Private From The Depths

[Qae Shena]

Once upon a time, there was a man.

A man that wandered the Galaxy, seeking knowledge, seeking balance. He saw the brightness of suns as they went supernova, eclipsing into blissful nothingness. He saw the darkness of peoples' hearts, and the way that they sang as they found redemption within the light. He saw life, death and rebirth. He saw pain and suffering, and the joys of healing as wounds were tended.

Once upon a time, there was a woman.

A woman who had found that man, as he lay broken, battered and dying at the hands of an Orcus who had annihilated most of his body. A woman who loved him like none else ever could, for it was not romantic, but the strongest familial bond that could have ever been forged in the fires of battle. A woman who saw his shattered psyche and modified body as perfect. A woman who tried desperately to heal him as he lay on the shores of an island where she could try to save off death, so insanely powerful was she that she could have challenged life and death itself. She had not succeeded.

Spencer Jacobs was, in fact, one of the most powerful beings to have ever lived. Qae Shena, her first apprentice - first and chosen - had been downed by the Herglic that challenged the planet of Manaan and, in his wrath, had succeeded. She had lain him to rest in the waters of the oceans of the planet, right where he as a Nautolan belonged; the depths would take him and he would be returned to the waters that spawned him in the first place. He had ensured their legacy would carry on forever, for it was a deep and rich tapestry that had been woven in the stars - in every corner of the Galaxy, on every hyperlane. They had been a force to be reckoned with, spreading the message of balance, of light and dark. They had been Je'daii. In a time when the Je'daii had been close to death, it was their teachings that brought them back from the brink and allowed Ashla and Bogan to spread in equivocation once again.

So she had cast his body to the seas, and laid him to rest, their story to continue on in the lives of their apprentices. Twenty years had passed since that moment.

It was an odd thing, the Force. It lived in an equilibrium, where it executed its own will in its own way. For a man who had been so savagely destroyed, whose life had ended, there was one thing anybody had not counted on: Spencer Jacobs had succeeded.

Kept in Force stasis, the Yuuzhan Vong biots implanted into his body had kept him alive. As the waters of the planet took him, her unintentional plan to try and revive him had worked, but not in the way she anticipated. Those biots lived. They worked, slowly, to repair him. And, in the uncaring embrace of the underworld of the Force, he had danced upon its edge until the moment that his body was finally healed to the point that it could accommodate his spirit once again. She could not have healed him completely, nor spared him the suffering that he endured. However, she had succeeded in prolonging the inevitable, even if it had taken forever to reach that point.

In the Force, a quiet ping went out. It was the same sort of message that he had sent to Spencer, when he felt himself dying. This time, it was a man on the edge of death who no longer knew how to reach out, trying to cling on to the last vestiges of sanity and life and connection; it was a kiss of Ashla and Bogan together that, for the right receiver, would know to come to the place that Qae's body would be, once it floated back up to the surface. Propelled by a perfectly timed current of water, the man's body would come to rest on the shores of the same atoll that he had once lay upon when his Master had tried to bring him back to life. If any Je'daii were so attuned to the Force, they would know where to find him. Chances were they might even know his name in the legends of the Order, were it so alive; master and apprentice were so indelibly etched into its history that perhaps their names and their legacies lived on still.

He had told her it was time. She had told him it was not. As it turned out, she was right.

Qae Shena, clinging on to life, was not yet a dead man.

 

[Asha Sar'andor]

They had been drifting through the Expansion Region for a few weeks now, dropping into systems to explore worlds neither had seen fit to grace before. It had been a whirlwind of adventure, but then ever since they'd decided to pull back a little from the intensity of so many duties, since Asha had learned how to deny the ever-present call of the Force she felt deep inside, their lives had been more or less that. Adventure, excitement, and in between it all, taking up the majority, peace. Tranquility with one another.​

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She cherished their time. Every now and then one of them would be called off to deal with something, but they'd always come back. Cotan Sar'andor did not find himself left wondering any longer where she was, or how long she'd be gone for. Asha had learned to communicate through the haze the Force often left her in. She had learned to be informative. And so far it had worked.​

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As Contentment dropped down through the atmosphere of a beautifully lush planet, marked on the holomap as Mimban, their spirits had been high. That wasn't actually the name of the ship, of course, Force knew Cotan was hopeless at naming things and in this case he hadn't even tried, but in her minds eye, whenever she thought of it, that was what sprung to mind. So Contentment it was. The soft ground below cushioned their arrival, leaves billowing up around the vessel as pressure was expelled and the boarding ramp began to lower.​

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Waiting by the door, Asha had been quick to disembark, her boots meeting with the somewhat marshy soil almost in tandem with the ramp. She turned full circle, excitement bristling comfortably within her, and breathed it all in. Though she was a girl who felt at home in the void of space, there was nothing quite like coming to stand somewhere new, somewhere exciting. She wondered what new flora she could unearth, and if any might be pleasant to add to her next batch of tea, and, and...​

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Cotan was objectively slower on his descent. Then again, he'd been the one in the cockpit tending to all of the systems. Asha did her fair share of piloting of course, and quite frankly most of the time they let the ships nav's do the job for them, with the aid of K1-S5 where required; landing though, landing they took seriously. Though she waited for him, she did not give rise to impatience. If anything anticipation was further built by his absence.​

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It was then, amidst so much jubilation, that she felt it. It came upon her all at once, and though she did not realize it she was sent to her knees under its weight. A breath lodged itself within her throat, and the Force engulfed her in its warmth of presence. The ping itself had been brief and specific, a beacon out there in the vacuous beyond which lingered overhead. It was not the ping which gripped her so. It was the aftermath which shook through her core.​

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The Force had not seen fit to call her to action in so visceral a manner in a very long time. So long in fact that she had quite forgotten how intense it could be. There had been small pokes here, prods toward one way or another, but she listened on a whim as of late. She did not let it wholly decide her fate as once she had. It was as though it knew as much. It was as though the Force had so much need for her that it took her by the shoulders and shook her silly.​

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It was there that Cotan ultimately found her, knelt in the mud and trembling under the weight of a vision so strong it had caused emotionless tears to fall down her cheeks. She did not feel sorrow, or rage, or relief, they did not build up in her eyes of her own accord. But they fell all the same. When her breath found her once more she inhaled a shuddery, hungry lungful of air, and forced herself back to her feet. Her expression though serene had lost all of its previous mirth.​

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When the winds whipped around her and saw fit to displace her curls, she made no move to stay them, to tug them back behind her ears as she often would, all she did was turn and give Cotan a look he knew too well. One he had not seen in some time. One he had, once upon a time, no doubt come to resent. Before she had learned to communicate. Before she had entrusted him with all she was, and all she did.​

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"I'm sorry, love," the woman exhaled, and knew well in his expression the signs of disappointment and resignation... and understanding. Always so understanding of her. The distance between them was closed all at once, and she wrapped him in a tight embrace. Already her mind felt torn in two, one pertaining to the present and the other a close future that lay in something of a fine mist. She saw only water, lapping against a shore. She felt only the cool breeze of salty sea air. And then an impression, a location, formed.​

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When she pulled back, there was determination and understanding in her eyes. Asha Hex knew her destination... Knew it well though she had never once stepped foot there. She kissed him, deeply, and then with little fanfare she hurried back aboard the ship. Her mind was not wholly her own in those first few motions, as she set the vessel back into motion and prepared for take off. She did not notice that it was the only ship they had brought, nor that she was leaving behind naught save the shuttle Cotan had just finished disengaging from the ship proper, to help them navigate this verdant landscape.​

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It wasn't until the world was gone from view, and the void around her bled into streaks of white as the ship entered hyperspace, that K1-S5's binary chirps brought rise to her folly. Had she really just left him stood on some lush yet backwater planet, with only a shuttle to his name? Further realization hit her. She hadn't even explained... Asha focused in on him, and felt only a wash of frustration and confusion undercut with deflation and sadness radiating through the crystal which lay upon her chest. It was soft, as though he was trying not to feel such a way. But Asha sensed it all the same.​

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She counted all her blessings, and thanked her lucky stars, upon realizing just how close her destination was. Barely a hop skip and a jump, a couple of sectors over, and she found herself looking out over the blue tranquility that was Manaan. An oceanic world, it was shot through with small islands here and there which some had taken to building resorts upon. The girl avoided all of those, for she would not find what she was looking for there, and instead let instinct take over. As the ship descended through orbit, it zoned in on one archipelago in particular; as they drew closer, one island.​

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Her eyes closed. Asha trusted K1-S5 would take over, and he did. She drew upon the Force and felt it flow through her wholly, bracing her for what was to come. For the unknown she was walking into. She did not release herself from such a meditative state for quite some time, not even when the sand brushed up against the ship as it landed. A few moments longer, she centered her being.​

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And then she rose.​

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Out into the bright sunlight, reflected off the surface of the water. Waves lapped against the shore, and for a moment she watched their path. It was then that she noticed it. Or, more aptly, him. Lay upon the shore, a body...​

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Her composure briefly broke, as she hurried forth and sank onto her knees in the sand. Another crystal was pulled from beneath her shirt, upon natural cordage, and she brought it down to linger just above the creature's core. A Nautolan. She had never met one in person before, and in her haste to ensure he was well she did not yet bridge the gaps of reality. She knew it deep down, her mind was reeling with images brought forth by the Force, but she was focused elsewhere.​

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The crystal hummed, and Asha pooled its healing aura forth toward the center of his lifeforce. Her mouth moved soundlessly as she did, combining her own efforts with it, and with any residual energy the body saw fit to offer up to the table in response. If indeed it did.​

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Qae Shena ​

 

[Qae Shena]

The first real sensation that Qae remembered as his faculties began to return to him was the feeling of something pressing against his chest. The next thing he knew in that instant was the fact that there should have been a crackling, burning sensation where his ribs once were shattered into pieces by the over-pressure caused by his last enemy; however, there was nothing there. Yes, with his clothes in tatters and his body wracked with all manner of dark purple bruising, particularly his chest, the pain was simply... a void. There was nothing, where something should have been. Where something was definitely there previously. The sudden dysmorphia that his body was now experiencing when what was left of his mind was expecting a certain state of being but his pain receptors were telling him a different story was enough to send his nervous system into abject overdrive. It was in this moment that he knew that there was something.

To have come from a void, where the timeless sea continued to march on with no ability to perceive the five senses, or the Force, or even a sense of belongong or spatial connectedness-- the fact that he had sensation at all was an absolute miracle. He knew, somehow, that things were happening inside him that had not happened for whatever qualified for an eternity.

The energies of the Force pulled away from him for a moment, as the tide of his life washed out to sea, before it came rolling back to the shore. Gentle, as the calmest sea upon a secluded inlet's beach, where he knew full well that his senses were not functioning the way they should be. As they reacted to the presence of the crystal, what vestige of power that his body held was now reacting to the object placed upon his sternum - together, it wove a tapestry that reached out to the greatest gift of all: life. Pure, blessed life, where all he had ever given in the cause of service to the Force was now being returned to him. It was nothing more than strands. Threads of the tapestry that, with Asha's help, were being woven back together. The picture, as frayed and faded as it was, could at least be seen and beheld now. If not for her timely intervention, perhaps that would no longer be true.

In the next instant, Qae understood consciousness once again.

Qae's arms felt heavy, as if they were pinned to the ground. His body refused to yield any ground to his efforts. Eyes fluttering open, they revealed an inky, almost soulless blackness; while that was very traditional for a Nautolan, there was something amiss here. Something that spoke to an absence of something unknown in his spirit. Perhaps it would return in time, but for now there was a distinct vacancy in his eyes that simply could not be explained. Asha would see it written plainly on his tattoed face. She would behold the scarring that criss-crossed his body, from the blade cuts and bruising from his time as a slave, to the surgical incisions upon the back of his hand where the beasts of Sekot had intervened and inserted biots directly into his body. Here was a man, broken, but as yet unbeaten. Somehow. By some miracle, he had survived even this. With her help, he would bounce back. Eventually. One day. Maybe.

"Nnngh..." came the groan, as all things swam; nothing seemed to be working. Shapes, colours, all things in his perception were a total blur. He barely perceived the truth of his own body, let alone the outside world. However, the Force spoke to him, supplanting his lack of ability to function with some semblance of ability to understand what little was there for him to know.

More than anything, Qae understood two points.

One, he was supposed to be very dead.

Two, this was...

"S...S...Spenc- no..." came words, on an incredibly strained and broken voice. It sounded like he'd been punched directly in the larynx and then it was left to be torn for twenty years. Well, part of that was true, at the very least. This was not Spencer Jacobs. The presence there was not blossomingly overwhelming, like a blessed kiss to the senses that he knew as if it was his own. Spencer's power was so strong that Qae would have known. It would have embraced him and held him and reassured him that everything was going to be absolutely fine. This presence was decidedly not so strong. It was powerful, certainly, but it was not the Queen's dominating will over the entire Galaxy, as she had been.

"You're... not Spencer," Qae finally croaked after a minute of trying to get the words out. She was not. Where was Spencer? What had happened? The water shaper's adjustment to reality had not quite completed, but the lack of his Master was enough of a wake-up call that his mind was beginning to at least process things around him, though he could not quite comprehend that which was around him.

Rude, perhaps, but he had died in her arms. Was he not supposed to be with her, at the end of all things?

Asha Hex

 

[Asha Sar'andor]

To begin with, the being on the shore did not stir.​

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Reaching out, beyond just the act of healing, she could sense his lifeforce slim and declining as it was. Small strands were all that clung to existence, and it was these that she focused her own energies on. To help them blossom, to help them grow, in that they would spread and breathe life anew into all corners of the body. It did not stir, not tangibly at least, but as she worked her magic and the Force saw fit to bridge a gap between the two, she did pick up on something akin to mere hint of consciousness. Like a sun breaking the edge of the horizon, of the first breath of spring, it came slowly into being.​

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The girl refused to allow it to distract her long from her work. How long she had been knelt there upon the shore she did not know, when she entered such a meditative, focused state it was impossible to ever truly know for sure. She was no master healer, though she had dedicated much of her studious years to the development of such abilities, and even with the crystal of serenity set upon his sternum amplifying it all, with the state he was in there could be no haste. Slow and methodical... This was best. This she knew.​

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Regardless of time, whether only minutes had passed or whole days, the girl did not much stir. She did not give rise to any bodily needs, it was as if she were suspended in a state of being which transcended even basic human anatomy, the wonders of meditations so deep seated, learned at the foot of the Master of Sense himself Sargon Vynea , that they'd become second nature to her. Here was a girl who trod the strands of time within a web carved for flow-walkers and dreamweavers, who had escaped a veritable living nightmare by retreating to the confines of her own mind. For a while there it had been all she knew, the only way she could stave off hunger, and desperation, and sleep.​

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No, she would not stray for a long time to come. Let the Nautolan have all the space it needed to heal.​

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All at once, and with little to herald it along, the pinprick of a consciousness illuminated brightly within the body. To the one who innocently, desperately meddled, it was as though a light switch had been flicked within the previously corpse-like form. She pulled back from the very precise point upon its body that she had been working on to glance over it as a whole; there were areas still failing, areas still struggling, but more progress than she had realized had been made. There was more at work here than simply she or it or crystal. In that moment she didn't wish to scrutinize it too deeply. In that moment she felt only relief at the returning life.​

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Almost as quickly as it sprung to consciousness, the Force made itself known within separately from herself. It permeated every fiber of the being, and gave rise to something within that consciousness. Then? A groan. Progress more than she had anticipated. Distraction more than she should have allowed herself. Her eyes closed over, and she forced herself to clear her mind. Inhale, exhale, inhale... Slow exhale. Focused. She was focused again, and back at that point in his body which had needed immediate attention.​

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The being was speaking, she could hear it in her subconsciousness, but the words were fragmented and incoherent. She set them aside, continued her work, and for a time nothing more was uttered. Until it was. Words that demanded attention was spoken into the air around them, and with careful deliberation she pulled back once more. Hands lingered over tattered cloth and scarred skin that in many ways resembled her own, if not for the blue hues it held. Most of her own were hidden beneath her clothing, but that which lay over the right of her face, which marred her ear and the area around her eye, however pale these days, was distinctly obvious. She saw herself reflected in the being, which urged a closer look.​

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All at once she was hit with a sense of familiarity. His was a visage she had never known in reality, but whom she had witnessed multiple times throughout the strands which weaved back and forth, stretching on for all eternity. She had observed him with the brother of her once best friend, a girl now lost to the Netherworld of the Force. She had observed him in the Temple on Teth, as he brought together a meeting of individuals of like-mindedness. Time and time again he had cropped up amidst her visions, amidst her wanderings.​

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Though he did not recognize her, through the haze though no doubt even without it, she recognized him.​

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"Master Shena..." The words fell from her lips, and her head bowed in momentary reverence. How could this be? Shena had been lost... Shena was dead. But there was no doubt in her mind, the Force confirmed her words as soon as they were uttered, as though it wanted no doubt, no suspicion, between the pair who had made that shore their temporary hovel. The Nautolan before her was the legendary Qae Shena, and he called for Spencer Varanin.​

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That she knew who it was he spoke of, that she immediately pulled up the face of the woman who had not long ago been pulled free from the sickening depths of the Dreaming Dark, spoke truly to the majesty of the Force. That all things had pulled together to bring her here, the threads finally stitching to form something which resembled a finished piece, was frankly mindboggling. Had it all been leading to this point?​

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"Careful," she finally breathed, snapping back to the present and remembering the man in her charge. Though he had spoken, he was in far from a perfect state. "Easy now, Master Shena, easy... You have suffered greatly, do not rush to rise. I doubt very much that your body could sustain such motions." From the belt at her waist she pulled free a water skin, filled with fresh spring water, and brought it gently to his lips. The act was slow, her free hand moving to gently tip up his head. How long he'd been submerged beneath those roiling waves she did not know, but she'd argue it was too long. With any luck, fresh water might help with the dryness of his throat.​

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Not so that he might speak, but so that he might find suffering in one less place.​

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Qae Shena ​

 

[Qae Shena]

Shena. Qae Shena. Master Qae Shena. That was him, to the reckonings of other sentient beings. He had been... a force-user, one that had wielded Ashla and Bogan as twin blades piercing the veil of the universe. That made him...

"...Je'daii."

The word rolled off his mouth as a familiar taste, like it belonged there. The word was almost a mantra, one that could bring strength, one that was such an incumbent part of his fragmented soul that saying it seemed to bind other parts of him back together, like a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces were so torn from use that it needed some form of glue just to come to some semblance of the original picture, ravaged by time, weathered by the insolvency of his spirit. Yes. Qae Shena. That was he. This was something that he knew as fact now. Qae Shena, Je'daii Master. It was something. It was a thing that he could tell himself in order to bring those shattered pieces into one singular whole. If nothing else, it was a start to begin turning over the engine that was his body, for it seemed that he still could not entirely function well. Everything felt horrifically numb. Actually, scratch that. Feeling was not the right word for this situation, because in truth he simply could not feel; he knew that his body was performing some very specific functions on its own, such as breathing. However, he wasn't aware of it, could not be aware of it; those breaths he did take subconsciously were harsh and shallow, merely enough to keep his brain alive and little else. The fact his brain was even alive at this point was nothing short of a miracle.

However, she spoke to him; so many words, an admonition to be careful and to ensure that he was only doing the bare minimums he needed to live. This he could do. In fact, he wasn't even trying much to do it; it was as if his body was acting all of its own accord at this point and that he only needed to exist. Existence now was all he seemed to have left in the tank, which was a shock, all things considered. "...'m not going anywhere," he groaned as she lifted up his head to drink, and as the first taste of life-giving water splashed across salt-chapped lips, he found himself feeling thirst. A sensation that had been long forgotten to time, where his body was now returning to him one by one the feelings of humanity that had long left him in his zombified slumber. Stasis-trapped and bound for so long, even basic human ideas had long left him. In fact, it was such that he did not even recognize the fact that she was lifting up his head through those beautifully-long head-tresses, some of which too bore the scars of battle that he had suffered.

Somehow, her presence was familiar. Not as if Qae knew who this person was-- not that he could see her, yet somehow, there was some essence attached to her that he knew. He could not place it. Such thoughts were too difficult for him at this point, so it was something that had to drift off with the tides sustaining his mind. Perhaps later, if and when that thought came back to him, it could be a point of discussion. Nonw, unfortunately, it had to sail out to sea.

One thing he knew, at this point, was gratitude. She had come to him, lifted him from his slumber, and was now bringing him back to life piece by piece. Who was this mysterious stranger? He didn't know their Force essence at all. He could not see them to even place a face to the voice that he heard. "Eyes... not so good. Can't... can't see you... 'm sorry," he managed as the water trickled down his throat, blessing him with the relief that she had wished for him. It was an odd thing to know that a stranger was willing to care for him, to nurse him back to life even if the care which he was receiving was only basic.

It had, very simply, saved his life from ebbing away.

After what felt like an eternity, the realisation hit him. This person-- he couldn't see, but the voice had a feminine tone to it; it was the best for of identification he had. However, it did not mask the fact that whoever it was had given his name back to him, drenched in the torrent of darkness as his mind had been. She knew. How? "You... know me?" he asked. While it was likely an odd question for an odd sort of man, it was nonetheless strange to Qae that someone, who he did not apparently recognise, knew him immediately. He simply had to know.

Asha Hex

 

[Asha Sar'andor]

Je'daii.​

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A word so deeply entrenched within her that to hear it made something inside her stir. A people whose mantra she had lived by for as long as she had known existence, whose code had acted in place of a baby's lullaby, and a child's goodnight, whose faith and principals had shaped the formation of a teenager, and later emboldened a woman in her own right. Some semblance of remembrance from the one who lay below, whose head she had set upon her knees as she knelt within the sand, supporting him just enough that he could get his fill of the fresh spring water without fear of choking. All of it swirled together, 'til that same prickle in the corners of her eyes saw fit to return.​

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She had always been a girl so reserved, so in control of her emotions that she knew them as intimately as any could, yet twice now her body had acted of its own accord in relation to the Nautolan, twice now she had been overcome by... Well, she did not know what it was that gripped her so. To discover it she would no doubt have to rely upon meditations; they were not uncommon in her routine.​

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"Je'daii," she confirmed, breathing further life into the word; Asha did not know if he spoke it of himself, or of her, or just because it was the first thing that came to his mind. Frankly it did not matter. She could feel the stirring within him at its simple utterance, and reaching out through the Force, back to the crystal which had rolled down to his solar plexus by now, she could observe the machinations of a body hellbent on it's own recovery. Fascinating. Beautiful, even. She might have watched it for an eternity, through window produced by the Force, if not for the emergence of yet more words from his mouth.​

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A groaned assurance that he was not going to move. How many patients had she tended to who had believed themselves more knowledgeable than a healer? Who had defied all requests for rest and patience to rush headlong back into whatever fray they'd tumbled from? It was a refreshing sound indeed, to hear that he would not attempt any of that. Though, she supposed, it was not as though he was physically able. Not yet, at least. While Asha wanted to return to her healing touch, she was dutiful in the other forms of care which life necessitated. She watched each gulp of water he took, ready at a moments notice to pull back the skin so that he could breathe between, before setting it back to his lips.​

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On and on that back and forth went until he seemed to have his fill, or until the skin was empty. As the last gulp was taken, words formed upon his lips. An apology of sorts, though she did not see the need for such. Mention of his eyes though drew attention to them, and she gave them a curious glance. Even for one who was unfamiliar with Nautolan anatomy, her connection to the Force was so ingrained that even she could sense that something about them was off. "It's okay; Would you like me to work on them for you?" she inquired, careful at all times she spoke to him that her tone was clear and level. Not too loud as to overwhelm any sensitivity he might have been feeling in his ears, nor so quiet that he was forced to strain.​

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A bedside manner she'd developed over the years. A bedside manner she prided herself on.​

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Watching him for a moment longer, after his answer was given in whatever form or unform it took - after all, no answer was a response in and of itself - she finally set the water skin down. For now, at least, it looked as though he'd had his fill. She'd have to refill it onboard the ship, though it would not have been quite so sweet to taste. With that in mind, Asha was glad his first sips had been fresh and not recycled.​

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About to turn her attention back to the process of healing him, Asha found herself once again interrupted. It was not a bother to her, though, not now that she had bore witness to his body's own magnificent attempts at knitting itself back together, if anything it was a good sign. He was more coherent now, more lucid than he had been even moments before. Far from perfect, oh so far from complete, but any progress was good progress.​

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His question brought with it quiet consideration from the girl, as she pondered how best to explain it. She could have gone simple, explained only that he was a legend within the Order - what of the Order even remained that was - and perhaps that might have made things easier for him to comprehend in his weakened state. But such would not do justice to the layers at which that understanding lay, the true essence of it deep inside. Because she did not just know the name Qae Shena, or the legends left in his wake, she understood the very essence of him.​

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Her response, as such, was two fold.​

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First and foremost, she did begin once again to pool her essence into him. To help bolster the efforts of Nautolan and crystal as his healing developed. But secondly, and perhaps more noticeably, Asha closed her eyes and pushed forth her presence in the Force toward him. It brushed over him for a moment, swirling around his own, before carefully bridging the miniscule gap which lay between the two. Allowing them in some capacity to merge as one. The way in which it was done was intentionally intimate, it was as though she swaddled him with all of her being, cushioning him against what came next.​

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Nay... Ferrying him. She carried him, the very essence of him, through the annuls of her mind, shouldering every conceivable strain which could have arisen within him at the act. Making it so that all he need do was observe. Was exist. She took care of the rest with care and delicacy so pure that it spoke only of an art well practiced and honed. This was not the first time she had heralded along another in this way, but it was the first time she'd carried the burden of another entirely. A test, in many ways, a test of her strength in the Force, and her strength of self.​

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And what was he looking at, exactly? What was he bade to see so long as he did not pull back or ask that she stop? He saw a strange enough reel of moments in time she'd looked upon his impressions within the Force. Of moments years in the past, when he had brimmed with life, and curiosity, and momentum itself. Each of those times were heavily entwined within the legacy of the Je'daii Order, times that Asha had sought guidance from their forefathers in the absence of any Je'daii Masters of the present.​

​

Snippets of his time with Spencer, and a much younger Sargon; of students Levia and Teio; of a convergence of Jedi, dutiful in their schism - in that Asha had also seen a glimpse of other figures, at a time in their life when she herself had not even been a consideration; her father, Jericho, and his brother-in-arms, Thurion, alongside her namesake, the once Je'daii Master Asha Seren - more snippets of his life with the Order, and without; all of them, each and every one, shown from a perspective that was not his own. An onlooker in the shadows, who refused to be seen. Eyes from a distant future, twenty, thirty years perhaps, who had transcended time to learn of him.​

​

To witness him.​

​

To understand him. What it was to be Qae Shena. And what it was to be Je'daii.​

​

Yes, I know you, Qae Shena, Asha finally spoke into his mind...​

​

Qae Shena ​

 

[Qae Shena]

He was thankful for her ministration, but knew that it took considerable effort, especially to bring someone back from the brink of oblivion, which she was now doing wonderfully, as if playing the strings of a lyre to weave a complete symphony with no other instruments and yet making it sound dazzling to the ear. She was creating her own miracle, of that there was no doubt. Qae's faculties were returning to him just enough that he could understand what she was attempting to achieve by healing his eyes. There was a gentle shaking of his head, tresses brushing quietly against her thighs as he did so. No, he figured, it would be best to conserve her energy for other things; while he certainly needed care, he did not truly require the use of his eyes at this point in time. The Force would carry his senses as far as they needed to go, and that would be the end of it. Qae knew that in his heart, whatever happened here would be the inevitability that the Force demanded it.

Having all but drained the waterskin as she took it away from him, he relaxed his body as best as he could into her. There was no point draining his energies trying to achieve something his physical form refused. She was so willing to offer him everything that he could recover, so obvious a healer was she, to which he was thankful. Perhaps his life might come back to him eventually.

What came next, he was yet to be prepared for. The warmth of the Force engulfed him completely as her energies joined with his and swallowed him back into the depths of himself, where he was not yet ready to handle. She was ready to use her abilities to their fullest, making him thankful that he had turned down her offer to heal his eyes so that she could focus on the pure strength, skill and concentration that an ability like this required. She was talented, of that there was no doubt. She was showing him something, all right. There were places, people-- faces, spectres of the past. People whom carried a small part of his soul with them, and he with theirs; people who had become so intrinsically part of his life that it was absolutely impossible for even the fragmented monster cradled in the lap of a woman who had forged a legacy. He knew them all, as they were his own memories; things he had seen and experienced from his own perspective, though he now sat upon the sidelines as he learned all around him.

Thurion. Stoic. Powerful. The Lion, whose roar shattered his enemies and cowed them before his indomitable blade. His will was as the Galaxy itself.

Jericho. One of the greatest swordsmen that Qae had ever had the pleasure of knowing. His blade, too, had been a stalwart ally.

Sargon. Inner conflict, and turmoil, but with it a strength that Qae could have never hoped to match.

Asha. Bright, blossoming, a shining star amongst inky blackness. She had been one of his greatest hopes for a true Je'daii.

Levia. Sweet, beautiful Levia, whose nickname for him would lay imprinted upon his soul forever. She was so cute, so innocent, so full of vibrant life. He had been glad to been her Master on her pilgrimage. Master Fish was a name he carried into eternity.

Teio. He, the final apprentice, who had been entrusted Qae's entire legacy, who carried the entire hope of the Je'daii on his shoulders, though he did not know it at the time.

And at the centre of it all - perfect, beautiful, unyielding Spencer. She was the shining star around which his entire life revolved; the woman to whom he owed his existence, his survival. Who kept him humble, who taught him almost every trick he knew. Between her, and the incredible Ashin Varanin, he had lived at the foot of titans for his entire adult existence. It was impossible to break free of their shadow, but he would not wish to, not in a million years. Their shadow was warm, comforting, a strength that Qae could never have ever hoped to replace in his life. No. Why replace it? She was his everything and nothing would have ever changed that.

Though perhaps her attention was buried deep in the dive for her not to see his reaction, Qae's eyes began to well with tears at these memories. It was so strange a sensation to observe his own life through the eyes of another, but it was clear to him that this was his life; at these fragmented memories, so fleeting, so indelible in their fleeting impermanence, he could not help but be brought to tears at the memory of all of these people who had formed a part of his identity. In his heart, somehow, he knew he would never see a single one of them again. The wave of emotion from the empathic beast, so true, already so fragile, was as if hearing the shattering of a beautifully-crafted crystal chime, its tone dying on the last vestiges of the wind as its core shattered into a million tiny fragments, never to be repaired. Its physical form would never be the same. The music it sang would never be whole the way it had been.

How long had he been dead for? What else had transpired in the eternity against the fade of death that gripped him so?

Yet, as he lay melded mentally with the woman above him, he realised that he could feel inside her mind. Those memories that he had seen were from the perspective of her, surely, as she stared through the visions as an outsider looking in. It was the way he felt about himself for so long, staring at the Galaxy marching on as nothing more than a man who could not shape its course like the others that he knew. However, when he saw these faces, he was epxeriencing the way she knew them - as fellow students, as family-- in that second he connected the dots, particularly when he realised one particular person was being stared at in ways that he knew to be true. Of his blood.

"Jericho's..." his lips began to murmur, but the words dissolved away into nothingness on broken lips.

Qae could not see her face. His eyes, despite her offer, were not important to him now. He did not need to see when the Force could help him fee. A hand, finally finding the strength to reach for the woman holding him close, reached upwards towards her face, to find some sensation upon calloused fingertips and feel the tentative grip of life against his body once again. He knew her, now, their spirits intertwined so intimately that they were almost completely one in this moment. It was a feeling he knew. That was a bond he had experienced multiple times across his lifetime with people who had been so important to him that, yes, they carried his soul perfectly as he theirs, like those people he had seen in her visions.

The name came to him, finally. Her name. This was Asha, the second of her name, but not of her bloodline; a true Je'daii herself, one who had devoted herself to the craft that he had sought to perfect and leave a legacy to a hundred people in their wake. His Order, his one and true ideal, had come to fruition, with her assistance. She had carried on the work that he had left. She had done the one thing he had hoped those he had trained and now left behind could do, and for that he was forever grateful.

Asha.

By contrast to his broken physical form, the voice of his soul rang as a clarion call. But there was only now regret swelling within his chest as he realised that in death, he was unable to help her carry on the legacy that she rightfully should have had. She should have been able to learn from him directly, to know that she was not alone in this Galaxy. And for that, he had made her suffer the greatest injustice - being unable to learn at the hands that carved the stone foundations upon which her house was built. She would know this guilt from his heart, that it was undying, that he could not have been there to help her.

Asha, I... I'm sorry.

Beyond nothing else, if she was the truest inheritor of the Je'daii way, then he had failed her. Completely and utterly. She would see that in his heart of hearts, and know his sorrow to the core.

Asha Hex

 

[Asha Sar'andor]

He had rejected her offer softly, in the way that only a true paragon of the Force could; most would cling to their senses, claw for a chance to have them returned, and she knew that inherent need well for she had lived it. That time when she had existed at the foot of a great mountain on Atrisia, with no sight, and no sound, to accompany her. When the scars upon her face had been much fiercer, and they had called upon a pain so present that it was all she could do not to think on it eternally. The months which had passed by under Vik's careful supervision had been harrowing, and isolating, and yet she found them reflected in this moment. Paying back to the Galaxy what it had given her in Fagrrowan's unyielding vigilance, her service to Qae was as it had been for her. And in that, she knew that his trust of the Force was great and unflinching; no rush to push the uneasiness away. She herself had not been so immaculate in sufferance.​

​

Supporting his decision, she strayed her touch from his eyes even as she returned it to the rest of him. He was steady in her arms, a soft resignation overcoming him as he melted back against her hold yet all the same evaded the state of being dead weight. There was no discomfort in keeping him in her lap, though the sand did much to cushion any compression regardless. His smooth-yet-marred blue skin seemed as moistureless as his lips and throat had previously, though in his present state, and their present location, she discovered there was little she could do about it. The nearest source of water was briny, it would only worsen things she reckoned. Her reckoning was not foolproof, of course, there were many beings within this vast and incomprehensible Galaxy of theirs that she understood to a deep extent, his kind were not among them. Even so whether her thoughts were correct or incorrect, she did not wish to tempt fate and choose wrong.​

​

Instead she gave herself to the rest of him. To the issues deep inside that threatened his very existence with each second they went unchecked, the organs crushed against ribs that needed life anew breathed into them, the bones poorly set soon shifted into place, as his body came to respond in larger sweeps so too was her capacity to heal amplified; resistance was limited now. The crystal upon his solar plexus in turn pulsed with something new and secondary, something which had been present throughout but only now that his body was able to take charge of the sensation was it notified. Any pain which might have seen fit to peek through the otherwise numbed state of the Nautolan found itself all at once subdued, and in its place a calming serenity made a home of him. True peace would do all it could to wick away at his worries. None of this was a conscious effort, just the byproduct of crystal and girl in his vicinity, and truly how much of it even noticeably took root could not be said. This was not your average set of injuries, after all.​

​

As for the vision, when she cradled his metaphysical form and carried it across the threshold of her own mind her medicinal ruminations did not cease in totality. Unable to retain specificity, with her mind so preoccupied, instead she acted as something of a battery to the crystal which in turn thrummed healing waves throughout him. It did not settle over any one thing, but instead the body as a whole, and thus progress was regarded as being painfully slow, almost unnoticeable at all. Present though, very much present. It would have to do for all that she had to show him. He was receptive toward her efforts, if a little dubious when first the effects took hold. Dubious only insofar as he did not believe himself able to withstand it; with her steadfast aide, he proved himself wrong.​

​

In this Asha very much took a back seat. Though she upheld him and suffered any burdens necessary that he might witness all she offered, and beyond that all he desired, her focus was set upon maintaining the fabric of reality around them. These were his memories, seen through her eyes, now seen through her memories. She would not dare try to pull a presence so near to the cusp of death through the strands of time, would not dare flow-walk with one so presently weak, to do so was folly. No, in this Asha played the part of conductor, and projectionist, and architect, and archivist all at once. It was mentally draining work, perhaps more than she ought to have set upon her own shoulders in that moment all things considered. Generally draining, in fact. She was as Atlas, shouldering it all upon her back.​

​

Somehow, surprising even herself, Asha did not falter.​

​

He was right to assume she was incapable of taking note of his reactions and responses, he was right to assume that tears shed in the not-so-vacuous void of her mind went unnoticed, in that moment he witnessed all she had once witnessed alone, as she had seen it all alone. His moments, his achievements, his glory, his legacy... For that was what it all amounted to. That was what any of them amounted to in the end. The people they left behind, those who remembered them, and took up the banner which was left behind, spoke life into them despite their passing. It was how legends were formed; it was how myth was made. She did not know how long they settled in that place, all she knew was that soon the visions came to an end. The girl pulled back just enough that some of that herculean weight upon her shoulders was revised, that breath could enter her lungs once more, though despite doing so the connection between them remained.​

​

Exhaustion washed over her, and the urge to sleep a thousand years away lay heavy on her skin. Sweat had formed upon her brow, and even her true, physical muscles felt overused; even so she did not stand to regret her decision. One eye opened to regard him, taking immediate note of the moisture pooled around his own black orbs, moments before the hand arose to touch at her face. Knowing well how important touch could be to establish understanding in one so clearly blinded, the girl leaned forth and gave him her visage willingly. A word uttered upon his lips had been lost to mental haze and his inability to project his voice; that which pooled forth from his mind was strong and demanding by comparison. It longed to be heard, to juxtapose the quiet futility of his physical state, and her heart broke in the wake of that reality.​

​

More so when he begged forgiveness.​

​

With connection as open as it was, with souls so entwined, that which accompanied his words was just as loud, if not more so. Powerful, it overcame her all at once and left her awash with grief not her own. She knew the depths of it, every facet held within so few words, she knew him in totality, and knew the anguish and sorrow he'd wrought for himself. Her response came not with words of her own, but with a tightening of that metaphysical embrace she'd already ensured. An embrace which spanned not just their metaphysical state, but their physical too. In reality she held him close, one hand settling over her rough approximation of his heart, as she tried once more to shoulder some of it for him. As she tried yet again to take on his pain, his suffering, his grief for herself. Let her carry that burden, she begged of him, let him be free of such toxic ruminations.​

​

"Open your eyes," she breathed aloud, though through the connection it was clear it was not a true request of his physical state; an allegory then. "Think again on all you just saw... You were here; you are here." Sincerity was all that flowed from her.​

​

Qae Shena ​

 

[Qae Shena]

Fragmented thoughts and memories swam through Qae's subconscious now that his memories were beginning to come to the forefront. In that moment, Asha would see the moment that caused his inevitable death, his collapse at the hands of Hion the Herglic; where Qae had pushed down to shape the fluid in the shark-man's body to compress it all to a point that it could no longer flow freely through his veins. In that instant, seeing an incredibly powerful threat, Qae had chosen to kill in order to preserve hundreds of thousands more lives. However, the Orcus' response had been equally crushing, as Qae began to erect a water barrier to protect himself from reprisal. The Sith Lord's voice caused incredible supercavitation that ruptured almost every internal organ inside his body, tearing him apart on an almost molecular level the same way that Qae had attempted to do to him. As far as the Nautolan Master knew, they had both died that day-- but if his revival had been inevitable, then perhaps his was as well. There was no way to know. No way for him to know the state of the Galaxy as it was now, nor did he care. Survival was his first priority.

So too would Asha see more playful memories in the depths of his psyche; Spencer Jacobs, as she was known then, and Ashin Varanin, two of the most powerful beings in Galactic history; their time together, laughing and joking as the three of them went about their daily lives, spending time aboard the Aether Dreamer or even the Vagrant Fleet's home of Moreau Station, where the Master-at-Arms had maintained their secret identities until the grave. None knew that they had flown the vagrant flag, nor would they ever. The puppy would be sworn to the grave with that knowledge. Oh, puppy. What a name. One that Spencer had given him when she had purchased him a pink puppy bed as punishment for failing a task - and forced him to sleep at the foot of the lovebirds' bed while they did things. The colour pink had been irrevocably ruined for him that day, and it was an incessant source of needling and laughter from the two masters of the Force. Happy memories. A better time, even when the Galaxy crumbled around them. Around the same time that his body had been marred for the rest of eternity.

Sekot. The way the planet had orchestrated his suffering to rebuild him, stronger and better. Strapped to the Embrace of Pain, one of the most wicked torture devices ever conceived by the biotic Yuuzhan Vong, the Shaper caste had sought to remake his body partially in their images. Blade-cuts forever untreated by bacta, the same ones that still marred him to that day, sliced open flesh. The infinite depths of pain, the screams, the torment; all to implant living Vong biots into his hands so that he could fight the enemies that plagued him on a level that none of them had ever expected. He became a true master of hand-to-hand combat that day, the Echani style, the one that Queen Spencer had forever taught as part of her heritage. He, in his wisdom, had trained to overcome her in at least this one thing, and that he had.

Was the suffering worth it? No matter the true answer to that question, it had all brought him to this one nexus in the Force. This one moment, now. Here, with Asha.

Her exhaustion was evident to him now, when she was struggling to maintain him on a physical level. So wrapped tightly together were they, and so low on energy was he, that she was now acting as the source of power for two people. Even with the assistance of the crystal placed so upon his chest, she was expending so much of herself to give to him. Even now she was working on knitting flesh back together, fixing the body that had broken completely and utterly, and refusing to do anything else until her duty had completed. Truly, she was a healer at heart, and it showed; the blessings of life that she ascribed to were so self-evident to the Nautolan that he could not deny her heritage. Just like her namesake.

Another tear threatened his face, at the mere thought of Asha. She had been so good to him. So good. Too good. So many of the people in his life had been. She was one of many.

Her sadness, borne of his, was not lost on Qae; he knew that she felt as he did, cried as he did, languished and suffered as he did. Her loving embrace now, which covered yet his entire soul, was so warmly welcomed that Qae could do naught but weakly give all that he had to her. There was little left in the tank, but at least that spirit remained mostly able to give back what she was offering to him. Gracious and grateful was he, for the adoration of someone he had only met moments before, but felt like he had known a lifetime - and now she knew his.

Asha's words to the back of his mind were a request, that he abhor his guilt for the hurt that it caused him. No. He deserved this pain. He had failed them all. His eyes were open to that truth.

But not when you needed me. I am here, now, yes... but you needed me for so long. For years.

It was not an admonition to her. No, never to Asha, whose presence here was literally his saving grace, the angel whose wings bore him from the crushing grasp of death and back towards the light of life; she had done naught to deserve such verbal lashing. No, for all of her blessing that she wished to have him forgive himself, Qae simply could not; not only had he failed in his duty to fight off the Sith Lord that was attacking Manaan and survive that fight so that he could continue to live on and train the next generation that were to follow in his footsteps, but he had failed to be there to help them. They needed him, his wisdom, his guidance, his correction and his approbation. Every single one of them. All of his students. Every single one, who had come from his learning, he had failed. Teio. Levia. Both Ashas. Dozens more besides who had come to him for help learning some of the skills that he had picked up over the years.

The warmth he felt, the pressure of her soul imprinting onto his, was something that he could do naught but cling to now. It was his lifeline.

And I was not. I failed. I wish I could have been what you needed.

Asha Hex

 

[Asha Sar'andor]

He did not get it, did not understand what it was she was hoping to inform him of, and perhaps he never would. For even with their souls bared so keen and openly he could not see past his own admonishments and grief, his own perceived wrongdoings, to understand her point. No words then, instead she gave only impressions of her own when his had waned from her mind, his which revealed more of him, and his life, and the secrets he'd been bade to keep for all eternity, before eclipsing. Quiet moments, filled with joy and brilliance; times of his she had never witnessed before.​

​

As shattered as she was, as exhaustion ravaged her core, Asha delved deep into further fragments of her memories and pulled forth moments she had never wished to bring to the light of day. Moments she had kept so tightly bound and hidden that she had almost entirely forgot their existence. In trueform, away from the visions of her mind, the girl's body shook with their emergence, and soundless tears flowed freely to fall upon his chest. All the same she delved, all the same she pulled them forth. Her worst moments, the lowest of the low, to reveal to him the truth. To better explain what her words could not.​

​

The first few came fast and hot, and the impression of them stung like the superheated end of an iron poker whose temperature was so great its glow was white. A flash of lightning fell on a grim scene of Thule; a bloodied man, then a much younger Asha; even back then, the heart of a healer; an offer of assistance, met with betrayal. Another flash, this time a ship though to look upon it, to feel it as she felt it even so many years on, it seemed more like a graveyard. Bodies piled at every corner, long since dried blood caking each surface, that same man. Darkness, a Nexus of the Force so seeped in despair that it was suffocating. In trueform she bit back some noise or other which had bubbled up to the surface. She pressed on, she did not linger long though the impressions she left certainly did. Desperation, desolation, for months and months and months, similar scenes of the sake durasteel graveyard in differing stages of repair, flashing by in an instance, with the blink of an eye. There no hope lay, and even to relive it in memory alone set a lump of nothingness to her gut.​

​

And then it began. Slowly, carefully, methodically, her ruminations. The murmuring of a Code both knew so inherently that it functioned as some form of them, one small beacon that barely lit a foot around her, but a foot of sanctity all the same. From there began her journey through the vacuous strands of time, and though visions gave way to only a girl sat in deep meditation, impressions which ran alongside it showed a vastly different tale. The reality of the flow-walk, the way in which it had been shown to her in that place, came all at once to mind and stretched out alongside the other image. To one side kneeling girl, forced to remain in place, in subjugation, for hours on end. To the other the confines of her mind, where veritable web of indescribably coloured strands stretched out for eons, for infinity and then some.​

​

The first step toward who she'd eventually become was taken there. Beyond it, in the next that came, he'd witnessed the growing in strength, as she made her way through the throngs of time in search of solace, in search of hope so readily lost to her; and it was there the first true vision ignited to engulf her. Along a path that stretched back through years already lived, to a Nautolan in a Temple situated high atop a verdant, jungle world, sheltered from the Galaxy, to a man among peers, and friends, and family. His family. Her family. It was there, in the forging of a new path, that the invisible, radiant light, just a foot around her, began to grow in size; it was there that hope first stole her back from the brink, and it was there that she gave herself to the Force.​

​

So much more could have been shown. At all moments in her life when she'd felt misery and despair. A few more scenes drifted by, too fast to truly detail but enough that he'd gain a sense of it all. Understand the magnitude. Each of them ultimately underpinned by the one who lay in her arms, in some fashion or another; if not directly him, then one he had touched. In fact it went so far, so deep did the wellspring of Qae Shena go, that there was truly only one in her bubble of existence that was not in some way tied to him. Coincidentally, the one who had helped to rein her back in when her dedication to it all, to the Force and his legacy, proved too much; Cotan Sar'andor was the only outlier, and perhaps in some small way she loved him all the more deeply for it. He kept her grounded against all the chaos, and to think on him was to paint her minds eye awash with all the colours imaginable.​

​

Beyond that one bright and brilliant anomaly, the rest was laid bare before him. Before them; Asha herself had never witnessed it all in such succinct succession. Don't... Even in her mind, emotions fierce had taken a grip, even in her mind her voice quivered in unison with the tremble of her trueform. Don't you ever apologize for all that you gave came her grave words, spoken not just to his mind but with the entirety of her being, in the purest of forms which they took. Your legacy alone was enough, Qae Shena, it has always been enough... A strained exhale sounded from her realform, and she pulled back slightly again. Gone were the visions, only an inky abyss remained to hold them in her mind. You failed no one. And I will fight any man who tries to claim otherwise. There was a depth to that statement, that threat, that might have been lost on him if not for the bridge between them. Asha the Pacifist, who had never seen fit to harm another in her life, did not make threats... And yet here they were. And here it was.​

​

Qae Shena ​

 

[Qae Shena]

She, too, lay all her cards on the table, and Qae was given permission to view memories that were clearly buried deep inside the depths of her psyche, that were never ever again meant to see the light of day. It was horrific. These were tortures, horrors that he understood innately; he had been in her shoes, in his own way, and now literally - these emotions should have destroyed her, and yet she had turned to the balance of the Force to find her way through it all. He understood. The path of the Je'daii tended to be one that people who had suffered greatly and needed some form of meditative centre would walk the best. All of his students, and all of his masters, had been the greatest examples of all of that. She had suffered so many betrayals at the hands of others, forced to make decisions she had not wished, seen life and death and the brilliant expansion and destruction of emotions and relationships and every accursed yet incandescent vista across the Galaxy. In his mind, only the Je'daii truly understood all of that, and she was its new exemplar.

At the end of it all, however, was something he never expected to see again. The Silent Temple. His home. His one, beautiful, perfect place, the thing he had built partly with his own two hands; the building that had been razed once and then rebuilt for the Je'daii and the Enclave and so many others besides; he had made his secret home in the mountains there when Tython was no longer accessible to him for his journey down the twin paths of light and darkness. The beautiful temple that rose up on its stone foundations to breach the treetops in one of the secluded mountain ranges of Teth? It was something he had loved forever. She knew it. She loved it. His throat constricted, and the tears began to flow again. It brought him no small measure of joy to know that the place he loved, the one physical location in the entire Galaxy that Qae Shena had ever been able to call home so much of a wanderer was he, still stood. Home. Home..

Home.

This time, the Nautolan could not hold back the wellspring of emotion that threatened to burst inside him.

He sobbed, openly, longingly. It was a sobbing that was broken up with the raspings of a throat that had only known solace moments before, for the first time in two decades; it was a horrific, otherworldly noise that likely rasped against the ears. Everything that had built up within him - the guilt, the shame, the regret, the pain, all of it was now overflowing. The Je'daii code taught that one had to experience and understand emotion to truly be free, that it was in feeling those emotions and tempering them correctly that they found both inner peace and true strength. For someone who had been brought back from the verge of annihilation, pulled back at a snail's pace until his body could handle life once again, it was simply too much. Death was not an experience he wished to repeat. Detachment from time, from space, from reality, with immersion in nothing but a voidless time? Now that he knew that he was not meant for death, the fact that he had been trapped with all of it in what was supposed to be forever, it had weighed heavily on his soul.

Asha had brought him back from the brink, yes. She had done an incredible job of it. With enough time, now, Qae could have recovered himself back to health. She had performed an actual miracle, helping to bring a man back from the dead. Spencer had started the job, perhaps, and planted the seed with which Qae could be brought back. Asha had taken her work and expanded on it. Spencer opened the door, Asha walked through it, and with both their hands outstretched, Qae had been pulled back from the depths of hell.

This was a woman who he had met not five minutes ago. She was, however, the one thing in the Galaxy that represented the legacy he had hoped to leave with his life; the person who had protected his home, who had taken his teachings and expanded upon them, and continued to propagate them to others that needed them as badly as both Qae and Asha did.

For all of this, he felt bonded to her. In ways that only Spencer Jacobs had been. Qae had, by and large, never been in love. He did not really do relationships; sure, he'd had plenty of flings across the stars, but nothing really had taken him to the point of romance for his entire life. This freed up space in his heart to love those around him so deeply, so fiercely, that he found satisfaction in having them being so close. Spencer. Ashin. Anaya. The original Asha. Thessa. Quinn. Delila. Even Jaxton, Seroth-- all of them were so indelibly scribed upon his heart that there was no way that they could be replaced. And now, this Asha in an single instant overtook all of them. He did not need to be in love with someone to understand their very soul. It was a lesson that he carried to the grave, and now he brought it back with him. No, she had a romantic love, and not only were they not at that point, but he would never step on it - but couples only dreamed of the level of understanding of their partner that they had reached.

A second hand reached to her face, knowing perfectly instinctively where it was; her words, soothing as they were, carried weight to them to which he now understood the gravitas. He appreciated them, with every fibre of his being. Her life, deep as it all was, now intertwined forever with his. The flushed warmth of her skin, now marred with sweat, was a feeling that his body understood under his fingertips. The blue-skinned man still could not see properly; she was but a vague blur above him as he tried desperately to see the form that had brought him salvation. He still could not.

I... I... Asha...

Words failed. Emotions failed. For the normal verbosity of a man who had become in tune with his feelings, he truly was awestruck now. So completely wrapped in each other, he could not begin to express what he felt.

No, wait. He could.

...Thank you. I owe you everything. Now and forever.

Asha Hex

 

[Asha Sar'andor]

She felt all he felt, as it came into his being; the sympathy, the empathy, the underlying rage at the reminder of the horrors each had endured. An open book lay between them, and it was each of their essence which formed the ink of its pages. They were a duality, two sides of the same coin, their lives paralleled so and yet ultimately the path it had borne them distinctly separate. The healer, and the warrior. There could not be one without the other.​

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In them she saw too the duplicity of their Order, the Ashla and the Bogan, the Light and the Dark, simultaneously pushing and pulling against one another in the name of moderation. In that moment, locked within her mind, they had unlocked one another's antithesis; for Qae the peace to stay one's hand, and know when to cease the battle, even if that battle came only in the form of blame, and for Asha the passion to know when to stand and fight where necessary. Neither had been big or grand gestures, neither had been the sorts of battle bards told tale of, but they did not need to be. In fact, had they resembled such it might well have negated the meaning behind it all together. ​

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Asha felt him shake in her embrace, as the weight of a thousand sobs shook him. The noise of it was awful, but it was genuine and pure; the depth of his grief knew no bounds. There was happiness and joy, but also a longing. An indignation slashed through it all, at the thought of all he had been forced to suffer - and for what? Why? What purpose had it all served? The girl shrank back as all of this came through the aether between them, as his emotions said their piece in a manner that words could not. Unchained and volatile, yet gone in a flash of light like the death of a star. ​

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It was all she could do, to sit and feel and observe as he came to grips with it all. As he found his place within what remained of the Galaxy he once knew, in a Universe where so much had changed. Her homecoming had not been quite so intense, years had passed but not decades; it was perhaps the first thing he'd shown that she truly could not find herself paralleled to. She had been spat back out into the Galaxy all at once and without ceremony, she had crawled her way back to Jericho and been met with rebuttal, distain even for a short time, but she had done so on her own two feet. She had done so with some sense of what time had passed, even if it had been etched into a wall five strokes at a time.​

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I am sorry, for all that you have missed, she spoke into the darkness, bringing light anew to their shared space. She felt his hand then, reached up to match the other upon the other side of her face. Felt him searching for her, through eyes which failed to see. Realization came to her then, that throughout all the visions she'd presented he'd never actually seen her. Just the essence of her, just an impression. There was no way she could provide him with such, though, not until his eyes released themselves from their haze. She could not see her own past the way she could others, it was still told through her eyes, rather than as a bystander. And her memories did only the same.​

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For that there would have to be patience.​

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Then came the thanks. Heartfelt and honest, at first a timid approach as he navigated the words he sought to grasp at. She allowed them a moment in the sun, a chance to shine as intended. And then she shook her head. Nothing is owed between us, she stated, plainly, and as she did she began to unravel all that she had built up around them. Tired, oh so tired, she could not sustain it for much longer. Her presence wrapped around his once again, as she carried him back across that bridge and to the form of his own. Afraid she might falter if she waited any longer to do so. I am merely reciprocating all of the good you have done me.​

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All at once, Asha was alone in her mind.​

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It took her a solid few minutes to rouse herself from that state afterwards, and when she did it took her longer still to wick away at some of the residual exhaustion. The sun had begun to make its way down toward the horizon, the only thing to mark the true passage of time; her own lips were cracked, her own body parched. Beneath the weight of his head, she shifted. Ever so gently, as carefully as she could, she lay him back within the sand, and then struggled to stand. Joints popped in response, her knees refused to cooperate fully when she tried to stretch out her legs, and her eyes felt heavy.​

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Her gaze shifted to the ship. It would be cold soon... Fighting through her fatigue, Asha called upon the Force to deftly raise him from the sandy impression he'd left behind in his wake, and led him up the ramp into the ship beyond. He was brought into something of a medical bay, not normally found within this model yet requested by her all the same. A retrofitted spare room, for moments such as this... Or when Cotan gave carbosyrup to his Padawan, not knowing her species, not understanding the effects it would have. A strange night, that one had been. His body came down to rest upon a soft bed, and she set about hooking him up to anything she deemed necessary.​

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Why she hadn't done this sooner, she couldn't rightly say. The Force had compelled her into immediate action, and she had responded with her usual zeal. Had she fumbled with all of this when first she'd found him, he might not even have survived. IVs and monitors attached, she covered him with a blanket. It was thick, and warm, and kept the cool air from his unhealed wounds. She glanced over him, trying to approximate his size so that she might rummage around for some clothes which might fit him, but ultimately she just slumped down into a seat beside him. Tired. Oh so tired. K1-S5's arrival in the medbay forced from her the last of her strength. "Fire up Contentment" she mumbled to the astromech, "And take us back to Mimban." ​

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If Qae had any reservations about such, now would be the time to voice them. K1-S5 even waited a moment in case anything else was said. As he backed out of the room, Asha lifted her head. "Oh, and Kiss... Thank you." The droid chirped its response, and hurried off to carry out the plan. For her part, Asha finally allowed her eyes to close...​

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Qae Shena ​

 

[Qae Shena]

For all the good in the Galaxy that Asha had done for him, it was time to move on. Qae had experienced the entire rollercoaster of emotions, the total gamut of feelings that he had almost drowned in completely. Were it not for Asha's expert guidance, Qae would have surely lost himself again as soon as he had come up for air. Actual air, that was, and not some metaphorical air-- to be tossed away in the storm as he had been was no mean feat. It was still a total mystery to him how he had yet survived, but he counted a thousand blessings to Spencer Jacobs-- no, Varanin now, her mind had betrayed; and to Asha herself. These would be eternal, no matter what the voidwalker had told him, for Qae did not take bonds lightly. He took them entirely too seriously, if some asked; he believed that the family you chose was eternal. This was certainly his way of doing things, and it would be so until his dying day. Well. His next dying day. A mental note: do not make a habit of this.

However, it was time for their complete connection to say goodbye. There were always side-effects of total imprints onto the soul; that imprint was going to last forever, transcending time and space. They were now well and truly bonded, whether they liked it or not; the Force had its ways of providing paradoxical pushback for the high-ended abilities that Force-users could employ, as a warning not to use them too often or too lightly. Those who wielded lightning in its pure, dark side form, for instance, tended to come away twisted and scarred for life upon its use, both physically, mentally and spiritually. Force bonding by imprint was a complete side-effect of powers such as this, and Qae had been on its receiving end more than once. He could not provide these things himself, of course; his mental powers as a Force-wielder were nowhere near up to this standard. His ability to manipulate his body was his strength, and that strength was going to have to serve him in the coming days as he healed and prepared himself for returning to some semblance of normal life.

As Asha's spirit departed his, he felt that warmth trickling away, and allowed the blackness to take him once more. He knew it was not a darkness conjured by the spectre of death, but a shadow of respite. It was his body commanding him to rest now that a master healer had taken over him as a charge, and that the work that was required to be done would take considerable amounts of time. He would simply have to sleep all of this off for a couple of days before the true work of re-conditioning and re-strengthening his physical form could begin. However, like his teacher Ashin, who had suffered cancer and fought Sith Lords to a standstill all whilst preventing her body from imploding upon itself, his body was strong enough to heal itself naturally and with the aid of the Force, perhaps with a few good pushes along the way. Qae would rise again, eventually, as strong as he had been when he had been cast to the depths.

However, for now, sleep took him. His eyes shut slowly, still besmirched by the wetness of his tears, his throat dry and constricted once again. There would be no words of reprisal upon his lips as he drifted away peacefully, no resistance as his body levitated towards Asha's ship. She would be free to undertake caring for her charge as much as absolutely necessary, and to do that which she needed to as a healer without interruption from her patient. However, very much alive, Qae Shena drifted off into the waiting arms of restfulness for the first time in his new life.

~~

When he came to, Qae found himself in the medical bay of a starship. The first to happen was that his eyes fluttered open when he realised his body was once again feeling incredibly heavy - and, as he realised that his eyes were opening, he knew all of these familiar sights and sounds. Yes, sights, for the Force had granted him the right to see once again; the familiar glint of interior hull plating cast of durasteel, with that familiar back-stench of grease that was never quite perfectly filtered through the air scrubbers of a ship. There was a living thrum of a ship's engine, one that reverberated deep in his ribs, which-- while still not great-- were already being afforded the luxury of healing. He could feel the prick of a cannula as it entered his skin, providing intravenous sustenance to his body, both including fluids, a heavy mix of sedatives and pain relief and likely some form of nourishment as well. Over his body was a thick blanket to keep him warm and, as he listened further, he could hear the trilling beeps of medical monitors, providing a slow rhythm that proved that life was still continuing. How long he'd been out for, he simply had no clue, but time was now immaterial until his existence could realign itself.

The Nautolan tried to lift his head, but found that it was so heavy he could not bare to. As he tried to work his lips, he found that they were still dry but far less salt-stained as they had been. His throat reverberated as he groaned slowly, the pain that had been there when he had previously awoken on the beach all but gone. Jet black eyes began to blink as he tried to take in what of the room that he was in, so kept on the bed was he. He would not be rising from it any time soon. Nor did he think he should. He was, if nothing ese, a good patient.

However, he could barely turn his head over to see the presence that was in the room with him; and there she was. Hair as a fiery mane, thin and lithe and wiry. The hair alone told him that he was nothing like the raven-haired Asha Seren, so bright was its hue. This was her. Asha the second. The inheritor of the legacy wrought into the depths of the stars spanning tens of thousands of years to be re-discovered by the truest aspirants to its history and hidden mysteries.

"Unh... my... everything... Asha, that you...?" he managed. Despite feeling groggy and partly rested, his throat was only going to become so obedient in the wake of his reawakening. It was not a loud voice, and were she still asleep, he would not wish to disturb her.

Asha Hex

 

[Asha Sar'andor]

Her sleep was long and oddly fruitful.​

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Sitting up in the chair beside his bed as she was, it had been far from comfortable; and yet, even so, the warm embrace of a dreamscape had enveloped her all the same, cushioning her from the physical sensations which might otherwise have thwarted her attempts. Head had set back against the chair, turned so that one cheek pressed into the cushion. No blanket lay across her skin, she was exposed to the general temperature of the ship; thankfully, it was not unpleasant.​

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Sandy remnants of the beach they'd left behind lay along her arms and her trouser legs, the brininess of the ocean breeze clung to her skin and hair. So too did the sweat which had beaded upon her brow throughout the exertion of her will on his body. It was clear as he looked upon her that she had not once awoken from her slumber. No attempt had been made to make use of the refresher, no attempt to change into something new which would help her feel like a woman rejuvenated. There at his side she had slept the time away similarly.​

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There was a different kind of comfort in that; she had not been roused. His vitals must have maintained steady throughout their sleeping hours, for so steadfast had she been thus far in her care that there was no way that such would not have awoken her. In fact, even just the briefest of stirring which came from him did wonders to rouse her; her head shifted in place, limbs slowly stretching out with feline grace as she untangled herself from the ball she'd formed into on the chair.​

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She'd never been a deep sleeper. Any sign of life carrying on around her was cause enough for her brain to switch back on. There was a general haze about her, as she pulled herself from the clutches of her dreamscape, and whatever thoughts or memories her mind had seen fit to dredge up and make dreams of fled her instantaneously. Her eyes remained closed initially, and she lay there listening to the various sounds of the medbay. The steady hums and beeps. Beyond that, the breathing of the Nautolan. Beyond that, the general din of the ship itself. Still in motion.​

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It was difficult to tell how much time had passed, more so in the depths of space; it had not taken especially long to reach Manaan, though that could have been attributed more to the adrenaline and weightlessness she had been feeling at the time than any true perception of time's passage. A trick of her mind. Either way, she doubted that they would be long to Mimban. A hand raised to carefully run along her face, rubbing away the veil of exhaustion and goading herself into wakefulness.​

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The groggy and dry murmurings of the man at her side prompted the opening of one emerald eye; the other soon followed, adjusting to the low light which had fallen over the room. No doubt Kiss' doing. She shifted in the chair proper, and glanced over at him. He looked better in general, and the fact that he was looking at her with true sight was a testament to that fact. There was still a long journey of healing to be had, though.​

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"Mm," she responded to his query, fighting for the will to speak herself. She stifled a yawn, then shifted again 'til she was sat fully upright in the chair. Her back groaned in protect. "Morning," her mumbling voice continued, and then slowly as she picked up her pace and returned to the land of the waking that voice began to gain more concreteness. "Did you sleep at all?"​

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Feet untucked from beneath her, and she set them to the ground carefully as though testing its stability. Then, hands placed on the chair arms, she pushed up and rose to her feet. The girl swayed on the spot for a second, and the room span; one hand settled upon the surface of the bed, careful not to lay upon him with unintentional weight, and once balanced she righted herself once more and turned to check his vitals. Nothing looked to be any more amiss than expected.​

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She poured him a glass of water from a recently filled jug, had Kiss thought of everything?, and offered it to him; should he show signs of wanting to soothe his parched throat, she'd ease him up just a little in the bed so that he could better drink. She of course would accommodate this need, bringing the glass to his lips in the absence of any real strength in his arms. Asha was all too aware in that moment of her own neglected needs, and her thoughts drifted to settling that issue.​

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A second glass of water was poured, and she sipped on it as she considered what to make for... breakfast? It could rightly be construed as whatever meal she wanted it to, in truth, because time was not a functioning factor here, not insofar as planetary musings went. She set the glass back down, and then peered over Qae once more.​

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"Is there anything I can get you? Anything you need?" she inquired. From beneath her shirt she once again pulled free the faintly pulsating crystal of serenity, which she removed from around her neck and set upon the bedside table beside his head. Though it did not touch him, its effects were more or less the same due to close proximity. She refrained from drawing upon the other crystal, that which lay over her heart, afraid of what emotions she might draw upon from Cotan Sar'andor who she had so thoughtlessly stranded in her haste and haze.​

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She would deal with the repercussions of that later; already her heart broke with the mere thought of it. She swallowed back her doubt, and then crossed the room to make use of the ship's intercom. "Hey, Kiss, it's Asha," as if that wasn't abundantly clear, because who else was it going to be? "Do you have an approximate ETA?" Silence on the other end. Then a chirped response. Asha's binary wasn't the greatest, but even she gathered his response. Just a couple of hours out. Force, she really must have flown through a haze earlier.​

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Back to Qae's side, she sank into the seat once more. No doubt there would be questions which wanted answering.​

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Qae Shena ​

 

[Qae Shena]

"Slept like a rock," Qae murmured. Truthfully, he didn't even remember falling asleep in the first place, where his body had just given out on the shores of Manaan. The last thing Qae could consciously remember processing before waking up in this ersatz hospital was being down on the beach with her, their connection breaking apart slowly as she too drifted away from him, and then... being here. There was absolutely nothing in between; if she had connected him rather quickly to any form of sedative then he absolutely would have been passed out for a considerable period of time. Whatever length of time had passed, he was rather grateful for the fact that it had in the first place. His body had been given extra time to begin its own natural healing processes, and with the assistance of modern medicine short of being dunked in a bacta tank for a week, it was most efficacious.

On the plus side, all the monitors gave Asha the perfect opportunity to see exactly how her patient was doing, and precisely what condition his body was in; there was considerable epidermal wear and tear, primarily thanks to the fact that his body had been dessicated and, for lack of a better word, brined like a piece of meat, though its integrity was holding up just fine for now, given a lack of physical activity. There were obvious signs of muscular atrophy due to lack of use, which over time and with some work on Qae's part could be restored, especially with his dramatic use of the Force to bolster his body. A number of blood vessels had been ruptured, but these were easily repaired with time and rest and perhaps some very mild surgical assistance, or even a simple dip in a bacta tank. Neurologically, his brain function was a little lower than it should have been, with lower beta wave function than a man of... well, what he mid-twenties or mid-forties now? Regardless of the choice, the answer was that his beta functions were lower than they should have been.

In fact, that brought pretext to the most interesting argument at all for Qae: his body had barely aged more than a few years, in the time he had been underwater. If nothing else, this was the most curious thing; Spencer's stasis had not only held his mind and his presence in the Force tethered back long enough for the right moment to pass, but it had held his body from experiencing rapid decay. That much had allowed him to exist continuously in the real world, even if he'd been basically a Nautolan pickle for twenty years. However, the damage that had been done there could be undone, with the help of the people around him and Qae's trust in the Force. Truthfully, it was a miracle to behold, but it was highly likely that Asha had experienced greater miracles, particularly running around and experiencing the Netherworld herself.

Moments later, Asha came over and sat upon the bed with him once again, her quiet and calming presence a refreshing current in the tumultuous stream that was existing inside this broken body. Fortunately, she was all too willing to help him drink; while yes he was making good progress in propping himself up on his elbows from a laying position, he simply didn't have the strength left in him to do both that and lift his head; he tried for a moment, allowed her to take the weight, and then decided that it was in his best interest to lift his head instead so that she did not have to do all of the work, and navigating feeding someone was a more difficult task for one's dexterity and ability to stop the person drinking regardless. That much he could now do himself. Besides, intravenous fluids were already doing wonders for keeping him entirely functional - this was mostly just to re-hydrate his throat and let him sound a little less croaky.

"No, other than the water... I'm okay," he told her, just thankful for the fact that she was there, helping him drink. Once he had finished his, and she hers, it was clear to him that she was struggling a little too; she'd stumbled on the way over, she'd given him so much of herself in order to bring him back from the brink that it was self-evident she needed to rest herself. Qae was coming to realise that he could no longer ask more of her, even as she placed a healing crystal near his head in order to speed along his healing processes and stabilise his mind with its calming aura. She was doing far too much for her own good, like every good healer he'd ever known. All too willing to give themselves to their patients entirely, and not enough time focusing on themselves or their wellbeing. The Nautolan knew this all too well. He knew his fair share of Force healers in his time.

As she moved swiftly across the room to contact-- her co-pilot? Droid? Presumably droid, if his ears were picking up the responses correctly. At least some things did not change-- Qae knew that they were hurtling somewhere at rapid speed. It was just nice to be on the familiar sights of a starship again, even if he was now bed-bound and would likely be so for quite some time otherwise. That did not bother him in the least. Better that he healed and allowed himself to recover correctly rather than force himself into a situation where he wasn't going to ever recover.

"Where are we headed?" was his only query regarding their flight. It was nice to think he was amongst the stars once again. For a wanderer, a man with no true place to call home for so long, there was comfort in the inky blackness around them. Sure, Teth was his home-- and he would eventually ask to be taken there, when he was well-- but he had been a starfaring man, a leader of vagrants, for far too long that interstellar travel was not second nature.

Asha Hex

 

[Asha Sar'andor]

There was a comfort in knowing that she had not been the only one to whom sleep had come to so readily, in the aftermath of their shared ordeal. It came with the territory, she reckoned; there was a strain which could so clearly overcome one who relied on more physical aspects of the Force, those which had tangible results. The raising of a great boulder, or the increased strength flowing through one's veins to pry open vaults otherwise impossible to breach. The more sensory aspects of the Force though, those which could not be so readily witnessed, were often mistaken for being easier. Less taxing on the body, on the mind, on the soul; Asha would argue the opposite was more often than not the case. It took a little bit of everything to make such things work, at least in so intense a state as she had subjected them to.​

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The Force could be best described as a muscle in its own right, one had to work hard so that its ruminations came more naturally to them, and in an absence of practice or use it would suffer from atrophy all the same. Physical, metaphysical, mental, it mattered not. Each being only had so much to draw upon at any given time before exhaustion became inevitable; the girl could not recall the last time she had asked the Force for so much. Healing with it, speaking through it, shouldering the mental and spiritual weight of another as well as herself, all while conjuring and sustaining visions which themselves would have taken quite the effort to bring forth. On the outside she had done so little there on the shore, to any onlooker her fatigue was not well warranted.​

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But the pair of them knew better. They had felt it, every part of it, every struggle, every strain that the other was experiencing had been laid bare before them. In a way it made her wary of calling upon the Force again, now that there were monitors to take up the task for her. In searching his body for signs of strain, and atrophy, and degeneration, she knew that she'd be reawakened to it all. To the intensity of another's pain, and grief, and being. It had been overwhelming on the beach, and she'd powered through it only so that she might see him rise once more. Not today, not tomorrow, but one day.​

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So she was tentative in her care; just as considerate, just as intense, just as giving... but tentative. Careful of where she lay her hand so as not to passively glean from him. Wary of giving way to her natural inclinations of relying on heightened senses to see and understand that which the naked eye could not. And it was not just for her own sake, either; she did not need to put all of that on him in turn. He needed to rest, he needed to recover. She would not jeopardize all of that.​

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With water given to ease his parched state, and her question retorted to, she offered him a tired smile. "Well, if you think of anything, you just let me know. I can find you a holopad, if you'd like, to help pass the time, or a book - I'm sure we can prop it up with something - or heck, we have a novacrown board somewhere in the lounge. I'm not very good at it, but I'm a quick learner." Or maybe, she thought, just maybe, he wanted a moment's peace without her breathing down his neck. That thought had the briefest signs of embarrassment rise up within her, a ruddy flush to her cheeks and the tips of her ears; was she overbearing? He had, after all, stated he was fine.​

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Still she couldn't quite help herself. Having dredged him out of the sand, she felt a sense of responsibility for him. Now that he was onboard a ship temporarily under her command? Well, that just made it all the worse. That made him a guest. A patient, too; triple threat. Her stomach gurgled, underpinning her thoughts and drawing her from her uncertain mind. She would have to deal with that soon enough, wouldn't she? But that meant leaving him alone in the medbay; what if something happened in her absence?​

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Not for the first time since waking, Asha turned her attention back to the monitors. Little had changed in the two minutes since she'd last done that. Conditions were stable, but not great, there would be a long road to full recovery. But she was hopeful that it would indeed be full recovery. All of that would ultimately depend on Qae's response to therapy efforts. You could not help one who did not wish to put in the effort to help themselves. Satisfied, she saw fit to respond to his question.​

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"Mimban," was what she opened with, settling a hand to the Nautolan's arm; it was a gentle, brief, and fleeting touch, which conveyed more than she could consciously. Inherently just an act of comfort, and little else. "It does not lay too far from where we began, but it's not on any charter hyperspace lane, hence the slower going. Just a few more hours, though, and we'll be there."​

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Perhaps a better explanation was in order as to why they were going to Mimban, middle of nowhere. Though she had turned to leave when those thoughts arose, she quickly looked back to him. "I may have left someone special behind there... This may or may not be his ship." A sheepish smile. But it was obvious she felt genuine regret for how that had played out. "Sometimes the Force is so intense in its methods, so intent on pushing me into action, that I act on instinct. It's... Like it takes the wheel for a time." Maybe that wouldn't make sense to him, it barely made sense to her, in fact she couldn't recall a time she'd heard of anyone reacting similarly. They had urges, of course, and the Will of the Force was very much a real thing, but the intensity of it when it came to Asha... Yeah, it took some getting used to.​

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She sighed. Shook her head, and realized that she was getting off topic again. "We need to pick him up. After that... Well, I guess we'll head back to Tribunal Station. I think you'll like it there, Master Shena. The vastness of space..." Yes, Asha could appreciate existence within the void herself, she had been born out here among the stars after all, "And yet, the serenity of land. You'll see what I mean, when we get there." Cotan's gift to the Je'daii, carefully crafted with Asha in mind, was a wonder to behold. A veritable greenhouse that read as being planet side, among utopian surroundings. Water, and trees, and life breathed into every inch of the space they called home.​

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Yes, truly the best of both worlds.​

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The smile she gave him therein was not so tired, it was simple but serene. Contentment washed over her.​

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"I'll be back shortly. Here, if you need anything... press this." Asha handed him a device, or more set it beside his hand so that it was there should he need it. She was the kind of person who would give all she had in service to another, and then some, most often to her own degradation. But there was an old adage which spoke of pouring from an empty cup, and in that moment she embodied one that was bone dry. He understood that, she was sure, she'd seen the way he'd looked at her throughout her administered palliative care.​

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With that, she stepped out of the medical bay. On the other side of the door she paused, once it had closed shut, and therein she leaned against the durasteel wall. The true extent of her exhaustion presented itself only then, and her knees threatened to buckle under the strain. A few choice chirps alerted her to Kiss' presence in the hallway; he accompanied her to the kitchenette, where she threw together some ration or another. Ate it standing with her back to the cabinetry. "Think he'll forgive me this time?" she inquired of the droid; whatever his response was, it wasn't a phrase she'd familiarized herself with. That... probably wasn't a good thing. Or he'd just made some sarcastic remark, like he was want to do with Cotan.​

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She reached beneath her shirt, and held tight to the blue crystal which radiated warmth through her hand. Part of her wanted to forget it, to wait until they were together again in person to find out for herself, but another part... Well, she couldn't handle it. Not in her present state, not when she was on the verge of breaking down. She was doing her best to hold it all together, but there had been memories dredged up that had not seen the surface of her mind in almost a decade. The thought of them made her feel weak, and hollow, and... She held tight to that crystal, and closed her eyes. Drew from it the strength of the man who had gifted it to her. With it as her focus, she pushed her presence free from her form and sought to use it to transcend the very stars themselves, to hone in on that man who drove her crazy with his jokes and his sarcasm, but within whom she had found a home.​

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I'm sorry, she conveyed, I love you, and I am sorry... She knew that it likely wouldn't do much, she knew that such was not a trained art of hers, but she had to try. Then she did what she'd always resisted doing, ever since she'd discovered the more unique feature of the crystal, one which even Cotan had not realized he'd imbued it with; she focused upon it, and gleaned from it the emotions of that same man. A breach of privacy she felt guilty for doing immediately...​

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Not least because when she unearthed them she found them so... Oddly specific. And strange. She delved deeper, against her better instinct, and caught flashes of frustrated words. Nexu? Why was he talking about Nexu..? Asha pulled back. Blinked. Clearly Cotan had found something to preoccupy himself with. She wasn't even a blimp in his radar. Somehow that actually felt... comforting. Yes. Comforting. Wacky as it was. She could only hope that everything was okay. Then again, this was Cotan she was thinking about; when wasn't Cotan okay? When she turned to head back toward the medical bay, something else caught her eyes set upon the dining table: was that Cotan's lightsaber? Feth. Asha... What the feth have you done? Okay, so maybe that was cause for some concern.​

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"Let's hope I'm not called upon a second time for such vigorous healing," she muttered to nobody in particular, Kiss having already returned to whatever musings he saw fit. The droid always had some sort of project he was tending to, in hopes of optimizing the spaces around him. Every 0.005% of efficiency mattered to him.​

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She pulled a few things from the counter, then made her way back into the medbay. It looked like she was trying to learn how to juggle; she was more than grateful when she found a surface to dump some of it onto. A holobook, a gameboard, various shelf-stable snacks, even a sachet of something which would make the jug of water taste a little more palatable. Some sort of berry flavour, she'd grabbed it without thinking. From the looks of it, she was settling in for the long haul, prepared to spend the last leg of their journey at his side. Whether he wanted to talk, or silence, whether he wanted a distraction or to be left with his thoughts, she'd only pester him in so far as he was willing. Otherwise?​

​

Well it had been a while since she'd curled up to read a book.​

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Qae Shena ​

 

[Qae Shena]

"Mmmh... honestly, I'm ready to sleep for another week," he ruminated with little more than a growl, trying to adjust himself as he made himself comfortable.

The Force was a curious thing. It was, thanks to her powers becoming a strange mish-mash of his aura and her own, amplified by the healing crystal that now sat near the head-tresses of the Nautolan, still there and present and entirely willing for him to call upon it. He had discovered many of the inner mysteries of Ashla and Bogan in his travels, guided by masters who had absolutely perfected their chosen fields; they would be pleased to know that even now in his utterly weakened state that Qae was still able to call upon their knowledge. Things such as Ashin's mastery of tutaminis, or Spencer's ability to use the Force to heal the body. These were things he had learned directly from the mouth of goddesses, which would now be turned back into applied lessons that sustained him. His choice now was to use the Force to not just passively heal his body, but enter a full trance upon which the energy that he still had access to within himself could course through his veins like a quietly pulsating drum beat and heal through the pain and the suffering which he endured. It would allow him to heal faster. Perhaps it would give him cause to reverse some of the more permanent damage, such as his muscular system, give new life back to his still-beating heart and allow it to pump more fully, and bless his body with the ability to move freely, the way it once had. Perhaps all of that was just wishful thinking. However, it would be utterly remiss of him not to try now that he knew he had the mental fortitude to do so. The Force, powerful as it was, was still with him.

Even in his weakened state, Qae had the right opportunity to try. He had to. If he wanted a chance to reunite with the people he loved-- Ashin and Spencer, most of all-- then he needed to do everything in his power to return himself to his fully-functional state and meet them once again, somewhere in the depths of the stars. He wanted to see them. His entire body ached not just with the physical pain that he had endured at the hands of the Sith, but at the mental anguish that he wanted to be with the people he had once pledged to spend his entire life in the service of. Goddess, how he missed them. How his heart sang to see their faces again. How he knew he would break down and cry, knowing that in twenty-something years that the Fates had been kind to them and allowed them to find the happiness they had wanted for so long, that their solace had been true and good and perfect. Like them. Their scars had always made them beautiful. His love for them, all-enduring and all-powerful, had survived the netherworld of the Force. He hoped that their love for him, as bonded as their lives were for so long, had survived just the same.

For them, and not for his own sake, Qae would endure. He would struggle against the reaper's scythe and return as the phoenix born from ashes. Energy coursed through his veins as he began to prepare himself for the trance that would swallow him. He would allow Asha the rest and respite that she needed and much deserved; the machines that he was hooked up to could keep the most basic physical needs of his form sustained as long as they could provide the life-giving cocktail into his veins, and the Force would provide him the ability to re-knit muscle strands together over a long period of time while he rested upon the bed. She would be free to keep herself entertained, to recuperate the energy she had expended to freely for his needs.

He looked over at Asha, with her considerable explanation; the fact that this was not Asha's ship directly, their destination, and her plans. It all sounded rather good, truthfully. "...Oh, 'm familiar with Mimban," he told her. Many moons ago he had been there, with the Vagrants; there weren't many places that he hadn't seen across the stars. The fact that they were going somewhere he at least knew of was a refreshing change of pace. The rest of it sounded good but he could only nod along at it, for that was simply all he had left in the tank for her. Yes, truly, the Force was going to have to keep him sustained, and he wished to ease her mind of worry. If she knew he was looking after himself, then she would be sufficiently content with the change of pace. It was highly likely that she'd be able to detect his efforts through the Force, given her sensory abilities, which hopefully would put her mind at ease and allow her to rest and do things as she so chose.

Yep. Definitely time.

"Actually... sleep's not a bad idea... I'll let you know if I wake," he told her. "But... thanks. For everything."

Then, much as he had promised earlier, Qae drifted back off to sleep. It would be a long sleep, this time - but it would be sleep, and not the sweet embrace of death. His head lulled back onto the pillow that had been placed under his head before his body had even touched the surface of the medical cot, where he could feel the strain that he had accumulated all wash over him and roll away with the tides. For the first time since consciousness had returned to him, it finally felt as if he was not simply struggling to hold his entire body together. The effort that he had expended was no longer required and his psyche was thankful for the lack of resistance.

How long would he be out? A long time. Days, likely. Maybe that full week he'd promised. Whatever the Force decreed as sufficient time to recuperate to be some semblance of walking.

This would allow Asha all the private time that she needed with Cotan. She could consult with the man she loved, explain away the fact that she had not just saved a man's life but recovered one of the legends of their Order-- long thought dead, now very clearly alive and entirely cognizant of the events that had transpired all around them-- with the incredible voidwalking power that she claimed dominion over. Asha would be able to do all of this, in her own time - Qae's body now capable of looking after itself with only very minimal assistance on her part, she could now begin to clean up the mess that she had left behind in her whirlwind rush to save him in the first place.


Asha Hex

 

[Asha Sar'andor]

And so the fish drifted into a sleepful slumber, while Asha nestled down into the chair at his side and quietly read from the unofficial pages of a Totally Real Adventures of Autume graphic novel she'd found on the dining table.​

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Man, Cotan Sar'andor had some weird interests.​

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Fin.​

(get it. because he's a fish?.. qae, the fish... do you get it? fin...)​