Will of the Many~ Poe Dameron

Too cocky, too flirty, too good

Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I must push my foot stealthily lest I should fall off the edge of the world into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body...

-Virginia Woolf

Serena woke covered in sweat and bad dreams- no, not bad dreams, terrors. They clung to her just the same as the thin white sheet tangled around her legs. She felt the ghost of their touch in her soul, taunting her of her past life with him. 

She pressed her hands to her face and pushed them up and back into her hair. Her nimble fingers caught on a knot along her roots and sent a flash of pain across her skull. Instead of trying to release the knot, she pulled her hands from her hair and let them drop to her thighs. 

It's late... or early. Serena tried to measure how much sleep she got by the stiffness of her neck. The night terrors had the terrible side effect of making every single one of her muscles twitch uncontrollably. Her body physically reacted to the horrors instilled in her mind, and when she woke she suffered from both. 

A single pop eased the tension at the base of her skull. Early, she decided as she leaned her head in the opposite direction. 

She kicked the thin sheet off of her legs and stood to get ready for the day. 

A steaming shower helped soothe the ache in her muscles but did little for the torment in her head. As she tied the strings on her high-waisted black leather pants she thought back to her nightmare. Her fingers worked on muscle memory as her mind started to pull towards the old days when Ren's word was law, his order was followed with no thought or pause. She tightened the top lace just enough to cut into her stomach and used the flash of pain to pull her from her thoughts. 

She took in a breath as she tied off the lace, then she pulled her black tight shirt over her head. The bell sleeves fell to her wrists in billowy softness but didn't quite cover her hands, so she grabbed her leather gloves and slipped them on her pale, veiny hands. 

When the wrists were secured, she looked up to the steamy mirror. Drips of condensation pulled down along the reflection, giving Serena mere slips of clarity to see herself through. It wasn't much, but she caught the purple bags displaying her exhaustion under each eye and the slight redness around the irises. 

Sleep had not been a friend to her in years, it left right around the same time her childish innocence did. They both walked hand-in-hand out the door without a single glance back to her. 

Serena looked away from the mirror and left the bathroom in search of her boots. When she adorned the muddy, steel tipped shoes, she stood tall and looked over her rumbled, sheets and crumbled pillows. 

Making of a restless night.

Her eyes didn't stay on the bed for long as her lightsaber caught her eye. It laid on the nightstand, glinting under the bathroom's warm light as if to warn her to bring it. 

She grabbed it and clipped it to the waistline of her pants at her right hip. The metal clip singed cold against her warm skin. She could even feel the chill of the weapon through her leather pants. It slowly warmed up until she couldn't discern her deadly weapon from her own leg, it all felt the same to her. Her lightsaber was just an extension of herself, as it should be. 

When she was ready, she left the uncomforts of her room to head towards the cafeteria. 

The halls were eerily quiet- so quiet that each of step of her toes against the tile floor echoed against the stone walls- so quiet her ears rang as they tried to pick up on any sound just to hear something.