Private And Dust

[Lossa Aureus]

Hapan Aftermath

Skinsuit | Jumpsuit and Armor | Poncho
Lightsaber | Turmoil | Concealed Blaster | Dual Broken Core Daggers
Vere​

Hapan and it's people were supposed to be celebrating.

United together for at least today under the banner of matrimony. A day of joy and jubilation. But like everything in the galaxy that seemed to swirl around them it had ended in misery. Countless deaths. Lingering pains and hidden traumas for all that had been present during the ceremony. Only one truly concerned her however. Lossa had not arrived before the tragedy had begun. Nor had she arrived in a timely manner to aid in any great way besides moving the padawans to safety. Had not been able to act as freely as she might have on Naboo to render aid in the means she knew best by rooting out and eliminating the remaining assassins.

Instead moving padawans and securing them before being able to return to the only family she held near and dear to her heart. To see a familiar pain and grief settled in her cousins eyes that perhaps had been glimpsed once before. When it had all gone wrong on Naboo with The New Way and she had even then been entrusted with caring for someone that Briana held dear.

It was endearing in it's own way she supposed to be trusted with something that Briana wished to protect.

But aside from her own daughter, Briana was her only concern.

A heavy silence between them as Briana had finally let go of Astor when others had come to collect him. Of guiding the absent woman in place of her cousin through the corridors and rubble. Lossa had heard his name before from her. Some idle conversation about Hapes in which the details had barely registered in the face of the emotion that Briana had shown when mentioning the name. When speaking of him at length that made the Zeltron pay attention to her mood rather than her words. Almost wishing in hindsight that she had paid more attention to the details of the conversation and learned a bit about him properly as the husk of her cousin walked beside her.

Now clean and freshly garbed for whatever it was they had decided to do.

The word mess would have suggested their was something disorderly about Briana's appearance when she had been removed from Astor. The dress had been destroyed through and through. Her appearance somewhere between a ghost returned and a body retrieved from the battlefield.

It had shaken Lossa deeply to see her in such a state. Made her already irritability almost unbearable for anyone else that wanted to approach after Lossa had removed her helmet to let her glowering stare do what her words seemed unable to. Provide a bubble around her cousin to give her time. Space separate from the chaos around them to simply exist. To process what was likely something in the same vein as Lossa's own woes. Retreating to a private suite to clean herself as Lossa stood in the main room with her helmet on her hip. Waiting patiently for Briana to return to herself on her time and in her own way.

Idling until nerves required her to move, to act, to care in some small way that wouldn't intrude or cause issue. To remind her that she was still here. Getting a glass of water and something to snack on prepared as the helmet settled on the coffee table.

Whatever that was worth.

Briana Sal-Soren​

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

Hell.

Briana knew that place. Not as an afterthought or in passing, no. She knew it as intimately as one knows a lover of many years. She'd walked its edges, tasted its ash, choked on its smoke. Or at least, that's what she'd believed.

But today proved otherwise.

Today, true hell had revealed itself to her in entirely new depths, in entirely new colors.

True hell wasn't fire or brimstone, it was cold... deep. Still. True hell, was that endless void between stars. True hell was the cold of a world before it ever knew creation. Before it ever tasted light.

True hell... was this.

It was Astor's body laying crumpled on the stone floor — unnervingly still, his burnt-golden hair and virgin white suit ruined by streaks of soot and deep, dark crimson blotches. It was watching as all warmth left what was once a radiant, angelic face, too bright and alive to ever go cold. It was the weight of feeling his body go slack in her arms as he slipped fully away. It was the sudden, soul-shattering absence in the Force, like a star that'd gone super nova, before winking out of existence a second later.

Time became an irrelevant quality, a construct she could no longer measure. She couldn't remember how long she'd sat there holding him, couldn't remember how long the flight through hyperspace was as Lossa whisked her away, nor the time it took to return her to her home. All she knew was the burning that'd taken root in her stomach as Sera helped her out of her tattered dress. Felt her blood boil, as if molten ore was being poured into her veins as she scratched her arms raw trying to wash away the evidence of Astor's life from her skin.

By the time her feet carried her to where Lossa waited, Briana looked... alive, but only just. The equivalent of a soul that'd been severed from its body and hadn't yet returned. Going through the motions and nothing more.

The blood was gone. Her hair was immaculately styled. Her outfit taken... somewhere, to be burned. Sera had been quick to remove all traces of evidence from the wedding before she ever made it out of the fresher.

Her lips parted to speak, then closed just as quickly.

For the first time in her life, Briana had no words.

OUTFIT: XoXo | TAG: Lossa Aureus

​

 

[Lossa Aureus]

Hapan Aftermath

Skinsuit | Jumpsuit and Armor | Poncho
Lightsaber | Turmoil | Concealed Blaster | Dual Broken Core Daggers
Vere​

Fighting would have been better than the silence.

At the very least to keep her from the thoughts that always lingered in her mind. Than the quiet that crept in to fill the chaotic mingling of voices, blasters, and destruction. As much as silence could fill a room or the mind.

Briana had been in the thick of it all while she had been idling on the ship. She had come away wearing the proof of her presence near the disaster while Lossa had come away with little more than a second-hand stain.

And only one of them had the vacant stare of someone that had seen too much too quickly.

A different kind of pain. One Lossa did not and likely would never fully understand. None besides those she called family had touched her heart in any meaningful way. At least not enough to draw out such an overwhelming sensation of emotions.

None besides her daughter anyway.

The buzz of emotions returned to Lossa's mind well before Briana appeared in her sight. Describing her eyes as lost was both an understatement and highly improper. There was too much there behind her gaze. An excess of everything drawing her mind in so many different directions that she had no chance to be lost.

Not when she was so centered in every emotion and understanding available to her.

Sera had come and gone. Having taken the only material reminder besides Briana herself of what had transpired to bring them both to this point. Ruby eyes watching the dull blues as the hint of words formed only to flicker out of existence before they could share whatever had been intended.

The silence returned with one standing and the other sitting. Lossa's hands unfurling from one another to pat the seat beside her.

Both invitation and request.

Briana Sal-Soren​