[open] we could strike the chord

[headinjuries]

CHARACTERS: Anyone who wanted to go to the vigil!
WHERE: Royal Street Gaming Parlor.
WHEN: DAY :031
SUMMARY: Concordia honors the dead. Hosts honor the dead, or maybe just do a little 007ing. As in snooping, not macking on hot ladies. We hope.
WARNINGS: TBA.

This is here for any and all of your mingling needs. Start your own top-levels, harass each other, etc etc.

Here is what we know is happening, courtesy of our fearless mods:

The hosts will be few in a throng of relatively peaceful people. Most people in attendance are younger (30s and below) and a proportionally large number of them have some kind of physical modification, though most are relatively low-profile mods. There's also a small contingent of androids in attendance.

A low platform has been erected in front of the Royal Street Gaming Parlor and the speakers for the vigil either stand on it or, as is the case with some more high profile appearances, they speak across an extranet connection via a holoscreen projected onto the Parlor itself. For the most part the speakers are small time: a few workers from a small local chapter of Mind Life (accompanied by a few skittish looking androids), a beta block councilwoman, a Mother and Sister from a nearby Church of Lirinity. Most of them have nothing more than words of support and condolence.

Somewhere close to the middle of the vigil, Seong-Hye Ngazi, the Public Security Commissioner for Concordia, speaks via extranet connection. She seems somber, competent, but also confident, and speaks about condolences for the losses, regret for the circumstances of the attack, and Public Security's dedication to finding the party responsible for the attack.

Otherwise: it's your fairly standard memorial gathering. Poems are read, some tears are shed, there are some people with signs and a small contingent of rabble rousers on the fringe of the gathering that quickly get chased off by Public Security, etc. You're welcome to create and interact with your own NPCs if you feel so inclined!

Comments

[narcissithstic]

[He was badly wounded when Cathaway had taken him to her side, careful to ease his pain— not just the physical, but the agony he'd been stricken with for too long beneath the brutal demands of the Force. Glossed ceilings, gentle fingertips that acted as a living balm where little else could.

They were one and the same, she'd promised, speaking of the Nest and every living inhabitant it housed, hoping to dissuade him from unnecessary cruelty against his own kind. Every attack made, no matter how slight, would cause him pain - would cause her pain.

It was an effort made in vain: he'd disappointed her time and time again in the months that've passed since, costing him more than just his favor.

Still, he eventually found footing. A means to drag himself back from the brink and strike a fragile balance between control and chaos. He should be coveting it, protecting it in spite of how Rey thinks to claw her way beneath his skin. Instead, with rage boiling feverishly in his blood for her merciless prodding, he falls predictably short of the mark.

As he'd done on Starkiller, Ren squares his heels with a practiced precision, posture going stiff, eyes lidding in an instant. Within less than a handful of seconds the Force moves to pierce the sanctuary of her mind, lancing clean through once it finds purchase. Not for information this time, but for pain.

If her broodmates are so worried about her well-being, let them be the ones to muzzle their rabid akk dog.]

[sensitively]

[ For that brief flash of a moment she's cowed, the pain suddenly lancing through her mind drawing her features up in an agonizing but silent grimace. Rey grabs her head and takes a knee down on the pavement, from where she stands on the outskirts of the vigil — catching herself only at the last moment from faceplanting onto the ground in a crumpling heap by grasping blindly ahead of her and gripping the back of a stranger's arm for a brief few seconds.

And then that person, a young woman with perfectly-coiffed hair and stylish body augments, suddenly turns and shouts out across the crowded gathering, a roar loud enough to be heard over the crowd and the holonet display, towards Ren — ]

— BEN, STOP IT! —

[ — before the woman carefully snaps her lips shut, looking bewildered at her own outburst and confused for a long moment as other attendees of the vigil turn around curiously to gawk at her.

Rey, still kneeling on the ground and panting through the searing agony that has momentarily stopped, hasn't said a single word; she can only look on at what's happened in nothing short of stunned surprise. ]

[deployed]

[ A moment later, Bellamy breaks through the crowd. He's trying to be as surreptitious as possible. The last thing they need is for attention cast on them for creating a disruption here. Every memory this gathering drags to the forefront for him has to be set by the wayside for now, because the last thing he can allow is for this scuffle to escalate into physical blows. ]

Rey.

[ Bellamy's out of breath, but his voice is firm as his hand finds her shoulder. Something's shifted, Bellamy can sense Rey's surprise, but this is the last place to press her about it. ]

( I've got her. )

[ It's projected towards Ren, though Bellamy's gaze doesn't lift from Rey to find him. It's meant as a display of trust, even if his entire body is prickling in apprehension as he steps around in front of Rey, crouching to look in her eyes. ]

Are you alright?

[narcissithstic]

[He feels shocked raw. Chilled down to the marrow in his bones, hearing his name— no, not his name, but the memory cast off from it, already left ground out in the dust of the past. Compounded by the fact that it's been spat out through the mouth of a woman he's never seen before, never known.

For once (twice) in his life, he's too stunned to retaliate.

Instead, expressionlessly, he goes ghostly pale, his features wilting visibly down to nothing more than a narrow tic at the edge of his mouth: before Bellamy even fully moves in, Ren recedes, slinking backwards into the crowd and leaving the connection between himself and the Nest entirely empty— silent.]

[sensitively]

[ Still on the ground, Rey is watching his reaction when he goes pale and begins to disappear from view, blending into the crowd and the encroaching darkness on the periphery of it. She keeps her eyes on him nevertheless even as Bellamy kneels down in front of her, one hand on her shoulder as he catches his breath from exertion. He'd run all the way here, to stop their altercation.

And then the realization of what she's done sinks in fully — her fleeting hold on that woman, the way her mind's suggestion had taken root in the woman's own head and had forced her to shout out that name — and Rey's eyes flick to Bellamy's, chastened, her temper cowed for the moment.

She'll follow Ren, eventually...but not now, not until she has time to process what has just happened. ]