Private Common Threads

[Kyra Perl]

//Denon: Yula's place
// Dagon Kaze

It was Dagon's turn to come home to an unexpected guest.

Kyra sat at the kitchen counter, back to the door as she organized a box of screws. "Wow, that noddle box was ready fast. You grab the pop and everything?" She chirped, the younger Perl speaking to the front door as it closed down the hall.

"I found your screw box. You know you really should keep these sorted-- one wrong size and you'll have a lobby disaster all over again." Yula had made Kyra's cyber arm, when she had had one, and mention of that incident was enough to make her smell burnt hairs all over again.

You gotta keep the flairs properly contained.

She was just glad they could grow her back a flesh one.

"You get the chocolate?" She turned, red hair wiping as she found herself face with--

 

[Dagon Kaze]

The Jedi halted right on the edge of their apartment building's rooftop and by habit gestured for his companion to drop down the fire exit staircases first. But the only companion he found was the cold wind picking up from the north and whispering a reminder he didn't need - you've failed, Dagon Kaze.

Sighing, he folded his arms and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes for a long, long moment before he willed the memories away and flung over the roof. The wind rushed against his form and where it once felt liberating; now it was merely suffocating. By habit, his hand stretched out in the right moment to grab the stool of the window leading into his home.

Carefully, he pulled it up and slid in silently like a stray cat, removing the domino mask and plucking it inside the pocket of the black leather jacket before he stripped it off his frame. The old, long-forgotten jumpsuit that completed his vigilante outfit beneath was somehow dirtier. More tibanna oil on it than blood. That's what happens when you punch down a biker gang. He should've noticed that he wasn't alone but being absent-minded ever since his apprentice fell to the corruption of her father was the least worse of symptoms.

The Knight was zipping down the jumpsuit, headed from the bedroom to the utility room when, "You get the chocolate?" the zip went back up as fast as Denon's rail, glitched midway and his shoulders tensed at the guest he wasn't expecting.

He blinked in surprise, "Kyra?"

"...right. Yula said you were coming." he should've remembered. The zip finally buckled and went up fully, "Where's, uh, Yula?"

Kyra Perl

 

[Kyra Perl]

"Gettin' choc'o'late," she chirped, relaxing back into the stool and turning around for the bottle in front of her.

"Want some?" She pulled forward a glass and started pouring, the fizzy substance promising something nonalcoholic, regardless of his answer. One might think that was a subtle attempt to trap him into chatting, but Kyra was not that sharp in head.

She smiled blandly and held it up. She was just trying to be kind.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

He threw a glance towards the bathroom's door, "I wanted to shower first--", back to her, "--ah, why not." never say Dagon Kaze is a bad host.

Taking the cup from her, he leaned against the counter and faintly sniffed its contents. Last thing he wanted was to get hammered and turn into Deputy Law.

"What brings you to Denon?" he asked, an absent hint of an undertone leaking through his voice. The ghost on the rooftop followed him everywhere at all times.

Kyra Perl

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra shrugged and looked down at her cup.

"...Tryin' to see my family more." She had left a open wound behind on more than one heart when she had left the core without a word. Yula had been force to bear witness to the unravelling of her family, with Nida's corruption and Kyra's inner turmoil leaving the eldest alone and weighed down by guilt.

It was all public knowledge-- Kyra recalled with a grimace the night she lost it in front of a sea of faces on Jakku-- but time had a way of fading things...

She looked healthier. More at peace.

She shook the liquid to pop some bubbles and smiled tightly back up at him. "It's nice to meet you by the way. I'm not sure we actually have in the past...?" Her face crinkled as she studied him.

"Though, you do look a little familiar..."

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"...Tryin' to see my family more." an eyebrow was slightly arched at the tone behind her words. The Perls had their own issues, he knew that from Yula, but what at first was curiosity on his part became an outlet opportunity for him to take his mind off Jem's fate by... well, tapping into his innate savior complex. Very healthy.

"You should, yeah."

"It's nice to meet you by the way. I'm not sure we actually have in the past...?" Her face crinkled as she studied him.

"Though, you do look a little familiar..."

Huh?

"...we did meet before. On Coruscant... you don't remember?" he shook his head "Well, uh, I guess in your defense you did look lost as hell back then."

A soft smile pulled his lips, "But now you look way better, Kyra. What changed?"

Kyra Perl

 

[Kyra Perl]

Her brows crinkled, the girl straining to think through the fog of that year to recall him. She couldn't. Heat warmed her cheeks, she distracted herself by taking a slow sip.

"--you look way better, Kyra. What changed?"

She shrugged, her shoulders rounding in. "I did?" It was her choice to become clean, her choice to stop being a victim to her trauma, and it was her choice, day by day, to take the steps to move on.

Time had done the rest.

"Gained control? My abilities weren't helping," she admitted. "Too much chaos, too much--" she tapped right over her heart. "I can feel everything now." She took another sip and slowly let her eyes trail back to him.

They sharpened knowingly.

"Like how you're distracting from your problems with mine. Is it helping?" She asked with gentle bluntness.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

His mouth fell slightly open at the abruptness of her question, then it shut into a frown. Dagon almost mouthed a knee-jerk 'mind your own business' in return before he drew out a long-held sigh pressing against his chest.

He set the glass aside and was half of mind to hit the shower and put the upcoming conversation to rest. This was, after all, his own problem to solve. Not anyone else's; yet, often, he was reminded that there were people around him that he could rely on. That he didn't have to go through everything alone.

"Yula told you?"

Kyra Perl

 

[Kyra Perl]

Another shrug.

"Blanket on couch, boots that are not her size by the door-- and Cheerio-flakes, really? Either you're cheating on my sister, or there was another person here."

She paused, then broke the spell by adding, "But yeah, Yula told me." She tossed a screw from the pile at him and grinned.

 

[Dagon Kaze]

The screw bumped against his arm and fell tumbling on the ground. Picking it back up and putting it on the counter Dagon wondered who the hell would cheat at his own home. An awful plan.

His attention shifted back to the elephant in the room, "Then there isn't much else to say." eyes narrowed at the Cheerio box, "Jem was my responsibility and I failed. Bad." he sighed, letting silence reign hoping the conversation would end but when it didn't he carried on, "But I refuse to believe blood's thicker than water. Not with her. Even if I keep being proved the opposite every time. My brother fell too but I didn't. Twice I was close to and twice I escaped."

"I hope I can bring her back but I guess I'm more afraid if... if I can't." shaking his head, Dagon added, "Doesn't matter, it's my problem to solve. Not anyone else's."

Kyra Perl

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra snorted.

"You sound like I did." It wasn't a compliment. The words were rich an unpleasant grimace, an ever so slight sheen of stress appearing over her forehead at the very reminder of that time.

She paused, then gave him a bit of breathing room with a much simpler inquiry.

"Do you have a plan then?"

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"With her? Not yet." he admitted. All the plans he'd been devising after her fall had been around the war with the Sith. Finding targets, setting up fallback lines and points, and so on. One could argue it was his way of coping with his apprentice's situation. "I've been able to pull actual Sithspawn out of the dark side's grasp but when it comes to those closest to me..." a sour taste recalled his brother, "...my streak's not great."

"I have a feeling she'll find me first. My father had my brother kill me as a test of loyalty. It's not far-fetched to think Solipsis will try the same."

"...worst-case scenario, he'd send her after those close to me. Then I'm completely powerless to the outcome--." he remarked grimly as he crossed his arms. "--why? You got some ideas?"

Kyra Perl

 

[Kyra Perl]

"So wait," she interjected. "You haven't even tried yet and you're already writing her off? Ouch, Sika." Brother, in Zeltron. She tossed another screw at him, this time aiming for his forehead.

"Do you even want to get her back?"

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"Ow!" he frowned as the screw struck his forehead. In a petty act of rebuttal, he sent it back at her with the Force.

"What kind of stupid question is that?--" Dag spread his arms in disbelief, "--I'm not writing her off. Rather writing my chances of pulling her back off."

"You never hear of the expression hope for the best, prepare for the worst?" he had to account for every possible scenario.

Kyra Perl

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra rolled her eyes.

“If that we’re true you’d be accepting every hand you could get. I don’t smell hope I smell a pity party. A man-cold pity party!”

The screw stopped in mind air, held taunt by their two opposing forces.

The tension lingered, then softened with Kyra’s sympathetic glance. She took his hand and lowered it onto the table between them.

“I know it’s hard. There’s no rule book for how to deal with this, but learn from my mistakes— it starts by letting people in.

“Her included.”

She squeezed, the screw rebounding off her chin.

“Ow.”

 

[Dagon Kaze]

A pity party... he should've hit the showers by now but instead, he allowed his hand to be taken. There was indeed strength to be found in the comfort of others. When the sacking of Coruscant had occurred, his bedrock had been Yula. Falling into her arms as the city world he called home burned the horizon.

But it was a foreign feeling. More often than not he would be the one offering the comfort, pulling someone up from the ledge, not the other way around. And not due to some misplaced arrogance but rather due to his fear of instead being pulled up he'd end up pulling down the one holding his hand. Such hefty was the weight he believed he carried. A glance at his callous hand only proved that to him.

"Letting people in got us here in the first place. I misjudged her training, Kyra. I was worried that if I didn't trust her fully she'd never reach her potential, never become the Jedi she was meant to be. But the moment I did... she fell. It's my oversight."

"... you want me to drag more people into the mess I've stirred?" he shook his head, "No."

Kyra Perl

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra let a deep breath pass through her-- in and out-- as she recentered herself on her stool. HIs pain moved through and beyond her, lingering long enough to be understood without becoming her own.

If only she had learned that tact years ago, her own path might have been different. She had learned not to linger on what could have been though, things often panned out exactly as they needed to. She trusted in that now.

Dagon clearly had a ways to go.


"You're not dragging if I'm askin'. You carry a lot of weight yanno."

She opened his palm and traced his fingers, some of his stress eeking away in tiny, insignificant amounts. She let out another long breath then looked up and gave him a tight smile.

"Too much, if you ask me. Why don't we start by putting the blame where it belongs? Like on evil dad Yula said she went to?" She rose a brow at him, challenging him to reason his way out of that logic.

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"If I had her prepared well enough, then none of this would've--" a faint sensation of relief glided through his body sparked by Kyra's digits tracing his own. To be a fountain of tranquility was the last thing he'd come to expect from Yula's sister who had been known to be as turbulent as the storms on Eadu. But he'd be a fool to reject it.

With a slightly less stubborn tone than his words would indicate, he retorted, "--sure... let's blame it on Solipsis... but then what? Helps us how?"

Kyra Perl

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra grimaced.

"That's... kinda the point. Blame doesn't help anything, but blaming yourself? ....s'one step away from a place you don't want to go." She would know. She looked down, a touch of shame warming her cheeks.

Their situations were remarkably similar. It was harder than she thought to witness it again. She felt powerless to the experience she wanted to protect him from, and not because he was her sisters boo. She understood what he was feeling, better than most.

There was no button she could press to make this better for him, and she knew advice only worked if the person was ready for it. She couldn't do this for him, but she could at least try to shine a light on the way he should go.

She looked back up at him, her lips pressed into a determined line.

"Look, why don't you let me help you. You don't know what happened to her, right? Why don't you take me to where she last was and I can see what I can find. I've been, um... developing this new... skill..." She explained vaguely.

 

[Dagon Kaze]

He looked astray, eyes narrowing into thought as he mulled over Kyra's words. One of the times he missed having the white-orbed domino mask on his eyes. They were the only facial piece that could never truly conceal intent. Their movements, even the faintest, could betray one's thoughts and feelings. It's why interrogators honed in on the orbs of suspects during questioning. He knew that, Jem knew that, and it made him wonder - or rather dread - seeing her eyes again and the truth they held.

"...fine." Dagon finally said, looking back to the red-haired Perl, "We'll go to Cato but I doubt there's anything left of the scene by now--" he remarked, then an idea lit up inside his mind, "Hmm..." the Jedi stood up without saying another word and shuffled to the bedroom. A cupboard slid open, then closed before he returned with the only item he'd recovered from Cato.

Jem's lightsaber.

He offered it to Kyra, "Psychometry?" he deductively assumed.

Kyra Perl