Saga - PT From Out of the Darkness ~ Rogue One Spoilers~ Jyn, Galen, others~ Fic-Gift for Chyntuck

If you haven’t seen it yet, this contains spoilers for Rogue One! You have been warned!


Title: From Out of the Darkness
Author: mavjade
Timeline: Various, but based on Rogue One
Characters: Jyn Eros, with Galen and mentions of other Rogue One characters
Summary: Jyn has lived her life in darkness causing her to remove all emotions from her life. But an event that should cause fear and the darkness to spread further pulls her out of the darkness and into the light.

Notes: This is the fic-gfit for Chyntuck written for the 10th Annual Winter Holiday Fic-gift Exchange.
Her request was something based around Rouge One or Catalyst, with any of the characters in any era. I haven’t read Catalyst yet, so Rogue One it is! I haven’t read the novelization of R1 either, so this is probably way off canon.

Happy Holidays Chyn, I hope you enjoy!


~*~*~

“What do we do when they come?” Galen Erso asked his six-year-old daughter.

“We run,” came her answer. She was looking her father directly in the eyes, but a small smile was on her lips.

“Where do we run?”

“To the Talkan Cliffs.”

Galen nodded, “And then?”

“We hide. Stay quiet until you come for us.”

“Good girl.” Galen smiled and kissed his daughter on the forehead. He asked these questions of her at least once a week, sometimes more frequently depending on the news of how close the Empire was to Lah’mu. They practiced the way to the cliffs so many times he thought Jyn could probably get their blindfolded by now. This was his plan, making it so ingrained in his daughter’s mind that even in fear, she’d know what to do and where to go.

He knew that when they came for him -and he was positive they would- he had to do everything in his power to keep his Stardust away from the Empire. They would use her to control him and he knew it would work.

He was aware that it was just a game to Jyn, they had purposely made it so in order not to scare the young child. They would run and hide, and run and hide all the way to the Talkan cliffs, always looking out for others that might be trying to find them. He hoped it would always stay just a game, but in the deepest parts of him he knew that was impossible. The Empire was expanding, pushing out further and further in their control of the galaxy and their super weapon was the key to complete control and domination. Galen was the key to the weapon, and they would stop at nothing to get it.

“And when we are in the dark and scared?” Galen asked his final question of his daughter.

“We trust the Force, and we know we are never alone.”

~*~*~

She watched the troopers look around from under the hatch that was disguised as a large rock. She stood on the rungs of the ladder and held her breath hoping they wouldn’t hear her. Finally, they turned and walked away, and she felt it was safe to climb all the way down into the small space where she would stay until for father came for her. It was dark, very dark, but nine-year-old Jyn knew that this was necessary and didn’t let it frighten her. She had a small light in her bag, but she worried it was too soon to use it. They would still be looking, and she did not want anything to give her hiding spot away.

She tried to remember what her mother taught her to do when she was scared. She closed her eyes and imagined she was in her bed, her father sitting beside her telling stories of his adventures. The image was so real she could almost hear her mother yelling that it was time for bed and for her father to stop telling scary stories.

Jyn never thought they were scary, she loved his stories. She looked forward to them every night, even the ones she had heard time and time again. After he finished the story, he would kiss her forehead and say “Goodnight my Stardust. May the Force keep you and guide you.”
.
.
.
.

She jerked awake, fear jumping though her making her heart pound. She was in an unfamiliar place, but the events of the day quickly caught back up with her. She was alone in the dark, waiting. She knew her mother had been hurt, she watched her fall to the ground, but Jyn trusted that her father would take care of her mother. He would never let anything happen to them. Everything he did, it was always for them.

She climbed back up the ladder to see what was around and found it dark outside and she could see nothing. She dared not open the hatch, that was one of her father’s rules. The hatch stayed closed until someone came for her.

Jyn climbed back down into the cave to wait. She wouldn’t turn on the light just yet. She’d wait a little longer, in the darkness, for her father to come.

~*~*~

She was sixteen and found herself hiding in the darkness again, just as she had done when she was younger. He had shoved her into a hole and told her to stay. He didn’t say he would be back for her, but she thought that was implied.

Saw had taken her in when she was nine, saved her from the darkness and taught her how to survive.

They had been on the run, always hiding, always looking for an escape route. That was the biggest lesson Saw had taught her, never be in a situation where you were not able to get yourself out. Have an exit. Have multiple exits. Be prepared to fight. Use everything to your advantage.

A table could be used as a place of negotiation, but it could just as easily be used as a shield or a weapon.

He also taught her to fight, with weapons and with her bare hands; not to stop fighting until the foe was incapacitated or dead. He showed her how to find water on a desert planet, how to find what was edible in a rain forest. She thought he had taught her how to push away the darkness, but she found herself engulfed once again.

Cold.

Alone.

She waited for what felt like days, but she had no real way of knowing how long it had been since Saw had taken all her means of communication and left her with only a knife and a blaster. He told her that means of communication meant she could be traced, so she waited for him to come as the minutes passed.

Hours.

Days.

She could feel her ability to trust slipping into the darkness, buried deep enough never to be seen again.

~*~*~

Trust. Love. Faith.

These were all emotions Jyn didn’t know. Didn’t have the luxury of knowing. They stayed buried in the darkness where they could not hurt her.

Her father who had promised to come back for her had buried faith. Now older, she knew he had not had a choice, and she didn’t blame him, but it was not something she could allow herself to feel. Saw who had saved her when she was a child had abandoned her as a teenager and pushed away her ability to trust.

But before Saw had broken her ability to trust, she had loved. Lak’en had been older than her by a few years. He, like Jyn, was an orphan who had found his way into Saw’s small army by necessity. Fight and live, or die. He and Jyn often trained together, ate together, were hardly ever apart.

Slowly, she found herself falling in love with him, the kind of love she knew her father had for her mother. The love that got her mother killed. The kind of love that almost got her killed.

The love that got him slaughtered.

They were out on a simple mission to gather some intel. They were meeting a new contact, one that they were cautious of, but were hopeful would be a wealth of information in the future. Jyn and Lak’en were there for support and lookout; their job was to make sure their negotiator was safe.

Things were going well until their contact was spooked by another group out to get his information, and a three-way fight broke out. Jyn was doing exactly as she had been taught, she was fighting her way out. She had just knocked unconscious one of the humans that was part of the other group when she turned around just in time to see a blade slide through Lak’en’s stomach, a blade that would have gone through her, had he not stepped in front of her.

Jyn shot the being who held the weapon and dropped to her knees, pressing her hands into the large wound that was bleeding profusely. “Lak, why did you do that?”

“Jyn.”

The fighting continued around them, and Jyn knew that she was an easy target sitting out in the middle of the room, but she found she did not care. “Stay with me,” she begged. “We’ll get you back to the ship. You’ll be fine.”

“Jyn,” Lak repeated, his voice growing weaker. “Stay strong. Don’t…. don’t ever let them take…”

She could feel the love she had for him slipping into the darkness as she watched the light fade from his eyes and his body go limp. She held onto him for a few moments, his blood covering her hands and clothes. She knew she had two choices, stay here with him and die, or honor his sacrifice and move on.

She kissed his forehead, stood up, and continued to fight her way out.

~*~*~

Jyn and Cassian had done all they could. They had retrieved the plans from the data vault and managed to transmit them to the ships that were waiting above them. The rest was up to someone else.

As she and Cassian helped each other toward the edge of the shore, she could feel things she had long since forgotten starting to well within her.

They watched as the shockwave of destruction came for them, it’s overwhelming brightness burst through the darkness she had held onto for so long. She felt the light for the first time since she was a young girl listening to stories in her father’s arms.

She put out her hand to the man who she had come to know so well in such a short amount of time, wanting to remind him he was not alone. He pulled her into an embrace and the light broke through and the emotions she’d long buried flooding into her.

Love. Love for Cassian, Bodhi, Chirrut, Baze, K-2SO, and all of the others who had sacrificed themselves for her mission.

Faith. Faith that the Force was with them now, and always. With the Force, none of them were alone.

Trust. Trust that the galaxy would rise up in the face of tyranny and oppression. Trust their sacrifice would not be in vain.

But above all, she felt one emotion. It was a word she hadn’t heard in so long, but Cassian had reminded her of it. She felt it now as strongly as she had ever felt anything in her life. She knew her life was over, but it did not matter. They had done what needed to be done, and they gave this emotion to the whole galaxy. It burst from her just as brightly as the tide of light that was about to engulf them.

Hope.

 

You summarized Rogue One up in a great way; that hope is eternal and will survive the perishing of Jyn, Cassian, and the others. Jyn had lived a life that was very faithful to her father and his teachings and even in the end, she did not give up hope.

 

Wow. Great Fic and insight into Jyn, her personality and her life with Saw (which now I want to read more of). The last bit summed up R1 so very well and that last line just choked me up a bit. What a great single theme for the entire saga.

 

Oh wow, mavjade, this was absolutely beautiful. Thanks so very, very much!

I love how you depicted the stages of Jyn's life (which, incidentally, is remarkably close to the Jyn that's portrayed in the novelisation). The two sections where's she's a little girl, and she is taught to fight fear with her memories of her parents -- that's just heartbreaking when we know what will happen to her next. And the way you connected the way she found herself without her parents to the way she was abandoned by Saw -- that was masterful. The whole passage about her time with Saw's Partisans is really difficult to read; you show in so few words how she was hardened by those events into the Jyn Erso we got to see in R1, into the tough young woman who has buried the little girl inside her, but the little girl is still there, trying to break out. I really liked how you introduced a teenage love for her -- there would have to be someone she loved as an adult, or as a young adult, and whom she lost, for her to become the Jyn Erso we know.

And your interpretation of the scene on the beach... That was a great way to summarise how far Jyn has come in just a few days through her mission with the Rebellion, and a great way to connect the story directly to what is happening at the same time elsewhere. Just brilliant!

Thanks again for a wonderful fic-gift!

 

Great job on Jyn´s character. An interesting look into her psyche. And you fond the very thing that connects her with another great female SW character. The first one that there was: Princess Leia. And they share one thing: hope!

 

This is like...rewriting the whole film from inside of Jyn Erso's own mind. A tape playing from the moment her life is first ruined to the moment she melts with Cassian and evaporates into Scarif's atmosphere, by miracle transported together with the real recordings from the Imperial Archive. She does not smile for one single moment in the film - which is pretty striking - and this amazing inner recording pretty much explains why.

And what hits most is the ongoing play of light and dark here. At some point, much like the entire story of Jyn Erso, they're the shadows of grey. Here and there, it feels like they are blinking, there is this sense of turbulence. And with each play of dark and light, somebody disappears. But it's only when they all do that she can find her peace - in no way than by disappearing herself, once she has completed her own mission. Everybody else's mission was, in a way, to protect her, so she could fullfill her dragonfly dance.

Beautiful story! The tone it was written in, the rhythm at the end of each section, matches it perfectly.

 

Fantastic look at Jyn, the stages of her life and what she feels and thinks. The end was beautiful. Very well done.

 

Jyn never had an easy life, and I really like how you've expanded on what we see in Rogue One to show how she ended up being the person she was there. One by one, she's had to leave behind the bits and pieces of trust that she placed in people -- and it's often not even their fault, but the result of the times they live in. But in the end, she does regain the ability to hope that things will be better because of the actions of her and her team.

This part is just beautiful. The light of the laser destroys her and Cassian, but in that moment it's also echoing the inner light that she has had to struggle to maintain for so long, finally bursting into life. Really brought back the scene from the film in a wonderful way.

 

Gave me chills -- mavjade Brilliantly and poignantly done!!!!! I haven't read Catalyst or Rogue One yet, but will soon. And this just whets my appetite.

 

I'm apparently a terrible author and not only never thanked you guys individually, but never thanked you for the nomination for the awards. My greatest apologies!

A huge thank you and hugs to those who did nominate this story, I appreciate it so, so much. I truly do.

Thank you! Jyn was an interesting character to me because she grew so much during R1 and I wanted to show a little bit of that here, but also that the hope was bigger than her.

Thanks!! Yeah, I've thought about writing more about her time with Saw, we'll have to see how the muse cooperates. I think it could be interesting. When Leia says Hope at the end of R1 it chokes me up, so I wanted to draw that parallel and that feeling here.

Thank you so much, Chyn! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
It just seemed to me that by the way Saw ran his operation, that would be a time that she would have to learn to really fight for herself, but that he was the only family she had. His abandoning her after her parents were taken away from her (either by death or the Empire) would just push anyone over the edge, I think.
But I agree, we could see the little girl in her in R1 when she found her father and I really wanted to show that.
Thanks again!

It was fun to explore the parts of Jyn we didn't get to see in R1, we know she became a bit hardened and life had taken its toll and I wanted to show that. We don't have much room to write in the R1 area since they all die, but I think there is a lot we can get from the movie and fill in the blanks. I also liked that hope was sort of a de facto theme for the fic-gifts this year! I do think R1 really brought that idea for the Rebellion home.
Thank you so much for your lovely comments!

Thank you! I do like how there are themes to the women of Star Wars and that they are such amazing women. And as you said, Hope connects them all and that can be quite powerful.

Thank you so much!
It really was kinda the story of R1 from Jyn's POV, which I think changes things a bit since the narrator changes. I always think that's fun to do.
There is a lot of grey to R1, and I think that's part of the reason I liked it so much, because we saw the Rebellion wasn't all lightness in the dark. It's fun to play with those themes and see how it changes our perceptions of Star Wars in general.
I love that you call it her dragonfly dance, that's a great description!

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

She really didn't have an easy life, that much was clear. It was fun to try and fill in a bit of the blanks where they just didn't have the time. You are right, that destruction of trust isn't always the person's fault, but it still can have a significant impact none the less.
That part you quoted is what came to me the first time I watched it, knowing I was going to write a story based on the movie. The rest of the story kinda grew up around that part.
Thank you for reading and your lovely comments!

Thank you so much! I haven't read the novelization yet, I need to do so! I'm so glad you enjoyed it!

 

You are right, that destruction of trust isn't always the person's fault, but it still can have a significant impact none the less.

True words!

The SW universe seems to have some of those persons. Jyn is not the only one.