Conflict Within

[Aryn Teth]

Aryn Teth

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The Carrion Sunrise, Hyperspace​

Interacting With: [member="Srina Talon"]​

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The kind of passion that burst forth from Srina was not only unexpected, but almost unprecedented. Aryn was entirely unused to her acting in such a manner, it wasn't only rare, he had never even known her to release such passion. Even in combat, Aryn could not recall a time when Srina had so willingly given into her emotions, into her desires. She was a Sith certainly, but her reluctance and her efforts to keep her emotions curtailed had often meant that Aryn viewed her almost beyond the temptations of the traditional Sith, yet this seemed to indicated that was not the case. Aryn wished he could have said that it was an unpleasant experience, he felt like perhaps that was how he should have reacted.

Yet, what seemed most startling to the Jedi as their lips parted again wasn't the implications of her passion, of the emotions now raging within her as they had through him after he had awoken. Rather, what was most stunning to Aryn was how little things seemed to have changed. Aryn knew there was truth to her words, she was a Sith, by all accounts they should have been enemies, they should never have been as close as they were, should never have even gotten close in the first place.

But, they were. The words that came from Srina's lips were warnings, but Aryn felt as though he already knew them, or at the very least, that they were far too late. Even if he had come to some kind of clarity, he knew that the way he already felt was unlikely to change, he doubted it ever would. Her changes, the dangers of their situation, none of it mattered to him, it couldn't any more, his mind was already made up.

Aryn sighed, he considered, for a moment how it would be best to respond, how he could alleviate her fears, her concerns and the dangers that had come with their relationship already. Yet he found no words, he found no way to do so. There was no making Srina shy away from her worries, they rolled through her logical mind in a way that was entirely different to Aryn's own. If, possibly, these concerns were to pass, it would not be Aryn that alleviated them, he had made his beliefs clear, the decision to be made, had to be hers.

"All I wish is to take your fear away." As he spoke he trailed his thumb gently along her jawline and up her cheek where it rested, his eyes never leaving her own. "My decision is made, it is not one that will change, indeed I don't think I could ever imagine it changing." He sighed again, slipping his hand up to take hold of hers as it covered her lips, gently pulling it away as he laced his fingers gently with her own. "I would face down the galaxy to protect you, regardless of what your answer may be. But, I still need your answer."

 

[Srina Talon]

Location: [The Carrion Sunrise] - Coruscant Orbit, Corusca Sector, The Core Worlds
Interacting With: [member="Aryn Teth"]

“I wish you could.”, she responded to the Supreme Commander, golden eyes flaring with light, and echoing with phantom pain. The Sith Apprentice was unraveling. His love pulled her apart at the seams and left her in a tattered state of uncertainty. She should have felt flattered, warm, and protected. Instead, she only felt doubt, fear, and insecurity. His touch to her face was gentle. Achingly so, something she felt entirely undeserving of. Every touch, no matter how butterfly soft, left a tingling trail of flame in its wake. What he felt, what they felt, would only make him pay. “Humanity…Your emotions are fickle and change is inevitable. It could be a fleeting desire…”

“Tomorrow you could wake up and none of this will matter. Today you enjoy the flavor of a burrfruit. Tomorrow it could be pika. In the end…I will not matter.”

Echani, generally speaking, were not so privileged. It hurt to think it, to know, that something so soul-shaking existed but to realize that in a few days or a few weeks it might only be true for one of them. Her people tended to choose a partner for a variety of reasons. Genetic compatibility, fighting style, advancement of a house—Logically dictated. There were a few that chose their heart. Like her sister, Nysana. More often than not, however, it was a decision made only once. Just once.

He laced their fingers and she felt her body sigh. Relax. Srina knew that there was something he wanted to, correction, needed to know. She wished she knew how to respond. The little warrior felt her lips twitch when he mentioned facing down the galaxy to keep her safe, and oddly enough, she knew the feeling. On Dorsis she had sent the full force of her Master after one lowly bounty hunter just to keep him from his own darkness. She had invoked the one thing she knew would prompt the dark-skinned man to act. The debt, he believed that he owed Aryn, from Tatooine.

What wouldn’t she do to keep him safe? Very little.

“To be with you…”, she trailed off slowly, recalling his words, as her elegant brow furrowed. Her mind had closed to him, like a vault, since her outburst. It was a foreign feeling. She had grown so used to feeling his presence that she almost felt bereft without it. Golden orbs shifted, falling to his perfect blue, and mostly in vain she tried to understand. “What does that mean?”

Did it matter?

Srina wasn’t certain. Regardless, she knew, she wouldn’t be able to place her weapons on a shelf anytime soon. She was with him frequently. At more than one event, more than one battle, she had remained at his side throughout. As disillusioned as she was, even she could admit, that this was different. Nothing had ever moved her like this. Not when she’d been run through, and certainly, not when she’d left Eshan. Nothing broke through the wintry grace of her iron will.

Save, for him.

She wanted nothing more than to lean forward, to close the gap, so that she might feel his lips again. It would have been easy. Simple. He invaded her every thought, every beat of her heart, and there was nothing she could do to keep him out. She felt as if his first kiss had been the key to her undoing. It brought things to the surface that she’d stoically ignored. It forced her to see, what she hadn’t been ready to, or willing to. Her duty came first. It had to. Always.

“What exactly do you ask of me Aryn?”

It was too much to process all at once. For someone that mostly emulated the emotion she saw in others, save, for when her beliefs bid her otherwise—she was completely overwhelmed. What was he proposing? Casual relations were something Srina had never once entertained the idea of, and often, scoffed at. Then again, she’d never, ever thought that she’d be in this position. She never thought that anything would thaw her heart enough to place her here. It was weakness…

He was her weakness. Her weakness and her absolution. Would he really fight his own people, against his own beliefs, in her defense? Could he defend her as she summoned smoke demons and pulled the life from the world around them? Could he defend her whilst she emotionlessly drove her lightsaber slowly through an enemy, painfully slowly, just to ensure they felt every bit of it?

She didn’t know. He had promised as much, certainly, but it was easy to swear meaningless words when wrapped safe and sound in an embrace. It was terrifyingly different when put into practical application. Either way, she could not respond to his question, when she didn’t understand it. He wanted an answer that she did not know how to give.

 

[Aryn Teth]

Aryn Teth

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The Carrion Sunrise, Hyperspace​

Interacting With: [member="Srina Talon"]​

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Each question, each word that the Echani apprentice spoke echoed and reverberated in Aryn's mind. He heard himself echo the questions to himself, the questioning, the voices bursting forth again and again, coming up with a thousand different answers to her questions, and a thousand more things to say on top of it. Yet one question lingered, he struggled to really contemplate an answer of any form, and it surprised him that it had not occurred to him until she actually asked him.

What did he ask of her?

Aryn knew Srina would not lay down her weapons and step away from her role in the Confederacy, he honestly couldn't have said with any degree of certainty if that would ever be in the cards, similarly, he doubted he would ever do the same, at least not truly. He could certainly never ask her to put him above her devotion, her duty to the Confederacy either, he would never ask such a thing of her, but he had asked something of her, the question that needed to be answered was; what?

"I have felt desire before, a fleeting one, as you say." He spoke matter-of-factly, but the subtle undercurrents of his voice indicated that he spoke with all the delicacy one would use to step on glass. It was the kind of caution one might have used when approaching an angry kath-hound, hoping that it won't bite you for trespassing in its lair, or perhaps more-so the trepidation one used practicing newly-learned Shyriiwook, taking extra care with one's words and knowing desperately that the slightest slip-up could mean the difference between a warm greeting and a horrendous familial insult. "This is no such thing, to say it might be? That would be like comparing a sunset to a supernova." He spoke with a kind of firmness, though it was clear this was not to refute or insult her comment, instead, it simply carried certainty.

"I don't wish to take you from the life you lead, I would never seek to change it, to change you." He reached up again, casually brushing another strand of hair from her face, eager to wipe away anything that might disturb his view of her golden eyes, the shift in colour still hardly registering to the man who was so used to their silver-blue. "In honesty, I doubt I have the right to ask anything of you, perhaps I am merely selfish in doing so, but I find myself asking anyway..." He sighed, intently focused upon her eyes, her hair, any part of her face that distracted him even partially from the temptation of her lips.

"Love me, as I love you, allow me to share in your life like no other. Our bond allows me to search through the recesses of your mind, and you mine - but I wish to walk in the halls of your heart."

 

[Srina Talon]

Location: [The Carrion Sunrise] - Coruscant Orbit, Corusca Sector, The Core Worlds
Interacting With: [member="Aryn Teth"]

Impatience.

Srina Talon had learned a number of things since waking up that morning, in a cold sweat, drowning in fears that didn’t belong to her. Usually, she was the one to counsel her Master, to advise him to have patience. Now she felt the strain. The petulant need for answers, despite the fact, that she had taken just as much time as Aryn had to formulate her responses. It was unfair, ridiculous, but the twisting feeling in the pit of her stomach wouldn’t let her mind rest. With her mind closed to him, locked tighter than drum, she could not sift through his thoughts. It was a double-edged sword.

When he finally did speak she felt confused. Fleeting desire? The gold in her eyes burned against her will, growing sharper, and if anything seemed to teem with windswept ire. Why? She didn’t know. Srina could feel him trying to be delicate, trying to spare her for whatever reason, but the Echani did not know the meaning of it. Her words were hard in the interim. Unlike her usual calmness and serenity, it would almost seem snide. Bitter. “You’ve copulated. Most creatures do.”

Aryn went on and she tried, very hard, to quell the growing dark inside. It had never before been this difficult to lock her emotions away in a box where they belonged. He spoke artistically of a sunset to a supernova and the pale-beauty tried to envision the true meaning behind the analogy. Before, it seemed, it was a sunset. His feelings for her were akin to supernova? It was ironic that he would compare her to something so powerful, so bright, which would ultimately destroy him if he got too close. Was that really the only path she had for him? Annihilation?

Some of her irritation melted when he explained that he had no desire to take her from the life she knew. No desire to change her. It was a kind thought, however, entirely unavoidable. The heresy he was insinuating would change both of them whether they liked it or not. His touch to her cheek, brushing her hair away, caused the gold of her eyes to flicker. It changed, swirling, like that of a molten metal. Then came his request. His admission. He was right. He was selfish.

So was she. Endlessly, selfish.

He asked for access to something he already had the key to. The Supreme Commander had been part of her, undeniably, ever since the lines between duty and friendship had blurred on Sullust. Whenever she needed him, whenever he needed her, they would move heaven and earth to see those needs met. He had rushed her from a veritable warzone. She had dead-dropped into one, incensed, by the slightest threat that Koda Fett presented.

The pale-skinned woman brought their twined fingers up and twisted them round so she could press a kiss to the back of his hand. It was soft. Lingering. It reminded her of how she felt in his presence. As if she’d been holding her breath until her paths crossed, and could only exhale, when he was nearby. If there was anyone in the galaxy that could hold her back from doing something morally questionable—it was him. “I would do anything you asked of me. Have I not?”

Srina had defied her Master to retain their Force Bond. Both, because of what it meant to her, and because of the failure of an attempt she’d had on her own to remove it. The more she tried to rip Aryn Teth out of her being the more it seemed willing to make her suffer. He had warned her once that it would kill her. She believed him. She had fought and continued to fight with the Sith Lord over the nature of their relationship. He saw betrayal. Srina did not. “You are a part of me. You have been part of me ever since we fought on Sullust. I feel you. This love you speak of—I feel it. Warm. Like the sun…”

She paused. A flash of fear ran through her eyes. It crossed over her heart. The typically emotionless Echani was afraid, as she had mentioned before, of everything that was happening. It was moving too quickly, too intensely, and the warm sunlight she likened it to could just as easily burn them to a crisp. “I need time, Aryn. I know it’s a lot to ask for but in my eyes this isn’t a simple question that can be answered in a heated whim. We deserve more than that.”

Srina let their hands fall as she leaned forward anew. Where her first kiss had been punishing, this, was entirely opposite. Soft. Tentative. Her lips were flower petals against his, caressing carefully, expressing what she felt that she could not find the words for. He sought an unbridled commitment that the young woman could not process while her head was so full of him. Everything about him called to her. His voice, his eyes, his face, skin, hair—even his breath made her want to be closer and throw caution to the wind.

Her response was not exactly what he asked for. She felt her words would reflect, poorly, the war going on inside. Perhaps her kiss, her touch, would do a better job explaining it.

 

[Aryn Teth]

Aryn Teth

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The Carrion Sunrise, Hyperspace​

Interacting With: [member="Srina Talon"]​

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The sharp sting of Srina's initial response to his words was... unexpected. He had seen a lot of things that were unexpected from her over the past hour or so, she had actively expressed far more emotion than she usually did, she usually kept such emotion very much under control, to the point where there were certain emotions, certain responses that he had never even seen, or that he certainly didn't remotely expect to see. Jealousy was quite possibly chief among all of those.

Aryn felt more than a little bad at the fact that he almost took comfort in the fact that she had actually felt jealously over him.

There was no answer to his question, at least, not in a way that would truly put an end to his question, but the warmth of her words, coupled with the tender feeling of her lips once more pressed against his own, it was enough. For now. Feeling her gently pull away from the feather-touch of a kiss she had once more pressed to his lips, he took her hands again in his own, and, as she had, gently pressed a kiss of his own to the back of her palm, his eyes lingering upon her own. "Take however long you need." There was a certainty to his words, a kind of posturing.

He had hoped for a more immediate response, but he could feel the genuine consideration behind her mind's eye, and her tenderness and responses both physically and in regards to her words had more than cemented in Aryn's mind that whatever the response was, it was unlikely to be a harsh rebuke. "I will still be here when you decide on your answer." He assured her again, a gentle smile splitting the serious line that his lips had formed previously.

For a few moments longer, his eyes lingered on hers, before Aryn finally fought to pull himself from the hypnosis they had drawn him into. "You're right, I should check the systems." He smiled, finally answering her suggestion from earlier as he leaned forward to steal one, last, fleeting kiss. "I'll let you know when we're about to hit Eriadu." He said, smiling before he slowly and finally allowed his fingers to slip from hers as he turned to head for the door.

 

[Srina Talon]

When her lips moved with his she felt, among other things, more than a little anxious. She was new to this in the most obvious sense and for the most part, had no idea what she was doing. Her soft form pressed gently against the hard lines that made his body what it was simply because it felt natural. Every movement, every touch, and every kiss was simply based on how Aryn responded. With or without words, deliberate or on purpose, she was slowly figuring out that this was something he very much so enjoyed. When the young woman pulled away, and reigned in her affections, she didn’t want to. It was a necessity. The longer she spent kissing him, the more she became uncertain of herself, and the more clouded her rational mind became.

Srina could not think while breathing his air, while the taste of him still lingered on her lips, and could scarcely bring herself to try. It was not her usual response. Normally, she avoided emotion at all costs, and anything that drew it from her was often ignored. She buried what she felt. Everything. Every fear, every hope, every dream. Did he feel it now? Her wants? The small amounts of confused wonder?

She knew, instinctively, that her words had not been what the Commander wanted to hear. He held her gaze effortlessly, and even now, with threads if disappointment running through him, there was something in his expression that made her blush and momentarily avert her eyes. The way he looked at her was perplexing. Sometimes, as if she were precious, something to be infinitely cared for. Other times, when his expression became serious, Srina was left feeling as if she were something he might like to devour.

She wasn’t so sure she didn’t want him to.

He wrapped their fingers together and kissed the back of her hand. A shiver ran down her spine that was entirely triggered by the simple feeling of his lips against her skin. How did he expect her to hear what he was saying when every time he did so, he touched her, looked at her, and so often…So often he smiled. She had always enjoyed his happiness. That was something she was no stranger to, and yet, this was the first time she could remember it making her knees feel weak.

Aryn assured her that he would still be there when she was ready and she could only nod her head slowly. She didn’t trust her own voice. He kissed her again, a quick burst of flame, but the Jedi withdrew far too quickly. Checking the systems? Her thought process seemed slowed, until she realized he intended to leave her alone, and she breathed in sharply. She felt colder without him. Just like she had before. So much of her felt raw and exposed. “Aryn—“, she called his name as he moved to leave, her voice small, and more than a little troubled.

She did not know the words to ask for what she desired. The white-haired woman was both shaken and entirely overwhelmed by a simple kiss, let alone, the notion that someone actually wanted her heart. Why Aryn would ever want something so frigid and cold was beyond her. “I…”, she trailed off, clearly fighting with herself and frustrated with her lack of articulation. “Please don’t go. Not yet.”

The gold in her eyes seemed to diminish. The harshness of the corruption faded, gently, returning them to that of a wintry gray sky. They were expressive, but more than anything, lost. As she had always anchored him, this time, she needed him to anchor her. Her hand extended, but she didn’t actually make contact. This time, instead of being the aggressor, she would wait and see if he would be willing to come to her.

“I need you with me—just for five more minutes.”

[member="Aryn Teth"]

 

[Aryn Teth]

Aryn Teth

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The Carrion Sunrise, Hyperspace​

Interacting With: [member="Srina Talon"]​

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The slow pace that Aryn took as he turned and made his way to the door ground to a quick halt the second he heard his name come from Srina's lips. He had set himself to giving her time, to getting back to the matter at hand which had brought them to his ship in the first place, but he had been far from fully convincing himself that leaving was something he actually held any sort of desire to do. He stopped and turned, stood over by the door as his gaze settled back upon Srina's form, taking her in all over again as though he were seeing her for the first time, as if he had not only had her out of his sight for mere seconds before he heard her voice calling him back.

It was still strange to see Srina in such a manner, often she was so articulate, so in control of herself and her words, so commanding in her presence that nothing gave her pause. He could tell she was frustrated about this deviation from the norm as she spoke, he pauses, he trailing off, and the brief expressions and shifts that criss-crossed her face as she spoke cried volumes of that frustration. There was something he enjoyed about her frustration, there was a kind of attraction he found in seeing her so out of her element, had he felt like irritating her further, he may have told her it was cute.

He decided that now was probably not the best time to crack jokes. Instead as she spoke, a soft smile split Aryn's lips. He nodded, reaching over to the panel of the door he had once intended to leave from, hitting a few buttons as the door closed, and he made his way back towards Srina.

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The Carrion Sunrise, Outside the Ruins of the Teth Estate, Eriadu, Seswenna Sector, The Outer Rim Territories​

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It had been years since Aryn had visited Eriadu proper, and especially since he had properly returned to his family home. He knew that the estate had been destroyed when the former Galactic Empire had made an assault on the world early into the Great Galactic War, the assault had cost Aryn not only his old home, but the family who lived there, who he had left behind when he broke away from Eriadu in the hope of one day making something of himself in the galaxy. Now he had made something of himself, as he had hoped, but in the aftermath of that assault he had wondered if it was worth it in the end, if he was really cut out for the life that he now led.

Aryn sighed as he opened the door to the crew quarters once more, stepping back out as his astromech beeped excitedly on the other side of the door about their arrival. He made his way down towards the ramp, stepping down and out of his craft onto the dirt and grass of the Carrion plateau. They had landed a fair distance from the old estate, but it was easy to see after he stepped outside, the once-pristine and illustrious estate now reduce on the surface to little more than rubble, the target of a direct orbital bombardment. One that he had failed to stop.

One that had been intended for him in the first place.

Sighing, Aryn turned his gaze over his shoulder to look back up the ramp, calling back out to Srina. "Are you ready?"

 

[Srina Talon]

Silver-blue eyes ran along the line of his back when he stopped walking away at her behest. If Aryn had kept moving, if he had passed through the doorway, she wasn’t sure what she would have done. What she might have broken. She could feel the Force reacting to her unstable emotional state in more than just the changing color of her eyes. It felt like pressure. As if there were too much energy, too much power, pressed into a form that was far too small and weak to contain it. “Please.”, she repeated lowly, her wintry tones soft and barely there.

Srina, the Dread Queen of the Confederacy, feared of all things—Rejection.

Aryn smiled. Finally—and her soul breathed. He closed the door and returned, as requested, to sweep her back into his arms. The silence would have been deafening to anyone else, but to the young Echani, she heard and saw all she needed to. Her head tucked beneath his chin as her arms wrapped around his waist, taking comfort in his nearness, in the sound of his heartbeat, and the warmth of his affections.

Lavender-tinted lids slid closed over unreadable gray eyes. Dusky lashes fluttered over rose-hued cheeks, while she moved on instinct, burrowing closer. For once she was gladdened he wasn’t wearing armor. Srina wanted to be closer. She wanted to disappear, to hold time, to suspend it, so that neither of them had to venture out into the metaphorical cold ever again. He filled her head with a cloudy haze akin to the effects of a sweet wine, while her heart overflowed, aching, in a way she did not have words to describe. It hurt. She wanted it to hurt.

Was that love?

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Srina found herself once again rummaging through the clothing that had been provided by an attendant droid. It had picked up everything humanly possible for a well-bred, lovely young woman, but nothing that the little warrior could actually use in a practical sense. The pale pink ensemble that she’d worn for comfort while traveling would not survive what Aryn had described for the state of Eriadu. Eventually, she settled on a pair of dark leggings, beneath a loose-fitting, gray tunic. She belted it so that it would fit properly in the middle and put the dark ankle boots back on.

She was just rebraiding her long moonlit hair, off to the side and down her right shoulder, as she walked slowly toward the exit. The pale-skinned woman was moving with less grace than normal, almost as if something had set her typical, nigh ethereal, gait off-kilter. “Ready.”, her honeyed voice was breathy and nearly stolen by the breeze.

Silver eyes flickered when she moved to step down the ramp. Her head tilted, but she kept moving, focused on Aryn over anything else. It was an easy sight to get lost in. Familiar. Even when a new emotion began to set in, regret, perhaps. He was still the thing she was most accustomed to on this world. Still, her balance. Turning her gaze from the Supreme Commander she began to evaluate her surroundings. Keen Echani eyes, even distracted, missed nothing. “What happened here?”

They had spoken of many things, since they had first met on Sullust, but they had not discussed this. Her mind went back to the nightmare that had brought them here. Was this what he saw? What he felt so guilty for? She knew of his wayward sibling, but, it occurred to her that she did not know of his parents. If they had been present when this attack took place she was hard-pressed to believe that they were still alive unless they had some sort of panic bunker beneath the surface.

The slender woman moved to stand beside Aryn and her fingers wrapped around his in silence. It was a form of silent support, a promise, that she would see this through with him. He would not have to face the demons of his past alone.

 

[Aryn Teth]

Aryn Teth

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Outside the Ruins of the Teth Estate, Eriadu, Seswenna Sector, The Outer Rim Territories​

Interacting With: [member="Srina Talon"]​

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Aryn heard Srina's voice echoing through the ship in response to his words, but his mind made barely any sense of it as he looked out and over the place that had once been his home. He sighed, only being drawn from his thoughts as he usually was by the gentle feeling of her fingers wrapping around his own. It was only then that he noticed the tears welling in his eyes, the pain that had been lingering suddenly rushed forward to envelop him, as though it had been held at bay by his own trance.

He took a number of long moments, forcing back the sudden well of emotion as he stood at her side. When he finally came to give her an answer, he knew it wouldn't have been the one she wanted, not the full explanation, but he needed a little more time for that, at this moment, he just hurt. "The Empire happened." He commented with a gentle sigh, giving her hand a squeeze as he took a few steps forward towards the front door.

As he reached it, he pushed it open slowly, the door threatening to break off its hinges even from the slightest touch, the wood creaking and grinding as it dragged over the ground. The entry-hall was wrecked, furniture lay strewn about, damaged and devastated. Two doorways split off to the left and right, each into a separate living room with a large set of stairs to the front, a thin hallway on the right side. Light shone in from a hole in the roof above them, down into another below, the sign of a direct blast that had struck the house.

As he stepped inside, the wood still creaked and echoed beneath his boots as it always had, decrepit and damaged as it had become, it was still his home as he remembered it. Taking in a sigh, he looked into the sitting room on the left, Aryn recalled a hundred times he had sat there with his father, learning the lessons of business and governance his father had one day expected him to follow along with. Only a few steps into his home he froze, face pale as memories flooded to the forefront of his mind.

For Aryn, this homecoming was agony, but it was necessary.

 

[Srina Talon]

Silver-blue eyes hardened when Aryn responded that this destruction was due to the activities of the Galactic Empire. Was there nowhere that nation hadn’t placed their boot? It was a sight that tore at her more than it should have. Srina was capable of viewing atrocities quite like walking through a history museum. She saw what happened, took in knowledge, details, and understood the ripples of cause and effect. It was a very unemotional review. Through the man at her side, it felt as of her own home had been decimated. Her breath hitched in her chest.

He had tears in his eyes. She would have drawn him down into an embrace, to hide him, to shield him from this but he seemed determined to press forward. “I am sorry.”

Srina kept her fingers wrapped around his as they walked forward. He had squeezed her hand, letting her know he was with her, and all right, but she didn’t want to let go. Every movement he made toward the ruins of his home felt like agony. She turned into the line of his body, pressing against him, when the door creaked open in order to hide her eyes against the dust. When it stopped falling they moved inward and she was hesitant of the floorboards that creaked beneath her feet. She wasn’t certain it would hold their combined weight.

He led her inside the ruins of what had once been a lovely home. She could see decayed and fraying edges of a once warm atmosphere. Aryn was in pain. Her free arm slid around his waist momentarily embracing him before releasing the much taller man. They had come here for a reason. What were they looking for? Surely, not these memories that left him a shell.

“What happened to your parents?”

Srina did not know what he would respond. She was almost afraid of what he would respond. He did not react like a man who had only lost material objects, things, or simply the roof that had housed him as a child. His pain ran deep. Perhaps it was his nightmares, or the guilt seeping through, but she distinctly did not want to be here any longer. The sadness that brewed from Aryn was insurmountable. It was hard to bridge the gap between the gentle emotions she felt before on the ship and the despair she felt now. She was too inexperienced with any of this to be of much use.

All she wanted to do was take his pain away. It wounded her that she could not.

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[member="Aryn Teth"]

 

[Aryn Teth]

Aryn Teth

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Ruins of the Teth Estate, Eriadu, Seswenna Sector, The Outer Rim Territories​

Interacting With: [member="Srina Talon"]​

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The question that Srina asked gave Aryn pause, he knew it was coming, knew that the curiosity which so clearly burned within her would soon enough be made manifest, but was he ready for the question? For the answer? He had hidden from it so long, kept his grief hidden under his role of Supreme Commander, focused on matters that he had decided were 'more important'. He had never given himself any degree of time to come to terms with what had really happened, he had foregone his own mourning for what he believed was the betterment of the war effort, and of the Alliance.

With Srina at his side he stepped into what had once been the sitting room, the old couch remained, dirtied from disrepair and frayed by burns from the bombardment that had struck his home. He sat down in the same spot he had sat a hundred times before to receive a lecture for his lack of a desire to continue his parents' work, or for the many times he had been brought home by the planetary security force for his youthful escapades. Hard and damaged as the sofa was, there was a strange kind of comfort to it. For a moment, he saw his father, sitting across from him and going on some rant, but the image faded as quickly as it came.

"They say a Jedi should be taken from a young age, so they never have the chance to form strong connections with family, those kinds of connections can push them to the dark side." He spoke quietly, but even with the softness of his words, they carried far in the deafening silence of the ruined home. Aryn had not left his home to become a jedi, when he left Eriadu he was still oblivious of his own force-sensitivity, back then he was just a pilot, looking to find his place in the galaxy. With the way things had gone, he was still unsure if he had really found that place. "I hadn't seen my parents in ten years when the Empire came to Eriadu, we sent a few messages back and forth when I joined the Alliance, but I never actually saw them - not even when I was on the same planet before the Empire's attack." He spoke with a plain calm, it was unnatural, it came with the same effort he had expended when he first heard of the bombardment, the same effort that let him push his misery to the back of his mind.

"The house is far enough from Phelar that the two of them figured they would be safe, there's no reason that they should have been in danger - except for the fact that they were my parents." He sighed, a heavy sigh, a well of sadness threatening to burst forth, but held back just barely as he looked up at her, shrugging his shoulders. "So, they died just because I was their son." In moments he had pulled Srina close to him, he needed her to be there, he couldn't afford any distance between them in that moment. He still fought, desperately holding back the pit of sorrow that was trying to break free, he felt in that moment that she was the only thing letting him hold it at bay.

 

[Srina Talon]

The graceful Echani moved through the ruins of his childhood home with an eloquence that seemed all wrong. Such a careful, elegant creature, did not belong amongst all the dust and destroyed memories. She followed Aryn for several reasons. One, because it felt like the thing to do, and two, because it felt like he needed her to. Mercurial eyes grew quiet when she realized that his silence had already answered her questions. A grief that she had never known, never realized existed, swam to the surface of and Srina felt adrift.

She did not know how to comfort him. He sat down and she watched. The dark-haired man looked so much younger for a moment that she felt as if she were looking at him through a clouded glass. As if her vision was distorted. She could not see him as she always had. Strong, so strong.

Srina stepped forward, moving delicately around the rubble, before coming to stop in front of Aryn. She reached for him as she usually did. Every part of her reached for him. Why was it that she only noticed it now? Soft hands fell to the sides of his face and the generally stoic woman pressed a lingering kiss to his forehead. She did not know the words to help him. She could only touch, feel, and hope that he knew.

“I would enjoy watching someone try to take my child from me.”

There was a touch of bleak obscurity to her tone that overshadowed her typical emotionless inflection. Her eyes did not move and instead almost seemed fierce. It was a threat in all but words. If a Jedi Master, one day, appeared on her doorstep and demanded her offspring—she would sooner skin them alive. Younglings were precious. It was one of the few pieces of lore the Echani had, that most believed in when it came to family. To lose a child, either by death or by the greedy hands of another was soul-wrenching. To know that loss was to face the possibility of dying of a broken heart.

The snow-kissed woman leaned forward again and pressed her lips back against his skin when he made his admission. His guilt was palpable. Her eyes closed. She wished she could take it away. The same way she drained his anger, his hate, his darkness…She would have given anything to spare him. Anything not to feel so helpless. “You’re wrong Aryn…”

“They died because of the warmongering of the Empire. Not because of you.”

She felt his arms wrap around her waist and she let the Jedi pull her close. Srina did not resist. She could not. The pale woman was small enough that she could wrap her arms around his shoulders easily and she found herself doing so. She could feel his want. His need. “Nányë sí…[I am here…]”, she whispered gently, so quietly, that he might not have heard it. She willed him to believe her over the shadows that lingered in his mind.

It was a hall of nightmares for someone that didn’t deserve it. A place of sorrow. For the effect that it had on her Jedi she absolutely loathed this place.

“Lle naa il-a' cáma. [You are not to blame.]”

[member="Aryn Teth"]​

 

[Aryn Teth]

Aryn Teth

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Ruins of the Teth Estate, Eriadu, Seswenna Sector, The Outer Rim Territories​

Interacting With: [member="Srina Talon"]​

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The Aryn Teth who sat on the couch in his old family sitting room - now just a ruin and barely recognizable - was not the same Aryn Teth who was the Supreme Commander of the Alliance, who called himself a Jedi, and protected others to the best of his ability. This homecoming had shattered the illusion of that man, at this moment he was a distant memory, what remained was a boy, one who had made all the wrong decisions, who had missed the things that should have been at the center of his mind, who had no chance to go back and make up for past mistakes.

Aryn hurt, it wasn't just a sadness, as he clung tightly to Srina, he felt a physical pain, a stabbing and a twisting of his gut that made everything seem completely wrong. He felt in that moment that he held no greater desire than to leave, than to force himself to forget, but how could he now? Now that he had seen it, that he had returned home, he would never forget. Aryn Teth was not just affected by this journey home, he was a man sure to be changed forever.

Srina spoke, and she assured him that it was not his fault as he believed, that the blood of his parents was on the hands of the Empire, but what had brought the Empire there? He tried his best to believe, to understand and accept what she said, but it was not easy. There was something he felt from her words, something he knew, but for now it remained hidden, he figured he would need some time to determine just what he believed of her words.

The soft sound of her whispering voice came to his ears, and he understood the words perfectly though he had never spoken the language a day in his life, one of the benefits of the tight bond which linked the two of them through the force. It was calming, but he wasn't sure if it was that alone, but the thoughts she had unknowingly prompted into his mind as well that began to finally, silently urge him into a calm. It was slow, but he settled, his mind gradually put at ease, no longer drowned in grief.

It was then that he felt, that he heard something else. He did not realize that it was not a sensation, not a calling that Srina would hear - for once when it came to their bond, this was one-sided. It was strange to hear it, whatever it was. Aryn had come to learn of the echo that he emitted, the void that lay at his core which screamed out across the galaxy to those with the will and the capability to listen, what he heard was the same, and ti was different, it defied reason, understanding.

Gently his hands lifted, taking hers from around him, linking his fingers with her as he moved to stand again, a strange, new determination at his core. "There's... Something else that brought me here, I can feel it."

 

[Srina Talon]

Srina did not want to be here. This planet, this place, these particular coordinates brought tears to her eyes that nearly welled over. She breathed, and it hitched, as pain rolled through her. It did not belong to her. She knew that it didn’t and it took everything she had to let it pass through her. No matter how she cared for this man, she could not, and would not make his pain her own. He claimed to understand the path she walked. He claimed to love her eyes—whether they were filled with corruption or silver as starlight.

He would not feel the same way if his emotion overwhelmed her senses. Aryn would not look at her the same way, ever again, if she let his pain bring her to the doorstep of shadows and loss.

She would do terrible things to defend him. Terrible, terrible things.

Instead, she whispered gentle assurances to the Jedi in her arms and rained the gentlest of kisses down on his handsome face. She spoke in her native tongue, murmuring over and over, the truth that his guilt-ridden conscience did not want to accept. Srina willed him to feel her faith. Her belief. She knew of no other way to make her point clear. She was not equipped for this. Her capacity for compassion had tenderness had become stunted throughout years of learning how to ignore unnecessary emotions.

Anything that clouded her judgment was heresy. It was one of the reasons she was quite possibly the strangest Sith Apprentice in the galaxy. She used the primordial dark as a tool. She let her anger and pain flow when and if she needed power—not simply because she felt sad.

In this moment she tried. She remembered as a child how her parents had managed to soothe her when the nights were at their darkest. Srina remembered turning the same approach on her siblings when they were about the same age. She turned to a similar approach with Aryn. Srina tried to let him feel her strength, her calm, her peace… “I will always be here. Take from me what you need.”

Eventually, he pulled away. He linked their fingers as he stood and Srina could feel that something within him had changed. However, she did not know why. His determination was palpable. Wintry gray eyes met his, touched with confusion, but the emotion was already starting to clear. What was he talking about? Srina hadn’t felt a thing. It occurred to her then that she hadn’t felt the whole of his dream either. “I can’t feel it.”

One of her hands escaped his and slid up his chest to rest against the side of his neck. Her fingertips brushed against the bottom of his jaw while she focused. Her gaze lingered on his and as she walked her way along the path of their bond. Still, nothing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t feel any pull. I can’t feel anything at all…”

“Only you.”

Which meant that he would have to lead the way. Srina was blind to whatever it was that called to him.

[member="Aryn Teth"]

 

[Aryn Teth]

Aryn Teth

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Ruins of the Teth Estate, Eriadu, Seswenna Sector, The Outer Rim Territories​

Interacting With: [member="Srina Talon"]​

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Aryn did not understand. It wasn't particularly uncommon for him to lack such understanding, for all of his efforts to learn more of his unique abilities in the force, his affliction, he had learned barely anything. Aryn understood that what plagued him, the wound that surrounded and followed him, was a rarity, there were few if any in the galaxy today he actually knew who held the same affliction, and he only knew of a few prior to the gulag plague who had experienced a similar power.

It was this ability that had first linked him and Srina, and it had linked Aryn with countless others across the galaxy, force-sensitive or otherwise, but the more he had learned, the more he had feared it. He fed on those links he drew with others, he pulled power from those around him, and he knew that unchecked, in the case of some who had held such power before, it had destroyed them, it had the potential to cause death and misery on an immense scale.

What he did know about it had largely led to the fear which came from his dream - he knew that his power, his curse, whatever it was, it created an emptiness around him in which the will of the force was denied, it meant he had no destiny.

He did not know how to respond to Srina's words, her lack of understanding, he still did not know what was calling to him, and so couldn't explain it to her, and so he said nothing. Squeezing her hand, he gently began to step away, out of the room as he led her behind him. He went alongside the stairs that led upstairs, and pulled open the old, often-locked door which led down into the basement. He had never been permitted to go down there, and his expeditions to find out whatever secrets his father kept beneath their home were always met with failure with the protocol droids or his parents caught the young Aryn.

Gently, he urged the door open, stepping down onto the stone steps which led downstairs. He knew at the bottom of those stairs was a door, one normally locked, but as he descended he saw the same blast that had put a hole in the entry-way upstairs had devastated the door, twisting the metal and leaving it permanently opened. On the other side was not exactly what he expected, no great vault of some hidden treasure, secret lab or panic room that he had anticipated his parents owning, it was a small hallway, at the end of which stood a small pedestal.

As he stepped into the hallway, the calling echoed louder, impossibly loud, and it was inconceivable to Aryn how Srina did not feel it. He stepped forward, pressing on towards the pedestal as his gaze settled upon the small object that sat upon it. It was a crystal, the shape and cut seeming to indicate it as the kind that would sit within a lightsaber, yet it held no colour, and no echo of the force poured from it as was common among lightsaber crystals.

Reaching out, he gently placed his thumb and forefinger on either side of the crystal, delicately and carefully lifting it as though it were likely to crumble in his grip. For moments he stood in silence, encapsulated by the crystal as a thousand images rolled through his mind, as the reality of the strange object dawned upon him, he knew not how his parents had found such an object or why they had kept it, neither of his parents had been force-sensitive, they could not have known the reality to the object unless it were far older, the crystal's history was lost on him, without his parents - perhaps forever.

"There's a wound within it, I don't understand..."

 

[Srina Talon]

Srina’s eyes searched his cerulean blues carefully. She wasn’t certain of his mindset. The normally stalwart and steadfast Commander had become somewhat unhinged in the last forty-eight hours. In some ways, she wished that she could turn back time. The slender Echani did not regret the newfound truths they’d discovered on his speedy junk-ship but she still felt a little strange. Different. She was trying to adjust to the fact that being so near to the Jedi beside her didn’t bother her.

In fact—in was quite the opposite. Being too far was difficult. It wasn’t the same way that she had felt physically bound to her Master when they’d first found one another. She had felt the drive of the Force behind that connection. It had been the first time she’d felt even remotely safe since leaving Eshan. It was the answer to all of her questions. All of her confusion. Without him, she wouldn’t have been half the woman she was today and her almost flawless adaptation to the Force would have been severely hampered. When it came to Aryn it was a choice that had been left in their own hands.

There was no cosmic force yanking her chain. Moreover, the quiet Sith Apprentice didn’t feel like a burden. Everything was so terribly muddled in her mind that she tried not to think about it. For now, she needed to regain her nigh pathological stillness. She needed to see this situation on Eriadu with clear eyes.

One of them had to.

The Jedi unbound his limbs from around her as his silent epiphany took control. His fingers slipped into her own, large, and encompassing. He squeezed her hand. Was that supposed to merit comfort? Was it assurance? Srina did not feel secure that Aryn had suddenly turned into a voiceless wraith that she couldn’t read. Despite her apprehension, however, she did trust him. She always had. “Be careful…”, she warned breathlessly, her sweet voice, high and lilting breaking the silence like glass breaking.

He held her hand throughout the trek. She wasn’t sure if it was because he needed her near, or, if it was to keep her from wandering around alone. The foundations of the estate were rather strong despite showing obvious signs of age but that didn’t mean the integrity couldn’t shift in areas they hadn’t entered. For all they knew it could be a death trap. Just one strong gust of wind from collapsing on their heads. "I still don’t feel anything. Are you sure it’s safe to be down here?”

Aryn stepped through the ruined portal as if bewitched. With her hand still trapped in his, she had little choice but to follow. Sure, she could have tried to pull away, but something urged her against it. He walked straight toward a small pedestal. His mind felt unsteady. Confused, as if he had never seen the inside of this chamber. There was no sense of familiarity.

Srina knew immediately that he had never seen the lifeless crystal before.

He turned it over in his free hand and she reached for his wrist to angle it a little higher. The stuttering light refracted, as it was want to do, when subjected to gem-like structures. It was clear. As he murmured about the wound within it she released him. “I’ve felt your wound.”

“It liked my energy a little too much—this isn’t the same thing.”

At least, not exactly, the same. It might have held similar properties but there was no feeling of consumption. The thing that existed, swirling, and deep within her Jedi was raw and ravenous. If the crystal was what he claimed it to be she didn’t feel any different. She didn’t feel her energy slip away. She couldn’t it feel it trying to steal all that she was as if it were a miniature black hole.

The effect that it had on Aryn wasn’t something she could easily dismiss. She was just skeptical. Rightfully so, apprehensive, about something she couldn’t feel. Srina was very attuned to both the man beside her and the Force itself. If she couldn’t feel it—She didn’t like it.

Moreover, she didn’t trust it.

"What does it feel like? Does it seem to want something? Or simply call out to you?"

[member="Aryn Teth"]

 

[Aryn Teth]

Aryn Teth

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Ruins of the Teth Estate, Eriadu, Seswenna Sector, The Outer Rim Territories​

Interacting With: [member="Srina Talon"]​

​

Srina's reaction to the crystal was curious to Aryn, to him, the object seemed an almost perfect reflection of the wound that followed him like a plague, it radiated the same sort of energy, had the same kind of call and echo which drew him in. The only thing that really confirmed that there was any real difference between his wound and the crystal he held was that she seemed to feel nothing. To her and to countless others, the crystal would have seemed like nothing more than a pretty rock, absolutely devoid of the force or of any special energy.

Aryn could feel the energy though, it was there, just not the kind that was common of crystals a force user would generally choose for their lightsabers. When he took it up he had seen things, images, heard voices and messages, an overflow of information that faded almost as quickly as it had come, it was more like a holocron than a crystal, except none of the information he had been flooded with seemed to make any sense. The information had not been organised, it wasn't like a holocron in that sense, nothing was put together in a way that was meant to be understood, it was just random, none of it was connected, a holocron often gave answers, but this only provided more questions.

"It's hard to explain, it's like it's trying to say something, but none of it fits, none of it makes sense." He truly did not know how to explain it, every time he tried to focus on the crystal again, he got a new set of voices, new images, most of the time completely disconnected from all the others. He couldn't explain any of it, the crystal was unlike anything the man had ever encountered, and that only fed his growing curiosity, he needed to get answers from this strange object, but just how he could get them, he didn't know.

Aryn sighed, closing the crystal within his palm as he reached down to tuck it into a pouch on his belt. When he did, he could feel the jagged edges of the crystal almost humming as they were enclosed within his hand, he felt it even after he released the crystal, for only a few moments as he turned and looked down towards Srina once more, only looking over her for a moment before he once more cast his gaze around the room, as if to ensure he didn't miss any other secrets.

"I'm not sure why this was even here, I don't know why my parents would have held onto it."