Private Birds of a Feather

[Kyyrk]

Kyyrk kept tabs on a lot of things. Be it out of a desire to be well informed, or a sense of paranoia, the man knew a lot. So it was no surprise to any who paid attention that a certain newcomer would pique his interest. Another who was like him. Lost out of time. Kyyrk had simply observed from afar, at first. Between the colony of Ethereia, the Black Night, and the mission to retrieve one tablet of fearful nature, he'd been quite occupied with his own work. But now, his spare time outweighed his curiosity. Kyyrk waited within his residence on Verun, clad in simple black robes. As always, a datapad was in his hand, the flow of information and communication near constant in the down time. He'd sent the woman a letter. A simple thing, but noteworthy for being written on actual paper. Not many bothered with non-digital media, even in the days they both hailed from.

Master Hallas,

Word has reached me that you face a rather...unique problem. One that I find myself intimately familiar with. I won't pretend that I can solve all of your problems. But I can help solve some of the more immediate ones. If you are so inclined, we can speak further in person at the Verros Estate, Crown District, Verun.

Kyyrk Verros,
Exarch of the Ascendancy

Kyyrk still wasn't sure if it was worth signing his title at the bottom. Such things were known to scare people off. Make them feel like they were imposing. But chances were that this woman wasn't familiar enough with the Empire to know the true weight of who had contacted her. But none of that mattered now. The deed had been done, and Kyyrk now waited to see if she would keep the offered appointment. The room in which he waited was a small and simple one. An oddly rustic design, though the entire estate was designed in such a manner. From the outside, it looked like any old building, even for one within the crown district. But within, the decor spoke of simpler times. Simpler places. Akin to a country home deep in the wilds of a much more temperate and forested planet.

The room itself was cozy, clearly meant for entertaining guests. But also not meant for many. Was the man a hermit that only allowed the closest of friends to his domain? Or perhaps he was just too busy to entertain large parties? The size of the estate suggested the latter. A townhome, in reality, moreso than a manor or other such grand building typically associated with "Estate." But there would be plenty of time to unveil the myriad mysteries of the host that had summoned Oriadne. A servant droid had met her at the door, and ushered her in to the small parlor. She was greeted by a warm smile and a formal bow from Kyyrk. A man so pale that even an Echani seemed tan by comparison. "Master Hallas. Welcome to Verun." ​

Oriadne Hallas

 

[Oriadne Hallas]

♪ 183 Times - Greg Haines ♪​

874 ABY - after the Battle of Yavin. That’s what she had been told by the first person she met who was from outside of this pocket of space. The first sort of calendar that had context she could make enough sense of. The day that the fortunes of the galaxy began to change to a significant degree against the rule of the dark individual that had seen fit to tear down the government and order she served, and systematically eradicate her brothers and sisters in the Force. Finding out the extent of what happened to them was the very first of her priorities once she knew which way was up, so to speak, and that research and the meditations on the information she consumed had taken up a fair measure of her time, in between sessions of bodily strengthening, reconditioning, and rest. Until she could read no more, each word in the scant records of those lost weighing on her more than the last.

And all the while she contended with profound grief, the price of sating her need to know. After all, a calendar date alone was hardly enough to make her believe it in full, but here she was, nonetheless, and it was becoming more apparent, day by day, week by week, month by month, just how much she didn’t know of the here and now. All the little things, all the intangible knowledge she used to carry that would aid her in her work through countless locales across known space. No longer was her finger on the pulse of the galaxy, no longer did she know what lurked where. Nothing was familiar, especially here, but she couldn't simply wallow in that fact.

Venturing out under her own power for the first time since being taken in by the Ascendancy, the other night, was a practice in attempting to move on in some measure. To start to find some semblance of normalcy, stability while adrift, only to end up looking into the face of a man swathed in the tinge of darkness, who sought neither to sway her, nor to end her, but to speak words with her as if this were a normal day at a normal cantina. This one encounter was valuable (and to part of her, disconcerting), because it possibly told her a few things, but she didn’t have enough information to attribute more meaning to it. What was this place where she’d ended up, truly?

A question that could perhaps be answered when she was handed a letter - handed a letter - in the morning after stretching another night out of her body; her mind was distracted from its morning wind-up of turning her presently small world inside-out, and she stood just feeling the paper of the envelope with her name scribed in ink across the front, between her fingers. No-one bothered with this particular style when holomail was so ubiquitous and more convenient even nine centuries ago… but anyone who took the time to send a letter in hardcopy was trying to say something that written words alone could not so easily convey.

“Hmm,” Oriadne looked up from the envelope into the corridor she’d left herself standing in, then turned to carry herself back to the room that had been her home for some months, opening the letter along the way, “let’s see what this is about…”

A short while later, after considering the offer and making herself presentable, having clothed herself in robes in shades of gray and cream, and reasonably protected herself from the unforgiving sun, Oriadne set out to find her way to the given location. She knew where the Crown District was after having been taken out around the city early on, and it was only a matter of asking a passerby about where she might find the ‘Verros Estate’ within, and being met with some hesitance, before being told what she wanted to know. Was it her, the unknown, or this ‘Exarch’?

“Only one way to find out,” she uttered, pressing on down the rather clean thoroughfare until she found the estate in question. She was met at the door by a servant droid, who delivered her into a parlor that was starkly different from the building’s exterior, furnished in such a way that made perfect sense for the format of letter she had received. The man she saw when she entered the small room… well, his skin made the snows of Rhen Var look warm.

“Thank you for inviting me into your home, Exarch Verros,” she said in return, after giving a bow in kind; after rising, she allowed her eyes a moment to wander over the details of the chairs at the table, the painting near the bar… this room reminded her somewhat of a senator she’d met once. The second time they met, he wasn’t a senator anymore. Ori returned her attention to the black-clad, pale man, “I have to confess that sending a handwritten letter on paper told me more about you than the title you signed it with,” she smiled lightly, with a measure of warmth, and gestured to an empty seat across from him, “may I?”

Kyyrk

 

[Kyyrk]

Kyyrk gestured to the same seat as he stepped away from his own. "Please. Interest you in a drink? Not much of a selection here, but we've got the basics covered." Kyyrk stepped behind the bar as he said this, fixing what could only be presumed to be a drink for himself. When he'd gestured to the chair, he'd done so with his left arm, drawing attention to a notable detail. While his skin was pale, his left hand and wrist were stark white, made of metal and wires. A simple, robust design. But one that had a certain elegance to it. This was not a prosthetic meant for show, it was one meant for combat.

It was also quite obvious that the man was not a human. Between the pale skin, and the lilac orbs that looked similar to that of the Chiss, he could certainly pass for human if he needed to. "You might could call me old fashioned. But I'll admit that was all part of the plan." He wouldn't out and tell her that he knew her secret. It was usually better that way, from his findings. Let them say it. For those still coming to terms with where they found themselves, it helped. But he also couldn't assume she knew how modern technology worked. He learned long ago to never make assumptions about anything.

He emerged from the bar moments later, carrying his drink and that of his guest. He placed the glass on the table in front of her, then stepped to his own seat and sat down. "I will, however, insist that you call my Kyyrk. Exarch Verros is reserved for people that don't know me, or are mad at me." He took a sip of his drink, his eyes twinkling at the small jest he'd just made. "So tell me, Master Jedi." He set his glass upon the table, and leaned back in his chair. His right ankle picked up to rest upon his left knee. "What brings you to our little plot of paradise? I've heard about your visit to the Star Temple during the recent festival, and yet you've not interacted with the Medjai Order since. Usually when an outsider graced with our gifts arrives, they have business with the hunters."

His tone was never accusatory, just filled with curiosity. Why had she come here? Why not go back to the Jedi Order she'd once been apart of? Had she even been in this realm of time long enough to know the Jedi still existed? His eyes flickered about her form, asking silent questions and seeking deeper answers. Now with a chance to look at them properly, his eyes posessed a slight glow to them. One that ebbed and flowed almost in sync with his breathing. Being within the same room as this man left no doubt as to what Gifts he spoke of. He, too, radiated in the Force. Certainly a master in his own right, at the very least. His aura betrayed just as little as his stoic expression. Had Oriadne found another Jedi? Or was this man an agent of the Sith? ​

Oriadne Hallas

 

[Oriadne Hallas]

♪ 183 Times - Greg Haines ♪​

It caught her attention for a scant moment, the artificial body part, but seating herself was a priority and a pin was put in the subject of that detail. Pulling the seat out far enough, Oriadne lowered herself into it with care, biting back a sigh that was the stark edge of her minute impatience while she eased down; she had accepted her present physical lot. Her body tired easily, though far less than even a month prior and it would get better still with time, but it was hard to ignore the want to reach for and do more and the companionate frustration at limits to which she wasn’t accustomed. She couldn’t help what she was, the tenets and precepts of a Jedi embedded from the earliest age, and this was what tempered her against fairing any worse.

“A gin and tonic, if you have it,” came her request, having always preferred to keep it simple, “please,” and she settled into the seat, her attention returning to the replacement for flesh that made up his left hand and wrist while he tended to their refreshments. Peering, for but a couple moments, at the high degree of tech and elegant detail that went into the appendage, until her eyes were torn away by more words. “Quaint, maybe tasteful,” she said, giving her own words to the space she now sat in, “or perhaps even charming.” Of the hand, she had scarcely seen anything quite like it, from the examples she could recall of more simplistic replacements fitted to dead names, but then, she hadn’t ever seen anyone similar to this man as a whole, either, and wouldn’t be mistaking him for anything other than whatever he was.

A small nod of thanks was given when he placed the glass in front of her, and she lifted it with one hand grasping, the other to support the base, drew in a slow sip while he made his insistence, then returned the glass to the table top with hardly a sound while the little jest caused a puff of air to issue from her nose, the lightest form of an amused snort: she did not know him, of this she was certain. Not even the aura he wore gave any answers on what else she might be speaking to, but as he began to seek answers as to her being in their midst, his words gave some indication… not a precise indication, however.

“Oriadne, please,” she started, “I insist.” That night, the night of the festival, she had learned just a bit more of the Order he spoke of, even so far as being asked if she had taken the vow. Assumptions so easily made by one of their Knights, and yet… where was she going from here? Her lips settled when hands did, resting in her lap, “When a Jedi goes anywhere other than the places that Jedi occupy,” she paused, “Kyyrk,” saying the man of whom she knew so little by name, “there’s usually business of some kind involved,” she retorted mildly, with a faint ghost of a momentary smile, “and they return to where they came from, after,” she hesitated in delivering her next words, taking a steadying breath before continuing; even after four months she wasn’t any freer from the past that haunted her day and night, thus far only managing to retain her composure most of the time, “but I'm not here on business, and I’m quite… a bit further from where I came from than I was expecting.”

It wasn't the temple, of which she spoke... it was home.

Thane... Almar... Nethena... Leriel.

Aron.

She lifted a hand to pick up her glass, "And I can't go back," and she lifted the glass to her lips, taking a slightly longer sip than the last; she took her time with her words, only the second time she had spoken this truth aloud, "seeing as there's about nine centuries and a death sentence in the way," taking a slow, steady breath afterwards and gently placing the glass back on the table, she returned her deep green gaze to his starkly pale visage and glowing eyes, "I... hope that answers your question."

Kyyrk

 

[Kyyrk]

As Oriadne spoke, Kyyrk grew more...solemn. As if he was expecting to hear what she was about to say. When she spoke of being far from a home she could never return to, Kyyrk looked down at his drink. The vivid memory of a dead landscape filled his mind. A home you could never go back to. That, he knew all too well. He sighed quietly, looking back at his guest. Unlike him, her return home was not a matter of where, but when. He took a sip of his drink, then set it back on the table. "It does. Quite well, actually."

Kyyrk leaned back in his chair, watching the woman with a knowing look. "You're not here because you need something, but because you have no other choice. Nowhere else to go." Kyyrk nodded quietly in affirmation of his own words. "Nine hundred years is a long time. Everything's the same, but nothing is familiar." Kyyrk clasped his hands before him, resting them upon his knee. "And you feel like you've been born into a world you were never meant to belong in." Now the man was speaking from experience. The ghost of a missing past sang in the depths of his words. He offered the woman a sympathetic smile.

"Thirty years later, and I still have trouble adjusting." Kyyrk glanced down at his drink again, as if he was contemplating another sip. "Someone overheard your conversation with Hisashi . Most folks around here don't know what to take serious, and what's jest. I, unfortunately, do not have that luxury." He finally reached forward and collected his drink. "Though I cannot say I know and understand your exact circumstances, I can certainly say I'm sympathetic to them." He took a swig of his drink, thinking back to the circumstances he'd left behind.

"I, too, escaped a war. If not by choice." His mouth pressed into a grim line as he remembered. "I was born in the Old Republic. A young man during the Sacking of Coruscant." He looked back at Oriadne. "The Zakuul War had just ended when it happened. Next thing I know..." His hands raised to gesture to the room around him. "So. Take it from someone that's been there...it isn't easy." He folded his hands back in his lap. "As someone sympathetic to your plight...what can I do to help you?" ​

Oriadne Hallas

 

[Oriadne Hallas]

♪ 183 Times - Greg Haines ♪
​

The words that came out of him were hardly what she expected, but she hadn’t known what to expect to begin with, other than… anything except for an exacting summation of her personal turmoil this small handful of months. The lid on this being tenuous, her brow slowly knit closer together while he spoke to her experiences and the particular feeling thereof. It was akin to being adrift, with life support running out and no hope. Drowning. Her lips quivered and curved slightly in the opposite manner to the smile he gave, before giving the reason for such precision; her lower lip, she drew in for feeling dry all of a sudden, the cavernous, aching maw threatening to swallow her, as it had countless times before.

Yet she resisted, and listened as he spoke to what she knew as history some three and a half centuries before her time, stating it as facts of his own existence… how he was, in this way, kin; was it simply an imbalance caused by so much death that led to these outcomes? Was there even a why for her presence in this place? Questions that may have no answers that even she could find were she to look with all her might, not that answers to them could change what had come to pass.

Taking in a deep, sharp breath, and holding it, Oriadne gathered her thoughts, then released the breath in a long stream in preface of her answer, focusing again on Kyyrk, “I can’t fathom a reason for why I’m here,” if it was the will of the Force, then that will was cruel, “but reason or no, I’m here nonetheless, and I can only rely on, and do what I know,” she blew out a sigh, “even if I may be all that remains of my Order," a hand enveloped the glass in front of her, and she glanced into the liquid, “blind as we had become.” She shook her head free of that particular meandering and lifted her gaze, giving him something between a grimace and a firm smile, pressing onward, “What would help me most is to get my bearings in this place, to know the lay of the land and get stuck into something other than my own head. I’m something of a hunter myself, but right now I'm blind as and in about as good a shape as a limping Hapan during a solar eclipse.”

Except, of course, for the impressions the Force always gave; feelings that until recently had been difficult to separate from her grief. She lifted the glass, drawing in some of the liquid, and swallowed in short order. The liquor was contributing in small ways to, at least temporarily, calming her insides, while refocusing on the present took it further.

“And the hostile pressure of this region of space nags at me like an itch. What else lives here, Kyyrk?”

Kyyrk

 

[Kyyrk]

Kyyrk frowned as she told him that she couldn't fathom what the Force had in store for her. A feeling he was all too familiar with. He sighed quietly, reaching for his drink once more. For the amount he'd already consumed, his species must be very resistant to the effects of alcohol. "While you're not incorrect, you will be happy to know that the Jedi Order did survive the purge. Mostly..." He knocked back his glass to drain the rest of it, and set the empty glass back on the table. "In fact I dare say they're not all that different from what you left behind. They've done an excellent job of enacting genocide on the Sith and her people, and I do not use that word lightly." Kyyrk made another face. There was a level of distain in his voice, but it was not clear if that was for the Jedi out of principle, or this specific iteration.

"Well, the New Jedi Order, at any rate. The Silvers keep to themselves, lording over their subjects and keeping the peace like good little Jedi." It wasn't the Jedi. Just the situation they found themselves in. Kyyrk clearly took issue with how certain things were handled. But he held no ill will for either faction of Jedi for the sake of existing. "In short, the galaxy is much as you left it." Kyyrk pushed himself to his feet and plucked his datapad from the table. He pressed a few buttons as he walked towards the woman, and soon handed her the datapad. A map of some detail sat upon the screen, denoting rough borders and estimated populations. Several significant worlds were marked, Coruscant, Kuat, Naboo, and the like.

"The Jedi and Sith are back at their eons old pissing match. And the rest of the galaxy is paying for it. Else it's your usual squabbles of power and dominion. While the Jedi may remain, the Republic is a long dead thing of the past. It gave its last gasp some twenty years ago." Kyyrk paused before he sat back down. "Though the Galactic Alliance that moved in afterwards is doing a wonderful job. Every bit as bloated and corrupt as its predecessor." Kyyrk folded his hands in front of him once more. When she asked of their immediate surroundings, Kyyrk's frown deepened.

"Some centuries ago, Naboo sent a colony ship south. It was presumed destroyed. Having found her destination, I can assure you no such thing occurred." Kyyrk gestured towards the window, indicating the wider galaxy. "They're still out there. But conditions in the expanse are hardly favorable. The colonists survived, but had to adapt best they could. We call them the Khanate. A collection of warlords that engage in piracy, slavery, and any other immoral activity you can think of. They were dug in well in these worlds, but the Medjai gave us an edge that the Khanate have yet to match." There was, of course, something deeper and darker lurking here. Something hidden away and biding its time. The reason the Expanse was such a hostile place. Kyyrk didn't mention it, nor draw attention to it. A test, for Oriadne. Could she tell he was omitting something? ​

Oriadne Hallas

 

[Oriadne Hallas]

♪ 183 Times - Greg Haines ♪
​

To hear that the Jedi still lived was happy news to some extent, but that nothing might have changed was not so much disappointing, as it was frustratingly unsurprising, given the evidence of over twenty-five millennia of conflict that had stayed the course. More than twenty-six, hearing nothing but truth in his words, coloured as they were. When handed the datapad, she moved the map around, zooming in and out while he continued on: though the borders were different, the positions of the galaxy's many worlds hadn't changed their known locations, but when her eyes landed on a label denoting the 'Ashlan Crusade', her lips pursed to one side.

It didn't take much to be able to put two and two together on that one. Nothing is called a 'crusade' without fervour or fanaticism, religious fanaticism most of all. Add the 'Ashla'... Oriadne laid the 'pad on the tabletop and reached for the last of her drink, imbibing the remainder and slightly shaking her head at this particular kind of extreme taking hold in the galaxy, an educated guess, as she swallowed.

"Lovely," she muttered, and that was all she had to say about that.

Kyyrk went on to reply to her question about the local area, and she placed the empty glass back where it had been, before. What he said about the other inhabitants of this pocket of space was hardly a surprise, all of it unfortunately common, and like much else that was unsavoury in the galaxy, it came about as a matter of circumstance. In the vast majority of cases, 'evil' was not born, but made; a thing she learned well over the course of her life as a Jedi that only made her work less straightforward, but this wasn't the answer to her question. They'd both been around for too long to not notice when something was off, and she didn't take him for complacent or blind.

"No," she answered when he was done, with another shake of her head after a few moments, her brow creasing, her eyes narrowing, her lower lip gnawed as she tipped her chin and focused on the undercurrent, the whatever it was that sat beneath the obvious, the known, the expected, "most of two centuries as an Investigator, then a Shadow has given me considerable familiarity with immorality in all its flavours, what drives a person to it, and the cumulative effect on the Force of an involvement of many in it," her eyes opened wider again and flicked up to find Kyyrk as she settled into the back of her seat, and laced her fingers together in her lap, "but that isn't what this is."

It scraped along the edge of her awareness.

"You already know that, don't you?"

Kyyrk

 

[Kyyrk]

Kyyrk was silent for a moment. A long moment. She had noticed it too. Kyyrk stood, after a moment, and collected his drink glass. "Care for a refill?" he asked his guest. As he walked behind the bar, he began to explain. "We're at war, Master Jedi." The tone he took suggested a solemnity that he'd not yet displayed to his guest. A...severity. "Not just the Ascendancy. But every living thing in the galaxy." Kyyrk paused in making the new drinks, staring at the nearby window. "There's always something lurking in the darkness. Something looking to exterminate life as we know it."

Memories of his very soul being torn asunder by a force he could not comprehend filled his mind. "Years ago, I was first inducted into this war. Paying my toll of sweat and blood in the filth of battle." Kyyrk turned back to look at Oriadne. "The Dread War, they called it. Six masters of the Dark that left the Sith Empire to forge their own. Corrupting the galaxy with horror and chaos." Kyyrk stepped back around the bar, placing the refreshed drinks on the table. "Perhaps you're familiar with them. With their weapon of choice. The Phobis device. But did you ever ask yourself where the Dread Masters found such a thing?"

It was a rhetorical question, which Kyyrk allowed her a moment to ponder as he took a sip of his drink. "I know woeful little about this matter...but we believe the Shiraya Expanse to be the origin point of the Phobis devices. As well as...something darker." The itch she was feeling in the back of her mind. "Ektheros." Kyyrk spoke the name quietly. Reverently. Not as something to be worshiped, for sure. But something to be feared. Respected. "The rank and file call him the Unmaker. A celestial that serves as some...deity of hunger. According to prophecy, he will one day rise, and consume all life in the galaxy to sate his hunger." Kyyrk looked down at his drink. "We've found proof that even the Rakata worshiped this being as a god. And several of us have had...personal encounters with it."

Kyyrk smiled grimly. "A man by the name of Darth Voph dedicated nearly a decade of his life to cataloguing and uncovering the secrets of the Unmaker. But he fell in combat eight years ago. And with him, his knowledge of the adversary we face. I assist the Dominus, our...Emperor...In finding what Voph once knew. And finding something to win this war for us, even if only temporarily." ​

Oriadne Hallas

 

[Oriadne Hallas]

♪ Seeker of the Serpent's Eye - Jóhann Jóhannsson ♪​

Silence could be golden, but there were no such riches in the long pause. Instead, a weight settled in the air that made Oriadne straighten her posture, as her host rose to his feet. “Please,” she replied, handing him her glass, and following him behind the bar with her eyes and attention as he refilled their glasses and began to fill her in on just what it was that encroached on her awareness, and what it meant.

War. He’d said the word, yet in a tone different from the one taken to describe the millennia-old battle of light and dark that many, unfortunately, were familiar with, party to it or not, that was still waged in the present. She knew of the Phobis devices, and these had fit into the same category in her mind, in some manner of speaking, as the Shrii-ka-rai of her time - things you hoped to never encounter. But in other ways they were separate: outside of control, the Shrii-ka-rai acted on instinct.

Was it instinct for this being, or was this a choice? Ultimately it didn’t matter the reasons when life itself was its craving, and ultimately she hadn’t connected the dots when her drinking companion these two days past had dropped the common moniker of ‘the Unmaker’ in such a way, making it sound like it was nothing, and followed it with laughter, that she took it to be more like another being of the long past, but one that could be made to meet its end: Valkorion. Vitiate. Tenebrae. But this was no immortal Sith Emperor.

Ektheros. A celestial. A ‘god’? This was quite possibly worse.

Oriadne picked up her drink and took a long pull from the glass, mired partly in her thoughts as he spoke to his own mission when it came to this… entity, that it was also the mission of the Ascendant Emperor. The Dominus. As yet an enigma to her. Placing the glass back to where it sat before, she laid her hands, one over the other, on the table. Some would say she had a choice, that she could choose to walk away, but after another few moments of silence, this time hers, she looked up from her hands and back to Kyyrk, pulling an all-too-thin smile on her own face as her sense of duty made the decision for her.

Things you hoped to never encounter, indeed… but she was a Jedi, and extinction was again on the table. “How might I help?” she asked, again reaching for her drink. Darkening the door of a Jedi temple wasn't her past-time, anyway.

Kyyrk

 

[Kyyrk]

Kyyrk frowned quietly. Help them? She had no business...no right to involve herself in this matter. He opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. He'd done everything he could muster. And this is where they found themselves. He needed help. He wasn't some indestructible force of nature anymore. There were powers at play far greater than he could ever hope to be. He sighed quietly. He looked down at the drink before him. "We've lost everything there was to lose. Loved ones...Homes...Planets..." Kyyrk sighed, leaning back in his chair and sighing in an agitated manner. Planets. The slightest crack in his voice betrayed the truth.

He could never go home. Home was no longer there. "Our best and brightest gave everything they had. Our most powerful warrior lies dead in the halls of eternity because of the Unmaker." Kyyrk was silent, looking down at his mechanical limb. A suggestion that he too had not escaped unscathed. "That's the thing I never understood about you Jedi. Always so willing to rush in to help on matters that don't concern you." Kyyrk snorted quietly. "Of course, I suppose this does concern you, in a way..." He drew a deep breath to steady himself, then exhaled slowly.

"If you truly wished to help...you must first help yourself." Kyyrk picked up his glass once again. "Get accustomed to the strange and dangerous galaxy you find yourself in. Heal. You're no good in a fight in this state." Kyyrk swirled the liquid around his glass for a moment. "Of course...Nine hundred years is a long time. You'd need new gear. Lightsabers haven't changed. But it's doubtful things like your comlink can access modern frequencies..." Kyyrk took a thoughtful sip of his drink. "What would you need to get yourself back on your feet and functional again?"
​

Oriadne Hallas

 

[Oriadne Hallas]

♪ What Will We Do? - Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross ♪
​

Oriadne set the glass back down almost as soon as she'd lifted it, hearing the crack in his voice, and slowly laid her hand back over the other on the table. She wished she could say that the way his mood shifted in response to her, and the tone of his words, were unexpected, but he wasn't wrong. Left alone with her thoughts in the spaces between therapies these four months, and haunted by a long-ago past that was to her so… recent, she was pressed with the damning clarity of hindsight and the remembrance of her own misgivings, in a melange with the wax and wane of her grief. The line between help and harm blurred more often than most Jedi would ever come to realise. The Jedi were not always welcome. Most would never ask why this was.

She weathered his words with patience, while he waded through agitation and moved on, not refusing her assistance in so many words. Nine hundred years was such a long time that Aurebesh itself had undergone some changes, though spoken Galactic Basic hadn't had so marked a shift, as far as she had been able to tell. She was still becoming accustomed to the shift in the written word. And though she had made the offer, she wasn't physically ready to make good on it in the ways that were most needed, a fact he so astutely pointed out, but she stood by her decision to stay, her mouth twitching into a light frown.

"I'm… told I've reached a point where much of the responsibility for…" her brows lifted just a touch, punctuating a sigh, "...continuing to improve my condition, and continuing to build muscle and energy is mine, now." She lifted her hands off the table, curling and flexing her fingers in and out of fists, "All the knowledge is still there, I know how everything works, and what good form is," her mind wasn't broken, but only time could manage the mental and emotional pain of loss, "yet my limbs need to remember how to move through the forms, and the fight." It was a frustrating thing, having your body not move as you're used to. Recently, she had started with some of the very basic movements of an initiate, on her own, but she was slow and even clumsy, a far cry from the strong, swift, cunning, and graceful duelist she had once been. "I would make faster progress with a partner in that effort." Whatever form that took: she wasn't prideful.

For the second time in so many minutes, Oriadne took up her glass, this time having a sip, "But because I'm mobile enough I'm being discharged, and I'm expected to vacate the room I've been staying in by the end of the week," and she set the glass back down; she had very few possessions other than what had been on her person, in her ship when fleeing certain death, or the few items that had been acquired since her arrival, "and my ship either needs a lot of work," outdated coms were the least of issues for a vessel that had barely managed to limp its way to where she had been picked up, unconscious, four months ago, "or it's best assigned to scrap." But she could live anywhere, going where required, where necessary, and had done so for most of her years until Aron came into her life.

"I did have an offer from Hisashi two nights ago to stay in the Star Temple, as a guest," she mentioned; she wasn't sure just how much he had been told of their conversation, "but that seemed a little strange to me," since the Jedi Temple of her time typically didn't allow members of the public to stay. "I asked him for a few days to sort out what I'm doing before giving an answer," since she hadn't known whether she was staying or going, at the time, "but to be honest, I haven't lived in a temple since I was an Initiate." She had only ever put down roots when she had a family. Had. No longer having. Being torn from them by the consequences of Jedi life, the vengeance of the Sith, and time. She knew she would need to lay the memories of them to rest, eventually.

"Now, my own lightsabers still function, but it'd be best to at least replace the power source in both of them," she'd disassembled them, checked for wear, cleaned, and reassembled during some monotony a couple of months ago, "just to be safe." They were over a thousand years old, by this point. "And though I'm not in fighting form at the moment, I can still make use of my mind and I can still use the Force while I'm getting used to being here, learning the ins and outs of this realm, and your Ascendancy," she couldn't just continue to marinate in her thoughts, "I'll function better if I can also focus on tasks outside of my own well-being." Oriadne put a hand around her glass again, "For example, I trained all five of my students to knighthood," she informed, "If there's need for it, I can mentor," she sighed, "as far as I can manage in my current state."

Anything that would leave her stewing in her own thoughts a little less.

Kyyrk

 

[Kyyrk]

Kyyrk nodded quietly as he digested what all the woman had said. He was, he found, all too familiar with the underlying sentiments. "At least you have the time to succumb to your own thoughts." He smiled ruefully. It was both a blessing and a curse. "Something...or someone, wanted me to stay dead. I had perhaps a matter of minutes before I was forced to flee." Kyyrk glanced down at his drink again. His face soured just a bit as he remembered that now distant memory. The howl and shriek of the monsters that hunted him. The ship collapsing in on itself.

Kyyrk stood, and walked over to a small terminal tucked in the corner of the room. He ejected a datapad, and typed a few words into it as he walked back towards the chair. When he arrived back at the table, he presented the small datapad to her. "You've three options. The first is to take this datapad to the officer's barracks here in Reginum. Tell them Exarch Kyyrk sent you and you are to be housed until I say otherwise." He then set the datapad on the table in front of her. "The second, you take Hisashi's offer of staying with the Medjai. Either one gives you access to the Star Temple and its facilities. An excellent training ground to rebuild your strength and skills."

Kyyrk returned to his own chair, swiping up his glass to drain the rest. "The third option sends you further afield. Much further afield." Kyyrk clasped his hands in front of him. "In the neutral regions of the Expanse, we have discovered a planet known to the locals as Ethereia. At this point in time, my focus is commanded by the growing colony on that planet." A statement uttered with such a serious tone that it almost suggested the only reason he was on Verun at all was to meet Oriadne. "There, you would have access to ample busywork, helping the colonists establish themselves. Room to rest and to train as you see fit." Kyyrk fell silent for a minute. Srina Talon had sacrificed her time to ensure that he was fit to return to the battlefield. It was only fair that he paid it forward.

"While we would not have use of you as a teacher at the colony, you would be in an excellent position to re-establish your own skills with the Force and blade." His head cocked to the side slightly. "It has been some decades since I last took a student. But if you need guidance in the ways of lightsaber combat, you will find no better instructor." There was no hint of distain in his voice. He did not chose to cease teaching. But simply was removed from such an environment. "Whatever you decide, I concur that your ship would best be left for the Jawas." Kyyrk scratched his cheek thoughtfully. "I still have requisition rights to a few ships, I'm sure I could find something usable."

Kyyrk thought for a moment longer before he rousted himself. "At any rate, I'll be in Verun for at least another cycle. Whenever you've had time to collect your blades, bring them to me and we can get them fixed. My forge may not reside here, but I'm never more than an hour's travel from everything needed to construct a lightsaber." His eyes scanned the woman's figure for a moment as he lapsed back into silence, almost as if he was measuring her. "And I know you Jedi aren't overly fond of mortal protections...but then again the Clone Wars were a different time. If you feel the need for armor, you know where to find me." ​

Oriadne Hallas

 

[Oriadne Hallas]

​

Oriadne sat quietly, sipping from her glass at nonspecific intervals, while Kyyrk responded to her needs, informing her of her options, and what could be done about other concerns. Glancing at the datapad once when it was laid on the table, and otherwise giving him her visually undivided attention, she digested what was presented to her in his response. Weighing her options against her experiences past and present. Her knowledge of self. Nodding where and as needed.

It was all more than she expected, but then she hadn’t known what to expect. She placed the now-empty glass back on the table and folded her hands one over the other in front of her, once again. “Thank you,” she began,her brows lofting just a little, “for all of this, Kyyrk. I’m… grateful for your assistance, and I’ve made my decision.”

And the decision wasn’t a hasty one. She had four months of Verun and its heat, and four months with her thoughts. The brunt of two centuries being anywhere other than a temple, which was the familiar thing, being elsewhere.

“To be honest, though the citizens have been rather welcoming and accommodating through these months, living with Verun’s climate is an exercise in tolerance,” she said with a note of weary amusement, leaving a faint smile in its wake; though she had acclimatised some insignificant amount over the small number of months, it was still warmer here than many humanoids were meant to handle, without simply hiding most of the day from it, “but I will say that it has been relatively peaceful, which has been welcome after…” she sighed lightly, “...well, everything.”

That and she had grown tired of the parched landscape, and she could admit that it was too secure, too civilised - she would be doing nothing but training, recovery, and waiting for something to happen. Most of her years had been spent in various locales, in different climates and in many cases far from the heights of galactic civilization. Places where darkness tended to gather more freely. Even her own people hailed far, far from the Core. She had been born on that far-flung world, on the bleeding edge of the Tingel Arm.

“I would be glad to help with your colonists, and I accept your offer to assist in rebuilding my skills with the blade.” She settled back into the chair, folding her arms over her chest; problem-solving was part and parcel of her role as a Jedi, and any new place and its people had ‘growing pains’ as far as she saw it, “What else can you tell me about Ethereia?”

Kyyrk