This is my first time filling so I'm a little nervous. I hope I haven't made a mistake with formatting. :P
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AUSFORM
The cool, temperature-regulated air of the hallway sweeps up Hux's arms. He's only wearing his plain black underclothes, the ones usually hidden under his uniform, but the lack of proper clothing is acceptable at present time. He has nothing to command. Besides, he has more pressing issues now than his appearance, as his pomade-free hair suggests.
The air in the Vitiator feels different. It is a newer ship. While Hux can appreciate the clean wall panels, the floors that shine as practically their own light source, he misses the Finalizer. It's somewhat older and battle-worn but that is what makes it his. At least they smell the same: clean, with a hint of burnt metal. The smell of space.
The other day - or night, since they adapted Arkanis's time - Hux scouted out the various common rooms. He has access to them all. The one he liked most was empty then, though he knows that the Vitiator's command staff can access the room, as well as a few other officers. Silver chairs surrounded sleek tables, and one side of the room was dedicated to a large window with a spectacular view of the planet's swirling grey surface.
The Vitiator, along with several other ships, is orbiting Arkanis. The planet houses the newly re-established training facilities for First Order officers. They are awaiting the arrival of General Yew. Once he arrives, they can proceed to the surface. They will then attend the annual conferences, as well as the ceremony to honor the recently deceased Commandant Hux. The ceremony is the only reason Hux is here, though with no small measure of reluctance.
Hux has had a writer's block, of sorts, these past few days. Typically Hux likes writing speeches. But he's having difficulty stringing together words about Commandant Hux that don't include "terrible father" and "decrepit mind" and "I will celebrate his death as the greatest blessing ever bestowed upon this galaxy, and I advise all present today to do the same and savor the long-overdue departure of this wretched excuse for a man".
But the speech won't write itself. So, clenching his datapad in his hand, he finds that common room again. If he's typing up lies, he might as well do that next to a pleasing view instead of in his impersonal quarters. Hux punches in his number, and waits for the doors to open before striding into the room.
He stumbles from surprise, and the clumsiness causes his face to heat up. Several officers sit in chairs turned towards the window, their manner reminiscent of jebwa flowers towards the sun. Some are in a state of undress similar to Hux, but others remain in their uniforms. The lights are bright, almost at one-hundred percent.
Hux wants to back away and find a different common room, but one man - wrinkled and dark-skinned, with greying hair - sees him, and calls, "Hey, you there - come join us!"
Hux's first instinct is to refuse. His father's words, drilled into Hux's mind since childhood, echo through him. 'Indulging in frivolity is the single-most harmful thing to your reputation. Your men should respect you, not see you a fool." Besides, once they see him, they will know who he is, and they won't want anything to do with him.
Hux followed his father's instructions to the letter, all throughout the academy. Followed them until he was old enough to know that not all of it was right. Sometimes, Hux wishes he hadn't been so obedient. If not for his father, his peers might have a different attitude towards him.
But even then, Hux knows they wouldn't accept him. Hux, after all, was always more interested in reading about the Empire's battle strategies than chatting with his classmates. His instructors were prone to noting his unsociability in progress reports, but they often mistook his accruement of subordinates as friendship, and marked it as an improvement. And when Hux was quickly clawing his way through the envy and manipulation that plagued his ascent to his current position - friendliness had no place there, either. Some things are undeniable; Hux was never meant for companionship.
But then Hux glances through the window and sees the planet next to them, and remembers that it's where, decades ago, Commandant Hux established Arkanis Academy. His tense grip on his datapad slacks slightly. Commandant Hux was wrong about a great many things. And Hux is always looking to prove him wrong, even now.
So Hux treads forward. "Sure," he says. In his mind, his father hisses, ‘What are you doing?’
‘Shut up,’ Hux orders.
They pull up a chair for him. Hux finds himself seated between a woman with a seemingly permanent scowl, and the old man who'd invited him. Other than the old man, the officers appear around his age. Their bearings have a sense of languidness. Hux, somewhat self-conscious of his stiff posture, makes an honest but unsuccessful attempt to relax.
"Move over, give me some room," the woman says, voice brusque and husky. Her curly brown hair springs out around her face. She must slick it back while on duty.
Hux stares at her, taken aback. He supposes it's possible. Ships don't interact much with one another, and they rarely broadcast events, for security reasons. But he's still surprised. They don't know who he is. When they look at him, they don’t see a newly promoted general - one of the youngest generals in the history of the First Order. They don't see him as an obstacle, an upstart, a leech feeding off of his father's legacy.
The freedom of such anonymity bewilders Hux for a moment, before he comes back to himself. He scoots over to give her space, and also to make room for the officer dealing cards. "What's your rank?" he blurts out, to the woman next to him. It's instinctual. It's the question that he asks, with disdain, any officer he does not recognize. As soon as the words leave his mouth, they seem too forward, and wrong. From experience, Hux knows that people find his pointedness off-putting.
Though, the woman does not look put off. In fact, she appears amused. "Why don't you try guessing it?" she says, as she scrutinizes her hand of cards.
Hux can't bring himself to spit a scathing response. He’s unsure of what the woman is trying to do. Surely there are more effective ways to rebuff his question. Unless she actually wants him to guess her rank. Is she baiting him on purpose? Hux, torn between disgust and curiosity, decides on the latter, for now.
Hux hears the crude slap of cards being dealt before him, and he picks them up before he loses his nerve. "Commander?" he hazards. It's better to underestimate than overestimate these kinds of things. He knows that much, at least.
One of the other officers laughs, a thick, hearty sound. Hux isn't sure he's heard something so sincere directed to him in years. "Close! She's MAJOR Sier now. Her promotion was well overdue. This is our shoddy attempt at a celebration."
Hux thinks he understands now. The woman - Major Sier - asked him to guess her rank because she wanted him to know the purpose of this gathering, without talking about her own accomplishment and coming across as arrogant. His question had been appropriate after all, even if it was blunt. Hux relaxes a little, and glances at the woman next to him again. He remembers when he was promoted to major. He'd had his customary celebration: wine, a book, and a couple hours of reading and scratching Millicent's head, in the isolation of his quarters.
People start setting down cards. Hux is vaguely aware of the rules. He's never played the game before, only heard of it. But he catches on, and infers what he's supposed to do, and on his turn he sets down a few cards, and says a phrase, and no one gives him a funny look. So he's got the hang of it. Hux smiles to himself, in part because he's relieved, and in part because he feels rather smug that he's getting away with this at all. The whole situation is a game in itself, all the more exciting because it's real.
The man to his right - the one who invited him - shakes his head. "The officers keep getting younger and younger. You look just out of the academy," he tells Hux.
"Oh, give him a little credit, colonel," says Major Sier. Her scowl turns out to not be so permanent. She's almost smiling at the old man. "I wager he's a captain, at least."
Hux knows he looks young, especially when he's not in uniform, but he's still a bit miffed. However, he doesn't have the time to be offended. He can sense the conversation heading into dangerous territory. He doesn't enjoy lying, but the illusion they've created for him is too fascinating to interrupt. "What was the academy like when you went there?" he asks the colonel. Nostalgia preys on the old. Commandant Hux was a prime example; surely this man is no different.
As soon as the query is out of Hux's mouth, the people around him groan. Hux is about to reprimand them all for such a brazen show of disrespect, but the colonel doesn't seem bothered, so Hux restrains himself, if with reluctance.
The colonel smiles widely. "It was one of the best experiences of my life. Where do I begin?" The other officers appear to have heard this all before, judging from the weary-but-indulgent looks they exchange, but Hux pays rapt attention. He's struck by the differences.
When the colonel refers to "revenge" he means fiddling with the sonic showers to cause his classmates' hair to stand on end. When Hux was at the academy, "revenge" was sabotaging datapads to show evidence of illegal activity. At the academy, the colonel reveled in the gelled mess that was his enemies's hair; while Hux reveled in the sight of his enemies, handcuffed, being ushered away to a juvenile penitentiary.
"- and he says to me, 'Thrippe, I know you're the one who tampered with the showers.' I had cleaning duty for a week!" Colonel Thrippe laughs. "But my friends helped out, even though it was against regulation."
It's clear that Hux and the colonel's academic experiences are about as similar as Millicent is to a Manka cat. Still, Hux thinks that if he were ever careless enough to get caught, his subordinates would be quite eager to do his chores for him. The loyalty of followers, he assumes, is a reasonable equivalent to the loyalty of friends. So Hux isn't lying, per se, when he nods and says, "I see," to some of the ridiculous situations that the colonel expounds upon.
[FILL] Ausform (1/2)
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AUSFORM
The cool, temperature-regulated air of the hallway sweeps up Hux's arms. He's only wearing his plain black underclothes, the ones usually hidden under his uniform, but the lack of proper clothing is acceptable at present time. He has nothing to command. Besides, he has more pressing issues now than his appearance, as his pomade-free hair suggests.
The air in the Vitiator feels different. It is a newer ship. While Hux can appreciate the clean wall panels, the floors that shine as practically their own light source, he misses the Finalizer. It's somewhat older and battle-worn but that is what makes it his. At least they smell the same: clean, with a hint of burnt metal. The smell of space.
The other day - or night, since they adapted Arkanis's time - Hux scouted out the various common rooms. He has access to them all. The one he liked most was empty then, though he knows that the Vitiator's command staff can access the room, as well as a few other officers. Silver chairs surrounded sleek tables, and one side of the room was dedicated to a large window with a spectacular view of the planet's swirling grey surface.
The Vitiator, along with several other ships, is orbiting Arkanis. The planet houses the newly re-established training facilities for First Order officers. They are awaiting the arrival of General Yew. Once he arrives, they can proceed to the surface. They will then attend the annual conferences, as well as the ceremony to honor the recently deceased Commandant Hux. The ceremony is the only reason Hux is here, though with no small measure of reluctance.
Hux has had a writer's block, of sorts, these past few days. Typically Hux likes writing speeches. But he's having difficulty stringing together words about Commandant Hux that don't include "terrible father" and "decrepit mind" and "I will celebrate his death as the greatest blessing ever bestowed upon this galaxy, and I advise all present today to do the same and savor the long-overdue departure of this wretched excuse for a man".
But the speech won't write itself. So, clenching his datapad in his hand, he finds that common room again. If he's typing up lies, he might as well do that next to a pleasing view instead of in his impersonal quarters. Hux punches in his number, and waits for the doors to open before striding into the room.
He stumbles from surprise, and the clumsiness causes his face to heat up. Several officers sit in chairs turned towards the window, their manner reminiscent of jebwa flowers towards the sun. Some are in a state of undress similar to Hux, but others remain in their uniforms. The lights are bright, almost at one-hundred percent.
Hux wants to back away and find a different common room, but one man - wrinkled and dark-skinned, with greying hair - sees him, and calls, "Hey, you there - come join us!"
Hux's first instinct is to refuse. His father's words, drilled into Hux's mind since childhood, echo through him. 'Indulging in frivolity is the single-most harmful thing to your reputation. Your men should respect you, not see you a fool." Besides, once they see him, they will know who he is, and they won't want anything to do with him.
Hux followed his father's instructions to the letter, all throughout the academy. Followed them until he was old enough to know that not all of it was right. Sometimes, Hux wishes he hadn't been so obedient. If not for his father, his peers might have a different attitude towards him.
But even then, Hux knows they wouldn't accept him. Hux, after all, was always more interested in reading about the Empire's battle strategies than chatting with his classmates. His instructors were prone to noting his unsociability in progress reports, but they often mistook his accruement of subordinates as friendship, and marked it as an improvement. And when Hux was quickly clawing his way through the envy and manipulation that plagued his ascent to his current position - friendliness had no place there, either. Some things are undeniable; Hux was never meant for companionship.
But then Hux glances through the window and sees the planet next to them, and remembers that it's where, decades ago, Commandant Hux established Arkanis Academy. His tense grip on his datapad slacks slightly. Commandant Hux was wrong about a great many things. And Hux is always looking to prove him wrong, even now.
So Hux treads forward. "Sure," he says. In his mind, his father hisses, ‘What are you doing?’
‘Shut up,’ Hux orders.
They pull up a chair for him. Hux finds himself seated between a woman with a seemingly permanent scowl, and the old man who'd invited him. Other than the old man, the officers appear around his age. Their bearings have a sense of languidness. Hux, somewhat self-conscious of his stiff posture, makes an honest but unsuccessful attempt to relax.
"Move over, give me some room," the woman says, voice brusque and husky. Her curly brown hair springs out around her face. She must slick it back while on duty.
Hux stares at her, taken aback. He supposes it's possible. Ships don't interact much with one another, and they rarely broadcast events, for security reasons. But he's still surprised. They don't know who he is. When they look at him, they don’t see a newly promoted general - one of the youngest generals in the history of the First Order. They don't see him as an obstacle, an upstart, a leech feeding off of his father's legacy.
The freedom of such anonymity bewilders Hux for a moment, before he comes back to himself. He scoots over to give her space, and also to make room for the officer dealing cards. "What's your rank?" he blurts out, to the woman next to him. It's instinctual. It's the question that he asks, with disdain, any officer he does not recognize. As soon as the words leave his mouth, they seem too forward, and wrong. From experience, Hux knows that people find his pointedness off-putting.
Though, the woman does not look put off. In fact, she appears amused. "Why don't you try guessing it?" she says, as she scrutinizes her hand of cards.
Hux can't bring himself to spit a scathing response. He’s unsure of what the woman is trying to do. Surely there are more effective ways to rebuff his question. Unless she actually wants him to guess her rank. Is she baiting him on purpose? Hux, torn between disgust and curiosity, decides on the latter, for now.
Hux hears the crude slap of cards being dealt before him, and he picks them up before he loses his nerve. "Commander?" he hazards. It's better to underestimate than overestimate these kinds of things. He knows that much, at least.
One of the other officers laughs, a thick, hearty sound. Hux isn't sure he's heard something so sincere directed to him in years. "Close! She's MAJOR Sier now. Her promotion was well overdue. This is our shoddy attempt at a celebration."
Hux thinks he understands now. The woman - Major Sier - asked him to guess her rank because she wanted him to know the purpose of this gathering, without talking about her own accomplishment and coming across as arrogant. His question had been appropriate after all, even if it was blunt. Hux relaxes a little, and glances at the woman next to him again. He remembers when he was promoted to major. He'd had his customary celebration: wine, a book, and a couple hours of reading and scratching Millicent's head, in the isolation of his quarters.
People start setting down cards. Hux is vaguely aware of the rules. He's never played the game before, only heard of it. But he catches on, and infers what he's supposed to do, and on his turn he sets down a few cards, and says a phrase, and no one gives him a funny look. So he's got the hang of it. Hux smiles to himself, in part because he's relieved, and in part because he feels rather smug that he's getting away with this at all. The whole situation is a game in itself, all the more exciting because it's real.
The man to his right - the one who invited him - shakes his head. "The officers keep getting younger and younger. You look just out of the academy," he tells Hux.
"Oh, give him a little credit, colonel," says Major Sier. Her scowl turns out to not be so permanent. She's almost smiling at the old man. "I wager he's a captain, at least."
Hux knows he looks young, especially when he's not in uniform, but he's still a bit miffed. However, he doesn't have the time to be offended. He can sense the conversation heading into dangerous territory. He doesn't enjoy lying, but the illusion they've created for him is too fascinating to interrupt. "What was the academy like when you went there?" he asks the colonel. Nostalgia preys on the old. Commandant Hux was a prime example; surely this man is no different.
As soon as the query is out of Hux's mouth, the people around him groan. Hux is about to reprimand them all for such a brazen show of disrespect, but the colonel doesn't seem bothered, so Hux restrains himself, if with reluctance.
The colonel smiles widely. "It was one of the best experiences of my life. Where do I begin?" The other officers appear to have heard this all before, judging from the weary-but-indulgent looks they exchange, but Hux pays rapt attention. He's struck by the differences.
When the colonel refers to "revenge" he means fiddling with the sonic showers to cause his classmates' hair to stand on end. When Hux was at the academy, "revenge" was sabotaging datapads to show evidence of illegal activity. At the academy, the colonel reveled in the gelled mess that was his enemies's hair; while Hux reveled in the sight of his enemies, handcuffed, being ushered away to a juvenile penitentiary.
"- and he says to me, 'Thrippe, I know you're the one who tampered with the showers.' I had cleaning duty for a week!" Colonel Thrippe laughs. "But my friends helped out, even though it was against regulation."
It's clear that Hux and the colonel's academic experiences are about as similar as Millicent is to a Manka cat. Still, Hux thinks that if he were ever careless enough to get caught, his subordinates would be quite eager to do his chores for him. The loyalty of followers, he assumes, is a reasonable equivalent to the loyalty of friends. So Hux isn't lying, per se, when he nods and says, "I see," to some of the ridiculous situations that the colonel expounds upon.