Chrysalis

[Kuzo]

Follows the events in Pull Me Under​

This should have been a triumph.

It wasn't a loss, certainly. She had come back. She hadn't given up, not once in that endless wilderness of hell. So many times, it would have been easier, kinder perhaps, to simply lay down and stop. Given up might have been a blessing. At the very least it would have been an end to the pain, the exhaustion. Spirit broken down into base components and scattered like the very elements pulsed out from a star in its death throes. To simply let it burn brightly, hot and brilliant, and then be consumed.

Irajah sat on the side of the bed. Slowly, she turned her hands over- all flesh again, no cybernetics. Her flesh. Clear and pale but unblemished. No bruises, no scars anywhere, not a single inch of her skin marked. There was no physical pain as she rotated her wrists, measuring, testing the balance and flexibility that she had almost forgotten in the time she'd owned cybernetic replacements. She encircled her forearm with the fingers of her opposite hand, pressing down hard. Enough to bring a blossom of discomfort that would have resulted in a new bruise before. But when she lifted her hand away again the flesh was clear. Unmarred.

This should have been a triumph.

So why did she feel so hollow?

Why, despite the fact that she knew her eyes were working perfectly, did everything seemed washed out? Thought she could clearly feel the line of her body against the bed, why did it feel as though she were not quite touching it? And that no matter how hard she pressed, there was always a thin layer of nothing between herself and everything around her.

She knew, of course. It wasn't truly a question. She could feel it, like a tooth that had been knocked out, tongue probing the socket again and again, as if it would find something else. Something different.

Irajah knew.

She just didn't care.

[member="Cerbera"] [member="Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Within her inner sanctum Cerbera rested, eyes closed, face-forward to the red rays of the Kyber crystal floating up and suspended in the air itself.

It reinvigorated her, focused her mind, but the soft scratching against the back of her head did not cease. Instead it increased in ferocity the more strength flooded back into her. It was her, of course. Cerbera should have expected it would go this way. One did not shape something out of nothing, putting every single atom in place, strengthening the bonds and its existence to reality without leaving something behind of yourself.

[member="Irajah Ven"] and her were connected now.

Subtle, firm, a presence just at the back of her head a consistent reminder of what she had done. Holding her essence together on the way back, her soul against her flesh (the risks of going to the Netherworld in the flesh), then pushing her soul into the new vessel body once they returned.

Cerbera did not like it, she mused as she walked towards the chambers that held the Doctor.

The presence grew closer the less distance was between them. She had tried to suppress it and the cold ice freezing shut their connection, the soft thaw only at the fringes, there was no escape from it.

So similar to her own affliction.

With a push the doors lingered open and paved way to Raj. She stepped on through, looked around the room, before her amber gaze settled itself on her patient.

"Doctor." Cerbera addressed calmly. "How are you?"

 

[Kuzo]

Like an elastic tether, Irajah felt the tension sing, but in this case because [member="Cerbera"] drew closer, rather than due to increased distance. It offered the only counterpoint thus far to the chill and ice. Which meant despite the vague discomfort of it, it was not unwelcome.

Hazel eyes, vacant of the intensity and drive from their last interaction, when all of these plans had first been laid, met amber. She didn't answer immediately, words taking a heartbeat or two longer to form and body to react properly to the desire.

"I think...." she said slowly, turning over each word, as though making certain it was the proper choice. "That something is wrong."

Despite that, there was no trace in either tone or expression that she was bothered by that. There was no concern, certainly no fear. At best, a mild curiosity, and even that was so deeply subdued in comparison to the woman's intense craving for understanding.

"Not with the body. The body is perfect," she continued, as if she were speaking of the weather, "You do marvelous work."

The body. Not my body. The metaphysical wound was closed, no longer bleeding. But there was still the missing piece, something that would never properly grow back. And the phantom of that lurked close, an emptiness that could still feel the reverberations of pain. The clay golem turned flesh that she now lived in had been crafted for an intact soul. Hers now settled loosely, rocking and unsteady where it should have fit like a glove.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

Such a charmer.

There was a pleasant smile popping up at the compliment, which was accepted with a graceful inclination of the head. But then it was back to business and right now business was dangerous. Because Cerbera knew what had happened back there, she had felt it happen during her approach.

"Yes, I have an idea of what happened." Cerbera responded with another nod. Strange, usually she was the stiff and frigid one, but right now Raj was making her seem positively bubbly.

It moderately confused her... not being the frosty one.

"I will need to test something on you to make sure, it will hurt." Inquisitive glance. "Is that okay with you?"

Irajah had been bleeding, not from a physical wound, but from a spiritual wound. The moment Cerbera had carried her off, spirit touching flesh?

She had realized it, but how far did the damage go? Was it repairable? If the Sith Lord was right about the extend, would Raj actually want to try and repair it? The scene back at the mountain had been mildly gruesome- she had returned, while the doctor had been unconcious.

Already the imprint on the Netherworld fading away as the anchor had left that chaotic place.

But enough time to see exactly what had gone on there back then.

 

[Kuzo]

She looked thoughtful for a moment.

Was it okay with her?

"Yes."

That tiny thread of curiosity turned inside of her. Right now, everything was entirely numb beyond that. She wasn't sure just how much pain she could feel right now. And finding out mattered. She had been in pain for so long that she wasn't sure if part of the problem in this moment was that she didn't know what she was without it. While [member="Reverance"] had plucked it from her for one particularly memorable night, that wasn't the same. She'd still been able to feel the roil of Gideon then, the heavy reminder that it was a momentary aberration and not a solution, no matter how pleasant. But the gnawing fire of Gideon was gone now.

Data. All she knew she needed right now was information. Would she feel it? And if she did, would it matter? Those were two very different problems with potentially very different solutions. But she wouldn't know what to do from here without the data.

"Do whatever you need to do."

[member="Cerbera"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

Her hand was still burned from her previous touch in the Netherworld.

Light green surrounded by deeper hues of emeralds where the skin was slowly knitting itself together, but it would be many more days if not weeks before the thinner skin was tough enough again for any serious forge-work. It touched her forehead, a light brush first, but after that a stronger application of tension.

"Hrrm," Interesting, no more residual leakage... which implied that the searing in the Netherworld had worked as planned, her soul was no longer being drained, tugging back to where it had been trapped.

Then her eyes closed, the touch grew stronger as her other hand wrapped itself behind Irajah's neck.

Almost as if she was trying to squeeze Raj's head like a melon. The firey burn against Raj's skin came next, first just warm heat, followed by burning fire raging against her forehead as Cerbera's essence used the bridge between them to pass-over. To inspect the damage of the soul more closely.

You cut a part of yourself out and left it there, Irajah.

This is not a good thing... at all.

But Raj would feel something from that bond they shared: Cerbera was low-key impressed with it.

 

[Kuzo]

Her touch escalated like a migraine- slow pressure at first, only to be replaced by blinding pain and ripples of nausea. Irajah closed her eyes, gritting her teeth with a grunt. It was nothing like the pain from when she had cauterized the wound in the Netherworld, and she bore it, stoic and uncomplaining.

I did what I thought I needed to.

There wasn't regret in those words, simply a grim acceptance. The sense that, at least in a small way, [member="Cerbera"] was impressed was merely baffling. When the option to stop fighting had been presented to her, she had rejected it utterly. She did not see that there was any other way that one could truly live.

The pressure of Cerbera probing within her was uncomfortable, too much existing in one skin. Even with the gap left by the missing piece, it wasn't like the touch of [member="Carach"] or [member="Matsu Xiangu"]'s mind. This wasn't a brush across the surface, fingers trailing and sending ripples. This was diving beneath the surface of the waters. She didn't push against it, but she didn't bother trying to hide the discomfort either. She wasn't certain if she could even if she wanted to.

Not yet anyway.

Not a good thing.... explain.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Fighting to survive was one thing.

Ripping off a piece of your soul to go on? That was an exertion of strength and presence of mind few truly possessed, it was not a surprise, then, that that area of the Nether had been filled with souls extinguished and pathetically weeping in eternity, while their mistakes clawed at them. Unseen by Raj, because she had been locked in her own personal hell, but Cerbera had been there in the flesh and at least that portion of the Netherworld?

It had no idea how to deal with that.

Even after the Akala Crisis, after millions... billions... trillions disappeared in the blink of an eye, some parts of the Netherworld had never felt the touch of true flesh. Too large, too expansive, too unreal to truly be grasped by reality.

We are created whole for a reason. No, you had little other options left to you, but the act has consequences.

Look, see what I mean. The intensity of her pressure increased as Cerbera pulled Raj's focus inwards as well, making her look at the damage wrought on her very essence.

You will never be as strong as you would have whole. I will need to tether your soul to this vessel... so it stops shambling about, at least while I work on a new vessel - one that is perfect. Now Raj would sense the dissatisfaction in Cerbera, true, she could not have known that this would happen. It wasn't her fault, but there was a layer of need for Cerbera, to preform the best as she could.

This vessel was not... not yet.

Suddenly the hand pulled away, dropping Irajah back into the physical presence. "You will need to be careful while I work on your final vessel, if you are tethered to this body and you... die? I do not think even he could pull you back from that."

[member="Irajah Ven"]

 

[Kuzo]

Beyond her own personal trek through the Nether, Irajah knew very little about it. She'd had more important things to worry about, to focus on, so she could not fully appreciate the scope of it. But the pressure, a hiss of pain and the look within.

That.... that she could appreciate.

I did that.

It wasn't a question really, but it was the first time she had actually seen what had happened. She'd known in a logical sort of way, but seeing it cemented the lengths she had gone through.

Maybe, it should have bothered her more.

The drop back into the purely physical was jarring, a sharp jolt that would have clattered teeth together if she had actually fallen. She reached up, fingers rubbing at her temples against the residual tension.

​​"I will be careful."

​It was the only promise she could make in that moment. She had just gained a body free from Gideon. She had no intentions of throwing it away. The fact that it didn't fit quite right? Well, that she could live with. It was an oddly minor discomfort in comparison. At least for now. A loose soul, rattling around in a too large cage. The image sprang, full cloth to her mind, shared with [member="Cerbera"] a moment before

"Thank you. For what you did. What you are doing."

To say that Irajah appreciated it would be underselling it. The woman knew, without a doubt, that without the other woman, she could have been devoured by the Nether in silvery lines, breathed in one at a time until nothing was left. She owed Cerbera a debt that she recognized might be impossible to repay.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

Cerbera inclined her head in acknowledgement.

They talked some more, extending pleasantries, discussing what would come next and soon enough the Sith Lord left Raj alone in her room again. If there was anyone who understood the desire for solitude it was Cerbera, so there was no begrudgement to be found on that fact.

In fact... perhaps the alchemist preferred Irajah this way.

Neutral, cold, punctual and to the point, without any of the messy feelings that came with high-passioned emotions that ruined so many carefully laid-out plans for no reason.

It was maybe half an hour later, maybe an hour at most that something would happen.

Someone knocking on the door, before Carach stepped on through with permission granted. The Sith Lord looked her up and down, smile there, but eyes studying, searching for something. "Excuse me for a moment?" As he left again, she would see the shimmer of Cerbera waiting outside.

The door closed.

The shouting started soon after.

Low roaring like the crashing of the tide against a mountain, but every time it was responded with cold, slow and articulate, like the snapping of the grass by a scythe.

Soon enough there was another knock, again Carach stepped on through and this time Raj would not see Cerbera standing there, apparently already left. But she would note the intensity in those eyes, only slowly smoldering away into embers from the wildfyre that had been there but a few seconds ago.

"Raj," The Sith finally said, voice still low and suppressed. "She... tells me you are feeling fine?"

 

[Kuzo]

She hadn't moved from where she'd been when he'd opened the door the first time. She watched him, impassively beyond that mild curiosity she'd offered to [member="Cerbera"] not long ago. It was not a look she had ever given him before. Normally, depending on the reunion, it was that crooked smile, either pleased or hungry. Even after he had taken her to Azure, to help her recover after what had happened on Panatha, she had been pensive, nervous yes, but never distant. Never void. Even at her darkest, she had always been visibly happy to see him.

It wasn't that she was unhappy to see him. But the thread of familiarity was jarred by the very unfamiliar heat of anger. Especially directed at Cerbera.

As far as Irajah was concerned, she wouldn't be here at all without the other woman.

"Don't be angry with her," she said quietly as she stood up. "She did everything she could."

She gave a small nod, turning her arms over as if she show him the lack of bruises, the traces of Gideon now gone from her system.

"Physically I am well."

Formal, even keel but to call her calm would be a mistake. Calm implied that another emotion had the potential to upset it. This was not a careful control. This was instead a lack.

"Everything's fine now."

Except that it very clearly was anything but.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

Long fingers brushed her skin quietly, exploring the lack of bruises, the lack of pain.

"Did she?" Carach mumbled. He studied her expression, the lack of fire and the lack of smile, there was more to this than just the shock of death, the return, the immersion in the Darkside. No, this was the complete void of passion, something that should not have happened at all.

Not the alchemist's fault, if she was speaking the truth.

"You are right, there was nothing she could have done." But I could have, if I had acted faster. The back of his hand brushed her cheek, softly, slightly, without any pressure behind it.

Not the demanding hunger that would have pinned her against the wall.

That was still there, behind the burning ember of fury, she would even sense it. But it was subdued for now, tamed, resting coiled until the time came to be unrolled again.

"Physically... but not spiritually."

 

[Kuzo]

She remembered what the fire in her at his touch felt like. From the first time they'd kissed there had been a heat and hunger that flowed both ways. A certain physicality that fit. It wasn't love- neither of them pretended it was. But there was friendship, certainly. Fondness. But mostly, there was a bonfire, flaring high and crackling into the night.

It was hard to say that she was disappointed, then, but her own reaction to his fingers on her skin, knuckles on her cheek. Disappointed would have been more than she had in her in that moment. But she frowned, the barest turning down at the corners of her lips, because the awareness of the different between that conflagration and the flickering match struck now was an almost physical blow. She could feel his hunger, but her own didn't answer in that familiar purr. It curled in on itself, still and quiet.

But there was still warmth.

"No. She told you then."

Again, not a question. From the way she said it, it was not a concern. There had been no intention of hiding it from him, even if she had wanted to. But that would have required a wanting. And a shame that she simply did not feel. Merely confirmation.

"I did what I had to do, Carach. At least, what I thought I had to. I didn't....."

Unlike with Cerbera however, there was a hint of insecurity there. Which was confusing on its own if she were honest with herself. But what he thought of her mattered. And she wanted him to understand.

She let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.

"I didn't know that anyone was coming. In that place.... at that time..... I was the only one I could rely on. Do you understand?"

[member="Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

Carach blinked in surprise.

He had almost forgotten how... concerned Raj could be, but perhaps it should not have surprised him that after everything had happened she would be more worried about what he thought. His hand left her cheek, finding her small hand (small in his, but most things were compared to how he was build), squeezing it slightly. Some of it was for him, to truly see that she was there and alive and that she wouldn't suddenly disappear.

This concern surprised him. "I blame myself for all of this, Raj, I completely understand you did what you had to do." It is just that he himself had not done everything he could.

They had always been friendly, fondness paving way towards hunger sated in the dark, but even when Carach had become aware the danger Raj had been in?

It hadn't concerned him.

Annoyance? Yes. So much annoyance that his plan hadn't gone the way he wanted. But something had changed between then and the wait, between seeing her again (perfect physically, but spiritually torn). It was responsibility that Carach felt. The promise of keeping her safe and healing her completely broken.

That was the start.

"Can I touch you?" They were already touching, that wasn't the question asked.

 

[Kuzo]

Confusion flickered across her face, the first light of something more than the placid neutrality since he'd opened the door. She didn't shift to hold his hand, but her fingers curled slightly in his, just gripping the length of his hand.

"You did nothing wrong," she said, a small note of consternation in her voice. Brows furrowed as she looked up at him. "Without you, without Cerbera.... Carach, I wouldn't be here at all. You hold no blame for any of what happened. You could not have done more."

As far as she was concerned, that was true. He did not owe her anything, after all, so the idea that he could in some way owe a deeper responsibility was alien. He'd made no pledge, no promise that she was aware of. He had offered to help her, yes, but he had already gone so far above and beyond what she could have expected of someone like him that the idea he thought he had failed simply baffled.

That he had experienced anything in regard to her death that left him changed did not even occur to her.

His very essence was one that was not strongly influenced by outside events. He did not change to suit others. Either there was room in his attention that was sufficient..... or there was not. She saw herself taking up such a small slice of that greater attention, that his words left an uneasy confusion in their wake.

Again, as with Cerbera, she had no reason to say no, rather than a compelling need to say yes.

"If you wish," she said softly, almost a whisper.

"But I don't think you'll like what you see."

She would hold nothing back from him.

[member="Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

His approach was different from Cerbera.

There was no brute-force, because Carach did not need such tools for his trade. Throughout the entire Galaxy there were few his match when it came to mentalism, the esoteric, the ethereal, all it took was a squeeze of her hand while his eyes closed.

Then his presence: The placid, still surface of a bottomless lake, with but two amber shards glittering from the depths. His reach didn’t have an end you could touch – he simply… petered out, expansive and encompassing and present.

It welled up from the depths, wrapping itself calmly around her. The ice did naught to hold him back, instead the heat of his touch poured through and passed into her presence. Behind him the ice froze over again - the damage could not be undone by one touch of passion - and brushed him. There it was, the torn essence, no longer breeding after being seared shut by Cerbera's touch, but still aching in dulled pain.

Reality does not change in the face of what I dislike, Raj.

I must see. To know. To understand. Just as you did, when I trained you.

Carach studied the damage, clinical, because passion would not assist her here.

Then, out of instinct, he touched her essence with his. The Sith knew that there was nothing here that he could do to fix it permanently, that was not the point of the exercise. Instead he breathed warmth against the wound, brushing it, helping the thaw set in as gently as could be.

Then as it moved Carach retreated, opening his eyes, only to see Raj against him. His lips against hers.

He would have asked, but instead the Sith closed his eyes and pulled her closer.

 

[Kuzo]

It had occured to her that this chill was permanent. One of the consequences Cerbera had mentioned, to what she had done. How could it not, after all? To think that perhaps this was the price for her, in this time- the toll paid the ferryman in lieu of coins pressed upon her eyes. After all, only Samka had been there when knife had met flesh, and she certainly had no inclination to speed her soul beyond. There had not even been that last courtesy left between them when she had brought the blade across her throat.

So what was this, one more stone piled upon it all? In a way, wouldn't it be a blessing?

To give up the joy, the passion, yes. But also the pain. There had been so much of that in the last two years. Until the lack of it, until her death, she had never considered the pain to outweigh the joy. No matter how bad something became, she always found something in it worth fighting for, worth smiling for. But now that it was gone.... had there truly been enough happiness to make up for it?

Wouldn't it be simply easier if this was simply what was left? Nothing to be disappointed by, hurt by. She could live, she had already decided, with that emotional ice as the price paid for it.

What, truly, was she giving up?

He shattered that with the warmth of a single heartbeat. A breath, spring breeze against a late frost and she felt the upwelling of everything lost.

Not all, true. Some of it could never be recovered. But so much of it was still there beneath the surface, shocked and huddled and closed.

One breath, one moment, wasn't enough to draw it out into the open. But like a trickle of warm water along a block of ice, he wore a channel where, for that heartbeat, something could flow again. Warm water beneath the ice.

Her hand tightened in his and before she could think about it, she was kissing him. It had always been so easy, the distance between their lips never enough to dissuade. This wasn't easy. This hurt. But it also soothed, and warmed and she was hungry for things that had only the barest trace of connection to the kiss itself.

She'd been wrong.

Easier, yes.

But not better. Never better when she had people like this in her life.

It was still only a flicker in comparison. A flame that could grow, however, if fed.

[member="Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

There was nothing to say in that moment, because it transcended words. The hunger welling up again when lips were eager and hands tightened. From one moment to the next she was against the wall and he was against her.

From there... it would have been instinct, if Carach didn't stop.

He didn't stop, not usually, once the combined passion ran high and nails scratched against his neck there was only one logical conclusion. But the Sith Lord stopped now, brow resting on hers, breathes deep, heavy, warm.

"Do you want this?" The Sith whispered, surprising himself. Hands rested, tightening only a fraction as if to give indication what Carach meant.

Even when it was so obvious.

"Now?" The clarification came a second later.

 

[Kuzo]

There had never been a time when the two of them moved like this that she had said no. There was an unspoken communication they'd found from the first, and it didn't reach this moment if the answer wasn't yes.

But then, the moment had never been quite like this.

"I don't want to feel nothing," she whispered, looking up at him with a certain rawness in those hazel eyes.

"This is.... what I remember it being. Muted.... a little pale..... but that's something that's broken in me. And I don't know if I can fix it."

Her throat was tight, translating to her words as she spoke in his shadow.

"I know I was only gone for a short time, but it felt like forever. And there was no room for anything but putting one foot in front of the other, over and over again. I left something there that.... that I don't think I can ever get back. Here, with you, kissing you, it almost feels bearable. But it also hurts, Carach. And I'm afraid if I say yes I'll drown in you and I won't even care that I had when you're gone again."

[member="Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Irajah Ven"]

The words flowed over him and Carach wanted to flee.

Every single instinct honed across years of experience told him to run. That this path was pain, never had it turned out well for him. Never. Not with Sinistra, not with Natasi, not even with Neph where there was a different kind of bond.

"You will fix it, Raj." Carach finally said with true confidence. "After I took you away from Maena, I gave you the tools, but *you* took them and fixed yourself." He pulled back slightly, not to get away, but to look at her whole.

See her eyes, what they said.

"The ice will thaw, it will break and I will be there, not to do it for you, but to support you." His eyes closed, amber dimming slightly before opening them again. "You know what I am, who I am, I won't promise something I can't deliver."

Already did that once and here they were.

"But for as long as you want me, I am here."