fandomtownies | Streets of Fandom, Friday morning

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Streets of Fandom, Friday morning

Raven prowled through the streets of Fandom, keeping a wary eye out for any villagers foolish enough to be out by themselves (herself excluded, of course) or those who had gone hollow. She was also looking for any of these new visitors to the island she'd both sensed and heard about. Some of them felt...familiar in a way, though she couldn't really explain how -- due either to her empathy being turned down by choice or tiny fragments of her memory drifting away. If they were friend, she'd direct them to the village and safety. If they were not, well, she'd deal with that, too.

She didn't want to get her hopes up that it was help. Hope had long since evaporated, the last traces of it gone after she'd lost Karla. Now it was just protection and survival.

[Open to any villagers, transplantees, hollows, monsters, whomever!]

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Behind him? Raven, that was positively sadistic. Kanan jumped, spinning on his heel, hand reaching for the saber at his hip and halfway to having it ignited before he registered that the person standing there... probably wasn't going to throw him off another roof.

Stance, meanwhile, hunkered down and growled.

"The goal wasn't to wander, believe me," Kanan said, taking a deep breath before straightening up again, moving to clip his weapon back to his belt. "I needed to get out of that apartment. The village... is that the quiet space in the park?"

Sorry, Kanan, Raven firmly believed people wandering alone should get a good scare.

Again, herself excluded, of course.

"Yes, the park," she said. "It is protected as best we can manage and safe from most of the horrors that wander the island."

She tilted her head, eyeing his lightsaber. "You are a Jedi?"

Deep breath, exhale. Right. That was a question he hadn't been asked in a long while from anybody who wasn't a Jedi themselves, and the answer was... complicated. More than a little.

"Close enough," he settled on, briefly looking to the dog and giving him a little nod and a silent wave of reassurance through the Force. Stance settled down, the growl fading in his throat, and he looked up at Raven curiously, giving his tail a cautious wag. "That won't be a problem, will it?"

Raven gave Stance a look and stretched out her hand so he could sniff it. He made her think of Philia for a moment, but she quickly shunted that pang of loss aside.

"No, it is not," she said, returning her gaze to Kanan. "I have counted Jedi among some of my closest friends. My name is Raven. How did you come to be in this place?"

"Would you believe I woke up here?" Kanan winced a little as he glanced up toward the rooftops. Stance, meanwhile, trotted over to sniff the offered hand, and then, deciding that Raven wasn't all that bad after all, licked at her fingers for a few moments. "In... what was my apartment, at some point. Looks like it's seen better days, though."

He shook his head. Shook it off. This wasn't even the worst situation he'd ever been in. It just kind of looked like it.

"Good to meet you, Raven. Kanan."

Much like the big Jedi-looking monstrosity that was haunting the roof of the MCA. He was going to continue not thinking about that, okay?

Given that throughout her life in Fandom, Raven had often woken up someplace other than where she went to sleep, that wasn't surprising to hear. But it did explain why some of the presences had felt so familiar.

"You are from Fandom? Another Fandom?" she asked.

"A much cleaner Fandom, apparently," Kanan agreed, nodding and looking around. "What the hell happened here?"

It looked... well... he'd seen less war-torn towns back during the actual war.

They'd been to other Fandoms before and fixed them, or at least ended the horrors there. The vampire Fandom. Umbridge's Fandom. Maybe this was the same thing, only in reverse? No, she couldn't let her hopes get up.

"I am not certain," Raven said. "Something began to corrupt those who dwelled here, and there was very little we could do to fight it. It changed people. Turned them into monsters. There are not many of us left who have not gone hollow."

"Hollow," Kanan echoed, frowning thoughtfully as he looked up at the rooftops. "Good word for them."

The thing he'd faced had certainly been empty, after all.

"And they can't be fought?"

Sure they could. But who wanted to kill their friends? Especially since there was always that tantalizing hope that a cure might yet be found?

"They can be," Raven said. Karla. Out there in the woods, probably luring some fool to his or her death. She had to stop her.

"But they are many, and we are few," she said, "and some, like what was once the Principal of the school, seem almost impervious. Others are merely shells of their former selves, staying close to places that were familiar in life and mindlessly attacking any who might come near. We destroy them when we are able, but simple survival is the most important concern for us."

Well. That was horrifying. And it explained... a lot.

"It's the sensible concern," Kanan allowed, nodding faintly as Stance trotted back to his side, leaning himself up against his leg. "Hence the park. Strength in numbers, that sort of thing."

Or keeping all your eggs in one basket, but he wasn't about to say as much. After all, they'd been surviving here a lot longer than he had.

"It is all we have left," Raven said. "Scattered, we are weak and easy prey. Many more would be dead or...lost to us forever."

A fate worse than death as far as she was concerned, twisted bodies and just faint echos of the mind that was once there.

"And now..." Kanan paused for a moment, reaching out with the Force to be sure. It was oppressive out there to say the least, but there were enough familiar minds that he felt confident in saying, "now you've got us, too. Tripping through the streets with no idea what's out there. Betting you've got your hands more full than you have in a while."

He very nearly left it at that, but a whim, some part of Caleb that he'd tried to bury deep down, had him adding, "How can I help?"

To anyone else Raven might've said, "Stay out of the way and do not get killed." But largely due to Anakin and Tahiri, and what she knew of other Jedi like Jaina, she had a lot of respect for Jedi and their abilities.

"Remember yourself," she said. "This place has a way of eating away at your memories. Guide any others who are not hollow to the village where they can be safe. And, if you are able, put those who were once our friends to rest."

That seemed... it seemed like sound advice. Terrifying advice, and Kanan, who had been running from himself for so long, was briefly tempted to dismiss it out of hand.

Remember yourself.

Caleb Dume would have liked that. Hell, Caleb Dume, Jedi Padawan, liked that now. And Kanan, who had been tentatively letting little pieces of Caleb peek through since his arrival on the island, finally gave in.

"Rescue the ones who still have themselves, and give peace to the empty," he said, and he nodded once, simply. "I'll do what I can."

Ugh. He'd be doing so much better off if he would just let himself be a smart coward, instead of a brave idiot.

"Thank you," Raven said, as she reached forward with one hand and touched it to his arm, taking his skinned palms into herself with a soft hiss.

It was the least she could do before sending him off into danger.

Well. That was unexpected, but not altogether unappreciated. Kanan blinked, then smiled faintly and gave her a grateful nod of his head.

"Way more efficient than bacta," he said, approvingly. "Thank you."

Raven looked down at her hand as the scrapes appeared and vanished a few heartbeats later. As long as she could heal, she wasn't hollow.

"You are welcome," she said. "If you are injured, you need only find me and I can heal you. But hopefully you will not be hurt."

"Looks like an uncomfortable process," Kanan observed, then turned a wry smile her way. "I'll try not to give you too much to piece back together, then. I'm not a big fan of pain, anyway."

Or, you know, dying. Or any of that sort of thing.

He hesitated for a moment, and then looked down at Stance, who had taken a seat beside him. The dog looked up at the both of them, tongue lolling out of his mouth, feeling a bit more at ease with two people around who had passed the rigorous quality-control sniff-test.

"Hey... you heading back to that park any time soon?"

"I plan to check in periodically during the day, yes," Raven said.

She followed his gaze to Stance. "Do you wish me to take your dog there?"

"If it isn't any trouble," Kanan agreed, giving Raven a wry smile. "He's a good boy, but he's a puppy. And not a fighter by any stretch of the imagination. If I'm going to be pulling search and rescue duty, his nose can't do anything I can't do myself. I'd feel better if he was somewhere safe."

Raven managed a small smile. "It will be no trouble at all," she said, crouching down and holding out her hand for Stance again. "I will make sure he is safe. I once had a dog of my own before...."

Philia was safe in Glacia, at least.

"Well, then he'll be in good hands." Kanan turned a wry smile down to Stance, who was sniffing at Raven's hand one more time for good measure. "If he gives you any trouble, just rub his belly. That'll show him."

Yep. Lessons would totally be learned.

"Thanks. I'll hit up the park as soon as I can."

Right now, apparently there were people to save.

Sigh. Yeah. Okay. He was a Jedi.

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Streets of Fandom, Friday morning

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