Taciturn

[Kana Truden]

[member="Aver Brand"]

Aver ducked, Kana reached out and grabbed the table mid-air again and caught it from hitting herself. There seemed to be more going on than the blonde would know within that armor, but nonetheless she would try to outsmart her opponent one way or the other.

And right now that meant redirecting that table at her opponent again. The distance between the Jedi and the Sith wasn’t all that big, but the distance between the Sith and the table was even shorter.

Without further adieu, Kana proceeded to bring the table down on Aver hoping to catch her mid-duck for greater effect.

 

[Aver Brand]

And so she did.

Catch her mid-duck for greater effect, that is.

It was mostly Aver who did the catching, though. Her hands were free, her beer-turned-weapon long turned to hoppy shards scattered across the wet duracrete. Her hands were also strong. What betrayed her was her balance, or, rather more accurately, the lack thereof.

[member="Kana Truden"] had good timing.

The mercenary caught the table and promptly rolled backwards along with its momentum. Her plating scraped along the ground with that the nails-on-a-chalkboard pitch, which should’ve been declared a superweapon by any humane committee long ago.

Not to be outdone, Aver tore off a poorly welded metal leg and chucked it at the upstart Jedi with perhaps a smidgen more force than what was absolutely necessary.

But hey, what’s a broken rib or five between frenemies?

 

[Kana Truden]

There was something ever so rewarding with being the one to actually damage someone else again. It wasn’t a very healer-like kind of mindset but it also wasn’t too far from the truth. There were few things that felt quite as rewarding as the moment an opponent felt, for example, a table smash against them as they laid on the ground. It was this feeling that Kana remembered the most from her time on the other end of the light spectrum. The bar fights and the brawls had been one of the more intoxicating, and appropriately enough intoxicated, states of being she had ever been in.

She had by most means moved on from that, but…

Well, you didn’t quite simply let go of the dark.

Noise scratched against her eardrums, the subtle sound of metal whispering mid-air offered her little in the way of time for response and before Kana knew any better she’d feel a blunt pain spread across the sides of her chest and waist. The force applied to her body caused her to stumble to the ground. Her back caught it, her ribs cried out in pain but she pushed on through it in a roll to get back on her feet. Her shoulder hunched, her hand moved to poke at the zone of impact. Two ribs, maybe three.

“Three ribs.” Kana coughed. Her other other hand moved up to wipe the saliva.

No, wipe away the blood. Well feth.

“Lost your touch, sweetheart?” The jedi coughed up once more with a grin. “I’d think someone like you could have managed more. Perhaps even puncture a lung or two.”

The hand move down and her saber was switched on. The blue superheated blade pointed down to the ground.

“Enough with this. Shall we?”

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

Grunting, Aver found her feet again. Her back ached as warm blood trickled down her chin – not that Kana could see it. The skull painted over her faceplate maintained its perennial grin, its stark white lines shining through the fine layer of dust and grime.

“Want me to kill you, sweetheart?” the merc spat back. HUD and well-trained eyes judged the distance separating them. Wide measure.

The tell-tale cold enveloped her mind as the blue blade pierced the air. Gawking bystanders shuffled back as one, their curiosity doused with that single snap-hiss. The fun was over. Just as the sun hid behind the clouds far above, so did the chilly atmosphere fall upon the light-hearted brawl.

“Fine by me.”

Mirroring the Jedi, Aver brought her own blade to bear. It no longer boasted the laigrek red – it was instead the vessel of a colorless crystal, renouncing all and any allegiances.

White, the color of annihilation.

She feinted a slash from the right, shortening the strike with a half-step at the last moment. It would pass in front of any guard Kana brought up – in that instant Aver would thrust the lightsaber forward instead, aiming to score a burn along her ribs.


[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

[member="Aver Brand"]

“I want you to try.” Kana said with the grin still lingering on her lips.

A pale white sheen burst from her opponent’s blade and the exercise turned into a real fight in which Kana had already placed herself at disadvantage. She was well-aware of who she was fighting at this point. The other woman didn’t leave much to chance, what weaknesses she had were ones that Kana was beyond really attempting an attack on, at least in their current state. There would have to be finesse involved in this if Kana was to come up on top, if at all possible. It remained to be seen.

Kana kept her saber pointed the ground and took two steps back at the incoming attack.

“At least you tried.” The blonde woman goaded and swept the armored brute’s blade aside.

“I’m wounded, you should probably think about applying pressure to what I have first.” Kana wasn’t dropping the idea that it was all a light-hearted fight to the death. If she died, she died. If not, well, that’d be taken into account at some other point. Besides, there was something so morbidly tempting in lecturing your opponent on the art of killing yourself.

In return for what she had received Kana went for a quick but precise swing at the woman’s knee only to have the attack redirected for the forearm instead. A feint for a feint. A rusty one at that. Kana had not actually been in a fight since last she had met this woman which was, all things considered, a very long time ago.

“You of all people would know what a little pain can do to a poor little healer.”

 

[Aver Brand]

In the strange space between her body and her mind existed her violence. Time didn’t behave like it ought to, there. Her perception was a smear, a net, cast across her surroundings. When an arm coiled, when a leg twitched, she was already three moves ahead. It was like playing chess – if lives and limbs were at stake.

Aver curled back the targeted knee, shifting weight to the back foot. Even as Kana’s blade would hiss against her phrik plating, the merc would launch her flexed leg into a kick. Her aim didn’t go as high as the ribs – too risky – but rather into the shin of the Jedi’s forward leg.

Didn’t put as much power behind it as she could, to her surprise. If she hit her mark, it’d hurt like all Nether, but the bone wouldn’t break. Probably.

With time and war, the thrill of the kill had lost much of its luster. The very thought would curl a flame of excitement into her gut when she was younger – now it just made her weary. Like a janitor ascending that last staircase to mop up that last stain before he locked up for the night.

Her heart just wasn’t in it – not when she’d been in Kana.

“Get her head screwed on straight again? Kick her self-pitying ass back into gear? Yeah, I know what a little pain can do to a poor little healer.”


[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

[member="Aver Brand"]

In the end this was probably what would define what Aver and Kana shared. One of them was a morbidly death-prone healer with a penchant for avoiding said death, and the other was a mysterious death-riddled enigma with a penchant for wearing armor that hurt to be hit by. In another reality they might have been the stuff of plays, like a living relationship between life and death respectively. It wasn’t as bad as it might have seen, really. Kana, in this case life, wouldn’t be much without Aver, or in this case death. Much like death wouldn’t be much without life trying with all its might to work against them.

Granted, Kana didn’t actually know Aver’s name.

A boot connected against her leg and Kana felt herself lose all balance and fall on her side. A loud hiss of pain puffed Kana’s cheeks to their fullest extent before she rolled around on her side causing her to let the air out through gritted teeth. It hurt like all hell but she had seen worse, or so she told herself.

“Yeah, like that.” Kana coughed and got back on her feet again. She gave her leg a quick look. “That’s going to bruise tomorrow.”

“You still kick like the best of them, let me tell you.” The healer praised her opponent and got into a defensive stance. “Hell, you might even finish what most opponents seem to fail to do in the ring of honor and actually kill me for once.”

Kana coughed up another round of blood. “Even if merely indirectly so.”

The healer spit the excess blood on the floor. “Come on, one more time. Show me what you can do.”

 

[Aver Brand]

Aver chewed on nothing for a few long beats of the heart. Time trickled by so very slowly for Forcers in combat – slower still for the merc, who enjoyed the added benefit of CERS bolstering her killer instincts. Normally she didn’t bank on these little advantages, because it was too much of a gamble, but here?

She’d take the risk.

“No,” she said, a little surprised at her own words. “It would serve no purpose. You’re not an obstacle to me, Kana.”

Not anymore.

Her allegiances lay buried beneath leagues of cold lava – she took no misguided sense of duty with her to the other side. Vrag was dead, there was no changing that.

Death had moved on. Could Life follow? Would it follow?

She straightened her posture and turned off her lightsaber. The flash of anger was just that – a flash.

“You can leave if you want. I won’t stop you.”

[member="Kana Truden"]​

 

[Kana Truden]

[member="Aver Brand"]

“What?” Kana muttered in disappointment and confusion as Aver straightened her back and turned her saber off. The healer’s chest would continue to rise and sink for each breath that passed until finally the adrenaline began to wear off and let her face the full brunt of her injuries. Her arm began to shiver, and as the bones in her chest began to scream out in pain so did Kana.

“I can’t leave!” She shouted at her advesary. No, friend. No, adversary. Both. “We aren’t finished!”

Her legs felt weak, her knee seeking to bury itself within the dust beneath the soles of her boots.

“Dea-... Death, some day.” She hissed through gritted teeth as she breathed in once more. “You.”

“Do it!”

“DO IT!”

“END IT.”

In reality it would be all the more obvious that Kana did not really want it to end. Her eyes watered and she would blame it on the dust. It hurt to scream, to kneel and ask for it. Her last few strands of energy rapidly draining away from her as more and more pain began to occupy her mind and muddy what felt real and what did not. What was conscious and what was slipping away. Kana needed attention to her wounds. Fast.

“I am done. I can’t fight you.”

 

[Aver Brand]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMe4kVNKvNk​

The noise she let out was somewhere between a sneer and a laugh. Not exactly dignified, but neither were they, yelling at each other in the middle of the day in front of a Force-damned cantina. If it weren’t for the lightsabers (and the armor, and the Force), passersby could’ve mistaked them for a pair of bickering drunks.

“Oh, get over yourself.”

Two strides, and Aver was standing before the kneeling Jedi. “You don’t wanna die, you just want an easier ride. You wanna wallow in your frakking weakness, because at least then you get to say – look, it got done to me.”

The merc reached down and hefted the blonde over her shoulder, easy as one might don a backpack.

“You told me once that death comes with being a healer – that was a frakkin’ decade ago, Kana, and you’re still eating your words.” Aver consulted her HUD for directions to the nearest emergency care. Two blocks.

As she navigated the afternoon crowd, the merc fished a bacta shot from her utility belt. She wrenched off the cap and unceremoniously stabbed the Jedi in the leg before depressing the syringe.

Good enough for now.

“A bullet to the head ain’t a solution. It’s a cop-out for fethers too afraid to own their life.” Aver shook her head, fixing the Jedi with a grim stare straight through her visor. “Are you afraid, Kana?”



[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

[member="Aver Brand"]

The world was already distant enough for Kana not to hear the merc’s comments, at least not all of it. Words faded in and out like a cheap holonet advert. Not wanting to die, wallowing in weakness, something done to her. Came with being a healer, decade ago, eating your words. A strange prick-

Kana gasped at the injection’s effect, mouth agape for each passing breath that followed. Words were swallowed, brief flashes of what had been discussed flashing before her like the delayed scolding it was. Who was this woman to say that Kana didn’t want to die? Okay, sure she wanted to wallow in her own self-pity and let it all end, point at all the others and go that they were the problem, but who the hell didn’t want to do that these days? Death came to healers because that was what she told herself to make everything easier, what faith was there truly behind them?

And was she afraid?

“Of course I am!” She grunted. “I’ve lost track of everyone and everything. Of my friends and my road ahead. It seems like the only person remaining in my life from that ‘decade ago’ is now me and Avalore.”

“Right now I am amicably chatting with the same woman I once thought would take my life only to end up…” Head tilted to the side. “Well, you know…”

“I just want to know where the hell everything is going, where I am going.”

 

[Aver Brand]

[member="Kana Truden"]

It was a good thing that Aver’s grip was so sure, or she might’ve just dropped Kana at the mention of [member="Avalore Eden"]. She jerked her head to the side, fixing her gaze straight ahead. The Jedi was too embroiled in her problems to notice.

Hopefully.

“What? Karking you senseless?” The merc huffed, half-read to drop her on purpose now. “You can say it you know. The Jedi police won’t immediately hunt you down for committing the dirty deed.”

One block left.

“News flash, Kana – you don’t get to! Nobody does. Life happens, and best you can do is be prepared for it when it comes to kick your arse. So what if you don’t know.” She shrugged her free shoulder.

“That’d be fething boring.”

 

[Kana Truden]

[member="Aver Brand"]

The dirty deed. It was still the one moment Kana wasn’t sure how to wrap her mind around. Fear, the wrong decisions and everything that had led up to her greatest mistake of her life were also the same actions that had led her to that night they shared. And that situation as a whole was just as weird as it got. The woman who was currently carrying Kana was also the only one who had actually helped Kana at the time. It was like biting into a bitter apple that you knew you weren’t allowed to eat, only to discover that the single bite you had taken would provide just enough nourishment to keep you from starving under the weight of your own mistakes. Because in the end it was a mistake to come to Coruscant at all no matter how Kana put it. To kill her father was a mistake, and how liberating it had felt did not matter. Not anymore at least.

“Easy to say when your entire life wasn’t a mistake filled with just more and more mistakes.” Then again, as a woman in her occupation and 'friend circles' perhaps she did. Kana shook her head. “Fething boring or not, I want to be cut a break. At least once.”

Kana was fully expecting herself to be dropped by now.

“Drop me.” Kana groaned. “You’ve been thinking about it, so why don’t you just do it?”

Air burst through her nose. A chuckle. “I would have dropped me three blocks ago.”

 

[Aver Brand]

Aver stopped dead in her tracks. A couple rushing passersby shot her indignant looks over padded shoulders as current of people split around the still woman. The merc didn’t care.

“Kana,” she intoned, somewhat frustrated, “get your head out of your ass. I agree it’s nice but you can’t spend your whole life there.”

Boots started again, phrik clicking against the ferrocrete as she covered the distance at a swift pace. “It’s easier to give up. It’s easier to queen at people to leave you alone and then complain that everyone always leaves you alone.” Despite the helmet, Aver leveled the Jedi with a scathing look.

“If I drop you, this won’t be a lesson. If I hadn’t taken you to see your dead father, you wouldn’t have learned anything back then either.” The merc shook her head. “Everyone karks up. The only difference is if you let it teach ya something…”

“... or if you let it drag ya down.”


[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

[member="Aver Brand"]

Part of Kana found a sense of accomplishment or even joy in knowing she had frustrated her friend- no, her enemy- no, her friend… One of them. And besides, she was getting her butt complimented, there was further amusement in that. Some people looked at the two with incredulous glances, the others with amusement and a few of conservative disgust. Kana paid them no mind, her eyes glancing at the road ahead for a second before shifting back to the mask that covered her favorite merc’s face.

“You took me to see what I had done, yes.” Kana frowned. “I’d like to call murdering my father a mistake, or even a kark up, but…”

Her mouth hung open for a bit before it closed again. She couldn’t really say that, could she? Her mind struggled with the idea of opening up like this, but… At the same time she felt relatively safe. Like two friends reminiscing on a heavy topic. At least a heavy topic for one of them.

Mouth opened again with a deep breath.

“I don’t, uh…” Kana felt a small smirk tug at her lip. “I don’t regret it. Killing him, I mean.”

Nervous exhale parted her lips in full, turned it into a weak grin. “I, uh… Corvus didn’t like hearing that when I told her about it. In fact I’m pretty sure her brows reached for her hairline when I said it.”

“And… Now she’s gone.” Kana sighed. “Along with the others.”

 

[Aver Brand]

[member="Kana Truden"]

“Good,” was all Aver said, accompanied with a brief pat on the flank. Would’ve been the shoulder, but, you know… she was carrying her. Kind of hard to do.

If folks were sending them odd looks, the merc didn’t seem to care. She’d been looked at and called a lot worse – a couple of scandalized spinsters were amusing at best, and irrelevant at worst.

“People leave. You’ve left, innit?” Aver turned her head halfways, side-eyeing the blonde. “You left and went to do some interestin’ stuff. Then you came back to another Jedi lot, moped ‘round a bit, and went to fixin’ the rest of your problems. ‘S all about how you spin it, Kana.”

With a sage nod, the woman turned to her right, near-on bowling a tall aqualish over with Kana’s swinging feet. Painted a fast grin on her red lips. Could already see the hospital ahead. Nothing but a few more steps and a thinning crowd separating them from the destination.

“You’re gonna figure it out. You’re gonna figure yourself out, too.”

 

[Kana Truden]

[member="Aver Brand"]

Why was it so hard to comprehend this entire relationship in Kana’s eyes? Perhaps ingrained prejudices, or perhaps this mercenary wasn’t quite like the others. Regardless they shared something that was… Well, perhaps that was the part where Kana wasn’t quite sure what to think. At all. They were supposed to be enemies, yet here Kana was and all she felt was…

Well, gratitude.

Her arms reached around the Merc’s neck to hug her for a second.

“Thank you.” She whispered and promptly separated. “I think I need to hear that.”

“I left. That’s true.” She sighed again as she settled somewhat into the grasp of the merc’s arms again. “Corvus did too. Went to get herself a girlfriend, it seems…”

“... Aaaaand then she just farked off to who-knows-where.”

“So maybe…”

“Well, maybe they didn’t leave.” Kana looked confused for a second, unsure where that had even come from. “Maybe they sort of… Abandoned me. No, not abandoned, and not me. I might have abandoned them?”

“... I don’t know. I guess you have a point. I’ll find out eventually.”

 

[Aver Brand]

[member="Kana Truden"]

Like tearing the power core out of a droid, Aver froze up. Every muscle tense, the merc waited out the… hug… staring at Kana all the while.

She was going to yell something to the effect of what in the karking nine circles of Nether but then the Jedi kept talking, and so she seethed instead. Quietly. As soon as the last word came out of the blonde’s mouth, the merc released her grip on the smaller woman, promptly fulfilling the promise she’d made at the start of their little stroll.

Aver dropped her.

“What the hell was that for?”

 

[Kana Truden]

[member="Aver Brand"]

The air was knocked out of her lungs by the time her rump hit the ground. An errant cough parted her lips into a gritted grimace, but there was no shrieks of pain. If anything, Kana almost seemed entirely fine as it was. Perhaps a bit tired, but she was surprisingly healthy for a woman who had just about asked for death a few minutes ago.

“It’s called a hug,” Kana continued to grin as she put weight on her leg and pushed herself off the ground. “You might have heard of it? People tend to give other people when they appreciate something they have said or done.”

The healer brushed her hands against her thighs, shoulders and finally her waist without even wincing. A careless shrug would then lift her shoulders to the point where they threatened to poke against her cheek. The act was up then and Kana prepared herself to feel the repercussions of her actions. The worst of which seemed to be re-broken bones.

“Oh come on, don’t act surprised.” She chuckled. “I am a healer.”

“I heal. It’s the literal definition of what I do.”

 

[Aver Brand]

Her scowl persisted.

“If you wanna talk, you don’t have to fake a broken leg,” Aver said after a long staredown. Passersby cast curious or wary looks in their direction, but the merc ignored them. “Or queen about how much you wanna die just so I’d slap some sense into ya.”

“Don’t have to lie to me, Kana. I know all your dirty secrets already, remember?” Would’ve smiled, but it’d be lost on the helmet. Aver settled for a shallow nod.

“Next time, the drinks are on you.”

In ten, twenty years. Such was the passage of time between healing and warfare.

[member="Kana Truden"]​