, there were things more important than comfort. Bail had been right to suggest leaving, and not just because the company had become suddenly rather less trustworthy. He wasn't really concerned that Phasma would hurt him, any more than he was concerned about anyone else here. But she could - and she did - do something far more poisonous. He'd felt it in the cave passage when he'd stumbled upon her and stopped, despite himself, to stop. He'd felt it every time he'd stopped to talk, really talk, to one of her ilk. They brought out the worst in him. He didn't like who he was, when he was trying and failing to articulate the kind of anger and pain and incomprehension that defied articulation even in articulate people, which he was not. They made him feel like all he could do to make himself understood was rage. And that was wrong. It was useless. It dishonored the people he'd lost and who he still fought for, whose names he should have been saying instead of the dumb fury that was all he could pour out: like they'd never destroyed a planet before so fucking what they made her watch too and she didn't murder people for them for years and lead their troops and help them destroy the galaxy she fought back like a person with an actual spine because she knows what's right and she cares about it and all you care about is whether people forgive you which is such a laugh you stand about as tall as a kriffing jawa next to her and don't ever fucking touch me again you heinous pathetic piece of - Bail had suggested they split up to look more efficiently for a new campsite. Poe suspected he was just being kind. His bad mood and heavy silence hung awkwardly on him; and Bail was diplomatic, after all. Maybe this was his way of allowing the clouds to lift without suffering a storm. Poe had made his way by now to the place where, a couple days ago, he'd turned to his left and found water; this time he turned right, knowing that if he found nothing useful he could always double back. It was rocky, requiring him to clamber over stones so as not to fall into the not-entirely-appetizing smelling water (not that he'd been dry, really, since this whole thing started). Like everywhere else, here, the walls were slick and damp. But he thought he could make out a smoother beach ahead, and he kept climbing, telling himself that the terrain wasn't too rough for the Senator, that if this wound up being a suitable place they could settle more or less comfortably, and that in the worst case scenario, they could swim. And he felt his feet go out from under him, and his weight pitch dangerously to one side, and he grabbed blindly for something, already wincing because he knew the rocks he seized onto would slice his hands to ribbons, and - And he found a handle. For one precarious moment he hung there, leaning out over the lower rocks, shifting his weight carefully back onto the balls of his feet. There was a handle sticking out of the wall, metal, it looked like, wrapped in something a little softer, and it flattened into a blade and disappeared into the stone, and he realized - it was a sword. "Huh." How it had gotten buried in there, he couldn't have said. He gave it a tentative jerk, not wanting to pull too hard and fall for good, this time. It didn't budge. He tried again, harder - and again - and again, until he was hauling on it with no thought for caution. By the time he stopped he was breathless and despairing. He lit a match to peer at the place where it slid into the rock, and to see if he could get his fingers in beneath it. For his trouble, he lost a match and sliced the side of his thumb. There was a gap between the blade and its sheath, miniscule but visible. He spent some time prying, pulling, leaning, working himself into a sweat only to feel it creak a millimeter or two to one side. He took out the last fraction of an end of the meat he'd grabbed at the cornucopia, now a greasy and dehydrated knub, and used it to try to lubricate the point of contact. In the end, he fell to sitting on the rock below, his head leaned back against the wall, his chest heaving. And he remembered that he didn't need a sword. He didn't want one. What was he doing? It was time to go back to the rendezvous, to find Bail again and tell him there was shelter here, albeit spring-less. He stood, and grabbed onto the sword's handle to haul himself up, and promptly tumbled ass-first into the water. Sputtering, he sat up, dragging his arm across his face to push the hair back from his eyes, and nearly slicing into his shoulder in the process. Well, he tough, gasping, sure. Sure. Why not. He shoved himself to his feet, tried and failed to find a way to slide the blade through his harness without cutting it, and then just held the thing out at his side as he waded back to their meeting point. Bail was smart. He could help him rig something up. And he was too polite to mention that Poe was once again dripping wet. Probably. |