Private Phoenix

[Auteme]

Dracken Pryce Damien Dooku
​

She woke as though from a short death; woke as though for the first time.

Her vision was blurred. There was a light above, glaring only because she'd been swimming in darkness for the past- what felt like years, perhaps. Her mind searched for purchase, but as her senses began to clear she was assaulted by sensations at once familiar and foreign. She was laid out in a small room, the hum of technological instruments about her. Somehow she found the sense of gravity to be artificial, the light rock of the room telling her she was on a ship.

Laid on a bed. Tucked in very neatly. Her body was engulfed in a dulled pain; the shape of the cot told her it was a medbay, and the dullness was most certainly some mixture of drugs that had, probably, saved her life.

And, sitting nearby, a familiar silhouette. She opened her mouth and found her throat dry and raw.

"Water," she croaked. Her limbs wouldn't move; not very far, anyways. "Where are we?"

Ah, but they weren't on Coruscant. Something disgusting welled up inside her, but instead she found herself crying, not fully understanding what had brought it on.

 

[Dracken Pryce]

Auteme | Damien Dooku

The tears welled up in Auteme's eyes and he was reminded of a time long ago. A time when the woman laying in a medical cot before him was still a child, a Jedi padawan helping him find his way through the temple just after its construction had been completed. He smiled kindly down at her and placed a heavy gloved hand over hers.

"You're safe, Chancellor." Dracken looked to the pair of Darksabers and the Halcyon commando that shared the room with them. Auteme's safety had taken precedence over anyone else's and so he had ordered two rooms of the medical suites cleared for her privacy. Now, as the three armored commandos stepped out, it was just the two of them. When the door hissed closed, Dracken sighed with relief, but his expression darkened.

"What were you thinking? Taking Solipsis on like that? Your time as a Jedi Knight has long since passed." He shook his head, his long white hair cascading over his shoulders. "You could have gotten yourself killed."

 

[Auteme]

Dracken Pryce | Damien Dooku
​

As Dracken came into focus, her mind first went to another time they'd met after a battle -- Dracken had raced off to rescue his son as the New Imperials closed in. And then a little closer; he'd reached out to her on the ramp of his corvette. She and her son were rescued from the flaming hulk of a battlecruiser that had cut the Senate District in half.

She remembered the ramp closing, and then it was dark, and then she was here.

The mention of Solipsis gave her some strength. Her nails bit into her palms. "I almost won," she said, and she believed it true, but she did not sound convinced. The strength that welled up inside her was a vile thing, and one she could not hold onto. A hole felt burned into her heart, one yet mending.

"I hated him. I hate him," the word was lead in her mouth, "I knew he'd be there. I guaranteed it. And I did everything I could. But it had to be me. I made it me. And I couldn't..."

She shook her head. There was anger there, but above all sadness. "I'm better than that. Just- that he's there and Ryv isn't- it's unfair."

How childish was that? She was angry with herself most of all, but she could not discern if it was for her failure to kill him or for doing such a foolish thing. But she was too tired for her anger to last long, so she left it aside.

"Just get me something to drink-" and she remembered the other thing, and a different sort of strength entered her body, and she began to sit up, "Where is my son?"

 

[Dracken Pryce]

Auteme | Damien Dooku

​

"He is safe," Dracken said. "Though where on the ship is anyone's guess." He stood and walked over to a water dispenser and returned with a flimsi cup of water. His seat creaked when he took it again and he allowed it to recline.

"You of all people should know better than that," Dracken chided softly. "Ryv will always be with us. In the Force. The anger you feel is natural. Light knows that the Sith can sometimes create irrationalities in my own thought for what they did to me in my youth...But we must not give in to those emotions, or else they win and we lose. Not just ourselves, but everything we've built these last years." He sighs.

"It pains me that Solipsis went through the same trials as me and broke. I once believed that we could save him. I thought that while he posed as a Senator, that I saw what had once made him a Jedi. But whatever dark magiks have pulled his soul from the Chaos have taken that light away, if it was ever there to begin with. He must be stopped." His eyes fell on the Chancellor and he frowned.

"But it won't be by us."

 

[Damien Dooku]

Auteme | Dracken Pryce

​

He never would've thought he'd see the devastation enacted upon Coruscant anywhere else outside of the Rim. The wars across the galaxy had a habit of containing themselves outside the prosperous core, much to the trauma of their galactic neighbors elsewhere, but at least it gave Damien the reassurance that his folks would be safe back home. All that seemed to change within a matter of weeks, and before he knew it, the life he'd come to grow accustomed to have started to shift before his eyes.

He'd went from being a proud scoundrel with bounties and criminal records to keep him on his toes, to standing nervously next to Alliance personnel who'd consider his enemy on any other occasion. The black hilt of the lightsaber swaying beneath his jacket added an extra weight to the all, though he was still processing the gravity of his master's teachings during his time in Coruscant's underworld.

Even as he waded his way through Alliance members who were far too occupied with their own tasks to worry on the scoundrel's presence, Damien couldn't help but feel the need to make himself scarce from this side of the galaxy. The visions and premonitions had not come to fruition in the way he had seen, and no more had brought a migraine-inducing ache to his skull for a while at that point. His mother was safe, his brother more or less intact, but their was still a part of him that didn't want to jet on his mom while she was busy laid up in in a hospital bed.

He was a scoundrel, but he wasn't scum.​

And so the doors slid open as he approached their sensory threshold, and Damien entered with that cool and neutral expression that came when he was in deep thought. His expression lit up with the smallest of grins, the gesture being forced upon himself in an effort to maintain the façade of cool and collected in front of his battle-worn parent. "I see somebody's finally up." He returned to her side and placed an apple in her lap. "Just a little something I snatched from the mess hall after breakfast."

With a playful wink and a light squeeze of her arm, Damien shifted towards Dracken and extended a hand in the man's direction. "Thanks for getting her out of there, Admiral. With the place crumblin' down, and the Sith'ari guy lingering, would've been a hard sell to get her out in my Starfighter. I uhh, I owe you a favor." Damien finished it off with a nod, then returned to his mom's side at to sit on the plastic chair next to her bed.

 

[Auteme]

Damien Dooku Dracken Pryce
​

Dracken was always paving the road for her. Her mind went to a battle long ago -- one of the first New Imperial attacks. Dracken had rushed off to the aid of his son. Now more than ever she understood why; beyond being family, they were the future. "I get why you left for Ilum, back then. I'll have to come by the ranch again sometime," she said. "Hope the twins weren't too much trouble for your son."

She drank, and was sated for a short moment. Then her son arrived.

Though she was surprised at how conflicted she felt at his arrival, it did not feel wrong. She was looking at the culmination of so many of her hopes and dreams, and a young man, so whole and incomplete. Damien kept his father's cool but still had his heart, smiled without care and spoke with tons of it. And she felt all the love in the galaxy and the pain of every misstep in expressing it.

She stared at the apple in her lap, glanced at the clock in the room, then did her best to sit up, very nearly lurching over the side but catching herself on the low railing. A hand raised, outstretched to him, an invitation for a hug. "Come here."

 

[Dracken Pryce]

Auteme | Damien Dooku

​

"I get why you left for Ilum, back then. I'll have to come by the ranch again sometime," she said. "Hope the twins weren't too much trouble for your son."

Those had been dark days. His son had nearly died in that battle fighting against the Empire. He still had the scars from the Force Lightning that had left him a smoking heap. It had probably been there that led down Dracken down the spiral that eventually had him step away from the office of Vice Chancellor.

"From what I understand, they did quite well with him. It has been far too long since he's had any students outside of the Younglings."

The doors slid open and the boy entered. Dracken had never liked Lucien Dooku . Despite him being one of the more moderate Imperials, the way he spoke to others and looked had always rubbed him the wrong way. He was too roughish, too unpredictable, and that was dangerous in an Imperial. His son, the Chancellor's son, was much like his father. There were rumors abound that surrounded that child of Light and Iron, none of them good. In a way, Damien reminded him of his own son. Wasted potential.

"Thanks for getting her out of there, Admiral. With the place crumblin' down, and the Sith'ari guy lingering, would've been a hard sell to get her out in my Starfighter. I uhh, I owe you a favor."

"Of course Damien," Dracken said. He looked the boy up and down and did his best to hid his frown with a wry smile. "It's been a long time since I saw you, boy. You've grown up." He stepped back to let the boy through to his mother and stood at parade rest, ever the soldier.