Private The Scars We Carry

[Briana Sal-Soren]

The hum of the hyperdrive was a constant, low, steady vibration that pressed in from every side, a reminder that they were leaving Sepan 8 and its burning skies further behind with each passing second. But even as the stars blurred into streaks and the planet fell away, the losses of the day couldn’t be brushed off. Every soul aboard carried new marks, some visible, others... buried deeper.

Her cerulean gaze remained locked on the sealed medbay doors, ever since they boarded. The ship had been in hyperspace for less than an hour, but the time stretched like pulled wire, every minute feeling like an eternity with Bastila's life balanced somewhere between this side of the Force and the other. The moment she'd found her in the heart of all that chaos, was seared into Briana's mind, sharper than any holorecording. Blaire had been knelt over Bastila in the middle of it, knees pressed into glass, hands slick with blood, Bastila's shirt split open, an incision just below her ribs. The pale, almost waxen stillness of their younger sisters face... the shallow, faltering jerks of her chest, the ugly tubing drawing dark red from her lungs so she wouldn't drown where she lay.

Briana shifted in her seat, trying to push the images from her mind while keeping her movements slow.

The multicolored bruises that'd settled over her ribs and stained her skin like a spreading fungus, had made even the slightest of motions unbearable, while the arm she kept hidden beneath her robes felt heavier by the minute, like it was no longer truly hers. It hung there like an afterthought, a useless weight tethered to her body. The mangled hand at the end was far past the point of pain now, the nerves having gone silent hours ago. Angry red streaks made a slow march up her wrist and fanned out in trails that reached halfway to her elbow. A dull, relentless throb had taken root there, pulsing upward toward her shoulder in a steady rhythm that matched the beat of her heart.

She'd done everything she could — everything besides what needed to be done, anyways — to try and rectify the situation, while ensuring none of the medics would be pulled from Bastila's side. They didn't need to be dividing their focus, they just needed to save her life.

Her hand had been almost unrecognizable as a human appendage by the time she'd truly looked at it, which had been followed by immediately wishing that she hadn’t.

Her saber hand, the one she'd trained with for years, and her strongest weapon as a duelist — was grotesquely swollen like a bloated bag, blotched with red and purple, the fingers dangling at crazy angles. A white shard of bone poked through between the torn skin of her fingers and where the remnants of her lightsaber hilt had been fused, her knuckles puffed into shapeless dimples.

Bacta patches had been applied to the worst of it, a syringe driven into the swelling just at her wrist when she could still feel it. She'd hoped it'd be enough to stem the tide until they'd reached Naboo's shores and they could somehow, miraculously, save what she'd always known was beyond saving... not wanting to ask the question of, without it, would she still be the same? In reality, all she'd managed to do was slow the fever now making her head swim and the corners of her vision blur in and out of focus. Briana closed her eyes against the burning taking over her skull. She didn’t need a medscanner to tell her the truth, she’d seen enough battlefield wounds to know when the clock was running out.

It was why she'd finally sent a message to Lorn from wherever he'd gone to on the ship, to meet her, alone. To do what couldn’t wait and take the arm mid-way, clean and cauterized, before the infection took more than just her hand.

TAG: Lorn Reingard | FYI: Blaire Sal-Soren , Bastila Sal-Soren | EQUIPMENT: Ligthsaber, Echo Stone, Astor's Dagger

​

 

[Lorn Reingard]

​

The ship's corridors felt narrower than usual. Low ceilings pressed in, and the dim glowpanels barely held back the shadows. The hum of the hyperdrive was constant, a reminder they were leaving Sepan 8 behind, but Lorn knew the worst of the battle had come with them.

His chest burned with every breath. The vibroblade cut into his chest still felt wet when he moved wrong. A jagged gash tore across his left hand, the skin raw and angry beneath the hasty bacta patch the medics had slapped on. They hadn't lingered; too many other bodies needed attention. He'd told them to go, to save the ones still bleeding out.

They'd been unprepared from the first shot fired. The attack, the chaos, and the losses: none of it should have happened. And now, the aftermath was even worse.

Near the medbay, movement caught his eye: a flurry of medtechs clustered around a gurney. In their midst was that infuriatingly familiar face. It was a Sal-Soren, the same woman who'd dropped him with a stun charge on Katabasis like she was swatting an insect. He'd have words for her one day, if she survived this.

She looked utterly wrecked. Her hair was loose, skin pale under the harsh lights. The sight of Bastila nearly stopped him cold. She was half-hidden beneath IV lines and monitors, her chest rising in a shallow, faltering rhythm. A tube snaked from her side into a catch basin that was far too red.

Right outside Bastila's room sat Blaire. He recognized her instantly. Her shoulders were hunched, her gaze distant, as if she were watching something far away that only she could see. He dropped to his knees beside her despite the fire that lanced through his side.

He checked her over, his hands quick and clinical. She had scrapes and bruises, but seemed intact enough to still sit upright. No bleeding that couldn't wait. She barely reacted to his touch, her eyes locked somewhere down the hall.

"She's fighting," Lorn told her quietly, jerking his chin toward Bastila's door. "Your sister's stronger than this day. Stay with her."

Blaire didn't answer, just rose as he did, following his stride down the narrow hall. He didn't slow to argue, not yet. They passed the threshold into the next compartment, and the medbay door slid aside with a soft hiss.

And there was Briana. She was seated on the edge of the cot, robes draped to hide her arm. Almost. The moment his eyes found her hand, the galaxy narrowed to the sound of his own breath.

What was left of her dominant hand didn't look like it belonged to her anymore. It was bloated and broken at unnatural angles, streaked with infection that crawled halfway up her forearm. Bacta strips clung where they could, but it was too far gone for patches and syringes.

Her gaze met his, calm in a way that made his chest ache. There was no fear in it, only resolve. They both knew what needed to be done.

He took one slow step forward, then another. He stopped, not because he needed to, but because it felt wrong to cross the last bit of distance until the moment demanded it.

Without turning his head, he said over his shoulder, his voice low and flat: "Blaire. Go. You don't want to see this."

Briana Sal-Soren | Blaire Sal-Soren | Bastila Sal-Soren | @Blorn Sal-Soren​

 

[Blaire Sal-Soren]

Blaire Ostana Sal-Soren

Is that who I am? She wondered

This again?

Fine.

It was once, why not still?

I’m not what I was once.

I thought the question was ‘who’ not ‘what’

What?

“She’s still fighting, your sister is stronger than this day.”

“What?” Blaire asked stupidly, not understanding. It was as though her brain was full of static. She knew the voice that spoke but could not think to whom it belonged.

Someone was stooped in front of her, she knew that much, though, she could not make out who it was despite their closeness to her. They were little more than some figure blurred and unreadable like trying to make out a face through a glass covered in frost.

The Force?! She thought in a panic for maybe the five-thousandth time. The question came to her over and over as she sat staring into nothingness before being interrupted by whoever was in front of her right now.

They were looking over Blaire’s hurts of which there was none to make concern over. Even her hands so covered in tiny and some not so tiny cuts from crawling through the broken glass to hold on to Bast did not require the figure’s attention. She pulled them away sharply. They responded with a sharp gesture the other direction, right at:

Oh… she thought wearily. Bastila, right.

Behind the grey door of the medbay, her baby sister was fighting for her life and it was no sure thing she would make it through. Blaire had done what she could to help. She was no surgeon but even with an amateur’s eye she had thought that far too many of Bastila’s injuries looked…catastrophic. She had been informed of Bastila’s injuries but she could not recall a single one at the moment.

The overwalk shuddered and swayed as she sat cradling Baby Bast, the sounds of war a million miles away, except, the war was right at their feet. Blaire’s hands, her legs, her boots, were all covered in shards of broken glass and she sobbed a prayer.

“Blessed Shiraya, I…I…

Blessed Shiraya, I have no right. No right at all to come to you again. You gave me my children. You spared their lives and mine. You showed Brandyn the way and he gave me back my Baryn. Through your mercy I have more than I could ever ever hope to deserve. I know…no right…please, you must let Bastila be alive. Blessed Shiraya, please let her be alive.”

Briana found her then, cradling their baby sister, refusing to believe Shiraya would answer her oldest prayer, would give her the ability to keep Bast from falling only to let that, that, creature, yes, that’s what that woman had been. Some sort of monster. How else would that vile woman have been able to put both of her sisters in the medbay? Only to that that creature claim her life. Shiraya would spare her.

The figure rose. Blaire rose too. It didn’t really feel as though it was her decision to do so. It was as if she was on autopilot. Blaire was vaguely aware of walking through the narrow corridor. Twice she was nearly swallowed by the wake of frenzied packs of people rushing from here to there dealing no doubt with life or death. The figure she followed had a way of causing these packs to part that she just did not care to possess.

It was some miracle that she kept pace with whoever it was but she did.

It was she thought the smell that broke her malaise.

“Blaire. Go. You don’t want to see this.” Said the figure who turned out to be Lorn.

“Shiraya’s breath, Briana.” Blaire said ignoring Lorn. “That’s disgusting.” She did her best to sound casual as though Bri was merely going to be given a splint and some pain meds and sent on her way. Blaire knew better. It bears repeating that Blaire was not a surgeon but this was not her first warzone and she knew a lost cause when she saw one.

He meant well.

They always mean well.

Blaire was less than an hour ago wet to the elbow in her little sister’s blood, desperate to keep her alive, terrified of her failure. She would be happy to stay here and support her older sister. This was something she could do and she would be run off by a bit of blood.

| Outfit: xxx | Tag: Briana Sal-Soren Bastila Sal-Soren Lorn Reingard Brandyn Sal-Soren | Equipment: xxx |​