A Bolt From The Blue

[Kaile Vera]

Unknown Regions
S A B A R E N E


Sabarene had no moons. It was the only orbiting planet within the system of three suns. That in the sky were no moons, but the distant Sabar Aurek and Sabar Cresh suns. With a curious elliptical orbit, Sabarene went through unique rotational period. The planet was currently orbiting Sabar Besh, accounting for the distant light of the other two suns.

One twenty-four hour period. It meant the nights would be long as much as the days. It would account for a good time to attempt to find one of the P'w'eck villages scattered throughout this desert world. For Kaile that meant more time. To search. To think. To try and make sense of the 'Verse.

Somewhere along the way, Kaile found herself wondering where she would go. Where she would end up. Where was her place in the 'verse? It was a sobering series of questions. Ones she had no real answer to yet.

Deep in her thoughts, she barely heard the rustle across her back. A flash of green would reveal itself against the light of the fire. The desert was a cold place. The ones on Sabarene were no different. Swathed in desert attire, the length of beige muslin fabric would cowl over her head and nestle around her next. Much like any other Bedouin, the Lorrdian would blend in.

For right now, she had to last the night. Then come morning...Hopefully figure out just where it left her then.

 

[Hailyn]

"Alone."​

Braith had returned to what she knew best - sleeping on the dirt with little but the clothes on her back and a makeshift blanket for warmth. The planet of Sabarene was a beautiful, yet plain, planet, and Braith had made it her place of exile. In some ways it was perfect - she could stalk the night, following the setting stars to remain in the dark, or eventually give her life up and burn in the morning's light. Nobody, or sparsely anyone, lived on the quiet world, which meant complete silence for the witch - it meant her sudden, random, fits of frustration and depression didn't endanger human lives. A life of solitude, of silence.

The night was new, freezing, but it was the most welcoming experience the Alua'an had in some time. As long as the day was away, the night never left her, and it brought back memories of a time that no longer resembled today's world. Time before the elders of her people had used her as their false idol to control the masses, before she had been brought up in their ways. For tonight she was just a little girl with scarlet eyes. Her breathing was silent, knees at her chest, and she sat with her head leaned back a bit to stare up into the empty sky - to stare at the dim canvas.

From neck to toes she wore heavy garments - clothing not meant entirely to keep her warm, but to protect her from the sunlight that would inevitably return to claim her if she stayed in one place for too long. As one of the fairer-skinned Alunrovaan she found weakness in the light, now in more ways than one. The exile to the distant borders of the galaxy was made following her breakdown on Chazwa after Corvus Raaf, the woman she thought she had loved more than her own life, had disappeared from her. Innocent lives on the bustling Republic capital had been smashed like little porcelain dolls, and she had a rather telling duel with a Nautolan following that.

But here, on Sabarene? She could cry tears that fell from the sky as rain and nobody would know, throw her fist into the wind and create storms that harmed nobody, and in this loneliness she found solace. Knowing there was no way for her to meander back into someone else's arms, to be dropped like an unwanted newborn, ever again.. it felt more refreshing than the first time she physically saw Corvus with her own eyes. Perhaps she might regret it in the future, perhaps not. Tonight, however, the exhausted witch needed to move - she'd stayed in one place too long. The force was useful in helping her constantly stay in the dark, matching the rotation of the planet as best she could, but now the connection was waning as her emotions began to build up.
"Maybe if I sleep now..."
"I might have time to beat the morning.."
"I just need to rest."
The sleep bore down on her with those thoughts, and quite quickly she found herself sprawled across the sand, unconscious and alone.

 

[Kaile Vera]

The tiny motor of the GE-RTD drone would hum softly as it flew along it's trajectory. A small red laser would periodically take scans, utilizing that information to transfer three-dimensional maps back to its owner. It was one of twelve, all sent out to search for the native P'w'eck that made Sabarene their home.

It had no other purpose than this. Hover, scan, process, transmit. The tiny sphere knew no other objective. So when it came upon [member="Braith Achlys"] unconscious form, the tiny sphere would do its duty. With a small whine, it came to a hovering stop over the Alua'an. The tiny optical sensor would zoom in and out, adjusting but for a moment. Then, delicately, a red laser went drifting across the woman. There was another winding sound, as a subsequent pale blue light followed shortly after.

It processed the data as quickly and efficiently as possible. When the lifeform scanner detected a living sentient, it prompted the probe to enter its conditional programming. In that instant, it sent a greenlight of life form confirmation.

All it had to do now, was wait.

The warmth of the fire was a welcomed reprieve. She had set camp here for the present time, taking shelter by a small canyon at her back. There was no worry in the event of outlaws or potential bandits. In Sabarene, one could wander for days without finding another living soul. There was a curious sense of peace to that. Maybe it was because she was here with nothing else but the night and the stars for company.

With a soft sigh, Kaile would lower her eyes, turning to focus on the screen of her datapad. Due to the vast distances one would have to trek to find any village, the agent opted for using a dozen GE-RTD's. They were topography drones she had tinkered with a small life form detector. Nothing too fancy, just something enough to map and scan in the event one of the drones came across a camp. With a dozen of them traveling this basin, it would help her narrow down the location to fly to.

Taking the Messa would work, but she'd be spending valuable fuel searching. Not to mention, the Varactyl wasn't equipped to be an exploratory vessel. It did one thing fantastically well, and that was be the fastest ship in the 'Verse. Granted, it was a term Kurt and she enjoyed tossing about the Messa, and while there was no official title, for them, it belonged to the Messa alone.

So far, Kaile had the drones set to transfer data every thirty minutes. That would save on battery life and allow her to properly review the download of data. She had created a program that would sift through the information, filing away the topography maps in one area while any life-form scans in the other.

Alright, what do we have here?

Her forefinger rose, coming to rest upon the datapad. Her finger would swipe and drag screens. Her dark brown brows furrowed. Nothing yet. All I have to do was be patient and--

A loud beep of an alert from her datapad startled her, so much she almost dropped it into the fire. That would have been a doozy of a stupid thing to do. There was no time to mull over butterfingers. Instead, the focus drew into the fact that one of the probs had found another lifeform!

With a grin, Kaile would review the information. The more she read, however, the more it began to fade. There were odd streams of data. That didn't make sense.

Her head rose, staring out towards the black. She took a small sidestep, moving towards the east. Slowly, using her datapad for reference, she managed to face towards the direction Probe Double-Oh-Seven came from. At this distance... she'd need to fly there. Her attention drew back to the fire. Without further ado, she put out the fire. If she was going to travel to where the small red dot wanted her to go, she'd need to make sure she cleaned up the camp first.

Twenty minutes later, The Messa's powerful engines roared. Slowly rising from its perch, it hovered in the air. Using the maps scanned by the GE-RTD drones, Kaile was off.

 

[Hailyn]

"Empty."
If being awake without the love of her life by her side was painful, then every moment she spent asleep with no control over what dreams might spring up from the abyss of her heart was torture. The moment darkness clouded her vision and the silent hum of silence was muted by the slip into slumber was the moment the horror began. A blank canvas, bland, beige, with a single figure at the center. Braith. The fabric of the great expanse was endless, no borders in sight, and the figure in the center - her - was colorless and small. The dream began to roll, like a cinema out of some bygone era - an era before her own, at that - in which everything slowly ticked into motion, like a series of photographs that were held together and flipped through at impressive - but noticeable - speed.

The figure turned, remaining still a vague, nondescript, image on a blank canvas, and then the ground - a long, black, sketched line like ink - was brushed into existence beneath it. At once the imagery sprang into life, the backdrop filled with a dark blue that splattered and splotched until it was Braith standing on a black hill against the cusp of night. A dull yellow moon slowly dropped into sight, to which the figure looked up to and began to walk towards. Each step her caricature made was an uphill trek, stars zooming by like smudges of white on a screen, and the figure began to shift and change, grow and age. Time.

Each step the figure took elicited a brief, but clear, memory of the past, a snapshot of her first lesson in reading, an image of her first moonlight stroll, and the scorching heat of the sun when it had burned her daring hand the day she had refused to stay within her childhood cavern. Innocent, a child, she had been, but life and the people of her time and home had raised her into something else. The figure grew horns, a tail, and it hunched over as it slowly began to transition from a slow trudge to a crawl.

The pain in her body and the chill of the night sucked away the will to wake up as she subconsciously realized what she had been - who she was now. Even if she had been innocent at some point, even if she had been naive and ignorant to the truth then, everyone had a choice. Everyone always does. She was fifteen when she killed the first tribal sacrifice, the champion of the neighboring village that had dared to challenge her own's representative. The soul of the man had been removed from his body before his heart had finished its final beat, and it was then that she resigned herself to the situation she had been born into. Goddess of the night? More like dejected witch in the dark. A monster, perhaps, and she blamed everyone but herself.

At last the figure, fully bestial in appearance now, reached the top of the hill and stood on its hind legs, defiant in the face of the moon - the moon it had chased for so long. Acceptance. The moon faded, but as it did she fell. Down the slope the beast went, each thud as it rolled and bounced removing a piece of its horrifying and perverse body until she was again as she had been. Braith the woken, partner to the Jedi Grandmaster, to Corvus Raaf. The figure was human-like again, no horns or tail or claw to signify her evil. Instead there was a cloud that loomed over head, a storm cloud perhaps, and on the canvas another figured came into being - painted in like her, only bright and angelic. Perfection.

The other figure was everything she was not, everything she knew she could never be. Corvus was the opposite of Braith, the polar shift that she always wanted to be. Kind, gentle, wise and patient. The woman was passive, knew defense more than her strengths, and could provide warmth when in pain - even cast out the temptation to kill the defenseless Braith, cast down from her lofty hilltop. Rather than carve out her heart like the thoughts that reverberated in the Jedi's tempted mind screamed to do, the woman had pulled her out of her crypt, out of her hell, and dragged her onto her feet. Taught her to walk again.

Each day, each step - symbolized by the hand-held walking of the two figures as one grew ever brighter and the other faded more and more - Braith knew her new-found friend better, became closer, until the two were connected by more than just a kiss on the cheek. The Alua'an didn't care about pleasure, she didn't care about sex, she cared about the feeling of being connected by bonds - and Corvus was her rock, her anchor, in the wild sea of life. Silara had been her ship to fight the chains that fate had bound her with, to find someone to show her freedom, to cast off death's grip, but Corvus had become the acceptance of it all. Desperation had marred her trapped life and her actions, but as the two figures moved across the flat ink ground those issues began to disappear.

But as she approached another hill, Corvus's hand in hers, she found the painter had another cruel change to make. Life had been perfect, Corvus had been more than that, and everything was simply beyond wonderful - the arrival to the base of that hill, however, had stripped the color from her world again as that light vanished.

Corvus's glowing, beautiful, figure faded from view, and with it went her sanity. The canvas shook, it tore, and from each tear spouted blood as it pulsated and beat. Her body, in the real world, shook in pain, as a sharp pinch shot through her heart. Her heart. When her love had disappeared, so went the source of her life - Corvus had been the heart, and Braith her pulse, or so the Jedi had told her - and the torn canvas that bled freely showed that. The woman that had picked her off the ground and stood her up, shown her the galaxy, flew with her among the stars, and given her a love that she never could have hoped or dreamed for, was gone. Simply vanished, and with it her world began to break, her perspective shattering.

Sanity had left the woman, she became vindictive, angry. Scared. She was dying, slowly but surely, and Corvus knew she had been the hand to hold until she couldn't squeeze in fear any longer. As powerful as she had always been, as mighty as she believed herself to be, she was nothing in the face of death. Arrogance had wrought her ruin, and so had blind faith in another. The figure, writhing in pain like her slumbering body began to in the real world, began to twist and alter from its shape into a deranged creature resembling none of the others before. A fight, a struggle, and then the realization that she was alone sank in.

Stars, moons, comets and worlds passed by as the canvas was smothered by black paint, covering and filling the rips and tears, the blood pushed out and away by the eternal darkness that consumed the painting.

But, as she thought the artwork was coming to an end - and consequentially her life - the stars began to appear in the sky, separated from the "ground" by a white line, and her figure rose out from the black. Now she was alone, back where she started, but with no light to chase after. There wasn't a moon in the sky, not a single reason to keep on breathing, and now Braith welcomed what she had once struggled to avoid. It had become more than inevitable, it was impending - a doom that was unavoidable and coming faster than she hoped to know. The figure lay down, as she did now, and appeared to sleep to pass the time for the end.

As the artwork began to fade, and with it her dream, another figure slipped into the edge of perspective. A downtrodden [member="Kaileann Vera"] would stumble upon the sleeping, cold, and likely dying Alunrovaan on the freezing sands of Sabarene at night. Each frame that ticked by while her dream began to fade drained away something else in her, along with a will that had never really been there to begin with.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Braith Achlys"]

It didn't make sense.

The dark slash of Kaile's brows would pucker over her forehead. Tapping away with one finger at the map, the Lorrdian would review the incoming datafeed. The Messa's engines made her fast, incredibly so. Even covering this length of distance wasn't an issue for the heavily modified Varactyl Class. The combined effort and work put into tinkering with the reactor and hyperdrive of the Messa quite literally made her the fastest ship in the 'Verse. Kaile would even like to say that it was faster than the Millennium Falcon. One tends to take some pride of work when it comes to their own creations.

As it was, Kaile would fly over low orbit, the twin cones of cerulean blue the only light illuminating the night sky against that sea of stars.

"That doesn't make sense Bobo," her soft murmur would float within the empty cockpit. Bobo was perched on her shoulder, watching every move. He understood more than most thought him to. Perhaps that was due to the genetic tampering and a by product of the Sith Alchemy. Kaile never questioned it. To her, Bobo was as real as Kurt and just as important. He was her friend.

Another tap of a gloved finger. Was this right? The drones were picking up a lifesign. Which is what was exactly what Kaile wanted, but also the issue at hand. It was a lifesign. Singular. What made it more interesting is that the drone could not register what species it was. Kaile was looking for a village, one with multiple life signs. That this was singular...

That worried her.

Concern would float over her face. Could someone be hurt? The drone at the very least registered gender. Female. Whoever this was was alive at least, but hadn't moved since the drone found her. Nervousness prompted pearly white teeth into biting the fullness of her lower lip. A habit she displayed when she felt anxious.

"Okay Bobo, almost there." The roar of the engines swept past the deserts and canyons of Sabarene's surface. Five hundred meters. Kaile's hand flexed upon the throttle. Three hundred. They were almost there. One hundred.

Descending low, the Messa began to decelerate. Everything was covered in darkness. Kaile needed a light. Flipping a toggle, a bright beam of illumination along with the typical landing lights bathed the ground and cast away the darkness. Fifty meters.

At twenty, sand and grit billowed into the air, the Varactyl Class landing on a flat piece of land. The Lorrdian would flip a few toggles, setting the engines on standby mode to keep them hot. Just in case she had to leave quickly. One never could be prepared enough.

"Okay, Bobo," Kaile told the tiny lizard, frowning as the cloud of sand blocked her vision of what lay beyond the viewport. "We'll need to get a up and personal look." Unbuckling herself, the young woman stood. Slipping from the cockpit, Kaile slid herself down the ladderwell.

Just what was out there?

 

[Hailyn]

Where dreams fade real life begins, like a fog that looms overhead. Dense, but hardly there, it was a peculiar state - to be drifting in and out of consciousness. Braith's eyes slowly dragged open, she could tell someone - something - was nearby, but what, she couldn't say. For the first time in years, centuries - ever, really - she couldn't pull herself together, she felt weak, and not even an ounce of willpower came to her when she tried to blink. Slowly her lips parted, chapped and dry, and she struggled to suck in air, to breathe in, but all she got was sand and dust. She choked. Clearing her throat became a struggle, almost as much as seeing straight. But now she was awake.

Feeling slowly began to return to her hands and feet, and as it came back to her - with a blurred vision - she started to drag herself to her hands and knees. Anything, anything at all, was better than laying face-down in the dirt with sand in her mouth and blinding her eyes, but even the recovery of her senses didn't seem to rid her of many of her waking problems. The world was still covered in darkness, a darkness she much preferred to the alternative, and she found herself shivering in the callous grip of the night while a faint humming came to her ears.

At first she chalked it up to tinnitus, just the consequences of her own actions, but when it grew louder, closer, and the air kicked up dust from the ground, Braith knew it wasn't just a buzzing in her ears. Whatever it was, it was big, and her blurred vision didn't give her much to go by - not that she could have seen beyond the sand and darkness anyways. The only thing she could really make out was a faint light that seemed to strike her in the face, warming her skin, but it didn't burn like the ultraviolet light from the sun and stars tended to.

"What is it?"

She had hardly managed to raise her voice above a whisper, struggling to reach out to the force to feel for what she couldn't see - only she couldn't. It sent a surge through her, a sense of panic, but that quickly faded into resignation. Maybe she was dead - or dying? Perhaps this was just the end and she was getting ready to go. So she sat, kneeling, waiting for whatever it was to claim her.

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

 

[Kaile Vera]

The thick cloud of grit would billow in front of the young girl as the hiss of the loading ramp resonated against the whine of the engines. Slowly, the durasteel ramp would angle down, prompting Kaile to scoot forward with a deft one-two step and a hop. She landed on the dirt, pebbles and sand grinding under her boots.

Huh...

There was a distinct crunch with each curious step. Squinting, the think fringe of her lashes attempted to block as much of the floating fine dust. It seemed to just float everywhere, reminding her of the pollen that saturated Lahsbane's atmosphere. Clogging up the engines and being a general nuisance.

Bobo's tail lightly curled along the left side of her neck. He peeked out from under the fringe of her hair, watching beyond the dark. A small click and then the press of a button burst a ray of illumination from her flashlight.

"Alright... now where are you?" Kaile told herself softly, moving forward as her Browncoat Datalogger led her towards the drone. Off in the distance, the small red boop led the agent closer.

"Hello??" Kaile called out, her voice floating in the wind. "Anyone out there?"

[member="Braith Achlys"]

 

[Hailyn]

The voice drew nearer, and with it clarity set in. At the root of everything, deep inside her heart, Braith knew only confusion - a tumultuous storm that swept through her veins like the forces that ravaged Pax Insul following her incarceration. It tore at her morale, at the very fiber of her being, and from it the connection to the force she had held tightly fled. She knew, regardless how much she wanted to deny it, that Corvus Raaf was no longer here for her, perhaps not even here in the physical sense of existing. Life was different, the galaxy was different, and with time came change - and it was time for her to adapt, like her people had in light of every struggle, every obstacle, and become something knew. Something better.

For now, though, she had to accept whatever it was that was coming to her - she didn't have the stamina, nor the strength, to get herself off the ground, much less the willpower to change on her own. Left to her own devices, the Alua'an had chosen suicide over coming to grips with reality. But it was clear that the force - the galaxy, fate, whatever - had different thoughts for her, ignorant or disapproving of her protests. It didn't change the fact that the force, her connection with it rather, had become little more than a spark in the abyss, and as she waited she knew there would be no foresight to what might happen next - no planning, thinking ahead. She was alone in every way now, and ill-equipped at that.

"What do you want? Who are you?"

Her words came hoarsely from her chapped lips while she tried to bring herself to her feet - to no avail in that regard. Every bone in her body felt heavy, like she'd been propping herself up out of sheer spite until now, and though the force wasn't providing her a sense of dread - perhaps because she literally couldn't consciously touch upon it any longer - she wanted to at least be on her feet if this became a fatal encounter.

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Braith Achlys"]


“Are you okay--”

Kaile saw the woman rise only to falter, and that bright light of her flashlight fell as the young woman went rushing forward. The Lorrdian held her hands out, intending to catch the Alua’an as she swayed, hoping to avoid having her fall to the ground.

“Whoaa!! Careful there!” Kaile would cry out, her voice coated in concern and confusion. What was she doing out here? she wondered, only to be startled at the amount of weight that would follow through once she caught the woman. Kaile didn’t know about the increased weight and mass that the Alua’an had.

“Gah!” Caught unprepared, Kaile gave a slight stumble. An attempt at bracing her legs would follow suit. “Ahh.. dang it!”

There was no time to disclose names or what she wanted. Honestly, Kaile was to preoccupied at helping the woman and not falling over herself. “Easy... I got you.”

Hopefully.

 

[Hailyn]

The stumble was, perhaps, in a way.. a key. Well, not quite as direct a method as a literal key into a lock might be, but there was something about humans and their rather amusing emotional structuring that let them form even the weakest of bonds with strangers so very easily. There were numerous factors to this, thousands of variables, and all it took was one of them to be offset for such a situation to be snuffed out. Compassion, however, was the easiest route to success - and the largest gamble. Though each and every living being in the galaxy might not like to admit it, it was rare for any of them to go out of their way to help another - whether they be in need or not. Every day hundreds of ships sent out S.O.S signals that went unanswered, even when heard. After all - why bother, someone else will do it; right?

So maybe, just maybe, when the Lorrdian made her clumsy attempt to catch her, a nebulous thread might have been formed. If it had, it was most certainly nothing of note. For now the Alua'an was at the mercy of her 'savior', and when her body slowly came to the full realization that she had gone without food and water in an almost inhospitable world for as many days as she had, the shock that robbed her of her strength began to set in. "W.. w-water." She breathed, her eyes shutting tightly as a pain began to form just behind her forehead. Starved, dehydrated, and practically dead weight, if Braith had been conscious enough to make sense of the situation she would have been grateful that the Lorrdian stranger had caught her and kept her from a hard landing.

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Braith Achlys"]

"Whoa! Hang on.. I--" Kaile struggled to keep her balance. In the end, the tumble would bring both ladies to the ground. At the very least, the Lorrdian managed to do so in a manner that had her plop down on her bottom, cradling the delirious woman in her arms. A small plop of dust rose around them, with nothing but the small light laying flat on the ground and the overhead beams from the Messa.

Wide brown eyes flared in concern. "Water?! Right. Sec..." Rushed movements would try to secure the young woman so that she would settle by her thigh. "Just.. a sec." a slip of her arms and she slid the pack she had at her back off her shoulders. She rarely was without it. A force of habit really. Nimble fingers pulled at the ties, quickly tugging the straps apart. Kaile was no medic. Her extent at medical aid was just field work. But at the very least she had some water.

Thankfully, they had more within the Messa. Digging through her bag, her fingers sought the bottle of water. "Got it.. okay. Okay!" tugging it out, she unscrewed the cap. Cradling the strange woman, Kaile bend forward. "Here we go... take it slow." she encouraged her, still a bit rattled that she found her in the middle of nowhere - literally.

Gently, she lifted Braith's head, setting the bottle of water upon her lips. "Drink it slow."

 

[Hailyn]

If there had been a way for the Alua'an to hang on as she succumbed to dehydration - physically, anyways - she most certainly would have, but even a body that was genetically built to survive extremes and recover quickly from injury had a point where failure was unavoidable. Some weeks in the desert, surviving on an intuitive method of feeding on the force alone, had left her drained and with the sudden absence of the force came the crash. The heat was becoming unbearable, sickening, and she felt her stomach turn several times. She'd been sick like this before, though it had been under very different circumstances, but this was most certainly far more extreme of a case. She tried to mumble a response to the Lorrdian's mention of water, but she hardly was able to get any sounds out that sounded less like groans and more like words.

She sputtered a few more incoherent sounds as Kaile retrieved the bottle of water, her body starting to shake, shiver. In the days that Corvus had left, Braith had thought she'd been her most vulnerable, and even up until minutes before she'd regarded her temporary fall back to the dark side as the moment where she was, psychologically, weakest. But now, finding herself cradled by someone she'd never met and could hardly see, she found herself even lower than she'd thought possible. Anger had been what she'd thought was her absolute nadir, the lowest point of her life, but a closeness to death was a humbling experience. She had been worshiped as a god, held in regard as someone who was essentially immortal by her people, and even the Jedi's own grandmaster thought there was something more than just a strange woman stuck in a coffin for too long.

As the tip of the bottle touched her chapped lips she felt fear. Everything hung on this moment. The searing pain of tears stung her temples as they rolled from the corner of her eyes, and as water started to drip into her mouth she slowly, quite painfully really, started to drink. It was harder than she'd remembered, every muscle from her jaw to her throat felt like they'd been exhausted and her mouth was dry as cotton. At first it had simply pooled in the back of her mouth until she nearly went to breathe and instinctively sucked in instead. Braith couldn't smile, couldn't speak, but she was thankful. Two heavy, tired, blinks were all she could manage to signify that.

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

 

[Kaile Vera]

@Braith Achyls

“There you go,” the voice that poured over Braith was noticeably relieved, reflecting a measure of encouragement and support. Kaile even gave a small rub up and down Braith’s arm, from elbow to shoulder and back down again. The soft, gurgling sounds of the drained woman drinking the trickle of water was reassuring. Kaile made sure to not rush her, letting Braith drink a little bit at a time so she wouldn’t choke or get sick.

Why was she out here? Kaile wondered. Two dark brows drew together, confused as the twin, bloodshot indigo eyes began to blink up at her. Was she left behind? Did she get lost? There were so many questions.

“Just take it sip by sip, it isn’t going away,” Kaile tried to joke, giving a half rock to the woman like one would a youngling, another encouraging rub and squeeze of her arm. A pause would hold the canteen up in a slight hover, just a hairsbreath from chapped lips so that the Alluven could catch her breath.

“More?” she asked, watching her for any subtle nuance that would give an idea to what she may need.

 

[Hailyn]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

The slow stream of water that was poured over her parched lips kept her from the brink of dehydration, though she'd probably still need some kind of first aid to get her back to something resembling who she'd been before she'd dropped herself off on the gods-forsaken planet. While unable to really interact with the woman who was helping her, her own mind was running wild with half-thoughts and things she was more than likely to forget once her brain was flushed with oxygen again.

She was wearing a ring on her left hand that had pushed her to this brink, a trinket she'd kept on in hopes that it would draw her and her, formerly, significant other back together. All of her thoughts, by consequence, happened to circle around the jewelry, if not only for the enchantment placed on it. Every minute the two rings were separated was a moment towards the precipice of sanity, and right now she was dangerously close to falling over the edge. Poetic, just, irony, perhaps, for the audacity she'd had when she'd fashioned the pair - it was by her own hands, intentionally, that she had laid the groundwork for this suicidal behavior.

Every few moments - or what she perceived as moments - her gaze passed over the hand that the silver ring was placed on and, without any success, willed for it to fall off of her. The silent, private, hallucinations seemed to end as the woman gave her a light rock, shaking her back to some kind of awareness. Realizing that she was slowly regaining control of her motor functions, and potentially to a better degree than when she'd been on the verge of collapse earlier, Braith took advantage of this and tried to bring her savior's attention to the potential dangers of an approaching sunrise.

Not that she was really certain that it was anywhere close to morning, but rational thought was first re-introduced with a fear and instinctual, reasonable, one at that. "L-light" She sputtered, her voice distinctly hoarse, but still much closer to a whisper than normal speech. She knew she wouldn't be able to get much more out without wearing herself out, so she closed her eyes as tightly as she could and made a face that could, loosely, be interpreted as wincing. "Burn." She knew there was some kind of enclosed vehicle, or maybe a starship, that the woman had used to approach her with - how else would she have found her in the middle of the desert on Sabarene? To get inside, preferably somewhere cool, to get hydrated was a better alternative than risking a deadly sunrise while doing the same thing.

Maybe the Lorrdian would connect the dots.

Or maybe the sun would come out and she'd find out the practical way.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Braith Achlys"]


"Wait what -- whoa whoa!" Kaile confusion was only replaced by alarm as the woman seemed to just barely stay conscious. Okay, they couldn't stay here any longer. She needed some medical attention. Unfortunately, Kaile wasn't a field medic.

"Okay.. yeah. Light. Burn." either she was delirious or there was something more there. With as many species as there were grains of sand on a beach, that could mean anything! A mild panic flared within Kaile's breast, she she shot her wide eyed gaze over to the Messa.

"Okay, let's get you to the ship." here's to hoping that this wasn't a bait trap set for others hiding off in the sand dunes so they could capture her ship. That was entirely possible, but the Lorrdian was trying to be Thomistic. Well as Thomistic as she could be while struggling under the heavy weight of a nearly unconscious and dehydrated woman.

"Here, let me help you up," Kaile huffed out, sealing the cap on the bottle of water and tucking it back into it's pocket on her belt. Quickly, one hand went to guide Braith's arm up and over the back of her neck, trying to leverage her slowly to ease her onto her feet.

"It ain't far at all!" she would try to say with a small bit of encouragement. "Come on, lean on me." another half grunt, and then an attempt at taking a step forward. This may take a while or even longer depending if she could get the woman to work with her.

Hopefully she was still conscious enough to ease into the Messa.

 

[Hailyn]

Spoiler

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2zgh9GTscI[/media]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Whether Braith's delirious pleading had made any sense or not, it appeared that the Lorrdian had decided to help her get to shelter. She was slowly starting to trend towards a return to consciousness, being that the water she had been given was finally starting to help deliver more oxygen to the rest of her body - and blood to her lungs, but, as Kaile had probably assumed, she was still out of it enough to sound like a rambling drunk. If not for the fact that her limbs felt as heavy as her eyelids and her ability to speak was still impeded by the thirst she was feeling, almost like the jaw restriction she might have felt just after waking up first thing in the morning, the Alua'an might have applauded her for the attempt to practically carry her to her ship.

And, from experience, she knew her own weight wasn't something to be played around with.

When Kaile went up and she pulled on Braith's body to lift her she nearly didn't have the willpower to force herself to try to keep herself standing. Like a diabetic with dangerously low blood sugar and the mental fortitude of an Arkanian, the nearly-delirious and equally exhausted Alua'an forced her legs to push and slide across the desert floor so that the Lorrdian's attempt might be made easier. That wasn't to say she didn't nearly stumble, once or twice, but she was somewhat more coherent and somewhat more capable than she had been a few minutes ago - coherent enough to understand that she needed to try to walk with the woman to whatever her ship was.

The physical similarities between Kaileann and the person who had all but sent her to the planet in the first place certainly helped her motivation, though she was under no illusions that they were the one and the same. "Thanks." She whispered, hoarsely. A ringing in her ears started to emerge, though she knew it was only temporary, and probably the more noticeable effects of a massive headache that was going to start throbbing soon enough. Being aware of that, however, made her aware that she was well on her way out of dehydration. Recovery or not, they seemed to be walking fairly well to the ship than an one hundred and thirty-six kilogram woman leaning on a far lighter human might lead one to believe.