Private No Rest For The Weary

[Iris Arani]

"You shouldn't stand up!" Not that Iris stopped her. She just sighed, pouted. Looked annoyed? Kinda. She wanted them both to get better. But at least Amani was going to try and help K- She stood right up, reaching out with panic in her eyes.

"Wait-!" The colors had shifted to something truly dark. Lethal intent. Before she could stop it Kai had Amani by the throat. Panic filled the Padawan's eyes as she scrambled towards the two, trying to break Kai's grip.

"Wake up! It's Amani! Stop, Kai!"

Kai Bamarri | Amani Serys

 

[Amani Serys]

“Kaiiii…” Amani sang, still shaking him when Iris suddenly cried out. She turned to look back at the healer, more confused than anything, when a pressure wrapped around her arm. Then her throat.

Any attempt at words fell short as the form of Kai seemed ready to choke her out. And with one hand locked in his grip, it left only the broken one to spare. More out of instinct than anything, she reached out with it regardless, trying to push him away with whatever strength could be mustered. The shifting of splintered bones was agonizing, and a faint squeal of pain was all that could escape her lips.

By now, they had unsurprisingly garnered the attention of others on board the shuttle.

Iris Arani Kai Bamarri​

 

[Kai Bamarri]

With his mind clouded by an impressive dose of morphine that kept him half-asleep, Kai didn't know what was happening around him. It was all a blur. Even the sound of Iris' voice shouting was muffled, her words indistinguishable.

He found himself flexing old muscles, trying to latch on to an unguarded mind. Consuming thoughts would allow him to view the world through the eyes and ears of another being. He could root himself in reality by becoming someone else...

Besides, he needed it, didn't he? He needed to eat...

The Dark Side foamed up and boiled over inside the boy. Something clamped down on him physically, forcing him to release his hold and pushing him back against the bed. But he still clawed at the closest minds, seeking purchase in the nooks and crannies of their brains. His lips parted as if to cry out, but he made no sound as his back arched, balling the sheets in his fists and trembling.

Amani Serys Iris Arani​

 

[Iris Arani]

Iris had never seen him like this. It frightened her. There was little doubt it wouldn't frighten her, but not because she was scared of him. She was scared for him. After finally shedding the body that had been the core of his self loathing, he was dipping into the dark. The colors around them were bleaching to greys as he reached out. Iris didn't know what he was doing, didn't understand.

Others came. The medic droid from before, helping to pull Amani away from Kai. Helping to restrain him. And Iris reached out. Reached at the grasping claws in the Force that seemed to come from Kai to try and reintroduce color back to the darkness that was threatening to consume him completely.

Kai Bamarri | Amani Serys

 

[Amani Serys]

The pressure on her neck gave way, and she was able to gasp for air. A medical droid took her place and held Kai down, while a second one tried to migrate Amani back to the chair.

"Amani Serys." The droid registered her identity. "You should not be out of bed."

"I'm a medic, alright? I know what I can handle," she attempted to handwave the concern, her haze darting back and forth between the droid in front of her, and the two padawans.

"Accessing medical report for: Amani Serys."

"Ugh. Move! We've got bigger problems right now." She stood up, pushed past the machine and back to Iris' side. Amani placed a hand on the girl's shoulder, and added her own presence to the equation, hoping to snuff out the darkness that was taking hold of Kai.

Kai Bamarri Iris Arani​

 

[Kai Bamarri]

It was fighting him. The other mind. It was rare when he came into contact with someone who could defend themselves from a mental attack like this, but it had happened before. Force Users had a natural shielding, barriers they put up instinctively.

Kai beat against the walls of Iris' mind, trying to claw his way inside. By the time he realized who it was he was trying to devour, he had been at it for minutes that seemed like hours.

His presence slinked back into its den like a shamed predator, the hunt a failure. Still drugged up, Kai couldn't do much but lay there, his tensed muscles relaxing. He didn't know... didn't know what happened... so tired...

Amani Serys Iris Arani​

 

[Iris Arani]

Pain.

It ripped through Iris's mind as she opened it to Kai. She didn't know, how could she know? Everything Kai had gone through as a Sithspawn she didn't press him to tell her. She never knew the danger. The medics came, most trying to tend to Amani and Kai as the Padawan stumbled back a step. Everything was fuzzy. Why did her head hurt so much? Her oddly colored gaze focused on the boy on the bed.

.. Right. She was a medic. She stepped forward, reaching for the chart at the end of his bed.

"What's the status of a patient.. Bamari? And Amani, you should be in bed, why are you here?"

Kai Bamarri | Amani Serys

 

[Amani Serys]

Eventually, whatever was happening seemed to subside. "...Kai?" She muttered to test for any reaction on his part. But the strangeness was far from over.

"What's the status of a patient.. Bamari? And Amani, you should be in bed, why are you here?"

Amani blinked. Was that a joke? Surely not at a time like this, "...Sorry?" The presence of another behind her made the mirialan swing around. It was the medical droid that had tried to stop her. In its claw was a datapad, containing the medical data it had been attempting to pull up earlier. She snatched up the pad and scanned the file. Yep, looked about like she expected: Broken hand, dislocated arm, deep laceration on leg, various other lacerations, abrasions, contusions, blah blah, the whole nine yards. Yet in the overwhelming list of injuries, there was one that did get her attention:

Clinically dead at the scene.

"...Huh…" That was new. Amani was suddenly struck by a wave of nausea. This was too much on top of what they had already been dealing with, "I'm not having some kind of fever dream, am I?" Or maybe she was well and truly dead, and in some kind of purgatory? Probably not, but likely best not to dwell on that idea regardless.

"This is clearly a lot to process. Would you like to sit down?" Amani hushed the droid, and turned back to the others, "Iris, you okay? What happened there with Kai?" For her, the best way to reconcile her brush with mortality, was to just not. One problem at a time, please.

Iris Arani Kai Bamarri​

 

[Kai Bamarri]

Kai suddenly sat up, his eyes wild and cloudy with morphine.

<TAKE IT BACK.> He roared, re-establishing the connection between his and Iris' minds. <TAKE IT BACK NOW!>

He shoved her memories of him back into her mind, or at least copies of all that he had learned from her. Her knowledge became his knowledge became her knowledge again.

Iris Arani Amani Serys​

 

[Iris Arani]

"I'm not.. I'm not sure." Iris frowned, staring at the clipboard. Trying to make sense of what was written. She treated him? But she didn't remember. Did she remember? Shards of the memories that had been ripped free still lingered, but who he was, what his name meant, it was all blank.

Then her mind was assaulted. The Padawan stumbled back, the clipboard scattering away as Kai forced his way into her mind. Forced images she didn't recognize into her mind. No, she did. They were like missing pieces to the puzzle? But too much. Too fast. She paled. Paniced, unable to move. Too many memories.

"W.. What did you do to me..?"

Kai Bamarri | Amani Serys

 

[Amani Serys]

Before there was even any time to process the last little display, Kai sprang back up for round two. For all it seemed he may as well have been attacking Iris, and though she didn't move in time to stop the transference, Amani then put herself between them and reached out, gripping hold of Kai's wrist, "Calm." She spoke, the Force flowing through her voice and attempting to douse his emotions in a flood of tranquility. There was too much going on. And to be completely honest, Amani's head was hurting from all the noise.

"Iris, are you okay?" She enunciated each word slowly and carefully, then nodded for the medical droid back to Kai's bedside.

Kai Bamarri Iris Arani​

 

[Kai Bamarri]

"W.. What did you do to me..?"

Kai was breathing hard. His skin had gone a sickly shade of pale and was covered in sweat. The drug gave his gaze an unfocused, cloudy look. But his telepathy came through clearly.

<I'm not used to dreaming. I thought it was real. I attacked you. I'm sorry.>

Amani asked Iris if she was okay. Kai wasn't even sure if she was. He had tried to repair the damage as best he could, but... well, he'd never attempted to restore any memories he had consumed before.

He wasn't even sure how he was still able to do it in this body...

Amani Serys Iris Arani

 

[Iris Arani]

"I don't.. I don't know." It was like a hard reboot that had been turned off halfway. Errors flashing through her mind as it all pieced together too fast for a normal mind to comprehend. For her mind to comprehend. It all hurt. Worse than when they were ripped out.

Dreaming? He attacked her? "Alright. Okay. .. Are you okay?" For as scared as she should've been, she wasn't. Well she was, but Iris focused instead on Kai. His colors. Something was wrong, and well, even if her brain was fuzzy on why still he mattered to her, right?

Kai Bamarri | Amani Serys

 

[Amani Serys]

“You’ve never actually dreamt before?” Sithspawn biology was not exactly her strong suit.

Amani rolled her eyes and took Iris’ shoulder, pointing her towards the nearby chair, “Maybe you should sit down for a second now, hm? Get your bearings?” It was rapid fire one thing after another; She spun back around towards Kai, then Iris again, then the medical droid, still staring at her with the data pad containing news of her temporary demise, “Show me that again and you go in the trash.”

She sighed, and took a moment to clear her thoughts. Deep breaths. “My brain hurts too much for this.” Less because of its complexity, and more because of the concussion, but nonetheless inconvenient. “You’re not gonna try to strangle me again, are you?” She turned to Kai once more.

Kai Bamarri Iris Arani​

 

[Kai Bamarri]

“You’ve never actually dreamt before?”

<No.> The closest he had ever gotten as a Doppelganger was when Nimdok used his telepathic abilities to weave a "dream" for Kai. It had been more akin to an elaborate imaginary hideout. A treehouse of the mind, if you will. Except it was modelled after the Petrified Forest where Kai was born. Nimdok had done it as a form of therapy for Kai in the aftermath of his sister's death, trying to cheer him up. It had sort of worked.

After being told off by Amani, the medical droid floated over to Kai and began to scan the boy. "Please rest. Do not attempt to fight the medications."

"I can't sleep," Kai replied. "I hurt people when I sleep."

Whirring along, the droid extended mechanical arms and began to examine Kai, who despite his words was already beginning to fade in and out of consciousness. It lifted the sleeve of his hospital pajamas, revealing the inside of Kai's arm, which resembled a pincushion. The droid wisely made no audible remarks about it, though it clearly observed the half-healed puncture wounds and scars from past injections. Anyone going through Kai's medical records would be surprised to find a history of drug abuse added to his file.

Amani Serys Iris Arani​

 

[Iris Arani]

Iris just nodded and say down. Yeah. A lot just happened. She still wasn't sure what happened. She stared at the tablet in her hands. Right. Focus. Reading, she could read. Figure out what happened through the medical sheet, right? That'd be explained there, right? Eating memories?

No, no such luck. Though she blinked as the sheet was updated, glanced to the droid. Then to Kai's exposed arm. And sighed. Oh. So this was her fault, then? Giving him morphine, giving a drug addic- Wait Kai wasn't a drug addict, right? Ahhh things were still too fuzzy, but she was certain he didn't have the ability to use drugs like that. Right? .. Maybe. She shook her head before glancing towards where Kai was currently fighting sleep.

"You're human, you know. You need sleep."

Amani Serys | Kai Bamarri

 

[Amani Serys]

Amani pinched the bridge of her nose, then relaxed, “She’s right. Might as well start getting used to it while you’re in a controlled space.”

The mirialan stepped away a moment to bring over a stool, to which the droid seemed prepared to offer a hand. She shot the machine a look, intent on lugging it over herself with one working arm. “We’ll be around to keep an eye on things.” She settled in and glanced over to Iris. At least this time Amani had an idea of what could happen.

Kai Bamarri Iris Arani​

 

[Kai Bamarri]

Kai didn't need their permission. His body checked out before Amani even had a chance to speak in favor of him sleeping it off.

When next he came to, several hours had passed. His broken leg no longer ached as much. The bacta had done its job and sped up the healing process considerably.

He looked around the room, then suddenly sat up, ripped his leg out of the sling, hauled it over the edge of the bed, and started to rise to his feet. There were places to go, namely the battlefront...

Amani Serys Iris Arani

 

[Iris Arani]

Kai got up, and Iris wasn't there at first. Eventually, just as Kai was starting to head out, Iris returned. Coffee in hand and a tired look on her face. She didn't sleep. No, she was too busy trying to sort through the mess that was her memories after what he'd done. She wasn't sure what Amani was doing, though she had every intention of doing to her what she was about to do to Kai.

Which was point immediately to a seat.

"No, sit back down. You're not ready to go back to the fight yet."

Kai Bamarri | Amani Serys

 

[Amani Serys]

In time everything seemed to settle. Kai was back asleep with no suffocative impulses, and Amani was eventually forced back into a bed herself.

Much like Kai, she was not content on staying this way forever. The mirialan rose from a much-needed, if still not the most refreshing slumber. The medicine seemed to be doing its work, considering she was not currently writhing in agonizing pain. Which might as well mean everything was in perfect working order, as far as Amani was concerned.

She got up from bed, and headed anywhere else. It was hardly a jaunt before she saw the two padawans back at the same game, with Kai being accosted by Iris to sit back down. “Hrm.” Amani reflected on everything that had led to this point, making only one conclusion for the time being, “I need some friends my own damn age.” She spun on her heels, and began looking elsewhere to get what she wanted, hopefully without Iris noticing her out of bed. This place had to have an escape pod or something right?

Kai Bamarri Iris Arani​