The beach, Wednesday morning

[betterthanaplan]

The water was rougher than it'd been in awhile modded the mun who was actually currently on the Atlantic coast and cursing herself for being dreadfully out of shape for wave jumping, which actually made Duke more inclined to wade in. Maybe when Rey arrived, he'd see if she was up for some aquatic yoga. Mountain pose was deceptively difficult when you were trying to root in the surf, after all.

And since he and Octavia had both had a rough night (of the same nightmares, not that they'd noticed that just yet), he was definitely leaning towards enjoying some time in the water. It was his decompression technique of choice, when he was somewhere warm enough.

[open! But as the stricken text says, I am at the beach for the day, so SLOWPLAY IS IN FULL FORCE.]

Comments

[thatwaslucky]

Rey had had a terrible night, and hadn't gotten back to sleep after that whole thing this morning. It was just going to be a long, long day for her.

A long few days, but she didn't know that yet.

"Morning," she greeted him.

[betterthanaplan]

"Hey." Duke offered her a small smile. "You alright?"

[thatwaslucky]

"Yeah. Had a bad night," she said with a little wave of her hand. "Just tired. How are you?"

[betterthanaplan]

Duke frowned. That sounded a lot like he did when he told people he was 'fine'. "What kind of bad night?"

[thatwaslucky]

"Bad dreams," she said. "When I woke up, I thought I felt something in my room. I went after it and it did nothing, but I was loud enough to wake up my neighbor."

[betterthanaplan]

"Huh." Duke frowned harder. "Octavia and I had some bad dreams last night, too." He shook his head. "Suppose it's been quiet long enough around here we're all getting paranoid."

[thatwaslucky]

Rey had been trying to tell herself that since this morning.

"What kind of bad dreams?"

She also knew she knew better.

[betterthanaplan]

"Oh, you know. The usual. Everyone we love dying, blood everywhere. . . . That kind of thing."

That was the usual when you happened to both have dead parents and an . . . odd . . . relationship with blood, yes.

"First time we've both had one at the same time in awhile, usually we switch out."

[thatwaslucky]

Everything about that was worrying, Duke.

"Was it really the usual?" Hers hasn't been.

[betterthanaplan]

“Wouldn’t even really be thinking about it if you hadn’t said you had nightmares too.”

Well, he would be. He just wouldn’t talk about it.

[thatwaslucky]

"Mine weren't normal," Rey admitted after a moment. "It all felt wrong."

[betterthanaplan]

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

[thatwaslucky]

She shrugged, because she didn't, and if it was anyone else, she wouldn't.

...Probably. It depended.

"It was the day my parents left," she said. "But it wasn't the usual thing. The perspective was different. All the feelings involved were different."

[betterthanaplan]

“. . . Like you were a different person?”

[thatwaslucky]

Rey took a deep breath. "I was five. I don't actually remember the day," she explained. "I had a vision where I saw itit, and every time it's come up since, that's how I've always seen it, from the outside. This was like it was actually happening, like I was the five-year-old."

So, not like she was a different person, but like she was actually her.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke winced in sympathy. “So you didn’t have any of the distance. Jesus, Rey, I’m sorry.”

[thatwaslucky]

"I'll live," she said, with a tight little smile. "Anyway, then I ended up looking for some creature that wasn't actually there and didn't really have time to dwell on it too much."

Total lie, she had not slept since it happened, she'd had nothing but time.

[betterthanaplan]

"Wait, creature?" Yeah, Duke had slid right by her earlier mention of a presence after she woke up. "What, was a gremlin watching you sleep?"

[thatwaslucky]

"It looked like a horse," Rey admitted, feeling like she sounded crazy. "But when I'd get too close, it disappeared. I threw my lightsaber and a weapons cabinet at it and hit nothing."

[betterthanaplan]

"There was a horse in your room," Duke said. He couldn't help the edge of skepticism in his tone. "Well. I suppose this is Fandom. . . ."

[thatwaslucky]

"If you think that sounds crazy, imagine how it must have looked like when John came to see if I was okay and there was nothing there."

Yep.

[betterthanaplan]

". . . John? Oh, you mean Silver?"

[thatwaslucky]

"I'm starting to think I'm the only person who knows his first name," Rey said. "Yes, him."

[betterthanaplan]

"I know it," Duke protested. ". . . I just don't really think of him that way."

[thatwaslucky]

"What do you think of him as?"

She didn't know.