Private Healing Below The Surface

[Reina Daival]

Location: Temple Courtyard
Tags: Issar Rae’Velis
Lightsaber - Pequod
Leg - Anchor

Reina focused on her own breathing, ignoring the pain still stinging away at her face. The pain that was throbbing away from laying in an uncomfortable position for an extended period of time. Instead she was knelt down in the gardens, letting herself stay rooted to where she was. It was also her way of purifying herself. Reina had spent an extended period of time down in the Dark, fighting and she had to make sure that she wasn't going to go through any other issues. The Force still felt ever so sluggish to her after the Affliction that had ran through her, and the fear...The fear was gone at least for now. But there was still a sense of shame in her chest.

That hadn't been a victory for her. Yes, she survived which was her main goal, but that was because Serina let her go. Let her live. In any other fight, Reina wouldn't have escaped like this. She'd have been captured, killed or worse. But there had been a heart in Serina. A heart that laid inside of a Sith. A heart that Reina was sure would be ripped out when Serina had the change. Reina understood that. Serina wanted power and strength. Her heart held her back from that. So that was another way Reina had failed. She had wanted to save Serina in some way, but instead it was Serina who had saved her, had spared Reina.

Her anger should have been bubbling, her frustration should have been erupting out of her in yells, screams or her typical frustrations. Instead, Reina was just...tired. She couldn't bring herself to get angry. To want to fight against something. For once, Reina just wanted to sit here and meditate. Taking in steady breaths through her mouth, since well...Reina still hadn't went to get her split lip or her broken nose healed. It would lead to questions. Questions that Reina wasn't ready to answer...though unfortunately for her, she was going to have to answer to someone sooner or later.​

 

[Issar Rae’Velis]

Tag: Reina Daival


The wind in the courtyard shifted, but only slightly. Just enough for the petals in the fountain pool to stir — not scatter, not flee, just tremble at the edges.

Issar Rae'Velis had been walking without aim. Not lost, but unhurried. He had not needed to search. The moment he stepped into the space, the weight of something unspoken brushed against him like the tail of a deep current. Not pain. Not even rage. But exhaustion — old in feeling, young in origin.

He moved without sound, his coils gliding over the stone paths, each movement respectful of the silence Reina had claimed. His robes, adorned with the Spiral's softened sigils, barely whispered as he came to a slow stop some distance behind her. He said nothing at first. Merely stood, four arms resting in stillness, his breath as calm as the breeze threading through the leaves above.

And then, after several moments — not to disturb, but to acknowledge — his voice came, low and quiet, as if it had been waiting patiently in the air.

"Forgive the interruption."

A pause, gentle and unassuming.

"May I sit with you?"

He did not offer comfort. He did not prod with questions. He offered presence — a shape beside hers in the spiral, should she allow it.

 

[Reina Daival]

Location: Temple Courtyard
Tags: Issar Rae’Velis
Lightsaber - Pequod
Leg - Anchor

"Yes. I...was going to need to speak to you anyway."

Reina could trust Issar not to...flip if Reina told him what had happened. She needed to practice it over with someone else before she thought of bringing it up to Everest. For now, she let silence fill the courtyard, as she opened her eyes to focus. What was the first thing to say?

"...I trusted a Sith. They were...my friend. They still are my friend."

Yes. Serina was still Reina's friend. Even though all of this. Even as the fact that Reina had probably failed Serina was evident in her mind, the woman still saw the Sith as a friend of hers.

"But...they attacked me. Last night. They wanted to meet with them...and I did. We talked. But...I was too stubborn for my own good."

Her eyes stayed focused ahead of herself. Gazing directly ahead of herself, as if Reina was in her own world, in her thoughts before she shook her head to bring herself back to reality, looking over and up towards Issar for a moment.

"...I am a Fool. Even now, I still want to believe in her. I still want to support her Master. Even though I know it's a fruitless endeavour."​

 

[Issar Rae’Velis]

Tag: Reina Daival

Issar did not speak at once. The silence lingered; not the silence of judgment, but of listening, of space. The kind a teacher gives a student not to be corrected, but heard. He let her words settle like dust in sunlight, undisturbed, real.

Only when her voice had fully faded did he move, a slight shift of his weight, one lower hand bracing against the stone seat, the others still open in his lap. He looked to her, his dark eyes steady, unreadable to many, but not unkind.

Then, softly — not with softness of uncertainty, but of care — his voice came, each syllable accented by his unusual and slow dialect.

"You are no fool, Padawan."

He let the words breathe, unhurried.

"To believe in the light within another... even as they themselves sink into shadow... That is not foolishness. That is a risk we take when we choose to love."

One clawed hand moved gently, not to grasp, but to gesture — the slow drawing of a curve in the air between them.

"But love without boundary becomes fire without hearth. It burns both giver and receiver."

He tilted his head, voice still low, touched faintly by the rhythm of his Hysalrian tongue.

"You are not wrong to feel. You are not wrong to hope. But hope... must be tethered, or it drifts... and pulls us with it."

A pause. His eyes softened — not in pity, but rather understanding.

"You wish to support her. Perhaps, one day, you still may. But you must not trade your footing for hers. Your roots... must hold."

He looked forward then, toward the rest of the courtyard, where the wind stirred the leaves.

"But there is sorrow in such a situation... and that sorrow is yours to feel. But not alone."

And he turned his head back toward her, one arm resting on the stone beside them, close, but not imposing. A quiet presence. A steady anchor.

Issar did not offer easy absolution, but he did offer presence.

 

[Reina Daival]

Location: Temple Courtyard
Tags: Issar Rae’Velis
Lightsaber - Pequod
Leg - Anchor

"Hey. Hey. Hey. I love no-one, okay?"

That was not a word Reina believed in. Nor did she like to use it. Love made you more vulnerable. A vulnerability that Reina would not admit. Though her eyes focused on Issar's gesture, Watching the curve for a moment as it made Reina wonder to herself...Was life like a circle? No. That would imply that you can end up where you started and Reina didn't want to believe that she could go back to who she used to be. She was...enjoying the Jedi she was becoming now.

"I've failed her. I know she'll...give into the Darkness. She does not care for weakness. Sparing me would be a sign of weakness to her. I should...have tried to bring her back here. I should have done something. But I just left her..."

Reina was not worried about her footing. She was firm in her beliefs. Of who she was. She was a Jedi. Maybe a poor example of a Jedi, but she was one all the same. She'd fight to protect people from the Darkness, even if it thraetened to swallow them whole. It was the Role she had chosen for herself. The persona she had taken. She took in a shaky breath, grateful for at least some kind of presence. Reassurance that she had survived. That she had made it out of that situation. Because there was still a part of Reina that thought this was a dream. Some form of nightmare...but it was real.​

 

[Issar Rae’Velis]

Tag: Reina Daival

The Hysalrian watched her, unmoving but not distant. Her denial did not shake him. Nor did her self-rebuke. He understood the armour people wore around their hearts, he had seen it forged a thousand ways, on a thousand worlds. This was no different.

He let the silence sit a little longer, respectful of the emotion still burning off her words. Then, in his low, deliberate cadence, he spoke.

"You did not fail her." The words were not an argument. They were simple, certain.

"Each soul chooses its path. You can walk beside her... for a time. You can reach out your hand. But... you cannot walk for her."

He paused, letting the truth breathe between them. His eyes turned slightly upward, to the tangle of green branches overhead.

"The river may call a stone to move. But the stone must choose to loosen."

He allowed for silence to hang a while longer again.

"You stood in the current and did not break. That is enough. For now."

He left the air open then — not demanding answers, not filling the space with more philosophy. Just there. Silent. Steady. Letting her know that, whatever storm still turned inside her, she did not face it alone.

 

[Reina Daival]

Location: Temple Courtyard
Tags: Issar Rae’Velis
Lightsaber - Pequod
Leg - Anchor

"I didn't walk beside her for long enough. I could have been like her. If people didn't stay by my side, I fear that I would be walking the same path as her..."

Reina was somewhat...different to normal. She was more willing to entertain the way Issar spoke. Less critical of it, and less harsh towards the way her Master spoke. Staring out into the distance still as her gaze remained unbroken. She wasn't denying what Issar had said, like she normally would. Perhaps it wasn't all on her shoulder but that didn't make it feel any better.

"It might be enough for most right now, but it isn't for me. If it had been anyone else other than her...I wouldn't be here. I'd have been dead, or captured or worse."

That was another thing that was weighing heavily on Reina's mind. She was weak. There was no way she'd have been able to beat Serina. Reina couldn't beat actual Sith. She could beat their students perhaps but...Serina had been way and above so much stronger compared to Reina. She needed to get stronger if she wanted to help Serina. Her connection to the Spirit much get stronger...​

 

[Issar Rae’Velis]

Tag: Reina Daival

Issar remained beside her, the silence between them stretching not uncomfortably, but like a cloak laid carefully over raw skin. When he spoke again, it was softer still, the words turning slowly in his accent as if they had travelled far to reach her.

"There is a story the elders of my world tell," he said, four black eyes half-lowered in thought. "A river once split a mountain in two. The old paths — those carved by the hands and feet of generations — were swept away in a single season. The travellers who came after stood at the broken edge and turned back, mourning what had been lost."

His hands moved with the telling, one palm opening, then shifting sideways like water slipping from stone.

"But one woman stayed. She watched the river, listened to its song. It taught her a new way; slower, rougher, winding through stones and mist. It was not the road she had been promised. It was not the road she had wanted."

Another pause, long enough that the whisper of garden leaves filled the space between them.

"But it led her where she needed to go. A way that belonged to her alone."

He let the words settle before glancing down at Reina, his voice low and even.

"You did not walk the path you hoped to walk. Nor did she. But broken ground does not mean you are lost, Reina. It is simply... as it must be."

And — perhaps for the first time — he let the girl's name pass his lips plainly, without title or formality, the syllables folded gently into the earth around them.

 

[Reina Daival]

Location: Temple Courtyard
Tags: Issar Rae’Velis
Lightsaber - Pequod
Leg - Anchor

Normally Reina would have made some joke about the Elders. Making a comment about how Issar looked like he could be the same age as them, but instead she was just unusually quiet. She turned her gaze back directly ahead of herself, letting her mind swim through all of the thoughts swirling through her head...

Broken ground didn't make sense to her. The idea of having a path blocked to you purely because something fell in the path, or it was washed away. It's why the ocean was so far simpler for transport in her eyes, but she was thinking literally again. Not metaphorically. This wasn't the first time Reina had to change her path. If anything, she had lost count of how many times she had to. Through her own stubborness, through droids or because of other people's stubborrness. None of it was fun. But...she never had a chance to enjoy life. It wasn't something that she saw as fun.

"If it's how it's meant to be, I guess I have less control over my life then I wanted."

She had been so much more...free when she didn't care about people. When she just focused on her own survival and getting through the day. Now that she looked towards the future, she could only feel the chains weighing her down. Yes, she had told Serina that she had taken those chains willingly but...that didn't make them any better.​

 

[Issar Rae’Velis]

Tag: Reina Daival

Issar sat quietly beside her, coiled but grounded, his hands resting upon one another in the center of his lap. He did not speak right away. Silence, again, was not avoidance — it was space. Space for the weight of what Reina had said to settle. And when he did speak, his voice was low and even, shaped by accent, shaped by patience.

"You are correct," he said gently. "We do not have control. Not in the manner we wish. Not in the moments we believe should be ours."

He tilted his head slightly, watching the way the garden’s leaves trembled with a passing wind.

"The Spiral does not move because we command it. It moves because all things are already in motion. It is not weakness to be carried. It is not failure to be redirected."

He paused, then continued, his tone neither consoling nor cold, but simply... true.

"The path does not ask your permission when it shifts beneath you. And yet you walk still."

His gaze, soft but steady, turned toward her.

"You speak of control. But I see something else. I see someone... who did not break when the ground did. Someone who stayed, who felt the weight... and did not run."

One of his hands shifted — not to touch her, but to indicate the garden before them.

"The river may choose your course. But it cannot swim for you."

And with that, he returned to stillness. No answers forced. Just the open space between words, left for her to fill.

 

[Reina Daival]

Location: Temple Courtyard
Tags: Issar Rae’Velis
Lightsaber - Pequod
Leg - Anchor

"How can I run when all paths the Spiral takes will lead me to the same place? Running just means I'll arrive there faster, no matter how much I struggle against the Tide."

Reina had never been a big believer in destiny, but that was slowly starting to change with the more she experienced. She did not have the power to change what she'd experience, to choose what she'd do...and whilst most people in her place might have raged against that idea, wanted to fight against the idea of destiny, she was...content to stay where she was. If she fought against it, she would just be playing into it, the same as if she stayed where she was. And Reina...just didn't have the energy to fight against all of her fate.

"I walk because I have no other choice. If I stay still, I'll drown. There will probably come a day where I drown anyway. Some might say it's inevitable. Perhaps for some people it is. It is most definitely a possibility for me with how I view things."

She reached her hand down to the ground in front of her, gently brushing her hand against the soil in thought. It wasn't to say she didn't wish she could change destiny. Far from it. She wanted to change her destiny, and Serina's destiny. But that was not power she had. And it wasn't power she'd go searching for.​