One man's prison, another man's peace.

[Gabriel Sionoma]

Sullust

Early Morning

Solitary Prison cell of Jedi Academy


The silence and his thoughts comforted him, in all his remorse, as he looked out from the translucent shield. Shimmering and blue, he looked over towards the garden biodome of the Jedi Academy. In the distance, he could see the atmosphere of Sullust. It was nothing particularly breath taking, fog and steam rising from the broken crags of black obsidian, the glow of red lava on the horizon. He wasn't able to see the sun but he was sure it lingered there, somewhere behind the wall of lifting smoke and atmosphere thick clouds. Ah, there it is. He smiled as the sunlight shined in wavy curtains across the landscape, a part in the clouds affording just a moment of warmth, before concealing once more. It seemed the world was moving in constant shifting measures, smacking against the biodome with an unpredictability that the former Sith Lord found enjoyment in. Constant entertainment, lazy eyes fixed, as he spent his time in thought.

They hadn't entertained the idea of providing any books for him. He had made one request upon entry, something to pass the time, to set the mind at ease. But the request was made on the back of a disposition with which he was no longer afflicted. It had been so long since he could close his eyes, collect upon his actions, without the musings and taunts of another echoing across the landscape. He didn't need that book anymore, he had a life time of memories with which to acquaint himself. No longer a victim of active memory supression and flash burning, he found a modicum of relief that those people he had killed wouldn't be forgotten. Gifted with the same eidetic memory, he could close his eyes and see the thousands slain, and spend his time asking for forgiveness. They never responded, frozen in time or cemented into their specific roles, but even as he pushed with all his might against stone, he wouldn't stop. He couldn't.

Moving away from the shield, he approached the blackened bars of the cell and placed each hand around a respective pipe. They felt alchemic, specifically put in place to confine the adventurous and capable. He could still sense but he gathered that he would never be able to bend these bars or find their weaknesses. He didn't want to, there was a certainty and ease in this position. Knowing ones place in the world without the mocking and jests in the foreground, the constant jibes about weaknesses and being pathetic. Life without the fear of the blackouts, the loss of control. He felt the burden of self-acknowledgment iron out the crook in his back, the weight of actions a reminder but no longer debilitating. What more could a man do, but admit to his crimes and repent to the end of his days? Would those sneak up on him, here, as he watched the world outside turn? For a moment, he found contentment in that, and placed his chin against the flat cross bar, stretching out his hands to grip vertical bars just outside his shoulders.

Closing his eyes, he listened to the buzz of the shimmer of the force field that stood on the outskirts of his cell. Sparks of white and blue danced across the curved edges like flecks of snow on windy day. One hand lifted away from the bar, scratching the skin on the edges of the control collar, wrapped around his neck.

[member="Chevu Visz"]​

 

[Chevu Visz]

The Sullustan prison might have been far from the One Sith's ruinous march over the Core, but Chevu Visz couldn't help but feel like a fragment of their chaos might be contained within its walls. Behind the alchemized, Force-nullifying bars, Gabriel, the brother of the Wrath of the Dark Lord, enemy of the Light Side, was being held in a cell, a captive of the Galactic Alliance. Unrelenting emotional dissonance churned her stomach. Their night together, which she'd formerly looked back upon fondly, now seemed like a harsh satire. The DNA tests synchronized with his version of the truth that he was the parasite twin of his brother, Reverance, now given a new corporeal form, but strangely, it even seemed dangerous to believe the facts. The Sith would go to great lengths to preserve their hold on the galaxy, twisting biology and science itself to assure their victories over the light.

Refusing to meet the man's gaze as she appeared, Chevu fiddled with the security terminal, barely contained rage in the violent tapping of her fingertips. Turning to the Alliance's prison droids, the Mirialan gave them a stoic command.

"Let me out when I say so."

The door hissed open and she let herself into the lion's den, in her hands was the device that was linked to his collar, the ring around his neck that controlled his neural pathways, rendering him physically helpless with one flick of a switch. As she'd worn a similar type of collar during her time as a Hutt dancer, she held it gingerly, almost as if it were tainted with virulent germs. Her eyes were black lakes as she finally lifted them to him, studying his jutting chin and beveled lips.

"Help me understand what happened on Taris, Gabriel."

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

He didn't expect that. He anticipated that whatever questioning occurred, interrogation if need be, would be done with metal threshold in between. Perhaps that would be the bars in front of him, perhaps that would be the clamps of shackles as he sat quietly. He had known that cold before, he was prepared for it. He wasn't prepared for this, not after all the truth he had told her and Coren and Ijaat. She reminded him of the wound he opened and suddenly he fell victim to the ideology that he was the victim. He clenched his teeth, mentally shaking that stupid idea from his head, as he gripped the bars, watching as she entered. When she finally spoke, it was straight to the point and sharp. Poignant, he couldn't help but look at the metal ceiling. He looked towards the receptors of the shield, powered on hinges, as it sent a beam of energy around the cell.

"I pictured myself on a boat in water. Tied to the mast, unable to impact the winds...unable to change direction." He squinted, he wasn't able to look at her just yet. He needed to get this out. "You were the storm that rocked that boat. The mast broken, I was flung out into those choppy seas." He furrowed his brow. "Now that I am free, I'm floating mercilessly though this tributary, juxtaposed into something alien and narrow. Far more so than what I am accustomed." He turned from the bars. "Ripples, runs, pools, whirlpools. I follow downstream, in the wake of this alliance..." He smiled. "Just trying to keep up, keep from drowning."

He breathed in heavily, the smile turning into something of dread once more. He was fine admitting his wrongs to the ghosts behind his eyelids, they merely responded as they always had. But he couldn't anticipate how Chevu would react to him. In his mind's eye, this could have gone a lot worse. He was thankful for the small miracles, even if they weren't deserved. "What happened on Taris was the utter and complete betrayal of your trust." His right eye twitched, the depth perception so unusual to a man that had once plucked out his own eye. "What happened on Taris was the act of you giving life where none was left." He paused, searching her eyes once more for that spark he had known for one night. "What happened on Taris...was the one bright memory I have in an otherwise sea of darkness, filled with unnecessary cruelty and hate."

He turned back to the bars, lacing his hands through and pressing his forehead against two rods. "But I took that memory on false pretenses...I robbed you of something that wasn't mine to take." Where there was peace, it seemed there was still hurt. The two would go hand over hand..

[member="Chevu Visz"]​

 

[Chevu Visz]

His gaze was dragged to a faraway place as he explained how haunted he was by what transpired. Chevu let the man say his peace without cutting in. If the other Marshals and Commanders knew that she was here, inside Gabriel’s cell instead of outside, they’d likely chastise her. It was a foolish, emotional move, but she didn’t care. She wanted to meet Gabriel as an equal, not as captor and captive. Her fingers twitched with rage, calmed only by her extensive Jedi breath training. There was no saber on her hip, nor a firearm, only that blasted little slab of chrome that could make Gabriel suffer. She not only refused to flick the switch, but wanted to fling it away and then tear off his collar, relieving him of the its degradation.

“I’m going to be called in front of Grand Marshall Rhen and the Order.” she reminded him in a moment of almost childish self pity. “They’ll decide my fate. I’ll probably have my rank of Marshall stripped. Guess I deserve it in a way.”

Chevu recalled how tenderly Gabriel held the dead infant in his hands, so tiny like a piece of rotten fruit. He was so concerned about its burial. Was that all part of his ruse? The Sith Lord had glamoured away his defining physical flaw, the knot of his mangled eye, so there was certainly some form of deceit present. Her stomach turned at the memory.

“When you saw me handing out food...” the Mirialan began, taking deep breaths midway through her thoughts. “Was it he who singled me out? This Wrath? And if so, why?”

Her anger was palpable, but behind her coal eyes there lingered something else. Despite the betrayal, she still desired him. The spark that intertwined their fates, wasn’t gone. It crackled all across her, ready to ignite.'

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

He clenched his teeth, not that she could see it. He didn't hate the idea of her punishment but he grieved for it, the likes of which he couldn't internalize. "The Galactic Alliance would punish the victim. One deliberately deceived by a presence she could not feasibly combat." He turned from the bars, his mental anguish apparent on his face through warm eyes. The likes she had seen on Taris, the likes of which she had seen in the biodome, and now the likes that found comfort in her presence. Whether she was mad or betrayed, he was at ease in her presence. Despite the silver item in her hand. "I can't abide that. If their is suspicion now, even now, that I might be deceiving you all with a concealment of my presence...then that is acceptance that what happened to you was beyond your means. Reverance is that treacherous means."He twitched, fighting back the urge to approach her. "No, you didn't deserve any of this, Chevu." He would happily condemn himself in this moment and the ones that followed, if it meant her not facing that punishment.

But even as he stated that, he couldn't regret what had happened. He regretted the betrayal, he regretted the deceit, but he couldn't hate that memory they shared. And as he came to that conclusion, he walked slowly towards his bed and sat down. The comforter sprung and ached against his weight as lifted his fingers to his mustache. He didn't look towards Chevu, but more looked through her, a thousand miles into the distance. His hand moved to cover his mouth before stroking down his grey beard, inhaling as he prepared to answer her questions. As he did, he smiled, a prominent vein revealed against his forehead. "My heart has ached for Sarah and her mother since that night on Taris. But it wasn't my hands that held that child." He shook his head slowly, squinting his eyes as he recalled it like it was yesterday. "Reverance takes...pleasure in breaking strong things. He saw you as that thing, something filled with hope and kindness and life. And he wanted to take that from you. He had every intent, from the moment of meeting you, of killing you."

He held his head against curved knuckles and mouth, looking down at the floor. "Somewhere between burying Sarah and reading you palm...Reverance found comedy in how much you reminded him of Sylvia." Someone Chevu wasn't aware of yet. Pushing down against the bed, he pushed himself back and rested against the wall. "So he allowed me out and as he suspected, I had long fallen for you. He planned to take control, after, and kill you. He enjoyed the torment. And my hope that he wouldn't, it consumed him. But the fire you spoke of spread and...He never fully gained control again. Which is why I am here now...I was thrown away for fear of the weakness I pressed against him." He cupped his hands in his lap, looking up towards Chevu. "In every respect, you saved my life. The Galactic Alliance shouldn't punish you, they should celebrate you. As I do."

[member="Chevu Visz"]​

 

[Chevu Visz]

Gabriel’s story was astounding, but there was a sort of sincerity in his delivery that touched her, and calmed the stormy sea. He was unguarded and candid, just like the man she’d fallen for on her ship. If his story turned out to be true, and Chevu was beginning to believe it was, how did Gabriel last in such a ditheistic prison, forced to watch his brother commit acts of inhuman depravity and unable to take action? How did it feel to be a helpless parasite to a host such as Reverance, the monstrous Vong King himself? It seemed a fate worse than death to be chained to another’s body, especially one who embodied pure evil. She wanted to drop to her knees beside him and hold him, to kiss him until neither could remember where they were. Instead, she stayed put, like a monument to her own hurt, silent and unmoving except for fingers that absently caressed the control collar’s device.

How could it be that she had this effect on him? She was just a young woman trying to find her way, trying to shove the yoke of the galaxy off the backs of the weak and exploited. She was untested and unwise, especially now that she’d let a Sith Lord into her bed and her body. Another wave of nausea rocked her body, quelled with another deep breath.

Chevu wracked her brain, sifting through recent events to land on their night together, particularly their chat over oysters and mead. She couldn’t recall Gabriel mentioning a Sylvia, but then again the mead was strong. Her brow furrowed. She noted that he used the past tense, ‘reminded.’ Sylvia, whoever she was, was with the Maker now. She furrowed her green brown and asked a simple question.

“Who was Sylvia?”

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

Chevu was in a room with a man who had been stuck in the role of watching for his entire life. And this was the second time he got a hint of something, a wave of malaise wash over her as she attempted to push it away. He held out his hand, gesturing for her to sit down. She didn't seem flushed, she didn't seem chronically fatigued. In fact, quite the opposite. Despite her confusion and anger, she seemed to have a form of glow about her. As she sat down on the bed next to him, he rubbed his beard and exhaled again. "Before you, I lived another life." He started, watching her for reception.

"And before the life you have given me and the purgatory I existed in, I was married. To an Arkanian woman named Sylvia." He stopped abruptly, searching her eyes and presence. He could sense a change in her, one of which she seemed entirely unaware. Holding out his hand, he begged her quietly. "Please don't make me utter my past to you. Instead, let me show you." He smiled, perhaps to conceal how he truly felt. "I'm not sure I could stand to speak it aloud. But I will show you...if you let me."

It wouldn't be the first time that he had given a foreign entity free leave over his past. Despite the good intentions, there was despair and darkness within the recesses of his mind. The sort that would have broken most men. In fact, it did break him but with the release, he was given the clean slate to seek penance. And it would start with the truth. "I will shield you from the unnecessary."

[member="Chevu Visz"]​

 

[Chevu Visz]

Chevu carefully wiped a patch of sweat from her green brown. She wasn't feeling well at all, and Gabe took notice of it, gesturing for her to sit on the prison bench. Wobbly legs gave way as she gratefully slumped over, arms folded over her breasts. Something about her body was off, like a melody slightly out of tune. Behind Gabriel, a few Galactic Alliance guards strode with watchful expressions. She met their gaze with one that said, "I'm ok."

Turning back to him, she listened to him tell her about Slyvia, and as he talked of the Arkanian woman, she couldn't help but imagine Lady Adasca with her porcelain skin and shock of snowy white hair. Adasca was kind to her, but it was always obvious to Chevu that she was a different caste than the noblewoman. As a child Chevu had walked behind her, lifting the ends of her furs to keep them from dragging across the floor. She missed Arkania, but was better off her on Sullust. Now she trailed after no one.

Chevu blinked as she regarded Gabriel's large hand, looking at with knitted brows, it as if it were a strange alien species. She wasn't sure exactly what he was about to do, but she was curious to know his past, to see him for what he truly was, the man inside the monster. She placed her hand in the middle of his, and just like on Taris when she'd given him her palm to read, it rested perfectly in the middle of his.

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

He looked into her eyes, through all the expressions of concern and the look towards the guards. Placing his hand over hers, sandwiching the green hand between his, he exhaled. "To understand, we will go back to the beginning..." He closed his eyes, hers would close in response. There was no name for this ability, no cataloged definition, merely the force and all it's mysteries. An intimacy met with the ability to explain to her, in the only way he knew how, how he come to be the monster everyone knew and hated.

~~~​

​

As she opened her eyes, she would find herself in an operating room. Images blurred but for the child held in the hands of an Arkanian. The silhouette of Gabriel stood close by Chevu, his shade blistering in an unknown wind, very much how she appeared as well. Smiling, he approached the man as the memory seemed to halt in the midst of a storm. The eye. The child was tanned and expressive, physiology more similar to Kiffar then the obvious Arkanian father that held him. As Gabriel attempted to touch the forehead of the child, he locked eyes with the monster on the shoulder. Half head, piercing red eyes, searching the room, hungry. "I was born Gabriel Adasca. As you were told, my family dismissed me from infancy. But it wasn't for the mixing of my genetics as much as what they assumed was the consequence." He smiled, hovering his hand over his own child forehead. "Whom the world now knows as Reverance. A parasitic twin." He turned towards Chevu, scratching the shimmer of his beard, as he would allow her to investigate as she saw fit. The memory was hers to perceive. "Scared for my life, my parents aborted the remnants of the attached fetus but it was too late. Our genes had mixed within the womb, my body nearly consuming his, and our minds overlapped."

The memory would shift away with a pause, sand painting blasted away by shifting winds, to reveal a small child running through a laboratory. Smiling and laughing, he knocked over a piece of equipment, shattering glass across the hard red tiled floor. Gabriel gave Chevu a look before turning back to the memory. "Everything was evidently normal, or so my fathers holo recordings indicated, until around the age of three. He noticed what they assumed where seizures. My earliest memory, not fabricated from old recordings from a hospital, are these moments now." He paused as the memory moved forward, the father picking up the child up and punishing him, the likes of which are blurred and hazy. "I started blacking out and even from a young age, the notes indicated that I spoke of voices. My father assumed he could beat it out of me. And when that didn't work..."

The memory shifted again, unraveling as the fray was pulled from the edges. The memory came from a dull roar as they were rushed into another hospital room, this time a pediatric's psychologist. "They probed me mentally for what felt like an eternity. Now, as I picture it, I realize how brisk it truly was. But they found nothing wrong, physically, and it pushed my father into despair. My mother had long abandoned me and I was left with his cruel embrace." The memory melted back to the laboratory in frame, the image of a child strapped to a chair as the father ran a scalpel through a grinder. Gabriel's face turned to steel as he looked at the image. "He..." His left eye squinted. "...cut me. I was fortunate that he was a doctor. What wounds he inflicted, he could repair, just to do it over again." The image grew hazy, though likely a self censorship in acknowledgment of the brutality. And the sounds of whimpering followed by screaming were dulled to a mute as he clenched his jaw and smiled. "I remember him telling me that we all have demons, some just take more digging." The image faded to a grey as he turned to Chevu. "I didn't meet Sylvia until my late teens...if you are ready, I will show you." He held out his hand for her, they were soon to move ten years through his mind.

[member="Chevu Visz"]​

 

[Chevu Visz]

It jarred Chevu's nerves to open her eyes and suddenly be standing in an operating room in another's memory. As mind Gabriel, appeared beside her, his shadowy presence had a calming, grounding effect. Her own ethereal hand even reached out, black fingers intertwining with his. Although still afraid of the bearded man, her opinion of him still unsorted, she felt safer in the mind space tethered to his hand.

She raised one green hand to her mouth, as she watched his memories play out. The other tightened her grip on his shadow hand. Not only did Chevu watch the events like a Holofilm, but she felt, albeit dimly, the emotions associated with his past, such as the terror of a child as his animal of a father abused him, cutting into him like a lab animal to dissect. It was both abhorrent and mad. It was almost too much to bear, and at one point, she squeezed her eyes shut and covered her face with her hands. Eventually, she forced herself to watch. If he had to endure it, the least she could do was honor him by witnessing the events. As Gabriel picked up on her discomfort, however, the image waned.

They locked eyes and he held his hand out again. She nodded, placing a shadowy hand in his, her features ghostly in the mindscape.

"I'm ready, Gabriel."

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

"Good..." He said with a smile as he reaffirmed her feelings with a clench of his hand around hers. Walking forward, he pulled her as the mind gave them an appropriate illusion for the aspects of such a transition. The memory turned to stars and dim lights, whipping by in hyperspace as the vision tunneled. Gabriel looked up, almost marveled by his mind and the display. It was his own defenses as they attempted to transcend meaningful metaphor, to give visual aid towards the notion of passage through the memory. And as they came to a slow halt, they were standing in snow, a house on the hill. A stone path was lit with light and self warming cobble, melting the ice and forming a path.

He held her hand as he walked up slowly, smoke rising from the stacks. The house was made of stone and quaint foothold, footprints in the snow around the building. Small, child like. "I met Sylvia when I was a teenager. 15, if I recall correctly." He looked back and smiled, fondly remembering it. "I was just starting a new grade of school. I had been given power of attorney over my own well being and the money from my fathers will left me with all I needed to start my own life. She befriended me, treated me kindly when I had never known anything but cruelty. By the age of 25, we were long married and had two children." He approached the door and wiggled the door nob and it swung open, revealing the woman as she let the two kids out to play in the snow. "School was canceled this day...for some reason. I think a shift in curriculum." He stated as he entered the house with Chevu, approaching a cabinet littered with photos. "Tormund and Samson. They were five and three."

He let go of the Mirialan's hand and turned, leaning against the cabinet as he scratched his beard again. "I worked at a factory at that time, though I had received a doctorate in biology. Following in the footsteps of my father." He said as he smiled. "But the blackouts had gotten worse. Hours or even half days were blotted out. I woke up in random places, no recollection of what happened. Until finally something snapped." Just then, the house was smoldering with fire. This memory was so vivid that the warmth of the flames could even be felt. Pressing open the door to his right, he allowed Chevu to lead as he followed. "I hadn't come to just yet in this memory but I have since extracted it." Just then, Chevu could see the solid form of the youthful Gabriel moving from one bed to another, tucking in the corpses of his children. As Gabriel walked past their silhouettes, he exited the front door and came back in, the body of Sylvia in his arms. "Reverance had taken full control and found the most appropriate way to introduce himself. By killing my family." He said as he followed himself into the bedroom, the memory tucking the dead body of his wife into bed. Grabbing Chevu's hand, they followed the ghost of himself out the front door.

"This blackout was different than the others. Reverance had found a way to take control while keeping me conscious. Trapped inside my own body, this would slowly become the norm. Similar to sleep paralysis, never fully awake, never truly asleep." They followed as Gabriel, stripping his clothes from his body, approached the forest line. "I spent a large portion of my life blocking this memory out, unable to accept what I had done. Because, while I knew that Reverance was real, there was always doubt in my mind that somehow, it was just me that night. Wife and children slain by mental sickness." He gripped Chevu's hand, visibly moved by what he was watching. Even though he had obviously accepted what occurred, it was never easy to watch. "I came to, with full control of my body here. And in the fleeting moments of control, I ripped my eye out." The memory went through the motions, blood scattered across the snow and dripping from emptied socket. As his hand lifted to his left eye, he stopped. "I would have taken both, but Reverance stopped me. Humor for the situation soon turned to perception of weakness." He inhaled, their forms more corporeal in this memory. The lucidity of it likely the cause and even in the darkness of the night, Chevu would be able to see the tears form across his lower eye lid.

Pressing his thumb across, he wiped it clear and breathed in, the crackle of the house sending embers into the clear nights sky, as he turned towards Chevu. "Afterwards, I left the planet, escaping custody. And joined a Mercenary force, hiding from what I had done. And with every passing day, I committed acts to appease Reverance, interloped with punitive losses of control. Until the line that separated us ceased to exist. Until I ceased to be in all ways but name."

[member="Chevu Visz"]​

 

[Chevu Visz]

Again, the mindspace shifted into another memory, and Chevu found herself in an almost familiar setting, but not quite, following Gabriel to a quaint cottage on a hill. Its surroundings were blanketed with the powdery Arkanian snow she knew so well from her childhood. With her green hand in his, she followed him through the door as he explained what she was seeing. The house was filled with warmth from the hearth, and within its comforting womb, she met his family: Sylvia, his wife, and Tormund and Samson, his two boys. A feeling of dread crawled through her bloodstream as Gabriel ominously mentioned the beginning of the blackouts. The macabre events that followed were all ones at which Chevu could only stare in horror, squeezing his hand like a vice. The monster consumed him body and soul, and did the unthinkable. Reverence destroyed his family and therefore his life and spurned him into madness and self-mutilation.

Her hand grew clammy in his as he lead her outside of the cabin to watch his memory self strip himself of his clothing and reach up to pluck out his eye like a soft piece of rotten fruit, ripping it from viscera-slicked tendons. Chevu watched in horror, her mouth agape. She turned to Gabriel, watching his eyes grow wet at the memory.

The fog of her hurt began to clear and her gaze grew compassionate. She took both of his hands, and held them in hers. Even in the mindscape, she felt his pulse, warm and alive.

"You were a prisoner in your brother’s body and a victim of his madness.”

Rage flashed in her eyes, her gritted teeth stark white against her green lips as she growled. “Your brother must be destroyed. To let him live after all he’s done to you and to the galaxy, would be a travesty. It’s not the Jedi way to seek vengeance, but I will for you Gabriel.”

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

"No..." He said with a smile, turning his head down just a bit, just to show that he searched her for a purpose, shamed for the implications of this memory. "That's not your burden to carry, Chevu."

~~~​

​

Opening his eyes slowly, he would look into the deep pools of obsidian as he exhaled, taxed by the walk through his memory. It had been a long time since he had shared something like that with anyone. In all it's articulate expression of specific details, Chevu knew the man before her better than any other in the galaxy. That something he had kept hidden for so long was laid bare, he felt a weight lifted from his shoulders. And in the same vein, he felt a pang in his stomach, that the view of him might have changed. That it might have been altered to frame him in a different light. If she was to ever accept him for who he was, she would do so with all the knowledge of his past. Otherwise, the notion was fruitless. And with all the self-acknowledgement and truth, he couldn't muster an existence where she found acceptance in a being that wasn't him entirely. Faults and strengths woven together.

In his hands, hers rested, as he moved his fingers over the knuckle of her thumb. "The path of vengeance treads the line between justice and hate...I didn't show you my memories so that you would hate Reverance. I showed you them so you could see the line between me and him." He said as he looked down at her hand, tonging his cheek. "He does deserve his fate, whatever that may be. A villain can only thrive so long on the edge of the knife...but I can't have that hate weigh down on you. There's enough in the universe already." Smirking slightly, he looked up to her face once more, searching as she came to. "And you don't have any room left in your heart for such things..." He had spent his life supping on the bone thrown from the table, bits and pieces of hate and malice. Gaunt and famished, he had eaten what he was given. Free, he couldn't accept that she would allow such turmoil into her heart. The universe was filled with cruelty and everyone deserved justice. But vengeance was a downward spiral, the sort that one stalls on in attempt to escape. "How could you hate the face he wears and carry anything different for mine?" Inherently selfish, but noble in goal.

​

[member="Chevu Visz"]​

 

[Chevu Visz]

The room swam before her eyes as Chevu came back from the memoryscape. The touch of Gabriel’s hands pulled her back to reality, like gravity. She knew that the Sith possessed powerful arcanity that could alter a person’s mind irreparably, but the memories he showed her seemed to hold weight and veracity. Every voice inside of her screamed at her to let go and trust him, but it didn’t come just yet. Perhaps she could go to the temple library and do some digging, to see if there was an address on file for the Arkanian cabin. When he talked of his brother again, Chevu’s eyes narrowed.

“He deserves worse than death,” she said, looking past Gabriel, past the shield and the bars to some unknown point beyond. It wasn’t the Jedi way to wish for malevolence for a person, but Reverence had chosen to give up his humanity when he subjugated entire sectors of space in the name of the One Sith. He was an abomination to the galaxy and to the Force itself. Maybe Coren had been rubbing off on her more than she’d realized, but she was beginning to seriously doubt the Jedi way would lead to anything but inaction and more death and destruction.

“Don’t worry about me, Gabriel. My heart is strong enough,” she insisted. Behind her eyes, a glimmer of trust had returned. For a moment, she was the unguarded woman who shared her bed with him on Taris, the same who scratched her nails down his back with abandon. He asked her how she could hate his brother’s face, but not his own even though they were virtually the same. She reached a hand towards him, gripping his head to pull it in for a long kiss, unable to resist him any longer.

“I can’t hate his face because it belongs to the one who gave you life and finally freed you. I will make sure I thank him for that. Right before my saber stops his heart."

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

He was taken back by the pull of his face, given the circumstance. He had just admitted to the sins of his past, shown his true actions to this woman whom he betrayed. They were in a prison cell of his own volition and she was soon to be on trial for her conduct with him. And despite all the warning signs that told him to not follow through, he couldn't offer any resistance. The kiss was just as he remembered the first kiss in the alley way, the accidental embrace that started the chain reaction. Closing his eyes, he tasted the sweetness and warmth of her touch now. Like warm honey.

"I know your heart is strong, Chevu. I've known it's presence and I've missed its comfort..."

His hand drifted idle past her forearm, the embrace that he couldn't control. It's intent to drift to the small of her back, to pull her close and know that warmth once more. To put his cheek against her neck, to feel her heart once more. But where it landed was on the flat stomach as he blinked, immersed into the presence that lied beneath. Like staring into a vast ocean, or something that would become an ocean soon enough. A dimpled planet standing on the precipice of a great storm, the sort that could change lives. Or at the very least, change his.

Looking down at his hand, he blinked slowly, recalling the waves of fatigue and the sudden sense of nausea and vertigo she displayed. Despite their fleeting moments of touch, he felt in tune with her. Especially since she walked through his mind, a link formed where the shadow of one once existed. Solid now.

"...have you been feeling sick lately? Nauseous, tired and fatigued?" Even without being a force sensitive, he was practiced in anatomy and medical services. At least, he was in another life. And what he felt now was that fire she spoke of before, the starting embers of something more.

[member="Chevu Visz"]​

 

[Chevu Visz]

The embrace would be short lived until the rest of the Alliance trusted him, so Chevu savored the warm protectiveness of Gabriel's hands as they wandered. One snaked around to rest at the small of her back, the other he put on her stomach. She straightened her back and looked at him, puzzled. Was there something else that she needed to know about Gabriel? Some other bombshell still yet to be dropped? Underneath her breath, almost afraid to ask the question out loud, she whispered.

"What is it?"

There was a spark of something in his face. Curiosity? Wonder? Whatever it was, it was too enigmatic to be read. Blinking fiercely, he asked her if she'd been feeling nauseous and fatigued.

"Yes, I have," she told him, brows knitting. She'd figured it was stress. All of the Alliance came back from Coruscant rattled and haunted by what they'd seen. Comrades cut down by the One Sith and trapped under fallen temple stones, only to become part of the ozymandian ruins of a forgotten era.

"Why?"

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

The realization hit him like a pile of bricks. Since his first moment of leaving Reverance, he had not lost the capacity for speech. Thoughtful in his words, he was always able to land on solid footing, no matter the shaky introduction. But here, he was speechless. Recalling their moments together, Gabriel knew that he was her first. And given the short amount of time that occurred between Taris and now, he could only assume that he was at fault. But it was a blame he would gladly accept with no remorse or regret or second guessing.

Running his hand down her stomach, lifting it again, he repeated the process as he studied her. Obviously speechless, his aura reflected a level of shock mixed with elation, as he looked her in the eyes.

"I..." He held his hand over his mouth, hand drifting back down her stomach. His eyes following. His finger pressed against her, caressing softly, as his eyes moved back to lock with hers. Obviously move, he smiled. "I think you're pregnant." Her level of shock, he assumed, would be substantial, and he did the first thing that came to mind. Leaning forward, he placed his forehead against her neck, resting his weight against her as he rotated his ear to her collarbone . His hand remained, for the whole time, on the small of her back, as the other looked to interlock with her hands.

[member="Chevu Visz"]

 

[Chevu Visz]

Breathe, Chevu, breathe. She had to order herself to gather the air into her lungs after Gabriel's announcement. As soon as he said it, she felt it too, a very dim stirring in the Force, a scintilla of foreign energy, a signature that wasn't hers lingering inside her body. She must have been much too preoccupied to sense it before. Chevu took his hand, and stared deeply into his honey brown eyes.

Her thoughts raced at comet-speed, all culminating in a hum of static. Gabriel rested his head against her neck, and she ran her fingers through his grey, brown locks, clutching at his head too ferociously, her pulse racing. Her hand gripped his like a vice. Once she had grounded herself against him, the shock of the revelation gave way to words.

"I- I am much too young to be a mother, Gabriel."

She was glad that he couldn't see her face because she had no idea if she looked happy or terrified.

[member="The Revenant"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

He lifted his head from her neck and pulled his hand from her back. Her expression was simply one of shock, a mix of emotions that were difficult to place. He recalled Sylvia again and why Chevu reminded him so much of her. Gabriel would always love his former wife, recalling her fondly. But with every expression Chevu made, every decision, he slowly understood how she endeared herself so quickly to him. There was an age disparity in whatever this relationship was and for the life of him, he couldn't seem to care.

"When Sylvia found out she was pregnant, she was 20. And she said the same thing then, she didn't believe she was ready." He placed a thumb on the tattoos beneath her left eye. "When Tormund was born, she had no more doubt. And I see that strength in you now, the certainty that despite the shock you feel now...you will make a wonderful mother." He smiled, hand falling to her jaw. He was certain of his words, there was no room for him to be wrong. "The way you cared for Sarah, even though she wasn't yours to care for. You have a mother's instinct and a never ending capacity to care for others."

He couldn't help it, he pulled her to him, kissing her softly. "And I'll be here for everything...If you decide to keep me around." He smiled sympathetically, wrapping his arms around her as he planted another kiss on her head.

[member="Chevu Visz"]

 

[Chevu Visz]

Chevu had no atlas for her predicament, one which sounded almost preposterous if you said it aloud. She'd slept with a Sith Lord whose brother was trapped inside of him and eventually transferred into a cloned body. Now she was pregnant with his child. She wouldn't have believed it if it weren't happening to her. Questions scratched at the back of her mind. If Gabriel took over Reverance's body that night on Taris, just whose child was it anyway? Gabriel's or Reverance's? And if it was Reverance's, would the Wrath seek her out, wanting to lay claim to his spawn and the possible heir to whatever abominable legacy left?

Her head began to spin, and she used Gabriel's words to ground her again. His insistence that she would make a wonderful mother wasn't something she was sure she agreed with, but it kept the panic at bay. To give her child what she herself had lost so early on, that would be quite something. The harsh downturn of her lips softened and she smiled at him.

"Perhaps," she said, tracing a green finger along her belly. Chevu let herself be wrapped up in Gabriel's arms, indulging in his warmth and safety as she buried her face against him. She lay kisses along his neck and then rested her head on his shoulder, just listening to him breathe for a few minutes. Finally, her voice echoed through the cell, her tone regretful.

"I should go. Otherwise, they'll start assuming that something is wrong."

[member="The Revenant"]