BLACKOUT (Galactic Alliance Invasion of the One Sith held Coruscant.)

[Avalore Eden]

There was no amount of impunity in the Healer's gaze, only a stoic, concerning curiosity. What Aver was, she supposed mattered little in the end. She had the facts to work with, and what the facts were telling her was that she needed to work faster to put this woman back together again.

"Rici take a hold of her arm, just below the shoulder here - above the break. Good, now brace your elbows against the frame. Hold it tightly, don't let me pull the shoulder."

The young Aide did as told, nodding to each command, carefully placing arms and hands where necessary to lock the shoulder in place and protect it from further damage. Avalore laid the arm straight and with quick, firm movements removed the remaining armor lashed into placed around the splint. Scar-covered fingers laced around the woman's elbow joint while those of the opposite hand moved to hover over the fractured humerus. The Master Healer closed her eyes and began to meditate.

Slow, controlled breaths seeped in

and then out

through her nose.

Lips pressed thin, the line on her brow loosened as her mind focused down upon the bone fragments and wrapped her conscious will around the pieces.

Breathe in .... and out.

"Rici-" said the Healer without opening her eyes, fingers suddenly tightening around Aver's elbow, "-hold."

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

VALLEY OF THE DARK LORDS - FOUNDATIONS
CLEANSING THE NEXUS

[member="Julius Sedaire"] shifted into moving meditation; the other Jedi, including Master [member="Meeristali Peradun"], remained kneeling or even sitting, all around the Ankarres Sapphire that Mara held. She'd often wondered about the parallels and differences between the Sapphire and Force Light, though she'd never witnessed the latter. Nobody here could pull it off. Maybe someday she'd get to compare them. In the meantime, though, it was all she could do to control the Sapphire. It was a peaceful artifact, to be sure, but it was also strong on a scale she hadn't really respected or understood before. This thing could pull people back from the brink of death, burn Sith Lords on contact -- and now she'd given it a nexus to heal. One of the strongest, oldest vergences in Jedi history. A wellspring of the Force.

The blue-white glow intensified; holding the Sapphire in her fist, she could see the bones of her hand. She turned her wrist and opened her fingers, letting the sapphire rest on her palm. The glow redoubled.

There would still be a good deal of work to do. One didn't wash away the filth of the Sith overnight. For the moment, however, her circle of Jedi remained undisturbed. The Sapphire proved more than equal to the task at hand. The nexus wanted to run clear and clean. Maybe it was the nexus' urgency she felt, not just the Sapphire's vibrant power. Or maybe the nexus was taking on the attitudes and attributes of the circle of Jedi, their optimism, their desire and drive. This nexus had been known to do that, in exceptional circumstances.

 

[Aver Brand]

A dislocated shoulder and broken humerus weren’t a combo she was too keen on experiencing. Far as she was concerned, it could go frak itself with a rusty crowbar.

The two healers pinned her in place. Aver bunched up the sheets in her left fist. Icy blues stared up, past [member="Avalore Eden"], past Aide Rici, straight at the torn tarpaulin shuddering above them to the rhythm of artillery. All three of them knew that the next few minutes would be highly unpleasant and bloody for everyone involved. Tough to tell who was gonna have the worst time of it.

Her teeth found the bundled sheet, sank into it just as the pain came.

A muffled yell shaped like a curse, ripped from her throat when the Master got to work. The gentle ripples of her Force washed over her like warm shoal water. Calls of seagulls and the smell of salt followed, along with the caress of a sun in zenith. She felt… peace. A blanket of calm, soothing the seething coals of her soul. Cooling the fever, dousing the fiery ire.

Who are you?

Then a bone ground against a particularly nasty splinter, and the world came rushing back. A punch to the gut. Aver bit straight through the sheet in her mouth, back arching off the table as the two healers straightened healing tissue.

“Fffff—” the rest of her shout was lost to the bloody cloth. The steel frame of the stretcher croaked in warning as her fingers squeezed. Vice-like, impossibly strong.

“That’s enough,” she breathed out, skin glistening with sweat. “Fix the shoulder.”

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

Tristan’s face screwed up in confusion. That wasn't the word he'd expected to hear. He took a half step back looking around. Jacen decided he was probably looking for this enclave’s Sith master. The One Sith did not include the acolytes; they had no voice of their own.

“You don't get to ask anything of me,” he growled softly.

“I know,” Jacen replied. His eyes never left his son's. The lad looked much like he had in his younger days, but he had his mother's eyes. Perhaps Jacen had never truly loved the woman. He'd sought comfort and a place to call home after being thrown out if the Jedi Order for his indiscipline. That did not diminish the pain of having the news of her death thrown at him like a weapon.

“You're fanatics! All of you! Come to take our peace and prosperity. Should have stayed in the backwater corner of the galaxy you slunk off to!” Tristan snapped back, eyes darting around. The two other acolytes were trying to get back to their feet, but the shock of jacen's sudden telekinetic strike had left them reeling.

“Stop looking for your masters, they're not coming back. Coruscant will be in alliance hands soon and they won't risk waiting on your account. They'll be dead or they'll have fled. You were here when they took this world by force the first time. So was I.”

“But you weren't with me or mum were you? You didn't stay. You ran.”

“I should have come back.”

“Why didn't you?”

“I couldn't.”

“A lie,” Tristan spat. That hurt. He was near the door on the far side of the chamber now. If he ran, Jacen would have to give chase.

Jacen scrunched up his face, looked to the floor in shame. “If I'd come back I would have put you both at risk. I was afraid. Afraid they'd find you, use you both against me. Or do this to you.”

“Do what?” Tristan yelled back with a forced bark of laughter. “Give me the tools to fight back. Against those who bombed our homes. Killed my parents.”

Jacen held his ground, but still did not advance. “Fill your head and heart with rage and set you down the dark path. Why were your parents near our attack on the temple? Did they often visit there?”

Tristan snarled. This time Jacen flinched. To see that hate filled mask on his own son's face. It wasn't his, someone had put it there, he told himself. But could the damage be undone. “I see. You're going to claim they killed my own parents to set me on this path. Pitiful. Harmony and unity, that's what we stand for. They promised…” This was the first time Jacen saw a chink in the armour. “They promised that when I killed you I would become a true Sith, part of the One. One voice for all and I would be a part of it.”

“The One Sith are leaving. The Force doesn't give you the right to lead. Everyone deserves a voice. It's not a voice when you're a puppet of whatever they replaced the Dark Lord with. Your own ruler, stabbed in the back. This is your home Tris, my home. Don't make my mistakes. Stay.”

Tristan raised the hilt of his saber. “Do it,” an acolyte whispered. It took all of jacen's self control not to put the pair back down. His son's eyebrows came up together, his lips twisted into a wicked snarl. He was torn. Desperately pleading for a way out, but still driven by the principles they'd hammered home over the months.

Jacen imagined that they might have instilled this has his final goal every day. Retribution for his mother, the final step towards becoming a part of the One Sith. Jacen would remember how much he'd wanted to be accepted, to be recognised as special. Thrown from the Jedi Order at around the same age as Tristan, if he'd been born in a Sith world they likely would have got their claws into him in his own youth too.

Snap-hiss

The scarlet blade joined the flickering braziers to set the shadows dancing. As if the dark taint the Sith had left here itself was excited to observe this unfold.

“I won't fight you,” Jacen stated plainly.

Tristan looked to his father, looked to the acolytes, turned hopefully to see one of the Sith masters whose voice was law. Acolytes were not taught to make decisions themselves. He raised his blade. He screamed. He charged.

Jacen looked on, distraught. He kept his hands at his waist and held his son's gaze as the young man sprinted across the gap between them.

“Please stop,” Jacen said, more to himself than anyone else. But Tristan didn't.

At the last moment Jacen darted to his left, the saber hissing through the air where he had stood. One smooth motion brought up his hand cannon and there was a blue flash. Tristan’s mouth formed a wide O shape. The momentum of his charge carries him forwards, but the strings had been cut. He skidded to a halt a few metres past where Jacen had stood.

“Said I wouldn't fight you, but that wasn't a fight. Didn't say l wouldn't knock your stupid arse out.”

The other two acolytes turned towards each other and then to Jacen. It was starting to dawn on them that they were outmatched and their masters fled. Jacen ignored them and proceeded to holster his sidearm and pick up his son.

“Turn yourselves in, or stay out of sight until the fighting is done. You'll get better treatment from us that I dare say another Sith prisoner has ever received, but right now I just don't care what you do,” Jacen called over his shoulder. He looked down at his son's face, the boy’s head lolling loosely. “What a kark way to start eh?”

 

[Avalore Eden]

How long did it take you?

How long did it take me to what?

To be able to drown out the screams in your head while you worked.


Avalore's brow knit tightly in concentration as [member="Aver Brand"] writhed on the table like an eel with a knife through its head. She worked as quickly as she could without compromising her thoroughness. Large splinters left behind could potentially cause infection--she could remove them or reset them, but the complicated puzzle that was the Mercenary's shattered arm was on a rubix-cube level she wasn't willing to entertain. Avalore set the largest pieces in place while simultaneously applying direct pull at the elbow to straighten them out.

Aver was about to break the table with her Wonderwoman strength. Avalore was too preoccupied to notice.


You make me sound like I'm torturing people.

You know what I mean...


"That's enough --- fix the shoulder."
"Don't interrupt her," Aide Ricci said over a particularly deafening boom beyond the Medical tents. She was doing well not to go glassy-eyed amidst the tumult outside. Were the forces getting closer?

Avalore's brow pressed further downwards at the command. The Master Healer did not comply. There were still too many pieces, too much residual damage. She continued her work.


The truth is that I can't.

 

[Aver Brand]

Aver bit back a scream, and then a sneer. Wild-eyed, the merc stared at the Aide, nostrils flaring. The metal in her grip gave a pitiful little creak, like the plea of a small child. She was breathing through her teeth now, and the air near-whistled through the sharp fangs.

“Sithspit!”

She slammed her head back into the thin bedding, glowering at the ceiling while a thousand white-hot needles pierced her skin.

“Frak!”

Her chest expanded as she forced in a long breath. Her heart throbbed against her ribs, trying oh-so-hard to pump precious blood into every pound of her flesh. All she got for the effort was a steady stream of red making lakes in places where the should be none.

Chasing after that peaceful paradise of gentle gusts and warm climate seemed impossible now. All she could hear were the cries of the dying all around them, the steady percussion of battle in the background. It was still dark – courtesy of yours truly – and the emergency red lights did nothing to lift the spirits of the wounded.

Good thing she was used to the color. At least once the decorating choices of the One Sith turned out useful. Aver very nearly chortled at the thought. Oh, how [member="Matsu Xiangu"] always cursed their taste in fashion.

Maybe that’s why it all went to shet.

Thoughts of Her quickly led to Loray, and then the merc latched onto the sliver in her spine like a woman drowning. Even as [member="Avalore Eden"] realigned her splintered arm one piece at a time, Aver poured all her pulsating anguish into the man who loved it better than life itself.

[member="Reverance"].