Private Broken and Shattered

[Aerik Lechner]

WEARING: xxx
TAG: Irina Jesart

A small smile pulled at Aerik’s lips when she reiterated her ideal. No scars for fights that mean nothing. It was a good mantra, unless the scar was something that taught a lesson. There were some wounds which were worth keeping. The thought made him wonder after the Echani boy, the one with the twin sister. What kind of scar had the knife wound left behind. Aerik still had the blade. He would ask Carnifex about it at some point.

Irina mentioned Alchemy. Aerik shook his head. He hoped he would never have to dabble in the art. While he did not know much of the details, the pup did know the secret which the Lechner family kept. The Lupo evolved from an alchemical experiment which had been abandoned. They were Sithspawn. Aerik did not need that secret out in any way. It was something he still had not told Irina…

…he did not know if he ever would.

“I think the fifth cohort is cleaning out the Rancor pits again. They’re still punishing us for fighting.”

He shrugged.

“At least I will smell nice after.”

 

[Irina Jesart]

Irina wrinkled her nose at the mention of the rancor pits. That they were still being punsihed for something they didn’t start and the first and second cohorts were let off scotch free was an injustice that she still had not gotten over. It did nothing to voice it though. Wailing about how unfair it was only drew the proctors eyes and further punishment. What she truly wanted, was an chance to get back at the first and second cohort, but an opportunity had yet to present itself.

“You better,” she teased “I’m not sparring with you if you stink like a rancor.”

Her fingers moved back to the cut on her cheek, her expression darkening slightly. She didn’t want to be caught like this again, she wanted to find her feet on those mats and be able to give back as good as she was getting, and she wasn’t going to achieve that without help. Her vacant gaze snapped back and she looked up at the chrono on the wall.

She didn’t want to go. The idea of being on her own, of being lost in her own thoughts and greif…but she couldn’t rely on him. They were in different cohorts, for one, and for another she had to find a way to navigate this on her own sooner or later. Better to rip the bandaid off sooner rather than later.

“I should head to the infirmary before class.” she muttered pushing herself to her feet. She gave Aerik a tight smile as she picked up her tray. “I’ll see you in the gym later.” A beat passed, as she realised she wanted to thank him for being there for her, but surrounded with as many ears and eyes as they were she couldn’t. She gave an awkward nod instead and swept away, dumping the tray off on her way out.

The afternoon was hellish. The trip to the infirmary was quick and painless enough, the bacta patch that no adorned her cheek made her itch as it worked to heeal the cut beneath it. The alchemy theory, though? She picked a seat at the back of the classroom to avoid the attention of the professor, something she knew she could do without, but try as she might to focus, her mind drifted back to that datapad, to her father and the mental image of him swinging from the balcony.

By the time she reached the gym, her mask was beggining to crack, she was exhasted from pretending and she wanted very much to break something.

Aerik Lechner

 

[Aerik Lechner]

WEARING: xxx
TAG: Irina Jesart

The smell of the rancor pits was overwhelming on Aerik’s nose. He had expected it. His comment to Irina had been more about the fact he was not looking forward to the smell of the job. Granted, Irina was correct, he was going to smell like the pits and the stuff being shoveled out of them. A shower would be in order, but the fifth cohort did not exactly get great facilities. He would have to use the gym shower, which was not ideal either.

At least it put him in the gym when it was time to meet his friend. Irina had a fresh bacta patch on her cheek. The wound would heal and the skin would be flawless when the treatment was done. He smiled

Her face told him she was wearing thin. Fortunately for them they did not have a lot of people in the gym. It afforded them a more private session where she could let out the anger if she wanted to. There was one thing Aerik knew, if he knew anything, and that was he was a better fighter. She could fight all she wanted, and the wolf pup would be able to give her an outlet. There was no point in teaching her anything until she was in the frame of mind to learn.

“Do I still smell like Rancor?”

Aerik lifted up his arm, clearly joking, but also clearly still very much a teenage boy.

“You don’t have to wear it when we spar. That’s the lucky thing.”

 

[Irina Jesart]

Irina felt the tension in her shoulders ease at the sight of her friend, the weakest of smiles gracing her features as he lifted his arm at her. She responded with a sharp jab of her fingers to his ribs.

"Mhmm, definitely." she teased wrinkling her nose in mock disgust. Truth be told she couldn't smell them on him at all, though from what she'd learned of him he would be suffering more than she ever would. "Though you were doomed to smell from the beginning, you're a boy. Boys stink."

The gym was quiet, with only a few students opting to spend their free time training here. A glance around told her they were occupied in their own sessions to pay too much attention, but that didn't mean they weren't listening at all. She blew a sigh out of her nose, her head dropping briefly, taking a second to rearrange her mask. There would be no break from this, not until they could escape to the maze again.

"So," she began looking up, "how do you want to do this?"

Aerik Lechner

 

[Aerik Lechner]

WEARING: xxx
TAG: Irina Jesart

“Boys stink? Vyra says that all the time sheesh.”

Girls… they had their issues too, but Aerik didn’t go about teasing them about it. He smiled however. If she was teasing him then it meant some form of healing was already taking place. Death was part of what it meant to be Sith. They would see more of it, and how they handled it would determine their ability to lead. Loss was part of life, and they could not allow it to immobilize them, especially during a time of war.

He walked to the mat. There was no better way for them to start than to just begin. She was still hurting, which meant it was more important now than ever she knew how to defend herself. His eyes met hers from across the way.

“Come at me.”

He did not tell her how. That would be up to her. She could decide the best way forward. Aerik would simply use her as the instrument of her education. The pup shifted into a defensive position. For now he would telegraph his movements so she could learn.

 

[Irina Jesart]

His smile brought a little bit of warmth back to the iciness in her chest, a little of the tenson rolling away from her shoulders. She closed her eyes as he walked away to the mat and took a deep breath and did her best to remind herself why they were here. If she was going to survive the sparring sessions on these mats she needed to be better. Her fingers brushed the bacta patch and she opened her eyes.

That her father was dead was irrelevant in this moment, that she could feel the sting of all of it with each beat of her heart didn't matter. She padded after Aerik, face set with stoney determination. "Don't go easy on me." she said simply as he settled into a defensive pose that she mirrored.

A beat passed before she stepped in, a fist striking for his face. Easy to deflect, she knew, but she wanted to see what his reactions were, to understand what she was working against.

Aerik Lechner

 

[Aerik Lechner]

WEARING: xxx
TAG: Irina Jesart

She did not want him to go easy on her, but Aerik was going to anyway. He did not want to brag, but he was already a better fighter than Irina was, and he knew it. She probably knew it also, but what she did not know was just how much better he was. It was not a fair advantage that his sense gave him. He could hear muscles moving, feet dragging, the body maneuvering in ways others could not. The smaller motions no one could hear gave away how one might attack.

His hearing was as much a liability as it was an asset in combat. Loud noises, force screams, his father had warned him about all of those. A distraction could be something he heard well before a visual diversion would overtake him. The pup had to be disciplined when it came to how he conducted himself in a fight. The sparring rings in the academy proved to be a challenge when the room was full. It forced him to focus on the fight in front of him, while practicing keeping a sense of what was happening around them.

In the quiet room, Irina’s movements would scream out to him. It was not going to be a fair fight.

She struck for his face. He knew it was coming, and while could deflect it, he did not. Instead, he grabbed her wrist, pulling her close, his leg went behind hers and the pup pushed her forward. His hope was to knock her onto the mat. He could have easily overpowered her. She had not see the day he crushed the metal cup in his hand. Instead, Aerik used momentum and what he hoped to be her lack of balance against her.

“If you say so,” he said.

 

[Irina Jesart]

Irina let out an involuntary squeak as he caught her wrist and tugged her close, forgetting for a split second that they were supposed to be sparring as her skin heated and her heart jumped up. She was beginning to get annoyed with the effect his closeness had on her. Just because he was cute and had those gold piercing eyes…

She felt the shift in her centre of gravity as his leg wrapped behind hers and he pushed her back and she regained a grip of herself her free hand seized the front of his shirt as she leaned into the fall pulling him with her as the leg he tripped snaked around the back of his own knee in an attempt to loosen his balance.

If Irina was going down, so was he.

She'd figure out what to do when her back hit the mat.

Aerik Lechner

 

[Aerik Lechner]

WEARING: xxx
TAG: Irina Jesart

Had Irina not pulled on him as she went down, Aerik would have remained balanced enough to pull back and regain control. Even in his attempt it failed as she had used the momentum of her fall to pull him off his center of gravity. The only thing he could do now was to control where he landed. His choices were limited. He could land on top of her, pinning her to the mat which would give him a significant amount of control. It would certainly be the most efficient option. There was also the opportunity to roll and find himself back on his feet within a matter of seconds.

Aerik was supposed to be teaching her. Would she learn by losing so quickly? The boy was strong enough to keep her pinned to the ground if he wanted to. There would be little she could do save a display of the force. It would defeat the point of the lessons, or would it? He had to decide soon. They were still falling.

He landed on top of her, his forearm moving to her throat. The pup did not put any pressure on her neck, but simply commented.

“If you’re going to pull me with you, roll when you hit the mat. Otherwise I just crushed your windpipe.”

 

[Irina Jesart]

Though they were of a similar height, Aerik was far more built than she was, the weight of him on her chest surprised her, though she wasn't entirely sure why. She could feel the corded muscles of his arms press gently against her throat.

She should have used the momentum to flip him over her head, but truth be told she hadn't expected him to come down so easily. She blew a sigh of annoyance out of her nose at his instruction.

Her legs shifted beneath him as she lifted her whole body and twisted to her left, rolling him off of her with a small telekinetic shove to grant her enough distance to roll clear and get back to her feet, setting back into a defensive pose ready for his retaliation.

Aerik Lechner

 

[Aerik Lechner]

WEARING: xxx
TAG: Irina Jesart

She mixed the force in with her defense, but then why not with her attacks? It was a small enough maneuver that most observers would not know she had done it. Aerik smiled as they both stood up and faced each other again.

“That was clever,” he said. “Pretty sure the proctors would not notice that. That alone would have kept the...” he motioned to where the cut had been on her face.

Hopefully she would tuck that away for later.

Aerik began to circle her, looking for another way to catch her off guard in some capacity. She was tall for her age, and that meant more of the students went low, or she was paired with those who matched her in height, which usually meant older and stronger students. The pup faced her, took his own defensive stance, then moved to drive the top of his right foot into the side of her knee.

He wanted to see what she would do with a more direct attack on her foundation.

 

[Irina Jesart]

Irina returned his smile, allowing a little pride to swell in her chest. “Well, what do you know, i’m not just a pretty face.” She stuck her tongue out at him. Though his praise had her mind reeling if the proctors would not notice that, what else would they not notice? Telekinesis was her greatest strength if she could use it to her advantage, to apply strength where she generally lacked it then she might just survive these damn sparring matches.

Her feet moved with his, matching Aerik’s pace as he circled her, her focus coming back to this fight, he was watching her every move and she in turn watched his, trying to predict where the shift of his feet would take him.

“Stop watching my feet Irina, you’re fixating.” A sharp pain exploded across her arm where the training sword struck and she yelped, accusatory eyes snapping up to her father. “You said watch your feet!” he sighed.

“Not exclusively, now pay attention.”

The memory came out of nowhere, snapping her from the sparring mat back to the training rooms back home, she drew in a sharp breath, freezing as it slipped away from her, leaving a tidal wave of grief in its wake, as Aerik’s foot came for her knee.

Irina had no more than a split second to acknowledge the attack and react, dropping her weight onto the leg he was attacking and lowering so his foot slammed into the meat of her thigh instead. She let out a grunt of pain but her foundation held fast. Her vision blurred and she found herself blinking rapidly against tears.

Aerik Lechner

 

[Aerik Lechner]

WEARING: xxx
TAG: Irina Jesart

Aerik’s cheeks blushed when Irina pointed out she was more than a pretty face. He did not know why. Life was weird, he was changing, in a lot of ways, and Aerik was feeling things he did not know how to reconcile. Added to the confusion was the fact he knew the next full moon was going to spur a completely different kind of change. It had the potential to kill him, so the pup had been careful about making friends. With his father’s help he should be fine, but that still not a guarantee.

“I suppose so,” he said. Was that even something he should have said?

She dropped, catching his foot with her thigh. The contact caught her, but not in the same way taking her knee out would have. The girl had likely been bruised with the power Aerik had put in the strike, but she had not lost her base. Still, he had committed to a form of attack.

Aerik pressed in further. This time his fist was directed straight at her sternum. Had he hit her knee the punch would have been aimed at her nose, but her quick thinning had saved her from taking that contact. His strike would be easy enough to deflect if she was quick enough, though he did lessen the amount of force his movement could have carried with it. If he made contact he did not want to harm her. That defeated the point of this exercise.

 

[Irina Jesart]

It was like someone had opened the floodgates in her mind, every blink shifted her from the fight and threw her into another memory, each one coiling an invisible hand around her heart, making it harder to breathe.

Blink.​

The day she threw a tantrum after her mother had passed and he realised she was force sensitive.

Blink.​

Aerik's fist was coming for her sternum and she deflected it, driving it away to her right,but it was weak, had there been any real force behind it she would have failed.

Blink.​

She was eight years old watching the servant wrestle her father away from the balcony's edge, his first psychotic episode, he was screaming nonsense about traitors and murderers, quieting only when she found the courage to step forward and take his hand.

Blink.​

She could feel the tears, hot on her cheeks. How many people were in here with them? How many people would see her crack? Irina retaliated, with a strike for Aerik's jaw. She couldn't crack, not here…not ever.

Aerik Lechner

 

[Aerik Lechner]

WEARING: xxx
TAG: Irina Jesart

Her sudden aggression was emotional. Maybe this had been a bad idea. Irina would not be able to avoid getting hurt if she was reacting rather than being proactive. It slowed her down, or made her press when she shouldn’t. Aerik knew the news and grief was clouding her judgment, and she needed to offload it in another way.

He smelled the tears before he saw them. There was nothing to be done about them yet as her fist was about to connect with his jaw. The pup leaned back, and grabbed her fist. If she did not fight him too hard, Aerik would just pull her close. For the moment he did not care if anyone was looking. His nature was to be empathetic.

Arms would wrap around in a hug if she would let him. The wolf pup said nothing. If she wanted to cry she could let it out. No one had to know.

 

[Irina Jesart]

Anger flashed across her face as she felt his hand close about her fist denying her yet again. Irina tensed as he pulled her close, expecting him to pull the same trick she tried to resist but he was far stronger. But there was no follow through, no movement to unbalance her.

“Aerik…what…”

He wrapped his arms around her, and for a moment, Irina didn't move, she didn't even breathe as her racing mind tried to make sense of what was happening. Slowly she melted into his embrace, her face burying into his shoulder as the tears began to pour. Her hands clutched at his sides as she desperately tried to keep her sobs quiet.

There was nothing to stop the flow of core memories, no distraction from the onslaught as her fathers face flickered past her close eyes. His smile warm, eyes full of love. He had always doted on her, he never raised his voice, not at her. Despite all his faults, he was…he had been a good father.

And now he was gone.

“People will see.” She whispered after a moment.

Aerik Lechner

 

[Aerik Lechner]

WEARING: xxx
TAG: Irina Jesart

Aerik stood with Irina for a moment. She had tried to fight back against his grip, and definitely tried to keep him from pulling her in. His hug surprised her, but it also broke her, at least for a time. The girl trembled in his arms trying to keep her sobs quiet. Trying to spar had likely been a mistake, but it was a little late for that.

Her whisper was loud in his ear, only because of his hearing. She was concerned the few that were in the room would see what was happening, would see them. Aerik nodded, but he did not move. His breathing was steady, until it seemed as though her body was no longer trembling.

“Put your leg behind mine and pivot. Knock me down.”

It would make others think they had been struggling and not hugging. At least that is what he had hoped.

“Then maybe get excited that you managed to knock me down or something.”

He was not good at the art of subterfuge, but the pup knew they would have to sell the show somehow. This would be the only time he would let the girl knock him down. There would be no other freebies after this one.

 

[Irina Jesart]

His steady breathing and the warmth of his arms around her was a calm she didn;t realise she needed. Irina had also been the calm centre, the person to keep things on an even keel at home. To be the one off kilter, the one who needed to be calmed was alien to her, but in this moment she was grateful for the boy that she'd come quickly to call her friend.

When her breathing levelled out to match his and the tears stopped flowing she followed his instructions, snaking her leg behind his as he had done hers when the spar had started and shoved him, letting a little space come between them as he fell back only to realise she had not quite untangled her own legs from his.

They tumbled back to the mat together, her weight falling on his chest briefly before she rolled away and came up to a crouch.

"I thought you were supposed to be hard to take down, Lechner."

She teased him, loud enough for those who might be listening to hear. She made a small show of wiping sweat from her brow with her sleeve, wiping away the tears with it.

Aerik Lechner

 

[Aerik Lechner]

WEARING: xxx
TAG: Irina Jesart

His back hit the mat hard. The pup decided to make a show of it for those that might be watching. Aerik was not convinced anyone was really, but because Irina was concerned he played it off. She had not accounted for his mass, even though she was slightly taller, and in the end she fell on top of him. Her quick recovery made it so that there was not lasting or lingering moment which could have been misconstrued for anything untoward.

That was good.

If Irina had been concerned about crying in front of others, they both needed to worry about any kind of sign of attachment. They did not really need to broadcast they were friends, but Aerik wondered if that was already a forgone conclusion for some. The subtle way they seemed to be near each other’s shadow was a telling sign for those observant enough. Though Aerik could not say he was one of them.

He chuckled for a little before standing up and dusting himself off.

“Maybe that is enough for today,” he said.

It was not that he wanted to be done, but he could tell the more they sparred, the more she would recall lessons with her father. The girl needed to deal with her grief where eyes were not watching. Besides, it was almost another new moon. The cover of dark would see them back at the center of the maze soon enough.