2320/Winds of Change

Winds of Change
Date of Scene:	25 May 2015
Location:	Faraway Galaxy <FG>
Synopsis:	After garnering the attention of Yuri Stinson for daring to rebel against Imperial orders, Juno Eclipse reluctantly agrees to a meeting with the embodiment of rebellion itself.
Cast of Characters:	106, 428
Tinyplot:	Resolution

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Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
It's a fine day on the planet of Aquilaris, a water world located in the far-flung Outer Rim territories. Far away from the reach of Galactic Imperial forces and bounty hunters, it's a fair place to arrange a neutral meeting between parties that may or may not have half the Empire baying for their blood.

Juno Eclipse is settled into the corner of a small cantina on the Floating City, one of the few settlements on the decrepit old water world. It's a place that's fallen on hard times, evidenced by the structural collapse of less important structures. Just about the only things that get attention are the podracing circuits, the major city centres, and the cantinas.

That's good. It means avoiding notice.

Some time ago, she'd sent a heavily-encrypted set of coordinates to the Dark Hero That Rebels Against All Tyranny, routed through dozens of different communications networks, and otherwise obfuscated in every possible way they could be to avoid external detection. She trusts him to be smart enough to crack it.

And so she waits patiently; a blonde and blue-eyed woman in the corner of the cantina dressed in neutral grey, a mechanic's cap pulled low over her face, some of her hair hiding her eyes. She looks like just another grunt worker fallen on hard times, with a blaster close enough at hand to suggest she'll use it if she feels threatened. Most of the cantina's clientele has left her alone, and so she waits, patient in spite of the annoyed, gruff exterior she's adopted.

Rebellion, he had said so boldly, and she had thought about it until her thoughts had chased themselves around in circles.

What has she got to lose? The Empire already wants her dead, or near enough to make no difference...

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
Even in a cantina full of strange people from all sorts of different planets, it's not hard to spot someone who simply doesn't below. From the second the white-haired man walked in the door, he was easily spottable as different. While not the tallest, clocking in at just a shade under six feet, he's got a certain aura that causes people around him to instinctively move or exit his path.

Most of his body is concealed by layers of cloaks, several stacked on top of eachother for full concealment. Over the music of the cantina, every step carries an almost clanking sound of metal moving against metal. His face is fixed in a constant emotionless mask that leaves his green eyes distant looking even as he looks out over the cantina.

Eventually, some sense or some intuition lets his gaze call upon Juno. He turns and pivots, walking over to her with even steps. He does not sit down at her table yet, instead staring at her in the corner and contemplating what he wishes to say to her. After a few moments, he speaks:

"You have beckoned and I have answered. May I join you?"

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
It doesn't take a genius to spot someone who stands out as severely as the stranger. Layered cloaks and the sound of metal almost make him sound like some kind of bounty hunter, armed to the teeth and bristling with weapons, but the truth is that she isn't sure what's causing that sound. A good blaster pistol shouldn't make nearly that much noise if it's been properly tuned, and even the heaviest carbines should have no moving parts loose enough to create that much of a racket.

The cloaks almost make him look like some kind of Jedi, or Jedi sympathiser, but one look at that blank expression and the cantina's patrons are content to ignore him and go back to their drinks. There isn't much in the way of idle rich in Aquilaris; at least nobody who would be caught dead in this cantina. The ones who make it here are podracer afficionados, or podracing pilots, and they wouldn't be bothered by such a thing. There's no profit in it.

Juno's head raises only a fraction, just enough to see the booted feet of the interloper when they stop before the table.

There's no way this could be anybody but the one who had reached out to her, and the one she had summoned.

She squints up at the dingy light behind him, almost haloing him, and apparently comes to the conclusion that there's no way this could be anybody but the one she had summoned.

A thumb jerks at the nearest chair, and she kicks it out so the stranger can have a seat.

"Sit down and stop attracting attention," she hisses, "or you're not going to have anybody to talk to if the Imperials find me here. I've thought about what you had to say." She'll wait until he does as she asks before looking to him, head canted slightly to one side to fix him with one blue eye. The pilot frowns. "I was going to leave the Empire alone. I only wanted to get away, but you got me to thinking."

"I decided I'm one of the lucky ones. Most people against the Emperor's insane policies happen to disappear. Very mysterious, very coincidental." Her tone suggests it's very much not mysterious, and very much not coincidental at all. "Killed or imprisoned, and either way their fate probably winds up the former. I decided that no matter how small an effort it is, fighting against that would buy more of the oppressed their lives, somewhere in the galaxy."

She looks up to Yuri, meeting his eyes, unflinching despite their otherness. "I don't know how much I can promise. I have reasons not to fight, myself, no matter how cowardly that might sound, but the reality is that I'm no Jedi. I'm not a Sith. I don't have any amazing tricks I can pull out of my pocket. I'm just an ordinary human who knows how to pilot a starfighter, and that doesn't count for much against the likes of the Emperor, or his favourite thug, Vader."

"But I think it would be a fight worth fighting."

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
"Attention is trivial. If your Empire were to show up, they would likely be incapable of matching me in combat. I would buy time for your escape and force them to suffer either a pyrrhic victory in my demise at the worst case or a crippling loss in the optimal outcome," Yuri monotones gently. Despite this statement, he slowly sits down. The motion causes that strange metallic rattling that follows him everywhere to happen, but it ceases shortly afterwards.

He stares at her across the table, the jade gaze fixed upon her and his posture kept stiff and observant. He seems to listen to every word she says with an intent gaze. He blinks a couple times and then speaks after she has finished.

"There are many comforting statements I could give you. I could point out that a raging blaze starts with a single spark. Or that it is a trickle of water that carves the mountain," He begins, watching her, "These statements are not untrue and serve as a capable example for this situation. But they downplay the severity of your choices."

He stops abruptly, "I am sorry, in advance, if my nature is inhuman to you. Because of what I am, in the lack of her presence I find it hard to manifest emotions or relate to those I converse with. It will take several interactions before you see a drift towards normalcy in tone and attitude. Please be patient in this process."

And then he continues, "The story is often the same. An Emperor, perhaps for reasons he believed right, gained too much power. His vision subsumed the vision of the people. He began to silence those who spoke out to pursue order," He explains, thinking for a moment, "A tyrant knows no path to control beyond the elimination of dissent."

"You will have nothing to promise me. I am rebellion," He explains to her, "I require no compensation for what I will do, so long as you understand that by my nature I am the counter-force. I am the monster which hunts monsters."

To her last comment, he then adds, "Every rebellion needs great heroes and generals. But many forget that it is the person who provides the human perspective that most shapes these events. Your humanity and your lack of greatness is what will make you great and vital. You will be overlooked and so you will be strong for it when they forget you."

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
Leaning back in her chair, the pilot casts a wary eye on the monster on a leash before her. The question is, what manner of leash does he wear, and who holds the other end of it? She's had experience dealing with types like that before. Galen Marek himself is a monster on a leash, and she is the control on the other end of it; if anything happened to her, he would be flung headlong into the Dark Side, an implacable and unyielding force of destruction, grief, and rage.

What is this monster's story? Juno tilts her head a little, studying him more closely as he explains himself. Inhuman, he calls himself, but that much is evidently obvious to her. There is an otherness, a wrongness, about him that suggests he shares nothing in the realm of common perspective with most sentients.

Of course, she's hardly one to quibble over the details. Her lover is a Sith assassin; her subordinate aboard the ship is a droid who, while faithful and obedient, is still a droid, with all the lack of understanding of human principles that such implies, and also the occasional tendency to attempt to murder his master.

Juno lets a breath whistle through her teeth, sifting through her thoughts. She's still tired, godforsakenly tired from the weight of the past several days, and it takes her several moments to articulate what's running through her weary mind.

"Alright." What she means that in response to is unclear; whether his avowal of her safety, his confirmation that every wave starts with a ripple, or the explanation of his fundamental nature. She only studies him for a few more long moments, eyes a gleam of reflected light from beneath the brim of her nondescript maintenance worker's cap.

She closes her eyes and sighs. What's the use in arguing or protesting? The Empire already wants her dead, or imprisoned, and anyway, the latter will end up the former. No amount of insane optimism can overlook that.

"Thanks. But if I were looking for comfort, I would've put my head down and followed those orders, and kept trying to cling to the stability of staying in the Empire's good graces. Bloody good it would have done, though. They would have set us up some other way." She scowls, looking away. "No amount of status quo is worth staining my hands with that sort of blood. Nothing."

Drumming her fingers on the table, and ignoring the way that they tremble from simple fatigue, she considers the details.

"A monater that hunts monsters." She smiles, but it's an ugly expression, bitter and self-depreciating. "I've got a little bit of experience with that, although I'm quite sure you take it to a completely different level by your very nature."

She does lift an eyebrow, though, harkening back to something he'd said. "'Her presence?'" So he has some kind of anchor, too. If he doesn't comment, though, she's content to let it go; it's probably something personal.

Blowing out a sigh, she bows her head. "Maybe. I'm really not that important, though. Just a pilot who managed to get Vader's attention, first to fly for the Inquisition, and now as a traitor. I can't even fight, not on a personal scale, not without a ship... but maybe you're right. I can still fight them in other ways, if I have to." Her lips thin. "The Empire will wipe out entire worlds if they think they're a threat to Imperial authority. I should know. I captained a mission to do exactly that. I'm not proud of it – in fact, I'm still horrified by it – but at least now I can even the scales." Blue eyes flick up to Yuri. "I can save lives, for a change, instead of taking them."

"And you can help me do that, if that's really what you want, like you say you do. I haven't got much reason to trust you, but at the end of the day, what have I got to lose...?"

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
"She is FIA. The only person whom I am capable of unconditional love for. The person for which I shattered my concept in order to reforge it into one which would be nominally more appropriate and only slightly less monstrous from what I was before," Yuri says in an even tone. Despite the absolute monotone of it, he somehow manages to convey a deep sense of utterly unfaltering love towards the woman.

He stares at her blandly, across the table, "If you are experiencing doubt as to my motivations and my ends, I will share with you a story which can elucidate my motivations and motives."

"At one time there was a man, young and fresh to leadership. His name is unimportant. He was the leader of a tribe who sought out the only water in the land. This was from the purifiers in the crashed wreck of a space ship on their land. He led his strongest warriors to that place. His enemies had gotten there first, and the weapons on the ship were still active. They unleashed stones from the sky that embedded in their skins and scorched to the bone. The leader lost most of his men in the retreat."

"His trusted advisor and best friend advised him of a way to gain the power to remedy this failure. A machine of terrible power. To absolve his failure, the young man climbed into that machine and awoke it. Its name was the Burning Grasp of Malachite Flames. He tore asunder the ship with his rage, and while he defeated those that wronged him, his people saw him as a monster. So he turned to Hell, to whom he was now bound, and served as their sword."

Yuri pauses for a moment, "He disguised himself as a hero of that world and acted to bring great war in an attempt to undermine all standings of those heroes. His name, at that time, was Radiant Nova's Fist. He spent decades working for his masters, going where they would ask him."

"It was not until many decades later that he met a woman. She was the first person who asked of him nothing, expected of him nothing, and wanted from him nothing. For that, she was given everything. Everything he was, everything he would become, was hers without her knowing it. He understood, from then, the power he possessed. That the shackles on his wrists were chains to choke those who bound him. That the power they meant to turn outward, could aim inward and shatter them."

"In these realizations, he resolved. He would never be a hero, and always a monster. But because of what she had helped him realize, he would be a monster that all those needed. This would be his concept, the defining drive of who he would be. He could never escape being an engine of war, because that was built into his concept so deeply by that point. But he would be war for the correct reasons, from his perspective."

He concludes his story with little event and stares at Juno for a long moment, "This is meant to explain to you the driving concepts and motivations behind my existence and to reassure you as to my motives."

And then, "Saving lives will have its place. You will also find that many heroes may turn to you for support during the times to come. You may become a rallying point for those with great power to remind them of those without great power. In this, you may become the most important person."

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
The pilot listens to Yuri Stinson's story in silence. Her face remains impassive as she begins to reconcile the details with the being seated before her. Part of her isn't certain he qualifies as a person any more, not quite in the way she might imagine; he seems to be no more than a concept given physical form, at the cost of whatever humanity he might have once had. He has no empathy and no means by which to relate to the beings around him.

What a tormented and miserable existence, she thinks, but then again, is he consciously aware of what he's missing? As he is now, he might not even have the capacity to know or care.

Or maybe he does, and she's badly underestimating the situation. It's unwise to make assumptions about anything, but it's especially unwise to make assumptions about multiversal denizens, in her experience. Leaning forward, she rests her elbows on the table, lacing her fingers and resting her chin over them as she considers.

Can she trust this being? Or is he a creature of the Confederacy, or the Empire; and merely a very good actor?

Straightening, Juno rubs at her face, the gesture weary. "I appreciate the backstory, but I'm still not sure who to believe or trust right now. I didn't always agree with Imperial policy, but I had been loyal up until that point. And I've just had my world turned upside-down. Please understand. I'm a little... shaken, right now."

"I'll just have to wait on the rest. I don't want to be a hero. I don't want to rally anybody. I don't even want to fight the empire, and it's only reluctantly that I'm even discussing the possibility." She lets her hands drop to the table, resting flat on its slightly greasy surface. "It's not for me that I'm considering this. It's for the ones who don't have a voice, or a chance... I don't want to be important. I just want to be left in peace, even though I know that's impossible, now."

Her eyes turn up to Yuri again. "Let me talk to Galen. I can't act on this alone, and it wouldn't be fair to him to. He's in this as much as I am; we both chose to defy orders. In fact, we had prepared for that eventuality; Imperial betrayal was not so much a matter of 'if' to us as it was 'when.'" Juno sighs, looking down at the table. "I can't promise when I'll contact you again. He may want to talk to you, though, because he might need to hear what you've told me."

"Thank you for agreeing to talk, even if you turn out to be some kind of Imperial agent." She smiles, thinly. "If you happen to pass by anybody involved in this situation, tell them..."

Juno falls silent, obviously mulling that over for a moment or two. Her gaze flicks away, to a distant corner of the room, before she finally shakes her head.

"Never mind. Don't tell anyone anything. It won't solve anything, and the less attention I draw to myself or Galen right now, the better, I think." She pushes herself upright, inclining her head to Yuri politely. "Thank you."

There's a short pause.

"Before I go, is there another name I can call you by? Something a little, uh..." She holds up two forefingers a short distance from one another. "Something a little shorter?"

Yuri Stinson (106) has posed:
Yuri watches her with a blank stare and then thinks about what he wants to say, as well as what she says, "I understand your lack of trust. Were our positions reversed, I would have mirrored your feelings at the least," He responds evenly, calmly regarding her with that jade gaze.

"Consult with your partner. Decide which path you feel is optimal. I will likely attempt to make contacts within your universe regardless, or take more overt action," He adds to her, canting his head to the side, "But you have a right to disinvolvement. As does whoever your counterpart is in this matter. I am easily available for contact through the Syndicate, though I hold no overt allegiance to either faction. My only tie is that FIA is with the Union, though I act more to my own whims and so am not a suitable candidate for membership."

"I never met Juno Eclipse," Yuri notes, in regards to both her accusation of him hypothetically being an Imperial agent or of passing along a message. He takes a slow breath and says, "I came here for a drink on rumors there was an Empire that inflamed my conceptual allignments. While I was here I met an undisclosed contact who informed me of the situation. She did not give me her name and I did not think to ask for it."

But she does ask him about a better name. He thinks for a moment, "My human name, and the one used most in reference to me, is Yuri Stinson."

Juno Eclipse (428) has posed:
"Galen," Juno answers softly. The word is given almost by rote. "The bounties list him as Inquisitor Starkiller, but his real name is Galen Marek. He's my counterpart in this matter, but it's more accurate to say he's closer to me what FIA is to you." There's a short pause. "Not exactly, maybe. I'm human enough. But I promise if the Empire did anything to Galen, I'd tear them apart with my bare hands, lack of ability be damned."

Reaching up and straightening her cap, she cocks a blue eye toward Yuri, weighing his words. She frowns, although it seems less an expression of displeasure and more one of contemplation. "I can be contacted through the Syndicate, but it'd be better if you waited for me. Like I said, I'm trying to avoid attention, and it wouldn't surprise me if there were people in the Syndicate with an interest in chasing Vader's bounty..."

"The Union?" She frowns, thinning her lips. "I see... there was a misunderstanding, and the Confederacy thinks I turned to the Union for help. To be honest, I didn't know the person I turned to was even a Union member. Could you pass on a message for me to someone in the Union, if it's possible for you to do? Her name is Lowri, and she's a Jedi, or at least I'm fairly certain she's a Jedi. Can you thank her for me, and tell her that I'm alright? It's too dangerous for me to risk a meeting with her, or with anyone else openly Union. I'd appreciate it, but I also understand if you don't get around to it." His priorities, she's guessing, are slightly different.

She's silent for a moment, worrying at her lower lip with her teeth as she considers further. At least he seems to understand the need for subtlety. She can't help feeling relief at that much. Finally, something that's gone right.

"It's nice to meet you, then, Yuri Stinson." Juno smiles; although the expression is a little uncertain, it seems to be no reflection on him – she has a lot to think about. Still, she offers a hand to shake, a little hesitantly. Does somebody like him even shake hands? If he doesn't, it seems all the more imperative to make the offer. Little human gestures; little human touches. "I'm Juno. Juno Eclipse. You can also call me 'Blackout,' but that callsign's known, too. I guess it doesn't really matter."

She seems to pause for a moment, briefly looking down at the table as she waits, bent over, with her hands on the table.

"Thanks, Yuri."

And with that, she turns to go, shrugging into her borrowed jacket more securely and filing out of the cantina without another word.