Elective Amnesia

[Keira Priest]

Theme

Silence. To most it was a calm thing, soothing even, something they could always depend on to ease their nerves at the end of the day. Some wrapped themselves in it, allowing the simple nothingness to blanket them so they were left with nothing but their own thoughts and version of reality. Most inhabitants of the galaxy saw nothing wrong with being left in silence, for a time. It was even welcomed by a few, something they actively sought out after a day much too stressful. Simply put, it was a stress reliever, and an effective one for many.

Keira Ticon was not and never would be most people.

After spending multitudinous hours in an isolation chamber specifically designed to sever both her sight and hearing, silence was a thing that she tried to avoid if at all possible. Whereas before she had been content to sit and meditate with nothing but her own steady breathing to keep her company, now some type of background noise was nearly always a necessity. A minor inconvenience in some scenarios, but one she wasn't able to go without in most. The quiet seemed almost to grate on her if it was left alone for too long.

Of course, there were other side effects, too. Having been something of an insomniac before what had happened on that ship in Unknown Space, the incident only exacerbated that, leaving her with countless sleepless nights in the weeks afterwards. Slowly she'd managed to catch up on her sleep, gaining an unsteady rhythm of being woken in the middle of the night, sometimes in the early hours of the morning, by flashbacks. They never occurred nightly, sometimes not even weekly, but they were there all the same.

There were other, minor details as well. The jumpiness was there, an edge of paranoia, and a slightly haunted aura that hadn't gone unnoticed by a few of her close friends. The little things, those were symptoms she could deal with and brush under the rug. Sometimes she did the same with the bigger issues as well, if just to prevent what she thought of as unnecessary worrying on their part. That, of course, begged the question as to why she'd sought out help in the first place. From an outside source, granted, but help all the same.

And that help brought her to where she currently sat, the office of [member="Doctor Zendu"] on Belasco. It was an appointment only she was aware of, for reasons mentioned previously. She knew that her brothers would only worry more if they knew where she was at the moment, and the same went for Cryax and any of her friends in the Ravens. So she'd simply left unannounced, explaining it away as her taking a bit of a side trip to get away from everything.

Glancing to what she assumed to be the door of the office, she sighed quietly. It really was much too quiet in that waiting room.

 

[Doctor Zendu]

Doctor Robert Zendu, renowned galactic Xenopsychiatrist, had just come back from a vacation. One would think that after sitting on a beach on sunny Chroma Zedd for a week, that his skin would be more tanned than its usual ghostly white. But the ever-cautious doctor believed had spent the whole trip indoors working on his research and going over patient files. Relaxation didn't come easy for the workaholic pyschologist. However the change of scene was nice, and better yet, he got to spend a lovely week with his boyfriend [member="Rhen Ordo"], and getting to see Rhen in a bathing suit was worth the price of the trip alone.

Robert's Chrono pinged softly, reminding him of his next appointment. From what he remembered his new patient had described a feeling of being paranoid and haunted by some recent events. Well, she had come to the right place! The doctor grabbed the patient files off of the top of his spotlessly clean and organized desk and took a gander at the basics:

Name: [member="Keira Ticon"]
Age: 19
Occupation: Unknown
Species: Human

Clutching the file to his chest, he opened the door to his waiting room and peeked his head out. Sitting very still in the waiting room was a young brown-haired woman with a cybernetic arm. She looked as if she were deeply lost in thought, and he got the feeling that he would have to be even more gentle with this new patient. He gave her a thin lipped smile, adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses.

"Keira Ticon?"

 

[Keira Priest]

While she had sensed something of another presence in the adjoining room, Keira still started slightly when [member="Doctor Zendu"] spoke her name, breaking the near-complete silence of the waiting room. Instead of responding right away she took a moment to clear the haze from her brain, slowly standing, absently flexing the fingers of her cybernetic arm. Typically she would have made some response to his inquiry, but instead she merely attempted a smile that was offset by the slightly distracted look to her otherwise usually alert hazel green eyes. It was her own mind that was her worst enemy at this point, as the physical ailments of all that had happened had faded into scars in the weeks past.

When she did speak, nothing about her tone of voice raised any suspicions, though there was an undertone there that didn't otherwise belong. Whether or not this doctor would catch something off remained to be seen, but he wasn't renowned around the galaxy for nothing, she supposed. "That's me, yeah." Nothing more was said by her on the subject, and she merely stood before the man as if unsure of what to do, which she was. Her life had gone back to some semblance of normalcy, at least within the Ravens, and to them she was back to her usual self. And for the most part, she was. Until she was forced to remember.

For her to not know what to do in any scenario was an oddity in and of itself, as she almost always had some way to either diffuse the tension or form a quick bond between herself and the person she was talking to. That side of her had been eroded and corrupted by those events that had transpired, as had her hold on the Force, but those not sensitive to the energy field wouldn't be aware of such.

All told she couldn't speak anything necessarily bad or good about the doctor or his office space, but then again, the two had only just made each other's acquaintance. There was an air about him that seemed quiet and reserved, but it could have just as easily been the fact that neither of them had said much of anything to start a conversation. Of course, she hadn't come there for the company, but for...well, she wasn't exactly sure of that quite yet.

 

[Doctor Zendu]

"Hello, Keira. I'm Doctor Zendu. Please come in," he said with a toothy grin, ushering her into his office. Much like his waiting room, the doctor's office was luxurious and modern with sleek furniture and large expansive windows looking out onto the sparkling capital of Belasco. He swept his arm around the space. "Please make yourself at home. I can have a serving droid fetch you something to drink. Some spring water from Naboo perhaps? Or something stronger? I believe that the patient's comfort comes first. Orthodox psychiatric practices be karked." He smiled widely again, his movements clipped and precise.

Keira seemed uneasy, so he thought it might be best just to get right down to hearing her problems. "You can sit anywhere you'd like, but I recommend the Hover sofa," He pointed towards the soft white sofa that levitated near his desk. "It's a great place to relax and let your thoughts out."

Doctor Zendu crossed over to his desk and snatched up his little black book and pen. He had an inkling of why she had come to visit him, but regardless, he started with the same ice-breaker that he always did when meeting a patient for the first time. "What brings you to my office today, Keira?"

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

Too happy, that was her first assessment of him. It wasn't that she had anything against the man, and nor was she necessarily depressed herself. It was simply an offsetting thing, but not one she devoted too much time to thinking about. His question that followed was what weighed on the forefront of her mind. There were two ways to answer it, one of them being fractionally shorter than the other but not giving much of a glimpse into just what was running through her head. That would be the one she went with, however. "The better question would be what doesn't." As she spoke she sat down on the hover sofa almost carefully, the smallest of smiles on her lips.

This wasn't how she operated, talking out things with someone else. There was a beat before she continued. "I've been...out of it, lately. Not completely grounded. Like a ghost." Another small smile. "A ghost with a beating heart." Well, that wasn't too bad, with this being her first time really being open about exactly how she'd felt since what had happened. She didn't quite meet his gaze as she spoke, not relaxed in her chair just yet. Where most others would have still been talking she was silent, though not all that comfortably so.

"I'll just have a water." Normally she would have asked for something akin to alcohol, but for the moment she wanted her thoughts clear, for better or for worse. Chances were she'd remedy that when she returned to Antecedent, but for now she would at least pretend to be civil. Her hands shook slightly as she reached up to tuck a strand of still growing brunette hair behind her ear, but whether it was from anxiety from having to talk about things or something else only time would tell.

There was also the minor detail that she'd taken to smoking a cigarette here and there to help her relax, but that was another thing she wouldn't bring up unless prodded to. It might have been a therapy session, but she was far from the ideal patient.

[member="Doctor Zendu"]

 

[Doctor Zendu]

The privacy screens slid down the large windows, washing the room in a soothing dim half-light as Doctor Zendu took a chair opposite Keira and hunched over his little black book. He scribbled furiously as she spoke and then finally raised his head, blinking his big brown eyes with the same tight-lipped smile. It was a good start. She wasn't denying her problems like so many patients did once actually faced with the reality of saying them out loud to someone. It was almost as if some forgot that they were paying a ridiculous amount of credits to someone to listen to them. But Keira was different. Although he could sense some reluctance, he could tell that she was bursting with emotion right behind her protective wall.

With a nod of his head, a droid rolled up to Keira with the water she requested, and the young psychiatrist spoke up, his black book placed neatly on his lap. "Was there anything in particular that set off this feeling, Keira?" the doctor asked with a tilt of his head that made him resemble some kind of tall bird-like creature. "Or has it been a feeling that has had a gradual build up?"

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

It would have been amusing, in any other scenario, how little the doctor really knew about what had happened. As it was Keira could only manage a wry smile, shaking her head. The answer was really none of the ones offered, but putting it in a way that wouldn't completely stun him into silence was another matter. There was most definitely a cause for that feeling and most any abnormalities of her personality of late. "It's a bit of a tale to tell, and I'll spare you the details." For her benefit just as much as his, certainly. "I was captured, tortured by religious zealots..." The room shifted slightly before her eyes, and she trailed off, blinking as she tried to steady herself. Perhaps taking it slowly was a beneficial strategy, for once.

Taking the glass of water offered she took a slow drink, the cool and clear feeling of it washing down her throat bringing her back to reality for the time being. That was all she really had to say about those unfortunate series of events that had occurred until she was inevitably asked more questions in regards to it. "There's not much else to say." She offered an almost hesitant smile, looking down at her hands in her lap for a moment before her eyes met his once more.

There was much more she could have spoken about. It was difficult, to put it mildly, for her to recall anything willingly. A part of her, the morbidly curious aspect, wanting to remember every detail in perfect clarity, if just to have some semblance of closure. Surprisingly enough there was a decidedly more cautious facet of her psyche that wanted nothing to do with any of those memories or anything that remotely concerned them in any manner. That was the part of her that won out in any mental battles, nine times out of ten.

Deeper than that, however, was her will to understand and ultimately overcome it all. It didn't take much digging into her personality to determine that she was the type of person who wanted to get over things and move on. Being static for any amount of time was something she was unused to, especially if that something was just as much a product of her own mind as the cause of anything that had happened in reality.

[member="Doctor Zendu"]

 

[Doctor Zendu]

"Keira. That is precisely why I'm here," he said with a slight admonishment in his tone. "You don't have to be afraid to tell me anything." He swept his hands around the office. "This is a safe space. No judgments." Doctor Zendu scrawled down a few more notes and then raised his head, adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses with his thin fingers. "You were the victim of a horrible crime, Keira. It's natural that you would feel, well, disconnected from reality afterwards. Like you said yourself, ghostly. As if you're in the world, but you're not a part of it, not participating."

Doctor Zendu could see what he assumed was skepticism in her eyes. Many of his patients had it. It was expected that people would judge a book by its cover, and in Robert's case, that cover was a thin pale, highly educated young man who had never been injured in a lightsaber battle or been fired at by enemy soldiers. Still, he knew that his dedicated study of the emotional workings of humans and aliens was generally beneficial to his patients. His calendar was certainly booked full of patients, and the credits were rolling in. For better or worse, the doctor was good at what he did, and rarely did he come across a patient he couldn't help in some way, even if it was just to lend a sympathetic ear.

"You have to remember that these terrible things were done to you, not because of who you are as a person. If anything, take heart in that." The young doctor smiled and gave her his best concerned expression. "Now why don't you start at the beginning? It would give me a better idea of what exactly happened so that I can help you work through it."

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

Having to exhale shakily in order to steady herself there was a long moment that seemed to drag on into eternity in her mind. It was easy for him to talk, when it was plainly obvious, at least to her, that he hadn't seen an inkling of conflict in his entire life. That wasn't a reason for her to disregard him as either a doctor or a person as a whole, however. Her focus wasn't on her assessment of his personality, but more so on how exactly she would commence in her retelling of a tale that even she didn't want to remember on the best of days.

Avoidance wasn't going to solve anything, so she deemed to delve into the heart of things, for better or worse. "The beginning starts on Antecedent, at the luxury apartments down the street from the Casino. I was walking around that night, couldn't sleep, and I felt...something in the Force. That ended up leading me to the door of one of the apartments, and I wound up in the middle of something I'm still not sure of." That was the easy part, the part of the story that she had no real attachment to, as it was relatively harmless in every sense. The first minutes of the encounter were the only simple aspects.

"There was an armored man, Force sensitive, untrained and a dark sider, and a Zeltron woman. He was the adversary. I don't quite remember the specifics." Well, it wasn't a total lie, not really. "We ended up at the hangar after he stunned her, and after that..." She shook her head. Her summation of the encounter was a brief one, not told in all of its detail.

The rest of it, her awakening in the ship, those were the pieces that she didn't care to dredge up from her memory, the parts she didn't want to. "I was knocked unconscious, and when I woke up I was somewhere else." Abruptly she fell silent after the last sentence, pausing to let her words sink in. It was quite a bit of information that she'd put out in that short span of time, and she supposed that she was curious about what he had to say about things.

[member="Doctor Zendu"]

 

[Doctor Zendu]

Nodding his head profusely as he took generous notes, the doctor could only listen and bear witness to Keira’s re-telling pf her trauma for now. These were obviously hard details for her to reveal, of course, and he took no pleasure in listening to them. Doctor Zendu never got used to hearing about the depravities of organic beings and their primitive needs to dominate one another. As a civilization the galaxy had come so far with technical progress and social justice, yet it was still so savage in many sectors. The minute that he thought he’d heard it all, another patient would come into his office and one up all of the horrible things that had been done to the last one. It was enough to make a man completely depressed. As a preventative measure, Doctor Zendu took a copious amount of anti-depressants. After all, one had to put the oxygen mask on oneself before putting it on others.

“I know this is hard for you,” said Doctor Zendu. “If you need a moment to collect yourself, just let me know.” Fiddling with his notebook and pen, he waited a bit and seeing that she didn’t seem to need that moment, tilted his head again, brows knitted in concern. “If you could continue, then when what happened Keira?”

[member="Keira Ticon"]