The expectation that this would end well is an expectation that Jyn does not afford herself. 'You can't be disappointed by things that aren't,' her mother tells her, and she nods. She always nods. Jyn has been told that it is the best way to show she understands if she doesn't want to talk, and there's very few times that is the case. The adults talk plenty, and she hangs in at doorways, thirsty for their voices.
Of the voices, she loves her father's best.
The bunk room of the ship she has been brought to is simple. There is a sleeping bench with white sheets and two pillows, a small desk bolted into the wall with a long vertical light and chair, and strictly no ornamentation. Jyn doesn't know what prison is supposed to look like, but this must be it. She has lived in Imperial apartments before, and they are almost as barren as these, but something antiseptic continues to follow her. There are none of the tender vines that her parents grow along long window edges. No carefully knitted throws over the foot of the bed. She is relieved when Lord Vader allows her to keep her backpack and her silence.
Lord Vader. She tastes this name like a sour berry behind her teeth. She knows he is Lord Vader, because within 5 minutes of docking, at least twenty people had said it. She's heard his name on the news in Coruscant before. She thought he would be a ghost or a monster.
(He is both. You won't know that for years.)
"You will sit here until an officer of my choosing comes for you. You do not speak your name, you do not ask unnecessary questions. Understand?" asks Lord Vader before he leaves. She is entranced by his breathing. He is like the exhaust of some great ship, and all of his fuel spills out hot and burning on the eyes if she looks too long.
She nods, but doesn't speak.
He nods as well, and is gone like a shadow runs from light.
Boredom takes her before sadness. In the hiding place, she cried like a baby and was embarrassed by it. It made her cheeks sticky and dusty with the dark ash of the canyon. She didn't want to be found by her father that way. She scrubbed furious child-fists to her cheeks, and the next time the hatch lifted, she was disappointed but clean faced. Mama will (would) be proud.
But now the room is white, and black, and bland with clean lines. It's dizzying, and she feels like she has disappeared. She reaches for her backpack and lays out the contents in front of her in tidy quadrants to anchor herself. Here are five freeze-dried meals, two of which she hates but that Papa insists will help keep her healthy. They taste of dryness and salt, even with the water added. Here also is a small drinking container, no clear water inside but instead a light green clear fluid that tastes of the mosses along the sides of her home. The moisture towers collect the humidity from the sour mists near their farm, but always the collected water is stained green.
When she digs deeper, there is spare clothing, two homespun tunics with winks of shiny floss at the cuffs. She keeps chips of mica and black glass from the mountains, reflecting the light back onto the walls in subtle glints. (Your mother's necklace, the shard of crystal at your neck, is warm but never reflects. It keeps the light's secrets to itself.) These she leaves out on the desk to catch glints of light from the lamp.
There are utensils for eating in a cheap but clean aluminum. There is a small printed book of planets in the Outer Rim, all tidy and straight lined like the room. The back of it reads 'Book Three of Beginner's Guide to Imperial Territories, Bound Edition.' She doesn't think the other two came with them from their apartment in Coruscant. She doesn't know what to do with the one she has, other than to flip through the pictures, looking for the rings that shaded their farm until she settles on the picture of Lah'mu.
Jyn doesn't even know if she's in the Outer Rim at this point. That, and not the being guided to the passenger shuttle, or through the docking bay, or through the hallways listening to Vader's fascinating breathing and the harsh click of his heels on the floor, is what at last brings the knot of dread into her stomach where it sits until she falls asleep.
The lights never go off. The sound never changes. There are no voices in this hallway.
A woman with exactingly straight blonde hair eventually opens the door to her bunk, her outfit every bit as grey and straight lined as the room. Jyn struggles to shake the sleep from her eyes, black grit coming away against the sides of her hands. The woman frowns, looking from around her headpiece that projects onto a glass screen that covers one dark blue eye. Some kind of holovid. There are words, but everything is backwards.
"Please sit at the edge of the bed," the woman says, standing at attention, hands politely clasped behind her back. "I am your attending officer. Lord Vader has asked that I see to your needs until he returns. I strongly suspect that you and I will be in each other's company until our next appointed rendezvous, so I would appreciate your cooperation and attention."
Jyn nods, sighing. Her feet don't quite touch the floor from where she sits. Her boots are a little muddy. She feels dirty next to the officer's cleanly whiteness.
The officer looks her over, and Jyn feels the same way that the cans in the pantry must feel when being counted before a restock. "You have no pains? No cuts or bruises?" she asks after a length. Only one eyebrow is raised out of its studied bland expression.
"No," says Jyn. "I'm fine." She swings a foot forward, nervous. "When will Lord Vader be back?"
"When it pleases him, which it often does please him to not return for many weeks. We are on the flagship Exactor, and where he places us, we will stay. I would not presume you will be his first stop when he gets back, if he remembers you at all."
This stings in a way that she doesn't expect. She is used to Papa's friends ('work associates' he calls them before the farm, before you all left) that pay her no attention, but she has no Papa this time. Jyn has always been told to seek out one of her parents at a party or in a crowd. They'll know where to put her, where she belongs. She doesn't know who she belongs to right now.
She swallows. "What is your name?" she asks after a moment's pause. "What should I call you?"
The officer looks uncomfortable at the question. Jyn has not seen very many women in the Imperial government, although she has often wondered if they were hiding some in the hardness of the stormtroopers' armor. Shells are made to keep you safe. That must be why the officer's hair is carefully slicked back and unmoving, her face stiff. She has made a shell that people can see but not sneak into. It seems wise.
"Just 'officer' or 'ma'am' for now," she says. "I would prefer further instruction on what is intended for you before asking too many questions, as it is not for me to know. Come, I will take you to the fresher and we can see about cleaning you up. You'll feel more like sleeping through a full cycle after that."
So Jyn doesn't belong to her. At least that is clear, she thinks, feeling the woman's hands clinically working her hair out of the braid.
While they certainly don't entertain children on Imperial starships, Jyn finds that their commissary does have a droid in it that is as capable of modifying uniforms as it is of handing out standard supplies. With over 40,000 employees aboard, explains her keeper-officer, that would be impractical to not have. While it is hardly a handmade floss-sleeved frock from her Mama, the droid manages to draw up a pattern from its archives for a basic long sleeved pinafore in grey wood, and an under dress of white.
The shoes they can do nothing about for now, though the commissary inventory droid does eventually find something to serve as socks. Her boots from home are steam cleaned, though they remain tattered and brackish. Keeper-officer makes a clicking noise with her tongue, but her face never betrays anything, just steers her with one hand with perfectly tidy nails. (You bite yours. It's good to have something to worry over.)
Her hair is put back into a basic plait of a braid, and Jyn is again left on her own in her room, albeit this time with a small holopad that she can write and draw on. Her writing is still not good; Papa has been trying to help her with her letters, but she has so little use for them that her mind wanders and she instead watches clouds gather on the horizon of her farm, cast in sun and shadow of the rings alike.
She draws this. This too is something to worry about and occupy herself with. Lord Vader promised her nothing about seeing her father, but she is determined to have something to show when he does allow it. This is the pattern she falls into, with keeper-officer interrupting for the fresher and with food. She looks through her book of Outer Rim planets until she can name them before turning the page to it. There are no clocks, there are no nights, and the chips of black-glass and mica are always bright on the desk and reflecting to the wall. She will have stars here.
Jyn hears the whir-hiss before the door opens. The coil in her stomach is tight with fear, but it is almost with the relief of a light coming on in the dark that she sees Lord Vader cross into her room, keeper-officer standing rigid at attention behind him in the white hallway. He is heavy like a black stone in the field near home.
"Jyn Erso," says Lord Vader after some length. He has watched her, and she has done her best to not fidget with the tail of her braid. "I trust you have found Officer Nyman's attentions thorough. I see that they have found you appropriate clothing."
It is strange how he talks to her like an adult. Jyn doesn't know if there are other children anywhere on the flagship. Maybe Lord Vader has never spoken with one before. But she belongs to nobody right now, and being spoken to like an adult helps steady her nerves and her go of the breath she is consciously holding to not make unnecessary noise.
"She has been nice, thank you," she says as she has been taught to. "There were no shoes, so I still have mine." She is briefly glad that the hem of the dress covers most of the rough shoes. She feels embarrassed by them for some reason. They are not tidy like everything else on the Exactor.
Another long pause. It would be uncomfortable were it not for the fact that Jyn thinks Lord Vader is watching her, waiting for something else, like some great beast from behind the mask on his face. Maybe there's nothing left to discuss. Maybe she said the wrong thing. (Maybe you are a dirty thing that has no one.) Her heart beats a little frantically, and she wishes her Papa would grab her hand. She is so small in here and there's no spot to crawl into.
"May I see my Papa?" she asks, voice tiny and tight and knowing that the answer will be no. She can't be disappointed with it.
"No," he says, drawing it out slowly like a thought. It doesn't hurt, since she doesn't expect the yes. "Not yet." This part does surprise her, and she breathes a little quicker. "There is much I need to do before we return to Director Krennic's tender mercies," and Lord Vader's voice is thick with dislike. She dislikes Krennic too. She thinks that is the man that has killed her beautiful Mama. "You will remain with my crew until it is convenient to check in on their progress. Officer Nyman belongs to my Intelligence crew, but will see to your needs."
Lord Vader turns to leave.
"Am I in prison?" she blurts out, the words slipping out before she has the chance to think them over. She's been cautioned against speaking thoughtlessly, but the sweep of his cloak from the room makes her heart chatter. (Please don't leave.) He doesn't turn around, but Jyn thinks he might be considering.
Whir-hiss. Whir-hiss.
"Of a kind. Your father," Lord Vader says after some short length, "is an...esteemed alumni and present guest of the Imperial Research branch. One does not simply retire from Imperial service."
'Retire' is said like something dirty, and Jyn thinks of her Papa's hands working on the moisture towers. He's always had careful hands, but not often clean ones since they began farming. (You can be dirty with him. You are made of the same stuff.)
"You will remain with my crew for the time being. Once I am confident of both Galen Erso and Orson Krennic's ability to actually do what has been asked of them, I will re-evaluate the situation. Do not make the error of thinking that this will be a comfortable arrangement," and to this he turns to her, and Jyn wishes she could see his eyes. She doesn't ever know where he's looking. It feels right that he always looks straightforward, without hesitation, but she wants to know. "Your father is distraught that I am your jailer. Do not give his cause to be frustrated by that."
Jyn nods. Lord Vader looks at her with the same unmoving stillness of keeper-officer from over his shoulder. She wonders if Officer Nyman learned that from him, or if Lord Vader collects stillness around him where he can.
"I understand," she says in a whisper when he does not leave. It's the pain and pull of losing a tooth, giving Lord Vader these words. They are the last she has given her Papa, and she does not want them shared. They are disappearing into the quiet of the hallway, unacknowledged and unheard by the officer beyond the doorway. They feel wasted.
Lord Vader nods when he walks out. He does not look back.
Long after the door has closed and she has eaten a light meal, Jyn watches the glints of her shiny keepsakes on the desk. She is shoring herself against the expectation of having anyone of her own to find in a big room.
A/N: Jyn today. Thank you to everyone that has left feedback, I really appreciate it.