Gospel

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

"By not thinking about it too much." Gideon offered as a joke, but that stipulation kind of went sideways the moment she settled against him. At first the Jedi didn't think too much about it while flipping the switches that caused the pod to enclose around them. The soft hisss of locks engaging and ensuring that there would be pressure and air here, even when they lifted off and broke the planet's atmosphere. But once the hangar doors started to slide back in response to the remote control and Gideon was actually... waiting?

It was suddenly far more difficult to ignore the woman.

Her weight was pressed firmly against him and already he had a difficult time to filter through the fact how... nope, not gonna go there. Even then Gideon noticed how cramped up and hunched together she seemed on top of him.

There was no way she would be able to keep that up, when her muscles were already exerted to hell and back. "I realize this isn't perfect." Gideon offered, while trying to ignore the shape pressing down against his lap and staying on course. "But hunching in and trying to be as small as possible isn't going to do either of us favors." Especially because it wasn't actually doing much in the way of... anything. In fact, it was only focusing her press against a single point.

One that Gideon was becoming uncomfortably aware of.

"I am going to need you to relax, so I can lock the harnas in around us."

The idea of her completely pressed against him was... eesh. Draya, preserve me. But for some reason all that Gideon was sensing right now was mild amusement and maybe a sliver of sympathy. The Jedi was starting to wonder if his Master wasn't still hanging around.

Watching with amusement.

 

[Rory Naasade]

Her own self consciousness and concern had nothing to do with his. To a nearly comical level of obliviousness. Or would be, if they weren't fleeing from a massacre.

No, her's was about just that. About relaxing against a man who's people she had apparently just helped slaughter. She knew their blood was still beneath her nails. In her clothes. It was impossible to ignore that, any of it, and it left every muscle in her body tense to the point of pain.

"Sorry," she mumbled, leaning back.

She couldn't imagine what he had to be going through then. She deserved a lot more than discomfort. Certainly didn't deserve his patience and understanding. Relax? She didn't think she could. But she did her best so that the harness could be buckled, expanded to it's full size to accommodate the pair of them.

Once again, the thought that it would have just been easier for both of them if he had killed her skittered across her mind, and set little claws into the edges, unwilling to be banished fully.

She was quiet while they took off. Watching as they headed up into the atmosphere, the stars drawing crystalline patterns in the night sky above them, she finally asked.

"What.... what should I call you?"

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

He almost didn't respond.

It was easier for peace to be between them when the distance was as far as humanly possible, but the physical boundary had already been broken... thoroughly. What was a name compared towards her body pressed tightly against him? The blood of his friend still on her clothes and skin, the scent of copper pushing itself up his nostrils and lingering on the flat of his tongue? The conflicting sensations body and mind were giving off with no pity or concern for what Gideon wanted.

...or needed in the moment.

"Gideon." The path had been chosen, now was not the time to hold back or think of retreating, that would only spell failure. The only way to give respect to Master Draya and his family was to live how he would have lived.

That meant healing this woman- no, not healing... rebuilding? Also not accurate.

Maybe it was shaping, watching her grow and trying to direct her path into better directions. "I do not think referring to you as Sith over and over again is very helpful."

He commented softly, before redirecting some of the energy towards the thrusters. It wasn't difficult. As a Corellian he had been born surrounded by ships and the void of space. Gideon could have done this in his sleep, if he wished it so. But something told him that this was a touch more complicated than even that.

"What do you think of the name Liya?"

The woman didn't remember her anything, after all.

Not even her name.

 

[Rory Naasade]

The silence stretched and she understood. That? That was too far. Jedi. Sith. That was all that it would be and she wrapped that around in her head and-

Blinked.

But instead of his name putting her at ease, for some reason, it made it worse. For a moment, her eyes darted back and forth across the dash, as if she could find something to center herself on there, but none of it was familiar.

Not like his name was.

She had gone from tense and uncomfortable to *frozen* against him. It wasn't a huge change, subtle, but there. Like she was holding her breath, waiting for something terrible to happen.

But nothing came. And she had no idea why his name would do that. She didn't remember someone named Gideon.... and yet.....

Again, nothing added up, only this time it sent her skittering in even worse directions.

"Are you....." she stopped, swallowing hard.

"Have we met before?"

She didn't move, didn't look back at him. She was trying, with every fiber of her body to keep her tone even and calm. But there was an edge there something.

Fear.

She recognized his name. In a way that she knew, at her core, that it mattered to her before.

But it had meant nothing good.

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

The difference between tense and uncomfortable to frozen was not an easy thing to notice.

Not when you were already aware of a dragging silence, but that time Gideon was waiting for her to mull over the name he offered was spend angling the ship just right. There were subtle shifts you needed to be aware of if you wanted to break the atmosphere while conserving the most fuel possible in the moment.

The less friction you created the better.

But then she did speak and it had nothing to do with Liya.

Instead it had to do with... his name, Gideon supposed? Brows furrowed in thought as he weighed her words, trying to figure out if this was not the first meeting between the two of them.

"I do not think so, no." His thoughts went further, picking apart previous encounters with Darksiders, but nothing stood out. "I think I'd remember you." The addition was dry and to the point, before a sudden shudder went through the ship as they finally broke through the atmosphere and the air started to dissipate in favor of the void of space.

There was still some air left, but the higher they climbed the less it would matter.

"Why?"

It had something to do with his name, that much Gideon knew for a fact. Because previous to that the girl had no such inclination about him.

 

[Rory Naasade]

There was only a bit of hesitation, and it was more gathering thought than anything else. She believed him.

There were lessons learned that someone had taken whole cloth, leaving certain inclinations behind as chaff. Trust until proven otherwise had been outgrown and shed along with all of the rest of the undesirable features. But it did not go away. Did not cease to exist because someone had stepped out of the gown and left it in a pile on the floor.

"Your name," she said finally. "I.... I recognize it. But not you. I think that maybe..... I think that I knew someone else with that name once."

Grey eyes were distant, a small frown curving her lips down as she gazed out onto the stars.

"And it wasn't someone good. Just like with those yellow eyes.... and the red mountain. I don't remember much," she whispered, her voice tight.

"But none of it was good."

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

Gideon had noticed before that while she might not be remembering everything?

That the memories weren't necessarily gone. Just heavily suppressed by intense trauma, it wasn't as rare as one might think. He wasn't a doctor, but their enclave had often received pleas for healing assistance, sometimes they could help... sometimes they could not.

The mind was a complicated thing.

More often than not the Jedi could not assist when it came to matters of the mind. "It sounds to me like your life was not easy at all." Gideon commented after a while. It was an obvious observation, because what Sith could have an easy life?

It went against everything they believed.

While they had been talking the starfighter approached the drop point. The natural coordinates from where jumping through hyperspace would have the least complications.

The mass shadows, gravity, radiation, all of them were at the optimum levels here.

"Going to jump to hyperspace in a moment. Once we slip into it, it would be best if we try to get some sleep, yeah?"

It would be a while before they get to the next system, where they can actually land and have some private space of their own.

 

[Rory Naasade]

She didn't say anything, just nodded. Harnessed together, leaning back against him, she let her head tilt back against his shoulder. Face tipped up, she watched as the stars bled to white and they made the jump to hyperspace.

A few minutes passed in silence before she spoke up again.

"Liya is fine," she said quietly, having thought it over for a bit. She had tried thinking of names, seeing if any of them fit, felt right, jogged a memory. None of them fit. And while neither did Liya, it seemed just as good as any other.

They were quiet after that, each lost in their own thoughts.

She hadn't been expecting to fall asleep. It seemed unlikely, given the circumstances. But her body was at the very edges of endurance. She was warm, relatively comfortable, the white noise hum of the engines, and the hypnotic view of hyperspace filling their gaze slowly and gently lulled her. Her eyes closed slowly over an unknown length of time, and even more slowly, her body relaxed against his.

Somewhere between falling into a light sleep and dipping into her own dreaming however something intruded.

The cockpit of another ship. A soft smile on rough features, dark hair salted with silver and the scruff of beard along strong jawline. Wrapped in blankets, yawning awake from sleep instead of falling into it.

'You're supposed to be resting.'

She smiled drowsily, content and comfortable.

'I am,' she murmured thickly. 'Just making sure you didn't crash and we weren't dead. You know. The usual.'

He chuckled.

'Go back to sleep.'

Snuggling deeper into the blankets she nodded.

"Mkay, Jai."

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

At first Gideon thought the silence had been sleep, until she spoke once more.

Just a confirmation.

He nodded softly, but didn't respond in any other way. Liya had been the name of a friend, good and kind heart. A Jedi hopeful whose life had ended far too soon. But her name deserved to live on. It didn't take long before... Liya drifted off into sleep. The combination of exertion, trauma and pain made for a quick gateway to sleep.

Sadly it didn't come for him.

The smell, the press, the ghosts.

Too much.

Gideon pushed it away and instead focused his attention on starfighter systems. The data scrolling on the nav computer, it was easy to lose himself in the work and taking over from the automated mechanisms.

It would be hours, before they finally reversed from hyperspace. The shudder of the ship heralding the reversal as blue starlight slipped away into the less fantastic stark darkness of space, the stars in the distance and in front of them: a white planet. Ice. Snow. It wasn't perfect, but it was either that or drift in space until they died of dehydration.

"Liya?"

 

[Rory Naasade]

It wasn't the name that woke her up. Not really. Just the sound of a voice in her ear, gentle but insistent.

She'd gone from that strangely mundane dream into nothing she could remember. Which was probably for the best. There was a sense of malice as she pulled her way out, swimming upward toward the increasingly familiar voice. There were no golden eyes, no red mountain - but only because once her eyes were open she didn't remember it. The sleep had been too light, too exhausted in that strange turn around- those dreams would come later, when her body could afford the nightmares again.

Again?

She didn't remember, but it felt like she had never been without them.

Grey eyes opened, blinking once, twice. She groaned softly, every muscle stiff and tight- but with no capacity to get up and stretch, the sensation just pulled uncomfortably on every joint. The way her head had tilted back onto his shoulder, cheek resting next to his, had left a crick in her neck that brought a wince from her as she lifted her head up.

"Where.... where are we?" She asked, her tone thick still with the remnants of sleep and discomfort.

As they got closer, the plains of white filled the view screen until nothing was left but the sight of the cold, barren planet rising up to meet them.

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

He suppressed a groan as she shifted on top of him.

The muscles ached from being forced to mostly lie in the same position for most of the 'night' and the effect her press against him had was far less than ideal. Combining the two things made for a very distracting, annoying and disturbing bedfellow, but there wasn't much to be done about it. The path had been chosen and the course set.

Now it was time to follow it.

Wherever it might lead. "Q3-29. A Republic scout found it two decades back, mostly ice and snow, but it was the only system in range from our position." With their limited fuel supply anyway, too long a jump would have drawn out more than they could give. It was better to employ shorter jumps and conserve the fuel for now.

"We will use it as a camp site for a few days, I think, settle down and consider the next moves we make."

The fact that Gideon was basically saying that to her neckline wasn't really helpful either.

 

[Rory Naasade]

"A few days?"

She didn't recognize the planet or its designation, but that wasn't all that surprising. Her voice was, as always, quiet, but this time a little dubious.

"There's nothing here.... I thought.... we'd.... a week, you said, to get to Alliance space. I didn't realize that included camping for several days."

As far as Liya was concerned that matter was still settled. He had said his intentions, and knowing what she had done and how she felt about it, she had agreed. There was nothing more to discuss. He was right- had been from the beginning. Justice had to be served and the best way to do that would be to face what she had done, and the consequences for that, head on.

So the strange hesitation to do just that was confusing.

She knew what they had to do.

So why, did it seem, like he didn't?

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

His attention was split for a moment.

Between her and her questions and angling the ship just right, so they wouldn't horribly crash as they tried to breach atmosphere. "That was before the freighter crashed." Gideon pointed out, but by the tone he wasn't entirely *there* for the conversation. More focused on running calculations in his head and making sure they all fit with their trajectory.

"This little starfighter ain't got the fuel to do a single large jump or get us through the entire journey." He added before turning the nose a few angles down to take advantage of its shape.

Make sure they were creating as little friction as possible.

"Gonna need to refuel as well, but the money will be a problem." Jedi didn't have money of their own for the most part. Anything they needed would have been reimbursed by the Council, but that was gone now together with any savings they might have had.

"Brace yourself, we will be landing in a few minutes."

Already Gideon could feel her press tighter against him.

 

[Rory Naasade]

She was quiet for a bit, mulling over all of it. Not just what he said in that moment, but everything from the moment she'd opened her eyes until this one. The small frown on her face was becoming all too habitual as she tried to sort certain things into boxes. Unfortunately, so little of it fit comfortably and she was left not knowing what to do with the various bits and bobs that had no proper home in her mind.

"I'm sorry," she finally said, pulling her hands into her lap. She looked down at the backs of them, frown deepening slightly as she let her eyes cast over the tattoos.

​"This is.... a really difficult situation." A beat and then an important (to her) clarification. "For you."

Sure it was difficult for her too, but as far as she was concerned, she deserved it. Gideon, on the other hand, certainly did not.

"I'll do my best to not make it any harder than it has to be."

Mostly, she meant that she wouldn't complain. She wasn't sure what more she could do, but if things came up, she'd do whatever was necessary.

"Fuel.... we'll have to find an inhabited planet after this one then." But her tone and expression were troubled, frowning over the problem of credits.

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

"Might not be up to you." Gideon responded cryptically, before finally diving down with the ship at the exact right moment.

The pressure would suddenly rise in the cockpit, the inertial dampners lowered until they were barely out of the life-threatening field. By the way she rode against him it was clear this fighter had not been designed to hold two occupants.

Much less one occupant sitting on the others lap.

But the harness kept them out of most of the danger. She was tightly strapped against him and there wasn't a way for her to drop out. It was as if they raged through a storm, until it was suddenly over as soon as it first began.

Gideon breathed out. "That. Can't believe I pulled that one off." It had been a sixty-forty percent chance, but that wasn't nearly crossing the coinflip room to make him comfortable. It would be easier from here on out though. The calculations made by the systems would help with the stabilizing. Which was good because Gideon wasn't sure his heart could take another one of those without assistance.

"How you holding up there?" Gideon asked as he skidded across the land, while searching for a good place to land by cross checking it with preliminary scans.

 

[Rory Naasade]

or some reason, going *up* into the atmosphere before hadn't been an issue. But diving *down* into it now, the planet growing larger and larger, faster and faster as the ship shuddered and shook around them?

Liya closed her eyes tightly, knuckles turning white as she clenched her hands together. Despite the pressure, molding her back against Gideon, she was lightheaded. But it had very little to do with the g-forces themselves. By the time the worst of it was over, he'd be able to tell that not all of the shaking had been the ship.

Because the fair haired woman in his lap was trembling all over by the end of it.

Eyes still shut tight, she just nodded, not really trusting herself to speak right away.

"Just fine," came the tight response a moment later. "I..... I don't... like heights. Or maybe it would be better to say I don't like feeling like I am *falling* from heights. It'll be fine when we're on the ground. Gonna. Um. Keep my eyes closed until then I think."

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

"It will be fine." Gideon mumbled, while piloting the ship. Free hand brushed her shoulder for a moment and tried to instill some measure of calm. Until the finger came back wet. Confused Gideon looked back and saw crimson sticking against his finger. He didn't freeze up, but his stomach turned as he once more remembered.

Without missing a beat the hand went back to the piloting gear, but part of him was frozen.

Their blood on him. Skin, itching and burning. Fabric of his robe, scratching and suffocating in the same light.

Too much.

The light hearted smile had evaporated in grim determination. Find a good spot, land, rip the clothes off and replace them with something else. Anything else would be better than to keep wearing their blood on him.

They were all dead.

"There." His voice was rougher now, coarse, as if Gideon had been screaming for hours. He swallowed and tried to take the dryness away.

It only worked partially. "Going to start the landing now, hold on tight." Her touch was fire, Gideon wanted to rip his skin off, but the Jedi reminded himself... there was a purpose here too. A lesson. This was the right course and it was a difficult one. A short while ago he had been asking himself why. But now the answer was slowly starting to come to him.

If doing the right thing was easy, the entire Galaxy would be filled with saints.

With a hum the engines shut off as the starfighter landed in the snow. "Close to a river, got a hill that will protect us from the wind from one side, the fighter from the other. Pack yourself in, it's going to be frigid there."

 

[Rory Naasade]

They were both relieved to get out of that cockpit. Some of their reasons were the same, some were different, but separating out there into the cold was a breath of fresh air, both literally and figuratively for the pair. The air was thin and frigid, as promised, and they worked quickly and in silence to get up a camp as well as it possibly could be done. Both had something on their minds, a dozen things- a dozen bodies- and both, without knowing it, had the same intention.

But a way to get warm after needed to be set up first.

The sound of the water as it coasted through the artic landscape was surprisingly soothing. A reminder that some level of redemption was only a few meters away as they set up the tent and filled it with the rolled up sleeping bags, a night's rations and a small heater- too small, Liya realized, for a place like this. Enough to keep them from freezing to death. But not enough to keep *warm*. Not really.

Once all of that was accomplished, Gideon making the last trip back to the X-Wing, Liya looked down at herself. While the blanket she'd been using as a covering masked it, beneath it she knew that her clothes were covered in the dark marks of blood. Some of it hers, yes. But not most of it.

Without hesitation, she stripped, teeth starting to chatter almost immediately when the air kissed her skin. Swallowing hard, leaving the ruined, blood soaked tunic on an icy stone, she waded in and without giving herself a chance to acclimate, dove beneath it.

Only a scant few degrees above freezing, it hit her like a thousand needles. She surfaced, gasping and shaking. But her hand had found sand on the river bed, and she scooped it up, rubbing it between her hands, using it to get the blood out from beneath her nails, from the creases in her knuckles. Dunking beneath the water again, she came back up with fresh sand. It scoured, leaving her feeling raw beyond the cold itself, but she didn't stop, scrubbing the blood off with a growing urgency that bordered on fury.

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

There was a soothing familiarity to building up the camp.

Put your thoughts on zero and just let your hands work without worry. It helped, if only for the moment, his muscles hurt, head hurt, there wasn't a piece in his body that wasn't somewhat whining at him. That is what you got for not getting any sleep at all.

He found her already in the water and decided that putting this off wasn't going to do him any favours.

Robes dropped down and the cold hit him straight in the face. Gideon didn't immediately dive in, instead closing his eyes and centering his state of mind. Peace, quiet, drawing on the Force until the cold was pushed away. A true Jedi Master could walk through a snowstorm naked without feeling a single shiver, but as a Jedi Knight he could at least make this slightly more comfortable for himself.

The water bit him in the skin once he drove in next to her. Force be damned, it was cold and freezing, but Gideon didn't care.

The cold helped.

He started scrubbing.

 

[Rory Naasade]

She rubbed sand into her hair, her scalp until it was raw. While she went gingerly around her half healed wounds, the rest of her got the same treatment whether she could see blood there or not. One spot on the inside of her forearm she could not get clean- she kept rubbing it with sand, dunking it beneath the water, over and over again. Harder, faster, getting more and more frustrated, every time hurting more and more until she actually sobbed once, inaudible over

It was only when the spot itself began to bleed that she realized it was actually part of the ink tattooing her flesh and not their blood at all.

Looking at the soft skin there, abraded and bleeding, that was where she finally stopped.

She had ignored Gideon since he stepped into the water, which didn't change when she finally stumbled out of it. Doing her best to dry off, hands shaking, teeth chattering, she realized that she couldn't put the blood stained clothes back on. She salvaged what she could, resisting the desire to throw what was left into the river. It was a near thing, and she held them in one closed fist, entire arm shaking. Finally, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, she knelt beside the river. The hard stones and icy sand gouged at her knees, but she simply grimaced and bore it.

Penance.

Maybe.

She did her best to wash the blood out, knowing that it was all she had. She could probably mend the cut from the Sith's knife.... from the Jedi's lightsaber. But not now. Starting to lose feeling in her toes and fingers, hands too rough and dumb now from sand and cold to do anything with any real dexterity, she turned away, heading into the tent.

[member="Gideon Blackford"]