Over Now, Feel It Still

[Jairus Starvald]

ASATION​

-​

[member="Irajah Ven"]​

​

The Gree Enclave was restricted space within the Sith Empire.

Ever since the brief war between it and the Rebel Alliance things had gone dark there. Literally. Nothing going in, nothing going out. There was an effective quarantine implemented. Smugglers, pirates, other scoundrels, they had entered at the cover of dark to see what was occurring there. They hadn't come back out. At the deepest levels of the Empire that silence was reinforced. It was lucky, then, that Doctor Vain had the personal confidence of the Dark Lord of the Sith. And that Carach, as the former Voice of the former Dark Lord, had his own partnership with Zambrano.

A single ship, cloaked in White Current and technological stealth, slipped through the divide and entered the Gree Enclave. Asation was their first stop. For all intents and purposes it was ground zero of the secret the Sith were trying to keep.

"Do you feel it?" Jairus murmured as he absently corrected the ship's course. "They did a number on this region."

The Force was in pain here.

Like an animal of the deep its song was hollow. It echoed throughout the region. It begged for release. The moment they reversed into the Asation system things crystallized into perspective for them. Closer to the edge of the system there was an imperial blockade. A siege fleet that kept its distance. Closer? The wreckage of a hundred ships. Drifting mindlessly in space. Jairus couldn't help but whistle.

"Wish I was here when it had happened."

 

[Kuzo]

From Bastion to Coruscant to Kamino to Mon Calamari to Coruscant to Bastion again. Rinse and repeat, sometimes throwing in additional jumps to Dubrillion, Thule, Mirial. Ping ponging back and forth across the galaxy, wearing a half dozen different faces, juggling dozens of strings and people, all connected to a central goal.

As soon as the doors of the ship had closed behind her, she had shaken off the mask of Vain Jar'he, the dust of Doctor Calais, the mud of Donna Telmuth.

Irajah Ven was exhausted. Not merely tired but weary. The last three years had been.... not what she had hoped at the beginning, and the longer it went the more difficult it became to maintain. Too much and yet....

Not enough.

"Impossible not to," she murmured softly. "It reminds me of someone I met recently."

She leaned over his shoulder, chin resting there and arms settled on the back of the chair behind him. "The dark hollow cry in the Force." Thoughts flickering to [member="Sarge Potteiger"] for a moment then back to the scene at hand. "Burned out and empty, blackened and cracked."

She looked out over the scene, the graveyard of ships, the fleet positioned and ready to intercept. They would keep their distance. Even with the White Current at Jairus's command, this was not a moment to take unnecessary risks. A fleet could not be everywhere at once- there were always gaps, and the small ship slipped lightly through the debris field, Jairus's attention focused.

"No, instead you were using a young Jedi as a punching bag at the time," she teased softly. But her tone was tired. He had told her of the encounter, and the actions of their agent in the field. One of the few that had borne any use or fruit- one of the reasons this had all grown to be so frustrating.

But only one.

They were here to see with their own eyes what had happened, and what was still happening. But her thoughts drifted.

"How were the twins when you saw them?" Just two days ago for him, and he'd feel a thread of a rare emotion flickering through their bond. Regretful envy.

[member="Jairus Starvald"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

The brief flash of memory touched him too.

A hum, then a nod.

"I know of him." This was not the same as saying that he knew him. "Once upon a time his commitment to the light verged towards the extreme." He had presided over an extremist faction of lightsiders within the Omega Protectorate. Those were different times. Back then Jairus had still been Carach. A fledgling creation compared to the now. An echo. He had still been trying to find his way in the Galaxy. The man of then... would never have imagined having a family now.

Children. A woman to share his soul with.

Even now, a decade of life shared, it was a strange thought to a degree.

A smile at her reminder. "She was in the way and wasn't willing to budge." A shrug followed there. "Some need a firm lesson, before they learn how the Galaxy works." His mind briefly went to that young padawan. Full of hope and optimism. Strange how deeply Jairus had touched her life, but how little he had thought of her. They had managed to get home after that. Of course, Cerbera had been nonplussed by it all. Only mildly annoyed that she missed the entire show while sitting.

Strange how she went from crazy to... well... still crazy, but trusted by his wife.

"Hm?" The rare emotion breaking his concentration for a moment. He glanced to the side, watching her softly, before returning to the viewport. "Brilliant. Lexa shattered a plate in a grumpy fit. Used the Force to push it straight off the table."

Clear amusement felt by him and radiating out.

"You okay?" She almost never felt envy... ever.

 

[Kuzo]

A chuckle. "Apparently I should have known who he was. The story of things, hmm?"

It wasn't the first time that her life growing up out of the scope of galactic events had come up in that fashion.

"Perhaps I should have taken a course in recent history instead of art when I was living on Dosuun." A pause, mulling. "It was Ashin, that arranged for my release from the Alliance, through him. So that is one mystery solved."

The smile on her lips flickering into a small frown. Shifting from amusement at the story to something else.

"I'm sorry I missed it," she said honestly. "I regret that I did."

Irajah and Jairus didn't need to use words to explain how they were feeling to each other. All either had to do was reach out the barest touch- indeed when the emotions were strong enough not even that. But there was something cathartic about saying it, about finding the right words when the emotions themselves were messy.

"I've been feeling that more and more lately," she murmured softly, gaze distant as it cast through the viewport in front of them.

"Almost three years since I started this, Jai. The first part wasn't so bad. But since I've taken that damnable mask," he knew she mean Vain's, "It's gotten worse. Not the task itself. The costs."

It had been two months already since the last time she had been home for more than a day at a time. Juggling too many false personas in her quest for vengeance, stretched too thin. Oh, she could do it- in a way she reveled in it, the task itself. It challenged. Hell, it amused. And yet....

"I wanted to take from them, more than they had taken from me," she said quietly. "But in that task, I am losing something I can never get back."

Elexi and Telani's childhood. When they had been infants it had been one thing. She hadn't expected it all to take this long. But setback after set back, one agent failing after another to connect the next set of dots. In trying to strike back for what they had done to her....

She was losing far more than what they had taken.

"I don't think," she paused, turning the words over in her mouth. "That it is worth it."

[member="Jairus Starvald"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

"I am sorry you missed it too."

The fact of Ashin was tucked neatly away into the recesses of his mind, but it didn't matter now. In the past it would have. He would have asked more questions, probing, trying to determine if there was anything of use there for him. All of this was strange to him. Even a decade later. He had not been expecting to settle so easily in the role of... father? Stay-at-home dad (snrk, it amused him just to think of it). But in the end it had made total sense for him and for her.

His youth had been spend conquering and shaping his future.

A life lived through struggle, passion and victory.

The least that Jairus had been able to do was give Irajah the opportunity to do what she needed to do. Only she had the right to determine how much her vengeance was worth to her. That wasn't a call Jairus even tried to consider. "I know, love. It is one thing to manipulate from a distance." For one it still meant the ability to return home at five. "But living that other life out there?" A shake of the head, giving her hand a soft pat. "Something has to give."

No, Jai had never blamed her throughout the years.

A nod followed, leaning back and sighing, studying the planet as it approached in front of them.

"I support any choice you make, Raja. Be that vengeance, be that family. We will make it work." A shrug there. "I have thoughts on what to do, if you decide to let it go though."

Always the schemer. Always. Even as father, first.

 

[Kuzo]

She leaned in, kissing him softly on the temple. He had been understanding, perhaps to a fault, in all of this. Partners, always.

The reality was simple. The best and greatest years of her life, the fondest memories, were the earliest days of her childhood. She had been raised by parents that were not only present, but deeply loving. It had taken her time to reconcile her memories of that time and the people who her parents had been in truth. Having her own family had helped with that, giving her room for forgiveness in the hurts concealed and the secrets hidden. She understood better how how the knowledge of what her parents had been did not negate the life they had all lived together.

Until the moment of her death, she had wanted everything that she had grown up with. Dying in fear and blood, and her passage through the Netherworld had.... changed things. But the longer she went past that, the easier it was to look back beyond the veil of that moment and reclaim certain things that had been dear to her heart. The lies were left behind. No more illusions. Either about her parents or about herself. Instead she accepted what was there for what it was.

Forgive and forget the Zambranos however? Never.

But if she were losing now more than they had ever taken, who was the fool in this pursuit?

No one but herself.

She let out a low whistle. "This," she said finally. "Is a damned mess." No longer referring to their previous conversation.

"I am sure that Cerbera was utterly gleeful about this whole endevour and watching the repercussions unfold. But it looks as though, perhaps, they didn't think this through to the end."

Raj pursed her lips, the sensations through the Force only growing stronger as they entered the atmosphere. High level solar winds buffeted the small ship, but it was the echoes of the yawning maelstrom in the Force that she was referring to. Irajah was a scientist, and the deeper occult usage of the dark side had always made her uneasy.

[member="Jairus Starvald"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

It was more than just the Force crying out in chaos.

There were.... things moving in the air, farther away, at the backdrop of the horizon. They revolved around the one of the cities in the distance. Circling, disappearing, reappearing again and more. It wasn't just that the Sith had teared a wound within the Force. Something (many somethings) had used that apparently. An opportunity to actually come out to play. It made Jai silent for a moment. At a loss of words, because this was something he had not been expecting.

At all.

"Gleeful? That one probably has a secret laboratory here somewhere." Starvald managed to reply dryly after a moment.

It was no wonder that they had blockaded this area. What where they supposed to do against... that? "Force, this isn't something you fix one, two, three." He muttered as he angled away from the civic zones. They could guess why they were so intently focused there.

People.

Food.

"They just wanted to make a temporary hole, I assume." Even Kaine wouldn't invite these sort of abominations to stay here. That had nothing to do with the Empire he was forging here. "Remember Thule?" That reminded him of what they were seeing here. That hole being torn apart, arms pulling themselves in. That wasn't the exact thing that was happening here, but.. similar, very similar. He landed carefully on a clearing, surrounded by forestation and trees.

"Scans picked up a village nearby. We can check that out, see if we can find out something more?"

 

[Kuzo]

She watched in silence, eyes following the movements of one figure in particular. Dipping and turning in the sky like winged serpents. It might look almost playful if she couldn't feel the vibrations through the force. This was no natural creature, jaunting through the breeze and clouds like a kite. This was a predator, hunting in the skies. Smooth easy motions and then suddenly-

Diving.

The distance made the details impossible to pick up, but it took little imagination to see the tiny speck it brought back up with it could be human.

"I'm not sure it's something they can fix at all," she murmured softly. "Not without a cost higher than they would be willing to pay."

It came back to that then, didn't it? The actions of the Zambranos enacting their price on others. She breathed out in a sharp huff through her nose.

To continue with her intentions.... or not? And if not, how much responsibility did she hold to the future?

Very little, in truth. Oh, a certain someone from her past would have argued. But it could not be on any single person's shoulders to bear the responsibility of the actions of monsters.

"Similar end result but different causes," she sighed. "Thule was torn from the other end, with help from this side." As Vain, she had examined that. Easy there, since it had happened in the basement of one of her labs. "That was a passage way. Something built. This? This is a wound."

They disembarked, stepping out into the woods. Even here, there was something wrong on the air. Irajah had never been much of an outdoors person herself, but even she registered it. It took a moment to pinpoint however. Not a sound. Not one bird. Not one insect. The silence was oppressive.

"If that village is lucky, it is already empty," she said, a touch grimly as they started walking. She didn't specify if she meant because they had fled.... or if they were all already dead.

[member="Jairus Starvald"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

"And it is easier to collapse a passage build, than to knit a wound torn apart." Jai finished her thought with his own.

Personally he didn't much care about this.

Oh, it was senseless and honestly kind of overkill, but this was the first time he had thought of the Gree Enclave. The first time he had come to visit. The fact that this region of space was ruined? Potentially for a very, very long time, until it was healed once more? Well, that didn't matter much to him. They'd return back to Coruscant in due time and this would be in the past. That probably didn't hold water for the people who had lived here. Who presumably still lived here, if these creatures were still alive and hunting.

They disembarked and Jairus looked around.

He noticed the same thing that Raj did after a moment. Complete silence, not even the sound of a cricket.

"I wonder how long this can go on," His hand brushing the bark of a nearby tree. It immediately came off, dropping to the ground and crumbling there. Brows furrow. "What happens when you introduce an invasive exotic creature into a tightly-entwined ecosystem? One that now has no predators above it."

An idea was forming itself at the back of his head. Something... amusing, potentially. He hummed on it as they resumed the stride over a hill that gave them a view of the village in the distance. It seemed silent. Like it was holdings its breath. Nothing flying overhead, but that didn't mean much. If everything in that forest had been hunted to extinction? Then there were presumably other creatures. Things that didn't need or maybe even couldn't fly to make their case.

"I don't think Asation has had much in the way of luck since the war." Jairus responded with furrowed brows. "I will cover us in the White Current again. While I don't think a few of those creatures will pose a threat."

He thought on it for a moment.

"Well, not much of a threat." A whole host of them? That was a different situation. The Sith Empire wasn't occupying these worlds, after all. How much had they lost themselves while retreating? A moment later Irajah would feel the cold seeping into her skin. Like living liquid, cold for a moment as it washed over them both, before returning to a comfortable temperature. Within the White Current everything was more muted. Peaceful. Patient. It was a state of being not usually available to the Sith and their heat and passion. Jairus had always marveled at it, when it washed over him. Marveled. But also had some discomfort about it, because-

In the distance a cry ruptured through his thoughts. This was followed by the bellowing of... beasts? Presumably the creatures, but the sounds they made had nothing to do with lungs or anything else.

It was otherworldly.

A glance towards Irajah. "Seems someone hasn't been that lucky." Before setting off in that direction.

 

[Kuzo]

"Much easier," she agreed. The metaphor had not been a casual one.

"What happens?" As they moved between the trees, closer to their destination, her words got quieter. Maybe it was the passage through the silent forest. Perhaps it was the feeling of the White Current around them. She'd had no particular talent with it, no matter how Jairus had tried to teach her. Even before her death, so they could hardly blame the change enacted by her return by Cerbera.

It was a curiosity. She had the patience, the calm, the temperament for it. And yet it seemed like mist on the surface of a lake. Visible, floating in plain sight. But ultimately entirely untouchable other than the vaguest sense that it existed.

"In a natural ecosystem, with a natural invasive, it will prowl and hunt and devour. Reproduce at astounding rates. Consume more and more until food begins to turn scarce. Then comes the dying times. Massive culls, due to starvation and sickness from over crowding. In a strong ecosystem, the endemic species will rebound, albeit slower than the invasives. The cycle will begin again. In a weak ecosystem however, the prey species never recover, and the invasives eventually starve, turn on each other... or leave if they can."

A pause, as they crested a slight rise. Closer now.

"The question is will they go back from where they came? Or will they attempt to move elsewhere?"

And if so, how far would they go before they were stopped?

Coruscant was halfway across the galaxy. They were under little, if any threat there. But this was in the Empire's backyard.

"Perhaps they could be.... encouraged..... down a particular path," she murmured softly.

The Sith Empire could stop this. They had the power, they had the sheer bodies necessary to fix the mess they had made. Oh, it would be expensive. Potentially devastating. Little, if any risk to the rest of the galaxy.... with just a push......

The scream cut through the air, drawing her attention.

The pair fell silent then, trekking through the trees. The sounds reached them long before the view did, and it told a story. Something that hunted in a pack.

Rounding a curve in the landscape, the view opened. A small farm, one of several dotting the plain near the village.

"Durni screaming," she commented softly, recognizing the sound belatedly, but unable to place from where. When had she heard it before? "Caged durni. Someone left them behind."

[member="Jairus Starvald"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

"Perhaps..."

There was a hold over these creatures. He could smell it on them. A thick oil that was covering their judgement in one way or another. Instinctively Jairus knew that they would have issue attacking one of them. Dark recognized dark and named it friend. Except that there were no friends within the Dark. Only different layers of threats. How far could they push them, until something snapped within? Until they couldn't help themselves and give away to their primal instincts?

Kill or be killed, no?

By the time there was nothing else to hunt.

When ever their own would smell pleasantly. Would they still disregard? Jairus doubted that. "Mhm, Durni indeed. I don't blame their owners. Your own life is more important, always." The cries did not stop. In fact, they grew in intensity as they approached. The reason why became clear once they got there.

The cages were mid-sized.

Some of the Durni were already ripped to shreds on the edges of the cage. Some, though, had retreated to the very center of the cage. The beasts outside tried to force their way inside. To rip and tear and feast on the quivering animals. They just couldn't quite get there. Yet. Eventually they would make it through. The bars already bend in some parts. Either the cage would shatter or the bars would bend in such ways to allow entry for them.

"I dislike this." Jairus suddenly said as they watch. "The Durni stand no chance." It came back to his original thought. "What if we provide this world with a predator of its own? I'd be interested to see, if it could stand against this scourge."

 

[Kuzo]

As soon as Jairus recognized the hold, Irajah knew as well. Their connection went both ways, filtering not just deliberate conscious thought between them but also emotions, epiphanies, and empathy. She frowned slightly, gaze flickering. She didn't trust such a hold to, well. Hold. Once he drew attention to it, it was easier to look at, to shift through with the Force.

There was no doubt that it was a type of weaving outside of her own particular talents. The more esoteric areas of the Force were mostly frustrating to her, rather than interesting. She had been raised on science, on logic. That things in the Galaxy were observable phenomenon, subject to measurable rules and laws. The Force? Didn't always work like that. In fact it often specifically mucked with those rules and laws, which left her irritated to no small end. This particular working fell into the category beyond science and into the weird.

"You and Cerbera will have to chat about it," she murmured softly.

What came next however, was different. What came next made her smile.

"I think that's a splendid idea," she said, clapping her hands together once, softly, and lacing her fingers together.

Watching the events below them unfold, she sighed softly. It wasn't the individuals that bothered him- they both knew it. And yet....

Carefully, she reached out with a thread. Sorceries were beyond her interests. But there were things the Force could affect on a simple biological level. And those?

Those Irajah excelled at.

She could feel the rapid heartbeat, almost like the flutter of wings. The raw terror laid like rancid oil along the back of her tongue. She could feel every hair standing up on end, the pulse thundering in the veins, the near deafness because of it. Not blind, but vision tunneled by pressure and fear. Unable to look at anything except the creatures trying trying trying too soon too succeed and yet and yet one more push back but for the back of the cage against the house and-

Her fingers curled.

The heartbeat slowed.

And stopped.

One at a time.

And stopped.

And stopped.

[member="Jairus Starvald"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

A shrug.

"Possibly." In truth he didn't much care about this. Oh, Jairus imagined it wouldn't take an insurmountable amount of effort to break the compulsion over these beasts. There wasn't a Forcer in the Galaxy that could both summon a legion of extra-dimensional creatures and weave a web that would force their loyalty (or non-hostility) to an entire alignment of the Force. The former was impressive. The latter? Grandstanding. Even if it wasn't impossible, that didn't mean Jairus wanted to do this.

What would the point be?

"I believe she is currently studying some phenomenon at the edge of the Galaxy for them." She hadn't been available to baby-sit. Toddler-sit? Either way. His thoughts went briefly back to their twins. One silent and measured. The other... boundlessly reaching and wanting.

Then the Sith Lord blinked.

His hand moving to rest on Raj's shoulder.

"No, hold on. Leave that one alive." Only one remained. She worked fast and could feel Jairus' pride. After all, he had taught her almost a decade ago. Irajah had come so far from those days. "Let's use what we already have here, hm?" It was clear through their connection that this idea amused him immensely. Oh, it made it all the more difficult. Turning prey into predator was challenging. Just the sheer audacious idea of having a gorram rabbit killer running around killing these things of the Sith though?

Beyond delicious.

"The bio-mass of those you ended will be helpful."

 

[Kuzo]

"We have..... a durni who's heart is about to stop from the sheer terror of this moment, love."

But she paused there. Turning over the desire that threaded through their bond.

"Making a predator out of prey isn't a simple process," she said softly, amused.

It was, after all, essentially what had happened to her. She knew that all too well. Not impossible by any stretch, but the line between turning it into something useful and breaking it irrevocably was a hairs breadth.

A pause there, eyebrow arching at him.

"You wish to do it here, now?"

Irajah was a creature of habit in some things. She relied on science, the stability of it. What he seemed to want to do was something different. A particular slice of Force work that had always been more of a challenge to her. Sorcery, the Sith called it. She hate it. It felt wrong. Oh, not from a moral stand point, just from her own particular biases and preferences. It had never settled fully as a mastered concept for her, operating too much at a right angle to her strengths.

[member="Jairus Starvald"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

In truth it hadn't even occurred to him.

That fun little juxtaposition between Raja and the durni.

"You were never true prey, love. In those moments you were a venus fly trap. Asleep, a drift, but waiting to be awakened by the right touch." That was his (and perhaps hers) greatest triumph. That shattered had made her stronger. Not because of it, but in spite of it. Together. They had shaped the pieces into something stronger. Better and more. A magnificent predator that did not need to lie in wait. No, it could hunt on its own and that was exactly what it had been doing for all these years since.

He reaffirmed that in his touch with her.

Sharing that triumph and pride easily through the connection. For a moment basking. Because Jairus had never. Not in a million years. Assumed that they would be here. Together with one another. Both at the prime of life and health.

With children at home and the Galaxy in front of them.

Slowly that moment passed and he returned to the now. "Yes... now." A chuckle, when he felt her indignation about that. "I know, I know. It's not your... favorite. It will only be the first step." A shrug there. She knew what he meant. It could all fail regardless. The Darkside was unlimited in power, but they were not. That included the cute smol durni. As they stepped forward towards the cage, the beasts around it huuummed with anticipation for a moment.

Trying to approach.

Then they hissed and pulled away again. That web over them denying their hunger.

"Why don't you try it first? Like I taught you so many years ago, let your sight shrink to a molecule and then dive deeper."