Private He Is, Your Brother?

[Lossa Darcuhl]

Tags: Eloise Dinn
Location: Coruscant Jedi Temple, Training Hall
Wearing: Traditional Robe, Echo Stone
Wielding: Lossa's Lightsaber

The conversation with Eloise still hung in her mind from the lifeday Gala. The irritation that the purple haired girl expressed sharply contrasting the fight against her Sith brother for little more than a petty feeling. Not an expression she took lightly in hindsight and a far clearer mind.

She hadn't kept track of how much time had passed between the Lifeday Gala Briana had held, to her own capture on Phaseera and subsequent retrieval.

The memory of their conversation had probably long passed the other girls thoughts by now. But it wasn't something Lossa was going to drop without at least clarifying something. Even it she didn't tell Eloise what she meant by her jedi comment. Having already spoke to the receptionist and sent a message along directly, recognized as Lossa of the Jakku Enclave formally now.

Even thinking of it left a sour taste in her mouth.

It didn't feel like she had-Could one inherit an Enclave? Her brusque steps across the training hall met and end with a sudden pause in the middle as she wondered. Eyes searching beyond the walls for answers as she slowly continued pacing.

How did one negotiate the existence of a jedi temple on a new planet? Did it become public domain after a certain period of time without obvious use? Was it an eternal contract? Did beings gain squatters rights inside these temples if they were able to remain hidden? What was the measure of time used to dictate this period of time? Local as was oriented to the temple, or Galactic Standard?

A winding path of thoughts that kept her distracted for a time until the one she sought arrived.

"-but if they make repairs, then who is due for the bill?" Caught amidst the final spiral of thinking as her outer Robe settled against her. Only her right arm visible for now as she cradled her chin in thought.

 

[Eloise Dinn]

"... As for your brother, he. Mm. Conversation for another time. He dropped a ceiling on me."

What the feth?

In the light of day, back at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, Eloise had the time to properly process what had happened at the gala. A woman she’d never met before recognized her on sight, apparently because she resembled her brother (ew). Apparently Marcus had dropped a ceiling on her, but Eloise didn’t know the details—because Lossa hadn’t told her, and now there was no way that she knew of to reach the mysterious woman and demand answers.

Turns out she didn’t need to seek Lossa out, though the message never reached her—not before she found Lossa first.

It was common for Eloise to go to the training hall to practice whenever she had the time. The others seemed to do it out of obligation, or to “let off steam”. She did it out of habit. On Zaathru she would get up at the crack of dawn and train from sunup till sundown. The exercises and katas she performed in the Temple weren’t nearly as harsh, yet she continued to push herself, taking a certain amount of pride in being able to handle punishment better than most of her peers. Bitter pride, but pride nonetheless.

She was on her way to such training when she spotted Lossa standing in the hall outside her favorite dojo. The Zeltron was almost unrecognizable in traditional Jedi robes, posing like some philosopher with her hand under her chin. Oh, and she appeared to be sober.

I guess this is one of those days where she's in the mood to be a Jedi.

“Hey,” Eloise tried to catch Lossa’s attention. “I want to talk to you.”

Lossa Darcuhl​

 

[Lossa Darcuhl]

Tags: Eloise Dinn
Location: Coruscant Jedi Temple, Training Hall
Wearing: Traditional Robe, Echo Stone
Wielding: Lossa's Lightsaber

Snapped from her thoughts, the hand dropped to her side and turned toward the noise. The familiar face coming her way. The messenger had either been immensely speedy, or she had been incredibly lucky. Not quite sure the mood the girl was riding with how she spoke.

"Hi-yes. Did. I take it the message didn't find you first." Letting her arm settle against her hip and turning to face her proper.

"Eloise, right? I apologize for the Gala. But I haven't forgot." How could she? It wasn't everyday you got to drop that kind of bombshell on someone and then skip out explaining.

It had been gnawing at the back of her brain with everything going on. If the messenger didn't meet her on the way here, then it was likely the girl only had one thing on her mind before stumbling across Lossa.

"I take it you were getting ready to train?" Nodding towards the dojo. "I'll join you. I need to figure out my balance anyways. And talk. Not avoiding that."

Making a pointed statement before she walked inside. Walking to the wall hooks and looping her left sleeve across it before sliding out of the top Robe. Adjusting to hang it by the neck before turning to regard Eloise once more, hand resting in the crook of her robe.

"Practice spar?"

 

[Eloise Dinn]

"Message?" Eloise echoed, shrugging. "I don't know what you're talking about. I just want to know why my brother dropped a ceiling on you."

Straight to the point. Lossa, on the other hand, seemed to have a whole discussion in mind. Eloise was familiar with the tactic—people asked if you wanted to do something else, but really they wanted to talk. If you didn't want to do whatever they offered, then things got awkward. At least this time she had no objections, seeing as she planned on practicing anyway. Besides, she had a feeling there was a lot more to the story than a simple answer could satisfy.

"Sure," she agreed. While she waited on the mat, Lossa hung up her robe (but first she put her sleeve on the hook and used it to remove the garment—Eloise had never seen anyone do it that way before). Once Lossa was ready, she lowered the intensity of her lightsaber and ignited the blade, standing with her feet apart and knees bent.

"Let's talk."

Lossa Darcuhl​

 

[Lossa Darcuhl]

Tags: Eloise Dinn
Location: Coruscant Jedi Temple, Training Hall
Wearing: Traditional Robe, Echo Stone
Wielding: Lossa's Lightsaber

"Ah. Sent someone after. Never mind. You found me. As for your brother," Sighing before igniting her own saber as they met on the mat.

The light purple blade igniting as she figured out her stance. Settling into Makashi for the moment. She didn't adjust the level of her blade, since it wouldn't do more than sap energy.

"We fought on Odacer-Faustin in a Sith... ruin?" Unsure entirely if the place was a true library. She hadn't got to investigate further after she woke up from beneath the rubble. Only thinking to beat feet out of there.

She leapt forward with a twirling jab, seeking to strike Elise's shoulders while she spoke.

"You know why he would have been there?"

 

[Eloise Dinn]

Lossa explained that she had sent a messenger, but Eloise wasn’t listening. She was paying attention to the Zeltron’s Makashi stance, awaiting an answer to her question about Marcus.

Odacer-Faustin… the name sort of rang a bell. “Wasn’t a battle fought there recently?” She hadn’t been there herself, but she may have heard about it. It was a Sith world, she did know that. Academy of Darth Drear. Black Orchid virus...

"You know why he would have been there?"

She sidestepped the jab, reaching for Lossa’s wrist with the intent to pull her forward and into her blade. “Why do you care?” she asked, eyes narrowing.

Lossa Darcuhl​

 

[Lossa Darcuhl]

Tags: Eloise Dinn
Location: Coruscant Jedi Temple,Dojo
Wearing: Traditional Robe, Echo Stone
Wielding: Lossa's Lightsaber

"Yep. Where the ceiling happened." Her jab sidestepped as a hand clamped around her wrist. The training sabers humming intense for the brief moment she was near it.

Feeling the sting of the blade in her side as she threw her weight sideways, trying to keep her arm flexed to keep from pulling a muscle as she hissed at the sensation, pressing on in their conversation.

"I mean. You are his sister," Trying to get her footing and ending up in a forward tumble. "And he was definitely not helping the Jedi in that battle. Figured I'd ask rather than go running my mouth."

Gritting her teeth as she settled back into Makashi, keeping the point forward and high as she kept the hilt near her waist, finding the two handed saber awkward.

 

[Eloise Dinn]

“And just who would you be running your mouth off to?” Eloise shot back. She knew what Lossa was doing. She had even baited her, wanting to see if she would immediately throw an accusation at her. She hadn't, but the patting herself on the back for not immediately ratting Eloise out was nearly as bad.

"It's real nice of you, to not immediately run to the Council about this." Sarcasm oozed from her words.

Having grazed Lossa’s side with her blade, she spun around and slashed upward, catching the Zeltron in a bind as she tested the waters, trying to gauge her opponent’s strength and skill. So far she wasn’t impressed, but Lossa’s apparent suckiness only made her wary that it might be a trap.

“Our parents are Sith,” she said. “They raised us as Sith. I went my own way. Last I heard of Marcus, he was still at home. But if he was on Odacer-Faustin…” She broke the bind with a sudden sweeping arc, her lightsaber coming for Lossa’s arm. “What were you doing there, exactly? How did you run into him?” If they were going to figure out why her brother was running with the Sith, she'd need to know the whole story.

Lossa Darcuhl​

 

[Lossa Darcuhl]

Tags: Eloise Dinn
Location: Coruscant Jedi Temple,Dojo
Wearing: Traditional Robe, Echo Stone
Wielding: Lossa's Lightsaber

She didn't need to explain who'd she be running her mouth to. They both knew very well as Eloise continued on, lobbing an insult her way as Lossa grimaced. Try to be nice and that was what she got. The upward slash was met, and instead of letting herself be pushed back, she used it to press her words.

"I didn't tell because I don't know what's going on." Their bind broken as Eloise went for a strike at her arm, the sweeping arc of her strike met with a twirl of the saber around her hand to adjust her grip. Trying to send the blade up and away with a harsh use of her own strength.

"I was trying to investigate the Mortis bio-ruin. And he came out to stop me." She was applying herself now. This interaction was little more than trying to solve a mystery, but the sparring was a focus she could use to keep her thoughts going.

Keeping the momentum of her upward slash, she twisted her stance and angled herself, shifting down from the strike to drive the point of her blade into Eloise's shoulder.

 

[Eloise Dinn]

Now Lossa seemed to grow some teeth. She twirled her blade, sending Eloise’s lightsaber flying. Disarmed, she jumped backwards to avoid the Zeltron’s second strike, using telekinesis to retrieve her weapon.

“You mean the Bio-Spire?” Only reason she knew the proper name for the place was because it was notorious. The whole planet was practically one big hub of horror stories, tales of Sith hubris and mad obsession causing untold destruction. “Supposedly it holds the secret of immortality. Well, an older, imperfect method of attaining it, anyway.” Most Sith these days just cloned themselves to cheat death.

She narrowly evaded the strike to her shoulder, countering with a low blow meant to sweep Lossa’s legs. “I could call him and ask what he was doing there.”

Lossa Darcuhl​

 

[Lossa Darcuhl]

Tags: Eloise Dinn
Location: Coruscant Jedi Temple,Dojo
Wearing: Traditional Robe, Echo Stone
Wielding: Lossa's Lightsaber

Eloise had avoided the initial counter, even retrieving her weapon while doing so. She'd seen others use the tactic before but kept it in mind for later.

"Bio Spire yeah. Place gave me the creeps." A harsh grimace at the memory of the darkness that was present there.

It certainly hadn't helped when what she could only guess were some sort of Sith ghouls had appeared to attack her brother. The whole place had been fouled by something unknown to her. Having failed to do anything more than get herself buried, she'd beat a hasty retreat when she'd come to.

Pressing her attack with the strike to the shoulder found the advance avoided with a dodge. Eloise countering with a sweeping strike as the Zeltron sent the tip of the blade down to catch the sweep in a bind before trying to force it up and over before attempting push it away. Her own strike forming from the bind with a low slash from hip to shoulder.

"Wouldn't hurt to call him. "

 

[Eloise Dinn]

Eloise could practically see the scene playing out inside Lossa’s head as she recalled her encounter with Marcus. It was just a damned shame she didn’t seem inclined to verbalize the story for his sister, preferring to feed her frustratingly piecemeal details. Did she think Eloise would be bored by the tale? Was that a Zeltron attention-deficit thing? Or was she hiding something?

After fending off Lossa’s attacks, Eloise produced her datapad and called Marcus right in the middle of their duel. It took a couple tries, but eventually a groggy voice answered, “Huh? Louise?”

“Hey, chithead.”

“It’s four in the morning,” Marcus grumbled. “What do you want?”

“I got a girl here who says you fought her on Odacer-Faustin.” Eloise tried to keep her rising temper in check, but it wasn’t working. “Inside the Bio-Spire. What the feth were you doing there?”

There was a pause, broken by an irritable grunt. “I went there to look for something useful in the archives. Got caught in the battle afterward. It was just bad timing. But I met my new master there, so it wasn’t all a waste.”

“Your—” Eloise broke off, blinking in shock. “Are you training to be a Sith?!”

“Yeah!” Marcus matched her shrillness. “If you can run away from home to become a Jedi, I can most certainly decide to become a Sith.”

“Have you learned nothing from our parents?” she shot back. “You want to turn out like them?”

“I won’t turn out like them. I’ve learned from their mistakes.”

“You think joining the most morally bankrupt cult in galactic history—”

“It’s my life,” he interrupted. “I get to decide what I do with it, not you. So feth off.”

He hung up. Eloise resisted the urge to throw her datapad across the room, instead shoving it back into her pocket. "Well," she muttered. "That answers that."

Lossa Darcuhl​

 

[Lossa Darcuhl]

Tags: Eloise Dinn
Location: Coruscant Jedi Temple,Dojo
Wearing: Traditional Robe, Echo Stone
Wielding: Lossa's Lightsaber

Once more her attacks were deflected, and Lossa's momentum faltered as Eloise produced a datapad to make a call. Her stance once poised to continue her attack now sagged in disbelief, mouth hanging open as she listened to one side of the conversation. Too stunned to press her attack and instead staring in silence as Eloise began to grow irritable before eventually shoving the device back in her pocket.

Now feeling awkward in the sudden silence after the call. Not sure how to move forward while trying to scratch her neck with the stub arm. Grimacing at the strange feeling of a phantom limb and letting it fall back in place.

"Huh." Stumbling into that hotbed of producing a profoundly dumbfounded sound from the Zeltron. Stance barely passable for defense, holding the lightsaber point above the ground by mere hairs length as she tried to process the exchange she'd just heard part of.

"He isn't uh." Not sure her best way forward while searching for a word.

"He doesn't seem too concerned about his own well being." The best she could muster as she wondered if they should continue at first.

 

[Eloise Dinn]

Eloise stared at Lossa in silence for a few seconds. Then she snorted, her expression contorting into something between a grin and a grimace.

“You could say the same thing about me. Or any of us who keep on fighting.”

The word came out forcefully, like she was spitting it out. Yet she wasn’t bitter. Not yet, anyway.

Her attitude toward her family thus far had been “you go your way, I go mine”. Sure, she had thought about possible scenarios like this one, but never with any depth, it seemed. She didn’t know what to do now that it was actually happening. Would she have to face Marcus on the battlefield one day? Convincing him to stop seemed impossible. Could she bring herself to do what had to be done? Could she kill her brother?

She knew in her gut that she was more likely to fall along with him. There was too little to keep her afloat at this stage. If she tried to face him now, he’d drag her under, destroying all the progress she'd made.

Deactivating her lightsaber, she stood with her feet together. “I don’t really feel like sparring anymore,” she said, clipping her hilt to her belt. “You understand.”

Lossa Darcuhl​

 

[Lossa Darcuhl]

Tags: Eloise Dinn
Location: Coruscant Jedi Temple,Dojo
Wearing: Traditional Robe, Echo Stone
Wielding: Lossa's Lightsaber

"Very true. Granted some have a better reason for fighting than their own selfish reasons." Still blinking a bit at the exchange. There was a mix of emotions around Eloise, and all of them hinted at her own struggles. Internally grappling for the moment if she was someone that really should be offering advice or even speaking on the matter.

"Something I've had to learn more than once." A sigh leaving the Zeltron as Eloise put away her saber, and mimicking the move as her hand settled on her hip.

However she wasn't quite done, channeling a bit of that attitude Briana had lobbed her direction more than once. A thoughtful look to Eloise before she spoke again.

"Did you join the jedi because you wanted to, or just to spite your family?" She dared to tread forward on the topic. Even if she earned herself some sharp words, or on the receiving end of a temper, this wasn't something she was just going to wash her hands of after sticking her nose into.

 

[Eloise Dinn]

"Did you join the Jedi because you wanted to, or just to spite your family?"

Anger flared in Eloise at the question. But she had to be nice and sweet and submissive.

… Damn it, she didn’t WANT to be nice! What had Lossa done to deserve her kindness? What had any of these people done besides interrogate her about her past and view her with distrust and suspicion just because of her lineage? Even her own master had pulled her aside at their first meeting, demanding to know what she was doing there. As if it wasn't obvious! The only people in the oh-so-tolerant Jedi Order who hadn't treated her like a pariah were Albrecht and Resh , and that was because they were themselves outcasts forced to walk on eggshells.

“I would think you’ve had your fill of my private business for today,” she snapped. “But no. I didn’t join the Jedi to spite my family. I joined so that someday I’ll be able to rid the galaxy of people like them.”

Lossa Darcuhl​

 

[Lossa Darcuhl]

Tags: Eloise Dinn
Location: Coruscant Jedi Temple,Dojo
Wearing: Traditional Robe, Echo Stone
Wielding: Lossa's Lightsaber

Anger was something she'd expected. She was poking a blatantly sore topic that she had brought up with as much grace as a ornery rancor. But she'd got the answer she wanted, and gave a wry smile.

A somewhat noble goal, if a little blind.

"You are on a better path than your family sure, but," She waved her hand as if to say goodbye, moving to grab her cloak. "Power isn't worth a lot when there is nothing left to fight, or anyone to fight for."

Her own experience on the subject still a bitter taste as she spoke the words. Anger and rage of her own filling the air before pushing those memories down for another time.

"But what do I know? Not you or your life." Glancing sidelong at Eloise as she slid on her cloak, dismissing her own words as she fixed the cloak.

"Just like you don't know mine." She was probably goading her into an argument, but perspective was something Lossa had learned far too late in life. A bland stare fixing on Eloise now as she frowned.

"I came to find you for your perspective, because I didn't know what was going on. I sought you out wanting to understand. Not to play judge and jury for your brother, or you." Hand settling on her hip as she examined Eloise a final time.

 

[Eloise Dinn]

"You are on a better path than your family sure, but—"

“I don’t give a chit about your opinion,” Eloise interrupted, seeing what was coming from a mile away and immediately attempting to nip it in the bud. “So I suggest you keep it to yourself.”

She hadn’t voiced what she thought of Lossa, and she still wouldn’t. Yet the Zeltron was apparently eager to dispense her two credits about the Padawan she had met only briefly at the winter gala. She was right about neither of them knowing each other, that was for damned sure.

"I came to find you for your perspective, because I didn't know what was going on. I sought you out wanting to understand. Not to play judge and jury for your brother, or you."

Something about Lossa’s pose, hand on hip, was grinding her gears. Everything about her just came across as so phony, from her airbrushed complexion and perfect gym body to the way she tried to project aloof confidence and, if not faux sympathy, then something adjacent to it and equally as insincere. I care, but not really, she seemed to be saying. This whole fething conversation—it wasn't an offer of help or friendship or solidarity. It wasn't a sympathetic ear or a shoulder to cry on or even an ounce of pity. Eloise wasn't sure she wanted those things anyway, and she couldn't imagine her and Lossa ever being friends, but she did know that she didn't want this. Yet another stranger demanding she answer their suspicion-driven questions, aggravating the hell out of her with their focus on her family, and then leaving her to stew in resentment alone.

“Yeah? Well, you’re not doing a very good job at being understanding.” Eloise left the dojo without another word.

Lossa Darcuhl​