Private The Search

[Damsy Callat]

Level ~1997,
Coruscanti Underworld
Hours after The Chemist
Dagon Kaze​

Pitter patter.

The case files she had asked for laid open, paged through, but now neglected on the coffee table.

She instinctively sucked in her stomach across the way - the narrow carpet sea. The soft notes slipped in between the beats of snare drum in her ears until falling water might as well have been a sound layer mixed into the song at final production.

Pitter, pitter patter.

Running for his shower the room over. Percolating through the caf maker she had started.

Anticipatory dread tugged at the pit of her stomach. Every inch of skin, of muscle, of organ prepared itself to shift again. The crawl of goosebumps over all her body built up an undeniable momentum that worked its way into her legs. She sighed, leaned her head back over the sofa's arm, and scooting further under the blanket she had cuddled up with - trying to calm the restlessness sensation with movement that would settle her in place rather than see her run out the apartment door.

But it wasn't satisfied. It longed for the latter. She needed to run, get away, save herself. From both the dangers in here. Her eyes drifted over to the main threshold for just a moment, and her bare feet had unconsciously begun to kick off their cover, before Damsy ripped them away to settle them instead on the couch's upholstery - flipping herself onto one side. Please hurry up, she silently begged to both Dag and his kitchen appliance.

 

[Dagon Kaze]

The shower had freshened him up, it'd last for a few hours before the weight of sleepless nights kicked back in and the stench of Coruscant pierced his flesh. Today wouldn't be just another day in the underbelly of Coruscant, fighting goons, solving cases. No, not after last night. Not when the daughter of the Vicelord was in the other room making morning caf. Contrary to first impressions, today was not a good day. The prodigal daughter was, in fact, a sithspawn he had somehow convinced, and promised, she could be saved from the curse. The more he had thought about it restlessly all night, the more he seemed unconvinced. He never showed it. And never will.

Hope dies last.

Dagon was routinely inspecting for new bruises and scars on his chest when the Force twitched an alert at the back of his mind. Damsy. He put on his shirt urgently and hurried towards the living room where he found her cuddling rather unnaturally with a blanket on the couch. What the hell had happened, she was just in the kitchen brewing caf.

"Hey, you okay?" he crouched to be leveled with her, his eyes drifting across her form in concern, "What's going on?"

Damsy Callat

 

[Damsy Callat]

“Mmhm.”

The hum was wholly unconvincing.

“N-nothing.”

The statement too.

Damsy took a few silent moments to flip herself onto her back and tuck a hand under her head. "Water started going--for your shower, our caf--and Syreni got really excited.” Silence came again, this time rather shocked, and she turned ninety more degrees, propped up her head with her elbow. She hadn’t told him… “That’s her name. She says it sometimes in my head. Talks ‘bout herself all third-person-like.”

Then, she did her best to smile. “I’ll be ‘right.” It was already clearing up, the auditory triggers long gone.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

Syreni? Ah...

Her unconvincing reply at first almost made him impulsively reach for the empyrean to soothe her. Dagon had to resist the knee-jerk reaction with a barely visible clench of his fist. Was the Sithspawn inside already stirring? This soon after his...intervention? Today really wasn't going to be a good day.

His tribulations showed only for a moment before he stood back up, "Gimme a sec--" the Jedi hurried to the kitchen and came back with two cups of fresh caf. He offered her one of the two, "Want me to leave you rest some more?" there was a tone of urgency in his voice; the more they sat planted here the less time they had.

Force knows what Syreni's next move would be.

Damsy Callat

 

[Damsy Callat]

She sat up to take one of the mugs in one hand, reach out for his shoulder with the other. “I’ll be ‘right,” she repeated, shaking her head shortly. “I don't need rest; I need hella momentum.” To get moving. To stay physically, emotionally, a few steps ahead of Syreni.

Sip. Rearranging her hand against the ceramic.

“What’s our next move?”

Or their choices. Those were painfully few, even she knew that.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"The Temple." Dagon replied after briefly thinking about it.

"There's...better experts than me in this area, Jedi who specialize in, well - healing." or exorcising, really. He took a sip of the caf, blessing its revitalizing effect, "You might have to stay there for a while."

"I'll stay with you, though." the Jedi added, although unsure how true that statement was. No matter his experience of dealing with sithspawn, it had always been in the role of a warden against an adversary; this was slightly different.

He had never learned what Kai's fate was after bringing him to the Temple and that slightly concerned him.

Damsy Callat

 

[Damsy Callat]

“Mm.” She nodded, taking another sip. “Temple, gotcha." She had a vague expectation of what she expected--on the inside, not the outside, which she had already seen; kinda hard to miss--as she had once frequented one of the Knights Obsidians’. It was a memory had had long wanted to purge from her memory, but she hadn’t had much luck even as the years rolled past.

Some things just made an impression.

"I'll stay with you, though."

Just like Ty when he had offered to go with her to the post-Rodia inquest. Just offered though, because she had ultimately attended herself. Ironically, though she had barely buried anger at the defendants, she didn't want to go dragging any more of it into the courtroom. Damn. Her life felt like a ouroboros these days. Ever since resigning her post as House Verd’s warmaster, she had barely lived an original moment. Each and every one, with very few exceptions, she could draw a rather clear parallel between it and some aspect of her previous, purple life.

It was terrifying on top of exhausting. She didn’t want to feth up her life twice. Despite her desire to break through the past, she responded similarly now, though with different consideration and an altogether false intention:

“You don’t haveta. I know you got chit to do.”

Notably, what Syreni had just about permanently stopped him from doing. The least Damsy could do now would be let him get back to it. That reality would leave her lonely and scared, but selfishness no longer was a drape she wished to wear. Instead, she'd steel herself to her fate like beskar and it'd be right.

...Right?

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"I've got you to do." he replied with a neutral tone. A moment later the solemnity abated, replaced by an embarrassing revelation of how it sounded, "Uh, I mean the thing-- the Syreni thing--" Dagon blurted out then snapped suddenly on his feet, "Yeahh, um, let's go; we'll drink the caf on the way."

**

The large halls of the Jedi Temple were empty - most were on the frontlines or spread out across the Core. However, the Temple had always been empty since Dag could remember it. The New Jedi were a ragtag band of lightsaber jockeys in size compared to their cousins the Silvers. He recalled that fateful day 'storming' into the Silver's Assembly - there had been at least twice the number of the whole New Jedi just in the Silver's courtyard in comparison. It brought echoes of the two Order's disconnect and recent tensions between them.

The thought bothered him only until they reached the chamber where he had left Kai to Master Orsk - one of the very few Masters in the New Jedi order and of the even fewer experts in the field of Sith Alchemy and the Dark Side. Any other day he would've gone to Master Aldric whose knowledge of the Force was beyond exemplary but he was currently away and Dagon was most definitely not bringing Damsy to Ripley Kühn - Jedi Shadows...let's say worked differently.

"Master Orsk." he greeted the Bothan whose attention turned from some elixirs on his desk. Despite the Master's inclination to the Consular's Ways, he, too, wore an outfit more resembling a spacer or a scoundrel; something that had become the New Jedi's signature brand.

"Kaze." even the honorifics and traditional manners of Jedi hardly found roots in the New Jedi. "How can I help you?" Orsk's eyes drifted to the woman beside him, it looked like he already knew what came next but said nothing of that.

"This is Damsy. Damsy - this is Master Orsk." she received a nod from the Bothan, then Dagon continued but with his enthusiasm suddenly declining, "Uh, she's--" Sithspawn? The Vicelord's daughter? Commando? Where do I even start? Oh yeah, I met her in a warehouse down on level 1997 and then went to her place... why always me? "--she's, uh, touched by the Dark Side." Orsk arched a furry eyebrow and Dagon sighed, "Okay, she's a Sithspawn."

"Figures."

It was Dagon's turn to arch a brow.

"You've been on a streak lately - finding Sithspawn and bringing them in. Making a name of yourself." a smirk lifted on his face, "I'm keeping it under wraps from Ripley, don't worry."

"Now then," Orsk began, his lethargic attitude suddenly subsiding, making way for vigor that no one would expect the short, slothful-looking Bothan to possess. "Miss Damsy, please - the cot." he pointed at the lone cot at the side of the chamber. Unlike how many would expect, the chamber and the cot both looked anything but repulsive. There was no straight jackets, no white walls and white garbs. It looked more like a psychiatrist's room than anything else. The cot was comfortable, too. Only the binders on its rails hinted of the precaution needed when dealing with unpredictable variables.

Should she lay down on it, the Bothan Jedi would put the binders in lock and explain, "I've already established you're not the typical genetically altered monsters Sith Alchemy produces. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here. It would've been either you or Dag. That said," he produced a necklace with a cerulean crystal gleaming bright from underneath his shirt, "whatever's been done to you can still be dangerous, even more dangerous than the usual spawn, if triggered." Orsk reached for a cupboard besides the cot and set two oddly shaped crystals her chest and her forehead. Dagon could feel the immense presence of the Light, despite it lying dormant. Whatever those crystals were - they were infused with the empyrean exponentially. An evident reminder that they were also in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant - a Light Side Nexus.

The Dark had no place here.

While Orsk continued with his seemingly endless lecture on Sithspawn and Sith Alchemy, Dag approached to sit on a stool beside her bed. Concern had been growing more and more on his face.

"...and with that, we begin." Orsk shut his eyes and placed his paw on Damsy's hand. Dagon felt the Force stir and swallowed. Cold fear ran down his spine.

Damsy Callat

 

[Damsy Callat]

She would have picked up on the phrasing mishap had she been paying even a smidge more attention than she was. The neutral Force presence of her water dragon, though she wasn’t physically there but back in Damsy’s own apartment, snuggled under another blanket on another sofa, nuzzled into her side. Damsy swore she heard a nervous nicker ripple across reality’s plane even though she knew it was Keziah’s telepathy.

Practiced as it was, it never had sounded quite so real.

Damsy thought a reply behind the lip of the borrowed mug, This is what I've gotta do.

A breath of raspberried air returned from the pet. The sudden coolness of a golden hour fleeing into twilight rose goosebumps all over her skin.

She shook her head without realizing it. It's not about fair. Another sip of caf, then the set of her jaw, as if she was convincing herself of that. She hadn’t had any say over the events of her birth, nor was it her fault that Syreni had only just so profoundly introduced herself as a more conscious part of Damsy. None of the past was on her, but she held an intertwined responsibility to it now: she had to uphold the morality that predated the spawn. There was only one way to do that.

I haven't got very many choices in my life, but this is one of 'em. Gotta take it while I can.

While Syreni had no veto power. It'd be better to die having preserved some semblance of control than live hopelessly without. She had no idea anymore where that line was, but she expected she was just about balancing over it, waiting to tip from the latter to the former.

"Yeahh, um, let's go; we'll drink the caf on the way."

Pushing off her knees after setting down her mug, she untangled the blanket from her and began generally folding it over her arm. The absolute least she could do was stop ruining Dag’s things. “It’s ‘right,” she replied, to him, aloud, setting the blanket back where she had found it. “I don’t need it.”

The next-up least would be not adding insult to his injury. Bad things happened to the unfortunate commando who had eaten and or drank before intensive training. She didn’t know just what this trial would entail, but she’d treat it like something she knew until she couldn’t. Mostly because she was hard-pressed to imagine a galactic military that could put her through any regimen the Dauntless hadn’t prepared her for.

**

She wanted to put her head on Dagon’s shoulder, close her eyes, and will herself meld into the Force--either side, just out of existence. But instead she peered past him at the speeder bike’s dash. Squinting, she began counting its flickering pixels to keep herself grounded.

Just 56 when they came to a stop at the Temple, but she had lost count a few times over. Damsy forced herself to swing off the back bike seat. Just as she fished her keys out of one of the pockets in her trousers, she passed in front of Dag, and dangled them within an easy grasp. “Take care o’ Kezi if I don’t make it, yeah?” she asked, question in fact anything but one. A begged mercy perhaps, with all of the content but none of the cadence.

When they met the master, she wasn’t given pause to get a word in sideways. But, then again, did she have anything to say? Not really. So she quietly did Orsk’s bidding--lay on the cot, allowing herself to be restrained.

First, it was sadness that struck her like a rogue wave; deep, profound, and frigid; it swept her feet and buried her in the saturated sand below. She felt the overwhelming pressure on her chest, though Orsk had only just touched her hand, and tried to sit up. Knee-jerk. To breathe, as if the scratchy sluff coating, constricting her throat would fall away too...

Dagon Kaze

 

[Damsy Callat]

...maybe because she had been mentally, not just emotionally, drowning. She sat up into an environment not unlike where Dagon had met her halfway in at the warehouse:

Rolling dark waves, chaotically weaving and turning over each other in an impeccable pattern. Thick dark clouds concealed the horizon, for all that mattered there was only the ocean and her.

And something else.

Something dark and wicked. Something inhospitable that ruled this realm with an iron fist. An inescapable grip.

It permeated the air, the currents, the clouds. Its tainting hegemony spreading all around the fabric of her mind and suffocated all light and drowned all foreign interventions.

Kamino.

She immediately recognized that by way of what she hadn’t before:

A steadily blinking buoy not so steadily bobbing in the water. At first, it looked like any of the Kaminoans’ early warning storm relays, but as the waves spun it about, the access panel betrayed its geography: 32 kilometres west of Tipoca. She had saved the furthest swim for last because, unlike the genius amphibians, she did not have to return to the city for safety from the oncoming storm; she could simply dive down, down, down – way below storm wave base.

But it was quickly looking like neither, no one, might be. A deadly combination of crystalized salt and barnacle carcasses had sealed the panel shut. Even after all these years, it was scratched to all hell, inch-deep grooves in durasteel overlapping and running into each other, like ripple marks in sand the tide could never wash away. Damsy felt each stoke harshly burning in her fingertips like she had just done the handiwork yesterday. Her squaloid talons were suited hunting prey of soft flesh or semi-tough scale, not solid metal. She still bore the scars of that day, of finally prying off the panel – one talon had cracked down its bed, one warped enough to never grow straight again, one knuckle split where she had accidently sliced herself.

Eternal shows of desperation, just like now, waiting for the second iteration of Hurricane Idi. Calm before the storm was relative rather than literal on Kamino. A water giant's special brand of calm.

Damsy had long since managed to stand on the slippery, smooth, but solid basalt underfoot. Though the outcrop periodically plunged under water up to her ankles, she anchored her center of gravity like she did whenever breeching as the siren.

Don't drift like seaweed. Be stronger than a crinoid.

She didn't and she was, until a melody – her melody – broke through the high gale. Then she did and she wasn't, and began to wander after its source into the ocean.

 

[Dagon Kaze]

“Take care o’ Kezi if I don’t make it, yeah?”

The ominous words uttered hardly helped Dagon's suddenly rising concern, quite the opposite - their talons seized his senses and in an unyielding grasp. It became worse when she shut her eyes and along with Master Orsk departed into the depths of her soul seeking the source of the corruption. Syreni. An abomination, according to Dagon, created by an even greater abomination. It was not the monster that was repugnant, that went against the laws of nature and skewed the balance of life.

In fact, it was not the Sithspawn that was the true monster, but its creator - the Sith. The mere thought of the servants of the wicked Dark Side clenched his fists tight. Their mere existence had been the cause of what went before his eyes - the torment of an innocent woman that now walked the thin edge between life and death.

Witnessing her trials against the corruption further bolstered his zeal in service of the Light. Further strengthened his commitment to fight against the Sith wherever and whenever.

"Tsk."

Dagon threw a questioning glance at Master Orsk's way.

"It's deep."

"What's deep?"

"The corruption." he replied, wiping the sweat from his furry forehead, "It's taken a hold at the deepest crevices of her mind, latched on to her very existence."

"What do you mean?" the padawan asked impatiently. Orsk usually wasn't so cryptic.

"I mean that we can not get rid of the spawn without getting rid of her." Dagon's eyes widened in stupor and his guts tightened in a knot.

"T-there has to be a way." he barely whispered.

The Bothan said nothing, he simpy gazed at the padawan for a long minute, lost in thought and considering his options. He glanced once at Damsy, who soon would stir back to conciousness, then with a sigh turned to Dagon.

"One--"

"What is it?!"

"--far-fetched...very hypothetical."

"Lay it out, Orsk!" Dagon snapped sharply.

"Patience, padawan. And listen." the Bothan scowled, something Dagon had never seen the Master do before. "The alchemy used in...creating this spawn is extremely complex, a work of a true master of the dark. But." he rose a finger up. "But because it is so interwoven into her existence, she could potentially weaken it, dampen it to a point where our intervention wouldn't be lethal. I can not guarantee that it is truly possible but we had theorized over it before with Master Aldric. That, perhaps, if she is to walk the way of the Light, or in layman's terms - do acts of goodwill and evade negative emotions from overtaking her self-control, she might be able to debilitate the grasp of the spawn. At least enough for us to be able to get rid of it without killing Miss Damsy in the process."

Dagon remained silent, but hope began to stir in his heart. He glanced at Damsy for a long moment before averting his eyes back to Master Orsk.

"You know what that also means, too, right?"

The padawan sighed, "Yes. She can't be here and Ripley must not learn of her."

Orsk arched an eyebrow.

"...and that she becomes my responsibility."

A curt nod from the Master, "Good. She will be waking up soon. It is best if I leave you two. You should be the one to tell her."

Dagon wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a lesson of responsibility from the Bothan but before he could even ask him, Master Orsk had departed from the chamber. The padawan's thoughts drifted back to the present predicament ahead of him. He still had no guts to see the first Sithspawn he had 'rescued' due to Kai's identical appearance, it brought too many memories of Dagon's twin brother and staring at another mirror image that was at its core corrupted by the dark side did make him feel uneasy. He'd kept track of the boy, merely from word-of-mouth but he'd not went yet to visit him.

The Jedi wondered if failure was fated for him in his second attempt to rescue a Sithspawn.

Damsy Callat

 

[Damsy Callat]

Orsk withdrew…

...and Syreni’s song faded away almost as quickly as it had begun, leaving an unchanged Damsy treading water. Oncoming waves pushed will and confusion back into her in equal measure; she whipped about, looking for what she had come into her element for. Her eyes were unable to latch to anything but the fleeting land she had dove from.

So she swam back to it and heaved herself onto the soaking basalt.

Except, the rock gave way under her palms to the soft malleability of cloth. What’s more - dry and warm. Orsk’s cot. All of her confusion melted at once, slight panic rising in its place as she realized two things:

The master was nowhere she could see. And she was still half bound to the wall.

“H-hello?” she cautioned to the air in what she assumed to be an empty room.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"Damsy?" Dagon warily asked the moment he noticed her opening her eyes. He leaned closer to her before a flick of his wrist called on the Force to remove the binders around her hands. The Jedi really hoped it was Damsy that had come on the other side of the trial and not Syreni.

"You alright? How are you feeling?" concern evident in his voice. Concern over the future.

Master Orsk had left them both with a burden as heavy as the galaxy.

Damsy Callat

​

 

[Damsy Callat]

"Damsy?"

She was watching too intently as he drew closer, freed her, to open her mouth and speak. Instead, her aura reached out to touch his - the first time it had unprompted. It was cool to the energetic touch, but altogether calm. Her. Just her, like the warehouse aftermath. Syreni hadn’t followed then nor now.

Her initial thought, just his name, flooded into the telepathic space:

<Dag.>

She lunged for him, throwing her reclaimed arm over his shoulder and scooted closer still. Her other hand wrapped around to his back and pulled him onto a hug.

<Dag, I’m so sorry.>

For this. For that. For everything sure to come. If she didn’t force the words out of even her metaphoric mouth now, she would probably never. She wanted to tell him that she would never try to kill him again; that she would not pose any danger to his home; that she had the reins over Syreni tight in her fist, never to let go; but she knew she couldn’t. No amount of knocking on wood would solidify those promises into reality.

All that was somewhat practical was, <I’ll make it up to you.> She just hoped that wouldn’t turn out to be a lie too. That she actually did have that much somewhere within.

Dagon Kaze