Private Rise and Start Again

[Amea Virou]

Her vision blurred, the pain overwhelmed her. A palpable sense of horror fell upon Amea as she grasped at her chest to try and hold off the sharp pain that seemingly threatened to tear straight through her heart. Something was very wrong but the cause of it was lost on her.

Her legs grew weaker with each heartbeat, every single pulse sending her further and further down towards the ground. She tried to keep herself from the floor but it didn't seem to do much. As her eyes stared into the mirror to seek any form of visual clues as to what going on there was nothing to find beyond the darkness that slowly infringed upon the periphery of her vision. Consciousness became an all too difficult concept to hold onto. With her hand extended towards the ceiling she sought the help of someone, anyone that was around, but it was all in vain before the soft thud of her body collapsing on the ground echoed across her mind and the world turned to black.

There was no-one there to find her. An uneasy rest found her and before she knew it Amea had found herself being a captive to her own mind. Before her stood nothing more than a blossoming cherry tree that ultimately told her nothing. In her blissful ignorance there was little she could do but stare at it and seek an answer that she would never find.

Had this mattered to her at some point? Why would she see this now? … Was she the daughter of a tree? What was the meaning of all this?

A brief eternity passed before a dull pain slowly began to creep along the side of her head. It was soon followed by a sharp, painful beeping noise that began to pull Amea back from her state of paradoxical state of non-existence into something that at the very least resembled consciousness. As her eyes slowly opened she found herself lying flat on the floor that she would almost instinctively understand to be the ever familiar sight of her very own bathroom. Her cheek had planted itself firmly against the metal paneling on the floor and with a weak push she got herself into a seated position against the nearby wall.

The beeping on her arm kept shrieking with harsh insistence until Amea, after enough pained groans and complaints, Amea slowly raised the projector before her to check what the commotion was. The brightness of the screen pierced her eyes, caused them to almost bleed as her brain screamed in agony. But as her vision cleared and the screen shifted from a blurred mess into something more legible she would see it. Thirteen unread messages from Loske. Spread across six hours.

Amea’s index finger and thumb began to gently rub against her eyes to wake herself up before she pushed her hand against her knee to let herself get back on her feet again. With a hazy look in the mirror she brought herself back into the game as her fingers gently tapped against her chin to twist her head from side to side and inspect the damage she had suffered. A bruise had blossomed across the side of her face with a menacing yellow-black sting.

A long sigh parted her lips. It wasn't an unfamiliar look, but the means of how she got it certainly was. Resigning herself to fate, Amea began to actually read the messages that Loske had sent. Though worried at first, it seemed that Loske unlike Amea seemed to understrand the root of the situation. Amea sure as hell wasn’t about to say no to the answers if Loske thought she had them. With a quick swipe at the hologram she sent the reply back:

“See you at your place. Be there in two days.”​

A message that was then quickly followed by a second.

“Oh and yeah, I am okay. Thanks for worrying.”​

——————————

Rest didn’t come easy in the days that passed in transit. There was an undeniable weight which was gone from her, and yet at the same time a clear void had taken shape where it had once been. By the time Amea stepped into the elevator leading up to Loske’s apartment she was a mess. Her hair was disheveled, the bags under her eyes unmistakable for anything other than a lack of sleep. The questions had kept her up for the better part of the entire trip as the worry caused her to twist and turn in a struggle to find comfort.

Her index finger pressed firmly against the control panel for the elevator and was subsequently followed by a dozen more in rapid succession before Amea smashed her fist against it in panic. Her nerves had begun to tangle. The questions she had scared her even if they were questions she knew that she had needed to ask from the start. Once upon a time they had been something she considered entirely optional, but this sort of pain was not natural.

What once was a terrifying potentiality had now turned into a mandatory reality check. Without knocking on the door or ringing the bell, Amea forced the door open and stepped into her friend’s apartment. The heavy footfalls of her boots spread across the apartment with a clear tell of her arrival.

“Loske?” She shouted to announce her presence. “... Loske!”

Amea collapsed onto her friend’s couch with an uneasy sigh. The usual comfort she had felt in this place wasn’t there and she sat back up again to quickly fidget with her hair. First she tucked it back behind her ear before she pulled it out again. She stood up from the couch to drag a hand through it all with a shake before she let. Her nails scraped against the surface of her teeth with an insistent grind. Amea’s eyes began to wander in a search for her friend as Amea faced down the end of something she had never known to exist.

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Borosk, not unlike Muunilinst, had been fuel for nightmares. Whispers that lingered far after they were spoken.

Several battles later, the war’s erosion was wearing on her. She thought she’d been tough. Had all the answers. Been able to talk Ryv and Maynard out of their crippling mental states when verily, she’d been masquerading out of naivety. Now it was she who was wading through ghosts. Other’s doubts were beginning to influence hers.

She’d felt the termination of the K’paur link between Allyson and formerly Kaili. The moments leading up to it had been so painstakingly heartbreaking that she’d had to step away from Ryv’s bedside and sort through the emotions. It hadn’t been unlike the impact Cedric’d had on her when he’d cut their link, but it was more as though she were an unwanted voyeur this time. Not at the end of the line. Distantly punished for the role of an observer. She had a recessive inclination that the thought process building up to the decision was gutturally painful. Allyson had wanted to end it all. Eliminate the shadows of the past. Starting with the Talith girl. Loske hadn’t known who would be the outcome of the pinching vibrations, but it was a foreboding sensation that actualized in a knowing gasp at the time.

The hospital hadn’t been thrilled that Loske was trying to send communications out from the patient’s bedside, otherwise, Amea would have woken up to more than thirteen missed messages.

The jury was still out on how she felt about Allyson. Betrayed, certainly. Protective over the Alliance and Ryv , but also so much of her latched onto that final plea she’d heard from the Corellian in her head. The last words from Allyson Locke.

I'm scared.
Am I the enemy?
Help Me.

Apart from the heavy footfalls, Loske felt the anxiety of her friend as soon as she walked into the apartment, and she met her own gaze in the mirror’s reflection. For the past hour or so, she’d been rehearsing how to talk to Amea about this. How to talk about Kaili to Amea. How to...how to not completely break Amea’s brain but every time she started a sentence and tried to unravel the complexity that was her friend’s life, her head hurt. She wasn’t sure how she was going to do this tactfully, but she needed to know what was going on, or did she? Amea had said she was alright, not hurt, but..ugh. She ran her hands down her face, cursing herself for daring to think she had the responsibility and requirement to finally try and piece together the gaps of the SpacerTrash’s life.

When she heard her name called, Loske and her reflection resolved that they’d only go as far as Amea Virou was willing to.

Truthfully, she’d had to think about the location for a bit. The apartment hadn’t seen its owner in months. Partly because of the war, the other part a result of her and Maynard choosing to live together, rather than splitting time between spaces. Cost-effectiveness the smallest fraction of the overall decision. Besides, maybe by the end of this Amea’s recall that it had originally been partly her advice to not be so stationary.

That was a conversation for later..probably. It'd be really deft of Loske to start out on that foot, and as tone deaf as she might have been sometimes she wasn't that obtuse.

Maybe get your own personal landing pad and a bigger ship. Allows for mobility and lets you get out of there when things start to blow up.”

Loske emerged from the bathroom, wedging her pointer finger between her teeth for a second while appraising the state of the woman on her couch. Skipping the salutations, she delved straight into it: “You’re okay, for sure?”

Looking Amea in the eyes felt invasive and vulnerable, and she chewed the inside of her cheek while she crossed the distance between them and plunked down on the couch adjacent to the other girl, tucking her heels beneath herself. “This is probably...uhh,” she looked skyward, blessed with the blankness of the ceiling. The statement remained inconclusive. She had no idea how this was.

There was an irony to be found in the girl who’d not been able to distinguish her memories from her donor’s almost five years ago, was the same one who was the memory keeper for her dearest friends. Even when they lost each other. “Two days ago, I felt you get hurt.” She reached from her position to hover the palm of her hand near the bruise on Amea’s face. It had started to fade, but there’d apparently been some sort of physical reaction to the mental intrusion.

“You said you were okay, but..what did it feel like?”

Allyson, on the other end of the line, was killing herself by killing everything else about her.

"Because.." she withdrew her hand from her guest's immediate proximity. Fingers found each other in her lap and fiddled with each other. "When it happened to me, I couldn't breathe. The first time, with my old Master it...it was really painful." The whole introduction to the concept was completely vague and only moderately analogous, but she wanted to test the waters of awareness before diving in completely.

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

“I hit my head when I collapsed.” Amea admitted with an unusually meek whisper. “I don’t know how it happened. One moment I was washing up for the day, and the next I felt as—”

Something caused her to hesitate. Amea’s lower lip began to tremble, her chest pain as each passing breath seemed more difficult than the last to suck in. Her brown eyes set on the ground with a solemn, distant stare as she tried to wrap her mind around it much like she had in the last few hours. A nausea set itself in her throat, her heart seemingly slowing down for each passing beat.

“I don’t know.” She said rather plainly and slowly shook her head. “Before I passed out I felt like I had been shot through the heart. It wasn’t a slow and gradual thing either. One moment I was fine, and in the very next I felt nothing but extreme pain, like if someone just tore away part of the heart that still beat against my chest.”

Her hands grasped at the side of her head to try and stabilize the world, but there just wasn’t any peace to be found. Amea was stuck in a whirlwind left by the void that had taken shape at her very center of being. It must have been something that had been buried away, or that had always been there up until it quite simply wasn’t there anymore.

“I have no idea what happened.” Amea whimpered against the growing panic. “I had a vision of a cherry tree, a big blossoming cherry tree in the midst of a dark void. There was a forest, burnt to the ground all around me except for this one tree. Pink petals had scattered around me. The ground had the markings of someone else who had already been there but gone away.”

“Who—” Amea’s heart cramped again as if she was terrified of the answer. She wanted to ask but her mind held her back. “What—”

It pained her again. Amea let her head sink deeper into the palms of her hands as they slowly moved to cover her entire face.

“You said you had an idea of what was happening.” Her voice muffled under her hands before they fell down into her lap and Amea threw herself back into the back of the couch. The panic began to kick into full gear, Amea's breaths grew more and more ragged for each one that passed. “I can’t breathe.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

"Like if someone just tore away part of the heart that still beat against my chest.”

It was worse than what she'd felt when Cedric had terminated their connection. Before that visceral uprooting of their connection, Loske had made a conscious decision to enact on a desire that had long dwelled in her heart. The clemency that had come with that fruition as a result had triggered his absolution. Her heart hadn't belonged to him for a long while, thus the severance was painful, but not unexpected.

For Amea, she'd never consciously chosen to abandon Allyson, or remove her from holding her heart, or make any other action against the other woman. She'd been completely blindsided, losing the trust she didn't even know she had within her. Lips curled deeply, pulling the edges of her mouth down in a concerned frown.

Loske listened intently as her friend walked through the events that had affected her and dedicated herself to follow her through it, leaning in.

“I had a vision of a cherry tree, a big blossoming cherry tree in the midst of a dark void. There was a forest, burnt to the ground all around me except for this one tree. Pink petals had scattered around me. The ground had the markings of someone else who had already been there but gone away.”

Closing her eyes, she nodded along, following the words. It was a poetic illustration that starkly painted the juxtaposition of life and death. Flames scorching the earth and eating up the cultivated trees. The concept of a tree resonated with her, if only from the one buried within the Greyall on Ruusan. An epicentre of The Force. Loske drew artistic parallels between the trees and the bonds Allyson had, connections within that same representation of the ethereal. And then there was one, a cherry blossom. Typically a symbol of beauty and renewal. Footprints of someone who’d shared the space with her. The opportunity of renewal snuffed out with the pink petals of the stretched branches. The seeds of rejuvenation terminated with an annihilistic, metaphysical chainsaw.

Questions started, and Loske’s eyes snapped open to assess her friend’s condition. She pushed herself from the couch, crossing to the kitchen and going through the actions of getting a bulb, filling it, and handing the glass of water to her friend as a method to ground her.

“I think I do. I wish I didn’t, but..I uh, this has a lot to do with your past. The one you forgot. I know that you’re happy as who you are now, and you don’t have to know the whole picture, I only know portions of it, honestly, but..that’s what this is all about.

Someone you were very close to, when you were not Amea, has terminated the memory of you forever.”

She exhaled, and sat down again. "How much do you want to know?"

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

This was the second time that the past had come back to haunt her. The first one had led to all of the circumstances that even placed her in this very room, but beyond that there had been nothing. At first she had worried about how many more she had left in a state similar to that of Loske, but it was quickly starting to fade given the time between then and now. That made it a solid few months of Amea not knowing a thing and never even having been reminded beyond what she had been told by Loske. As much as Amea had no desire to learn of what she might have lost, now was the best time to ask.

Those brown eyes remained focused on the floor before they slowly rose up to meet with Loske’s. It didn’t take a bond to figure out that the questions she needed to ask scared her, and yet Amea gave it a shot regardless. Her mouth opened with a tremble, her breathing keeping her from uttering a single word before she closed it again and closed her eyes with a quick shake of her head.

“I…” She started. “Had someone close to me?”

The thought caused her to seize up and freeze. The panic thickened with yet another layer of worry that seemed to have all but confirmed what Amea had feared from the start. Had she left someone behind? Hell, was her name even Amea? Her eyes set on the floor as she tried to process the questions and formulate a follow up that made any kind of sense.

“Have—” Air was difficult to keep in. “Have I met her?” She exhaled. “Him?”

It was hard to remain still in her seat. Amea shuffled, twisted and turned as she tried to calm the hell down but there was nothing.

“Is my name even Amea? What is—” She cramped up. “No. Don’t— Just, their name. Have I met them? Does she know who— that I don’t know who I am?”

“Were we still… Close?”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

"Yes." Was all Loske said, validating that there was someone in the past, but how many had been left behind would continue to be an enigma. Loske couldn't imagine losing everyone she loved. Her relationships were everything to her, the premiere of her existence. Any sort of rehabilitation to memory loss, she'd want to cling to the people that made her who she was. She was an entirely different person, far more ignorant and less whole without them, Maynard especially. And in the comparison drawn, he was the most poignant parallel she could draw to what Amea was going through. If she lost him to the shadows of oblivion credited to amnesia, she was sure she'd spend the rest of her life in a constant cycle of being in the wrong place, with the wrong person, if not by his side. If she never saw his face, never met him, she'd always be searching for that one reason. Certain that in whatever state of mind there'd be a vacancy.

Her gut knotted.

"Does it matter if you've met again?" Wouldn't that expose the mental wound further, peeling back parts that could remain at rest? There was no irritation, but she itched distractedly at her ankle anyway. Amea Virou and Allyson Locke had met on Caamas. Amea hadn't known, and Allyson hadn't known. With some strange perversion of fate, only Loske had been aware of the two women and their relationship with one another. She'd kept her lips sealed; the secrets of the others were not hers to tell. It had been difficult and she was more than happy to focus on ripping and tearing through the Field of Blades rather than awkwardly poised between the two.

Taking a moment to sort through the delicateness of the situation, she avoided Amea's searching gaze. Her expression was vacant -- reflecting on the last time Loske had confronted Allyson about Kaili.

This conversation would likely drip on, being that the Kiffar was cautious to blurt out any information that wouldn't be conducive to the ultimate goal of satiating curiosity. There was no point in introducing any more hurt.

"She only knows that you're happy now. Without her. She doesn't know that your former self doesn't uhm...exist. You had a weird break up. Memory loss isn't unique to you, I'm afraid.

I'll give you a quick overview." She drew her pointer fingers upward, scrunching them to indicate that they were animated representations of people; knocking them against one another and drawing them out. "You and her were together." She intwined her fingers. "Then, something happened, and she lost her memory." The fingers separated. "You tried to help her through it, she forgot who you were and she left.

You were really sad. Then you forgot who you, and she was, and now you're happy. So I've left all this alone so you can just...be you. Enjoy your life.

Recently though, she remembered who you were, in the past, and apologized for abandoning you. I think there were parts of her that would always love you, which is why, two days ago, she had to let you go. The...former you."

It was hard to speak so vaugely without names and references. The Amea of yore wasn't Amea, she was Kaili.

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

Her hands dug through the bangs of her hair to pull at them with a gentle squeeze. She once had someone close then. Amea’s eyes closed to shield herself from the pain but found that shoulders weighed down regardless. So, did it matter if they had met again?

“Suppose not.” Amea admitted with a sniffle. The situation was still too much and the news that she was hearing of, despite the clarity it offered, caused her stomach to retch yet again. It was as if irony had decided to twist the dagger yet again with a back and forth of amnesia. Amea’s eyes rose yet again to meet with Loske’s. She seemed sincere, and if so, it would seem that whoever Amea was before all of this had lived a far more complicated life than Amea would have expected.

Then again, she really didn’t know what she had expected either.

“So, then there is no-one waiting at a figurative home.” Amea said with yet another whimper. “In a strange way that’s kind of comforting too.”

She could have asked about family, but that was most definitely something Amea wouldn’t want to find. If the reaction Loske had displayed made Amea feel bad, then she truly dreaded what a heartbroken parent would look like. The image she had in her head was easier to live with, and in many ways she preferred to keep it that way.

“Did something happen to her?” Amea asked as her mood seemed to stabilize for just the tiniest amount. “How… Do you know all of this?”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Amea’s mental struggle was not lost on Loske. Her friend wanted to shut out everything that was historically her. But the door she was trying so hard to keep closed forced a crack of openness that let glimpses of the past shine through. Which put part of the burden on Loske to try and figure out how to keep the hinges from falling off.

Whether or not Amea’s family was waiting for her was unknown. Micah had been a mess the last time she and Kaili had met up, Aela didn’t seem the type to wait for anyone and the parents.. well. They had their hands full of stress from Micah that Loske supposed they were busy enough with the heir and the spare that they’d give Kaili free reign to live however she wanted.

Even if it wasn’t Kaili.

Either way, her homestead wasn’t empty. They just weren’t pining. Nevertheless, she bit her tongue from saying anything further on the subject — if the idea that she’d left nothing behind was comforting, then Amea could drape herself in that blanket. Even if it was foolish.

She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around the spacer’s shoulders, gripping her in a tight hug that was supposed to be equal parts reassuring and silencing. Amea looked as though she may cry, and the thinness of her voice betrayed any listless expression she was trying to showcase. After a one-two pat on the back, she recoiled back to the original spot.

“I don’t know exactly. I just know she almost died once.. at a battle over Bespin. That’s when she lost her memory.”

How did she know all this?

“Because you’re both my friends. You both told me.. a lot of things. And it really sucks that my picture of both of you is more complete than anything either of you have now. It’s just..” she leaned back, exhaling heavily while she deftly felt around the back of the couch. “Wrong.

I know nothing is fair, really, but this is a big pile of not fair.”

Swiftly, she maneuvered from getting dragged under to that line of thinking. “That’s also how I knew something happened to you. The proverbial she I’m talking about was a K’Paur. A species that form intense bonds with people they love. Friends or otherwise.

What you felt was a termination of that bond. And because I have one too, I felt a fraction of what happened."

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

Bespin. Amea seemed to freeze in place, her eyes vacant yet again as pieces of the puzzle slowly clicked into place. One of the few things she remembered from that one night on Bespin, the very earliest memory that she could ever recall, was that she had been trying to forget something. If she had lost someone over Bespin then it made sense that the night had felt like such a pain to endure up until the point that she had received company.

The panicked breathing seemed to calm just the slightest. Amea turned her head to look at Loske with a shiver to her. It was evident in the way she breathed, the way she couldn’t lift her hand to prevent it from showing.

“I…” Amea stammered. “I remember remembering that.”

Her stare grew distant again. “I tried to drown myself in drink that night, and… I think I did. Something about being on Bespin had made me pent up, on edge. If I had lost someone in space above Bespin that would make sense.” And she hadn’t told Loske about it either, to her knowledge, so the fact that it was a coincidence was too good to not be true. “I spoke to a woman, we… I think we talked about what had happened, but that’s where the holes start to pop up. Her name was… Rek-... Ruh-... Rachel? I think?”

“I’m sorry that you got stuck in the middle of this, Loske.” Amea said and placed a shaky hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Truly, I am. I— I can try to make it up to you, somehow. I don’t know how, but I will.”

The tremors from her hand wouldn’t be calmed, the comfort of actual contact for once made it hard to move. Amea tried, but it just wouldn’t lift.

“I— I can try to find these answers myself. You don’t need to answer anything, there has to be someone else out there, right?” Amea swallowed, hard. “Like another friend or— apprentice, or something?”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

There was a glimmer of hope that sparkled in Loske’s eyes when Amea Virou had a finger-snapping moment of recollection. It soured quickly, and that sparkle faded to a glaze. The bottom of a bottle held no answers for the forgotten woman. Bespin had been a tragedy for Kaili Talith on cataclysmic levels. Not only for Allyson’s one-time death, but the explosion ripping her brother apart and fusing him with an affliction he still bore.

Her own hand slipped up to cover the back of the one on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “I didn’t say that to make you feel bad for me. It’s just the way things are right now. It’s incomplete and...it sucks for you too.

You don’t have anything to make up for. You were and are a good friend, there’s no penance for accidents.

I’m..it’s okay to keep answering questions. I don’t have all the answers. The part I struggle with the most is how much you want to know, and if it’s truly worth you figuring it all out or not. You deserve to be happy, and if you can live knowing that there are parts you’ve forgotten, that’s okay for me. I just..I don’t want to be the one that hurts you because I know more about you than you do.” The following string was stammered out more bashfully than the others, deciding entirely to be vulnerable with the situation and how uncomfortable it made her. Wrestling with partial truths was strenuous.

“Y’know? Does that make sense?”

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

“I know. It’s just—” Amea exhaled. “I feel like with everything going on I should at least be aware of why or who. Someone I loved or who loved me just cut me off and I have no idea why. Something that had always sort of been with me has now been torn away, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“I don’t like not knowing the exact cause of something when I can still feel the clear effects of it. Like a sickness I can’t cure, or an internal wound that keeps bleeding.” It seemed Amea would calm down piece for piece, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with. “On one hand I want to let it go, but at the same time I feel like I shouldn’t. Like I should at least pay respect to whoever I was before all of this.”

“Yet, you yourself have already said that I am so different from who I used to be.” Amea swallowed yet again and shook her head, the burn in her eyes forcing her eyes shut. “I want to try and make the most of not knowing. Even if that ignorant bliss is selfish, I don’t think I could stand seeing the look in my mother’s eyes when she realizes that I don’t even know who she is. And that’s assuming she is even alive.”

“Siblings, parents, close ones…” Amea shook her head. “Alive, or dead, or estranged... I feel lucky that the only connection I’ve re-established has been the one to grant me the most stability. A sort of anchor against who I could become.”

Amea’s eyes opened to look into Loske’s yet again.

“And in truth, I don’t know that I need more. I don’t want more, but some part of me just… Feels like I owe it to everyone else who knew me.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

“I know why. And it has nothing to do with you. Well, maybe a little bit, but not in the sense that you have to feel responsible or anything.” Her tone became hot, and her tongue felt like sandpaper with the frustration she felt toward the compromised spy. She’d put so much at risk, foolishly, and it seemed like she didn’t even know why. For happiness? Loske would support her friends if they wanted happiness -–– but Allyson had that here. In the Alliance and with all the friends she’d surrounded herself with. Or hadn’t it been enough?

“She tore you away because she doesn’t want to feel responsible for the past anymore. So she can focus on a future away from everyone. A clean slate, so to speak. At least, that’s what I think.” That’s all she could assume, based on the contents of the diary Allyson had left behind.

By the end of it, she didn’t realize she’d clenched her hands into tightly curled fists.

She stood up, pacing away from the couch to look out the window. A steady stream of vehicles raced by. Behind them, a giant sign that rotated through different adverts. None of them attractive, the fonts prioritizing legibility over aesthetic. It was an informative sign, but she couldn’t wait to not look at it anymore. In the pane, she could make out the faint reflection of herself.

Most of her pretty was buried beneath the grime of responsibility and exhaustion. Her skin fairer than usual, concealed within a cockpit or beneath armour so light couldn’t touch it. The bags under her eyes looked like bruisings, her having evaded sleep for too long. It was probably unlikely, but she even felt like the waves of her hair were heavier and straighter than usual. Absently, she looked down at the ends that feathered over her shoulder and on her chest with a frown of consideration. Usually lucent and glowing, she looked as dimmed as she felt.

Loske’s brow lowered and her mouth rose, squeezing her face into something smaller and thoughtful. As usual, her expressions were raw replications of her internalizations.

Amea Virou ’s tone was surprisingly soft, and she turned from looking out the window and at her own outline, back to Amea. Was Loske that anchor? Allyson had called Loske an anchor too...but was she stalwart enough to keep everyone tied down against the currents? A small, wan smile twitched against her lips. It fluttered briefly, before drawing back into a thin line. Resolve making her nerves feel tense.

“You don’t have to go hunting for answers.”

It took her a few moments to realize how much she could associate with Amea in this moment.

“Your numbers didn’t change when you did. If people from your past want to connect with you, they can.” She whirled on her heel, propping her fists against her hips. It was a combative suggestion, and she couldn’t stop talking now. Even if it didn’t make sense.

“I know what it’s like not to have the whole picture.

Most of my memories, even when we first met years ago, were falsified. I kept running into people that said I felt like someone they knew. I felt familiar. Or they told me I had The Force, even though then I had no idea. There was nothing I could do with it. So all I did was deny these people.

Do you know how creepy that is? To have someone suggest you imprint on them without knowing who they are? And they think maybe they know you? It’s scary, and you feel like there are expectations you have to meet. But the truth is, you don’t. You have nothing to prove. You don’t have anything to respect if nobody’s tried to return the favour.

I only went back to try and get memories and understanding of who I was when I was ready to use that information to move forward. To unlock potential or whatever. It was all in the timing.

So I guess, what I’m saying is… if people want to be in your life, they’ll find a way. And until then, you don’t need the past to carve out your future. And if you do, it’ll find it’s way to weave into your timeline. Like now.

If this is the catalyst to you retracing your steps, you should know why you want to do it. And what you want out of it.

Inviting people back into your life could be a permanent thing. Whether or not you want it.”

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

There was something that burned beneath the surface of the skin, right below Amea’s eyes. Her shaky breaths grew longer and acquired a stutter before she threw herself at the mercy of her friend, arms wrapped around Loske’s back in a tight hug as the dam finally burst. Her fingers dug into the blonde’s shoulders as the torrent of emotion that Amea had held back throughout their conversation finally burst through the cracks in the dam.

It was all true what she said. If people had wanted to reach Amea they could have done so easily. If she had been meant to meet someone from the past she would have. Her encounter with Loske had proven to be something as close to a fated meeting as Amea could have imagined. Friends before and friends after. Her family might not have been close, but she had the chance to make a new one. It didn’t make it all hurt any less, but it was the truth nonetheless.

“Thank you.” Amea sobbed most ungracefully into her friend’s shoulder. “I needed that.”

She refused to let the blonde go, at least for the moment.

“Who I was doesn’t matter if nobody has cared enough to bring it back.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Amea Virou 's curt interpretation of Loske's soapbox was..pretty to the point. Though her paraphrasing made the sentiment sound a bit bitchier than she'd meant it to come out. Regardless, it seemed to land.

It's not that Loske wasn't used to hugging. She was categorically a hugger -- but Amea was usually rigid and uncomfortable, and always only the receiver. A woman who exhibited stoic indifference in all her personalities but especially this one.

"Y..you did?" She stammered, lifting her hands to pat-pat on Amea's shoulders before she got over the initial shock of the clutch and reciprocated with equal strength to entrench the tomb raider in comfort. "Yeah, I suppose you did."

She could appreciate not knowing. She'd made such a decision not long ago. Retracting her steps had only gone sofar as to validate that she had the Force. Not where it stopped. Not where she blacked out. Not the ugliness, cruelty, and devastation that had caused her to lose all sense of self and reason and turn into nothing but devastation. That was why, unbeknownst to her, she couldn't tap into the full injections of her coding; Vaapad. In the larger scheme of things, it was trivial. But to the chemists who'd designed her, it had been devastating. Worthy of decommissioning the weapon. Thankfully, they'd prevailed beyond such absolute decisions.

"I love you Amea, and I really don't want to see you hurt." For a Jedi that wasn't supposed to feel any attachments, she had many. Amea. Maynard. Ryv. Allyson. The girl was a walking blonde compromise.

"I guess whatever you need, I'll try and help with. But I'm not the be all end all, that's..ultimately on you." She pulled away finally, though with some reluctantly and a final squish.

"Also, if you need a place to stay, you can hang around here for as long as you like. Or well, as long as the market likes I guess." Loske touched her upper arm, giving it a rub in the absence of the hug. "I'm selling it which will uh, put a bit of a cramp on sleepovers."

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

On the surface it might have seemed as if Amea had her shit together, but in the end even she was human. Or at least as ‘near’ to it as she would get. The hug was a barely held together cry for help that she in reality hadn’t known was there, and now that it was all out in the open she let herself wallow in each second of comfort as Loske gripped her tight. The usually tense shoulders of Amea Virou relaxed and fell into a slight hunch as she let the agony pour down her cheeks.

“And—” Amea sniffled with a meek laugh and gentle pat on Loske’s shoulder. “And here I thought we would keep gossiping about boy bands and jedi hunks for the rest of eternity.”

Another snicker split her lips into a grin.

“This has meant a lot.” Amea admitted, her hand now placed firmly on the blonde’s shoulder. “Throughout all of this you have been the closest friend I’ve had, and I— there is not a single thing that could repay what it has meant to me.”

“I will find a way to make it all work,” She exhaled to let her grin mellow out. “I mean how hard could it be to steal a home, right? I’ve already emptied a few once or twice before.”

The hand fell by her side with a slow nod.

“And I want you to know… I am proud to call you my sister, Loske. I love you too.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

To hear Amea’s laugh, meager as it may have been, was a positive indicator that cued a wan smile to curve her lips.

“Well,” Loske flushed, and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear while her spacer buddy commiserated over the loss of normal conversation. She supposed she did gush about a jedi hunk an awful lot. Liberally so, especially since talking about other things meant negative emotions and duress on their conversations –– that one glimmer of light, other than her remarkable reunion with the former Talith, was easy to gab about. “I mean we still can. I’m about ready for a Cora night soon.” Anything more peppy to give her some reprieve from the constant stress of this stupid war. Why was altruism such a constant motivator? She was tired. “I’ll try to tone down the Jedi hunk talk. My bad.’

She was surprised that the previously reserved woman never retracted her touch. The pointed intimacy keeping Loske hopeful. She reached up and slipped her own over the back of the woman’s knuckles, giving her hand a squeeze.

Amea called her a sister. Proudly. And said she loved her. For all the friendships Loske had, and all the emotions she received, this one struck her like a speedtruck. The would-be clone blinked once, stunned by the perceivable ease of the delivery. It was almost as if her knees were going to melt, and her heels lose their balance even though the floor was not moving. In this identity, the kiffar felt safe to assume such passage didn’t come easily for the raider. A stark contrast to the open book, bleeding heart of Loske. Admitting how she felt to anyone who made her feel came without hesitation. Amea’s reservedness and stoicism was a stark contrast, but it hadn’t always been. Once upon a time on a drunken boat ride, Kaili Talith had suggested Loske was as close as a sister, and the kiffar had forlornly relinquished her hold on that memory to release some of the pain she felt associated with the friendship lost. To have it rekindled was flooring.

“Amea.” she choked, and pulled her friend into another tight, but brief hug. Releasing her almost as quickly as she’d enwrapped her, she folded her arms with a shake and tilt of her head.

“Steal a home? You want this place? Why? It’s kind of against your...whole..” she gestured loosely, nose-to-toe “Motif. Being as stationary and in the core as it is.”


Amea Virou

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

Laughter, medicine, and somewhere in the middle of it all there was a comment that sounded a whole lot about homeopathy which either woman could throw in as well, but Amea wasn’t in the mood for it. Emotions, as common as they were, had always been something Amea struggled to share. Not out of distrust but because they simply didn’t strike her as all too important.

In that regard Loske was certainly different, brought out the best in Amea even if Amea herself would never care to admit it. The smile on her face was genuine and even as Loske tried to squeeze the everliving love out of her, Amea let it stay there. No more frowns and all that, right? She had a sister, she had someone to care for and someone who cared for her. It was to break that whole rule about not forming attachments, but perhaps such things were inevitable after all?

Couldn’t be a lone wolf forever, time came that even Amea would have to retire some day in thirty years. Would be awfully boring if there was no-one to reminisce with.

“I mean, that’s what makes it the best choice, right?” She chuckled and shook her head. “I don’t know. Doesn’t feel right to let someone else take it, and more than ever it’s also a good way to hide in plain sight. That kind of thing.”

“Stacey Tenn, socialite.” She exhaled with amusement. “Sounds… Wrong, but I— I don’t know, call it being inspired by a friend but I want to do… More. Or hell, just about anything.”

“But before that…” Amea shrugged and motioned her head towards the bigt screen on the wall. “I have an hour or five to kill before I have to go back to doing nothing, so you know…”

“... Raiders of Lorrd’s Ark?” Amea asked without the intention of offering Loske the chance to say otherwise. Her hand patted at the couch and then tilted her head towards the screen. “Come on, at least the one Coraflick before we go. Tell me everything about the juiciest pieces from Jedi Town and I’ll tell you all about the latest from the Outer Trash Piles.”

The hand patted again to force Loske to take a seat. The movie flicked on with a handwave, and with it the mood was set for the rest of the evening. Talks were had, laughs shared. For the moment it was a nice respite from the brewing panic beneath Amea’s skin, but maybe even that would grow more bearable with someone by her side.

Only time would tell, but she had a good feeling. For now.