The Final Seconds

[Qae Shena]

Oh, feth.

The thought was a mantra. He knew this was coming. He could feel the end already.

At the bottom of the ocean, Qae had attempted to repel the invasion of the One Sith against the kolto facilities that the Republic owned. However, he'd found his match in the form of a Sith Lord who had crushed his organs with a wave of overpressure - and not one to take that kind of thing lying down, he had summoned the ultimate power of water shaping to stop the man from bleeding... or, for that matter, anything else. It was a fair trade. A double kill.

In his last moments, as Qae realised he was going to die, he had to use the Force to accomplish two things. One, summon the water below him to force his increasingly lifeless body up and away from the fight. Two, send a silent ping to the mind of Spencer Jacobs - telling her in the absolute quickest manner to find his body. The only woman in this Galaxy who had understood him needed to be there at the end. He'd called her before. She knew where he was, at the start of the fight. She would have come running to his side already.

But he only had seconds to live.

Seconds...

...seconds...

[member="Spencer Jacobs"]

 

[Allyson Locke]

There was something of a sixth sense that was inside of Spencer, she had it for those that she cared about. She had it for the people she had marked with her blood. It started with her brother and then soon involved Ashin, and now Qae. Others entered her sixth sense, but right now there was only one person setting it off. She had been prepared to launch and land on Manaan. Though instead of launching and helping lead some of the ground forces, she was running through the limited land surface until she finally found where he was. He was using the Force so I knew he was still alive.

Spencer quickly ripped off the outer robe till she was down to her undershirt and pants. There was no thought of a tool to help her breath, there was nothing in her mind beyond the idea of finding Qae. Jumping into the water she found his body slowly moving with the power of the Force and his waterbending. She made it to his body and grasped him tightly cradling his form and brought him to the beach. Pushing her blonde hair from her face she frantically looked at him and held her hands trying to her best to focus the Force.

“Common Qae, Qae please….feth say something, you stupid puppy just karking say something!”

[member="Qae Shena"]

 

[Qae Shena]

The next thing Qae knew, he was on the beach. His focus wasn't too good. It was like trying to bat away a heavy black curtain that was being pulled across by a stage-master - and as a lowly little stage-hand in the Galactic play of life, Qae wasn't one to resist it.

He could feel her, on the outer edges of his psyche, what little he could control. It was Spencer. She'd made it - with seconds to spare. He was eternally thankful that the last thing he was going to see was the one person who had changed his life.

"...hey, beautiful..." he said, gasping - and then coughed up blood on her stomach, trying desperately to keep those dark eyes focused.

He couldn't.

"I'm screwed," he added, voice breaking between syllables. She'd probably see his ribs crushed under his skin, the fact that there was a discolouration to his skin indicating that blood vessels had ruptured. She'd see him broken, beaten, in a way that not even she had ever done to him. This wasn't a Qae that had been defeated. This was a Qae that had been annihilated, irreparably.

[member="Spencer Jacobs"]

 

[Allyson Locke]

His voice cracked and she felt the warmth of his blood against her skin. It didn’t take a doctor or some sort of trained eye to know that the man that was laying somewhat in her lap. Trained hands moved the force around him as she tried to heal what she could, despite her efforts everything seemed to be a lost cause. The bleeding worsened and his skin was growing pale and cold. Every ounce of knowledge that she could call upon was summoned and nothing was helping. She couldn’t give up though she couldn’t let him die.

“Hey. You’ve looked worst and we’ve been in tighter situations. Remember the flotilla and just literally everything raining down on us. I’m sure that’s way worse than this.” She was lying through her teeth, she knew and he obviously knew this was way worse and it had looked far better than this on his off days. “We’ll get you off this planet and into a fuzzy bed…with warm blankets…and lots of treats…and in a few years we’ll laugh about this and how serious you’re being.”

She fought back the tears the best she could. “I’m…I’m Spencer Jacobs, ac-according, according to Ashin I’m some karking chosen one. Gotta count for something ya?”

[member="Qae Shena"]

 

[Qae Shena]

The Force was a powerful thing, in the hands of a Master. It could be shaped - bent, broken even - to their will. To a limited degree. The only imitation of a Force-user was that at the end of the day, the Force ruled them, never the other way around. Spencer could only fix so much. If she had've been there at the time of impact, perhaps, but it had been too long, too late, too little. She was sustaining him. She was keeping him alive, staving of the scythe of the reaper - but he would come, eventually.

Even Qae knew it was a lost cause.

Her candor was not lost on him, however. "An'.. and I'll bark, and... it'll be funny," he said, trying, trying desperately, to get a coherent sentence out. Every breath in was so laboured he had to gasp for it, body shaking under the strain. Every breath out came with the gurgle of liquids pooling up on the lungs.

"You are... the chosen one," Qae said. "...but you chose me."

He tried, tried so hard, just to reach a pale blue hand up to her face, to brush his fingers over her skin one last time, to try and get some sensation out of the last vestiges of life.

[member="Spencer Jacobs"]

 

[Allyson Locke]

Spencer kept her smile spread across her face as she watched him struggle, she knew better than anyone that the force that was spilling from her hands was the only reason he was capable of speaking and breathing for the time being. Once she released it or grew too tired to continue he would become one with the Force. She didn’t fear for his soul - he was a good person and there was no threat for him to disappear into Chaos. He spoke quietly and she struggled to hear him, but she knew somewhat of what he was saying.

Adjusting herself she kept healing him the best she could, she put his head better on her lap enough to prop him up hopefully so he doesn’t choke to quickly on his own blood. “Shh, the more you talk the harder it is for me to heal you. Just a little more and you’ll be perfect again.” She saw from the corner of her eye his hand reached up, she leaned in close enough so that his bloody finger tips could caress her soft face. Tears stained her porcelain skin. Now that she was a bit closer she could fully assess his wounds.

There was no more she could do for him, with this realization she held in her sobs - the last thing he needed to hear was her sob over him. “ I didn’t chose you Qae, the Force chose you for me. It guides us. I kept you because you never judged me and you knew who I was really in my heart. No many people see that, Ashin and you, Sargon and Jared - you’re the only ones that have seen me cry - you see me as a person.”

“Not as something to obtain…”

[member="Qae Shena"]

 

[Qae Shena]

His hand was already upon her face - it was excrutiating effort to wipe those tears away, marring that otherwise perfect face. She was so perfect, so beautiful in every way. It was fortune and favour that it would be her eyes that he would see in his last moments. Perhaps it was meant to be this way, that she would be the one. She had brought the new Qae into the Galaxy. She would see the new Qae off into eternity.

"...was never perfect," he breathed, the air caught on a puncture in his lung. The bubbling noise behind his breath never once subsided, "'n I'm gonna die that way."

He knew he was dead. How could he not? Even with the Force flowing through his battered body, he couldn't get better. There wasn't enough healing magic in the Galaxy to fix the damage done to him. No instant-revivification.

But there were things that Spencer needed to know. They had a legacy together, something that no other being in the Galaxy did; it wasn't the genetic legacy that Spencer and Ashin wished. It wasn't a relationship - it was the eternal knowledge of the Je'daii, their kind, a kind so rare that the remaining Je'daii could be counted on one's fingers. The millennia-old knowledge had to be passed down. Fortunately for Spencer, Qae had done his job.

"Tei... Teio, my apprentice... he has our 'crons," he breathed, trying to steady his voice to relay the information. He was managing, barely. "Just a newbie, lots to learn... but they're safe. Derp... Derp too. L-l-look after him, okay? He's... he's the last Je'daii."

He turned his head suddenly to cough violently, a blue stain tainting the sand next to them; as he coughed up what could only be described as a handful of blood. Qae's entire body shook. His hand fell purely by virtue of the fact that his body refused to allow him to hold it up. Those black eyes began to glaze over as he tried desperately with every ounce of strength that he could muster - it took a totally herculean effort in order just to move his head six inches, almost everything he had left.

He could feel his body - actually, no, he couldn't. He couldn't feel anything any more. This was the sensation he had been dreading for a considerable amount of time.

It was finally here.

"L... let me go, Master. It... it's... it's time."

[member="Spencer Jacobs"]