Private Reconciliation

[Dagon Kaze]

RECONCILIATION
STAY AWAKE WITH ME vol. II
Issue #1

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​

Cold wind breezed from the large plateau up ahead, its cold touch carrying the troubles, the turbulence and general disconnect that recently beset Yula and Dagon's relationship. Black forms on the wall of the plateau pinpointed the cavern entrances the two were headed for. A shelter from the frigid gales, a hearth to reconnect at. This was not a journey of life and death; no trenches awaited Dagon at the end, no bad guy to apprehend.

This was far more important.

Saving the galaxy never seemed to pale as much in comparison before.

And yet, at the back of his mind he couldn't help but hear the echoing whispers of the past; his father's words of damnation that he was destined to be alone, and his own principles ever threatening the foundations of the bond between the two, because duty came first. And there was no cure for that.

Upon entering the cavern, Dagon brushed off the snow from his hair and with it the pestilent thoughts. Scanning the area in a brief stroll down memory lane, he recalled the first time he had been on Ilum during his Gathering. A decade or so ago and yet it felt it had been a life time. A different time, hell, a different galaxy. How old can you feel in a body ablaze with youth?

"Pretty, isn't it?" he smiled, the glittering crystals half-buried into the cavern walls drowned the shadows in an ocean of colors.

The Force surged freely here, as if one stood within the source of the ethereal itself. An experience quite similar to the feeling of being in the midst of an endless ocean. Here, padawans would heed the call of their crystal. A call as alluring and as dangerous a siren's call. Hallucinations driven from the Jedi trainees' worst fears would resurface in the quest for their crystal.

"We have time before the sun sets, pink. Come on." Dagon adjusted the backpack and strolled forward deeper into the caverns.

There were no demons to vanquish here but their own.

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

“Time before what?” She couldn’t help but fix him with a wry smile, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Freshly out of the turbulence that had shaken their relationship, neither Yula nor Dagon had the strength to love wholly and recklessly again. They were just gliding along the aftermath, lingering at the precipice of what they thought they had, not knowing quite how to move forward from all this without causing a lethal explosion.

Yula had only adjusted to the bitter landscape of Ilum with reluctance, so the shelter of the cavern was all too welcome. The howling winds and whipping snow were gone in an instant, giving way to a less frigid environment and a more intimate silence that felt somewhat awkward given the circumstance. “’Til we freeze to death?” She lowered her hood, shaking the snow from where it clung to the fur lining.

Her saber had finally given up the ghost on Krayiss II. Some time afterwards, when Dagon had asked her about it, she shrugged. Yula hadn’t constructed it herself—the Jedi’s weapon was a gift from her Uncle Dax. A memento of one of her Outer Rim mentors, a blade that had carried her though battles with the First Order and Sith. The crystal might have been salvageable, but Dagon brought up a new idea; why not find one for herself?

Why? That’s way too much work, harvesting a crystal by myself. I can just buy one on the holonet.

Those were of shoddy quality, he insisted—and probably not the real deal. Besides, he’d said, it wouldn’t work as well as one she’d find on her own.

Wait, what? Why not?

Dagon filled in the gaps for her. Forcies had a higher affinity for saber wielding than non-forcies, but Yula hadn’t known about the ritual. The crystal chooses the Jedi? What kind of weird hocus pocus chit was that?

Still, she listened. Asked a few questions, even. Ever the detective, he’d picked up on her interest no matter how blasé she tried to appear. Somehow, he’d gotten her to agree to a trip to Ilum, perhaps by underselling the weather.

Now that they were surrounded by the ethereal heartbeat of the Force, Yula felt like a scavenger on sacred ground. Not exactly a sinner, but she was no Jedi.

A gloved hand reached out towards a glowing crystal outcropping before retracting in hesitation. “You’re right, this place is…pretty.” It really, really was. A one-of-a-kind background for selfies she could post on Cosmi, but it didn’t feel right. That would probably earn her a dose of the glare, which wouldn’t have been the worst thing. They were on speaking terms, and eating dinner together terms, and sleeping together terms, and watching holos on the couch terms. They were still going through the motions of their relationship, but silently. They still cared for eachother, but from behind a sheet of glass.

“You were here as a kid, yeah?” It was a rite of passage for younglings, he’d told her. An ancient tradition dating back for as long as there had been Jedi. “Don’t you think I’m a little too old to be playing with rocks?”

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

“’Til we freeze to death?”

Dagon only gave her a wry smirk as a response; she had to believe that, it was part of the trial - to overcome one's fears and failings, both in the hallucinations, the caverns might invoke and the belief they had a limited time before impending doom. He remembered shuddering at the thought as a kid more so than of the frigid cold.

“You were here as a kid, yeah?” It was a rite of passage for younglings, he’d told her. An ancient tradition dating back for as long as there had been Jedi. “Don’t you think I’m a little too old to be playing with rocks?”

They were already meandering further into the caverns when she raised the question. He pulled back next to her, slowing his step so she would be the one to take the lead. After all, it was her trial.

"I was, yeah." Dagon nodded, then, "And that's a trick question, isn't it?" he smirked; surely telling her she was old would earn him an earful and a punch to the shoulder, or even face. Perls, apparently, had a thing for punching those close to them in the face. "There's no age limit to becoming a Jedi. I knew a man - Tycho - he became a Jedi in his early thirties." for all that was worth, Tycho had perished on Korriban. "Focus, pink - somewhere here lies your crystal."

"And don't even think about auctioning it off like your granddad did with the Fell Star." he muttered, throwing a cautionary glare at her.

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

"And don't even think about auctioning it off like your granddad did with the Fell Star." he muttered, throwing a cautionary glare at her.

Yula feigned innocence. True to form, she only lasted a moment.

“Oh, c’mon. That was one time! And I told you, it probably wasn’t the real Fell Star.” Real enough to make a quick buck, it had seemed.

Without realizing it, Dagon had fallen behind her by a half pace. Yula was now leading them through the network of crystals, which had gone from pretty to feeling almost ominously luminescent. She ignored the warning; Yula so often ignored her inhibitions, and now wasn’t the time to start listening.

In glancing back at him, she’d caught her reflection in a thousand crystalline facets. A thousand images of Yula reflected back to her in the kaleidoscope of a single green iris, burning brightly. She stared for a moment, running a finger over the scar that sealed her left eye shut, playing with the fringe framing her face, brushing it first behind her ear then back over the marred socket.

“Hm.”

There were times when the loss of her eye hadn’t made her feel any different. This wasn’t one. She turned back to the endless cavern lines with radiant minerals and resumed their journey.

A short while after, Yula spied something up ahead. Bathed in a halo glow from a patch of white crystals was a body. On the ground, slack, pink skin. Something shifted from the shadows beyond it.

“Dag- don’t.” She held an arm out to stop him from approaching. “We’re not alone.”

Dagon wouldn’t be able to see what Yula was seeing.

And as she glanced behind her to send an assessing look his way, Dagon was not there.

 

[Dagon Kaze]

Probably?, he raised an eyebrow but said nothing. The Perls were something chaotic, that's for sure but at least they were still a family. The sullen thought threatened to invoke the nightmares the caverns possessed so he brushed it away with a touch of the Force. A cleansing of sorts, something Aeris had taught him.

“Dag- don’t.” She held an arm out to stop him from approaching. “We’re not alone.”

And while his terrors were cut short, Yula's were merely beginning. There was nothing up ahead to warrant caution, only the Force stirring around Yula's form just like it had when Dagon first went through the Gathering.

"Why?" a mother's voice, unheard by Dagon, would beckon Yula's attention.

"You were supposed to protect us." a voice of a sister's grief.

"But you ran." another sister betrayed, holding the all too familiar syringes of Yula's addiction.

"You weren't there when we needed you." a cousin lost to the darkness, behind him images of Yula's bed tumbling nights with Dagon. Pleasure, fun, joy - all at the expense of her family.

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

Yula stiffened as the almost ethereal, yet somehow very real voices of her family echoed to her from all angles in the cave.

"Why?"

"You were supposed to protect us."

"But you ran."

"You weren't there when we needed you."

They were present too, dispersed into the shadows just beyond her reach. Had she not heard their voices, perhaps they would have been strangers—but something in her knew.

The image of Zaavik bared down at her with such hatred that Yula felt herself waver. Just as her resolve started to heave, he shifted to the side, giving way to the projection of her own memories. Romping in bed with Dagon began to sour the pleasant memories, and just as she was catching up, they changed again.

“I didn’t run…”

A strained whisper died on her lips as she saw her time in the outer rim, the crux of her selfishness. There she was, laughing heartily in another cantina, mug of ale in one hand and slapping someone on the back with the other. Was it Zak? Eldin? Enlil? Kaia? This was like a fever dream where she was seeing them all at the same time, yet no one in particular. Blasters fired, artillery roared as she found herself in the trenches against the First Order on Skor II. A masked man surged towards her, and she started even as the impact never came. The dizziness and the pressure of having her face beaten in was a memory she’d suppressed, and now it sent her reeling back.

Something dribbled against her nose. In real-time she touched a hand to her face, drawing it back in confusion. Blood?

The masked man had a crack in his visor. Through it, she could see one eye.

Time wound back again, this time to Pantora and the Sith. Then again. More gunfights, more heists, more cantinas and laughing. More rolling in the sheets, more sunrises on rooftops, more safehouses, more bloody noses and loose teeth.

All of it, far, far away from her family. All of it, on her own accord.

All at once, the imagery of how she’d spent the past half a decade and change vanished. The cave quieted, once again subsiding to the quiet multicolored glow of the crystals.

Yula shivered.

Feth this place.

At least it was over, that was her one solace. This was a bad idea, they should go—and she turned around to tell Dag as much. Only he wasn’t there.

The pink body from before was, slumped over onto the ground, closer this time. Red hair, slender legs, unmoving.

“M..mom...?”

Yula took a step forward, an unusual hesitance in her gait. There was someone behind the body of her mother, someone who’d only now stepped into the pale glow of the crystals.

“D-Dagon?! What-“

Something about him was different. In all of their fights—and there had been plenty—he’d never looked at her with hatred. She didn’t think him capable, never even imagined what it would look like. Never thought those blue eyes would be staring death at her.

She tried to cross the threshold to her mother, but found that the space between them was filled with a sea of needles. Stopping short, she teetered on the edge of the junkie abyss.

Yula was shaking now, looking from Dagon to Joza, Joza to Dagon. “I d-don’t…you said…”

Yula screamed, loud enough to echo down the narrow cavern. Supplied by the Force, her anguish seeped into the mineral lining of the cave, and the walls began to shudder.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"You only have yourself to blame, Perl." the words sipped like venom from the phantasm's mouth. Not only were they so real but they rang true, echoing across the caverns, reverberating against its walls, and invoking the blood-freezing guilt she had always fled from.

For all her life she had been a runner. Deflecting and avoiding accountability at the expense of her family, of her blood. Comes the time when the runner hits a dead end, looks back and the past catches up, and all she's been running away from slams into her.

Her sudden cry of anguish took Dagon back, his widening in surprise and concern. Arms instinctively raised as if to fend for himself. Whatever he had gone through here a decade ago seemed to pale in comparison to her trial. Perhaps a child's innocence and ignorance drew on fears far more childish than that of an adult whose awareness of every choice they've ever taken weights heavily on their mind and heart.

His uncertainty on what to do next triggered instinct to kick in. All guts, no brain. Warily, the Jedi shuffled close to her and embrace her in his arms. It was as stupid as trying to hug a cornered vornskr.

"Yula, it's okay." he whispered but refused to tap into the Force. This was her trial and she needed to overcome it on her own. "It's okay."

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

Somewhere in the periphery of her nerves, she could feel the sensation of being embraced. Yet the warmth and security of the gesture weren’t enough to reach her—nor did it click that Dagon was the one wrapping his arms around her torso.

Because Dagon was right in front of her, just behind the corpse of her mother.

"You only have yourself to blame, Perl."

A spark of recognition flashed in her singular gaze, firing a bolt of clarity straight to her brain. Dagon didn’t call her Perl. Dagon wasn’t cruel. This wasn’t Dagon, and that thought was enough for the illusion to waver. Slightly.

All of this happened while she was still screaming and sending a torrent of emotions, bolstered by the Force, rippling throughout the cave. The specter of her own mind had made a mistake, one that had distracted the distraught Zeltron. The scream died down like a fierce wind abating from a storm, and Yula raised her head to level her gaze with the mirage.

“Yeah…” First her face hardened, then in scrunched as if in defiance. “Yeah. I messed up.” She murmured more to herself rather than not!Dagon. “I’m tryin’ tho. Came back, went to war, picked up the pieces where I could.”

The tide of needles receded, and the image of Dagon standing imposingly above her mother’s dead body began to falter.

In the back of her mind, the real Dagon’s words reached her without registering their origin.

"Yula, it's okay."

“It’s not okay.” She still had one foot in the illusory world, which made the shrug of her shoulders while being embraced by him feel awkward. “But that’s why I have to try ‘til it is okay.”

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

“It’s not okay.”

It really isn't, he noted mentally watching the caverns shake and crackle from her force imbued scream as she shrugged off his embrace. The shifting of rocks did not cease when the screaming stopped. Brow furrowed briefly at what Yula had uttered in her hallucination, wondering what fears had gone through her head. Fears she would have to face and overcome in the material world, no doubt.

"Pink, we need to go." Dagon said softly, then a stalactite crashed loudly a couple of feet away from them and urgency clawed into his voice as he pulled her by the hand, "Now!" the whole roof of the cavern began crumbling from above following the lead of the first stalactite.

"And I really mean now."

And then they were running as the walls of the caverns collapsed behind them.

"I know now's not the time for it--" he began through lapses of breathes, throwing a glance at the avalanche of rocks chasing them through the rocky maze, "--but what exactly was it? The illusion, I mean."

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

The slow transition from hallucination to reality suddenly became much more abrupt. She did not imagine that the walls were shaking; the cave itself was quaking from the aftershock of her outburst, threatening to collapse. The tunnel behind them started to cave in, and that was when Dagon yanked her from her Force imbued visions to her feet.

“Wh-“ Wide-eyed and startled, Yula felt into a series of frantic steps behind Dagon. “Did-“ Her words stopped short as she focused on picking up speed and taking in the situation around them.

"I know now's not the time for it--"

"--but what exactly was it? The illusion, I mean."

Dagon always had the worst timing. She blamed his insatiable need to investigate.

Once a sleuth, always a sleuth.

“Uh,” Her breath rattled into a gasp as she tried to remember the vivid dream she’d had. “My family hates me, I almost drowned in a pile of needles and you killed my mom.”

As Yula rattled off her extremely tactful yet not inaccurate description of the vision, the ceiling a few meters in front of them caved in. The pair came to a halt, and Yula threw her hands out in front of her, finding that the Force guided her movements with relative ease.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

“My family hates me, I almost drowned in a pile of needles and you killed my mom.”

"uh--HUH?!" he exclaimed, tripping over his feet and nearly staggering into a fall, before suddenly halting to a stop when the cavern ceiling crumbled before their way. No, she definitely had the worst timing. And he blamed it on her big mouth and veiled desire for excessive drama.

Two new pathways opened up from the collapse of rocks and he'd follow the one Yula led them to. It was her quest for crystal after all. She just had to hurry because the rolling avalanche from behind was catching up.

"I'm sor--" the raven-haired Jedi began, then shook his head. What was he apologizing for? "Wait-- that's what you fear? Me killing your mom?" you could say he had picked up a bit of her knack for drama.

The avalanched rumbled louder and louder. It didn't like drama.

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

“You asked!!”

Gawking was entirely expected when someone you love just told you they’ve hallucinated you murdering their mother. Especially so given the situation that their parents had been in. Yula’s brain was focused more on survival rather than tact, which has never been her strong suit to begin with.

Continuing with the theme of running on instinct, Yula wasted no time in darting for the nearest passage to the left. Call it being guided by the Force, but she would have called it the urge to not die in a rocky tomb. They would cross the threshold just before a sea of debris rushed past, filling the cavernous path they’d previously been on and effectively sealing them into the side tunnel.

Dagon’s question had caught her off guard more than it should.

"Wait-- that's what you fear? Me killing your mom?"

“I mean…” She hemmed and hawed, the features of her face turning into an awkward scrawl. “I won’t lie to you and say that the thought hadn’t crossed my mind before. But I don’t go around just thinking that you’ll do something like that.” It was hard to explain, especially as she was trying to decipher the meaning for herself.

This new path was unsettlingly quiet, but perhaps they weren’t used to the silence just yet. “I think what I’m afraid of most is doing something- or not doing something- that could hurt them. Maybe you were some kinda metaphor for that since we’ve been spending so much time together.” Something earnest and shameful flickered in her one eye, and she turned away from him to continue the search. Then her voice softened, diffusing easily into the cave as if she were wary of causing another avalanche.

“I don’t think you’re a distraction, though- my family wouldn’t begrudge me for finding someone special. I think you’re a normal part of life…if that makes sense.”

She wasn’t sure that it did.

Yula paused, then turned to face him again. This time, her eye was wide, lined with fatigue.

“Dag, did I…did I cause that cave-in?”

 

[Dagon Kaze]

The way back was blocked but so had the avalanche of rocks and stones ended allowing them to pursue a meandering pace in Yula's search for her crystal. Her confession jolted his whole form, turning his head to stare at her in disbelief.

Maybe if I'm a distraction, we--

The words never reached the air beyond his lips; there was a sudden warmth swallowing them back into the depths of his mind when she referred to him as special. They both knew that for each other but the warmth of the knowledge only grew stronger when the words were uttered. Its radiation softening the stupified features on his face, then it folded into a tender lopsided smile.

The strength of a family was something he knew as someone knows about something by reading about it - superficially. Or, well, a bit more than that. For all the nightmares and horrors he had endured through his own blood, the New Jedi Order had been the only people he could call his own family. He drew vigor from that bond but Dagon knew there was a point of divergence between the two regarding it. Family, her own blood, was really everything for her. To Dagon, duty prevailed; the strength of his family - the New Jedi Order - stemmed from their mutual conviction in service. A bond built on dogma, canons, and codes rather than the purity of heart and emotion.

He wished he could say something about her visions, about what she divulged to him but the cold tendrils of fear from opening that crevice between them laced his mouth shut. Call it for the greater good. Or call it selfish.

“Dag, did I…did I cause that cave-in?”

"Uhh... yeaaah. You did." he answered, throwing a lopsided smirk her way, "I don't know why you're surprised, pink. It's way worse when you banish me to the couch. Why do you think half of the plaster in the living room's gone?" a chuckle huffed through his lips and he turned heel to block her way forward, driven by that nudge of warmth from her words. He held her hands and looked her in the eyes, "Look. We've had some... rough times recently, Yula. And I don't really know what the future holds but... I know whatever it is we'll, we'll face it together." squeezing her hands, he kissed her on the lips, then took to relinquishing his hold and beckoning her to lead the way to her crystal.

Yula Perl

 

[Yula Perl]

Normally, Yula’s insecurities were buried beneath layers of personality—and it wasn’t an attempt to suppress anything so much as it was a natural distraction. Yula was loud, energetic, and aggressive; these traits kept her busy.

Yet, the silence and odd meditative state of the cave brought those insecurities frothing to the surface, forcing ugly, realistic visions into her mind. An intrusion, but a necessary one. Her head was swimming, reeling in the stillness of the cavern, and she hated it.

Dagon pivoted in front of her, and Yula, whose mind was elsewhere, bumped into his chest. “Oof,” Immediately, she shook off the impact and stared in bewilderment as Dagon took both of her hands in his own.

"Look. We've had some... rough times recently, Yula. And I don't really know what the future holds but... I know whatever it is we'll, we'll face it together."

The baffled features of her face melted into something calmer, something warmer. What she’d told Dagon hadn’t been easy to experience—and likely hadn’t been easy for him to hear what role he played. Their relationship had its imperfections and neither knew where it would lead, but Yula and Dagon had each other’s backs through a lot.

She grinned at him from the corner of her mouth: an exhausted, lopsided smile.

“We’ve dragged each other all over the galaxy for our own stupid chit. I look forward to it.”

When they parted to resume the journey, Yula didn’t move quite yet. She felt warm here, and perhaps moving into the chilly depths of the cave would take that away.

Bonk.

A translucent yellow crystal had loosened itself from the ceiling and bopped Yula squarely on the top of her head. She reeled for a moment, not so much from the impact, but more from the surprise. “What the-!“ Irritation laced into her tone as she rubbed the sore spot on her head with one hand, and reached for the crystal with another. “Stupid thing.” She muttered, rubbing the gem across her jacket to remove the dirt and debris clinging to its surface. Yula held it up to inspect, squinting as she peered into the facets.

“Pretty, though.”

Dagon Kaze