Private The Pieces of a Lady

[Efret Farr]

Efret had seen Dr. Grene half a dozen times now. The phrase ambiguous loss had come up in most of those sessions.

She had wondered early on about the sensicality of continuing therapy—not because the doctor was an ill fit but because the full depth of her grief was unrelieved even by her. If it would not be better to pause their work until Efret's circumstance resolved itself either with Elias coming back or his death being confirmed. But she soon realized that it may never reach a clear conclusion unless she endeavored to close this book herself.

And the only way that she saw she could do that was return to Tannor's office as often as possible for both of them. He had other clients across the galaxy and she found as much therapy in training her convorees as talking with him.

Efret sat on the sofa then leaned forward just so to make herself a cup of black tea as she always did. The familiarity, the ritual was comforting. Not having to make the choices consciously each time she visited, but just sinking into the habits she had formed over the last months, was the kind of security she needed before bearing her heart.

"It's wilting, Doctor," she said after stirring cream into her tea and sitting back to allow it to cool. "The flower Elias gave me."

Once picked, the Picture of a Lady survived off of the love strung between whoever had picked it and the person of their desire. If it was wilting now, that could only mean two things, both almost equal in the pain they caused Efret: Elias' heart had either shifted, or stopped altogether.

Tannor Grene​

 

[Tannor Grene]

Tannor did not answer her question immediately. He had learned, over time; that moments like this were not meant to be filled too quickly. The space between her words and whatever followed was not empty; it was where the truth of them settled.

His gaze shifted briefly to the cup in her hands, then back to her, taking in the small rituals that she had come to rely on. The tea. The way she leaned forward just slightly before speaking. The steadiness she built for herself before allowing anything fragile to surface. “It’s changed,” he said at last, his tone quiet, but certain. Not correcting. Not reframing. Just meeting her where she stood. “And you’ve noticed it.” There was no weight of judgment in the observation; only acknowledgment.

Tannor leaned back slightly in his chair, posture composed but not distant, his attention fixed fully on her. “You said before,” he continued gently, “that the flower responds to the bond between two people. Not to distance. Not to time.” His voice remained even, careful in its pacing. “Only to what exists between them.” He let that settle, not pushing it further just yet. “So tell me,” he added after a moment, “what it is you believe it’s telling you.” Not what it means. Not what has happened. What she believes.

His gaze softened, though his posture did not shift. “Not the answer that hurts the least,” he said quietly. “And not the one that hurts the most.” A small pause. “The one that feels true to you.”

He let the room settle again after that, offering no interruption, no redirection. Only space for her to think. And the steady presence of someone who would not look away from whatever she chose to place into it.

Tag: Efret Farr

 

[Efret Farr]

Dread chilled Efret's fingers. The last thing she wanted to do was sign, the first to seek out the warmth of her cup sat on the coffee table. More than any other day in the last few months, she needed the external warmth, for the spark of hope she had carried within her chest was beginning to smolder. Extinguishing was a matter of time; she knew it.

Her hands trembled ever so slightly against her will as she replied to the good doctor.

"That...our love has changed somehow."

Her answer could have been mistaken for a question that Efret's interpretation unit had simply failed to recognize and formulate as such.

"I've felt sick all morning," she added. "I haven't eaten."

And after a short moment, another confession came.

"I don't know how to comfort myself."

Tannor Grene​

 

[Tannor Grene]

Tannor did not respond to her first answer right away. Not because he had missed it; but because he had heard the second, quieter truth beneath it.

His gaze lowered briefly to her hands, noting the tremor she could not quite still, the way that her fingers lingered near the warmth of the cup without fully claiming it. When he looked back to her, something in his expression had shifted. It was not urgency, nor alarm, but a subtle narrowing of focus. Attention that was drawn closer.

“You haven’t eaten,” he repeated softly, not as a question. “And you feel unwell.” He did not challenge her conclusion. Not yet. There would be time for that, if it was needed. But this was immediate. Tannor leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms against his knees, closing some of the space between them without intruding upon it. “Then we start there.” His tone remained even, but there was a quiet firmness beneath it now. Not directive. Anchoring. “When the body is strained, the mind looks for reasons to explain it. It reaches for what is already close. What already matters.” His gaze held hers, steady and unyielding in its calm. “That does not make your conclusion wrong.” A slight pause. “But it does mean we should be careful about when we trust it.”

His attention shifted, briefly, to the cup. “You said you don’t know how to comfort yourself.” It was not an echo. But a recognition. “That’s something we can learn.” The words were simple. Unadorned. Offered without judgment. Tannor straightened just slightly, though his focus never left her. “For now how about something small.” A subtle nod toward the table. “Let's start with the tea. Take a few sips. Slowly.” His voice softened again, not losing its steadiness. “Not to fix anything. Just to give your body something it can use. Then we see what remains.” He did not look away. "Try not to expect miracles. What we're doing is taking baby steps."

Tag: Efret Farr

 

[Efret Farr]

Efret's brow furrowed. The flower wilted in its box on her coffee table. Her observation hadn't been a dramatic one. It had been realistic. There had been a physical change in the bright petals; that meant something.

But she held her fingers, quite literally, making a loose fist with one hand and tucking her thumb over the backs of her fingers.

Then she stayed her fingers for even longer as she took the cup back up. A few, slow sips later, she set the vessel back down. Her eyes remained closed, her setting down of the cup done by memory. Focus lingered on the heat still lingering on her tongue. Her sense of unease sat small on the fringes of her consciousness for the first time this morning.

Tannor Grene​

 

[Tannor Grene]

Tannor did not speak immediately. Instead he watched. Not in scrutiny, but in quiet acknowledgment of what was unfolding in front of him. The shift was subtle and easy to miss if one were looking for something larger. But he wasn’t. Her breathing had changed. Slightly. The tension in her hands had eased, if only by a fraction.
And the unease she carried had moved. It was not gone. But it was no longer at the center.

“That’s it,” he said softly, the words offered without interruption, as though careful not to disturb what she had found. His posture remained as it was; steady, grounded, present. “You don’t have to do anything with it,” he continued after a moment. “Just notice it.” His gaze flicked briefly to the cup, then back to her. “The warmth. The way it lingers....” A small pause. “The space it created.”

He let that settle, giving her time to remain where she was rather than pulling her forward too quickly. “When something feels overwhelming,” Tannor said quietly, “it’s often because it fills the whole of our attention. There’s no room left for anything else.” A slight shift in his tone took place; not heavier, but more focused. “But now you just made room.” He didn’t frame it as praise. There was no weight of expectation attached to it. Just recognition.

His gaze drifted, briefly, toward the flower on the table; it's wilted petals unchanged. “It’s still there,” he added, gently. “Whatever you noticed before.” Then back to her. “But now it’s not the only thing you can feel.” A small silence followed. Not empty. Not expectant. “If you’re able,” he said after a moment, voice low and even, “take another sip. And see if you can notice when the unease returns rather than assuming it never left.”

Tag: Efret Farr

 

[Efret Farr]

She didn't keep her eyes closed for long. The Force tugged gently at her after a few moments of blackness, as if alerting her that the doctor was going to speak. As her eyelids fluttered open, Force Sight flowed back into her, filling out her constricted natural vision in shades of tan. Objects in the office, as well as the half of Tannor obscured to her, came in slightly translucent shapes over a solid backdrop of brown. The world's real color peeked through the Force's projection through many, irregularly-shaped windows—the blurry spots where she had not gone blind.

She listened to him in her own way, the Force translating his speech mentally into something she could understand as she looked at him.

Reaching again for her teacup, she rose it to her lips and took another sip. Her eyes didn't shut this time, but her gaze did soften as she withdrew her concentration into herself. With her attention, she traced the warmth again across her tongue, then into her esophagus. It cascaded. Her focus deepened to allow her to follow it further, past the point where many would have lost track of it.

Sensations of the body became denser drawing closer to the stomach. Here, the physical and emotional intertwined into almost impossible knots. But she hadn't turned inward to try to untie anything.

The tea slipped her mindful notice as she averted it to the tension held in the muscles of her abdomen wall. Tight. Uncertain. Sorrowful. Anticipating grief.

She shifted back into her full body, then leaned to place her cup down.

"You're right. It didn't leave." She knew it hadn't. Her feelings for Elias, both new and old, were not so fleeting. They had built steadily over a long time. She would be surprised if they even faded now, not that she wanted them to. They had carved deep groves in her.

Her mind went to the dried, golden flower she had left at home.

"It was my hope for so long." In the space of her pause, she reminded herself that the feeling hadn't just been hers, though his gift was. "The hope of many other Jedi."

She retuned to her previous statement, the answer to Tannor's question. "So many changes are possible. Maybe he's dead. Maybe whatever's happening to him is..." Her brow furrowed with the weight of not knowing how to express what she was thinking. "...too much, too painful to allow him to feel anything else. Maybe it's my anger, my resentment that did this." The flaw in her logic about the last possibility occurred to her even as she signed, but she ignored it. The bloom was a physical manifestation of Elias' love, not hers. Further, even if it mirrored hers as well, she did still love him. Distance and hindsight only complicated her preexisting feelings; they didn't negate them.

"But maybe this is only a delayed reaction from the flower to Elias leaving this realm, and nothing has change about our feelings for each other."

Tannor Grene​

 

[Tannor Grene]

Tannor listened without interruption. Not only to her words, but to the spaces between them. To the careful way she moved through possibility after possibility, trying to find one that hurt less than the others. He did not rush to correct her conclusions, nor to soothe them away too quickly. Grief rarely yielded to contradiction.

When she finished, silence settled gently across the room. Then, quietly he responded: “You are trying very hard to find certainty inside something that has denied you any.” His tone held no criticism. Only recognition. His gaze remained steady on her, attentive in that grounded way of his that neither intruded nor withdrew. “And because the uncertainty hurts,” he continued softly, “your mind keeps circling the possibilities, searching for one that feels survivable.” A small pause followed. “Even if that possibility is painful.”

His attention drifted briefly toward the untouched flower she had spoken of without naming directly, then back again. “You’ve imagined death,” he said carefully. “Suffering. Distance. Resentment.” His voice remained even, unhurried. “And also the possibility that nothing meaningful has changed at all. All of them allow the bond to continue existing in some form.” There was no judgment in the observation. Only gentleness.

Tannor leaned back slightly in his chair, allowing the space around her thoughts to widen rather than narrow. “But right now,” he said, “you are treating uncertainty as though it is a problem that can be solved if you think carefully enough.” A faint shake of his head followed; not dismissive, merely calm. “Some uncertainties cannot be resolved from within ourselves.” His gaze softened slightly. “Not immediately. Sometimes not at all.” He let that settle before continuing. “And when that happens, the mind often reaches for responsibility instead.” A subtle pause. “Because guilt can feel easier to hold than helplessness.” His words were quiet, but deliberate. “You mentioned your anger. Your resentment.” He did not say the words heavily. “I don’t think you truly believe those feelings possess the power to erase love that endured across years.” His expression remained composed. “But if you can convince yourself that you caused this…” A small breath. “Then at least the uncertainty becomes explainable.”

He did not press harder than that. Instead, his voice gentled again. “The flower changed,” Tannor said simply. “That is real.” His gaze held hers steadily. “But the meaning you are assigning to that change is still only interpretation. And interpretation is always shaped by the emotional state of the person making it.”

The room fell quiet once more, the soft presence of tea and stillness lingering between them. “You said something important earlier,” Tannor continued after a moment. “That the feeling did not leave.” His attention lowered briefly toward her hands around the cup. “That matters.” Not because it proved Elias alive. Not because it disproved loss. But because it anchored her to something more honest than fear. “You do not need to decide today what the flower means,” he said quietly. “Or what it says about him. Or about you.” A small momentary pause followed. “You only need to notice how quickly grief tries to turn uncertainty into a verdict.”

Tag: Efret Farr