Makings of a man...

[Julius Sedaire]

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8NmFrRE1qI

It had came down to this, in the end.... Leaving the Clans, and leaving it all behind in wrath and ruin. Still he felt naked without the armor. Cool polished stone lay against the back of his head as he bit the cork on the tihaar bottle and tipped it back, drinking a long swig of desperation from the bottle. A man dying of thirst in the middle of an oasis, as the saying goes. He was trying to fill a hole that nothing could, an aching and gnawing at the bottom of his soul, the black parts of his heart. So long he had labored protecting others, fighting for them and because of them... So long that he scarcely knew what he found important. Who he was. Or what he was even doing.

The liquor felt good, even if half-gone already, and he took another ragged pull, letting out a long and drawn out sigh. He hadn't shaved in a long while, his face scruffed and his eyes bagged and hollowed. This place was sacred to him more than any Temple or Valley or ancient fortress... When he had left the assembled Alor'e, naked as his name day, his first thoughts were of here. Aerin would have known what to do, and what to say to him. She always did, with her gentle touch and way. Coughing, he wiped at his mouth half heartedly, and his arm flopped back to the ground, trailing in the leaves of the disastrously upkept crypt.

"Aerin.... Manda woman, get over here! I need you! I am... I could... I want... Fierfek I don't know anymore... Help..."

 

[Julius Sedaire]

The stone of the crypt wall felt good as he drunkenly tried to stand, slipped, slid down the wall and fell to his feet. Fumbling he managed to keep his bottle from harm, and sighed in relief as he took another swallow, coughing. The room spun in a manner just past pleasant, the sign of too much drinking for one who could but a bantha under in terms of consumption. Discreet though his habit was, it was unavoidable. Even the body switch hadn't dulled the mind-bending ache for liquor. Waking up in the morning required caff, and a bit of tihaar in it to spice the mix and given him a bit of oomph. Often of a night he would drown himself in a whole bottle to forget the memories and stave off dreams of the screams of his wife as a proud Sith Lord drug her onto a ship by her fiery hair.

Things only got worse when [member="Gabriel Sionoma"] had told him of the familial connection. Of the Sith Lord being his Uncle. Of he himself being Ijaats' blood sire. Consumption that had been maintenance veered into binging. Intellect used to create had taken to darker depths, and he had engineered things for the Dread Guard he had done a lot to forget. Indeed, thanks to memory rubs, drug use, and a mountain of empty liquor bottles... Most of his time in the Galactic Alliance was a drunken blur of hazed half-memories. Reluctantly he sat the bottle down and began to stand up with a Herculean effort. The task was far from easy, with the amount of alcohol he had consumed, given the three other empty bottles around him, and other piles of the same in other areas.

How long had he been here, in this place? No way to tell really, he hadn't been keeping track at all. Nor did he much care to think too hard on it. Overall he managed to stand, swaying, and immediately the swaying caused a reaction. With a stumbling step or two he threw open the heavy marble doors and tripped going up the two steps out. Landing on the entry way, he lay on the cold stone, unfeeling and uncaring, blood pooling round his mouth, a tooth hanging loosely from his gums as he fought to control the riot in his gut that was trying to usher forth unto the world. A light rain was drizzling down, falling gently sideways and pittering across his face. Something, somewhere, tickled his brain, but he pushed it aside to groan, and heave up on his elbows.

The battle was lost, and his stomach emptied it's contents onto the boots of a shadowed figure before him in a most unceremonious fashion.