epidemiology | EVENT ★ OSKA BURNING

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EVENT ★ OSKA BURNING

The scene that greets you after the mist of world hopping fades isn’t a pretty one. You may remember Oska from your first, brief trip here — it was a stately, serene place, a grand castle usually wreathed in low lying clouds or gently sunny. Not so today. The damage done to Chantes by the demons and chimeras pales in comparison to what has been done to Oska.

Only one tower of the formerly impressive castle stands upright, the others have been knocked down and torn to rubble, some of which is still smoldering or in flickering flames. Most of the castle has been flattened, entire rooms torn apart and laid to waste. No exterior wall is without gaping holes, as if some army and their immense battering ram had needed a whole collection of entrances to storm this castle. Nothing is untouched, and worst of all, the underground larder seems to have been completely buried in a fall of rocks from the kitchen’s exterior wall. Even if you were able to dig it up, it’s dubious much of the food is unspoiled or intact.

If there is any up side to all of this destruction, it’s that no bodies can be found amid the mess, human or otherwise. Even the livestock are missing. Personal effects can be dug out of the ruins, and it seems very clear that this castle was populated until recently. There remains not one soul to tell what happened, though.

Well, almost not one soul.

The network that usually connects the jewelry is completely nonfunctional. Attempting to access it only brings up one static message, repeating for as long as you care to listen to it:

Something [ SHHKT ] --rrible has happ-- [ The message cuts out frequently, replaced with static. ] The-- [ shhhhhhkt ] came, they destroyed everything and n--

[ The static fades slightly. ]

We’re trapped. You’re on your own. But please, we ne-- [ shhkt ] your help. They’re still here. There’s worse to come. But when you [ SHKT ] --ind them, you can’t kill them. They need to be questioned. We mus-- [ shhhhkt ] know their motivations.

Some of the new recruits… they’re in the dungeons. You need to he-- [ shkt ] them, please. They can still be saved.

SURVIVAL

The dungeons are, of course, the only part of the castle left intact enough to present a challenge to escape. Some newcomers will find themselves lost in a labyrinth of cell-lined corridors, able to wander for hours before stumbling across any hint of daylight. How that’s even possible with most of the castle destroyed is anyone’s guess. Other newcomers might even be locked into the cells, with keys left nearby but just out of reach — or not. Better hope some sort of escape artist happens across you, if you’re one of those unlucky arrivals.

Food isn’t going to be easy to come across. You might try digging out the larder, but not much food can be salvaged from it. Are you going to put in the work to dig up a single shelf of intact loaves of bread, a cold roast chicken locked in a wood stove, and one barrel of apples? Maybe you try scavenging in the small, abandoned village outside the castle. This will uncover some food, but not much. Most of the food out there is either rotted through or missing entirely. You might find enough to last one person two days on your own, but who knows how long you’ll need it to last?

Wherever you find your food, if you find your food, rationing is highly recommended. Water isn’t so simple to find, either. There is a lake not far outside the castle walls, but the water in it tastes rancid, a sign to any right-thinking person that it’s no good to drink. Anyone brave or stupid enough to push through the taste and drink it anyway will find there aren’t actually any adverse effects, but is it worth the risk? Water can otherwise be found in very small amounts, collected by rainfall in buckets, on indented stones, in mislaid pots. It won’t be much, but if you search diligently it’s enough to keep you going.

Shelter will be a little easier to find… at least, at first. No one is using any of the beds in the village, they’re free to pick from as long as you don’t mind the eerie silence. If your character is particularly awful at scavenging, please see the end of this post.

HELL WEEK

Survival aside, that still leaves the question: just what did happen here? Characters are welcome to dig through the ruins for hints at what fate may have befallen Oska. We have provided a thread here to sign up to find belongings or other little signs of life, and try to piece together the picture. But what about that culprit, mentioned in the broadcast? Some characters will be able to stumble across very, very specific clues — riddles and puzzles, purposefully laid to guide the finders toward… something. Who knows what lies at the end of this oddly deliberate trail? You can sign up to find and solve the puzzles here.

Day one in Oska is easy enough to survive, an almost peaceful acclimation to the dismal scene. Things get a little bit tougher from there, though.

On day two the ground begins to shake. It’s just little tremors at first, easy to miss if you’re not standing still. But by mid morning they’re large quakes, enough to break some structures further. The quakes continue through the night and into day three, when they are large and severe enough to throw someone off their feet, tear apart a house, and even open wide chasms in the ground. They come with unpredictable frequency, anything between five minutes to three hours, but they definitely come more closely together as time passes. The village is safer at this point, without quite so many stones to shift and crush you, although those chasms are still a concern.

Come the evening of day three, the quakes stop entirely. A soft rainfall begins to patter down instead — still thirsty? Now is your chance to find some battered coffee tin and gather your drink. The rainfall continues steadily overnight, and by the morning of the fourth day it is a torrential downpour. It never lets up, not even once, and soon the water is more than the ground can handle. Flooding begins at this point, just a few inches deep in some places, more formidable in others. This also lasts for two days, and by the end of the fifth day in Oska most of the village is washed out. You’ll have better luck among the sturdy stones of the castle. Remember that still-standing castle tower? It’s not exactly the most structurally sound thing, but it is definitely out of the water.

The water stops very suddenly at sundown on the fifth day, affording a pretty peaceful, clear night. Come dawn of the sixth day, however, heavy clouds move to obscure the sunrise. They seem to flame around the edges in the light of it, and then in the middles. That’s clearly not sunlight lighting up those clouds by this point. The clouds flash from within as they build more and more heavily, but no lightning has ever been that flickering golden color. At midmorning the first drops begin to fall: not rain this time, but liquid fire. By noon the firestorm is at full strength. It swings between sheets of fire pelting down, and clearing up only to pelt down great fireballs. The rain-drenched village and castle can only fend off the rain for so long. Eventually the water evaporates and anything that can burn will burn. Time your ventures out into the weather very carefully, because the firefall never lets up for long, and that’s the kind of downpour you don’t want to be caught in.

OOC INFO

Is your character awful at survival? Can’t scavenge to save their life, completely out of food and water and about to expire? Wherever they fall asleep, they’ll wake up with a small, inexplicable wrapped bundle left next to their head. Within will be a half an apple, a single leg of chicken, and a very small canteen of water.

~~This log will last for one week, and there will be new information available on the 17th~~. As per our informal poll, this log will last ICly for one week, and OOCly for two. There will be new information available on the 24th. What the setting will be from here will depend on characters' ability to work together to catch whoever is responsible for these events.

You can sign up to find hints about the people who lived here and what may have happened to them here, and puzzles left by the perpetrator leading to the discovery of them on this post. Please direct any questions here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Enough. The Stormtrooper is an insignificant notation in comparison to the situation at hand.

[It burns him, to see Skywalker so convicted in his crusade against those who would paint themselves dark. It fuels his power, makes him strong as Supreme Leader had always said it did. His emotion was his greatest tool, no matter what his master of old has tried to tell him. Nothing was more powerful than hatred and grief.]

If I asked the same of you, you would not comply.

[There is a smarter way to approach this, than fighting the chosen one. Though he has overwhelming confidence in his abilities, he is not so arrogant to believe that he might take on Darth Vader without completing his training. The Jedi he once was reminds him that he need not always fight, no matter how his blood might sing otherwise. He does not stow his weapon -- to do so would be a fool's errand. If this was Anakin Skywalker truly, he could take no chances.

And he has no doubts about the man in front of him. If only he could make him see.]

There are other forces at play, Skywalker. You feel them, as I do. You, as well as I, have far greater purpose than to be squabbling over one man.

[Aside from straight up killing Finn, he has few options trapped as he is. Interrogation would be useless when there was no Luke to hunt. Hurting him to make himself feel better isn't worth compromising even the most meager alliance with Anakin.]

Send him away. I will not follow.

[His pulse is a high note in his veins: it makes him forget a lot of things (the exposed muscle lying just beneath bandages, the way his nerves are ready to scream for every step he takes ~~the fact that he was supposed to stay back by at least a few feet~~) but it doesn't kill off his common sense:] No way.

[Ren can track him; Ren can track anyone - if he leaves, he'd be abandoning Anakin and leaving himself entirely exposed if something went wrong. They're scaring him.

He's trying to split them up. ]

I'm not leaving you with him just so he can pick us off the way he did Han.

[ light and dark clash and twist and braid together. in the air between them, and in kylo ren. lines of conflict spread spiderweb thin… but there they are. conflict speaking of purpose. the irony is a bitter taste.

most in the galaxy do not know their purpose. if they have one. anakin would envy them. he has known his since he was nine years old, on his feet shivering and nervous ( afraid ) in front of a council who acknowledged it, then told him he was too old. it had been a foretelling. as he would always prove to be too something, too negative, too reckless, too emotional, he would always be first the chosen one. an annoyance, more than a certainty. the way of the force is mysterious, but a thousand year old prophecy pushed his disbelief. it was a myth. it should have stayed one.

now an upstart chooses to lecture him on his purported purpose.

rather than snap, anakin's expression flattens until there isn't one. he studies the glare reflected on the black and chrome mask. for a moment, he thinks to agree. it'll be easier without finn refusing to stay back. then he catches finn out of the corner of his eye, and he knows it won't be an option. fighting with him to leave will only grant their enemy an opening. throw him back with the force, anakin risks injuring him further. his options were few, and become less. jaw tight, anakin's mouth presses into a thin line. ]

[Obviously, something Finn says catches his attention, for his attention shifts from Anakin to him for the first time since the Jedi had stepped into view. He stares for a long time, and under that mask his mouth hangs open slightly. Pick us off like he did Han cannot be misinterpreted many ways, especially with the knowledge he had and what he knew he would have to do.

A piece of him is relieved. He did it. When it came time to finish the job, he hadn't faltered and that alone is a great weight off his shoulders. Yet somehow, he feels robbed of the experience. Han Solo's death was meant to remove the conflict in his heart -- here, without that experience, he is bound to it.]

You answer our conundrum with your own words, FN-2187. Our conscriptors meddle and operate with time on their side. Though Han Solo's fate was inevitable, my hands are not yet stained with his blood. Just as Anakin Skywalker has yet to see the end of the Clone Wars.

[Now he looks back to Anakin.]

Unless you wish to correct me, Master Skywalker. I say again...send him away.

[~~You know if you just spoke plainly, asshole...~~

Finn doesn't know what to make of it-- any of it-- aside from the fact that all that poetic bullshit doesn't mean anything compared to their current situation. So for that, he ignores it. All of it. He knows what he saw, and he knows that they're at the edge of a fight that's bigger than the three of them, and he knows that Anakin's drawn thin enough to snap (he's seen that look before, different faces but it's all the same...) so for that, he snorts hotly, lip curling.

...and he steps back.

Better to give the Jedi space than to let Snoke's lapdog divide them.]

Not. Going. Anywhere.

[ anakin does not like the suggestion that he is ignorant to some important knowledge. as he does not appreciate being told what to do by anyone.

really should have said please. ]

I grow tired of this.

[ in the blink of an eye, lightsaber crosses lightsaber with a violent crackle. kylo ren had opted for defense the moment he recognized anakin. anakin will grant him the brief acknowledgement of one intelligent move in an otherwise foolish errand. not that it will protect him in the end.

the blue blade lifts to batter at the red from a different angle. anakin maintains a flurry of quick strikes, aiming to keep ren unbalanced and push him away from finn. the lights cast a shimmering effect over walls and ceiling and both combatants that is as beautiful as their source is deadly. anakin does not see them. he sees the masked man, the lightsabers, the task ahead of him. blood singing in expectation, anakin tears his weapon down in a brilliant blue arc. ]

[~~Being a dramatic tool comes too naturally, sorry.~~

Ren senses the shift before Anakin speaks, and is ready to meet his blows as soon as he moves in to strike him. Back he goes, forced into retreat by the sheer amount of attacks that are thrown at him until his frustration overrides his sense of clear thought.

Whatever fate thought of him, he wasn't about to let himself be seen as an amateur. So Anakin gets what he wants, and Ren moves to shift his footing with the intent of parrying one of his overhead strikes, catching the arc of blue in an even line with the crackle of red. Disarming Anakin will not be nearly as easy as disarming the other Jedi he has fought, but the advantage of his crossguard is not one he can afford to ignore.

A growl is coaxed from inside the helmet, a horrid sound as the blades stick to one another. Distantly, he gauges the distance between them and Finn. If there is one way to Force a jedi's surrender, it's to take a hostage. Luckily there is a very stubborn Stormtrooper very close to him.]

[There's something unnerving about the sound-- the smell of it, the snap of tense heat-- that feels wrong when the blade's not in his own hands. Aside from the distance he pulled to ease Anakin's nerves he's instinctively doubled it (he meant what he said about not leaving, but he doesn't have even the luxury of a blaster, and Finn is anything but suicidal: he knows when tactics don't suit him) though with turning and running off the table there's only so much he can do. Watch, grit his teeth too hard in nervous anticipation, wait for one or the other to land a hit and hope it's his team that does it.

Because if it's not, he'll be there, he tells himself like he means it. And he does.

Come on, buddy, come on.]

[ from finesse, the fight transmutes to a struggle of strength. anakin, feet braced against the ground, pushes the red blade, muscles tensed in his left hand, gears pressured in his right. no matter his opinion of his enemy or his blade, kylo ren proves a forceful sword fighter. not a fencer like count dooku. the apprentice trades cold efficiency for power.

then there is the matter of his lightsaber. unpolished, rough. not something a jedi — or sith — would carry. but it resists anakin’s blow with a shower of sparks. more than once, anakin has to shift his grip to keep away from the cross guard. he feels no pain in his sword arm — a benefit to never having equipped it with pain sensors — but the heat exuded from the side ports seem to arc up his arm, even as he knows it to be impossible.

anakin jerks his arm up, pushing both lightsabers up, and kicks at kylo ren with the force. his blade twirls once, his wrist twists smoothly, and anakin dives into the offensive again. ]

[The downside of Ren's blade is the lack of grip flexibility. The kick forces him back a few feet, but before Anakin can reach to lock blades again, he throws an arm out with the intent of halting his momentum with the Force.

His opponent is imbued with more energy than anything he's tried to manipulate before, but it's also his specialty. The intent isn't to keep Anakin still anyway -- it's just to slow him down, to frustrate him into giving into the power of the Dark he knows must be lurking in his heart even now. He holds him stiff for a few long seconds before sidestepping as he releases with the intent of trying to get behind the Jedi. If he keeps letting Anakin push him back, he will have no leverage to weigh with should be truly begin to lose the fight.

But he is not a sith apprentice who taunts his enemies. All of his focus is set to channeling his emotion straight into power. Even if he must fight until exhaustion. His saber shifts in his hand as he goes back on the offensive, bearing down on Anakin with wide and powerful arcs of his blade.]

[ anakin is distinctly annoyed.

not only is the fight not over as it should have already been, he allowed himself to be pinned. not exactly pinned: he hammered back against the force that would have trapped him in place but it made him slow. allowed for kylo ren to direct the next flow of attack.

at least obi-wan isn't here to see. he would never allow anakin to live this down.

with obi-wan's dry criticism in his ear, anakin deflects a thrust, spinning out of the way, and swinging at kylo ren's thigh. between the two, this fight would have been over quickly. another parry, another returning strike. the memory fills him with certainty as few other things do ( as only one other person can. ) the force inexorably grounds him; the force follows his returning strikes. if he is to fall, it would have been with obi-wan by his side to a foe much greater than a coward's apprentice. and he already killed the one who threatened his master…

an image of count dooku's terrified eyes almost makes him falter. ( echoes of shrieks and honks reach for him across the years, and are abruptly silenced. ) the rubble around them lifts and surges toward kylo ren with astonishing speed. at the same time, anakin feints another low strike — he cannot kill him, he needs him alive for questioning — and plunges the the tip of his blade at kylo ren's shoulder. ]

[A swing at the thigh deflected and a spin to block the low feint that never becomes a strike means the saber finds its mark. He howls through the mask, a unearthly sound that cracks with feedback through its amplifier and that is chased by heavy breathing. One landed blow would not stop him -- or rather, It would not have stopped him if the strike were not so true.

As it stands, movement means he loses an arm -- or that he comes very close to it. A downward strike would cut an artery and likely kill him. An upward swing would leave a deep wound that could be repaired with quick attention. Neither is ideal but one is definitely better than the other.

Pulling straight out would leave him with virtually no damage at all, but Ren is hardly naive enough to expect that. How could he have let Anakin strike him. so quickly? This was not how this fight had been supposed to go. Frustration swirls around him, braced against the light of the other man's weapon, and he shakes where he is pinned, poised with his saber at the other man's side. To finish the swing would bisect Anakin, but likely not before the Jedi finished the job.

No. No no no, this couldn't be happening this way. Not now, not like this, not with him panting like a wounded dog and struggling to stay standing through the pain of the saber slowly frying every nerve ending in his shoulder.]

You--cannot kill me.

[It sounds more like hushed disbelief through pain than a declaration of anything. He wouldn't kill his own blood, not when he couldn't kill his uncle. Maybe. Right?]

Edited 2016-02-21 23:42 (UTC)

[ he did take uncle's arm off. is that really an acceptable risk. ]

I can. [ the whispers begin again or maybe they were always there and anakin can only hear them again now in the terrible, waiting quiet until the denouement. you can end the war today. finish him. he's too dangerous to let live, and they are the words the chancellor spoke to him, his friend comforting him when the risk was to him, but the tone… colder, crueler than palpatine could ever be.

i sense great fear in you, whispers a voice not unlike dooku's, and it's true now as it was then. the lightsaber threatening his side is a farce. their stunned witness is a footnote. anakin grips the force, his lightsaber and his control in a burning fist. his dread is not for him for what may happen to him — it is for what he may do.

he can kill him. the urging at the edges of his consciousness promises how much better, how much easier. for the second time in less than twenty-four hours he hears someone argue for their life over the sizzle and pop of his lightsaber. the smell of burnt flesh mingles with the smell of burnt ozone, and anakin's stomach turns. this isn't the jedi way. he needs him alive. he can't — ]

I'm choosing not to. [ a wave of his fingers finds the red lightsaber extinguished. anakin removes his to hold it over kylo ren's shoulder. ] Remember that.

[It's a mistake, letting Ren live. Finn feels it in his chest, hammering like the rabbit pulse of his own heart as he watches them (has to force his shoulders not to tense in shaking anticipation, not wanting to exacerbate the state of his burns) too certain Ren's going to find some way to twist-- tear into the Jedi without a second of hesitation just like he did to Han-- (please don't, please don't--)

But Anakin has him on the ropes, has him shaking behind that mask and Finn can hear it in that digital rasp. In the scent of scorched flesh and singed cloth that isn't his own, wounds mirrored from a distance.

It's not enough to make up for what he did to Rey-- to any of them-- but it's a start.]

It gains you nothing.

[Its practically spit in his direction. He's disgusted, angry that he let Anakin get such a key strike in during their duel, furious that he'd refrained from finishing him off or at the very least refrained from taking a limb. His shoulder might still be smoking and the air around them might be filled with the scent of burn flesh and wool, but the blood that stains the many layers he wears is hardly worth a blink in comparison to the insult he felt.

And in that moment, he reaches up with one hand to force his helmet open in order to rip it off of his head. He won't recognize most of his features (he takes after Solo far too much for that). Finn's relief at a distance only serves to make him angrier -- he shouldn't have been able to see this fight, everything was wrong, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Without the echo of the respirator, there's nothing to disguise the hatred in Ren's voice -- the pure contempt that he has for the mercy being shown to him. His hair is horribly tousled and his face is soaked from both a mixture of sweat and some tears thanks to the assault on his shoulder. His eyes, little more than wet pits of black that could be likened to that of a defensive animal.

Why is this happening? Why now, and why to him? He's so upset that he forgets to turn his lightsaber back on. What's the point, anyway? Killing Anakin now could erase him from the map of time forever, just as much as the Jedi delivering a fatal blow would.

Han Solo is dead, Leia Organa no doubt next on the list. He has nothing to lose except his own life.]

Why?

[There had to be a reason, and he's sure he won't like it.]

Edited 2016-02-22 01:44 (UTC)

[ the face he finds is not what he expected. anakin tensed initially, not knowing what the other would do. but ren acts too quickly, and he has torn off the mask before anakin can tell him to stop.

a human face. young and distraught. pathetic, he thinks impassively. what mercy preserved kylo ren's life ends there. there is not a hint of mercy or sympathy or pity in anakin's blue eyes. rather, a clinical observation whose result is found wanting. ]

I should kill you now. [ the whispers have quieted, but the lure remains. the lure of the dark side. the promise of ease. of greatness. a flick of his wrist is all it would take. ] You'd prefer it.

[ anakin circles him slowly, and stops. his voice drops for only kylo ren to hear the rest. his smile belongs to a nexu. ]

That's why I don't.

[ more fitting that he knows anakin could strip his life from him were he so inclined. crueler to let him live knowing he owes the continuance of his miserable existence to a jedi. ]

Anakin--

[Look, he gets it: it's a great feeling having control-- he was just as bad with Phasma on the other end of his blaster-- but Ren, tearful and shaking or not, is dangerous. They're tempting fate with every spent second, and it's an itch at the back of his neck he can't shake. Takes one careful step closer, if only to get back into Skywalker's eyeline.]

We need to go.

[Take his saber, punch him in the face-- whatever he wants to do? Finn figures they should do it and leave if death is off the table.]

You know nothing of me. Even less than you know yourself.

[Its said through gritted teeth, mirroring the volume Anakin attempts to impart on him, a sound of frustration rather than insult. All he can think of is how wrong all of his is -- but he sits, and he breathes carefully, remembering what little of his Jedi training that he retains. Meditation. Calm. The tools of the Dark Side were not always the tools to use.

He exhales through his nose, flicks too-young eyes up in Anakin's direction to match the intensity of his stare. The moisture on his face is drying quickly, even if the angrily cauterized wound continues to sizzle on his skin.]

That is why you don't.

[He almost thinks to bark at FN-2187 for daring to address Anakin as anything other than "Master" or "General", but he's already dug a deep enough hole for himself. Snapping at the injured trooper would only insight more ire from the Jedi, even if he's infuriated by his lack of respect. So much for being trained better than that, huh Finn?]

I told you before that I would not fight you over this cretin. My word remains true. So what else do you want, Master Skywalker?

[ a hand comes up, two fingers raised — not yet — in answer to finn's reminder. anakin's eyes do not drop from kylo ren's face. dooku had been a fossil; ventress looked diseased. kylo ren looks like—a human. without the mask, in lighter robes, he could have passed for a jedi but for the stench of the dark side that billowing around him like a cloud. anakin doesn't like the implication. ]

You want me to believe you? [ anakin doesn't raise his voice because he doesn't have to. his tone is that of a man used to being listened to, and more accustomed to being obeyed.

the force crackles between them to the soft sizzling of his lightsaber. sinking to one knee, lightsaber held across him as a reminder, anakin searches his face. his own is wiped clean to the point of being unreadable except by those who know him best: the ones who knew him before the war, before ventress burned his face, before the war robbed him of easy smiles and aged him six years in three. ]

Tell me who else you've encountered.

[ the easy assumption is that he asks about other jedi. the dark side obscures their vision. perhaps there is another, though anakin doubts it. if there was, it would be one faint, easily overlooked. not the steady bright sunlight of his master, which is the only he continues to search for and swallows the bitterness when obi-wan simply isn't there.

but it stands to reason that if kylo ren knows finn — hates him enough to seek him out specifically — he would know finn's companions and, if he discovered them, would have sought them too. anakin keeps the names to himself; if they are and have somehow managed to avoid detection, he doesn't want to throw them into the crosshairs of a furious and humiliated sith. ]

[Ren sneers directly back at the impassiveness with which is is addressed. The idea that he isn't being taken seriously burns somewhere at the forefront of his paranoid mind.]

None of your associates.

[He doesn't even bother to think that he might be asking after other Sith. He is the last outside of the Supreme Leader, and the latter was so shrouded and hidden that he barely qualified outside of a figurehead.

He has no desire to further alienate himself by lying when Anakin sits at his level. He would know of any deception instantly.]

One other: a Resistance pilot by the name of Poe Dameron. If he even still lives.

[When he says it, his eyes move pointedly (and coldly) to Finn. He lives -- Ren knows he does, had made certain that the wounds he he inflicted wouldn't kill him quickly. Someone should have found him...unless they hadn't. But ultimately, he doesn't care. He thinks of the girl -- that bloody girl. But he couldn't assume her presence especially when he had not felt her nearby. Anakin's own aura far outshined any others.

Distracted, his eyes drop to the hilt of Anakin's lightsaber. How cruel, to have it so close and so unobtainable.]

Several others. None I was previously familiar with. Does that suffice?

Edited 2016-02-23 03:20 (UTC)

You son of a--

[He knows. He knows Ren is digging for him-- that he could be lying just to get under his skin, but there's something about the look that comes with it that promises he's not. And it's everything Finn's been afraid of since waking, that he wouldn't be there when they needed him-- when Ren came stalking up all sickening, focused fury-- so for that, for literally everything else that's been done, it's a cold, hard snap that hits Finn's expression. Has him ignoring every hateful nerve in his body screaming out in protest when he rushes in close, left arm reeled back and cocked for the hard slam of his fist that follows.

He's aiming for bone, for teeth, for anything capable of cracking on impact and more than ready to follow up as soon as he gets so much as a sliver of a shot.

Choke on it, Kylo Ren. And be damn glad he doesn't have a weapon in his hand.]

[Perhaps if he hadn't been staring at Finn, baiting that specific reaction, his punch may have connected. But unfortunately, Ren is more than prepared for the assault, and Anakin's lightsaber is not enough of a deterrent to keep him from reacting -- but he is smart enough to wait until the last possible moment, when Anakin is likely already turning to stop Finn from making the mistake he's committed to.

A leather wrapped hand, the one that isn't holding his dormant lightsaber, comes up to stop the Stormtrooper in his tracks. He could throw him backwards, damage those horrific burns he had been left with from who knew where -- but instead, he clenches his fingers slightly to start the process of choking him. Its a brief reminder that he is but a child among gods, and that he lives only by their mercy.]

I have already shown you mercy today. [Because he was forced, but only a little.] Do not think to tempt me, traitorous scum.

[ for fuck's sake, mate.

anakin realizes the mistake the moment finn starts his insult. exactly the thing he had been trying to avoid by telling him to settle back easy is exactly the trap into which finn runs headlong. the hypocrisy of his censure does not yet occur to him, nor will it.

on his feet, throwing an arm out to keep finn back, but kylo ren reaches him first. anakin does not think. his actions are instinctive: a hand thrown out, a focused blast to throw kylo ren back, and the flexion of his fingers tightening the force around his throat before he falls. anakin does not hold the gesture long, only enough to break ren's focus, enough to hear finn breathe.

he seizes finn above the elbow in case he's going to fall. whatever guilt had stayed his hand before is no longer present; everything in him screams to jump after ren, take an arm this time, both. anakin plans to once he makes sure finn will, for the first time in the past ten minutes, stay. ]

[He's breathing through his teeth to keep his own feet under him without Anakin's help - hands shaking, hatred so palpable it's practically bleeding from him as he heaves, stare still narrowed and focused on Ren. When he talks, he's not looking at Anakin-- he's not looking anywhere else, voice so hoarse it's as gritted as coarse gravel: ] He deserves it--

[Death, pain, anything and everything in between, it doesn't matter; he doesn't care.] You don't know-- you don't know what it was like--

He deserves it.

[Being pushed away from Anakin is painful, but he had already reopened the wound when he had raised his arm to choke him. So he rolls with the push and ends it on all fours in order to lift himself into a standing position. From there, he stays still in order to inspect the blood beginning to soak his tunic with an exhale through his nose.

There's no retort or argument that comes to his defense while Finn hisses and spits in his direction. Kylo Ren's stare is impassive in the face of the other man's rage now that there is distance between them once more. Sure, he's done terrible things -- but it was all for a good reason, as far as Ren was concerned. Why argue?

As far as Ren is concerned, the relentlessness of the Clone Wars and their skirmishes were far more devastating than anything the First Order had ever done. At least the First Order was quick and effective with their attacks -- no room for error, no drawn out munitions, coordinated strike attacks.

He would take General Hux over General Grievous any day.]

EVENT ★ OSKA BURNING

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