Spoopy Scary

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

Having them meet within the RP sounds like it would be interesting!

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

Then that would make for an interesting dynamic between Paige and Andrea! Assuming they both know each other's story. Andrea might be more likely to stay secret though. Her guilty conscious might be cause enough for her to befriend Paige.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

I'm gonna doxx you so hard one of these days.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

@Ciaran She seems interesting! Given the cause of her disability, does she have a negative opinion on people with a history of drug abuse? I mean, more than what's considered normal. I know that if it had happened to me, I'd feel pretty resentful.

Just because I'm curious, what's she going to school for?

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

---

Grand Ridge - Outside

---

If there was anything that could be said about Grand Ridge, it was, despite it's prestige, far more relaxed than the likes of other universities such as Yale. This academy was a bit less stringent and bit more flexible with class scheduling – and if there was anything that Andrea learned from her first attempt, it was that you never signed up for early morning classes. Not if you wanted to get a good night's sleep and actually be able to function that day. Andrea was instead able to use that time to take it slow and get ready for the day. A leisurely breakfast, an easy jog around campus, take a quick shower, and do some light reading back in her dorm over a cup of french-pressed coffee with the pumpkin spice creamer she kept in the mini-fridge... and most of the students were either in class or just waking up. There was something to be said about keeping a good schedule. Mom taught her that.

The only difference now is that her light reading normally comprised of actual, good literature. Long gone are the days of binging on the Guardians of the Flame series, or Dorota Masłowska's Snow White and the Russian Red. Oh, and Stanisław Lem's The Star Diaries! Good times, good times... but now? A collection of online newspapers, new and old, dating all the way back to the Great Depression era. She didn't realize it before, but Farmer's Hill has, ah... something of a problem, if you will. People living here had the nasty habit of dropping like flies and going missing like hair bands. She didn't mean to reduce all the tragedies to a handful of similes and idioms, but one would think that people would stop for a second and notice the statistics and try to solve the problem. For whatever reason, Farmer's Hill somehow fell off that radar and the people in the town refuse to talk about it.

Honestly, it felt like a live rendition of Silent Hill. Ever since the terrible tragedy that happened this last summer, she found herself looking into the town's history. Now she wondered if every new second she spent here was worth the risk. It was a shame. Most of the states in America's countryside seemed to have problems with confronting issues such as healthcare, especially of the mental health variety. Andrea was lucky she was taken care of by New York, but out here? Farmer's Hill was the only place worth visiting for quite a few miles. And some of the, uh... what do Americans call them? Good old boys? That's so weird. Apparently it was a nicer way of calling someone another American slang for the rural types: “redneck”. Well, she heard some of the “good old boys” around here weren't the type to visit the doctor. It might have been an exaggeration, but apparently they'd sooner splash liquor on an open wound than go the doctor, and if it were mental health, they just called them retards and slapped them around with paddles.

Rural America had some problems, but so did she and she wasn't about to presume the worst of anybody here without knowing their story first. She'd want the same to be done for her.

The muffled sound of a bell rang three times in succession, followed by a pause, and then repeating the sequence. It bounced through the hallways of Grand Ridge and reverberated through the walls of her dorm. The fire alarm? There was no announcement of a drill or test or anything. Either this was some kind of prank or this was the real deal. Then again, America... Andrea just sighed. It didn't help ease her mind that she was just thinking about the poor management of mental healthcare in this country.

“Attention fire brigade,” and intercom spoke calmly through the speakers, “sprinkler code three-one-one has sounded. Repeating: attention fire brigade, sprinkler code three-one-one has sounded. Students and personnel, calmly follow evacuation procedure to the nearest safe location.”

'Please don't let this be the day that I die.' Andrea thought to herself. She didn't hear any fireworks or anything going off from where she was, and there wasn't any sound of screaming college students either. That was promising. She looked at herself up and down. Perhaps there was once a day that she would've asked herself, “Am I really going to go out like this?” Even after the breakfast, the jogging, the shower, she ended up moving back into her comfy, sky-blue pajamas with a bunch of little cartoon-looking sheep on it. Her feet were wrapped up in bunny slippers like she was some cliché on a television show, and her blonde hair was still slightly wet from her shower and was messily put up in a bun – and was in dire need of a thorough brushing - but it didn't bother her self-image too much. Something like this? It was inconsequential. She was seen in far, far worse, but more importantly, she felt comfortable. She wasn't going to let today bring her down. After all, today was one of her favorite days of the week: rehearsal day.

With that, she went to her desk and withdrew a book, Ready to Fall by Marcella Pixley, from one of the drawers and topped off her tall thermos with coffee, and shuffled her way out the door, following the flow of people towards the nearest evacuation zone.

---

The drive with Dexter went relatively... uneventfully. Britney was wondering if she should bring up what happened in the camp with him - but, maybe another time? She didn't want to drop a whole lot on him out of the blue, so she just kept the conversation light. Like discussing how good his new vehicle was! It wasn't long until they came up on Grand Ridge - Farmer Hill is only so large, and one can reasonably get from one point to another on foot - aaaaaaaaaaand... everyone was flocking outside because of the fire arm. Britney's rather bright smile contorted downwards as her eyes drooped a little. It's gonna be one of those days, ain't it? She asked herself with a deep sigh as the vehicle came to a stop. She had, unfortunately, missed what prompted the fire alarm - but she hoped that it was just some stupid highschool prank so she can go to her damn classes. Britney shook her head as she stepped out the car - might as well stick around, and if classes are cancelled, the Sucre isn't that far away. She decided to take a look around, trying to find somebody that she recognized so she could ask what happened.

What definitely caught her eye was a rather tall, blonde haired girl that she had sort of recognized at first glance. Turning her head and giving her a good look made her realize that it was Andrea - one of the transfer students that she had befriended - and immediately honed in on her. Slowly but shortly, Britney tried to make her way through the crowd as she followed her, and once she closed the distance, she greeted, "Andrea!" She cheerfully said, "Do you know what's going on?"

Andrea was currently in the process of figuring out how to drink coffee and be nose deep in a book at the time as she slowly shuffled along with the crowd, which was quite frankly an awkward and embarassing time to be caught by one of the friends she's made here. With a mouthful of coffee, she looked doe-eyed with surprise to see Britney, and held up a finger to excuse herself as she swallowed it all down. "Cześć!" She cried back to her with her Polish accent. "I'm sorry! Please forgive, well..." Britney merely laughed.

She made a gesture that went down her whole body, indicating her choice of clothes, her hair, lack of makeup, and so forth - then raised both hands in the air - the book and the coffee. She greeted Britney with a smile, "Fire alarm. I hear from some of the others that there were fireworks in a girl's bathroom. Hopefully not a sick white boy, yes?"

Britney couldn't help but laugh at that last comment much to her friend's satisfaction, but she was annoyed at the possibility that, yes, it could have been a stupid prank. Still, at least her classes won't get cancelled. "That joke made my day," Britney said as she realized that she may have caught Andrea a little off guard. "I'm just glad it's something harmless - it seems like we never catch a break here."

"Oh, yes..." Andrea agreed somberly, looking at the friendly little eyes of her slippers for a moment before looking back up into the eyes the much taller girl. She's been trying to dodge this conversation for a while now out of respect, but part of her also wanted to be able to reach out. The only way she saw that happening without coming off as too desperate or clingy was to get Britney to reach out as well. Finally, Andrea said, "I was actually reading about it again this morning. I can't imagine what that must have been like."

"For some..." Britney trailed off as she talked about it, "... It was worse than others. I was there, but I didn't get to see the worst of it..." She shook her head as she wondered if there was a little more she could had done to stop that senseless death.

Andrea looked carefully at Britney, but otherwise didn't say anything. She took in what she could in the moment - the sound of her voice, how it softened and slightly trembled, the fidgeting in her fingers and the blankness in her eyes as it seemed like she was revisiting the scene. It was a look that she had seen far too often in the mirror, so she knew that there was nothing anyone could really say to make it better - there wasn't any making it better. The truth was that it was one sad day in the Hill's long history of travesties; not that she would ever say anything like that to her, she had no intention of belittling her trauma. Only that there were a lot more people in this town who would understand how she felt. There was a lot of potential for a huge support group, larger than even what the college had to offer, but only if more people were willing to open up.

"The college has counselors," Andrea meekly suggested, "have you tried talking to them? Maybe a support group?"

"I talked with the counsellers," Britney admitted, "But, I don't think they really understand...." Her voice dropped as she shrugged, avoiding eye contact. How in the world would Britney explain the dreams that she has been having? And how they seem less like dreams, and more like seeing. She shook her head.

"... But, a support group?" Britney almost smiled at that idea, "That sounds like an incredible idea..." Especially since she wanted to test something among the survivors... if she thinks what did happen, happened then it was only going to get worse from here and they needed to stick together.

"I'm just lost how I'm going to get everyone together," Britney sighed, "Especially how... should I just say divided the group is."

"Myślę, że... there's more people feeling just as scared and confused than you might realize." Andrea reassured, remembering the days she spent in the care centers in New York. "Will it be easy?"

Andrea answered her own question with a shrug, but then continued, "but maybe the group will bring everyone together. Just don't tell them the people they don't like is going. Maybe the fact they see them there is... uh... ah, głupek... makes them empathy."

The polish girl made an awkward and frustrated grimace as the verb-case for the word managed to escape her, though apparently fully aware that whatever it was she just said sounded pretty stupid.

Britney thought what she just said sounded pretty stupid... but she got the gist of it. She understood what she meant. Whether or not Andrea realized it, but Britney had a lot of power. Merely through her insane amount of connections to the people of Farmer Hill - from Grand Ridge and beyond. Even if a few people didn't care for her, they couldn't help but listen when she spoke.

"I think I can pull a few strings to get as many people in the group as possible," Britney said, "But... I still think I could use a little help organizing everything and... perhaps you could be that help?"

"Sure!" Andrea happliy agreed with a smile. Then her expression on her face began to look a little more embarassed and subdued, "Actually, I, ah... well, nevermind that. It's very easy. We can just talk with the counselors and schedule a date. A roll with butter!"

Andrea's metaphor went over Britney's head, but she still understood the main point. She could only help but smile at Andrea's embarassment, "I'll get started..." She looked at the crowd and saw them going back into school. "Looks like the coast is clear... but we can always afford to make a stop by the counsellor's office - but...." There was something else on her mind, though she just shrugged her shoulders. "... Uh, nevermind, let's go." She gestured for Andrea to come along.

"Empathetic!" Andrea muttered to herself as she trailed behind Britney. "The word was empathetic! Psia krew... "

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

Wassup homies?

Surtr, where's my review? Tell me how good I am. I thrive off praise.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

Andrea Pasternack

╚══════════════╝

"The story of Icarus is one that I'm intimately familiar with."

[ 21 | 5'9" | Polish | She/Her | 116 lbs ]

[Shame]

APPEARANCE

"Nie wszystko złoto, co się świeci."

Since a young age, Andrea has been seen as developed beyond her years. She stands taller than many women and even some other boys at her age. She possesses long and naturally wavy bright blond hair that one would notice is well taken care of, thought it still appears a little bit brittle. Her features are further accentuated by hazel blue eyes and pale skin, which is often done up with with a few dabs of makeup so that her skin appears to possess an even tone without the underlying blood and veins creating pictures on it. Her complexion, otherwise, gives you the impression that she was quite the beauty - and though she still meets the conventional standards, there is something else present in her face that'd give away a history with struggle. Where perhaps she passed through a dark time in her life and is slowly coming back from it. Faintly noticeable, but ever-present bags sit under her eyes. Her skin is stretched tight over where there's bone and cartilage, and the pink of her lips appears dehydrated and bears a tired expression. She's always trying to mask it with a faint, kind smile that also tries to keep her mouth closed to hide the barely yellowed teeth, no longer the pearly whites they once were. No scars or freckles to speak of, but the puncture scars on her arms. She wears a little button nose on her heart-shaped face, the left nostril of which is adorned by a piercing with the littlest diamond you ever did see. She also has earring studs, one on each lobe. Other adornments includes a silver band on her left hand and red polish on her fingernails, giving it a clean looking guise, but closer inspection reveals that she picks at it. Perhaps the result of a nervous tick?

Her frame is petite and slender, bust measurement at 28E, and most of her height seems to come from her legs. She lacks enough upper strength to be even remotely threatening though, and while she can carry most of the stuff she'll ever need to carry, nobody will be asking her to do the lifting for them. Most of her workout routine is concerned about jogging and yoga, as it keeps her cardio up and figure right, but it doesn't do much more than that other than the mental therapy the exercises provide. Despite her efforts to maintain her health, her actual body still appears thin. Pronounced collarbones suggest, while perhaps naturally sharp, could not be so sharp that they exist the way they do without Andrea lacking some musculature. The same goes for other areas of her body - shoulders, hands, hips, knees, ankles, her cheekbones - no amount of exercise can allow her to gain weight if she lacks the appetite to fuel that activity. She is not so skinny that she appears anorexic, but she isn't packing any heat. She instead moves with the same sort of careful grace and caution as a cat would have.

When she speaks, she does so with a fairly heavy Polish accent - and it can be clearly seen that there are some pronunciations that she struggles with, such as the differences between sheep and ship, kiss and keys, lid and lead, to the point where they sound alike to one another. Andrea's method of speech is rather soft-spoken and gentle, doesn't quite project very much to cover distance or be heard over others (much to her chagrin). However, she is deliberate and thoughtful. She chooses her words carefully and considers what she has to say before she says it, as if weighing it in a scale in her mind.

Regardless of her body-type, she tends to avoid provocative clothes like the plague and so she is spared from sexualization at first glance. Typically, she is fitted with a black wool peacoat when she goes outdoors, buttoned all the way down, even on somewhat warm spring or autumn days, as it serves as something like a security blanket. Underneath, one of her favorite outfits is one that serves it purpose in both casual and professional environments. It could be any color of blouse tops, button-up or v-necked, it didn't matter - as long as they're long-sleeved. She often wears her top with a buckled strap going around her waist and it's usually tucked into a black laced pencil skirt, and is sometimes in different colors depending on the occasion - other lower garments may include formal pants, long skirts, and if she's relaxing at home or in a super casual environment, very billowly, loose, "feels-like-you're-wearing-nothing", comfortable skirts, dresses, etc. Underneath, she always has black leggings or yoga pants and she prefers to wear shoes or boots with thick cuban heels. Somewhere in her wardrobe are some jeans or other tougher clothes, but it isn't very often that she finds the day calling for that unless it's really cold. This might mean Andrea appears prude, but she tries her best to ignore those sentiments.

PSYCHOLOGY

"Is there anything you need? I'm happy to help."

MAIN GOAL ⫻ At the end of the day, Andrea just wants to get better. She wants to be able to leave her shameful past behind her and make for herself a bright future that she can be proud of despite the awful things she has done whether that means fulfilling a fruitful career, graduating, or finishing some obscure, personal journey of significance and coming to terms with herself.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ She clings to the Christian values she was raised with, but her faith has since shattered. She finds it hard to believe in a God or in any God who could love her, but the teachings of Christ are something she holds dear to her. They tell her that everyone is worth saving. They told her that when Jesus sat with pariahs and with the beggars and whores, the bastards - all of them. They were all deserving of love. She wants to believe there's still a chance for her, so she still carries on while trying to love thy neighbor, not to be the judge of a person's worth, and sharing what she has. She wants to believe that being kind and remaining true to herself is all it takes to show herself worthy of the life she was given.

SECRETS ⫻ Oh boy. Pretty much her entire history between high school and where she's at now. She probably wouldn't even mention her time at Yale, because that too would require an explanation. "Why come to Grand Ridge when you were at Yale?" So she just plays it like a transfer student. She doesn't want everybody to know she visits the college counselors and support groups. She doesn't go out of her way to hide it or to lie about it, but she doesn't want people asking questions about her history. The best way to avoid that, she figures, is to never bring it up. She also never shows off her arms, as they are always covered down to the wrists.

DESIRES ⫻ Honestly, her desires aren't that far off from her main goals. You could say that her short-term goals align fairly well with her long-term goals: focus on her studies, to be and to stay happy, and to ultimately find her place in the normal world once again. She wishes to fit in with her peers like she once did, and so far, she still feels like she's wearing sheep's clothing.

SEXUALITY ⫻ She isn't well informed about that range of sexual identities, so asking her personally wouldn't get you an answer, but she can be best described as grey-A (or grey-asexual). She doesn't normally experience sexual attraction to people or have a sex drive, if ever, but is still capable of feeling sexual arousal. If in the abnormal circumstance that she does, it's not ever strong enough for her to want to act on them.

FEARS ⫻ Relapsing is her biggest and greatest fear. Relapse, and everything else goes down with her. Aside from that, the months she's suffered makes her feel anxious about certain things. She's not fond of sex, and just hearing about it brings up bad memories and anxiety. While the following isn't really a fear, she doesn't like the feeling of wearing short clothing as it makes her feel too exposed. Show off too much skin, and she starts feeling self-conscious and anxious.

REPUTATION ⫻ Virtually non-existent. As a girl from Poland who originally moved only to the east coast of the United States, there likely wasn't a single soul in Montana who knew who she was. What minor reputation she acquired for herself in her second week of school is just as one of the law majors whose also taking theater. She's quiet and reserved, and none of the townsfolk actually know her, but she always seems more than willing to help out the other students on campus. Andrea has shown herself to be an over-achiever once again, but she never does seem to talk about herself very often. In fact, her whole presence here is kind of a mystery.

PET PEEVES ⫻ She'd sooner shut down or dodge drama when she can, but she has been through too much and understands all too well what it's like being on the bottom rung to let it happen to other people, and certainly not to watch some elitist berate them for it. It's a passionate anger that makes her lose sight and perspective and it's embarrassing for her when it happens. She can also be a hypocrite sometimes, as she is the first one to give people her condolences and sympathy, but she hates pity. She could appreciate it when she was first admitted into rehab and was in dire need of help, but she's in recovery now and is trying to be on her way to being normal again. The last thing she wants now is people's pity.

QUIRKS ⫻ Andrea has the nervous tick of picking at her nails whenever shes anxious, nervous, upset, or uncomfortable, and she's aware of it - so she tries to avoid picking at her nails and clicking them together instead. Sometimes it works. Sometimes the tick is bad enough that she goes straight to picking at it. What's more, she seems kind of jumpy and is always looking around as if she's waiting for someone. If someone compliments her appearance in any capacity, she'll either tug at the bottom of her coat or other article of clothing, hug her arms, or nervously tug at the end of her hair if it happens to be down.

BACKSTORY

"Hey, it's okay. We all have old ghosts. There's nothing wrong with that."

Andrea's story is one of a girl who was set up for success in every possible way, but lost everything. Growing up, Andrea was completely unaware of her own privileged life, and how lucky she has been for the majority of it. She was born to a Christian high-middle class family in Poland. They could afford good schools. Andrea was encouraged to take up painting, she learned how to drive, started working early, she learned, was raised to be faithful, and she learned English and French on top of her native language. Hard work carried her to be her high school's valedictorian. She had boyfriends, broke her heart a couple times, and moved on. All the while, she had multiple opportunities made available to her such as offers for placements in a couple different commercials by different producers with the help of her loving family.

Everything was essentially handed to her on a silver platter, and that is not to knock her own intelligence down, no. She was smart and balanced her early life out nigh perfectly. In the senior yearbook, was voted Most Likely to Succeed. Amidst all this fortune and the popularity she had in school, it didn't do much to alter her nature. She's naturally been a sweet-tempered and reasonable girl, if a bit naive of her place and the place of others in the world. She denied the existence of her privileges and good fortune and insisted that she has worked hard to earn what she has – which may be true to some degree, as she is no stranger to responsibility, but it's clear that a lot of things in her life has been handed to her on a silver platter, and she is currently on the beginning of a long road that's keen on not giving a single damn about "all the good things" she's accomplished. Right outside of high school, the world is very different.

Right out of high school, not even a legal adult yet, and Andrea already had high expectations of where she planned to go, but she was determined to smash those barriers. She wanted to travel to the United States to pursue law at Harvard, which was a massive undertaking on its own. At the same time, she also wanted to balance with it an acting career, which would help pay for the expenses. Then the heavy hand of reality squashed her Legally Blonde fantasies: despite valedictorian status and scholarships, Harvard never replied to her applications. She went down the list applying, and all the while also auditioning for acting gigs so that she wasn't wasting her time. Oxford? No. Cambridge? No. Stanford? No. She got only small gigs playing extras in commercials. Submitting submission after submission, at this point only waiting to see if one of the big colleges notice her, she eventually got acceptance at Yale University in the US. The university was prestigious in its own right, but it didn't make Andrea feel very special after being ignored so many times. Still, she persisted through Yale, where she sought to practice public law and become an attorney

Trying to balance her life became challenging when she was on her own in Yale. She survived her first year, but entering her second year of university, she was caught like a tight-rope between trying to survive, succeed in school, and salvaging an already drowning acting career. She was being stretched thin. She felt herself falling apart at the seams with her pushing herself far beyond what she was capable of. She refused to let go of acting and "come back to it later" and she had no family around to support her. They could give her money, but they couldn't give her more hours in the day. She was barely sleeping, always hungry, and she couldn't find any respite until one "concerned friend" wanted to give her something that'd help pick her up in no time, claiming that it was ten times better than coffee. Andrea was desperate and she didn't want to think about what it was, and it only struck her when it was too late after she ingested crystal meth.

The magnitude of the situation she found herself in was overwhelming, and she didn't want to accept that she did it. She tried to ignore it, but the addiction swooped in and snatched her up. It might have helped at first - it might have started like, "well, one more tiny hit couldn't hurt," but in no time at all her grades were already plummeting as this new addiction started taking over. She couldn't think of anything else. Her relationship with her parents overseas had become tumultuous as her grades were suffering and they deduced that not all of the money was being put to use in her education and the essentials. When they called her out on it, her backlash only separated them further.

It got so bad that she ended up dropping out entirely and fell out of contact with her parents while in a foreign land. Now without her family's support, she couldn't support paying for college and her addiction at the same time. Any chance she had at landing good jobs in acting completely shriveled up. She had nearly no marketable skills and she practically turned homeless overnight. The drugs she took helped her to ignore everything and become numb for a few hours, but she didn't know what to do. She just knew she had to survive, and she was desperate... so she did what she could and sold her body on the streets of New Haven; occasionally hitching rides that eventually brought her to New York.

It was a vicious cycle. A vicious cycle that lasted only four months. In a mere four months, everything she wanted was taken. Everything she stood for was stripped. She didn't feel like the same person, she felt dirty and sinful and suicidal. Her faith was shattered, she was afraid, and what little money she made was just enough to feed her and fuel her addiction to meth and at some point, heroin fell into the mix. All throughout it, constantly daydreaming about the life she originally aimed for. In a mere four months, everything she used to be was dead. But as far as the governments were concerned, she was still a registered person. When she went missing, they went looking for her. When they finally found her, they only found a young drug-addicted girl. She didn't know why they chose to save her. They just as easily could have let her rot in a cell, but when they sent her to the New York Center for Rehabilitation, their first action was to detox her and put her in therapy programs.

It was agonizing. She couldn't imagine what it would have been like for a person doing this for multiple years, but whatever medicine they were pumping into her was burning her insides. Detox was a straight week of solid agony, pain, nighmares, hard breathing, sweating, and wringing out her insides, dropping every contaminated ounce of fluid in her body while she could thing of nothing else other than relapsing. Even in the end, when everything was pumped out of her body and the detoxification process was complete, the psychological damages remained. From the addiction, to the depression - what she has done to herself has traumatized her. She wanted nothing more than to punish herself, but the faculty insisted that it wasn't her fault. They promised her that they'd put her back on the road to recovery and assign her a particular therapist that might be able to help her through these motions. All she could do was cry tears of relief.

She has gotten healthier with each passing day and is finding new reasons to keep on smiling, each a step towards self-mastery. Her old nature is beginning to resurface, and her very sensitive history has gotten her into some personal conversations and relationships with the NYCR personnel and the other patients, endearing herself to many of the faculty as they become more familiar with one another. Though many of her darkest emotions are still buried along with the lingering urges of her old addictions, which has been the cause of a couple of scares that had her put on the facility's suicide watch-list, she is finding it easier to find hope in tomorrow and to accept herself and what she has been through. Still, she looks back on her life with regret, and if there was an opportunity to go back and make different decisions that didn't lead her down a path of suffering, to be normal, she'd take it in a heartbeat. Even if it meant never meeting the people she met in the NYCR... not that'd she ever tell them that.

After all, they were the ones who somehow reconnected her with her family. After a long and strenuous process, they reach them and organize their transportation in order for them to meet their daughter. After everything she has been through, seeing them again was probably the hardest of all of it. She couldn't bring herself to even look at them. Never mind look them in the eyes, she couldn't even bring herself to look at their shoes - her eyes were tightly squeezed shut and she was pursing and biting her lips and she held her arms stiffly at her side, but none of that could stop the flood of tears, the whimpering, or the trembling as they held her. She anticipated her mother being emotional, but she had never heard her father cry before. She had never imagined him to be the type who would be bawling with grief.

When she began to approach the end of her time with the NYCR, they helped her try to get back into the world. Her family wanted to take her back home, and part of her desperately wanted that too. But she also had unfinished business here. She knew that if she really wanted things to return to normal, she should try to pursue her former aspirations. So despite that she against her parents' pleas and decided to go back to school, her mother and father chose to give her the second chance. They still supported her, only grateful that Andrea was okay now - but there was consequences to pay for. Yale was no longer an option since she dropped out and still owed fees.

However, there was still an option in Grand Ridge Academy in Farmer Hill, Montana. With their help and the help of the NYCR, she transferred her college credits from Yale, found a scholarship that was willing to sponsor her, and entered an agreement with her parents. She was delivered to Montana, and was given a recommendation for one of the local treatment centers in case of an emergency. She enrolled into the academy with a clean slate and seeks to pursue a major in General Law and a minor in Theater Arts. Now that she has a lot less on her plate, she feels better prepared to pursue the challenge. She just hopes that the stress doesn't drive her over the edge again. Fortunately, she became familiar with the on-campus counselors and support groups. Hopefully, that should help her cope with her problems.

SKILLS & TALENTS

"I put a lot of time into school, God forbid if I have nothing to show for it."

[Scholarly] ⫻ Learning doesn't seem like much of a skill, but in actuality, it reflects the years of intensive study she's gone through at previous schools. Andrea is as sharp as they come. She naturally absorbs information like a sponge, but she combines that with extensive investigation and study techniques, and a student's discipline, latching onto new ideas and concepts with ease. Give her one night to study something; whether it be a subject, a crime scene, records - you name it - she'll give you a stack of her homework the next morning. It's little wonder that she's able to succeed as a Law major. Her knowledge of which would be quite useful if she's attempting to defend someone.

[Trilingual] ⫻ Andrea knows three languages, demonstrating a linguistic intelligence that suggests good listening, reading, discussion, and debate. Polish is actually her first language, but she can hold fluent conversations in both English and French.

[Acting] ⫻ All throughout her teenage and child life, she wanted to be an actress. While she never got gigs larger than some commercials, the likes of which would never be seen in America, the market in Poland isn't quite as big. As a theater kid in high school, and now taking Theater Arts classes in Grand Ridge, there's no doubt that Andrea has a knack for it. What's more, lying is a lot easier when you just think of it as acting, though that's not a skill that she would ever brag about. Honesty is the best policy, after all.

[Painting] ⫻ It isn't a skill that Andrea has had much time to practice lately, but it's a skill she possesses nonetheless. Her art is good enough that she could probably take commissions and get paid for them, but there is always room for improvement. Perhaps she will have more time to practice now...

[Empathy] ⫻ Andrea's fall from grace was an incredibly humbling experience for her to suffer. While she has always been a caring and sweet individual, her trials and tribulations granted her a perspective she had never even dreamed of before. As a result of having stepped foot in both worlds, her capacity to relate to other people and their struggles have been expanded. Now her loving nature can be utilized to a greater extent.

ABSTRACTION

"I wish that never happened."

SIGIL & LOCATION ⫻ An hourglass with only a few grains of sand left in the upper bulb, which can be found on Andrea's upper left forearm.

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Temporal Rewind, the ability to briefly reverse time within a certain radius.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Andrea's abstraction allows her to alter the temporal flow of the universe in a short (four meter) radius. Specifically, she causes time to flow backwards. She creates an effect field that wraps around everything which appears to be blurry, and surrounded in a blue tint. While under this effect, time rewinds backwards up to a maximum of around ten seconds. Objects, people, and Andrea, are restored back where they were ten seconds ago - the Awakened are immune to this effect, but they can perceive the changes in the flow of time. The Blind are none the wiser, and won't even notice the changes. Using this, Andrea is able to move herself out of danger, react to events that are going to happen, and her own wounds heal wounds that she has sustained. While the max is ten seconds, if she pushes herself, she can extend it to around thirty seconds.

IN THE PRESENCE OF THE MOUNTAIN ⫻ The mountain greatly enhances her rewinding ability, and allows her to rewind time up to around a minute and a half - and is capable of pushing it to three minutes. In addition, her range is goes up to nine meters.

AURA SENSING ⫻ Andrea is particularly sensitive to negative emotions and the threat of danger, whether it is sadness, guilt, shame, anger, trepidation, or even negative thoughts such as ill intention. Having suffered so greatly in her time, her awakening has allowed her to see the aura of such emotions. While she perceives the color of these auras differently, the aura of malicious or bloodthirsty intention is unique in that she can feel it coming before she can see the light-consuming and inky blackness of its aura.

LIMITS ⫻ Andrea is only able to affect time in a four meter radius, everything outside of it is immune to the temporal changes. She can reverse up to ten seconds without straining, and afterwards she requires a thirty second rest period before she can rewind time again (regardless of whether or not she's near the mountain). This recharge period is longer if she pushes herself past the limit. Awakened (and certain other supernatural beings) are completely immune to the changes, and are able to move freely while she changes time. Which can allow them to interrupt her.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ Andrea's abstraction doesn't exactly have any weaknesses. Using it a often takes a toll on her body. Excessive usage will cause nosebleeds, headaches, and may even knock her unconscious. Only other thing is that certain beings are immune to it's effects, and may negate it's main strength.

OTHER

"Pychy niedobry koniec bywa."

A playlist, dawg.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

Andrea Pasternack

╚══════════════╝

"The story of Icarus is one that I'm intimately familiar with."

[ 21 | 5'9" | Polish | She/Her | 116 lbs ]

[Shame]

APPEARANCE

"Nie wszystko złoto, co się świeci."

Since a young age, Andrea has been seen as developed beyond her years. She stands taller than many women and even some other boys at her age. She possesses long and naturally wavy bright blond hair that one would notice is well taken care of, thought it still appears a little bit brittle. Her features are further accentuated by hazel blue eyes and pale skin, which is often done up with with a few dabs of makeup so that her skin appears to possess an even tone without the underlying blood and veins creating pictures on it. Her complexion, otherwise, gives you the impression that she was quite the beauty - and though she still meets the conventional standards, there is something else present in her face that'd give away a history with struggle. Where perhaps she passed through a dark time in her life and is slowly coming back from it. Faintly noticeable, but ever-present bags sit under her eyes. Her skin is stretched tight over where there's bone and cartilage, and the pink of her lips appears dehydrated and bears a tired expression. She's always trying to mask it with a faint, kind smile that also tries to keep her mouth closed to hide the barely yellowed teeth, no longer the pearly whites they once were. No scars or freckles to speak of, but the puncture scars on her arms. She wears a little button nose on her heart-shaped face, the left nostril of which is adorned by a piercing with the littlest diamond you ever did see. She also has earring studs, one on each lobe. Other adornments includes a silver band on her left hand and red polish on her fingernails, giving it a clean looking guise, but closer inspection reveals that she picks at it. Perhaps the result of a nervous tick?

Her frame is petite and slender, bust measurement at 28E, and most of her height seems to come from her legs. She lacks enough upper strength to be even remotely threatening though, and while she can carry most of the stuff she'll ever need to carry, nobody will be asking her to do the lifting for them. Most of her workout routine is concerned about jogging and yoga, as it keeps her cardio up and figure right, but it doesn't do much more than that other than the mental therapy the exercises provide. Despite her efforts to maintain her health, her actual body still appears thin. Pronounced collarbones suggest, while perhaps naturally sharp, could not be so sharp that they exist the way they do without Andrea lacking some musculature. The same goes for other areas of her body - shoulders, hands, hips, knees, ankles, her cheekbones - no amount of exercise can allow her to gain weight if she lacks the appetite to fuel that activity. She is not so skinny that she appears anorexic, but she isn't packing any heat. She instead moves with the same sort of careful grace and caution as a cat would have.

When she speaks, she does so with a fairly heavy Polish accent - and it can be clearly seen that there are some pronunciations that she struggles with, such as the differences between sheep and ship, kiss and keys, lid and lead, to the point where they sound alike to one another. Andrea's method of speech is rather soft-spoken and gentle, doesn't quite project very much to cover distance or be heard over others (much to her chagrin). However, she is deliberate and thoughtful. She chooses her words carefully and considers what she has to say before she says it, as if weighing it in a scale in her mind.

Regardless of her body-type, she tends to avoid provocative clothes like the plague and so she is spared from sexualization at first glance. Typically, she is fitted with a black wool peacoat when she goes outdoors, buttoned all the way down, even on somewhat warm spring or autumn days, as it serves as something like a security blanket. Underneath, one of her favorite outfits is one that serves it purpose in both casual and professional environments. It could be any color of blouse tops, button-up or v-necked, it didn't matter - as long as they're long-sleeved. She often wears her top with a buckled strap going around her waist and it's usually tucked into a black laced pencil skirt, and is sometimes in different colors depending on the occasion - other lower garments may include formal pants, long skirts, and if she's relaxing at home or in a super casual environment, very billowly, loose, "feels-like-you're-wearing-nothing", comfortable skirts, dresses, etc. Underneath, she always has black leggings or yoga pants and she prefers to wear shoes or boots with thick cuban heels. Somewhere in her wardrobe are some jeans or other tougher clothes, but it isn't very often that she finds the day calling for that unless it's really cold. This might mean Andrea appears prude, but she tries her best to ignore those sentiments.

PSYCHOLOGY

"Is there anything you need? I'm happy to help."

MAIN GOAL ⫻ At the end of the day, Andrea just wants to get better. She wants to be able to leave her shameful past behind her and make for herself a bright future that she can be proud of despite the awful things she has done whether that means fulfilling a fruitful career, graduating, or finishing some obscure, personal journey of significance and coming to terms with herself.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ She clings to the Christian values she was raised with, but her faith has since shattered. She finds it hard to believe in a God or in any God who could love her, but the teachings of Christ are something she holds dear to her. They tell her that everyone is worth saving. They told her that when Jesus sat with pariahs and with the beggars and whores, the bastards - all of them. They were all deserving of love. She wants to believe there's still a chance for her, so she still carries on while trying to love thy neighbor, not to be the judge of a person's worth, and sharing what she has. She wants to believe that being kind and remaining true to herself is all it takes to show herself worthy of the life she was given.

SECRETS ⫻ Oh boy. Pretty much her entire history between high school and where she's at now. She probably wouldn't even mention her time at Yale, because that too would require an explanation. "Why come to Grand Ridge when you were at Yale?" So she just plays it like a transfer student. She also never shows off her arms, as they are always covered down to the wrists.

DESIRES ⫻ Honestly, her desires aren't that far off from her main goals. You could say that her short-term goals align fairly well with her long-term goals: focus on her studies, to be and to stay happy, and to ultimately find her place in the normal world once again. She wishes to fit in with her peers like she once did, and so far, she still feels like she's wearing sheep's clothing.

SEXUALITY ⫻ She isn't well informed about that range of sexual identities, so asking her personally wouldn't get you an answer, but she can be best described as grey-A (or grey-asexual). She doesn't normally experience sexual attraction to people or have a sex drive, if ever, but is still capable of feeling sexual arousal. If in the abnormal circumstance that she does, it's not ever strong enough for her to want to act on them.

FEARS ⫻ Relapsing is her biggest and greatest fear. Relapse, and everything else goes down with her.

REPUTATION ⫻ Virtually non-existent. As a girl from Poland who originally moved only to the east coast of the United States, there likely wasn't a single soul in Montana who knew who she was. What minor reputation she acquired for herself in her second week of school is just as one of the law majors whose also taking theater. She's quiet and reserved, and none of the townsfolk actually know her, but she always seems more than willing to help out the other students on campus. Andrea has shown herself to be an over-achiever once again, but she never does seem to talk about herself very often. In fact, her whole presence here is kind of a mystery.

PET PEEVES ⫻ She'd sooner shut down or dodge drama when she can, but she has been through too much and understands all too well what it's like being on the bottom rung to let it happen to other people, and certainly not to watch some elitist berate them for it. It's a passionate anger that makes her lose sight and perspective and it's embarrassing for her when it happens. She can also be a hypocrite sometimes, as she is the first one to give people her condolences and sympathy, but she hates pity. She could appreciate it when she was first admitted into rehab and was in dire need of help, but she's in recovery now and is trying to be on her way to being normal again. The last thing she wants now is people's pity.

QUIRKS ⫻ Andrea has the nervous tick of picking at her nails whenever shes anxious, nervous, upset, or uncomfortable, and she's aware of it - so she tries to avoid picking at her nails and clicking them together instead. Sometimes it works. Sometimes the tick is bad enough that she goes straight to picking at it. What's more, she seems kind of jumpy and is always looking around as if she's waiting for someone. If someone compliments her appearance in any capacity, she'll either tug at the bottom of her coat or other article of clothing, hug her arms, or nervously tug at the end of her hair if it happens to be down.

BACKSTORY

"Hey, it's okay. We all have old ghosts. There's nothing wrong with that."

Andrea's story is one of a girl who was set up for success in every possible way, but lost everything. Growing up, Andrea was completely unaware of her own privileged life, and how lucky she has been for the majority of it. She was born to a Christian high-middle class family in Poland. They could afford good schools. Andrea was encouraged to take up painting, she learned how to drive, started working early, she learned, was raised to be faithful, and she learned English and French on top of her native language. Hard work carried her to be her high school's valedictorian. She had boyfriends, broke her heart a couple times, and moved on. All the while, she had multiple opportunities made available to her such as offers for placements in a couple different commercials by different producers with the help of her loving family.

Everything was essentially handed to her on a silver platter, and that is not to knock her own intelligence down, no. She was smart and balanced her early life out nigh perfectly. In the senior yearbook, was voted Most Likely to Succeed. Amidst all this fortune and the popularity she had in school, it didn't do much to alter her nature. She's naturally been a sweet-tempered and reasonable girl, if a bit naive of her place and the place of others in the world. She denied the existence of her privileges and good fortune and insisted that she has worked hard to earn what she has – which may be true to some degree, as she is no stranger to responsibility, but it's clear that a lot of things in her life has been handed to her on a silver platter, and she is currently on the beginning of a long road that's keen on not giving a single damn about "all the good things" she's accomplished. Right outside of high school, the world is very different.

Right out of high school, not even a legal adult yet, and Andrea already had high expectations of where she planned to go, but she was determined to smash those barriers. She wanted to travel to the United States to pursue law at Harvard, which was a massive undertaking on its own. At the same time, she also wanted to balance with it an acting career, which would help pay for the expenses. Then the heavy hand of reality squashed her Legally Blonde fantasies: despite valedictorian status and scholarships, Harvard never replied to her applications. She went down the list applying, and all the while also auditioning for acting gigs so that she wasn't wasting her time. Oxford? No. Cambridge? No. Stanford? No. She got only small gigs playing extras in commercials. Submitting submission after submission, at this point only waiting to see if one of the big colleges notice her, she eventually got acceptance at Yale University in the US. The university was prestigious in its own right, but it didn't make Andrea feel very special after being ignored so many times. Still, she persisted through Yale, where she sought to practice public law and become an attorney

Trying to balance her life became challenging when she was on her own in Yale. She survived her first year, but entering her second year of university, she was caught like a tight-rope between trying to survive, succeed in school, and salvaging an already drowning acting career. She was being stretched thin. She felt herself falling apart at the seams with her pushing herself far beyond what she was capable of. She refused to let go of acting and "come back to it later" and she had no family around to support her. They could give her money, but they couldn't give her more hours in the day. She was barely sleeping, always hungry, and she couldn't find any respite until one "concerned friend" wanted to give her something that'd help pick her up in no time, claiming that it was ten times better than coffee. Andrea was desperate and she didn't want to think about what it was, and it only struck her when it was too late after she ingested crystal meth.

The magnitude of the situation she found herself in was overwhelming, and she didn't want to accept that she did it. She tried to ignore it, but the addiction swooped in and snatched her up. It might have helped at first - it might have started like, "well, one more tiny hit couldn't hurt," but in no time at all her grades were already plummeting as this new addiction started taking over. She couldn't think of anything else. It got so bad that she ended up dropping out entirely. She couldn't support paying for college and her addiction at the same time. Any chance she had at landing good jobs in acting completely shriveled up. She had nearly no marketable skills and she practically turned homeless overnight. The drugs she took helped her to ignore everything and become numb for a few hours, but she didn't know what to do. She just knew she had to survive, and she was desperate... so she did what she could and sold her body on the streets of New Haven; occasionally hitching rides that eventually brought her to New York.

It was a vicious cycle. A vicious cycle that lasted only four months. In a mere four months, everything she wanted was taken. Everything she stood for was stripped. She didn't feel like the same person, she felt dirty and sinful and suicidal. Her faith was shattered, she was afraid, and what little money she made was just enough to feed her and fuel her addiction to meth and at some point, heroin fell into the mix. All throughout it, constantly daydreaming about the life she originally aimed for. In a mere four months, everything she used to be was dead. But as far as the governments were concerned, she was still a registered person. When she went missing, they went looking for her. When they finally found her, they only found a young drug-addicted girl. She didn't know why they chose to save her. They just as easily could have let her rot in a cell, but when they sent her to the New York Center for Rehabilitation, their first action was to detox her and put her in therapy programs.

It was agonizing. She couldn't imagine what it would have been like for a person doing this for multiple years, but whatever medicine they were pumping into her was burning her insides. Detox was a straight week of solid agony, pain, nighmares, hard breathing, sweating, and wringing out her insides, dropping every contaminated ounce of fluid in her body while she could thing of nothing else other than relapsing. Even in the end, when everything was pumped out of her body and the detoxification process was complete, the psychological damages remained. From the addiction, to the depression - what she has done to herself has traumatized her. She wanted nothing more than to punish herself, but the faculty insisted that it wasn't her fault. They promised her that they'd put her back on the road to recovery and assign her a particular therapist that might be able to help her through these motions. All she could do was cry tears of relief.

She has gotten healthier with each passing day and is finding new reasons to keep on smiling, each a step towards self-mastery. Her old nature is beginning to resurface, and her very sensitive history has gotten her into some personal conversations and relationships with the NYCR personnel and the other patients, endearing herself to many of the faculty as they become more familiar with one another. Though many of her darkest emotions are still buried along with the lingering urges of her old addictions, which has been the cause of a couple of scares that had her put on the facility's suicide watch-list, she is finding it easier to find hope in tomorrow and to accept herself and what she has been through. Still, she looks back on her life with regret, and if there was an opportunity to go back and make different decisions that didn't lead her down a path of suffering, to be normal, she'd take it in a heartbeat. Even if it meant never meeting the people she met in the NYCR... not that'd she ever tell them that.

When she began to approach the end of her time with the NYCR, they helped her try to get back into the world. She was encouraged to start in a family environment and to pursue something she wanted, so she decided to go back to school. Yale was no longer an option since she dropped out and would no way take her back in. However, there was still an option in Grand Ridge Academy in Farmer Hill, Montana. With their help, she transferred her college credits from Yale, found a scholarship that was willing to sponsor her, and got some financial aid for her since her contact with her parents has since been cut off. She was delivered to Montana, and was advised to keep in contact with one of the NYCD's associates in case of an emergency. She enrolled into the academy with a clean slate and seeks to pursue a major in General Law and a minor in Theater Arts. Now that she has a lot less on her plate, she feels better prepared to pursue the challenge. She just hopes that the stress doesn't drive her over the edge again.

SKILLS & TALENTS

"I put a lot of time into school, God forbid if I have nothing to show for it."

[Scholarly] ⫻ Learning doesn't seem like much of a skill, but in actuality, it reflects the years of intensive study she's gone through at previous schools. Andrea is as sharp as they come. She naturally absorbs information like a sponge, but she combines that with extensive investigation and study techniques, and a student's discipline, latching onto new ideas and concepts with ease. Give her one night to study something; whether it be a subject, a crime scene, records - you name it - she'll give you a stack of her homework the next morning. It's little wonder that she's able to succeed as a Law major. Her knowledge of which would be quite useful if she's attempting to defend someone.

[Trilingual] ⫻ Andrea knows three languages, demonstrating a linguistic intelligence that suggests good listening, reading, discussion, and debate. Polish is actually her first language, but she can hold fluent conversations in both English and French.

[Acting] ⫻ All throughout her teenage and child life, she wanted to be an actress. While she never got gigs larger than some commercials, the likes of which would never be seen in America, the market in Poland isn't quite as big. As a theater kid in high school, and now taking Theater Arts classes in Grand Ridge, there's no doubt that Andrea has a knack for it. What's more, lying is a lot easier when you just think of it as acting, though that's not a skill that she would ever brag about. Honesty is the best policy, after all.

[Painting] ⫻ It isn't a skill that Andrea has had much time to practice lately, but it's a skill she possesses nonetheless. Her art is good enough that she could probably take commissions and get paid for them, but there is always room for improvement. Perhaps she will have more time to practice now...

[Empathy] ⫻ Andrea's fall from grace was an incredibly humbling experience for her to suffer. While she has always been a caring and sweet individual, her trials and tribulations granted her a perspective she had never even dreamed of before. As a result of having stepped foot in both worlds, her capacity to relate to other people and their struggles have been expanded. Now her loving nature can be utilized to a greater extent.

ABSTRACTION

"I wish that never happened."

SIGIL & LOCATION ⫻ An hourglass with only a few grains of sand left in the upper bulb, which can be found on Andrea's upper left forearm.

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Temporal Rewind, the ability to briefly reverse time within a certain radius.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Andrea's abstraction allows her to alter the temporal flow of the universe in a short (four meter) radius. Specifically, she causes time to flow backwards. She creates an effect field that wraps around everything which appears to be blurry, and surrounded in a blue tint. While under this effect, time rewinds backwards up to a maximum of around ten seconds. Objects, people, and Andrea, are restored back where they were ten seconds ago - the Awakened are immune to this effect, but they can perceive the changes in the flow of time. The Blind are none the wiser, and won't even notice the changes. Using this, Andrea is able to move herself out of danger, react to events that are going to happen, and her own wounds heal wounds that she has sustained. While the max is ten seconds, if she pushes herself, she can extend it to around thirty seconds.

IN THE PRESENCE OF THE MOUNTAIN ⫻ The mountain greatly enhances her rewinding ability, and allows her to rewind time up to around a minute and a half - and is capable of pushing it to three minutes. In addition, her range is goes up to nine meters.

AURA SENSING ⫻ Andrea is particularly sensitive to negative emotions and the threat of danger, whether it is sadness, guilt, shame, anger, trepidation, or even negative thoughts such as ill intention. Having suffered so greatly in her time, her awakening has allowed her to see the aura of such emotions. While she perceives the color of these auras differently, the aura of malicious or bloodthirsty intention is unique in that she can feel it coming before she can see the light-consuming and inky blackness of its aura.

LIMITS ⫻ Andrea is only able to affect time in a four meter radius, everything outside of it is immune to the temporal changes. She can reverse up to ten seconds without straining, and afterwards she requires a thirty second rest period before she can rewind time again (regardless of whether or not she's near the mountain). This recharge period is longer if she pushes herself past the limit. Awakened (and certain other supernatural beings) are completely immune to the changes, and are able to move freely while she changes time. Which can allow them to interrupt her.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ Andrea's abstraction doesn't exactly have any weaknesses. Using it a often takes a toll on her body. Excessive usage will cause nosebleeds, headaches, and may even knock her unconscious. Only other thing is that certain beings are immune to it's effects, and may negate it's main strength.

OTHER

"Pychy niedobry koniec bywa."

A playlist, dawg.

Dungeons and (Krayt) Dragons, Star Wars: The Price of Freedom

---

<PARTY COLLABORATION>

---

All across the deck of the Phoenix, her passengers scurried and made themselves busy to make her space-ready. The engineer and his helper tinkered and toyed as they made sure the drive and engines were warmed up and operational, patting themselves on the back for a job well done. The pilots on the bridge tested their systems and played their music, while the droid co-pilot swiveled around on the actuator in its waist and blinked one of its photoreceptors to face Baarsuth and give him a thumbs-up and a wink. The others downstairs were preoccupied with their own matters and squaring away business where it was needed. The vessel was alive and bustling with activity. From the outside, the pilots' activities could be seen as they exercised the spoilers, ailerons, the rudder, and warming up the stabilizers, maneuvering jets, and the attitude and lateral thrusters. Heat distorted the light as the repulsorlifts began whirring – any minute now, the Phoenix would be ready to take off.

The sound of static buzzed across the ship, until the sound of Zekha's familiar voice blared across the separate decks, "Attention crew; it's your engineer speaking. Our brave and noble vessel is prepared for departure from a mechanical standpoint. The bridge is yours, captain, take us to the inky voids of space and to a land of cheap liquor and women if you would."

The speakers crackled a bit, before a different voice began to speak, one which belonged to the apathetic twi'lek mercenary who the crew had met in the cargo bay, “Pilots, set a course for his mother's house.”

“Ah, I do miss home cooking.”

Crackling ensued once again as the agitated voice of the captain came alive through the speakers, “Keep the ship's channel clean of gabbin’. Baarsuth, Bo – make preparations for take off. Engage inertial compensators and artificial gravity generators. Light up the afterburners.”

B-0 listened to the chatter over the intercom with quite a bit of confusion. Were they really charting a course for a place with cheap liquor and women? If that was the case why would they not stay on Alderaan? But wait...now they are going to the captains mother's house? That seemed like a strange choice as well. B-0 certainly wasn't a creation built for jokes or sarcasm, luckily she was only the co-pilot on this trip. So it came as a relief to the droid when the captain came over the speakers, giving real instructions.

Baarsuth sprung into action. His hands flew across the control panels as if the ship were his. While he turned on the ship’s artificial gravity and engaged the inertial compensators, B-0 activated the navigational software.
The droid worked efficiently. Her arms reaching across the controls in front of her while her head swiveled, taking in the various meters above them. After a few moments of button pressing and toggle...toggling...B-0 turned to face Baarsuth. She let out a series of beeps and trills that could loosely be translated as: Let's do this thing. Baarsuth smiled and turned the music up. A new song was playing, one with a thrashing, tank-like guitar that almost sounded like an engine revving. The music player’s screen revealed the song was “Hyperdrive” by Starfleet Cru. Baarsuth’s hands rested on the primary controls, his finger hovering just above the button to engage the thrusters.

A few moments later, Zekha was entering the cockpit, looking around for any obvious deficiencies. Other than the general wear and tear of such an old heap, it wasn’t a death trap, so that much was comforting. “So, droid, who made you?” he asked, climbing up onto the back of B-0’s seat to get a better look at the bird-like head of the co-pilot. “What is your function?”

“Stop distractin’ my droid, Zekha,” Baarsuth shouted, glaring at the engineer. “We’re workin’ here.”

“It’s a droid. Droids don’t get distracted, isn’t that right pal? You can process information faster than our squishy brains ever could. Don’t let Baarsuth tell you you aren’t better than him in every conceivable way.” Zekha retorted conspiratorially towards B-0.

B-0 had tried to ignore Zekha's pestering. She was trying to work, and the sooner they got this ship off the ground the sooner she could continue her search for the Force. He had asked her some, frankly, personal questions. She did not want to give him the satisfaction of an answer, that was what he wanted her to do. She tried to get back to work, her motors whirling a little louder than before. It only got worse as Baarsuth joined in.

Droid. Droid. My Droid. Droid.

She suddenly slammed one of her metallic hands onto the control console, dragging her hand off of it with a grating screech.

"Bo." She said. Her voice remained jittery and robotic, her facial expression permanently neutral, but her body language read irritation.

The ship lurched a tad, catching everyone slightly off guard, and Shai especially as she was climbing the flight of stairs up towards the bridge, but she managed to keep her footing when she lunged for a tight deathgrip on the handrails beside her. She felt a large hand that was suddenly and firmly set against her back.

“Careful now,” the crew could hear the captain say from behind her, “if this piece of junk has got one thing going for her, it's her afterburners. They're practically brand new since the old ones were blasted off. They've got enough kick to them in just warming up to make the Phoenix jump on her landing gear.”

As the two stepped onto the bridge, Varen gave an appraising look over the bickering crew surrounding with an unsympathetic countenance. With a sigh he grumbled, “Among all of us fleshy sacks of shit, Bo is the only one who was built for space travel and won’t blow up like a bloody balloon inside a vacuum. Can you brats please not piss them off? Baarsuth, start taking us up.”

“Aye, cap’n.”

“Where’s Liak’ykam?”

Liak’ykam had been taking her tour of the ship’s mess hall, which was a rather flattering term for a glorified pantry. The cooking equipment was pretty minimal, and most of it quite foreign to Liak’ykam. Fortunately, despite the Basic she did not know how to read, the majority of it seemed fairly intuitive. It had been quite some time since she had prepared food - truly prepared food, with proper materials and everything. She chuckled at herself, at the feeling of giddiness she got looking over the different spices (labels were useless; she identified them far more easily by smell) and the various foodstuffs. Most of it smelled synthetic, factory-made, the exact opposite of what food could be. Perhaps this is for the metal one. There was a supply of real ingredients, and not nutri-paste or something equally abominable. If it wasn’t too much of a bother, she might ask the Captain Varen Kray to stop at the next spaceport and pick up some actual food. Surely they could barter something worthwhile for it, and she was certain everyone would feel better and do their jobs better with Wookiee-sized portions to sustain them.

Liak’ykam took her hood off for a moment, feeling a bit warm in the cramped kitchen. She supposed if the next planet had wildlife - and she certainly hoped it did - she could go hunting while the others did whatever it was they were doing. As she perused the various stores, attempting to plan some sort of fresh, coherent cuisine from the mismatch of ingredients designed to last until the heat-death of the universe, she felt an itching of sorts. She could not hear the Captain Varen Kray ask, “Where’s Liak’ykam?” from the bridge - could she? She heard it in her ears, like an echo from far away, and in the pull of her feet in that direction. Liak’ykam thought she felt something deeper, as well, something like a tarentatek waking from slumber, but she could pay that no mind. Liak’ykam walked onto the bridge, feet falling silently even for such a large Wookiee, her walking stick held gently in her hand, as the Captain finished asking where she was.

“Here, Captain Varen Kray,” her translator warbled. She placed her hood back up and gave them all a polite nod of the head. The ship rumbled to life beneath them and Liak’ykam - for a moment of childlike panic - braced herself against the wall, steadying herself with her walking stick as the afterburners thrusted them forwards. She chuckled. “Forgive me,” she said, smiling. “This is my second flight. What do you need for me to do…? “ she almost called him little one, because the Captain Varen Kray was quite small, and so young, too, but she did not think he would appreciate that on his ship. The other young ones had been fighting. Nothing serious, like kath pups snapping at each others’ legs, but fighting nonetheless.

The pilots took the ship up, B-O and Barsuuth handling the controls with practiced ease. Under Kray’s watch, they input the coordinates as they took the slow route out of the atmosphere, building up speed as they broke the pull of gravity and hit open space. The coordinates for Tatoooine were punched in, the ship lurched, and rocked, then made the jump to lightspeed. Liak’ykam braced herself against the wall with one hand and with the walking stick in her other, feeling the rush of speed low in her stomach.

---

The ship dropped out of lightspeed and Tatooine was there in the distance, a brown desert hanging in empty space. They’d come in at the edge of the system as the captain preferred - it was better to arrive with a little room for maneuvering, should something less hospitable than a welcoming party ever be waiting for them. Varen Kray looked over his pilots idly, everything on the Phoenix having worked just as it should -

Then the comm system burst with static for a moment, drawing their attention. It warbled, the connection weak, then finally came through. The pilots adjusted the controls for a moment, attempting to get a stronger lock on the signal. It repeated itself every few seconds, a short burst set on automatic repeat. It wasn’t far away from where they were.

“A distress signal,” the captain said. He nodded to the intercom and told Barsuuth, “Get everyone up here to the bridge. We have matters to discuss.”

Following Barsuuth’s relay, the crew assembled in the bridge. It was cramped and they were slightly too close to one another for comfort and the distress signal kept repeating automatically. “Nothing discernible or special,” the captain announced. “A standard distress call, just far enough from Tatooine that their port officials wouldn’t pick up on it. Anyone jumping right to lightspeed out the docks might miss it as well. No telling how long it’s been going.”

“Is it just me or is that distress signal getting closer?” Woo’rah commented sardonically, glancing toward the captain with a knowing look. “Maybe they’re politely informing us they’re coming to kill us all.”

Liak’ykam stayed quiet - it was not her place to speak in affairs of which she knew little. The taller hairless one seemed quite convinced it was a trap. Liak’ykam was in agreement - she had seen it before, in Kashyyyk, when they recorded the screams of the little children to lure them away from the village. She drummed her fingers against the walking stick, limbering them up. At the same time, she did not know how these distress signals worked. Perhaps it was legitimate. If they were looking to prey on those who would help others, they might deserve justice. Perhaps it was not their place. She stayed quiet and listened.

Dungeons and (Krayt) Dragons, Star Wars: The Price of Freedom

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DM Collaboration: <SHAI RIVELIA>

---

"I came all the way just to inspect this ship." Shai said with the hint of smile on her face, gesturing with the dataslate she had been given.

“Look at that, a sense of humor. I never would have thought.” Woo’rah bemused, idly chewing on her chewstim.

After a moment of thought, Shai said, “Would you mind if I stayed here for now? It's so... crowded up there. Everyone talks too much.”

“Now you know why I'd rather spend my free time down here.” She replied matter-of-factly. “Fine by me if you're as much a fan of small talk as I am.”

“I should have brought my own hammock.” Shai responded dryly as she searched around the cargo hold for a place that looked comfortable enough to withstand the roughness of takeoff. “Maybe the Captain will let me move my bunk down here.”

“I doubt it. Varen likes to keep his crew with the rest of his crew. You’ve heard it before: the crew comes first.” The other twi’lek threw her hands up melodramatically. “Crew this, crew that - it gets repetitive and boring, but credits be damned if he isn’t gonna treat you lot like his own stinking family. He’s good people. Even if he doesn’t like showing it.”

“Besides, the captain knows I like my space.” She continued, and then she leaned in a little closer to Shai and with a smirk she says, “He also knows he needs a place to keep all the dangerous spacers and mercenaries like me away from his darling little crew. Just in case.”

As close as Woo’rah was to her, Shai didn’t notice until just now that there were at least one or two teeth behind the escort’s lips that looked as though they were sharpened.

“Please,” Shai mused as she took a step back and pushed two crates together, forming a makeshift bed, “you don’t look that dangerous to me. Looks can be deceiving though.” The smaller twi’lek added with a sly smile as she scooted her ‘bed’ into the corner of the cargo hold and climbed on top of it. “Either way, I’ll try to stay out of your lekku while I’m down here.” the Twi’lek Exile finished, before pushing her own lekku onto her chest and putting her hood over her eyes.

“Be glad I’m not being paid to kill you, then.” She responded, her dull eyes lighting up for a moment until--

“Woo’rah.” A gravelly voice snarled from behind. The mercenary whipped around to see Captain Kray standing not too far behind her with an irritated and disapproving look on his face. That face then turned to look at Shai, and he said, “Miss Rivelia, a moment of your time in my cabin, if you would. At once.”

The captain turned around and marched through a door not too far away from the pair of twi’leks on the bow-starboard section of the cargo bay.

Woo’rah sighed and sat back at her work station, propping her feet on a strange-looking case of opaque flexiglass. With no effort made to hide her sarcasm, she said, “Time to pack your bags already? Shame. I was looking forward to being pestered some more.”

Shai heard the Captain’s voice and hopped to attention out of habit, her hood still over her head. “Aye sir, I’ll be there in a moment.” The smaller twi’lek answered in a neutral tone. What could he need? Had she done something wrong? After the Captain had excused himself from the room, Shai relaxed and gave a half salute-half wave to Woo’rah, “Oh, I won’t leave you that easily. Try not to miss me too much.” Shai Rivelia pushed her hood back and followed the Captain into his cabin.

“We don’t have much time left before take off, so I’m going to make this quick.” Shai heard as soon as she stepped through the door. Looking up, the captain’s face looked grave and his eyes were staring daggers into her. She also found herself in what looked to be an office, except the office also had a heavy arsenal that was mounted upon the walls.

“I don’t know where you came from, and frankly I don’t care. But that is the last time I want to see that blasted device, do ya hear? I won’t have myself any rotten war following my crew and I around the galaxy. There’s only one side anyone is allowed to take on this ship, and that side is the Phoenix. Do I make myself clear?”

Shai stood ramrod straight, eyes fixed perfectly ahead, face blank. She had been dressed down like this in the past. This was not new to her. The reason, of course, was. Usually it was her Sith betters doing the reproaching. Not her being reproached for being a Sith. Well it was not exactly that, but the Captain didn’t seem to care if she was a Sith or a Jedi. Not too surprising. Shai Rivelia had noticed throughout her travels that many hated anyone who used a lightsaber no matter which side they were on. Not that she used one anymore. The weapon was dead. Just like the Sith who wielded it.

“Crystal, sir.” the twi’lek responded, her voice betraying nothing of her inner turmoil.

“Convince me.”

“Sir?” Shai responded, slightly confused and tensing up. What was he asking her to do? Destroy the rest of the blade in front of him? She couldn’t. It was one of her only possessions. To lose it… Would be to lose the last part of her past. She felt her whole body tense up at the thought. The past hurt to hold on to, but sometimes we hold on to things that hurt us. Or maybe it was impossible to let go completely. The twi’lek didn’t know the answer.

“I’ll give you time to figure out how,” the captain said, “you’ll have until we land on Tatooine.”