Private Heartbreak Hotel

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Jenn Kryze

The Reaper had been quiet.

It was terrifying, in a way. The Cathar had gotten used to the liveliness of it. Jenn, Ko, Rayia. All of them filling the void that had been left by her old crew. Now the void was empty again.

And it had made her come to a realization.

She had been avoiding the thought since Woostri. A thought she hated, but knew to be true. What had finally tipped the scale was the assault on her home-world, leaving her beaten and bruised.

She had always wanted a partner. Just like Valery Noble and Kahlil Noble were, someone to stand by her in the darkest nights, weathering the storm with her. Jenn had promised her that, but...

She hadn't kept that promise. Both of them had become so tied up in their duties, that even on Woostri they were seperated.

The storm and sea were too far apart.

She flicked on her holo-comm, and called Jenn.

This wasn't working. They needed to break up.

 

[Jenn Kryze]

Beskar'gam
​

| Location | ???
| Objective | Don't be sad it's over.

One hardly needed to be a seer to divine that which was to happen.​

​

The same mistake she had made with Sam. For all of her talk of learning from those, she kept making them, again and again, when it came to her personal life. Once bitten, twice shy? No, not for her, it seemed. Ever forward, but retreading same ground. A failure on her part. And if her leadership ever went the way of her personal decisions, then the New Mandalorians were doomed to disappear without a whimper. ​

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That was the crux of the issue, wasn't it? All of her efforts, as of late, were focused on the future of her people. Too much time spent leading, conducting diplomacy and committing to strategy, not enough of it wrapped up in the arms of the woman she loved, the one who made it all seem easier. They had faced the Destroyer on Echnos, but she understood now that the blood they had shed could not bind them forevermore, and neither did her earnest efforts on Cathar. Not because the pair were without passion for one another, far from it.​

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Sometimes, love was found in recognizing that things could not work out.​

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And so, when Jenn saw that call - she knew. This was not for the Duchess. Not for the Kryz'alor. Not for anyone but Jenn Kryze, in all of her glory and her failures and-​

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"Karrys?" asked the Ersansyr in a voice that shook with emotion, threatening to break. "I think I need you to fly me somewhere."​

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It would not do, she reasoned, to face the end over... a call. Fake, fake, fake, illusions, smoke and mirrors. Physicality. She needed physicality to say goodbye. For she was Mandalorian, and the trappings of technology did little to capture the soul. It lacked the earnest capacity she valued in all living things.​

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Finding The Reaper was not complicated, not when she had been told to treat it as her second home. One that went... practically unvisited, unused, these days. The thought made her heart squeeze. Had she tried harder, taken more time aside from her duties, then-​

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Inhaling sharply through her gills, she walked on up the ramp, trying to ignore the way she felt the need to run, to escape. Not to face the end of something beautiful, something pure. ​

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And when she finally reached the one who had so effortlessly summoned her here, the Mandalorian removed her helm, revealing sunken features, tired eyes, and a sad determination in her eyes, even as the sight of the Cathar made them soften. Soft fur and vibrant hair. A fiery soul. The raging storm she had lost herself into so dearly.​

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"Moontide", she greeted, the syllables tasting heavy on her lips. Even now, love remained; a profound fondness she could not quite hide, not even for this.​

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But love does not solve all ills. ​

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"I'm sorry. I am- I know why I am here. And I cannot ever be sorry enough for failing you the way I have."​

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Jonyna Si ​

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Jenn Kryze

As she heard the ramp, Jonyna took in a sharp breath.

It would be a coward's way to admit she had hoped to do this over a holocall. But it would've been easier, surely. To make this whole thing so simple, just a short message, then go back to bed for the rest of the day to cry.

But Jenn wasn't the type to let that stand. Jonyna knew that.

Jonyna herself could be found sitting on the edge of that pool that she had made a home away from home for Jenn, her feet dipped into the water as if to find some comfort in that familiarity.

"Sit."

Jonyna wasn't usually so firm. She wasn't usually one to issue commands, especially to those she loved.

But she needed to be clear.

 

[Jenn Kryze]

Beskar'gam
​

| Location | The Reaper
| Objective | Don't be sad it's over.

Oh, she was a great many things, but above all others?​

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Jenn be aliit Kryze was a Mandalorian. ​

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Inheritor of ten thousand years of proud warriors traditions, enduring against all manner of foes, never stamped out, never eradicated. ​

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And her people had ever fought with courage. ​

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Breaking up by holocall? That was not courage. If anything, she found the notion to be cowardly, much as she understood it, the need to get it over with and move on. ​

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But it was not her way, and it never would be. Another difference between them, then.​

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Without a word, Jenn sat down next to the woman she yet loved, watching her legs slip into the water. Something else she had been neglecting in her ceaseless pursuits. The embrace of the wet around her form, the chance to let it all melt away and become herself. Her helmet, she set off to the side for now. ​

​

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Jonyna Si ​

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Jenn Kryze

"...I still love you." She started off with, her voice quiet. She hated this part. The part of admission. "I was ready to settle down, finally. Ready to introduce you to my brothers and sisters. One day, I hope I can still. But..."

There was an audible gulp that filled the room.

"This isn't working. We're never together anymore. When I proposed, I wanted to be more involved with you, and you with me. We haven't seen each other since. I heard you were on Woostri. I sent you a message. I never even got a response. That hurt, Jenny."

It was hard to admit, but she had to. She was a strong girl, even in her darkest moments. Fighting monsters, demons, stormtroopers, mandalorians, that was easy. She had years of practice doing so.

But facing down love was hard. Part of her realized this was why the Old Order forbade attachment. Because a broken heart was powerful.

But she wasn't going to let that down.

"I can't keep going like this. We can't keep going like this."

 

[Jenn Kryze]

Beskar'gam
​

| Location | The Reaper
| Objective | Don't be sad it's over.

Stars and tides, but that-​

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Hurt.​

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Her first instinct? To reach out. To let her hand rest against the Cathar's cheek. To tell her that she loved her as well, that she would own up to her mistakes, that she could fix this. Nothing was beyond her reach, no challenge too great, no task insurmountable. Love, she could conquer too.​

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Jenn only managed to get as far as to look up and meet Jonyna's gaze before her Moontide spoke up once more. Truth had ever been her holiest of weapons, a lance of burning purity she grasped with both hands to drive into the heart of all things evil, all too aware that such a sacred flame would one day sear her as well, should she ever stray. ​

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And now it burned and it seared and it consumed, and who was to blame but herself? ​

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"... I know," conceded the laconic warrior at last, struggling not to avert her gaze, fighting against the urge to let her emotions bubble up to the surface. This was no longer who she needed to be. Strength was required of her, and much of it indeed. "We were supposed to dance among the stars together. We were supposed-"​

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They were supposed to be a great many things, and now they never would be.​

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Silence. Weighty, and uncomfortable. Choking. Malevolent.​

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"No. No, we can't. I love you, but we're not right for each other. You need someone who can commit to you far more wholly than I can. Someone who has no need to juggle the needs of a nation, a culture, a cause, with their love life. Who can be everything you deserve."​

​

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Jonyna Si ​

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Jenn Kryze

"And you..." Jonyna choked at the thought. "You need someone who doesn't fear that culture. Someone who doesn't see it as a threat to their own." That caused Jonyna to paused, and stare down at her lap.

"...why weren't you there? Cathar got attacked, and you weren't there. I trusted you would be, and you just...weren't."

Her words were strained, a wound still fresh.

 

[Jenn Kryze]

Beskar'gam
​

| Location | The Reaper
| Objective | The truth

Hardly a surprise, but no less bitter a truth to accept; Jonyna had never managed to overcome the history between their people. Not the way Jenn had. Untold centuries had passed, yet the memory of the horrid crime clearly burned within the heart of the woman before her. Not that she could blame her for that fear, not when so much less time had passed to one so lost to time, to say nothing of the overt attempts at emulating those days of past glory in the Neo-Crusaders now rampaging across the stars once more.​

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"I wish I could have been. That would have been a greater stand to take than any other, perhaps, in teaching the foundlings of our virtue for generations to come. But I withheld any such orders. In fact... our more recent involvement, on Woostri? It wasn't for the Alliance. I just wanted to kill Sith."​

​

It was neither kind nor comforting, but it was the truth. Blunt. A Mandalorian's prerogative, some might say, and in this, Jenn be aliit Kryze truly was a paragon of her people. ​

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"I'm done risking Mandalorian lives for the Alliance. I should've seen the writing on the wall when Onderon fell under that flag." A tense pause followed, her gaze turning sharp, hawkish, and worthy of a military leader. It pulled too greatly at Jenn, this presence; the beast-of-war lived inside her now, Kad Ha'rangir reigning strong within her soul. "I'm sorry, Jonyna. I really am. That your people have to suffer again, at the hands of these... murderous bastards. But I won't sacrifice my people for yours, not any more than I'd ask you to sacrifice yours for mine."​

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The Mandalorian stood to her feet, then, taking a hold of her helmet and holding it under her arm. Something had changed. Jenn Kryze, the woman, had only just begun to rear her head again when it was buried once more underneath all of her titles. The Duchess. The Kryz'alor.​

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The Redeemer.​

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"I once told someone I truly wish was my daughter that love should always triumph over duty. I was right, then. Love is more important than anything else in this Galaxy. Maybe I'm just a hypocrite, Jonyna, not following my own advice... or maybe love just isn't something meant for the likes of me."​

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Tears burned at her eyes, threatening to spill. And still, she looked so stern, so grave, and so... furious. At herself, more than anything else. At the injustice of the stars. At how broken she was, to be beyond this, beyond a tail wrapped around her legs and lips on her neck. ​

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"Even the Sith can love. Even they have families. So why can't I? Am I worse than them, to not even-"​

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Jonyna Si ​

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Jenn Kryze

"...maybe that's the place where we differ. More than anything. Because...I would. I would sacrifice myself for your people, and the Alliance would too. My jedi, my tech, my people." Jonyna looked to Jenn with a calm, but brutally honest look. The type only one who had once lain in bed with you could. "I think your problem Jenn, is that you don't know what you actually want. You say you want to redeem your people, that you want to be the hero, but...you don't act like it. You don't stand for justice, you would've been on Cathar if you did. You stand for bloodlust. You want glory, just as your culture expects you to."

Her hand reaches out, taking Jenn's one final time. "When you finally realize what you want, come back to me. Show me the real Jenn Kryze. Maybe it'll be on the battlefield, maybe it'll be in the bedroom. But I don't want to see you like this, a woman in denial. You're not being honest, and that kills me."

 

[Jenn Kryze]

Beskar'gam
​

| Location | The Reaper
| Objective | ... be glad that it happened

Fire and poison welled within her, threatening to spill from her lips in cold, desiccating words. Jonyna still believed in the dream that was the Galactic Alliance, and in this moment, the woman standing opposite from her, the woman she had loved so earnestly - could only look upon her as a naive fool for it. Deluded. Living in a complete fantasy. So many instances, she recalled, of the Alliance's stance towards her people, ready to be presented, to be drawn as so many little knives and driven home, one after the other.​

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Instead, she remained silent, even as her eyes began to glow so much more fiercely, more... dangerously. This was it, then. A finality she struggled to come to terms with, much less accept - and yet she was given no choice but to face it head on. When that hand reached out to take a hold of her own, hidden beneath beskar and flightsuit alike, she gave it a squeeze-​

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And all but yanked Jonyna towards her.​

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This was no smart move on her part, and certainly not wise. They should have left one another just there and then, with their truth spoken, their mutual grief and understanding shared, yet presented with respect. Instead, she smashed their lips together one last time, and control slipped from her as easily as water flows downwards. Jenn had meant it to be slow. Something tender. Instead, the only reasonable way to describe that kiss would be to deem it...​

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Desperate. ​

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Hungry. ​

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Wanting. ​

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Greedy. ​

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The Mandalorian cared only to part once the Cathar had no more breath to hold it but a moment longer, a mad glint in her eyes as she licked her lips to taste the Jedi she had loved. ​

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In the form of her buy'ce, a regal and august visage slid on over her own, sealed in place with that telltale, ever-recognizable hiss of pressurization.​

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The Kryz'alor turned heels, and gave in to the overwhelming urge to escape.​

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To escape.​

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To escape.​

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Jonyna Si ​

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Jenn Kryze

One last kiss.

It was enough to take her breath away, and yet...

She could feel it. Not just the finality of it, but the shallowness of it. Jonyna knew Jenn well enough to know how she felt about the Alliance. She knew her words fell on deaf ears.

But Jenn didn't know what it was like to grow up in a galaxy ruled by fear, only to suddenly wake up in one bathed in hope. The Alliance wasn't perfect, by no means, but...

It was better than the alternative. She had that sway. She had that ability.

She could call hellfire down who threatens Jenn's people. And if that day ever came, she would.

It didn't matter if Jenn was no longer her lover. She still loved her.

And she'd let her go.

The ship went quiet. Only the sound of her breathing...

Then a voice came up.

<Alone again. We are all that remains.>

"...yeah Sevs, we are. Or is this Hep?"

That was the secret she kept. She was never alone on this ship.