A Gift, They Called It... [SJO]

[Atasihd Zi]

Rwookrrorro Central Hospital
Rwookrrorro
Kashyyyk

He’d been here months. Well, almost three months, but it felt so much longer, and the memory of how he had gotten here and for a week afterwards was vague, or entirely absent, and patchy for a while beyond that. The last he could remember before his hospitalisation was blurred with pain, and for weeks after the day he was rather disposed of at the hospital by a co-hunters remorse, a plague of clips of the tarentatek he’d been set as bait for - against his will - made his long sleep so fitful he was tranquilised on several occasions to keep stitches and more from tearing, until he could be put in bacta.

Finally waking up with the most awareness he had had in over two months, still floating in the substance was a shock, and that was putting it mildly. Sid had thrashed, not immediately recognising where he was, making the transparisteel enclosure groan with his other, unharnessed abilities, until nurses could talk him down, and get his mind to stop racing and remember. It had been a couple weeks since that day, and while his body was largely healed, his mind wasn’t yet over the trauma. No, that would take much more time.

And then there was the matter of what had put him on the road to here in the first place. What had caused the hospital staff to call in for some manner of nullifier for him after he unconsciously lashed out with his maternal inheritance in many of his semi-coherent states. It was what had him sitting in a patient lounge, turning a pendant over in his red hands that was the only link to the Jedi from a larger tribe who’d birthed him, fashioned with a cut of the blue focusing crystal from her lightsaber. It was what had the Jedi coming to meet him, now.

He wasn’t certain it was a gift.

 

[Mariel Dawnrider]

"There is a young man who could use a kind word and someone who understands."

Mariel had shaken out her feathers, beak clacking in irritation. Not at the words, but at the feeling of lopsidedness. The flight feathers on her left wing had been badly damaged in the accident on Mijos. It had been in truth a blessing that it hadn't been worse. No broken bones and she hadn't drown in the mud! But it meant that until the new flight feathers grew in, Mariel was hobbled in a way she found utterly unacceptable and very frustrating indeed.

"You are only asking me to speak to him because I am a captive audience," she answered, a bit sulkily. "Potential Jedi Greeter was never one of my strong suits. I am a Librarian."

The nurse laughed.

"Well yes, perhaps. The Order will likely send someone with more experience in that. But while he is waiting, could you?"

The Songwing sighed, feathers fluffing up a bit.

"Fine, yes. On one condition."

"And what is that?"

"You let me ride on the food cart."

With her wings tucked up snug against her body, it wasn't immediately obvious that there was something wrong. But anyone who knew Songwings would immediately be struck by the fact that rather than winging her way through the halls she instead rode, perched on the food cart. Pushed by the nurse into the room, she waited until it was settled up beside a chair before stepping carefully off of the cart and onto the back of the chair.

"Thank you," she said politely, dipping her head. The nurse laughed, shaking her head, before also leaving a pair of tea cups full of a warm ochre liquid, as well as the teapot itself.

Ruffling her feathers, Mariel turned violet eyes on the Togruta.

"Your name is Atasihd Zi, I have been told." Her basic was accented, but clear. "My name is Mariel Dawnrider." With a hop over, a bit closer along the back of the chair, her head tilted this way and that at the item in his hand. "That's a lovely crystal you have there."

[member="Atasihd Zi"]

 

[Atasihd Zi]

His head remained bowed over the crystal pendant, shoulders shrugged down, head-tails in a stark diagonal to the ceiling, and upon the entering of the avian-accented speech into his ear, some combination of his conscious mind and hindbrain wondered, had he been a different species of animal, if the diminutive soul would make a good snack. That was the undercurrent of grumpiness talking, but it wouldn't be polite to give it voice. Sid gave a slow head-shake at the thought and sat up, glanced fiery eyes at the Songwing, then held the crystal up for her to have a closer look, turning partway in the motion, despite the dull ache in his ribcage.

"I'm told it belonged to my mother," came his own deep, accented basic, "whom I... never met."

He hesitated over the words. What to say of a female he knew only in the tales of his father, and of her own tribe?

"She... was a Jedi."

That was a start. That was enough. It was personal, speaking of the dead.

[member="Mariel Dawnrider"]​

 

[Mariel Dawnrider]

It was a good thing Mariel couldn't read minds. She would have been utterly offended by the idea that SHE could be a snack. That was for other, smaller species, thank you very much. The nerve, really.

But fortunately, she had no idea.

Instead, she hopped forward once along the arm of the chair, talons gripping carefully. Her uninjured wing came out reflexively to help balance, but the other, taped as it was to her side to keep her from doing just that, couldn't and she ended up almost toppling off of the chair completely, just managing to catch herself by grabbing the arm of the chair with her beak as she flapped faster.

"Ahem."

A ruffle of her feathers as she righted herself, a clack of the beak. As if that hadn't happened AT ALL THANK YOU.

She peered, head low, at the crystal as he offered it. Resisting the urge to tap at it with her beak, but only just.

"Mmm yes, it does look like a Jedi's crystal," she agreed, head bobbing before looking back up at him.

"Are you here to follow her path? Or is yours a different one?" There was no judgement in that statement, just curiosity.

[member="Atasihd Zi"]

 

[Atasihd Zi]

His hands settled into his lap, fingers curling around the pendant, whose strand was wrapped around the hand, and his head turned to face the nothingness of the air in front of him, brow furrowing and gaze darkening at the memory of why he was here. Fingers around the crystal dug into his palm, one moment, then two, and relaxed with the release of a breath, body tensing and teeth gritting again with the wince that followed.

"A beast and a betrayal put me here," he forced out with the sharp pain, shifting in the chair to seek a better position for comfort, "my body torn, and my mind tortured," the nightmares were so tangible, "but in the midst of my flesh being rendered to scraps, I felt a... presence impressing on me the need to draw into myself, and to steel myself."

The memory of that feeling had been subsumed under the tortures in his sleep. When he had come to, he had all the time in the world to think, and tease it all apart.

"I don't know whether the beast lost interest, or my betrayers were successful with the kill... or both. But I should not be here," he said, with a measure of finality, "by all I know of terentateks, I should not have lived, being made as I am. This," he opened his hand, examining the crystal again with his burning gaze, "gift? Curse? Woven into me in the womb is the only reason I can find for my being able to sit in this chair, regaling you with the exploitation of it, [member="Mariel Dawnrider"]."

He glanced sidelong at the feathered Jedi.

"And so... I feel I should give it the attention it is due. Does this answer your question?"