Jyn Erso (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nextchance) wrote2025-05-14 12:09 am
nextchance) wrote2025-05-14 12:09 am
Entry tags:
crash sites keep me up at night
In the dream — and it was a dream, although she didn't know that —
Jyn was a little girl in the cave on Lah'mu, not knowing when it was or how long she had been there, only that she was waiting, always waiting, always left alone. The lantern was burned out, the small space dark and damp, somehow seeming to get smaller still, a grave and a prison cell and the only home she had. When, at last, the door swung open overhead, it was an unfamiliar figure overhead (a new variation on an old theme), a young boy with dark hair and eyes, and Jyn didn't really know him except that she felt like she did anyway. Wordless, he held out a hand, and she began to climb.
She climbed, and climbed, and climbed, until her bad shoulder ached and her hands slipped on the ladder's rungs, but she had to keep going, even as she got nowhere, the cave getting deeper now, except it wasn't a cave at all. It was the data tower, getting taller, not deeper, and no longer a little girl, she kept climbing, desperate to reach the top where no one was waiting for her anymore, because when she looked down — so far down, it hadn't really been that far, had it? — Cassian's body lay bent and broken at the bottom, and she knew he wasn't getting back up. Stupid, to think she could reach him, that she might be able to hold onto him this time.
Finally she stepped up and out of the cave that was also the data tower and onto the beach, alone again, except for all of the dead. It had been a while since she'd dreamed of Scarif, and somehow there were more bodies now, her father's weapon overhead, her inescapable legacy. Past the shoreline was forest, and she knew it to be Yavin 4's even though she had barely seen it while she was there, and knew that it held the house she'd once lived in. The house burned — the fire she'd set — and the forest burned with it. The world glowed green with the Death Star's kyber-light, only it wasn't coming from the sky above but from her. Surrounded by bodies, she sat on the sand and waited for a death that didn't come, one which would have been, she supposed, too kind. Hard as she'd always fought to survive, a death that meant something in the arms of someone who cared about her was worlds better than surviving alone, left to bear the weight of so much destruction.
She looked up at the weapon that shared her name, a grim mirror in the sky, and with the fire and the dead around her, she knew that they were one and the same, and this was always going to be where she wound up.
— With a sharp gasp, Jyn lurched awake in the dark, her limbs clammy with sweat and her face damp with tears. Nightmares were nothing new to her, but it had been a long time since one had rattled her this badly. In her addled state, trying and mostly failing to get air into her lungs, she couldn't think of what might have caused it... Until the sound of breath that wasn't her own reminded her that she wasn't alone in the room. Through the haze of everything else, the events of the last day began coming back to her.
It should have been reassuring to remember that Cassian was here and alive and safe. At any other time, it would have been. Instead, in the moment, her panic intensified, her chest painfully tight. It was a good thing, not being alone anymore, except that she still felt like she was and knew she would be again. Close as he was, he felt impossibly far away, and yet he was too close, too. The last thing she wanted was to be seen like this, a panic-stricken, crying mess, unable to calm herself down after just a stupid dream. All she could do — one of the only coherent thoughts she could hold onto — was try to stay as quiet as possible, pressing a fistful of blanket against her mouth to try to stifle any gasps or sobs, and hope she hadn't made enough noise to wake him. He needed the rest. She needed to pull herself together, shoulders shaking in the dark as she tried to breathe.
Jyn was a little girl in the cave on Lah'mu, not knowing when it was or how long she had been there, only that she was waiting, always waiting, always left alone. The lantern was burned out, the small space dark and damp, somehow seeming to get smaller still, a grave and a prison cell and the only home she had. When, at last, the door swung open overhead, it was an unfamiliar figure overhead (a new variation on an old theme), a young boy with dark hair and eyes, and Jyn didn't really know him except that she felt like she did anyway. Wordless, he held out a hand, and she began to climb.
She climbed, and climbed, and climbed, until her bad shoulder ached and her hands slipped on the ladder's rungs, but she had to keep going, even as she got nowhere, the cave getting deeper now, except it wasn't a cave at all. It was the data tower, getting taller, not deeper, and no longer a little girl, she kept climbing, desperate to reach the top where no one was waiting for her anymore, because when she looked down — so far down, it hadn't really been that far, had it? — Cassian's body lay bent and broken at the bottom, and she knew he wasn't getting back up. Stupid, to think she could reach him, that she might be able to hold onto him this time.
Finally she stepped up and out of the cave that was also the data tower and onto the beach, alone again, except for all of the dead. It had been a while since she'd dreamed of Scarif, and somehow there were more bodies now, her father's weapon overhead, her inescapable legacy. Past the shoreline was forest, and she knew it to be Yavin 4's even though she had barely seen it while she was there, and knew that it held the house she'd once lived in. The house burned — the fire she'd set — and the forest burned with it. The world glowed green with the Death Star's kyber-light, only it wasn't coming from the sky above but from her. Surrounded by bodies, she sat on the sand and waited for a death that didn't come, one which would have been, she supposed, too kind. Hard as she'd always fought to survive, a death that meant something in the arms of someone who cared about her was worlds better than surviving alone, left to bear the weight of so much destruction.
She looked up at the weapon that shared her name, a grim mirror in the sky, and with the fire and the dead around her, she knew that they were one and the same, and this was always going to be where she wound up.
— With a sharp gasp, Jyn lurched awake in the dark, her limbs clammy with sweat and her face damp with tears. Nightmares were nothing new to her, but it had been a long time since one had rattled her this badly. In her addled state, trying and mostly failing to get air into her lungs, she couldn't think of what might have caused it... Until the sound of breath that wasn't her own reminded her that she wasn't alone in the room. Through the haze of everything else, the events of the last day began coming back to her.
It should have been reassuring to remember that Cassian was here and alive and safe. At any other time, it would have been. Instead, in the moment, her panic intensified, her chest painfully tight. It was a good thing, not being alone anymore, except that she still felt like she was and knew she would be again. Close as he was, he felt impossibly far away, and yet he was too close, too. The last thing she wanted was to be seen like this, a panic-stricken, crying mess, unable to calm herself down after just a stupid dream. All she could do — one of the only coherent thoughts she could hold onto — was try to stay as quiet as possible, pressing a fistful of blanket against her mouth to try to stifle any gasps or sobs, and hope she hadn't made enough noise to wake him. He needed the rest. She needed to pull herself together, shoulders shaking in the dark as she tried to breathe.
no subject
Fitting himself to her spaces, Cassian touched his face to her hair and felt his eyes close. The eternal ache behind them… wasn't there. It was like he'd never been able to rest before, but he could now, melting into her.
…Once again, he recoiled at such thoughts, because Jyn was so much more than how she affected him, not limited to how she made him feel; she was Jyn, in of herself, out in the universe, doing and being and impacting so much.
And given all that, she was choosing, right now, to be with him, here, in his arms. His head spun at that reality, and he breathed into it, finding the rhythm of hers.
"Good night, Jyn," he murmured, beginning to drift. "Wake me if you need to."
no subject
All entwined with each other, it would likely be inevitable for one to wake along with the other anyway, but that wasn't the point. It was all right if it happened, and she wanted him to know that. She would rather be awake and be able to try to help than have him feel like he had to deal with it on his own.
She let her eyes close, not sleepy so much as simply at ease, listening to the steady beat of his heart. "Good night, Cassian."