Damaged

[Jannik Morlandt]

[Sometime after Postscript: Teta - Revelations]​

[Title Music]​

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LOCATION​

Jedi Temple​

Ossus​

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Time took on the quality of irrelevance.

How long it had been - a fact that held no certainty for him - ceased to be of concern. Had it been days, had it been a week, or weeks? These things mattered not. Regardless of the length of time that had passed since he had been delivered to a freedom that felt only physical in scope, no-one save for the walls of his quarters and those intermittently attendant to him had laid eyes on him. The seclusion was severe, the needs of his body largely cast aside for the more pressing matter of his 'soul', for lack of better words. Long-term exposure to a planetary body steeped in the darkness could tax a man, certainly, and this was the majority reason for his meditations.

The rest? The rest was the very reason why, upon seeing the first Republic face he had seen since his surrender at Teta, he had insisted on an audience with the Jedi Council despite the needs that drove him to shut himself in his quarters, which he resigned himself to for the passage of time between being informed of the dissolution of the council, and his prospective meeting with the sole final authority amongst the Jedi of the Order, [member="Kiskla Grayson"], whom he had been told could be unavailable for several days, if not longer, but whom was keen to take in what he had to say. A good thing, perhaps, that he ended up waiting, as he had not been possessing of any decent measure of clarity at the time. And so, he meditated, soaking up the peace of Ossus, in between scrawling pages upon pages of notes referring to vision, prophecy, and the day-to-day of his time on Byss, in the company of the One Sith's prime oracle. Every minute detail was taken into account, for later, further examination.

It was his time with her in particular that was the driving force between a great many of his current thoughts, dominating them from time to time. It was that measure of time that would become ultimately insignificant stacked against the breadth of his life, but also undeniable and irrevocable in how it had indeed changed him. The change effected within him was not what any would have expected, Sith nor Jedi, and it would drive his actions henceforth, permanently altering the direction of his life.

He was in another stretch of meditations when the knock came, a sharp rapping of one, two, three, that heralded the arrival of the appointed time. It wasn't a matter of the knock being a signal, as the same tat-tat-tat had preceded the bringing of water, and perhaps food (which he barely managed to eat), but the now-familiar echo of the farseeing gift, that gave him this insight.

His eyes slowly opened, blues blurred for a moment from expression that had long-since dried on his cheeks, focusing on the door, as words came for him.

"Padawan Morlandt?"

He uncrossed his legs, flexed the joints, and stood.

"An audience with the Grandmaster awaits you."

He turned his head, looking in the mirror on the wall to see a rough-faced, days-unshaven man, with dark, unkempt curly hair and bagged blue eyes, touched by the sore red of too many tears shed for what was, what is, and what could be, looking back. Jannik raked one hand through the hair on his head and breathed a heavy sigh before coming to the door to see an unfamiliar face when he did. It was the unfamiliar faces that worried him most; where were the faces he had known? He looked on the other man (was he younger? older?), nodding as if to confirm something with himself. The other man smiled, despite appearances.

"Please come with me," and Jannik followed.

 

[Kiskla Grayson-Matteo]

[member="Johnny Diamonds"]' training was intensive and unorthodox, as his master was often pulled away on clandestine affairs which dented his training time. Today was one such time, when the situation was too delicate to bring the un-filtered youth along — he’d come back to Ossus with her after Reecee, but had immediately been instructed to bury himself in a mental maze for some fine-tuning.

That would give Kiskla enough time for due attention to the situation at hand. The return from The Sith on Empress Teta. Her first question was how? Ember hadn’t recovered as many Jedi as he had promised, had he? Ryan Korr had also lead a strike team. Surely one of the liberations were successful.

Since her own personal expedition, and being holed up on Alderaan with a rebel group for over a month, she was woefully behind. She would have liked to respond to Jannik when his notification had come through, but she had been on Eol Shan, retrieving a rumoured prophetic Jedi — a payout to Watts and Wraith that she felt owed.

A series of events now meant that she was seated in the hollow room that had been once filled with her peers, councillors. That had been disbanded by her authority in an attempt to equalize the hierarchy of The Order — people had become consumed in levels that no work was getting done. Progress was slowly evidencing itself.

Snow-white eyes looked up when the presence of the approaching Knight and Seer were detected. She rose from her uncomfortable seat, dark fabrics falling loosely. It didn’t matter how many official positions she had held, the traditional robes were not her choice of apparel. Today was no different. Before the large doors open, she dropped her hood, and brushed her palms against imaginary dust on her equally white pants.

"Padawan Morlandt." Came the drawl of a salutations as the Knight stepped to the side, letting the Grandmaster catch sight of the young man for the first time...in a very long time. He'd been under Liadain's wing for quite a long time, and sought additional help with Draclau, that much she knew. But how far he'd come?

Well she was about to find out.

[member="Jannik Morlandt"]​

 

[Jannik Morlandt]

Between the quarters and the chamber, bleariness that screwed his vision was blinked away and rubbed at, blinked away and rubbed at until clear enough that it was much less of a bother, as the disheveled padawan became more and more self-aware with each step, and raked a hand through his hair, but with the unruly tangle that it'd become, the attempt was fruitless and in truth, such matters were secondary. Still, without a doubt some small corner of his mind held onto the thought of making an itemized list to right his physical self. We're still human here, y'know! and other such cries that were but fading whispers against the greater truth. How do you turn a man inside-out and back again, and not leave a single wrinkle?

You don't.

He thought to make conversation, idle chit-chat, with the knight that accompanied him but perhaps to do so would steal away his pointed focus on the conversation that was coming for him. Thus when the knight delivered him to [member="Kiskla Grayson"], he looked almost blankly at his escort, before remembering to offer him a nod that came unaccompanied - no smile, no thanks, though the latter could be implied through the nod, and when she said his name, his red-rimmed blues came around to settle on her, and a breath drew in through his nose, slow and calm, and whooshed long and gentle out of his mouth.

"Master..." he blinked, and shook his head. No, not just that. It had been a while now since it'd been just that. He tried again, refocusing on her form and presence, and acknowledged her accordingly. "...Grandmaster Grayson."

And he tipped his head to her, too, hands folded in front of him, the sleeves of his robes obscuring them. He would not forget himself now, even though he looked as if he had been doing a great deal of forgetting himself altogether as of late.

"Thank ye for coming," there was sincerity in those words, beneath the ever-present worry at his brow, as he greeted her in much the same way he had greeted his masters at the start of each lesson: "ah trust y'are well?"

He wondered where they were, too. Where had all the familiar faces gone?

 

[Kiskla Grayson-Matteo]

A brow inevitably quirked at the calm approach the Padawan adopted. Still, it was better than being an absolute basket case, so she adopted to the mood [member="Jannik Morlandt"] was setting — be it his response out of habit, or on purpose.
There was a tumultuous nag about him, something beyond the placid, yet disheveled presentation. Kiskla anticipated there would be a gravity to this meeting unmet by the others that had returned. Erinyes had mentioned the seer’s raw power — and for him to engage with Isolda would be on a new level, considering what Talon had told of her. Kiskla too, had felt her touched, but had refused admission.

“Quite, thank you.” As fine as she could be, considering everything there was to be aware of, on top of, and .. everything that needed to be thwarted. The Sith presence was still very, very real. She gestured to an empty seat, usually occupied by a councillor. They weren’t particularly comfortable, but it would establish a more colloquial presentation “—And you? How are you doing, Jannik.”

 

[Jannik Morlandt]

Wordlessly, she invited him to sit, and wordlessly he accepted, stepping softly forward the handful of paces that would carry him there to take him off his feet once more. He settled into the seat, relaxed into it, deflating like one that carried far more years than his face could possibly suggest, and considered the answer he would give to her reciprocal request as to his well-being. He laced his fingers, and rested the joined hands in his lap. Another moment passed before he turned his head and eyes again to [member="Kiskla Grayson"], for his mouth to form words for her to hear.

"Ah could tell ye ah was fine, Grandmaster," he said, slowly, "an' tae'n certain extent, that'd be true."

A wan smile wavered onto his lips, suggesting that, perhaps, the entirety of the truth might very well be otherwise. He turned his head, and looked back towards the door from which he had entered into this chamber.

"Did ye know ah have a sister?"

He rolled his shoulders, first the right then crossing the back to the left.

"A twin!" he said in whispered exclamation, dropping his head back to gaze at the ceiling a moment, "what ah'd wanted so bad me whole life, tae 'ave family, of blood."

Jan's head tipped to the side, to Kiskla, again.

"Can ye imagine?" His face creased with the intensity that marked a pointed display of grief, where tears should come, but didn't, for having come too much and too often, already. His head rolled forward, eyes coming to rest on his own hands, laced together in his lap. "Ah should be happy. Ye would think that'd be a logical conclusion."

 

[Kiskla Grayson-Matteo]

"You're not happy to have a twin sister? What's her name?" Kiskla asked, finding the conversation incredibly odd. Manners only went so far -- [member="Jannik Morlandt"] had been through a lot, and as benevolent as the Grandmaster was, her insatiable curiosity made her somewhat impatient. That said, she physically bit her tongue to refrain from asking an intrusively blunt question that would pry more words from the Padawan's cracked lips.

For a moment, she considered another physical reaction -- and went with that. As awkward as she was with physical contact, she rested a delicate hand on the softly rising shoulder of the seer.

"You found this out..from..?"

 

[Jannik Morlandt]

He exhaled, feeling her hand on his shoulder - it was staying, and anchored him to the moment, when he felt as if he might soon fly apart. He knew the story he was telling all too well, having simultaneously lived it while playing it over and over in his mind. Even now, he raked over the details, knowing that in some respects, his decision had been wise, in others... he was uncertain.

"Darth Isolda," and it was the only name he had, knowing full well by now that the name of a Darth was not the name one was given at birth, "is her name. Well, the only one o'which ah'm aware."

His hands pulled apart from each other, and turned over, palms facing upward. He looked into the cuppings of his hands, each creased line and etching, each split and mound.

"As for how ah know, ah'm uncertain as tae whether 'twas repressed memory or vision, but th'very moment ah touched her..."

How that came to be, that he touched flesh to flesh at all, how he had been compelled to seemingly beyond the reach of his own self-control still made him feel a grave measure of disgust, even now. How in his exhaustion and hunger, he'd been driven to such arousal that wouldn't wash away against this knowledge of who she was with respect to him, and vice-versa.

"...ah saw. Ah knew. An' it called in tae question who ah b'lieved meself t'be, ev'ry memory ah thought ah had."

He glanced sidelong at [member="Kiskla Grayson"], a misplaced smile bending his lips.

"An' tae think 'twas only so many months ago that ah feared what 'twas in me own 'ead."

 

[Kiskla Grayson-Matteo]

Darth Isolda was not an unknown entity to The Grandmaster. When [member="Jannik Morlandt"] dropped that title bomb, she was even more hooked to his story than she had been before — if that had been possible for the undeniably and irrepressibly curious girl.

“Darth Isolda gave you insights into yourself.” Kiskla surmised from the heavily accented explanation that the Padawan offered her. “Past — and anything of The Future?

Were any of her techniques harmful to you?”

 

[Jannik Morlandt]

At her question he made himself not look away. Face to face was the most appropriate of ways to communicate if it could be had, and the morphing expressions his face presented lent a great deal of emphasis to his words. Fortunately, [member="Kiskla Grayson"] appeared to be a good listener, and seemed to ask all the right questions.

"Ah'm uncertain," he replied, brow creasing, "time blurred, one day intae th'next. Thar be so much in me head tae sort through, an' just when ah think ah'm close tae being done, th'analysis only reveals more."

The wavering smile maintained, as he continued on.

"An' as any of us should know, particularly those of us gifted with th'full breadth an' depth o'th'precognitive view, what visions th'Force grants us may or may not come tae pass."

The question of harm was a strange one, when placed in the perspective of his experiences.

"Ah've not been marked," words that could have more than one meaning in this war, "save for th'scars ah imagine've been worked into m'psyche."

OOC: Apologies for taking so long... you know how it is, dahlin!