Private Like Poetry, It Rhymes

[Briana Sal-Soren]

The instructions from her brother had been explicit, just as much as they were cryptic.

Come alone, trust no one. If anyone asks where you're heading, lie.

And that'd been the entirety of it, with no further messages after she tried to ask more questions, and pressed for additional details. Just silence. Something that was becoming an increasingly common occurrence. Again.

By the time she reached the coordinates he'd sent her, the silence had settled into something heavier than irritation, and Briana, seated alone inside the dimly lit waiting bay, spun lazily in the one good chair she'd found bolted to the floor. Around and around. The repetitive motion gave her body something to do while her mind chased increasingly unpleasant possibilities.

The station had been abandoned long enough that some elements of nature had begun the natural process of slipping through the cracks to reclaim the space once more. Vines crept through fractures in the ceiling panels, thin tendrils dangling between rusted support beams. Moss grew in damp corners. A row of ticket kiosks stood silent along the far wall, their displays black beneath a thick layer of dust, potentially mold. Nearby, an open maintenance panel exposed bundles of severed wiring.

Briana breathed in the deep scent of vegetation musk and looked down at her chrono for the hundredth time, checking her comms for good measure to see if she'd missed any new alerts. There was nothing, of course, but she opened the thread anyway to gaze at the last two messages she'd sent him.

"Are you in some kind of trouble?"
"I'm here, where are you?"

Bastila had explained some of Brandyn's struggles before she'd left, and like the imp she was, even offered to send her along with a tracking device to help find him more easily. It'd seemed absurd at the time, so she'd refused - not yet desperate enough to cross that boundary unless her hand was forced. But the minute hand continued to ticked by, and doubt around her choices crept inside.

Closing her eyes, she drew in a slow breath through her nose and held it until the pressure in her chest steadied, forcing the anxious rhythm of her body to answer to her discipline. There were other ways to search for him, truer ways.

Like casting a wide net at sea to catch fish, the Force was sent outwards at her command.

The bond between her and Brandyn never felt entirely natural, no matter how many times she tried to accept it as part of herself. It was unlike any of the natural bonds she chose, their dyad always existing beneath everything else like its own kind of gravity. Beyond anything that words could adequately capture. Most days, she experienced it only in glimpses, a sudden pull beneath her thoughts, an echo of a feeling that did not belong to her, the faint awareness of another presence moving somewhere beyond sight, yet never entirely beyond reach.

It didn't take long to find him. It never did when she searched this way.

Relief arrived so quickly that she almost laughed at every ugly possibility she'd constructed over the last hour. He wasn't dead, missing, or trapped somewhere beyond her reach. He was close enough that, when her eyes opened, she could see the glint off his lightsaber swinging at his hip and caught his familiar gait.

Abandoning the chair she'd been using to occupy herself, Briana rose to her feet and moved to greet him. "Took you long enough," she admonished lightly. "Did a Nexu catch you in its teeth, or something? Keep you from being unable to answer a simple message?"

TAG: Brandyn Sal-Soren

​

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Tag: Briana Sal-Soren
Attire: Link​

"I do not have the answers you seek," said the Umbaran in a refined, educated speech though it was ragged at its edges.

Silence was the response. The shadow across the room simply watched. The Umbaran was bleeding from a cut under both of his eyes. The sight gave him a weeping appearance, as dark red streaks ran down his chiseled features, lingered at his jaw before forming droplets and dripping upon his muddied lab coat.

"I only worked on the Netherworld project for a month...when I learned the extent they were going to i escaped..."

The desperation in the Umbaran's voice had been increasing with every lingering, unresponsive minute. The shadow just watched. The Umbaran's fear grew. And rightly it should, for the shadow understood the truth...the Umbaran was lying.

"Doctor Tavlen Runo. Chief Scientist of Midichlorian Replication Division." The voice was controlled, near monotone, save for the pained end of the sentence.

From the corner of the room, a data card came flying through the air, landing face up at the feet of the Umbaran scientist. The holo on the card was clearly of the scientist, his name and role clearly written in aurabesh.

The already pale face of the Umbaran drained of colour.

"Zeltron female infant. Human male infant. Test subjects. I know you harvested from them."

"I swear. When the lab closed—nothing like it reopened—I swear—the Unblessed—the funding dried up—there are rumours—but I have not been contacted directly—I swear—"

The shadow moved. The Umbaran flinched, eyes closing to what would come. And then, a moment later...he opened his eyes to an empty room.

─── ❖ ─── ✦ ─── ❖ ─── ✦ ─── ❖ ───​

His pace was unrushed. Briana had been here for a while. He could feel her presence, but withheld his until he was much closer. Still, things would have slipped through. He knew well that the dyad made hiding from her completely near impossible. But some privacy could be maintained, so she at least would not know what happened in the shadows.

"I was busy," he said simply to her query. No humour. No sarcasm. Very not-Brandyn.

He was far from home. The abandoned base had become something of a home away from home. It was a place he despised, though necessity and secrecy drove him to its use. He understood the Unblessed's decision to make use of the space in their early years. It was still so unwelcoming, not even scavengers found their way here.

Hands clasped behind his back, Brandyn came to a parade rest some few paces from his sister. She looked well. That was enough for him to be satisfied that formalities would be purely formality.

"Thank you for coming," he turned on his heels as he spoke, "this was one of the New Way bases...long before their rebrand. I have been trying to access their computer system...yesterday, I was successful. I wanted you to be the first to see what I found."

He was already halfway towards the far left side, and his head spun back. "Right this way."

Stepping over a large cluster of tangled vines, Brandyn ducked through a hole that was really a half opened blast door, and into a dimly lit conference room. A small console of controls sat before him, and his fingers danced across them as though he had performed the specific action a hundred times already. In truth...it was more.

The room filled with blue light as a holo image. Brandyn turned back to face his sister. It may have only then be noticeable how much the son had grown to look like his father, as the holographic image of Baros Sal-Soren hovered over Brandyn's right shoulder.

"Dad has something to say."

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

"This is the Merchant. To whom am I speaking?"

The flickering image of her father came to life, and the minute that old, authoritative cadence came through, the one he rarely used unless he wanted to grab your attention, Briana felt herself transported through the years and back to her childhood. It struck the reflexive part of her that knew that tone meant she needed to obey and listen. Relaxing her shoulders, Briana did her best to shake it off, passing a questioning glance towards her brother before her eyes fixed on the projection in full, on what might have been one of the last recordings of her father while he was still alive.

---

The responding voice failed to come through, which she doubted was a coincidence, given the people he was wrapped up with. But, whomever it was, she could tell from her father's expression alone that he wasn't impressed with the answer the person on the other side had given him.

"And you know who I am?"

-----

"I am requesting the exact coordinates of your facility. I would like to come and see the work for myself."

-----

The frustration in his voice became harder and sharper, the corner of his lip twitching in a sure fire sign that his patience was being pressed to its limits. "And who authorized that?"

-----

His expression hardened perceptibly, "Tell me, what is the nature of your research?"

-----

The silence on the other end stretched for a long time, as Briana watched his shoulders become tighter and eyes simmer with barely controlled anger. Briana could count the times he'd ever crossed over into fury on one hand, and remember each of them with uncomfortable clarity. "Tell me what you are doing there."

-----

He let out a long, long breath, mumbling something that sounded like remorse, "First Coruscant...now this."


-----Transmission ends.

"Where did you get this?" The answer was unimportant, nor was it the question she'd actually wanted to ask, but it was the only one that came out of her as her mind attempted to process the information she'd been given. "I don't understand, Brandyn." The recording and the way it was presented, left her flustered, having not expected unanswered questions from their past be unceremoniously dredged up from the inky nether. Hell, she hadn't known what to expect, but it wasn't seeing a recording of their father from beyond the grave, speaking with what sounded like a modicum of regret. She raked a hand through her hair as she looked from the dead projection and back to her brother, whose behavior and presence since he arrived, was a fully different beast to dissect.

"Why are you here at an old New Way base, rifling through things? Bastila told me you were looking for Gianna."

The New Way and whatever had crawled out of its corpse was gone now, too. They'd made sure of that when they rescued Lossa and Blaire's children, when they closed the Netherworld and were forced to leave Kahne behind. "Why did you leave me sitting here for over an hour, to show me this?"

Tag: Brandyn Sal-Soren

​

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Tag: Briana Sal-Soren
Attire: Link​

The frozen image of Baros hovered above the projector, casting pale blue light across the ruined conference room. It caught in the cracks running through the walls and traced the edges of vines that had spent years reclaiming the station from its builders. Dust drifted lazily through the hologram's glow. The entire place felt suspended between past and present, as though disturbing the old systems had awakened something that should have remained buried.

"I was busy." The response came without apology or elaboration. Whatever had occupied him clearly remained more important than the hour Briana had spent waiting. His attention lingered on the projection a moment longer before he slowly turned away from it, his hands settling behind his back.

He froze. His fingers twitched against his wrists, locking into a posture that felt uncomfortably, terrifyingly familiar. He didn't just remember it; he felt it. A phantom weight pressing on his shoulders, forcing his spine straight. He had seen their father stand exactly like that a thousand times. Now, it felt less like a habit and more like an echo forcing its way through his own skin. "Bastila told you I was looking for Gianna."

His gaze drifted across the room, following the fractured walls and exposed conduits. The New Way had collapsed. The Netherworld facility had been destroyed. The Unblessed had scattered into the dark. Yet every step he took, every path he chose, felt predetermined. Like an invisible hand was gently but firmly nudging him down a corridor only one other man had ever walked. "She wasn't wrong. That's the goal." His voice remained level, but a frantic, breathless weariness bled through the edges.

"I keep finding pieces. Impossible pieces," he whispered, his eyes widening slightly as he looked at the air between them, rather than at her.

"Names in records that shouldn't have existed. Financial transfers hidden beneath layers of shell organizations. Personnel files. Facilities. Research divisions. Do you really think it's a coincidence, Briana? Every lead I chased looking for Gianna eventually curved back toward the same people. I didn't find them by accident. I was led here. He left breadcrumbs in the code. I can feel him...pulling the strings from wherever he is now."

"I still hate the guy." Brandyn shook his head slowly as his eyes settled on the image of Baros once more. "But it is...strange to know...he was not entirely evil. You know?"

A fragile, desperate hope flickered in his eyes, a thin veil over a deeper fracturing he couldn't quite hide. He rubbed at his temples, his breath coming just a fraction too fast.

"I don't even know if this recording is important," he admitted at last, his voice dropping into a hollow, rapid cadence. "Maybe it isn't. But he was hunting the same people that I am now."

The words lingered in the stale air between them. The words themselves seemed suffocating.

"Every step I take is one that he has taken already. It feels like...Dad is taking me to Gianna."

It sounded crazy. It sounded like a man grasping at fraying straws in the dark, but in his state...that desperate delusion was all he had left to keep from falling apart.

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

The blue light cut sharp lines across Brandyn’s face, and for a terrifying, breathless second, Briana didn't see her brother at all. She saw a phantom, a carbon copy of Baros Sal-Soren. It sent a cold prickle of adrenaline down her spine, a primal reflex from a childhood spent carefully watching that exact silhouette.

She'd wanted to be just like him, to inherit that ability to flawlessly command a room just by stepping into it, to strike fear and respect into others by presence alone. After everything came out, she'd done everything she could to try to claw anything resembling her father out of her own bones, just so she wouldn't look in a mirror and see a monster looking back.

To see that reflection blooming inside her brother, made the galaxy feel as though it was tilting.

Through their dyad, the pain only deepened. This close in proximity to one another, it was harder to hide his mind, feeling it bleeding into hers with the frantic, high-pitched hum of a man running on the absolute fumes of exhaustion.

He was not entirely evil.

Her eyes flickered at that, and her brows drew in as she deliberately crossed the floor to break the line of sight between him and the projector, throwing her own shadow over the pale blue image of their father. Reaching out, she placed a hand against his arm to further anchor him in what was real.

"Brandyn, listen to me." Her blue eyes searched his face, looking past their father for her brother. "He isn't pulling strings from the nether, and he isn't guiding you, he couldn't be. If it seems like there are breadcrumbs in the code...then it's because he left a colossal mess behind."

She gave his arm a reaffirming squeeze. "What proof do you actually have that any of these files are leading to Gianna? We made sure the New Way and Unblessed were gone, and even if someone was still playing with these old scraps, why would they take her? To what end?"

TAG: Brandyn Sal-Soren

​

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Tag: Briana Sal-Soren
Attire: Link​

Her shadow fell over him. As it always had. For a moment, Brandyn considered pulling away from her. It was a reaction so baked into his being that it felt the natural response. But he was trying to be better. He was trying.

But the questions. The doubts. That was something entirely unacceptable.

His arm pulled from her reassuring grip with a jerk. "What do mean?" He said, eye narrowing while the sickly yellow prosthetic eye seemed to flicker.

"The proof is in our past, Briana." He was already turning his back on her, pacing away, hand nervously brushing his hair back.

"Zeriana...Baryn..." He turned back, imploring her to believe the lie he had sold himself. "...the Unblessed are like a weed, Bri."

His eye brightened, and a step forward in realisation. "Back home...at the Shore...there was this one Carom root that I just could not get rid of. No matter how deep I dug...it would always regrow...it would always come back to the surface. I dug, oh gods...five...six meters down...but the tap root was still there...a thin strand that refused to go away."

His hands remained outstretched in the last gesture of his expressive illustration, as if beckoning her to join him. "They are still there. In the elite Force-haters of the Aegis Galacticus. Within the Imperial Remnant...I have even heard rumours of something Wild Space."

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

Briana was quiet, but her eyes spoke volumes as she watched him, grief flickering there. She knew what it felt like to be lost. When grief tore through her own life, she'd weaponized her pain, throwing herself headfirst into harm's way and coming within an inch of dying more times than she cared to admit. She'd called it duty, but everyone knew she was drowning, that it was just a slow, reckless way of running from the agony.

"Brandyn..." She said on a breath out, her voice soft. She was unsure if it was wise to humor what'd clearly become an obsession, fearing it might be enabling a suicide run. But, if she tried to pull rank, or lectured him like an older sister, she feared that the door between them might slam shut.

She shook her head and said nothing more, following after him. How did one pull another back from the edge when you remembered so vividly how much you wanted to jump? Her thoughts drifted back to Vizion Trozky , and how patient he'd been with her those many agonizing months. When she'd just needed someone to be there with her. He hadn't tried to force her back to sanity or cure her grief, at first; he'd simply been there with her when she needed someone to hold her through the eye of the storm and be her anchor.

Maybe that was what Brandyn needed. Not for her to fix this right now, or debate his reality, or prove he was chasing phantoms.

Maybe he just needed his sister to walk into the dark beside him so he wouldn't have to face it alone — just like she'd done when they were kids, and she'd chased after him to join the Jedi.

"So," she offered softly, testing the silence with something grounded, something safe. "Maybe once we wrap this up, we could go back home for a couple of days. Get some real food into you, rest up... and, ya know...we sit down and figure out a plan together. Check in on Cybelle?"

TAG: Brandyn Sal-Soren

​

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Tag: Briana Sal-Soren
Attire: Link​

"You don't believe me," he said. His tongue nested in his cheek. It was better to bite it than to say what he felt. At least until it passed. The anger.

"I spoke with Cybelle yesterday. She is well." He had turned away from her, and moved to shut down the holoprojector. It was clear, in that moment, that he had pocketed the security device. Perhaps it could be used to enlighten his other siblings.

The room went dark. Before eyes could adjust, he was already pushing past Briana and out into the cargo bay. "Thanks for coming, Briana," he called back, "sorry that it was for nothing."

He had no intent of leaving, not until he had the information that he had come for. The prisoner in the other room wouldn't interrogate themselves.

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

​

His shoulder brushed against hers as he passed, his anger seeping through their dyad like heat seeped beneath a closed door. Coupled with the cold and distant way he said her name....

Not Bri.

Briana.

She should have turned around; the easier thing at that point would’ve been to let him walk away. To return to her ship and tell Bastila that Brandyn needed time. Instead, her mouth set into a hard and determined line, her steps becoming heavy as she stomp-jogged behind him to keep up.

"Don’t you try to thank me like I’m some stranger you’ve finished speaking with,” she said, all of the previous softness leaving her voice.

“If you want my help, then let me help. If you only brought me here because you expected me to confirm everything you already believe, while looking half out of your mind, then maybe you should’ve asked someone else to come!"

She trailed him like a Vornskr tracking its prey, careful to step over any thick vines that’d forced through the floor plating, never letting Brandyn move beyond her line of sight.

"And where the hell are you going, anyways?!"

Why was he dragging them further into the station, towards another section of the old facility, when the way out was behind them?

"I was busy."

Another living presence flickered somewhere nearby, half-smothered beneath fear. Pain clung to its edges, immediate enough that Briana knew it wasn’t merely a scar left behind by the Force, which wouldn't have been out of the question, given the nature of what this facility was. No, someone was here. Someone who’d been close while she waited, too busy worrying about Brandyn and occupied by her father’s holo recording to previously notice.

She felt a coldness seep into her.

"Who else is here, Brandyn?"

TAG: Brandyn Sal-Soren

​

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Tag: Briana Sal-Soren
Attire: Link​

"I brought you here because I wanted you to help me!" He shot back.

He didn't just hear her question. He felt it. Through the dyad, her silent judgment hit him, a wave of pity and horror that shattered his fragile control. She looked at him and saw a madman.

Turning on his heel, he stalked back, his face tight with a bitter, ugly energy. "Where have you been?!" he demanded, wiping his mouth with a ragged, greasy sleeve. "You tell me I'm wrong. You look at me from the comfort of your life and do nothing."

He backed away, just out of her reach, his shoulders heaving as he fought for air. The grief that broke through his voice was a tormented, inglorious wail. "My baby girl is gone. When it happened to Blaire, I gave my life to finding Baryn. When it happened to Lossa, I gave my life to finding Zeriana. The happiest days of my miserable life were spent chasing clues."

He stopped, his breathing heavy in the dead air of the corridor. He didn't yell this time. The next words were cold, and designed to cut.

"And you have been planning your wedding."

He didn't look at her to see if the blow landed. He didn't answer the question about the prisoner, either.

"My methods are my own," he murmured. "You don't get a say."

Brandyn stepped through the doorway and flicked a switch on the portable power pack. The rusted circuits groaned, and the heavy blast door slammed down between them, cutting off the conversation.

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

Briana practically blanched at Brandyn, her eyes wide and mouth hanging loose at the sheer level of his audacity, lips and mind unable to work fast enough to formulate a retaliatory response before the blast doors slammed shut between them.

For one suspended heartbeat, Briana stood motionless, feeling the flood of his bewildering conviction fill every hollowed out nook and cranny left within her. The belief that she'd been comfortable while he suffered, abandoning him to build a life for herself, while his and Cybelle's lives were hollowed out by Gianna’s absence. She pressed a hand against her sternum and closed her eyes to try and settle herself, taking several steadying breaths against the onslaught of grief that began to twist through her.

Had she not come when he called? Followed every ridiculous instruction he gave her without complaint, in the middle of her own problems? Yet the dyad insisted upon a different reality, one soaked in sheer anguish and resentment, and she could not immediately tell whether the shame belonged entirely to Brandyn, or whether he'd merely dragged to the surface something that she already carried.

Briana opened her eyes and locked onto the door again, grinding her teeth together.

It might have been wiser to wait until the emotional bleed subsided. To give Brandyn time to cool down before either of them said something that could not be taken back.

But she'd never been particularly good at leaving well enough alone.

“And you don’t get to decide when I’m finished being your sister,” she said to herself, lightsaber snapping into her hand at will. The white blade ignited with a sharp hiss, Briana deliberately stepping toward the control panel where she drove the weapon through its center. Sparks spat across her arm as the casing collapsed inward, dragging the blade downward until the circuitry went dark and the metal surrounding it glowed orange.

Nothing budged.

Swallowing her frustration, Briana extinguished the blade and returned the hilt to her belt, resolved to try and tackle this one other way.

Reaching through the Force, she felt for the locking mechanism buried deep inside the mass of the door. Her fingers curled into a tight fist as she seized it, pulling until the lock cricked and cracked like breaking bone. Slowly, the bottom of the door lifted, metal shrieking against metal as Briana forced it higher, refusing to yield when the old mechanism fought against her. Then, with one final, wrenching surge of telekinetic power, she hoisted the door just high enough to slip underneath and charged for her brother.

“If you need to be angry with me, then fine be angry! I can handle it!" She screeched, grabbing Brandyn by the shoulder once she was close enough and spinning him around, forcing him into a crushing hug, not yet paying attention to their surroundings. "But don't you ever think that I'm going to walk away from you, or that you can push me away like that. I'm not going anywhere!"

TAG: Brandyn Sal-Soren
​

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Tag: Briana Sal-Soren
Attire: Link​

Rigid as she hugged him, Brandyn did not move. He did not speak. A few meters away the prisoner looked on with confusion, but also a moment of hope.

"Hey! You! Jedi...please...let me out..." The man's words were cut off immediately with the convulsing of his body as electricity passed through from the collar around his neck.

Brandyn, while pocketing the device that silenced his captor, moved to push Briana back the way she had come. Shoves with his shoulder, hands grappling to prevent her from getting around him. He knew it was all a fool's errand but he endeavoured to remove her before she could see too much.

The man she would see was dishevelled. Eyes blood shot. Face gaunt and hollowed from lack of sleep and food. And there was blood. Whose blood, or if it was the man's, it was hard to tell. But it was dried, crusted around his neck and across his shirt.

"Just leave, Bri," Brandyn said.

She couldn't understand.

All his happiness. All his love. All his dreams. All and more were bound up in the child he had felt grow within his beloved. Through the Force, he had known his child before she had been born. Sensed her Sal-Soren sense of her humour. Her Elyance loyalty. The impishness of Bast. The defiance of Bri. The devotion of Blaire. And her father's longing for heroism and purpose.

Brandyn would stop at nothing to give Gianna a true hope of happiness. And anything to ensure Cybelle held her baby again.

"You can't understand this..."

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

One moment, she was struggling against Brandyn’s attempts to force her from the room. The next, she finally heard the voice, saw the slab. Her mind whirred to process the scene. The restraints. The blood crusted around the stranger’s neck and the collar biting into the ruined skin beneath it.

"I was busy."

Recognition struck with a sickening, stomach-churning clarity all at once, laying bare the true meaning behind his words.

She should have recognized the signs the moment she got here, should have felt the warnings the Force was screaming in her mind. She’d seen Brandyn like this once before, shortly after their parents died, when he hunted down and killed that New Way scientist under the guise of delivering his own brand of justice, even though she knew it was really his way of assuaging his own guilt in what'd happened to their family. She'd been too late to stop him then, naive in the hope that her brother’s humanity would pull him back from the edge if she only tried to reason with him, and appeal to his better senses.

She wouldn't be making that same mistake, twice.

"I'm doing this for your own good." The words barely left her lips before a concussive burst of Force energy detonated against Brandyn’s gut, carrying enough power to wrench him away from her and send him flying across the full breadth of the room.

Briana walked to where Brandyn landed, igniting the white blade of her lightsaber and holding the tip of it out at his face, heart hammering wildly inside of her chest. "Release him from his restraints, and give me the remote for his collar."

TAG: Brandyn Sal-Soren

​

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Tag: Briana Sal-Soren
Attire: Link​

He should have seen it coming. But before he realised that Briana was doing what Briana did, he was already colliding with the wall. A sharp crack rung out as his head hit the wall. And for a moment...everything went dark.

Seconds later, Brandyn came too. The first thing he saw was the blur of white light that was his sister's lightsaber. "That...really hurt," he muttered, though with no hint of humour.

Her demand was heard, and understood. But not as loudly as her fear was heard through the dyad. "What are you going to do, Bri?"

He tried to stand, but in so doing he stumbled catching the tip of her blade on his shoulder — though only cutting through his clothing.

"Chit...Bri...put that thing away..."

A few blinks did only a little to alleviate the swirling environment. Hand reaching behind his head, Brandyn felt the warm stickiness of blood running down the back of his neck.

Her brother looked up to her — in truth, he always had, even if only reluctantly — and narrowed his eyes. "Are you going to kill me, Briana?"

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

The white blade hummed, casting a stark, bright light in the otherwise grim tableau of the ruined room. The moment he tried to get up, Briana eased a step back, attempting give him more space, though she hadn't moved fast enough as he stumbled forward, catching the tip of her blade.

Briana’s breath hitched, heart violently slamming against her ribs as her own panic flared hot, fully expected him to swing back, to summon the Force or strike out with the desperate fury of a man who'd been backed into a corner.

"Chit...Bri...put that thing away..."

He'd said, Briana watching him crumple inward, clutching his head as blood seeped from the wound at the back of it. Her eyes went wide in response, as if only now registering how hard she'd hit him. And when he finally looked up at her, she no longer saw the whisper of their father lingering there, but her brother. The same brother who'd once held her hand and soothed her whenever she was afraid, even during the times when she'd been too proud to admit that she needed comforting — the one who always managed to balance her worst impulses. For as much as they fought, he'd always understood her, best of all.

The white blade trembled in her grasp and she swallowed hard. She'd never felt so uncertain with a weapon in her hand, not since the very first time she'd picked one up and been charged with the burden to stand against the dark side, in all its forms. Every fiber of her being, every instinct within her, told her to lower the blade fixed on Brandyn. “Let him go and give me the device.” Briana repeated, holding out her other hand to him.

It'd been meant to sound like an order, but her voice cracked, and even she could hear how weak it sounded.

"Are you going to kill me, Briana?"

The question was obscene. Absurd. Like all of this had been. The very implication broke her heart. But yet, there she was, standing over one of the people she loved most in the galaxy, weapon drawn, out of love as much as fear. Fear that she'd lose him this time, fear that she needed to keep him from destroying the last remaining pieces of his soul. She felt her vision swim, blurring with unshed tears. "How could you even ask me that?"

Sniffling hard, Briana disengaged her blade. The sudden absence of its hum leaving the space of the room feeling unnaturally still. She pressed the back of her hand over her mouth, before dragging her palm across her eyes.

“You need to let him go.” Her voice was quieter now, but no less insistent. "You can't become this again. You know where this leads, Bran. And what will I tell your daughter then, after you find her, when she's older and I have to explain why you're sitting in a prison cell? The Republic won't be as lenient as the Alliance was." Her head moved with a weary shake, clipping the hilt back onto her belt.

Almost immediately, a prolonged vibration thrummed against her hip, her communicator flaring to life. Glancing down, Briana grabbed the device and flipped open the screen, blue eyes fixing on the screen as the message filtered through.

“The Vanguard is moving to stop a Sith attack against the Republic.” She still couldn’t bring herself to meet her brother’s eyes. “Lorn wants us to regroup with the others. Now.”

Briana drew in a long, unsteady breath. “Once you let him go, I’ll clean up here and catch up with you. I’m sending the coordinates to your ship now.”

Her thumbs moved swiftly across the screen.

The first message she sent, however, wasn’t to Brandyn.

TAG: Brandyn Sal-Soren , Vizion Trozky
​

 

[Vizion Trozky]

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
ABOARD A REPUBLIC SHIP

​

For the first time since the crawl of recent weeks, the feeling of low-grade frustration that’d settled into him had a partner: unease. He knew what was in the box that'd loaded onto the Grace of Theed with them. He knew why he was here in this ship with it, rather than far away and anywhere else, why it was him more than anyone else on the Jedi High Council.

Of everyone, he was the only Jedi left who hadn’t sided with the dissenters, who’d also been near it on the day it was retrieved. He knew the feel of it, or rather, the lack. He’d know when it was working, therefore. It’d set him on edge that day; the mere fact that it was here, restrained and full of potential, did the same. As it had with every little exploration of its capabilities that they’d summoned him for, months before.

It wasn’t fear that made him uneasy. He didn’t fear it. It was the feeling that most of the galaxy would call normal… it was uncomfortable to say the least.

A buzz of vibration pulsed through the datapad in his hands, drawing his attention away from presence of the box, elsewhere on the ship. He brought up the message, revealing its de-encrypted contents. And the sender.

His fingers curled around the edges of the ‘pad as he read:

Spoiler: Message

Republic Archives

Node 00 • Internal Storage

Archive Display

Node 00 • Internal Storage • Active

Record Identification

File

JAR-0669-D

Author

Briana Sal-Soren

Classification

High-Level Encrypted

Recorded

Today

Impending Attack

Intel Report

Hey, I’m sorry, but I need to keep this brief.

The Vanguard has intercepted intel, and is gathering to head off a Sith attack against the Republic. Time is short. I’ve attached the coordinates to this message.

I hate sleeping alone. Miss you.

Archive Synchronised

Republic Instrument Works
Archival Terminal
Model IV
Serial RIW-382-0417

His brows pulled together, frustration at the lack of contact, the lack of her presence these many weeks twisting within him, rising in his throat, but he swallowed it down and forced himself not to dwell on it, and instead opened the coordinates to display in the map program that was loaded into the ‘pad. He waited with near-impatience as it parsed the many planets, until it triangulated, with finality, onto just one.

His eyes went wide.

“Shit.”

Brandyn Sal-Soren • Briana Sal-Soren​

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Tag: Briana Sal-Soren
Attire: Link​

"Let him go and give me the device."

A second attempt was made to get up, this time far more successful. His head was still spinning, but he was starting to gain some focus — the anger helped. "No. No, I don't think I will..."

The look on her face would have made him soften in years gone by. But the warm, sticky blood on the back of his neck was not putting him in the mood for sympathy.

"How could you even ask me that?"

"You threw me across the room and drew your saber on me, dumbass!" Brandyn said, showing her the blood on his hand after checking the back of his head again.

His hand moved, casually pushing her saber aside with the Force — there wasn't much resistance given her emotional state. "A Jedi is only supposed to draw their blade if they are prepared to use it..."

"You need to let him go. You can't become this again. You know where this leads, Bran. And what will I tell your daughter then, after you find her, when she's older and I have to explain why you're sitting in a prison cell? The Republic won't be as lenient as the Alliance was."
He stalked past her, pulling the device to hand again and tapping at the controls. The prisoner convulsed again. "He doesn't deserve your sympathy, Briana..." He yelled, spittle flying from his mouth in a moment of frustrated rage. "...he was the one that took receipt of Zeriana when she was kidnapped...he oversaw the sample...the blood samples...from your nephew..."

Something in the room shifted with the arrival of the message. Brandyn felt it — a ripple in the Force. It was a darkness to which he could not deny its allure.

"The Vanguard is moving to stop a Sith attack against the Republic. Lorn wants us to regroup with the others. Now."

She wouldn't look at him, because she knew Brandyn was right.

"Once you let him go, I'll clean up here and catch up with you. I'm sending the coordinates to your ship now."

"You don't call the shots here, Briana..."

He didn't budge.

"...just walk away. I will come and help the Republic."

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

"He doesn't deserve your sympathy, Briana..." He yelled, spittle flying from his mouth in a moment of frustrated rage. "...he was the one that took receipt of Zeriana when she was kidnapped...he oversaw the sample...the blood samples...from your nephew..."

Briana remained silent, her stomach churning at the charges Brandyn laid against the man; when he administered another electric shock, she looked away, struggling to filter out the rage screaming at her through their dyad, its cold fury rivaling the chills spreading from the base of her spine.

When the screaming finally stopped, she continued to say nothing, only shaking her head in what seemed to be a mixture of sheer disappointment, and disgust. Plucking her communicator back into her hands, Briana's thumbs moved rapidly across the screen, routing an anonymous emergency alert to the local authorities through several encrypted relays.

“Local authorities should be on their way shortly," Briana said, raising her eyes from the screen and holding it up as proof. “I gave them both of your descriptions and told them there was an armed Force-user torturing a restrained man. I didn’t give them your name, but I gave them enough to identify you if you’re still here when they arrive.”

She chewed the inside of her cheek, and stared at him, torn between remaining to see this through, to make sure he made the right choice, and answering the urgent call that'd come through from Lorn.

“After Astor died, when I was spiraling, you helped pull me out of it. You told me things that hurt, but that didn’t make them any less true.” Her voice softened. “I came here to do the same for you, Brandyn. You’re my brother, and I love you... but I don’t recognize who you are right now.”

She turned toward the exit, but gave one last passing glance over her shoulder.

“You’d better get out of here. And I’d leave him alive if I were you. They know what condition he’s in. If they arrive and find a body, you’ll have a murder charge and a bounty attached to the description I gave them.”

Without waiting for his answer, she started back toward her ship.

TAG: Brandyn Sal-Soren

​