Taciturn

[Kana Truden]

The streets were bustling with life. The sun was shining it’s warm rays onto each and every man in the street yet Kana remained comfortably tucked within the embrace of her jacket. The others had said it was one of the side effects to having lived next door to an active volcano, that temperatures below a face-melting fifty degrees celsius (probably more) was something that would take some time getting used to, but after two months of having lived with her friends and Gabriel, Kana was still not quite used to it. Instead she just remained uneasy. Then again, that went for a lot of things. The children made her uneasy. The fact that people were far too welcoming of her return made her uneasy. Gabriel most certainly still made her uneasy, but that had slowly been set aside for what she hoped to be mutual appreciation for the other’s strife.

Which really was just a nice way of saying Kana would leave the man alone as long as he did the same. They weren’t enemies, but to say they were solid friends wouldn’t be correct either. Avalore had helped with a lot of it, acting a lot like a steadfast pillar on which Kana could lean back and just... Exist. Quite possibly her only best friend at the moment. Jacen Voidstalker, her parole officer, was a close second but even still she held some sort of professional attitude towards him. She didn’t owe him the same kind of life debt that she owed Avalore, at least not yet. Yet with the way things seemed to work around the Alliance, and the fact that Kana was ever so slowly settling back into her role as a healer, she had no doubt that the day would come.

At least he had been kind enough to sign her release papers, gotten her yet another opportunity to leave Sullust’s system and see the galaxy again. Take in others’ strife and egg her on into truly getting better. Which seemed hard enough, the people around her was happy and secure, something that she had lacked before coming back.

Yet something hung in the air. She felt a presence nearby, something she hadn’t felt since...

Coruscant.

Her heart began beating harder. An eye went over her shoulder thinking on the easiest way to find herself back at the spaceport. This wasn’t going to end well if she stayed, yet she couldn’t exactly just let the feeling go and just leave. What was worse than leaving and letting a potential catastrophe happen? Not much. If anything Kana owed the people around her to go check it out.

Yet, again, she could just leave. A sigh parted Kana's lips. Uncertainty took the reins and she remained frozen in place.

“Fark.”

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF1DQr5dKW8​

​

Busy day, busy street. An easy place to disappear, whether people were looking for you or not. It was an art she'd mastered a long, long time ago, back when she'd first tasted life on the run. It had been survive or croak back then, but she'd learned much since that turbulent time.
 Mostly that wearing armor helped a lot with the goal of staying alive.
Stepping out of a side alley weapons shop, the woman clipped the newly acquired powerpack to her thigh and vanished into the milling crowd of people rushing every which way, blending in faster than you could say poof.
 The weather was nice enough for these parts – a moody sea of uniform gray – and the people were all out and about, meeting friends, spouses, lovers; making business over and under the counters; taking a stroll through the better part of town before the clouds ripped and unleashed a torrent on water to wash the streets clean of their everyday grime.
 Except grime was notoriously resilient. Taint and mire clung desperately to every facet of civilization, draining it slowly but surely of every last drop even while they spread their infectious disease. Like leeches, the lot of them. Getting rid of them was difficult, and often the fangs broke off, leaving the poison to continue seeping into the bloodstream. Then there were people like the Alliance, who were doing a surprisingly good job of cleansing their wicked ilk from their territory. They still had the manpower and zeal to keep their noses pointing skyward in righteous contempt, but like with every regime, their time would come. The dirt would come to light, muddying their pristine reputation like with everyone that came before.
 You see, life is cyclic. Aver was well aware of that, having experienced it plenty throughout her existence. Figures of similar roles and different names appeared and left her life in even increments, often bringing her to the same spot on the circle some five years later, with more knowledge and wisdom behind her each time.
 Life is cyclic, indeed.
 "Well, kark me sideways and call me Corvus!"

 

[Kana Truden]

No, it wasn’t too late to go back, Kana could avoid this and-

“Well, kark me sideways and call me Corvus!”

This was that part of the movie. The camera centered on the hero’s face, slowly panned to the side in order to expose an old nemesis standing behind them. Kana slowly spun around to look at the Hand that had handed her fall straight into her hands. The redheaded woman that had helped encourage her to not be afraid of the dark. Or rather, who had been there when she did. Miserable eyes set themselves on the woman, let them run up and down as if evaluating whether or not it was really her.

“You.” She whispered. Her hands curled up into fists as the feeling of being right back there seemed to resurface. The feelings of being so uncertain, so lost and how to cover it up behind an attitude of someone who wasn’t. The memories of the wolves’ den and the ‘life lessons’ that had been taught that day.

“Been a while.” Kana spoke up before she gritted her teeth, held back the anger.

The wind struck against her cheek, carried her the blonde curls into an uncomfortable sway. All around them people remained blissfully unaware of the connection the two shared, yet something told Kana that within just a short time’s span it would all unfold. That small hint of Kana that she couldn’t defeat or stop obsessing over.

Had she done the right thing, or not? The answer felt obvious, yet was it really? She didn’t even know the redheaded woman’s name, but she had been the one of the few who had been there. One of the few that had at least pretended to care, or given her the illusion that someone did.

Now that in itself was another reason for Kana to hold back. The unknowing, the self-doubt appeasing little detail that she couldn’t stop thinking about. Had Kana acted with free will or as a slave to her own tainted mind? Did she want to know?

Her teeth grinded. These were the thought that rose up like a tidal wave.

Did she want to know?

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

"Me." █ A wolfish grin gripped her features, curling the corners of her mouth until two rows of sharp teeth flashed at [member="Kana Truden"]. █ "And yes, it has, hasn't it? Feels like eternity," she drawled. "Time flies when you're having fun, and all that." The woman advanced upon her unfortunate quarry with the languid stride of a predator, moving through the crowd as if it weren't there at all. █ "Fancy meeting you here, of all places. I figured you'd be dead in some ditch." Ah, always so courteous. The direct approach worked best, however, and Aver had no intention of ever changing that facet of her personality. Certain things had to be… adapted, moved around, transformed, but not this. This, she would – could not – sacrifice on the altar of evolution. It produced results without fail, and the firrerreo did so love results. █ Icy blue eyes flickered from her face to the whitened knuckles peeking out of her long sleeves – A jacket, she noted with some amusement – and then back up. "Angry?" █ The question almost seemed rhetoric. Almost. In truth, Aver was quite interested to find out. "I recommend against it. Something about it leading to the Dark side?" At this point, the woman was standing right in front of the former Jedi, blocking what little sun managed to filter through the thick blanket of clouds. █ "Drink?"

 

[Kana Truden]

She tensed up even further the closer the woman got. She had no name, no motive, but if Kana played her cards here maybe she could get out of this mess with the woman in bounds. She could be brought to justice, some small part of Kana’s own personal redemption. Yet that felt about as likely as seeing the unicorns dance on the hills of Dantooine. Which was to say impossible, for it would never happen in the first place. But Kana had to try, she had to do something to make it right again.

Her hand shivered. The woman toyed with her again. Dark side, she knew what it was, knew what she had done up until this point to avoid it. The places it had taken her and where she was now. She had to leave. Kana had to leave, this wasn’t her fight anymore. She was a healer. She was a non-combatant and most of all she was in recovery from a disease she had no control over. That lingering bit of poison in her veins that whispered sweet nothings and false promises onto her mind.

There was no peace.

“No.” She hissed. “Not now. Not ever.”

Kana had to get away. She pushed ahead and past the woman in front of her, bumping her shoulder against the other, and even then it wasn’t something she wanted to do.

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

Panic was streaking in painfully obvious lines across the blonde’s face, panic and a myriad of other, less intense emotions the former-new Jedi was experiencing. Were they supposed to do that? Aver had always been under the impression that such wasn’t allowed, but she’d be the first to admit she never cared to do any deeper research on the Order.

Well, not the academic kind, anyway.

The firrerreo grinned as if a particularly large weapons shipment had just appeared out of thin air before her, brimming with new and exciting technology made available only to her. The elation such an unexpected gift would induce could only be matched by the hunger that [member="Kana Truden"]’s distress incited deep in the sliver lodged in her spine.

Aver Brand shivered.

Then she shot out her arm, a motion so quick that even ‘a blur’ failed to do it justice, and went to sink her fingers into the offending shoulder. A low, slow click of the tongue followed as the mercenary pivoted on the spot, still anchored to the other woman with a vice-like grip.

“Now, now, Kana, what’s the rush? No time to chat with old friends? Tell a few stories?” Again she inched closer, knowing full well what sort of havoc proximity wrought on the Jedi’s already frayed nerves. For her many faults, Aver had a terrifyingly good memory; especially when it came to things others prayed she would forget.

“There’s no need to be rude, you know. Have I ever been rude to you?”

And as preposterous as the statement sounded, the blonde couldn’t deny its truth. It would be her downfall.

 

[Kana Truden]

Read like the back of a card. That was what Kana had been. The fire in her throat crackled and sparked in delight as the waters of her mind tried to wash away the memories that resurfaced. Had her body been a kingdom this would be the part where the peasants revolted again. She felt a hand grip tight against her own and just like that the memories flashed before her in full. Touches, moans… Guilt. The woman was the cause of so much internal devastation, yet Kana couldn’t deny that the woman hadn’t done a single thing wrong. At least not when it came to hospitality.

“You used me!” A finger fiercely placed itself square on [member="Aver Brand"]’s chest as Kana turned around to face her. “Do you have any idea what kind of fething pain you have caused me? Do you know anything about the kind of solitude I have resorted to since then?”

No, proximity still caused Kana to arch back and doubly so with the woman in front of her. She was terrified, angry and reeking of guilt, mixed emotions and all the wrong cocktails a Jedi could mix. Latent anxiety that she’d be exposed to this scenario at some point, and now here she was again.

She tore herself free from the firrerreo’s grip and turned around to walk away.

There was only so much keeping her from breaking down again.

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

She quirked an eyebrow, not quite amused, but not quite offended.

“I used you? If you mean gave you a bed, a meal, new clothes, a shower… and got you out of 25 to life....Then yes. I used you.” The smile that tugged at her lips wasn’t quite a smile either, but rather a rictus that she might’ve seen in a holodocumentary on Thral wildlife and decided it would be fun to emulate it.

“Ha! So karking typical. Go on, Jedi, blame it on everyone else.” Her voice was dripping with derision now, but that was simply what floated to the surface. Below it, a mix of disappointment and anger vied for dominance, carefully suppressed by decades of practice that Aver had put in controlling her inflections.

“It wasn’t me who locked you in a cell somewhere dark and deep, [member="Kana Truden"]. Remember that. I got you out of one.”

 

[Kana Truden]

She wanted to get mad, but Kana wasn’t going to. The redheaded woman had a point even if it was something the blonde little Alderaanian wouldn’t want to admit. Her arm softened, a face of sudden disappointment set over her. In herself, in the fact that no matter what Kana would say, the other woman had a point. If things hadn’t gone the way they had Kana would be sitting at the lowest levels while enjoying a handful of men and women alike trying to probe at her to see how much she was worth in a fight.

Her lips arched and turned into a frown. Eyes strayed to the side, yet the finger remained.

“I, uh...” She didn’t really know what to say. Thank you felt out of the question. Her arm tensed up again. “Why?”

She couldn’t bring herself to it. Shame rolled in, demolished all pretentions of having some sort of high ground on the matter.

“Why did you bring me back there, to the site? Why did you care for it?”

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

If you had asked her, Aver would’ve told you that she’d never considered herself much of a manipulator. (At least not in the commonly understood sense of the word.) Her strengths lay just there, in her strength, and her speed, and her chilling ability – though, to tell the truth, it was more acquired than innate – to analyze any sort of situation and devise the best way to come out on top.

It was the latter, perhaps, that drove some to think she was any good at playing people. Some said she was; certainly, she wouldn’t still be kicking if she hadn’t told a couple of lies somewhere down the road. But it wasn’t what she’d deem a chief skill of hers.

In that moment, however, she couldn’t help but think: Too easy.

Everything she’d said was God’s honest truth (or at least the Galaxy’s). She really believed those words when they left her mouth. The fact that she’d been incredibly sure this would happen was just a bonus.

“Why did you?” she shot back, challenging. “The only way out is through, [member="Kana Truden"].”

The firrerreo shrugged, speaking even as she calmly pried her finger away. “I didn’t.” Aver never cared.

“But you did. Figured talking it out with the old man would help sort you out.”

“Doesn’t look like it’s done you much good, though. Or should you be thanking your Jedi buddies for that?”

 

[Kana Truden]

“My jedi buddies?” Kana repeated. “No, try life in general.”

The finger may have been pried from the firrerreo’s chest, but Kana kept the frown as if nothing had happened. There was so much more to the current state of agitation than just the jedi buddies. Her teeth gritted to the side as if she was in a state of contemplation. Kana wasn’t really in such a state. Unless thinking over spilling your guts to the enemy was a good thing.

Answer obvious: No.

Yet…

“I was so close to becoming what my father had wanted me to become.” Not the ‘Empress Truden’ aspect, but rather the dark side of it. “Some sort of killing machine, justice and vengeance in the name of… I don’t know. Anything.”

“And don’t get me started on the fact that I got shot and almost died.” Kana poked at her abdomen where the shot had landed. “Or the fact that my best farking friend abandoned me and seemingly the entire galaxy without as much as a word of warning.” The healer began to rapidly shift between curling her hands into a fist and then letting the tension go. It had helped before in smaller doses, but this was something else completely. “I feel nothing but a greeeeat appreciation for life!”

Did the sarcasm drip yet? Was Kana lacing enough of it?

“But hey, at least I am finally starting to get back on my feet again.”

“Oh wait! No! Because today, out of all days, I have to meet the one person I can’t really wrap my mind around! Do I hate you or do I not? Do I want to strangle you into submission or do I just want to leave before I cause more of a scene than I already have?”

All things considered, they were still in the streets. Kana was without a doubt making a scene.

“I am so close to just flipping my ship again, and I really don’t want that.”

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

She was content to simply stand there and weather the storm. A barrage of words slipped out of the blonde’s mouth, like a dam breaking open after decades of stemming the flow of the river. And boy, was the water dirty. Pain and emotion laced every syllable, traveling the length of her body in episodes of tensing muscles.

It was all very, very familiar to Aver Brand.

As she listened, it occurred to the woman that the joking reply bouncing around her head would only serve to make the situation worse. Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind a good strangling. Then again, making it worse could turn out to be interesting in ways she couldn’t possibly predict. In the end, she opted to keep a modicum of seriousness about her, even if only for the Jedi’s sake.

Let no-one ever claim her heartless!

“Then don’t,” she replied simply, shrugging a shoulder.

“I don’t get why you insist on being so afraid of what-ifs, [member="Kana Truden"]. Possibilities have never harmed anyone.”

Shaking her head, she replaced her fingers a few inches lower, gripping the blonde’s wrist with a careful firmness.

“What you need, Jedi, is an outlet.” Twirling a digit in the general direction of her forehead, she continued. “Or all that white noise is gonna drive you mad.”

 

[Kana Truden]

Kana wanted to place her opponent in the role of the antagonist despite the fact that her words were all true. Kana didn’t have to flip out again, didn’t have to give herself to that anger again, and this woman out of all people in the galaxy was the one to tell her that. The very same woman who had caused the former-former Jedi to spiral out of control. She was taken aback, put in a state that had her uncertain what to even think. A hand slid into hers, the memories of the last time that happened began to flash as vivid as ever. The grip shook, shivered and broke loose. The finger that moved for her forehead met no physical resistance, though there was no speaking for the mental.

The corners of her eyes warmed up. Kana held back the stream bursting through the ducts.

“Please stop.” The healer spoke up. Her voice sounded as pathetic and defeated as she looked. “I can’t.”

“Ever since last time, I’ve…” Deep shaky inhale. “I can’t figure you out.”

“Who are you?”

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Oh, chit, come on now. Why are you [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]crying[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Aver threw up her hands in frustration, abandoning her grip on [member="Kana Truden"]’s wrist much to the woman’s joy, no doubt. A pair of fingers flew to the bridge of her nose, rubbing it before she snapped her eyes open again to glare at some passerby who had dared remark on the odd situation.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Probably half a muscle spasm away from wetting his pants, the stranger scurried off as if a pack of starved Vornskr were hot on his heels.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]She glanced back at the blonde then, brow furrowing in confusion instead of annoyance.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Aver Brand,” she offered, unhelpfully.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Look… kark[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px], can you like, stop crying? People are looking and it’s probably better for them if they don’t.” Implying that the former Sith Lord would do terrible, [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]terrible[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px] things to anyone whose eyes lingered a bit too long.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“There’s nothing to figure out. We’re not all that different, you and I.”[/SIZE]

 

[Kana Truden]

“I’m not crying.” Classic jedi denial. “At least trying not to.”

Aver Brand. Was it always as simple as just asking for the Sith’s name? That was after all what Kana still considered her ‘friend’ as. Though the use of that particular word was by all means a very loose definition of what they shared between one another. Friend was too tight, enemy felt wrong, they were just somewhere in between. That was the reality of it, in a sense, though to Kana would never really admit to such a thing.

Her hand reached to wipe away the remains, the few drops that had managed to slip past her defenses.

“How are we not different? You are the a high-ranking member of the One Sith, and I am… A Jedi, a healer.” The tears were gone, the only real indicator that they’d been there was from the slight gloss atop the Jedi’s cheeks. “I think our roles are rather very much different.”

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

She scoffed gracelessly.

It was so simple. What was there to understand? Baffled, Aver searched the blonde’s face for any trace of stupidity even though she knew full well that [member="Kana Truden"] was far from dumb. A bit naïve, sometimes, but certainly not stupid.

Which made it that much worse.

Aver shook her head, slowly, deliberately, and spoke again. “That’s just the roles we play. And in any case, does it look like I’m here as a Sith?” Cocking a questioning eyebrow, the firrerreo gestured in a sweep to the city in the background, adding the unspoken it’s not on fire and there aren’t any Star Destroyers in the air.

Back then, when the woman took her title on a trip, it most likely meant it was a one-way ticket. She’d pack not only a punch, but a few hundred thousand soldiers, and wherever she was headed would be forever stricken from directories of tourist destinations.

“I’m dead, Kana.” A small, self-satisfied grin curled her lips. “Officially, anyway.”

 

[Kana Truden]

“No, no it doesn’t.” She sighed in defeat. It just didn’t make sense, at least not until the bomb was dropped. Aver Brand was dead, on paper, but not in reality. Kana narrowed her eyes and shot an observant look towards the skies and the people around them. No terror, no fires or bombs, just a woman about town with a past of having caused all of those. Then again, that was probably something most soldiers in that particular war could say.

It wasn’t a justification, just a plain statement of facts.

“You’re… Dead?” The Jedi Master finally let up as her narrowed eyes set themselves once more at the woman in front of her. “You mean that somewhere in OS space people are going through your apartment either looking for traces of you, or bringing them to an auction for redistribution?”

“... Why?”

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

She shrugged. “Maybe. Possibly. Quite likely, actually. Never gave much thought to it, to be honest. There’s nothing for them to find.”

Apart from the few people she’d brought to the apartment throughout the years – a number she could count on the fingers of one hand – hardly anyone knew it existed. Some days, even its owner forgot it was there, which was testament enough to the frequency of her presence.

“They’d have better luck trying to crack the lava icing of Selvaris,” the woman added with a tinge of amusement to her voice, peering down at [member="Kana Truden"] who seemed confused proportionately to the news she’d just received.

“Why did you leave the Order?” A scoff.
“I got fed up with their chit, what do you think? All good things must come to an end, yadda yadda. You know how it is. I got what I wanted out of it.”

 

[Kana Truden]

Now that was a concept that was familiar, yet not really. This ‘Aver Brand’ woman had left The Sith out of spite for what they had become, Kana had left the Order out of spite for what she had become. To her that made them perhaps not all that different, but still different. For one, the One Sith was still going at it with the Republic and as much as Kana dreaded it she had become far too apathetic towards her former home to really give much a crap either way. Coruscant had never been a home, Alderaan had been destroyed beyond recognition. As far as homes went, Kana wasn’t quite sure she had a need for one.

Other than perhaps the Circle of Healers on Sulon.

“Like, what, the blood of thousands on your hands?” Kana snickered. “Look, just…”

“Chit, I don’t know.” The Jedi healer shrugged. What else was she to do? The situation wasn’t escalating in any way towards the direction she had expected it to. “I-... Look, I don’t know what you are doing here, not quite certain I really want to know, but I mean… Screw it. Why are you here?”

[member="Aver Brand"]

 

[Aver Brand]

“Oh, I don’t know. It washes off well, despite the stories they feed you over at the righteous camp,” she returned her grin with a toothy one of her own, eyes alight with amusement.

The mercenary quirked an eyebrow at [member="Kana Truden"]’s stammering, then gestured to the powerpack stuck to one of her magplates. “Shopping.”

“War’s just around the bend, and you have to be prepared in these trying times… as I’m sure you know.” Another smile, smaller this time. “I seem to recall breaking your nose once… Telti, was it?” Most of the battles had long run together into one glorious, grisly mess, interspersed with short periods of respite usually spent in the soothing embrace of anonymity somewhere in the squalid underbelly of Coruscant.

“I’m happy to chat, Kana, but I really am thirsty. Come on, let me buy you a drink. Promise I won’t try and get you drunk.” Too much.