Location: Relief and Coordination Tent - [Outskirt of Eshan City]
Tags: [member="Darth Metus"] | [member="The Avenger"] | [member="Tellu Talon"] | [member="Nylea Apollodor"] | [member="Khonsu Amon"]
Ash.
It was everywhere. Pristine towers, topped with elegant spires, were nowhere to be seen. There were plumes of smoke still rising in the tepid air.
Destruction. Sinkholes. Deadly, dangerous, caverns that had been dug into the ground by monstrous beings. The young woman was quiet. Silent, pale, and just as lifeless as the newly made corpses that littered the remains of Eshan City. That in itself was not unusual. She had always been soft-spoken, choosing to act, versus allowing bursts of emotion to make her will known. She thought. She did not feel.
Only…
She did.
The sun had set. The sun had risen. Eshan kept turning on her axis as if she had a
right to when so many of her children were dead. It felt like a betrayal of the highest order. How was it that everything seemed to keep going? How was it that they all fell into line, followed orders, and went on as if the very soil weren’t stained a burnished shade of decaying crimson from the lives that had been lost? How did they not break beneath the weight? Beneath the pressure?
The slender creature breathed in slowly to find her center. To push away her thoughts, fears, and sorrows. This was not the place for it. Not the time. She couldn’t allow guilt to eat through the marrow of her bones like a parasite while her people were in need. [member="Tellu Talon"] would come to find her soon. She had heard whispers of what had befallen her family, but still, the soldier in her trudged on. There was no time to mourn. No time to weep. Her personal affairs could not matter.
Not yet. The Queen, [member="Spencer Jacobs"], had held faith with her promises of aid and liberation throughout this campaign. She had asked that she care take their people, not only the Echani, but the Thyrsians, and the Exarch intended to do just that. Srina would not fail her.
Srina would not fail them.
The armor that [member="Darth Tacitus"] had crafted for her had held up well, all things considered, but the elegant Echani was but a ghost of her former self. She had removed her vambraces so that she could move more easily. The fur-tipped cloak that she had worn into battle had been folded to pad the head of one whom had come in secret to fight at her side. [member="The Avenger"] was
persona non grata among the Mandalorians, for his involvement with Myrkr, but he was one of the few in the galaxy she trusted implicitly. Not for the first time—He bled for her.
So many, in this war, had bled for her. So many had died. For Eshan. For her.
“When I was a youngling…”, she trailed off quietly, wringing out a towel, so that she could begin wiping the caked soot and blood from the well-loved face that had been exposed due to his injuries. His mask was resting on a ramshackle stand made of untreated wood. Srina would have placed him within one of the emergency temporary housing units, however, she could not be far from the humanitarian efforts. She could not bring her work home, this time, so she brought his prone form with her. There were too many people that needed care, with far worse wounds, so she would handle it whilst coordinating.
“I did not understand death.”
The Avenger couldn’t hear her. At least, she didn’t think so. His mind was open to her.
Always. Yet for the moment, despite the pain he’d likely be in when he woke, there was silence. Deafening, silence.
“I could see the sadness that it caused in others. I knew that the individual would never breathe again. They would never grow older, never eat, nor spar, nor laugh. It just didn’t make sense. There was just a body, left behind, where this animated individual used to be. I didn’t understand why that person couldn’t just choose to get back into it and not be dead anymore.”
A pale smile touched her lips. It was sad. Achingly, so.
“I felt like that for a long time. Mostly, because no one would tell me why.”
Eventually, they did. How foolish a young Srina Talon had felt once she more adequately grasped the full spectrum of life and death. There was always the Force to consider, but that, was neither here nor there. She carefully wiped the blood that had congealed and dried from the face of the unconscious Dauntless warrior. It wasn’t the first time, since the fighting had stopped, and wouldn’t be the last. Were it not for the fact that she needed her wits and strength to keep pressing forward she would have simply tried to heal him. As it stood, he was a wound in the Force, and it drank power down like the finest wine.
Only a fraction of the effort she made ever went toward healing his injury. It was like pouring water down a drain, trying to catch just a little, with a sieve.
Her careful caretaking halted, briefly, when a familiar warmth pressed at her back. To everyone else, her Master could be a terrifying enemy, a tyrant of a Sith, but to her? He was just as important as the ground they stood on. She reached up with her free hand, catching his, the moment it neared her shoulder. The motion was reflex. She knew he would find her. She knew he would reach for her. He always did.
“What are our losses?”
To her credit the voice that left her was strong. The second death of [member="Darth Tacitus"] left her feeling numb. Some part of her, however small, hoped that he would return. He had managed it once before. Perhaps, perhaps, he would manage to cheat death a second time. As it stood the Confederacy, the Silver Jedi, the Order of the Sacred Lotus, and even Echani Command had been trying to mitigate the fall out as best they could. Securing the system, the area, took precedence.
“Any surviving war criminals from the Clans should be turned over to Echani Command for processing. We opened the door to return the freedoms of my people. Now, we let them keep it. A full investigation into the claim of enslaved Thyrsians needs to be launched immediately, however, for the sake of transparency it must be handled by a party that will remain unbiased. If any slaves are discovered they need to be returned to their people. If it is found to be valid the culprits must be apprehended and questioned so that we may trace their movements to the source. Killing foot soldiers will only cure the symptom. Not the disease.”
While helping the Confederacy clear the rubble and aid in organizing relief centers in the valley the young Exarch had been spending her time, more than anything, in deep thought. How could she best keep her promise to her Queen? [member="Spencer Jacobs"] had been just as busy as anyone else. With all the soot and blood coating most of them, truthfully, they were indistinguishable. It was true that they had won this battle. But, had they won the war?
“Once the injured are secured we need to handle the dead. The soil and water are already polluted from debris and ash. Eshan…She is wounded. Open decay will only make matters worse. I want every fallen member of the Confederacy and our Allies accounted for so their remains can be taken home. Our side was the victor…But there is much suffering. They fought bravely. Many died. Because I asked them to.”
In truth, [member="Darth Metus"], had asked them to. But they all knew the reason why. The sentence might have just as easily passed through her lips. He would feel the wave of guilt that rose in her chest, before her eyes closed, and she banished the unwanted emotion. There was work to do.
“I need a Thyrsian contact that I can reason peaceably with. I would like to return their dead. I wouldn’t leave our own people to wither in the elements…I won’t leave them either. For things to proceed in the next coming months, Eshan, will need to realize that the constant infighting with our distant cousins serves nothing. It’s an old war. Old blood. It must stop. Echani Command needs to withdraw from Thyrsus. Just as the Clans needed to leave Eshan.”
“As for the dead of our enemies—Ship all that can be identified back to the Clans. I don’t want their bones and blood polluting my home any more than their hypocrisy already has.”
While some might have stated such a thing passionately, vehemently, the little Dread Queen never rose her voice above even decibels. It held the emotional capacity of a teaspoon, so much so, that she might have been relaying a grocery list. The hand that she held from over her shoulder, would feel a squeeze, before she let go. Silver eyes looked up to glance back at [member="Darth Metus"]. They were fathomless, glimmering softly, like distant stars. They had won, that was true, but the light in her gaze remained dim. The scent of death hung in the air like a veil, and she felt it, all of it, weighing her shoulders down as if they were laden with boulders…
“How are your injuries? Have you found rest, Master?”
