One step back from perdition

[Gabriel Sionoma]

Sulon

Katarn Homestead, Medical Facility

Time unknown

Time disappeared, importance drifting in and out of consciousness. As if the measurement of it became void, it stood upon a ruler of flashes in the memory. The top of the sky line of Taloraan, the top of a ship, people scurrying about. He even thought he might have seen [member="Chevu Visz"] sitting above him, but maybe he had made that up for wishful thoughts. The last memory was a metal ceiling, blue plates pressed firmly together and welded shut. The placed seemed sterile, even the lighting had that appeal. He couldn't place where he was but it felt familiar, like seeing a book he had written but unable to fully recognize the binding. Groggy and lightheaded, he right arm lifted to his forehead. He tried to make the same gesture with his other arm, but it was immobilized.

Trying to turn and look, he felt a dull pain turn into a monstrous throb that coursed from his chest to his ears. He could almost feel the rattle of the ribs under the flesh, worms roiling beneath the fresh mud. As soon as he could get to the point of a crunch, he couldn't take the pain anymore, and fell back on the bed. It was futile anyway, the devices attached to his chest and fluids running into his right arm more or less made him stationary. He felt an overwhelming claustrophobia come over him, two steps away from being stuck in a body he couldn't use, it felt all too familiar.

Bearing his teeth, he rotated his head around, trying to get an idea of what this place was. Then it occurred to him, the medical facility on the backside of the training facility at the Homestead. Breathing a sigh of relief, he settled down and tried to minimize his breathing. Even that still hurt, even more so then on that durasteel roof. There, he had the adrenaline to compensate. Here, well if they were giving pain medications, it wasn't doing anything. He thought about Destin and Armaud, hoped they were alright, and wondered where Ava might be. Maybe she had a hand in this. Looking up towards the ceiling, he chewed on his situation.

"Well..."

[member="Avalore Eden"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

Movement at his left - slow and with purpose as a shadow of browns and blues and pinky flesh tones moved to hover at his side. Avalore was there and had been the entire time. Such was the vigilance of a Jedi Healer even amidst an exhaustion of sleepless nights. Sleepless now not for the terrors that often plagued her dreams but the cries of two twin babes within the twilight hours.

"My name is Avalore Eden," she began, voice soft yet clear, words spoken in a manner as though practiced and rehearsed a hundred thousand times, "I am a Master Jedi Healer of the New Jedi Order serving the Galactic Alliance of Sullust. You are on the moon Sulon in the Katarn Homestead."

Deft hands moved to check at vitals - heartbeat first, one hand at his nearest wrist while the other hovered over his chest where it searched through the Force for the rhythms of life within him.

"You have suffered severe injuries to all portions of your body. Lay still, relax. Tell me your name and the last thing you remember."

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

He laughed, coughing has his right hand hovered instinctively to his chest. The laugh ached, the cough ached, and him steadying himself against the cough. Well, that just stupid. But stupid and reckless tend to go hand in hand. Lifting his head up to look at her, the blue robes that seemed to match her so well, he narrowed his vision as he let out an exhale. His head rocked back against the pillow. "Avalore is a mouthful...I think I prefer Ava."

Opening his eyes wide at the expression of damage, he almost laughed again. This bed was far more comfortable then duracrete and durasteel but he couldn't help but feel dizzy, his hand pressing against his forehead. Thumb and index finger against the temple. "Umm. Gabriel Adas...Sionoma." He shook his head and dropped his hand back to his side. "Last thing I remember is the flash of transport back from Taloraan. Uhh..." He turned and studied her. She was touching him, why was she touching him? Oh, friends, that's right. He studied her face again, trying to see what other information he could discern from her return of expression.

"I was fighting [member="Darth Vornskr"] on Taloraan. I remember him...falling into an abyss before I lost consciousness. Something, someone saved me from a fatal fall. Though I guess not quite soon enough." He looked down his body, more scars to add the litany of ones that crossed his body. But these, these were real. "So...how are the twins?"

[member="Avalore Eden"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

"Lay still," Avalore reiterated as she firmly pressed her fingers at his forehead to push the man put his head back on the pillow, "and relax."

The Healer was in Jedi mode: expression flat and terse as she used a handheld light to check his eyes and the reflexes of his pupils. Delayed, but not nearly as bad as before. He was still concussed and by all means he aught to be soaking in a bacta tank. Unfortunately such things were quite expensive and patches would have to do.

Turning from him to a mobile datahub she tapped in the information of his vitals, lips thin in thought.

"The twins are well. I put them to sleep two hours ago. I expect I have another hour before one of them wakes up," brown eyes glanced back at Gabe, "enough time to tend to you I think."

"You've managed to dislocate and relocate one of your shoulders. You have seven broken ribs, bruised lungs, a fractured sternum, three crushed vertebrae, two major concussions-" the Healer's brows knit tightly as she read down the list, "shall I continue? This is just the start of what's left after they pulled you off planet and applied emergency medical services en route. You very nearly did not make it home."

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

The weight of her last statement cemented him against the pillow harder than her initial push. He felt the gravity of sacrifice and it's impact. It wasn't something that he would have ever known, only in those he had left behind. And he wondered back to that tower and what might have cause him to be so reckless. And it was the simple statement that this was who he was, bent in a way that couldn't be mended. He shook his head at the injuries, as if the Jedi Healer was simply going down a grocery list. The pain, if anything, was focusing if not teetering towards overwhelming.

"I was fighting against the Voice of the Dark Lord. The same who had laid waste to entire societies, genocide simply at a wave of his hand. The former Grandmaster, Kiskla Grayson..." He squinted as he looked up at Ava. "She rotted in that mans prisons of Panatha, drained of all but her last life, to breed a clone for nefarious means..." His chest rose, he felt the course of agony run along his abdomen and sternum. "And I was there, staring through my brothers eyes, his hunger to have a piece of her was intoxicating." He diverted his eyes towards a device, thumbing and pushing fluids. "I would have gladly died on Taloraan if it meant the end of that monster. And all the evil he committed...could still commit." Was he talking about Kaine or Reverance now? Maybe both.

He felt guilty for whatever reason. Perhaps in his own way, he saw his actions on the battlefield the same as mother that decided to not care for her children. And it made him mad. At her, at himself, at their selfishness. "I can't willingly allow people like that to persist, not when they share the universe with the twins."

[member="Avalore Eden"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

"I know," Avalore's gaze wilted significantly at the mention of Kiskla, "I was the one that Healed her...after..."

The Healer's hands flexed absently as she trailed off, listening to Gabe's words with a growing expression of weariness. So many people willing to put their necks to the blade in some vain hope of dulling the edge, of taking the feasibility of danger away. It had never made sense to her before and after all these years it still failed to register now.

How many lives had to end?

She felt the welling of compressed grief begin to bubble up from the pit of her soul.

"Penrose, Isaac, Aneliese, Domos," the names spilled forth from her lips without warrant. Names she hadn't spoken in years. Names that she'd attempted to dedicate to forgetfulness lest they reignite the fires within her mind, "Master Starkiller, Master Moridena, Lyra Dajenn..." there was a noticeable glint to her eyes. Hot tears of anger and grief that she forcefully held back, "Hal Terrano, ...my daughter...I've lost them all to this darkness."

Glaring at the man, the Healer clenched her jaw to keep the fury within and for all the world the seething rage she held might've made a formidable Sith had it ever been trained towards the Darkside.

"What's one more name to the list, hm?"

Avalore stood and moved to a nearby storage cupboard, pulling out fresh poultice pads and bandaging in a stoic silence.

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

Her tone changed and with it, her expression. Grief and anger married together, he felt the heat of it in that cold medical bay. His expression pleaded with her, foot upon land mind before it's eruption, begging her to stop. But he would let her have the eulogy absent interruption, the geyser needing necessary venting. She was angry, maybe at him or maybe the situation. Both were deserving "Ava..." At the mention of the daughter, he felt the urge to lift from the bed and give her the hug that she seemed to need. Even broken, he struggled. "I'm so sorry for your loss...your daughter." He shook his head shallowly. "I had no idea."

He didn't know the other names, not even Hal Terrano. Penrose, Isaac, Aneliese, Domos. Master Starkiller, Master Moridena, Lyra Dajenn. He committed their names to memory, mourning for a loss he never knew. Each light put out by the encroaching darkness of the One Sith, it brought an air of sadness about him. He couldn't move beyond it, the pull had more strength than the gravity of a neutron star. He grimaced as the pain racked against his skin again and his right arm jumped out, smacking against one of the devices. Any of them, one of them had to have dosage for the painkiller. A man no longer a part of his brother, he hated this pain and it's lingering. Frustrated and torn by his own selfish intent on sacrifice and the obvious pain it had caused Ava, he frowned as he tried to think of the words. Words that she might understand. But he couldn't. There was no logic to his recklessness, old habits cemented into this new form as soon as the mold was cast.

"I don't know what to say..." He shook his head again, this time more exaggerated. Understanding wasn't his strong point, especially when it came to himself. "I knew the consequences, I knew what could have happened. I knew I would be leaving you, the twins, Stali..." He couldn't shut it off. "But I couldn't turn away from the chance to end him. I was blind. And given the chance again, I don't know that I would do it any differently." He was a tool, something to be used for the common good and thrown away when absent any more utility. That was what he told himself, when he left Selvaris so long ago.

[member="Avalore Eden"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

She made no further comment on the names or her daughter. It was too hard, too painful to speak of. An old wound that had finally, finally begun to scar over - now freshly torn again and stinging, oh Force was it stinging. Glad to have her back turned to the man, Ava took a moment to herself hunched over the counter, grimacing against her own turmoil.

The want to scream, to thrash, to destroy was strong yet the Healer knew it was these very things that drove so many others into the arms of the Sith. A hand clutched at her chest, feeling for the Kasha Crystal amulet that had been there years ago but finding nothing. She'd given it to Kana in a moment of her own peace, thinking her time to part with what had become a crutch had come to pass. Couldn't rely on things to give her strength, she had to know how to make and mend her own.

She still didn't.

Deep breaths. Slow breathing. Focus. Diffuse the emotions, become the stillness, harness the energy.

Still difficult after all this time. Ava may have earned the title of Master yet she was anything but and still had so much more to learn.

Noise behind her, Gabe was hitting the medical equipment. The sound rang like a bell, dispelling her own fabricated aura of uneasiness and giving her a surge of strange clarity.

"Gabe!" she turned and hurried over to him, catching his hand before it did any damage, "Stop... stop!"

What's wrong with you?! Desire to yell rising again. Ava stole herself from her own frustration and switched Healer mode back on, checking the readings on the machines before looking the man over.

Elevated heartrate. Perspiration. The pain etched visible lines in his expression far too pronounced to be anything metaphysical. Her own brow furrowed deeply as she mentally checked through procedure and double checked the IV fluids. Everything was just as it should be and operating normal. What was wrong with him?

"In Healer training we call that Whitewash. Get an overzealous new Cross on the field a bit too eager to prove their standing and they waste themselves on their first patient. We all did it at least once. You'll be hunched over a trooper who's bleeding out from shrapnel in their leg and instead of letting your Field Training take over you go in for the big save thinking you can just patch up a shredded artery on your own. Do you know how hard it is to stop the bloodflow of a man in so much pain that his heart is just pumping it through like a firehose? It's so hard that it's impossible, even I can't do it. And that new Cross will try and try until he's given all he's got and his face goes so white he might as well have been the one bleeding out. Thank the Force for backup Field Medics."

She'd been busy checking read-outs on his medical chart.

"I always thought it was the Zealots that died for a cause, not Warriors," her lips thinned as she looked to Gabe and then up to the IV bags, "I have you on the highest allowance of Morphine that won't kill you. You shouldn't even be awake. No wonder it's not working..."

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

In all the intermittent waves of pain, he couldn't truly understand the depth of hers. Like trying to see the jetstream racing beneath the current, he shook his head and let go of the piece of equipment. Apparently it was important but for all it seemed to him, it wasn't doing any good. Morphine was on full power and he couldn't tell, like his body was resisting it. Was this a trick that Reverance had put into the body, a resistance to pain killers? Another trick by a man who loved the chase and the torment. Or was it simple the matter of a confused mind, once stuck in a body that relished in the push of pain, now managing in a body that couldn't handle it to the same degree? He didn't have the patience or fortitude to manage through that thought path.

"Warriors die because that is their way..." Whispers pushed through clenched teeth, he was coming to the realization that either something was terribly wrong or it was simply a minds inability to let go. He tried to focus, steadying himself, imagining himself somewhere else. On Arkania, fresh snow. Not packed, the sky was bright blue with a stray cloud escaping across the horizon. He pushed out the desire to fall back on that night, where his thoughts always turned when he drifted to memories of Arkania. No fire, no ash, just snow falling softly from the wind kicking off the mountain. Two small children running about, padding through their own footsteps until distinct marks turned to race tracks circling a small brick house. He would later take them to the library, frosty panels of glass in the dome. Shadow of the mountain drifting aimlessly over the panes. And then his mind moved on, as it always would, to Sullust and the delivery. The look of relief, the scream of two babies. One that looked like him, one that looked like their mother. Both beautiful.

Exhaling, he steadied himself as he opened his eyes and looked towards Avalore. A hand would reach out, not to grab machines, but to pull on the sleeves of her blue healer robes. With a smirk, his head rolled to the side in exhaustion, as he trembled. "Tell me a story, Ava. Not of your lost loved ones, or of the failings of a dove in the field." He furrowed his brow. "Tell me a story...from the last time you were truly happy."

[member="Avalore Eden"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

Try as she might, Avalore could not keep the grimace forming on her face away. As though Gabe had instead asked her to recount the emotions going through her head as she watched for the first and only time a recording of Hal being tortured by the Sith, listened to his screams, seen the tears streak his face as he broke.

Asked her to remember just how her heart disintegrated as Hal screamed out her name in agony.

Her immediate reaction was: I can't.

I can't recall those cherished memories without reliving the anguish of losing everything associated with them.

But she didn't have it in her to deny him such an innocent request. Being a Healer meant being the strength a patient needed: physically, mentally, emotionally. It was a duty she took very seriously despite how impossible it was to fulfill at times. Gabe was in a lot of pain, more than she really knew.

Her expression shifted to something of tense thought. Avalore gently cleared her throat and pulled the stood from the mobile desk over, all without tugging her sleeve back from the man. She took a seat and collected his hand within her own on her lap.

"Corellia," she began, voice strained as the woman slowly pressed her mind back through the heavy fog of memories, "I was born on Corellia. My father was Isaac, my mother Aneliese, my grandmother Penrose. We lived in the country on a large estate, with a beautiful house sitting in hills of green. There was a vineyard...." her eyes narrowed as she tried to remember, "...to the south and an orchard to the east. A produce farm to the north and west. This place reminds me a lot of that home."

"My father was a Governor. He wasn't around much but he was a kind man. My mother was a Journalist and worked from home. My grandmother lived with us for a time but I never really felt as though I knew her despite seeing her everyday. Strange how you can live with some one but never truly know them..." she gave Gabe a long glance, working subtle currents of the Force while he listened. Through her hands, scarred as they were, she emitted soothing ripples of energy that would manifest as a curious cooling sensation.

Like the cool sea breeze drifting over sun-heated skin on the beach, tempering the inflamed nerves of his body. It spread slowly.

"I used to dance when I was little. I remember mother clearing out the dining hall for me to practice in, hoping I'd fall in love with it enough to keep me from getting into politics. Silly to think about it now, I never had any interest in politics but it was the only thing that garnered me any attention from my father and I always missed him so much..."

There was a fleeting smile not absent of her own pain, "I'm sorry...I'm not very good at telling stories."

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

Gabriel was all too aware of the risks and dangers of trying to recall memories. Like jumping from column to column, risk of falling into the abyss between, it was ever looming. A blackness that licked at the ankles, he appreciated the warmth of her hands around his. The scars, he hadn't noticed, were so prominent, he was surprised. Surprised at his own surprise. But with that, he closed his eyes and listened to her story. The soothing powers sang a warming song of their own, he could feel it trace across his arm. And he breathed out, meeting her gaze with a smile.

"Isaac...Aneliese...Penrose." He paused in thought, well aware of their placement in her eulogy. State of Corellia now, another pitfall. "Your home sounds like it was a wonderful place. I would like to see it." He turned his head, eyes searching the ceiling, as another wave of pain passed by. But it was far less severe this time, he could still see properly. "Tormund and Samson, those were the names of my first children. Their mother was...beautiful. Categorically." He smiled as he thought about that small brickhouse. "I was to be a doctor. But while going to school, I worked in the mines as a foreman. I had meager means...but I knew the wealth of a life filled with love."

He didn't go into the childhood that had been entirely deprived of love. The torturous father or the mother that left him with that entity. He didn't talk about the blackouts, the moment where he killed his own father in the first true emergence of his brother. He didn't talk about how he killed Sylvia or Tormund or Samson. He didn't talk about tucking their bodies into their beds, house burning down around them. Or the act of coming to consciousness and scarring the face that marked his brother for all infamy, eye pulled clean from the socket. He recalled the memory but it was dull, lackluster, and missing the edge it once had. Maybe it was the energy pouring out from Ava, the slow crawl of morphine through his body. Or maybe it was finally time for him to accept the fact that it wasn't his fault, that those were the acts of a sinister entity hell bent on ruining the life a happy man. He shook the thought away, freely and easily removed for the conversation at hand.

Turning back to Ava, he smiled, reassuringly. "You're story...please go on. Tell me about the orchard, the vineyard." He swallowed hard, pressing his head into the pillow. "Tell me about how you danced." She always seemed so withheld and removed. He liked the idea of her dancing, chains and weights of a tragic life no longer pinning her to the ground.

[member="Avalore Eden"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

"Your home sounds like it was a wonderful place. I would like to see it."

Avalore's gaze dropped at this as she made a great effort not to think about the state of her home planet on that fateful visit two years ago. Why had she gone back? Why had she insisted on seeing the detritus of a life she could scarcely remember? The smoldering ruin of the valley where she once lived; the crater that remained of the orphanage she had left Adra at - images burned so profoundly into her head that they'd seared out the memories of the years before.

Her brow tightened.

She listened to him speak, the undertones of his own words causing a dull throb at her temples where the full meaning congealed into a realization that loss was not just her own demon.

"I wasn't supposed to go into the orchard or vineyard but I clearly remember doing so, often. The orchard grew apples, figs, plums, peaches, apricots. There was always something growing no matter what time of year it was. I'd sneak around with my friends, dodging the workers, taking apples from the ground since we knew they wouldn't use them. The vineyards weren't so easy..." she could feel his pulse with her forefingers at the nape of his wrist, it was beginning to slow. Avalore persisted with her Healer efforts.

"They had field dogs that would chase us out. We never got caught but came really close a few times. I suppose that's why I started dancing. Mother got tired of angry calls from the neighbors - guess she figured she'd give me something more constructive to occupy my time with. I started taking ballet lessons when I was eight. I enjoyed it enough to keep at it, but eventually I followed a friend to a contemporary dance studio where pink tutus and painfully tight hair buns weren't a requirement."

"When I was fifteen I stopped dancing after my grandmother became very ill. That's about the same time my latent psychometry abilities began to manifest and I learned that my grandmother was a Kiffar."

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

"Figs...natures candy." He said with a smile, the stretch of his neck pulling his head further on to the pillow. Her story reminded him of a life as a child that he wished he had, nostalgic for a time period he had never known. To be a real child, running through meadows and forests. To not be strapped to an operating table, picked to pieces. He was envious of Ava, in the sort of way that appreciated the notion that at least someone got to experience a life like that. The world was so cold, the road so rough, that it was nice to hear something different. Even for the life that followed, the tragedy that ensued, she had known a modicum of peace that preceded it. And he was happy for that.

He was suddenly so tired, unable to lift his arm from her lap. Fingers just tracing the edge of limp, he turned his head back over, not entirely able to move for the left arm that was attached to the bed. "I didn't realize you were Kiffar...we are peas in a pod then." He said with a smile as he closed his eyes, allowing the morphine full force to run through his body. Like being stuck in a blistering wind and snow storm, he felt the wrap of the warm blanket. Her powers combined with the drugs, the absence of pain made him realize just how exhausted he was. Before he drifted into sleep, he blinked in a last effort to stay awake. "I wish you would have kept...dancing."

Eyes grew heavier than could be stated as he drifted into sleep. He dreamed on thoughts of his healer, the twins that she cared for, and a life far removed from Taloraan. Maybe he'd rush back into battle in the very same way, but he wouldn't do so without the scalding words of Ava in his head. He was reckless, but not absent conscious. He just needed time to learn about attachment.

[member="Avalore Eden"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

A smile tried in her expression but somehow failed to fully manifest. Avalore watched him linger through the gateway to the sleeping realm with slow, controlled breathing and a conscious effort to continue saturating his body with soothing, cooling waves of the Force. He needed a lot of things to mend and heal, but most importantly of all he needed to rest. It was becoming increasingly apparent that he would prove to be a difficult patient and no doubt a repeating one as well.

At least [member="Meeristali Peradun"] had learned by now to heed the Healer's words. Though, Ava suspected it had more to do with who he shared his bed with at night than a desire to be less stubborn. Felacats. It had to be their idea.

Sigh pressing past her lips as the brother of the Wrath slipped into slumber, she gave his hand a gentle squeeze, "Yeah, me too," and rose from her seat, placing his arm gently back at his side. A mental note was made to research different painkillers and medicines for the future - for now she was at the mercy of GA funds and availability of local solutions. Perhaps it was time to travel back to Sanctuary and collect all the things she'd left behind, including the expansive greenhouse of herbal and medicinal plants.

And the bafforr trees.

The Healer stayed to continue administering her powers over the man, mending internal wounds with measured care not to overexert herself because...

...as if on cue the soft cries of one of the twins sounded over her private comm. Stali wasn't home, so it was up to her to see to them. Ava quietly put away the unused supplies, closed the cabinet, and returned to Gabe's side for what she hoped to be the last time that evening. One last check of his pulse at his wrist - steady, slower, notably stronger. Deep sleep did wonderful things for the body. She leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead for [member="Chevu Visz"], for the twins.

"Please don't make me add your name to the list."

Adjusting the blankets of the bed over his chest, the Healer quietly padded out, turning down the lights as she left.

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

The boy with white hair, snow falls with no end​

Skipping handful of cobble, jumping across the bend​

To the open field, plains of iris and loose stone​

In the place where he calls home​

​

The mother with white eyes, apron and love​

All she would ever need, for snow that falls above​

To the brick house, she would never be alone​

In the place where she calls home​

​

The boy with black hair, a brother plays on the bend​

A fathers love, any wound could mend​

To the mothers embrace, a thing he'd call his own​

In the place where he calls home​

​

The man with brown eyes, a family he would cherish​

Long after the night, like fruit they would perish​

A loss felt deep, only he would long​

For the place he once called home ​

​

~~~​

​

Four days passed whimsically, drifting by with a time that seemed amalgamate. Minutes floating effortlessly into days, eyes groggily opened to see the blue robes of the woman tending to him. Blurry and without true realization towards the time or cost or resources that it took to care for him, along with his children, sleep found him once more in the haze of pain killers. Injections of bacta, patches of bacta, soothing salves of bacta, the universe relied on it. But even more so, Gabriel relied on it. He didn't like pain anymore, the blind ache didn't focus him. It merely reminded him of the time that preceded it, where pain was always present and always welcome. The shadow in the corner, beneath the window seal, indicating the sunny days arrival, he felt at odds with the disparity. The difference between now and then, it rocked him with particular revelations of change and growth. And as his mind realized the change, it did so through the torment of old dreams.

But they weren't nightmares anymore, the fire wasn't nearly so hot, the frost not nearly so biting. Vivid and lucid, it was the story that already had an ending. He wasn't surprised anymore, he wasn't moved by the images. If he thought hard enough, he could remember the faces of Tormund and Samson and Sylvia. But time, and likely drugs, took the edge from the repeated cutting with injection of obscured faces and diminishing detail. Always waking from the same dream, always finding Ava there once more or nearby, he grew comfortable with the healing process. Cabin fever would set in soon enough but this was the bed he had made. And now he was forced to lie in it, equipped with an abundance of time and an abundance of souls chasing him through the haze. It wasn't something he dreaded. In its own way, catharsis was had through such expression.

Opening his eyes, he felt the rickety knock of muscles tightening after prolonged lack of use. Searching around, he breathed in and yawned. The sun shining through the facility, it was early morning given the direction, but that could be entirely wrong. His body was awake but his mind was yet to catch up.

[member="Avalore Eden"] | [member="Jacen Voidstalker"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

On the precipice of day and glow,​

through foggy thoughts the time did slow.​

Tempered by damp soil and not,​

the foreign dreams the morning brought,​

a home forgotten and below.​

​

Breath the air and pristine chill,​

pass through glade and rolling hill.​

Beyond the memory of home,​

is where it lingers all alone,​

a life remembered never still.​

​

~​

Daybreak. A wash of pale sky filtering the warmth of the rising sun. No clouds. The light pressed outwards across a vast stretch of open country. Sulon awoke in remarkable peace and wavering quiet. Avalore's footfalls carried her down a stone lane, cool morning air biting into her throat and lungs. These morning runs were her reprieve from the long days and sometimes longer nights. As she passed along a cobbled wall of hand-laid stones she visited the visions of her time spent on Cato Neimoidia and her runs along the bridge cities suspended high in the mountains. There air there had been different, as well the sensation of running along a city in constant subtle swaying motion had taken some adjusting. She found after a time her feet had become surer, her legs stronger, her balance better.

And the fog, she remembered the fog.

Hot tea upon her return, the smell of [member="Hal Terrano"]'s porridge in the kitchen, his figure sitting at the table - never hunched, always perfectly postured.

Honey can also be added to porridge.

Those bright blues had turned to her in such contention of the idea ... but suddenly they were no longer part of Hal. Bobbing in a glass cylinder on her desk at Ossus.

...class dismissed.

Class dimissed!

Avalore come away, come with me. Please.

It's his eyes Kira. They sent me his eyes.


She stumbled, fell, felt the sudden sting of her hands and knees against gravel. Avalore gasped, suddenly aware she'd stopped breathing, started crying. The tears flowed cold down her cheeks as she coughed, sobbing, and rolled to sit down in the dried grass at the side of the road. So far from Cato, so long away. Strange how when you try to run from all your problems they always seem to catch up again. How did it find her here?

Beepbeepbeepbeep...

The comm at her side chirruped and buzzed, noting the movement within the Medical Bay and the slowly rising brain activity of its singular occupant.

"...oh..." blinking, the Healer wiped the tears on the sleeve of her sport shirt, briefly looking at her hands now stained with the peeking of blood from several cuts. Her knees twinged with similar pain but she didn't seem to notice. Gabriel was awake much earlier than anticipated ... or had she run longer and farther than she realized? The twins would be waking shortly too...

This life would not wait for her while her other life continued its distracting haunt. So with a deep breath she slowly pulled herself to her feet again and turned back the way she came.

Tomp tomp tomp tomp tomp tomp...

~~~~

Avalore arrived short of breath and pink-cheeked some time after Gabriel reached full conscious state. She'd managed to clean and bandage her hands and knees but was still in her running clothes when she stepped in to the room. Smile greeted him fleetingly as she moved to his bedside and took a gander at his chart readouts, "Gabriel ... you're looking better this morning. Got some color back in your cheeks. Stats look good, vastly improved. I think you're ready for some physical activity -" she glanced at him, "a bit of walking, sitting, a shower would also be prudent. How are you feeling?"

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

Her change in clothes wasn't missed, a disparity from her typical robes, neither were he bandages on hand and knees. He blinked steadily, taking in the sight of the healer, before turning over on his back. He was complacent, the duty of the healer to move him, lost for his desire to linger. In a stare of lazy contentment, he felt drive leave him as the swelter of depression attempted to stifle his aptitude for change. He wasn't depressed on a global scale, but he fought local bouts from time to time. And now, it reared it's head in the form of stubbornness to the implications of change.

"Gabe..." He was an old body stuck with an old soul with the freedom of youth, the childishness still apparent in the fresh paint. Scarred hands and a scarred life, the grace of a healer overcoming the consequences of a love long lost. It was the void in the center of the room that pulled at the fibers of the heart. It was a taught tendril, grounding a man and a woman, so that they may understand one another. In their own form of suffering, they might comprehend the equity of it.

Breathing heavily, he turned on the bed, as his feet hung from the mattress. He felt tired but not from exhaustion. More from lack of movement. Looking up towards the ceiling, he stared at the bars of lights littered against blue metal tiles, and coughed free the negligence. Negligence in the act of sitting still, when so much harm and violence wrought the universe, he felt the ache of guilt inherent in inaction. "How am I feeling?"

He nearly laughed at the question. He was broken. Body broken. Heart broken. The woman he loved was ten thousand miles away, children not his own but adopted instead for the better stability. His friend, arguably the closest friend he had, forced to care for his broken body after careless acts on Taloraan. He shook his head, the negativity not helpful for the cause of healing, as he stared at the floor. Taking the leap, he pushed off the bed and landed on his own two feet.

It hurt, he couldn't deny that. But the change was refreshing, the pride and enthusiasm uplifting. He was a broken man but only for so long. "A shower later. Will you walk with me?" He said as he grabbed for the bed, back tightening up as he responded to the pain of exertion. Stupid, he cursed himself beneath his breath, and wondered if time would heal these wounds. Four days had passed but it felt like an eternity. He smiled weakly as he braced against the bed, trying to stand. "You'll have to forgive me. I'm not ready for a dance."

[member="Avalore Eden"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

Avalore seized the opportunity while the man was sitting up in bed, knowing for certain he'd go for the stand soon enough, and quickly removed the diodes on his head. IV fluids would need to stay put, he wasn't yet ready to go without. The stand was wheeled out from the nook behind the bed just as he got to his feet.

"Of course I will, but we're not dancing today Gabe, just walking. Keep this with you, you can use it to lean against," she took a few steps back to give him room and let him test his own strength, "Try a few steps now. Go slow, no sudden turns. I've put a lot of time into healing your back but it's going to be fragile for a while yet."

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

Prideful eyes turned downward to stare, darkened expression. He bit back bitter resentment for his position, something he had created. He was healing quickly enough, her powers and mending and the bacta combined to make a suitable treatment. But it didn't mean he would like this. Gripping the metal bars of the stand, he tried to keep his back straight, avoiding leaning. He wasn't sure exactly how to go about it, never being hurt to quite this extent. Sometimes, it seemed it was easier being a Sith.

Pushing forward with his right leg, he slid the stand forward, and followed with a hobbled left step. His back didn't hurt but he practiced prudence. On top of that, it seems his body was having to remember exactly how to walk. Atrophy hadn't truly set in, not for the muscles, but the mind and nerves were a separate matter.

Sweat trickled down his forehead as he took another step. Right foot, stand pushed, then a left foot. He exhaled, squint of the eyes and white of teeth shown in the tensing of a jaw. This is frustrating.

He rolled his eyes, pursing his lip as he stopped. Centering himself, he tried to come up with something to say that didn't so easily display his aggravation. "What happened to your hands and knees?" Something to get his mind off the activity, idly focus on the task at hand.

[member="Avalore Eden"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

Avalore kept her distance, giving Gabe the room he needed to accomplish these little tasks on his own but remained close enough to be of assistance. She knew well the challenges he would face in the coming days - realizing just how fragile his body really was, how easily it fractured under pressure. Ava hoped, internally, that the pain served as a reminder to these things. That he wasn't immortal or unbreakable. That life truly was fleeting.

That maybe there were things greater than a heroic fall into the abyss.

One step. Another. The difficulty was apparent though she was certain it was as much a mental thing as it was a physical thing.

"Good," the word was soft as she watched his feet, eyed his back and posture to search for signs of refracturing. He seemed to be holding his own, though a back brace would likely help.

"Good, we'll get you out of this room yet. Let's head for the kitchen, hm? I'll make you some real food-" she moved to open the door for him and stood waiting there as he inched his way along. At his question a shadow fell across her face. Avalore idly looked at one of her hands, "I tripped while I was out running. It's nothing, I just...haven't had a chance to give it my full attention...as you can see," her eyes shifted from her hand to her outfit. Ugh, she was still in her running clothes, which struck her as somewhat embarrassing.

Patients to tend to, baby food to prepare, breakfast to make, clothes to change.

[member="The Revenant"]