Helpless

After that late gathering at the Hirata Enclave on Atrisia, much of the High Council had hardly returned to Naboo before setting out again, splitting off in different directions: some to a diplomatic summit, while others headed up a raid on what intelligence reports said was a Black Sun interim shipping warehouse.

Meanwhile, Vizion remained on Naboo, working off of what they’d received on Atrisia, updating the council’s infobase and his own across several categories - including known persons - among other related preparatory tasks. Some faces he recognised there at the gathering, others were new to him. Some were a surprise: the last time he had seen her over a year and a half ago, she had been in a garish Life Day outfit, and that was the first time he'd ever talked to the Ukatian. Now she was representing the New Jedi Order?

That alone gave Vizion pause when he had a moment to think it over - so she was in a similar position to him, to most of the council he served on, being so young? But it was more than that: that he was to talk to Briana's former master, rather than the New Jedi's own representative painted a rather clear, and perhaps disconcerting picture of the state of the Jedi within the Alliance, beyond the mere mention of that Order's fracture that night.

How many masters? How many followed the leadership of that former Grandmaster into where, he did not know.... wait. Was she the ringleader of that?

Vizion dropped his head into his hands, rubbing his eyes, remembering the headache it'd given him the day the news of the Hidden Path came across his feeds. All this work that he, the council, and the Order, and others were doing to build out backdoors, secure passages, meetings upon meetings, would be going so much faster without this division. Every separate Order was so small and stretched so thin, on their own.

It all drove him to seek guidance, direction from the Force, sunk him into meditations more often than was usual, and this day was no different. Vizion sat up from his curl over the edge of the council table, dropped his head back against the headrest of his seat, and let his hands slip from the table into his lap. Slow, deep, calming breaths soon pulled his eyes shut, as he sunk into the Force, not seeking, nor waiting. Opening himself to its 'voice', its will.

But no sooner did he do this, than tears began to well up beneath his lashes, as the least expected of all things struck him through, as a spear might, skewering his heart and soul. Scraping open the same unspoken fear that she had, as it ran him through with her voice, setting it ringing in his head like a muffled bell, repeating his name, making him ragged with all that she felt in that moment. Lighting up every fibre of his being, and his love for her, with pain. Vizion curled into himself, choked sobs breaking the silence of the chamber, as his insides twisted and his mind worked into a panic.

"Bri..." he heaved, "...no..." A hand wrested free and slapped on the table, a raft while he drowned, "...no, you can't..."

As he tried to feel her through their bond, through his tears, for what seemed an eternity, until he found her weak.

"...please..."

But all he could do was trust the intercession of others.

"...please..."

Trust fate, in his helplessness.