Galdaart Fel
Retired High Councilor
...not hiding anymore
Posts: 1,565
Affiliation: The Unfair Advantage
Traffic Light: Green
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Post by Galdaart Fel on Mar 30, 2014 5:10:09 GMT -8
Principal Author: Galdaart Fel
Who can post: Galdaart Fel, and anyone who would like to pose questions as Fel's subconscious (please PM me your questions, they will be addressed IC.)
Standard Rules: Yes
Summary: Galdaart Fel is incarcerated in an Imperial cell. There is a lot of time to think and reflect in jail...
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Galdaart Fel
Retired High Councilor
...not hiding anymore
Posts: 1,565
Affiliation: The Unfair Advantage
Traffic Light: Green
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Post by Galdaart Fel on Mar 30, 2014 5:24:14 GMT -8
It had been quite some time. At first, he had kept track mentally, then, when that didn't seem a reliable enough method, by pulling a single hair for each day inside, keeping them in a recess in one of the metal stampings that made up the cot. When that had been full, he had given up. Not because he was worried about going bald -- it didn't matter much to him what he looked like, never did -- he gave up because who cared? Who was he going to tell his tally to? Ninety seven days' worth of hair, and six weeks' mental tally before that. There was nobody who would listen, and nobody he'd burden with the fact anyways. And it only served to make him obsess. Pull the hair, count the hairs. Recount the hairs, in case one was missing. Recount the recount, in case two of the hairs had stuck together. It was enough to drive a person 'round the bend. Now he devoted his time to more productive pursuits. But the passage of time was still note-worthy. Nails, hair and beard reminded him every so often. Nails could be chewed. But hair and beard were tougher. He had ripped a thin strip of fabric off his coverall to tie the hair back, but he found he kept playing with the beard. Stroking it, wiping at the corners of his mouth, attempting to get the hair - streaked with grey - to conform to some unseen style. But it was no use. The beard also itched badly. The scar tissue on his cheeks made the hair grow in slightly patchy and in odd directions, so he scratched often, so it was a good thing the nails were kept in order.
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Galdaart Fel
Retired High Councilor
...not hiding anymore
Posts: 1,565
Affiliation: The Unfair Advantage
Traffic Light: Green
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Post by Galdaart Fel on Apr 5, 2014 6:47:08 GMT -8
Lying on the cot, eyes cast toward the ceiling...
She looks good with her hair down. She often gets that faraway look when we're in hyperspace, gazing out the window, and there's a messy strand of hair over her eye, dangling in her face. I want to brush it back with my fingers, tuck it behind her ear. In those moments, I want to ask her what she's thinking, where she goes in her mind's eye... but I never do. It would seem somehow an invasion of privacy. Heh. 'privacy.' In a boat with one 'fresher and two bunks between seven crew. Privacy should be the furthest from my mind... but somehow, that's part of it -- part of me, too. She scares me, more than a little sometimes. She's unpredictable, whereas if you were to ask those who know me, I'm predictably contrary and ornery, pretty much all the time. Not knowing how to read her drives me crazy, but it also makes life interesting in a way I never knew I was missing. I marvel at the way she walks -- loud, brash, strutting, as if her every movement is massive frack you to them that want us dead. It's like she doesn't care how she looks or what she projects and it's not that she doesn't care it's just, she's not affected, and that gives her grace. In port, she touches stuff as we pass, vendors' wares, as if mentally trying them on. Window-shopping, whereas I move with a mind not to touch or interact at all, if it can be avoided. She always comes back aboard with a new keffiyeh or some such, maybe to mark that we've been in the world. She is a marvel to me in so many ways. Sometimes, I feel like I can't even speak to her, that I couldn't possibly have anything she needs.
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Galdaart Fel
Retired High Councilor
...not hiding anymore
Posts: 1,565
Affiliation: The Unfair Advantage
Traffic Light: Green
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Post by Galdaart Fel on Apr 5, 2014 7:51:15 GMT -8
It could be night. It feels like night, though it is bright as daylight 'round the clock in the cells. You get used to it, or you go mad. Maybe it just feels like night because I'm tired. Maybe it feels like night because a meal was delivered a few hours ago. But then, couldn't it just as easily be noon, if the meal was breakfast? The meals are all the same, so it makes no difference. ...this detention block has what -- four hundred cells? Maybe quarter-occupancy at any given time? So there are a hundred beings give-or-take thinking about what time of day it is right now. ...the sounds of the detention block are at times deafening (incoherent shouting, languages and dialects I don't understand, grunts and moans, thumps and cries of anger,) at other times disturbing (wails and cries of despair, weeping, anguished calls to Gods and Men...) and my own personal contribution to the soundscape: retching. I have tried to note the differences in my progressing illness, and am doing my best to stay detached, as if I'm a third party observer to the process. Though I am working out three or four times a day (if I am even able to gauge the passage of time properly anymore) and muscle mass has been building, and body fat is dropping, I look emaciated, gaunt, ribs showing more than they should be, regardless of the intake of food (if you can really call it food...) and I can feel my cheekbones more prominently. It doesn't seem to affect my strength, but my color seems jaundiced, if my arms are anything to go by. (I'm not sure I'd want to see my ugly mug, even if my cell had a mirror, which it does not.) I throw up after every meal, and usually while I'm working out. Blood mostly, but food too, if it's too soon after eating. I can feel it coming on, and I try to hold it down for at least an hour after eating to get as many nutrients as I can... but I know it's a losing battle.
I wonder, if I ever get out of here, will my crew even recognize me?
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Galdaart Fel
Retired High Councilor
...not hiding anymore
Posts: 1,565
Affiliation: The Unfair Advantage
Traffic Light: Green
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Post by Galdaart Fel on Apr 16, 2014 7:27:42 GMT -8
Sometimes, in a rare quiet moment free of pounding, yelling, or the sounds of boot-heels in the hall, I actually quite like it here. It's peaceful, and that's something I haven't known too much of in my life. The last ten years, scraping by as a privateer -- nothing comes easily. Food, fuel, jobs... everyone's fighting over the same scraps. Life in the Imperial Navy is anything but peaceful. A military force exists to wage war, and the Remnant was exceedingly good at making use of us. Even in my youth on Taris, if I think hard enough, I was always fighting... for a meal, for recognition, for notoriety, to survive. So in these rare moments when the light isn't blinding me, when my stomach isn't bothering me, when it's quiet... I can know peace.
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