faderift | I've exchanged every cell in my body [OPEN]

Entry tags:

{ rey }

I've exchanged every cell in my body [OPEN]

WHO: Rey and YOU feat. Padawan & Millie the sphynx
WHAT: catch-all for Kingsway
WHEN: throughout the month
WHERE: Gallows, Lowtown
NOTES: if you'd like a custom starter, hit me up on plurk or discord!

i. base operations office

Rey's corner of the Base Operations office is easily identifiable, and not just by the placard with her name on it. The boxes of things that used to live in her room in the Gallows may have migrated to the spare bedroom in her home in Lowtown, but that doesn't mean that she didn't end up coming up with new things to work on. The surfaces that don't have paperwork waiting to be looked at have tools or half built contraptions sitting on them, and there's a few boxes of bits and pieces on the floor tucked back where no one will trip on them. Hopefully.

At the moment, Rey is occupying the seat behind her desk, frowning as she thumbs through some several-page proposal of funds that's been drafted up and she's only reading every fifth word. Sleeping in front of the desk, stretched out on a blanket that's clearly been laid down for just such a purpose, is Padawan. Curled up next to her and extremely tiny by comparison, is a little hairless kitten. Whenever someone walks in to the office Rey looks up from her document, eyes tired.

"Please tell me you're here to distract me."

ii. lowtown markets

The Lowtown markets are one of Rey's favorite places. She loves that every day brings something new, and it didn't matter how many times she walked through she'd always find something she hadn't seen before. Today she's considering different fabrics on display outside a shop, her hands drifting along each fabric with interest, before moving on to the next one. She's clearly looking for something specific in texture as well as pattern, and hasn't found what she wants, not yet.

iii. rey's garden outside her home in lowtown

Anyone looking for Rey after she's left the Gallows for the day is likely to find her here, working in her garden keeping the weeds at bay. It may be getting on towards the cooler season, but she still has things growing in her garden that she needs to tend to, and is enjoying every second of it. She's never had things to grow on her own, before. Millie is sitting in one of the chairs set out under the eaves of the house, watching the massive birdhouse in one corner of the garden with great interest, as songbirds flit back and forth between it and the feeder Rey has set up for them.

Anyone not looking too closely might think Rey has started a bit of a menagerie, though the birds are very much not hers. The large white mabari that lets out booming barks to announce anyone approaching the gate, however, is very much hers.

"I'd wait to touch the gate, it's booby-trapped," Rey says, before looking up and wiping one forearm across her forehead.

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"You're in luck, I absolutely am," Nari says, her eyes sparkling with excitement, "Myr and I were out testing magically glyphed trebuchet ammunition on Sundermount, and it is absolutely going to work. If we can get a little more force on the release, that is. Which I think we can get if it were a smoother go on the trigger."

She leans over the desk with a grin. "Ready to take the little mechanism you built to full scale?"

The bleary look on Rey's face is quickly replaced by one of excitement at the prospect of enlarging her mechanism. She grins back at Nari, putting a marker in to where she was in the document, shoving it to the side of her desk.

"Absolutely. I really think it'll work brilliantly, and with magic ammunition... It'd almost be like blaster fire." Slower and harder to reload, but still.

Blaster fire is still an unknown quantity to Nari— it had been that way when Kirk had tried to explain some of the principles behind phaser physics as part of his math tutelage when she'd asked— but Rey seems excited by the idea, and an excited Rey means brilliant mechanical innovation, so she's all for it.

"Great!" she exclaims, "I thought since Master of Works is technically under the Seneschal's purview that you could come out to Sundermount with us, tinker about, and consider it part of your job?"

The elf looks at the pile of papers and scratches her head with a grin, "Or at least work on something fun like scaling up the plans if you have to stay here."

"I can go," Rey says quickly, almost too quickly, but really she's not tied to her desk. "I mean, someone should oversee the project, officially, and make sure you're allocating resources properly. I actually even have a form for that."

To which she rolls her eyes briefly, leaning over to dig around in one of the drawers in her desk, coming up with it a moment later and standing, moving a few more things before she comes up with the portable writing tablet she'd put together after seeing Josephine's.

"I'll have to keep documentation about the whole thing and you'll have to submit a report as well, but. We're covered."

Nari laughs, "You know, I've got a form for that too. Five silver says yours is a form for documenting my form, and your report is for reporting on my report." She grins and backs towards the door where freedom and invention lie. "You know, I find it kind of endearing."

Kylo sighs, disarming the traps with a wave of his hand. He'd done it so often now it may as well be muscle memory. The first time he'd ever been caught on the wrong end of one of the traps had been the last. Try as he might to convince her they didn't need these traps, they ended up remaining.

"We have two large dogs. If anyone wanted to break in they'd be dead before they left with anything of value." He feels like a broken record, and yet he still says the same thing nearly every day. Once the traps are disarmed he opens the gate and Caedus comes bolting into the yard, scrambling to shove his face into Rey's so that he can kiss her. His tail wagged a mile a minute the entire time.

"Caedus stop trying to eat her face." He chuckles to himself, running a hand through his messy dark hair. He needed a shower after standing in the forges all day, but not before greeting her.

Rey laughs as Caedus wiggled all over her, holding her gloved and dirty hands out to the side to keep from getting him messy and sparing them from having to wash him off later. She pushes him away with her forearms after a moment, moving to pull her gardening gloves off and stand, smiling at Ben.

"The dogs aren't always here, and the traps make me feel better. I grew up surrounded by beggars and thieves, and just because the locale here is a little less barren doesn't mean there aren't still those who are desperate." She replies, almost by rote. She'll keep giving him the same response until he stops bringing up the same argument. It doesn't even bother her anymore, it's like their weird way of welcoming each other home.

Once satisfied in thoroughly greeting Rey, Caedus bounds for the house and leaves his masters to their business. Kylo's hands migrate to his pockets, as he assesses her work in the garden.

"I know you did. Even if it's important to you, sometimes I think yous till worry too much." He shrugs his shoulders, reaching out a hand to help her to her feet.

She lets him pull her to her feet, rocking right up onto her toes to give him a light kiss.

"I think I worry the right amount. Maybe you just aren't worrying enough," she replies in a lightly teasing tone, kissing him again before settling back onto her heels.

Edited 2018-09-23 05:51 (UTC)

"Whatever you say, dear." He just chuckles, pulling her close as soon as her lips touch his. His hands drop to her waist out of habit and he licks his lips after their kiss, as if he could capture the taste in his mouth.

"Are you hungry? I was trying to think of something to make for dinner on the way home." All it took was a bit of a walk to the docks and then a boat ride from the gallows to their home in Kirkwall. It had given him some time to think. They had a stocked kitchen back home with which to choose from for meals, but that didn't always inspire him to cook.

Smiling as he pulls her close she wraps her arms around his waist, happy to have him home, happy to be in his arms. It hits her sometimes that she'd never expected to be this happy.

"Did you come up with anything? I could definitely eat." It was rare that she couldn't eat, really.

Despite knowing, deep down, that he doesn't deserve to be this happy, he still wants this and her. They've found some piece of existence together without the wars raging on back home to drive them apart. The thing he feared most now was losing this completely. Yet here they were, a world apart from their home, talking of mundane things like meals. It was so domestic that he should be wary of it but clung onto it as much as he could.

"Not quite, but I'm sure there's some meat still in the fridge and maybe we could throw some sides together. Does salad sound okay to you?" Part of him almost missed the advantage of having culinary droids but cooking with her was always nice after a long day. It was just the two of them in this little slice of existence they've carved for themselves.

Rey never had the luxury of culinary droids. Though she also hadn't really had the luxury of food with real flavor until after leaving Jakku. Still, she enjoys preparing meals, learning new things about flavor and food combinations she'd never even dreamed of.

"Salad sounds good," she says with a smile, pushing herself up to close the distance between them to kiss him one last time before pulling away, moving to pick her gardening tools up from the ground. "Next year I'll be able to grow even more of our own food here. We moved sort of late in the season to get too much out of the garden."

"I don't know much about growing things, so I'll take your word for it. Maybe we can move some of the plants inside once it starts getting cold?" He isn't sure that would work either, but he plans to follow her lead on that one. Rey was always making things or tinkering or gardening. He wasn't so sure he would be any good at creating things the way she is.

He moves towards the house once she's collected her gardening tools, Caedus immediately jumping to his feet as he approached.

"Some of the flowers might do okay inside, but most of the rest of what I've planted wouldn't like being dug up," Rey replies, moving over to scoop Millie up off the chair she's perched on and whistling for Padawan, who appears around the corner of the house from where she's been napping. The kitten is quick to reassert herself and climb onto Rey's shoulders where she perches contentedly, and Rey moves to fall into step next to Ben.

"I've learned a lot from books, and asking people who knew. I can show you more about the garden, if you'd like.

His hand immediately moves to her lower back and his gaze moves momentarily to the cat. He was not jealous of a cat. That would be absurd. Still, it was taking some getting used to having a new animal in the house. He wasn't sure how he felt about it yet. 'Millie' felt more like an 'Armitage' to him; narrow faced and annoying.

"You'll have to teach me, then. Or I'll just leave the plants to you. You seem like you enjoy the work." He smiles fondly, reaching up with the hand that had been on her back to brush his thumb over a smudge of dirt on her cheek.

She knows that he doesn't love the cat, but it doesn't particularly phase her. He hadn't loved Padawan at first, either, and now she'd say he's almost as fond of the dog as she is. He'll warm to Millie too, she's sure of it.

"I do enjoy the work. I just thought it would be nice if we worked in the garden together," she smiles, turning her head as he brushes her cheek with his thumb.

"Oh." It hadn't entirely occurred to him to join her in the garden. It wasn't without want, of course. He always wanted to spend time with her. Yet he also liked watching her do things on her own, be they gardening or even practicing with her lightsaber. He actually stops in surprise as they reach the door in front of the house.

"I'll join you next time, then." He leans in to kiss her, completely ignoring the cat perched on her shoulders as he does. They clearly were going to have to learn to share.

Millie isn't particularly bothered by Ben leaning in to kiss Rey, in part because Rey is careful not to jostle the kitten on her shoulders as she kisses him back. She continues to smile when he pulls back, biting her bottom lip.

"I'd like that. I think you'll find it relaxing, too. A little like meditating." She'd found it that way, at least.

"Mm. I'll try not to get in the way, at least." He looks from her to the garden in their yard and back again, reaching for the door to hold it open for her to enter their home first. It was strange to think that he had been here for months, long enough for them to build a home together and for them to have things like a garden and a bird bath and animals. It almost makes him feel wistful, and maybe a little cheated, that his parents hadn't been able to sit still long enough for something like that.

Things were more simple here. No droids, not much technology to speak of at all, and the work they both did with their hands was something he was proud of. They had made this little space for themselves out of nothing but each other.

"You won't get in the way," she replies with a smirk, gently touching his chest as she steps past him into the house. She'd already been in when she'd come home earlier, of course, so the curtains are pulled back to let in the afternoon light, and the lanterns are lit in the corners the light doesn't reach. She moves through the open space, only stopping long enough at the couch to let Millie hop off her shoulder.

She gets to the threshold of the kitchen before turning back to look at Ben, leaning her hip against the doorframe.

"Do you want to go clean up and I'll get dinner started?" It's a strange thing to say, so calmingly domestic. She never would have expected to hear it come out of her mouth. It's the kind of thing that wives on old holos said to their husbands.

He followed her through the house, stopping short of the kitchen as she leans against the door frame. It dawned on him that he was still a bit grimy from standing at the forges all day. He takes a moment to assess himself, soot touching bits of his clothes that hadn't been protected by gloves or an apron. There was probably dirt on his skin too. She was right, of course. He did need to clean up.

"I'll do that, if you want to start without me." He leans into her space, pressing a kiss to her forehead, his hand hovering just out of reach of touching her cheek or chin. It wouldn't take him long, he thinks. He retreats to the staircase, moving through the upper floor to find fresh clothes and then a towel. Not long after he's gathered his things, he sets about getting the water as hot as he can stand. While Rey does what she will downstairs, he luxuriates in the warmth for a minute or two before getting freshened up and returning to watch her move about the kitchen.

She smiles as he kisses her on the forehead, nodding her head once as he retreats and she moves into the kitchen. Taking a moment to wash her hands before going about pulling ingredients out of the icebox and pantry.

By the time Ben returns Rey has a head of lettuce shredded and is working on cutting up a tomato. She gives him a warm smile when he walks in, pausing briefly in her cutting.

"Feeling cleaner?"

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I've exchanged every cell in my body [OPEN]

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