#but i have learned so much also!! like that they had rudimentary diving suits in the 1840s!! and that scurvy Dissolves Scar Tissue 👁️ 👁️

[lemonadeslice]

🩸 🩸 🩸 // ❄️❄️❄️

i watched a scary boat show. i have been thinking about it for weeks.

[keatondj]

My Personal Ranking of Lady Gaga’s Discography

The time has come. The day has arrived. I am so excited to finally do this list!

Lady Gaga is one of the most influential, innovative, and incomparable artists of this generation. I think her to be one of the greatest musical artists to ever live. Her impact on pop culture as a whole cannot be ignored, and her talents as a singer/songwriter is limitless.

I remember first seeing her perform on So You Think You Can Dance with that iconic bleach-blonde, sharp-edged wig and those LED glasses with text on them and being absolutely mesmerized. Ever since that performance, I had been a casual fan, but absolute admirer of her music. Around 2016-2017 is when I decided to listen to pop music more regularly, and the first artist I knew I had to add to my library was Gaga. It was then that I listened to all her albums and officially became a Little Monster.

Each one of her albums is so incredibly unique, yet so undeniably Gaga at the same time. With the recent release of her sixth studio album Chromatica, I can now finally give my ranking of her incredible discography. I will only be covering her solo studio albums, so A Star Is Born and Cheek to Cheek will not be included.

A new thing I want to add to each album review is add a superlative that the album possesses to showcase its respective strength in the discography as a whole.

Reminder: this is my opinion. Everyone has a different ear, and certain sounds and songs resonate with different people. I’m just sharing my personal thoughts and experiences with these albums.

6. Joanne (2016)

This feels like pure blasphemy to put this album as the lowest ranking on the list when it is objectively one of Gaga’s strongest and more mature albums. It showcases her versatility as a songwriter to the nth degree, and she is the most vocally ferocious on this album. 

It is incredibly top-heavy for my taste (the first seven songs are absolutely sublime to listen to). It’s unfortunate, but from “Sinner’s Prayer” to the end, the album becomes borderline unlistenable to me. Gaga’s vocal delivery on the last few songs seems over-dramatic and unauthentic, and also technically not up to par with what I know she can do.

I think the big concern about Joanne is the feigned nature that I think I’m listening to. Gaga has always been theatrical and performative with her music, but with Joanne, I don’t seem to buy it as well. It suits a more dance-pop and electronic feel that we know and love her for. Maybe that’s the gay sensibilities in me talking; that’s just how I feel. 

She was far more successful with the A Star Is Born soundtrack in terms of writing for this genre. I applaud Gaga for going out on a limb with this massive genre shift, and it worked well, for the most part.

Favorite Songs: “Diamond Heart” through “Million Reasons”

Superlatives: Most Stripped, Most Diverse

                                           ---------------------------

5. Artpop (2013)

I have very conflicted feelings about this album. At its best, it is exploratory, imaginative, and audacious. At its worst, it’s ostentatious, inaccessible, and clumsy.

It undoubtedly has some of Gaga’s sickest and coolest production to date; she really amped up the electronic feel for this album. She also experimented with several contemporary genres (hip hop, R&B, dubstep, trap, rock, etc.) quite skillfully on various tracks like “MANiCURE”, “Do What U Want”, and “Swine”. However, the production does go overboard sometimes, creating a heavy and clunky sound (”Swine” often becomes very harsh to listen to).

Lyrically, I find that it can be very distant, boastful, and vain. Certain songs like “Donatella” and “Fashion” are very specific to Gaga’s lifestyle and obvious love for high fashion, but it is not relatable to the common listener (or at least not me). The extravagant nature of the songs, and even the album as a whole, is hard to really dive into.

I still love this album a lot, but more like as a guilty pleasure. I see many people regard it to be her underrated masterpiece, and I understand where they are coming from, but find them to be misguided. It’s a strong piece of work, but Gaga just shot for the stars and went a little too far for her own good.

Favorite Songs: “Aura”, “Venus”, “G.U.Y.”, “Sexxx Dreams”, “ARTPOP”, “Applause”

Superlatives: Most Experimental, Most Bold

                                       ---------------------------

4. The Fame (2008) 

It truly pains me to put this album so low because it’s the record that introduced us to the brilliance of her work and it features some of my absolute favorite Gaga tracks on it (”Poker Face” still hits hard even today). I cannot let the nostalgic nature of the album cloud my judgment, though. This only goes to show how incredibly strong her discography is; we are really splitting hairs at this point.

What Gaga did for the music industry back in 2008 is insurmountable and outrageous. She brought back the four-to-the-floor sound to the radio in a campy and edgy way that we had never heard before. She will most likely be the biggest juggernaut of an artist I will ever see in my lifetime; she will define my era of music as a child. This is the era I mainly associate with the iconic nature of Lady Gaga. 

It’s comparatively tame to her other work since she was still testing the waters and figuring herself out as an artist. But by 2008′s standards, terms like “disco stick” and “bluffin with my muffin” were totally out-there and controversial. Songs like “Paparazzi”, “LoveGame” and “Poker Face” pushed the envelope and influenced many artists for years to come.

Besides the lead singles, many of the songs on the album are not too remarkable and probably the closest thing you can classify as “filler tracks”. They’re inconsequential, generic, and uneventful compared to the powerhouse singles. 

While these songs also deal with fame and the opulent lifestyle like the ones I mentioned for ARTPOP, they were written from the perspective of someone who was not yet famous. The whole idea of the album is playing with the universal dream and fantasy of what fame is like. In turn, that make the album so much more relatable, universal, and engaging.

This is one of the greatest debut albums ever produced, and it paved the way for Gaga’s career and artistry. I’m happy to say that it basically gets close to pop perfection from here on out.

Favorite Songs: “Just Dance”, “LoveGame”, “Poker Face”, “The Fame”, “Starstruck”

Superlatives: Most Revolutionary, Most Iconic

                                            ---------------------------

3. Chromatica (2020)

This is the first album of her work that I was eagerly waiting for as a proper Little Monster. I was absolutely ecstatic when the first information about the album was coming out, including the singles. It was the album that I had been waiting for for a long time... and it absolutely delivered. It was everything I needed it to be and more.

Vocally, it is Gaga’s most impressive work to date. Her voice has matured so beautifully over the past 12 years, and she has learned to use her upper register in the D5-F5 range more healthily, powerfully, and consistently than before. There were several moments throughout the album that I was gobsmacked at the force of her voice. 

I will admit it is the most “tame” of all her works in terms of the outlandish and campy nature with which we know her for (just ahead of The Fame). Instead, she writes with more sophistication, finesse, and honesty that has come with more experience. On first listen, it seems rudimentary, but as time goes on, the inner complexities of the album start to reveal themselves.

For being a straight-up dance album through and through, it is brutally honest and personal. There is real pain and heartache that is displayed through much of the album, and Gaga is using music as a means of catharsis to release the pain. It makes the album incredibly relatable and accessible, allowing the listeners to dance through the pain. Released in a time when the whole world was faced with such uncertainty and worry, this album is definitely a great outlet for those looking for comfort.

Being as huge of a fan of artists like Kylie Minogue, Robyn, and Carly Rae Jepsen as I am, this album truly delivers on the dance/dance-pop department. The production is impeccably done and spearheaded by Bloodpop (who I hope is Gaga’s main collaborator from now on). Even the Chromatica interludes are stunningly gorgeous and inform how the next act of the album will go. In my opinion, Act I of the album (Tracks 1-6) is absolute pop perfection; I wouldn’t change a single thing about any of those tracks.

The album may run a little short, and it’s tamer compared to her earlier works, but it is still brilliant nonetheless. With a collaboration with the reigning Princess of Pop, Ariana Grande, you know it has to be amazing. This will absolutely go down as one of the best dance albums ever written. This is Gaga’s return to form, and we have been so blessed.

(Ok, but Chromatica II into 911 is THE serve. She did THAT. Do you know what she did? THAT.)

Favorite Songs: “Chromatica I”, “Alice”, “Stupid Love”, “Rain On Me”, “Free Woman”, “Fun Tonight”, “911″, “1000 Doves”

Superlatives: Most Cohesive, Most Personal

                                       ---------------------------

2. The Fame Monster (2009)

I’m gonna be perfectly honest here: it took the longest time for this album to grow on me. Even longer than ARTPOP. But with time, I was finally able to see just how sleek, crisp, and perfect of an album this really is.

This was Gaga’s expansion to The Fame that she wrote based on her experiences with touring, fame, and the toll that can take on someone. It is a concept album with each song being based on a personal fear of Gaga’s that I am sure were all amplified with the high intensity of being a pop star. 

You can immediately tell the difference between this album and its predecessor. It’s darker, it’s sexier, and it’s candid. Where The Fame was written from a place of imagination and wonder, this was written from a place of truth and fear. The amount of growth that came from just a year on the road is staggering.

It is undeniably her most polished album in terms of production and composition. It took the ambition of sonic perfection that The Fame was going for, and amped it up even more. Each song has its own feel to it, but they all work together so well as an album.

There is one song that makes this album imperfect and keeps it from my number one spot, and the song will make tons of Little Monsters angry: “Speechless”. I just don’t like it, no matter how many times I’ve tried to get into it. It’s written in C major (my least favorite key), it’s overly sentimental and hokey, and it disrupts the flow of pop that keeps the album together. I know it’s an incredibly personal song for her, but it is just mediocre to me; I skip it everytime.

Other than that, I think the album is absolute perfection. “Bad Romance” is one of the most iconic and influential songs in her songbook and even the Great American Songbook, and the non-singles are just as powerful, if not better. This album is the standard to which Gaga is held, and any album in the future will struggle to hold its own against this amazing work. Except one. ;) 

Favorite Songs: “Bad Romance”, “Alejandro”, “Monster”, “Dance In The Dark”, “So Happy I Could Die”

Superlatives: Most Polished, Most Dark

                                         --------------------------- 

1. Born This Way (2011)

Is there really any other option?

It’s the album that debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts. It’s the album with 5 of her most iconic and successful singles (the title song, “Judas”, “The Edge of Glory”, “You And I”, and “Marry The Night”). It’s the album that was unabashedly open about its advocacy, and gave voice to anyone who ever felt cheated by life or counted out. Of course it has to be in the number one spot.

This is Gaga at her freest, her most courageous, her most daring. She went all out in this record, and the results are absolutely remarkable. I am a massive fan of the 80′s in all aspects (especially the music), so the influence of 80′s rock and pop on the album satisfy my sensibilities swimmingly. The ingenuity and artistry which she demonstrates in the composition of this album is just mind-blowing.

“The Edge of Glory” is her best song. Hands down. No question. Bottom line, cut, and dry. The first time I heard it back in 2011 was so impactful to me. I learned just what an impressive singer Gaga is, and how powerful of a songwriter she is. It is one of the most euphoric, devil-may-care, and joyous songs ever written, and one of the most important songs in my life. The fact that it perfectly closes out the thrilling roller-coaster ride of Born This Way is the cherry on top.

It might be a little messier and imprecise than The Fame Monster, but it’s lows never get as low, and its highs are astronomically high. The arc that this album takes me through is astonishing. It is an album about celebrating life, loving others and yourself, and throwing caution to the wind. Who can’t relate to that and find comfort in it?

I could go on for ages about this album, but I’ll keep it simple. This is Gaga’s magnum opus, and one of the best pop records ever created. I am so unbelievably grateful for what it has done for my life, and it will forever be one of my favorite albums ever written. It taught me that I am unequivocally born this way, and that I should strive to be on the edge of glory.

Favorite Songs: The whole tracklist   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Superlatives: Most Daring, Most Adventurous, Most Creative

                                        ---------------------------

I have been wanting to do this list for so long, and I am thrilled to finally get my thoughts out in a post. Lady Gaga is one of the best and most iconic musicals artists ever, and I am eagerly hopeful for the future of her music. I recently uploaded a reaction video of me listening to Chromatica for the first time if you’d like to watch. I am an absolute dork in it, and completely got my life on the first listen. I’ll include it as a separate post on my page as well. Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/zdEH2RRc3DE

[unstable-reality]

The Space Between Echoes: Chapter Three

Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter up! It’s more sedate than the last, but still includes plenty of Unnecessary Physical Contact. :)

Also: as a heads up, I edited a line in chapter two; decided I didn’t like “thankfully, it didn’t come to that,” and expanded it to briefly describe take-off.

Chapter One Chapter Two [AO3]

Exiting hyperspace wasn’t nearly as bad as entering it. It still carried with it the promise of dislocation, the sense that one was not where one should rightly be. But, in the main, it felt like catching up, like reacquainting oneself with a longed-for aspect. The weight of gravity and the pressure of inertia receded, and the sensation that was left behind was something like release.

She sat back. Clutched her knee to her chest, bent it too far, winced. Beneath her trousers, it was an angry mottle of green, purple, yellow. She hadn’t landed the hit quite right. She’d known as much the moment it had happened, but until she’d inspected it in the fresher, she hadn’t known just how far off she’d been. She was loath to waste bacta on something like it. There were wraps in her pack. She’d use one of them, instead, when next they were on land.

Cassian was sleeping, and had been since shortly before they’d gone faster-than-light. Before that, they’d been in Sarnix, and had spent two and a half hours completing an orbit of one of the sector’s worlds. Hadn’t been a bad world, all things considered: mountainous, moderate, not particularly lush, not particularly barren. Had been close to a trade route, too close. And had, in any case, been meant to be a decoy.

She glanced at the chrono on the console. Six hours, since their last transition. Nearly fourteen since they’d escaped Zorii. Fatigue had bunched up and come together behind her eyes, tugging down the lids. There was a ledge, to her right, with a cup on it, and it was empty. They only had so much caf, and Cassian would have his own watch to get through. It was a strange thing to her. She had run on far less sleep, for far longer stretches of time, on far too many occasions in the past. More than one ally-of-the-moment had remarked on her distaste for rest.

Maybe it was the monotony of watching endless blueshift.

Maybe it was how hard she was trying not to think.

Listlessness.

It had been a long time; a long, long time since she’d cared enough to feel this way, to burn with the sting of loss. It was the price of attachment, always. She’d known that. She’d thought she’d learned her lesson. Apparently, it hadn’t sunk in. She leaned back, regarded the ceiling. The sides sloped downward, toward a central square that bulged toward the floor, capped by the tight grating of an access panel. She was tempted to lift herself up and see which systems it led to, just for the sake of occupying her time and mind.

Instead, she leaned forward and reached upwards, toward the hyperdrive input. They were bunny-hopping, taking a roundabout course to their next target, spending as little time as possible in normal space. Somewhere off to the right, near the copilot’s chair, lay the coordinates Cassian had drawn up for the next jump; she’d memorized them shortly after he’d handed them to her. But she’d never ridden in this class of ship, let alone piloted one, and her unfamiliarity slowed her calculations. He’d given her instructions and a rudimentary walkthrough, and she’d paid attention while he piloted, besides. It was enough, more than. But knowledge alone couldn’t replace direct experience.

He hadn’t wanted to sleep. He’d been stubborn (she wasn’t any different, truth be told, and it was likely the only reason she’d been able to insist). But he’d looked like hell. The exhaustion she’d seen in him when they’d first left Yavin 4, that had been clinging to him for the entire mission, had blossomed, darkening his eyes, drawing down his jaw, seeping into the lines around his mouth. His seat had seemed to fold over him. When he’d finally given in, and stood, the hitch to his movements had been more obvious, and he’d favored his left side, strongly.

He needed a hell of lot more than they’d given him. But, well, times were as they were, and as he’d said, there were...consequences.

The drive sputtered, and began to spool. There was still a minute or two before they could shift, but her body had already begun to tense in anticipation. Her lungs filled. Air whistled past her lips.

She’d watched him. Three hours in, bored, curious, she’d walked to the cabin, footfalls soft and silent, and peered around the partition between their bunks. She’d thought of all the unconscious throats slit in her presence, of all those she’d slit herself. She’d thought of the long nights she’d lain with her fingers curled around the hilt of a vibroblade, of shallow sleep, of hair-trigger reflexes, of knots of tension, thick and permanent, along shoulders, at the base of spine and neck and skull. Her stomach had clenched, and then her heart had swelled.

She didn’t have to be that way, with him.

She hoped he had come to the same realization. Hoped a few other things, too, if she was being honest. He stayed. People don’t stay without a reason. While he slept, his face was soft, and the planes of his body begged for companionship.

The ship hummed and whirred. The colors of the overhead display shifted, computer confirming their plotted course, and she grabbed the drive shaft, took a few more deep breaths. This vessel had a click to it, she’d begun to notice. Beneath all the other noise, it was there, steady and rhythmic, like the beating of a heart. In the pregnant moments before entering hyperspace, it seemed to grow louder. She wondered if it might help to focus on it.

Right before she initiated the jump, it vanished.

Her teeth clamped together. Her grip tightened. The display had changed, again, and the air was filled with the sharp whooping of the alarm. Something had pinged on the full-spectrum transceiver. She swung toward its control suite, hesitated as she recalled Cassian’s instructions and her own observations. Cursed when the data came through on the viewer. There was a ship. After all this time, there was a ship. It was still some distance off, but based on its heading, it was coming toward them.

She looked at the drive shaft. The hyperdrive was spooled and ready to go. But while the sensors could pick up the ship, it wasn’t yet close enough to get a proper view on-screen. Fourteen hours. That long of a gap… It might be Imperial, might be a tail. It might be nothing of importance. Would it make a difference, in the long run? The safe thing to do was to treat it as a threat regardless, to add an extra hop or two onto their route. But knowing for sure -- and knowing the type of ship being flown -- had its advantages over blind assumption. She liked being informed. She liked details. Details had saved her life, more than once.

Blowing threats up had usually done the trick, too. She felt a powerful urge to reverse course, hop onto the guns, dive on in and take the thing out, damn the consequences.

Be smart, Jyn. If it was Imperial, then shooting it down would draw even more attention to them. And it was a safe bet that the response would involve more than just one ship.

From behind, she heard boots clanging on metal. Footsteps at a near run. She’d wanted to push herself further, let him sleep longer. He wouldn’t have been happy about it, but, well. He’d have gotten over it. She looked at the viewer again. The image of the ship updated, grainy lines resolving into a trapezoid flanked by twin triangles. Still not clear, not entirely. But it had gotten closer. It had definitely, definitely gotten closer, and that fact would have to do.

She waited just long enough for Cassian to enter the cockpit and sit down, then launched them out of realspace. He was thrust back. Her ribcage collapsed, or might as well have. The drone of the alarm dropped off, and the ship beat again, beneath her and around her.

“What happened?” he asked, when they’d settled beyond transition.

“Picked up a ship.”

“Doing what?”

She turned toward him, whole body, seat and all. Her knee knocked against his; a mild burst of pain spread along the side of her thigh. She maintained contact, anyway. “Cruising. In our direction.”

His lips thinned. “Following us, then?”

“I didn’t stick around to find out for sure, but that’s what it looked like.”

He sighed. He ran his hands over his face, paused at his temples, dragged them through his hair. The flesh beneath his eyes was still puffy and bruised with fatigue. He needed a shave -- not that she minded the scruff. “We’ll have to do something about that.” There was a pause. His head tilted, his eyes swept over her. “I’ll chart us a new course, but…” He moved, pressing their knees harder together. “You should go and get some rest, yourself.”

She was like him. So much so. “And if that ship really was a tail?”

He shrugged. “We won’t re-enter normal space for five hours. If you’re worried, you at least have that much time.”

And if, without K-2, you get lonely? It occurred to her that, despite the fact he’d been fewer than a dozen meters away, she’d missed him.

“Right.” She rose, the movement further shrinking the space between them. “See you on the other side.” As she walked by, she dragged her fingers over his shoulder. She thought she heard him catch his breath.

On his side of the console, to the left of the viewer, there blinked an indicator light, red glow pulsing in time with the steady beep of a soft, low tone.

They were touching down on a moon in the Pelgrin sector, its climate hot and sticky, moreso even than Yavin 4. The ruins of a settlement lay half a kilometer to the east. They’d detected lifeforms there, but they were few, and small, and their movements followed the disorganized patterns of the non-sapient. Whoever had lived there had been gone for some time.

Cassian had taken them through two additional jumps, each lasting three and a half hours. Jyn had woken halfway through the second, wanting to be annoyed at him for permitting her to be out for so long, understanding and appreciating it instead. Her thoughts had buzzed with an echo, reverberating, bouncing, winding its way around her heart.

Good luck, little sister.

It was still there, now. It repeated with the cadence of a mantra. Her skin itched along the arc sketched by her crystal. She swallowed.

They stilled and came to rest, and the vibrations of the engine, as it shifted to idling, spread over her feet, worked their way up her legs, settled into her thighs. Cassian hunched over, reached for a switch, a dial. The tone faded, replaced by the gentle lull of the ship itself. His eyes moved. His forehead creased.

“It’s a message from command.” A thrill sped through her, half excitement and half worry. He pulled a cylinder from his shirt pocket. “Give me a moment…” He pressed a narrow ribbon of flimsiplast to a flat section of console, and from the way he compared its contents to the message, she assumed it was a cipher, and a one-time pad, at that, if the Alliance was smart. She thought that they were. Short-sighted and fractious and unfair at times, but smart in most areas, when it counted. He paused, seemed to go back to the start, and then slumped back into his seat, tipping his chin toward the ceiling. Her skin prickled.

His eyes closed, and his lips quirked upward. “They’ve done it.”

“Done what?”

“Here.” He grabbed her wrist, gave it a tug. Not forceful; a suggestion. She caught his gaze, hesitated, moved with his hand, leaned over him, and then over the controls. The lines of the message were a vibrant green set against a field of black. She didn’t have the patience to decode them.

“What’s it say?”

He moved, and his face nearly touched the side of hers. She could taste him when he spoke. “Fuse lit; target disabled. Mission parameters unchanged.”

It took her a moment, longer than it should have. When it struck her, she fell back, hard; the seat pivoted away from him. She felt dizzy. Dissociated. Old thoughts, familiar thoughts, hated thoughts, clambering for attention, and then drifting, harmlessly, away. She had doubted. She had been focused and driven and, yes, hopeful, but beyond all of that, she had doubted. And she had gotten so good at shoving uncomfortable things aside that she hadn’t even noticed.

She sure as hell noticed the relief, though. And the elation that followed it.

Cassian was watching her, waiting. His expression was caught between states. She grinned at him, moved toward him, grabbed his arms. Found herself hovering above him, knees touching the edge of his seat, bruise aching. His hands gripped her sides, and then moved up, pressed into her shoulder blades. His fingers flexed, squeezed. The light was catching in his eyes, and the sun was casting shadows, and the shadows were interspersed by slivers of warmth.

His features were soft, as soft as they’d been when she’d looked in on him. His gaze drifted down, then back up.

“We need to celebrate this.” He hoisted himself up. The outside of his thighs touched the inside of hers. She straightened and stepped backwards, and her calves struck the co-pilot’s chair. When he moved to exit the cockpit, they were close enough for the whole of his body to brush against the whole of hers.

Slivers of warmth. She pushed her tongue into the hollow of her cheek. “What are you doing?”

His steps faded down the corridor. He didn’t respond.

She sat, and fidgeted. It was odd, how she could feel hopeful, and yet also feel paralyzed. It had never been a problem in the past. If she wanted, she took. And she wanted, right now. She wanted very, very much.

He returned with a flask. She sniffed.

The chrono was an angry orange beacon. Fourteen hours. It hadn’t been, yet. There were a couple of hours yet to spare, and it wasn’t foregone that the timeframe meant anything, anyway.  “Drinking on the job? You sure that’s a good idea?” And there was, of course, the wanting.

“Usually, no, but these are special circumstances.” He unscrewed the top. “And it’s not much; you won’t get drunk off of it.” He took a swig.

“How would you know?”

He gave her a look. “Somehow, I doubt you’re a lightweight.” He held the flask out to her, flicking it in her direction. There had been nights, several more than there should have been (hell, dozens more than there should have been), when she’d wasted time and a fair amount of credits at a tavern or cantina. She realized, resignation settling into the pit of her stomach, that at least a few of those nights must have made it into her file.

She released a breath and accepted the flask. “You surprise me, Cassian.” The liquor burned, pleasantly, and lingered on the back of her throat. It had a sweet, smoky aftertaste. She’d never cared much about quality, save for when it served a character or a job; the only thing that mattered was that the stuff worked. But she could tell that this was of decent vintage.

She wondered if it was typical of what he drank. She wondered what other indulgences he allowed himself.

“How so?”

She passed it back. Their fingers touched. “You’re professional. And this isn’t very.”

He chuckled. “Even professionals need to relax from time to time.”

She couldn’t imagine him ever relaxing. She also couldn’t argue his point.

His posture decayed. He slumped, legs splayed, knees relaxed. His eyes roved over her face. “Tell me something good.”

She frowned. “What?”

“Something good, that’s happened to you.”

The flask had returned to her hand. She took a moment, considering. Savored her next swallow. In her chest, there unfurled a tendril of mirth. “Is that an order?”

His smile was slow, as slow as his answer. “Yes.”

“I’m not very good at following orders.”

“Well, then think of this as practice.”

She waited a beat, then took another sip. “You first.”

His smile widened. The lines around his mouth and eyes were shallow. She wanted to deepen them. “You’re not doing well at your practice.” He sighed. “But...all right.”

He took the flask from her and peered out onto the world, the muscles along his neck and shoulders slackening. He drank, and resettled himself. “My group had just thrown in with the Alliance. There’d been a lot of in-fighting about it, and there were people who left, because they thought the Alliance wasn’t much different from the Grand Army… But, ah, that’s besides the point.” He regarded the flask. “I was very young, and they held me back, for a long while. I understand it now, but at the time, it wasn’t what I was used to, and I thought that they...didn’t value me.” He drank again. “I was finally given my first mission, and I was so nervous, even though all I had to do was watch and listen. I didn’t want to kriff it up. My mark was going to be having a meeting on a patio. I found some local clothing and sat in a doorway nearby, thinking there was no way he wouldn’t notice me. But he didn’t. I heard everything he said, and he never even looked in my direction. Children are invisible to some, I suppose. When I went back to base, the general I reported to, he...put his hands on my shoulders, looked me in the eye, and said, ‘excellent work, son; keep it up. We’re lucky to have you.’ No one had spoken to me that way in years. I hadn’t found K-2 yet, but…” He trailed off. The light in his eyes dulled. “Well.” He jutted his chin in her direction. “Your turn.”

She wanted to ask him questions. She wanted to know what he’d been about to say. But she knew he’d put her off, and so, instead, she took a moment to think. “When I was...six, I think, my mother took me to one of the beaches on Lah’mu. Where we lived, there wasn’t anyone around for kilometers, but there, there were...what seemed like tons of people. I met this other little girl. Shit, what was her name?” Her brows drew together. “I can’t believe I don’t remember it. But we hit it off, the two of us. Spent the whole day. She taught me how to swim along with the waves, so we could ride them, and how to build things in the sand. When it was time for me to go, she hugged me, and we talked about what we’d do the next time we saw each other.” She shook her head. Her skin had begun to flush. “Never saw her again. Never even went back to that beach. My parents decided it was too risky.” Cool metal touched her lips. She tipped it back, back; a few drops pooled on her tongue. She eyed the flask and scowled. “It’s out.”

“As I said, it wasn’t much.” His chest rose and fell, steady. “I couldn’t help but notice that that wasn’t a very happy story.”

She shrugged. Neither was yours, at the end. “Orders.”

He nodded, and his gaze fell. They passed a few moments in silence.

“Cassian.”

“Hmm?”

Nerves danced along her spine and sternum. “About, um…” She was about as good at this as she was at dealing with her own shit, which is to say that she wasn’t good at it at all. “About K-2SO…” The sentiment hung, full and heavy, in the space between them.

His pause stretched long beyond the silence that had come before. She worried he might not answer.

“He would have agreed with you, about this being unprofessional,” he said, at last. “I’m sure he’d have had some statistic at hand that proved it was a bad idea.”

“And you would have done it, anyway.”

“Yes. But...I really wouldn’t have minded hearing him complain. I never did.”

Jyn chewed her tongue, looked out the window. She wanted to know, suddenly, about his loss, about all of it. She wanted to take his hand and walk back with him through his history, to dissect it, to understand it, to shield him from the pain of it. To share the burden of it. And she wanted the same from him. She wanted him to ask; she wanted an excuse to tell him how, right up until the moment she’d realized that the Death Star had been destroyed, she’d still thought her father might not be the man she’d spent most of her life longing for him to be. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d wanted to share that much with someone. She couldn’t be sure that she ever had.

“We’re not very good at celebrating, are we?” Her eyes shifted back to him.

He huffed. “No, I guess we’re not.”

He pushed himself back into his chair, eyes closed, thumb and forefinger bracketing the bridge of his nose. The flask knocked against his knee. He peered down at it, spun toward the door. Stood up. “I’m getting us more.”

The ruins were overgrown. Cracks spread over floors and walkways, and through them grew grasses, flowers, shrubs. Vines crawled up and along the walls. Some quarters had become little more than piles of rubble, surrounded by the outlines of rooms and the vague suggestion of place.

They walked down a narrow street, fewer than two meters wide, in a section that had been better preserved. The buildings were blocky, identical, evenly spaced; none were more than three storeys tall. Cross streets appeared at regular intervals, each as straight and narrow as the road they moved along, and each marked by a set of three symbols, carved into the walls of the corner buildings. Jyn hadn’t seen this level of rigid planning outside of Imperial facilities. The similarity made the base of her neck itch, but the unfamiliar nature of the writing proved it was coincidental.

“Do you have any idea who they were?”

Cassian shook his head. “No. There aren’t any official records of a settlement here, and it was already abandoned when our scouts first found it.”

“Huh. Strange.” Made her feel uneasy.

She reached for the canteen at her hip. Her shirt was clammy with sweat; her hair clung to the back of her neck, to the sides of her face, to the underside of her cap. They’d taken the usual precautions, but even then, she suspected they’d come away sunburned. The water was warm; it soothed her throat all the same, as dry as it was, from both the heat and the lingering effects of alcohol.

They’d shared one more flask’s worth of whatever Cassian had stowed away (how much more did he have?), enough to feel warm and giddy and to forget, just a little, while hanging on to their senses. Neither of them had brought up the past again. They stuck to light topics, safe topics, and, at times, to silence. Their legs had become entangled. He had rested his hand on the side of her calf, a few centimeters south of the joint, and her fingertips had traced his knuckles, and she had continued to not do any of the things she wanted to do.

She’d asked that they remain on the ship past the fourteenth hour. They’d approached it, come upon it, moved beyond it. Nothing. Her temples had throbbed. When they’d begun their exploration, they’d planted mobile sensors around the ship, and hooked one each to their belts. Heavy, clunky things, and Jyn’s thigh was hot beneath hers, but they were well worth the trouble.

“We’ll need to sweep through the buildings.” Cassian paused. His head tilted back; his eyes climbed up a structure to their right. “There’s a lot here that I think we could use, but…” He pursed his lips, breathed. “It might not be worth it.

Jyn looked at the building he was considering, the one next to it, the one directly across from it. Up, at the rooftops, flat, at the ridge that ran along them, whose height she wanted to know. Past Cassian, at the next pair of side streets, at the hard, parallel corners that flanked them. “If we set up here, we’ll want to widen some of the streets.” And flatten half the place, really. “And if we set up somewhere else on the moon, we should destroy it.”

He nodded. “I agree. No sense giving our enemies a ready-made staging area.”

She peered off down the street. Some forty meters distant, there was what looked to be a square, its ground bisected by a long, thick root. She narrowed her eyes. “Hey.” She drew close to him, placed her hand on his lower back. He shifted toward her, and his upper arm and elbow pressed into her chest. “Let’s see what’s up ahead.”

So far, there had been little in the way of debris on their chosen route. But as they approached the square, the amount of it grew. There were bits of metal, hunks of rotting wood, pieces of furniture; children’s toys, covered in grime; droid parts, rusted half-through. Buildings were missing doors. Jyn wondered if there had been looters, and how long ago they might have come, and whether their activity was at all related to the reason the people who’d been here had left.

The root was only a few steps from the entrance to the square, and larger than she’d estimated, reaching halfway up her shin. Her gaze followed it off to the right, to where it tapered off and ended, just shy of a stoop. The space as a whole was circular; the buildings in the row along its edge were as logical and uniform as those in the rest of the settlement, and all of a single height, and spaced such that exactly four sat between each street. It was clear, here, from the litter dotting the ground, and from the jagged holes punched through many of the buildings, that there had, in fact, been looters -- and a fight. It would have been a brutal one, she was sure. The space bothered her. It had the looks of a killing field.

There were other roots, she noticed. At least five of them, chewing through stone and cobble, straining to escape the square.

“Jyn…”

She turned. The roots thickened, growing so large that she thought they might top out above her head, and feeding back into the base of a massive trunk.

Her eyebrows climbed, and she gasped.

She didn’t think she’d ever seen a tree so large. It wasn’t particularly tall; it rose only a meter or so past the buildings lining the square, and fell short of those in the row directly behind. But at its widest point, it obscured four buildings. Three limbs, each a quarter of the size of the trunk, arced upwards, one growing into and slowly destroying a wall, and from them hung webs of branches and long, mossy chains of leaves. It looked as if it were...unfolding. On one side, the branches spilled onto and bunched up in the corner of a roof. On all the others, they, and the tree itself, cast thick shadows, shielding a good-sized chunk of the square from the sun.

“Wow.” It was beautiful. It also made her even more wary. She pictured soldiers, hidden in the buildings behind it; tucked into the nook formed by the rear-most limb; lying on the roof, beneath the overhanging branches, rifles set for sniping.

“It’s incredible.” Cassian’s voice was low, almost a whisper. “It’s a shame we’d have to cut it down.”

“Yeah.” Funnel the enemy into the square. Block off the streets. Hold the detachment around the tree in reserve. Or, lure the enemy to the tree, framing it as possible cover, and then spring an ambush. “A real shame.”

Vibrations suddenly spread down her leg, up her side, out into her midsection and lower back. Her heart skipped. She unhooked her handheld, its rhythmic buzzing sending pins and needles through her palm and forearm, and saw Cassian reach for his in turn. There wasn’t much, on the display. Basic information. It made her veins flood with an early hit of adrenaline.

Their gazes met. His features hardened; his shoulders squared. He looked very much like the professional she’d named him as.

“There’s someone near the ship.”