Ein Jeder Engel ist Schrecklich

[Kuzo]

That decision seemed to take the last of her strength out of her then. She nodded, leaning back against him and closing her eyes. While the decision to learn was a step toward never being this weak again, she was overwhelmingly aware of the limits of her body in this moment. Everything was heavy, everything hurt. So she just let herself sink into the solidness of [member="Darth Prazutis"].

"You should sleep now-"

"I know," she murmured. "But I don't want to sleep again just yet. There's too much waiting for me there."

*****

A few minutes later she was seated at the table, a hot mug of caf steaming between her hands. She looked more tired than he had ever seen her, but she sat there, her head bowed. The three remaining fingers on her left hand that were *hers* rubbed against the warmth of the mug. She could smell how rich and sweet he'd made the caf, but she didn't take more than a small sip right away, in contrast to times past.

"The nightmares-" he prompted gently.

Irajah nodded, staring at the dark liquid in the mug.

"They started after Gideon hit," she said quietly. "I.... told you that I had been infected. But not..... anything about it. I don't.... I don't really talk about it."

She paused, long enough that he might think even now, she wouldn't explain. But then, suddenly, she started speaking again.

"When my father died- Gideon was unleashed. Not just on me. But on our entire world."

Her voice was quiet, stopping and started awkwardly as she struggled to put it all into words.

"I spent..... five months. After. I was..... alone. The only survivor."

She didn't need to say surrounded by the dead. It was implicit and too much to say.

"Five months. Before I could get off world and start searching for who had done this to my people. I thought.... that it had been deliberate. I promised vengeance, to find who ever had done this..... only to find that it was....."

Simon Ven. Her father.

 

[Darth Prazutis]

​She needed sleep.

​One look at her face in the bathroom mirror and he could tell even after the previous night she was exhausted, and hardly slept at all due to the terrors of what lurked in her dreams. [member="Irajah Ven"] was stressed, broken, exhausted from lack of sleep...yet why did he care? It was he who orchestrated the events leading to where she is now, he caused this by pulling the strings to bring her to his nephew, so why? The question wasn't known to the Dark Lord why he cared to be there to build her back up, why he told her that she should sleep, it was all an unknown in his mind. Irajah was key to both of their futures, and her future was destined for greatness, but it went beyond that, with how he chose to care for her here.

​.....

​A few minutes passed and the pair were at the kitchen table, the smell of hot caf filled the air as he circled around to sit next to Irajah at the table. If she wasn't going to sleep then the next best thing he decided would be to get her a sweet cup of caf, after spending so much time with the Doctor he knew the brands she liked best, and how she took it. The little details were key from the hanging exhaustion of her head, to how she absentmindedly rubbed the warm mug with the three remaining fingers on her one hand, Irajah took pleasure from physical sensations and often without realizing did such things.

​"The nightmares-" He prompted. After everything they'd been through she could afford him an answer. Braxus waited patiently letting Irajah control the flow of information, never attempting to rush her as she delved into her dark and troubled past for the first real time since he first met her. As he listened to her talk he knew the past hurt from her expressions, to how she struggled with formulating the right words. While key points of her conversation were known to him there were some that weren't, and that surprised him. Simon Ven defected from the One Sith taking with him his wife and the prime test subject for their Gideon Project, one that he himself cancelled. It seemed Gideon was a success and in his foolish experiments an entire planet suffered, and his own daughter spent five months surrounded by the dead because of it.

​Braxus rested a hand on one of hers as she came to a close it was just too hard for her to even say her fathers name, the harbinger of her home. He would give her a few minutes before he began to speak "Before you and I met my security team was required to run background checks on any medical official who would come in contact with and see me, including you routine of cours. The first check came back relatively little information but you were cleared. A few weeks ago they routinely ran it again the security officers wanted to clear a bit up with your family history, this time we got a hit" ​Braxus said pausing to "Simon Ven they told me was a skilled engineer for the Empire's bioweapons development program. The Gideon virus was a project he produced, recommended, and founded according to what I was told to develop a powerful virus as an method to pacify entire worlds whether they be rebellious or held by his enemies. Apparently by those involved he was making progress until he met your mother." Braxus took a sip of his coffee as he slid towards Irajah moving closer, keeping his hand on one of her own. "I found out more about your mother and father then. I thought you would have wanted to know, and I was trying to figure out when and how to properly tell you before....it happened." He said tightening his grip on her hand. "You have been through a lot...Irajah, and I will be by your side through to help you with these newfound challenges. If you don't feel your ready to hear more of your past right now I can always hold it until you are ready.." He said moving his hand to her shoulder.

 

[Kuzo]

It all made a certain amount of sense, or else jived with what she had discovered on her own. Well, most of it anyway. Her face was largely impassive, until something caught her attention. She didn't have the energy to be more than a little confused.

"What about my mother?"

She looked from his hand up to his face. The one thing she hadn't come across was any reference to Inara Sou in her search for answers. Her mother.... hadn't she met Simon Ven on Irajah's homeworld? Despite everything, all of the lies she had been uncovering slowly, piece by piece, nothing so far had connected her mother to any of this. So why would he bring it up now?

Once she knew, she would never understand how she hadn't seen it.

She looked down at his hand on her shoulder, brow furrowing slightly.

"Tell me."

[member="Darth Prazutis"]

 

[Darth Prazutis]

​"Alright. You deserve answers." ​Braxus said to [member="Irajah Ven"] sighing deeply. Irajah had been searching for so long for answers but she herself didn't have the resources to find such things, it wasn't within her skills no reach to do such things. Unbeknownst to her he was the Director of Sith Intelligence, a Dark Councilor for the One Sith Empire in the years coming close to their fall. Even though he was not involved with the sphere in charge of bio weaponry, he was still privy to its various projects should he wish to access them, and so it was childs play to access his records and run a search for their names.

Inara Sou, a vongformed human and the first subject among the tested kill groups to survive the Gideon virus, with a full immunity even. "Inara Sou was a vongformed human and from what I've found part of the first test groups your father selected to test the potency of Gideon. She not only survived the tests but found to hold a full immunity to the virus. The Sith ordered your father to run experiments on her, to find a method to bypass this and infect her with the virus to target Yuuzhan Vong cells." ​Braxus stopped not wanting to overload her with all the information at once, allowing it all to sink in before he continued. "Your father fell in love with Inara and, knowing the experiments meant death for her attempted to put an end to the project. When his superiors denied it he then crippled the project by absconding with critical amounts of data, taking your mother, and leaving with it all."

 

[Kuzo]

Irajah drew back slowly at his words. She sat, the back of the chair supporting her. Hazel eyes were wide, but whatever she was seeing wasn't what was in front of her. As [member="Darth Prazutis"]'s voice coiled through her thoughts, memories dredged up. Something clicked, like a key turning into place.

****

A faint thread of music. A voice singing in a language she didn't know, but somehow understood. She had always understood in. Warmth, humid and thick, surrounding her like a blanket. She could feel the weight of knowing life around her, familiar and comforting in the twilight-

Remembering the dreams. Her childhood place that she had made up. Her mother's voice, singing the song Irajah had taught her and the words that didn't make any sense. How it had become a game, just for the two of them. How disturbed her father had been when he had heard it- the words, the name of the place.

Yuuzhan'tar.

He'd never explained why he'd forbidden the game. Not to her. But he must have told her mother something. Because something had been different after that. Irajah frowned, turning her head to the side. She hadn't thought about it in years. Sure, sometimes she still dreamed about it. But rarely. Until today it had just been that. A child's dreams. And then she'd heard it on another person's lips.

****

The dark haired child danced excitedly around her mother's feet. Barely five years old, she chattered away, explaining the dream she'd had last night.

"-And it's like a snake, mama, but smart. And the warriors carry them and they are friends. But they BITE people they don't like! And they talk! A little. But not in words. In sounds."

Her mother laughed, crouching down to hug her daughter. Cupping her face gently with both hands, she whispered.

"Should we give them a name, Irajah? Like all of the other things?"

The girl nodded, eyes suddenly wide and solemn. Mama always knew what the things in her dreams should be called.

"They should be called amphistaffs. ​Can you say that?"

"Am-fi-staffs," Irajah repeated dutifully. "That's a funny word mama."

​****

​She tried to stand up suddenly, but there was nothing there to support her. She almost fell, but found Braxus there in a heartbeat as she flailed to try to make some sort of purchase- it didn't matter if it was physical or mental.

"She was the vong-formed patient I found in the Gap Nine archives," she breathed. Her chest hurt. She was lightheaded and didn't protest when he helped settle her back in the chair.

"He did research on her-"

She sounded nothing less than horrified.

 

[Darth Prazutis]

​Careful eyes watched as [member="Irajah Ven"] leaned back in her chair, breath hitching in the woman's throat while her eyes went wide by his words. Irajah had been grasping at inklings of clues about her parents history, their past, any clues she could find but for so long her mother seemed to elude her. He knew the look all too well when everything suddenly became perfectly clear, like stormy clouds parting to reveal the truth of the skies behind them.

​Then she moved.

​A combination of her emotions and the information he brought up to her Irajah went to stand perhaps absentmindedly of her own condition. But where once leg was a stub remained and she would find no purchase with the floor. Immediately the Sith Lords enhanced reflexes came into play as she began falling, he sprang up out of his chair and was on her in an instant. Braxus wrapped the flailing Irajah safely in his arms protecting her from a hard fall to the floor. He settled her back safely in her chair then choosing to remain right next to her sliding his chair over next to her own. Braxus slid an arm around her then pulling the overwhelmed woman close "You are incredibly strong, I am proud of you." ​He said using his other hand to guide her own to her hot coffee cup once again.

Braxus knew all too well how she adored the physical sensations, and thought it might help during this induced episode, nodding at her words. He allowed only silence in the room to let her settle before beginning to speak, this time choosing to distract her with a different line of thought. "When the cybernetics for your leg are installed in one to two weeks I'll take you away from Vain Hollow for a little while and bring you to one of my other homes in the galaxy, secluded, where we will begin your training. It'll be a quiet, tranquil place where you and I can begin your training from the ground up." ​Braxus told her, grabbing one of her hands in his own. "From now on if you'll have me, Irajah, to help you get through this storm I will stay with you to take care of you be it Panatha, or Maena. When nightmare strikes, fear comes, I will be alongside you, you will never need to suffer alone." ​He said moving his hand up to her hair running it through her dark locks.

 

[Kuzo]

She had thought that she didn't have any emotions left to feel by now. At least for the time.

Apparently, she'd been wrong.

His words skipped across the surface of her mind, sinking in slowly like stones disappearing beneath rough waters. Half a dozen memories of her parents ran a circus in her mind. Remembering them at rest, at play, cooking together, him leaning over to wipe a smudge of paint from her nose.... her mother laughing and the way she looked at him.

How?

How had she gone from an experiment to his beloved partner? How could she had moved beyond that? She didn't understand, couldn't understand.

She leaned her head against [member="Darth Prazutis"]'s hand as it moved through her hair, squeezing his hand. She didn't have words in that moment. The hollowness of the emotions had taken every last one. So she just sat there, wrapped in his promises, the cup of caf cooling, forgotten, in front of her.

*****

Eventually, sleep had come again. It had to. Necessities of a biological frame, no matter how hard she fought it. Restless, disjointed, each time she woke to a soothing hand and kind words. She never had to sooth herself, find comfort in her own thoughts or mind- he was there each time to offer it to her.

So when morning came, though she was still exhausted, she knew that when she faltered, he would be there.

 

[Darth Prazutis]

When [member="Irajah Ven"] at last awoke she found herself in her bed, where he had brought her the pair falling asleep in each other's arms, his warm embrace serving to comfort and protect especially when the nightmares came she would find that he was right there beside her. Braxus was sitting up already when she surged awake flailing and breathing, she found herself once more in his embrace as he comforted her once more, his hands running through her hair as he gave her reassurances that it was all just a dream, just seeing Irajah like this troubled him greatly. Despite his role her continued suffering struck him low in his mind, drawing up yet more painful memories of the past when he had been in her position until he could no longer take i anymore, the dam had burst and the flood released before he could stay the tide.

Braxus briefly pulled away from their hug placing a tender kiss to her lips, holding it before letting it go allowing distance between them, there was visible pain on his face, something that had troubled his own mind.

"Irajah you may never believe me when I say this...and it might not even help.,.but, I was in your position before. There was a time in my life where I was helpless, in pain, lost, I couldn't even trust myself. There were those around me who attempted to help me but they never truly cared..then...Corellia." He said pausing as memories flooded into his mind "I was...laid low, victimized by those I couldn't hope to stop, couldn't see coming. I know the pain you feel and I'm sorry, I'm sorry I didn't have the foresight to see what would happen...that he.." Braxus wouldn't say his name but they both knew he referred to Kaine.

"I never had someone like you have me back then, I only spiraled downward. I promise you that you will get through these times, you will never need to be alone when your barely holding on...in moments where you feel like letting go, j won't let you fall from that cliff." Braxus said running a hand through her hair "I don't ever want you to feel that helplessness again, when you are ready I will train you and teach you all that I know. I will give you what I was not so that you can become strong..to no longer feel afraid..and I promise you this will not pass unpunished. By your side I will bring justice onto him..he who caused this pain, who I was never able to see, he will never touch you again, and he will feel justice for what he has done." Braxus said looking into her eyes, he was completely genuine as he spoke then, no longer would he leave her alone in the cold to feel this pain. He pulled her into a hug then.