THE SURGING PRECIPICE
Her paces were slow, care taken as she waded through the mental and emotional landscape of the camp with a delicate touch. What could be seen with the eyes was only half the picture of what it would take for these people, and this world, to recover.
The man spitting his acerbic admonition at Padawan Corso put a brief halt in her steps; Ichika half-turned, her brilliant blues at first vacant as she dragged her attention from the overall camp, to the minor incident. She blinked, feeling the lurch of intention come off the boy as Cailen thought to apologise, but the older man didn’t seem to want to make any more of a thing of it than it was, and the padawan deflated, then looked to her, asking for direction. She looked down at Cailen, a muted smile gracing her lips.
“We start with our senses,” she began, as she turned to resume her slow walk,
“cursory thoughts and feelings around the camp,” pacing forward with her attention split,
“will start to give us a general picture of--” yet as her eyes flicked forward, she came to a stop slowly, cautiously, her explanation of the start of their work evaporating into the ether when her gaze drifted over, then backtracked to fix on a face she hadn’t seen in… well that was hard to put a finger on, exactly, and with a padawan in tow, himself, as well as a droid. Ichika stared at him, at that face almost unfamiliar in how much it had changed, but far, far,
far from off-putting.
Rather... the moment seemed to stretch out as she was taking in the etching of years on his face; the hair that now lived on the strong line of his jaw and over his lip, as dark as the hair above his eyes had always been; the white marking that travelled from one side of his face to the other, curving over his nose… so
far from the time-faded memory of the once almost
cherubic face, on the sweetest boy she had ever met, at that early point in her time as a padawan. And the otherwise painful nexus, much later on Ilum, at which she realised she might have begun to
care - scared for him, a
ngry at what had been done to him. Amongst other rememberings.
She swallowed, gently clearing her throat as she blinked rapidly, her gaze briefly skirting aside, then tracking back to Gabriel in the next moment. Thank goodness she was
pink. Thank the Force, as crude as this was, that she remembered, too, what she
had heard of him over the years, and the flush of parallel concern she had felt - blessedly, this served to temper her reaction.
“Gab--” Right, the
padawans. “--Master Pryce,” she resumed, giving him a respectful tip of her head, and moving on to push past all the memories that swam to the surface, good and bad,
“this,” she continued, gesturing with an open palm to the padawan alongside her,
“is Padawan Cailen Corso,” she then glanced down at the boy,
“Padawan Corso, this is Master Gabriel Pryce,” and thereafter, her blue-eyed gaze lifted to the man that
used to be shorter than her, once upon a time - she had gained only an inch since that first day, but he...
Well, now. She gave a small smile.
“Are you and your padawan here to help with supplying the camp, or like us, are you here for analysis?”
