The Sorcerers

[Seydon of Arda]

“Mmnngg…”

The couch upholstery had cooled considerably in Rosa’s absence. Seydon stirred off his backside and peeled himself from the crazed leather, standing and stretching. The bungalow hadn’t done much to keep out the rain-chill; a stipple of goosebumps rose up his shoulder blades, to his wife’s laughter from the kitchen. He plodded against stiffened floorboards, ringing with fibrous keening, trying to adjust the mounted thermos dial before a spring ejected from the casing and shot a worn bolt across the living room.

A pointed tug on his rump called his attentions. A flick of a dark trestle of hair, warm violet eyes sweeping over the unswept. Seydon took his cue. Rosa quietly meditating over the stacked data-slates on the bare dining table, he dressed on a tattered apron, took stock of their supplies, what’d been left over from the prior Underground occupants, trying to parse together a decent breakfast.

“You know I’ve subsisted off gruel before, I’m fine,” Rosa protested once.

“You expect me to feed you half-arsed slop and be content about it?”

“I expect you to be a realist, darling.”

“Then I’m going to ‘realistically’ give us something proper.”

He spared a pair of eggs, flash-dried hashes from a torn open foodstuff, some materials that vaguely resembled meat. The stove top was dialed a few degrees hotter than called for, until a steady, thrumming warmth permeated the kitchen space and brought colour back to their fingertips. Seydon retrieved a few odd spice vials from a musty overhead cupboard, mixing them into a single dispenser with old alchemical skill.

“So, what are we thinking?” He asked. A serving plate had been slid under Rosa’s nose: fried eggs, hash-browns stirred with onion, a meat substitute that looked just enough like ham and sausage, with a side of ketchup or, very luckily as he found, a dap of hot Dijon from a well-aged glass topper. Seydon sat in, accepting a mug of caff. “Haven’t said a word since you got up. …I wasn’t that bad, was I?”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa's eyes seemed to smirk over the lip of her mug, her gaze sliding from the datapad in hand to her husband opposite. "No more than usual, love." she teased taking a sip of the caff and setting the mug down beside the fresh plate of food he'd slid under her nose. She reached across the table, handing a data slate to him before picking up cutlery and tucking into her breakfast.

"The Zambrano's have a number of houses across the planet but they prevail in Canthar. If the Abbess is to be believed, then that's where we're going."

Khedal could hide a pair of bounty hunters easy enough, with its slave trade centre those who were considered 'rough around the edges' were an expected part of the scenery, the capital was another matter entirely. It was a gleaming statement to the rest of the planet, a place of high standards and prosperity built on the back of a totalitarian rule that had risen through blood and fire. Getting there wouldn't be hard, shuttles moved often enough from the port to the capital, if they wanted to take their time they could catch a ferry instead.

"We need to check and see if there is a safehouse for us, and if not, we better look on the market for apartments to rent while we're there."

[member="Seydon Gunn"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

She was already thumbing through available leases. Seydon stood, coming round behind her shoulder, not at all mindful that his nakedness was quite close to his wife’s shoulders, that she was shaking slightly from mirth, with a blush to match, that he ought to have already been dressed but relegated it for later. He leaned and brushed his elbow against her neck, pointing at a few passing listings that looked halfway affordable.

“That one?”

“Mmn.”

“…That one?”

“Mmnn…”

“…Why not that one? Rent’s a bit ‘hoagh’ but they cover electric and water. …What?” Seydon put on a face as she slapped his arm and pushed his tousled face away from rubbing at her nose.

We’re anticipating a stay, then, he ruminated. Naturally. Canthar’s an aged metropolis, not on a Coruscanti scale, but no less densely insulated. Old generations and past kingdoms built directly onto lost lodestones. They couldn’t block the city out and slice through a comprehensive search in a week, much less a day. Seydon considered sustenance and ready hydration, fortifying their bolthole if they had to in lieu of a proper saferoom, deflecting local attention, all the while somehow avoiding direct interest of Panathan and First Order sec-forces, the local population of Dark Jedi and Sith Would-Be’s. Danger touched off a shiver in his fingertips.

Little guy, Seydon thought, belting on the last of his harnessing and throwing a weather cape over his shoulders. Little guy, be safe, please… We’ve only got so many miracles to spare.

“We’ll hit public transit into Canthar,” He said. “Maybe if we can blend, somehow, we won’t get marked out by any ‘Eye’s-In-The-Sky’. Wear enough leather, we won’t look any different from the next dark sider. ‘Lord Gobshite’ ought to scare off any questions.”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

They packed carefully, cautious of leaving something behind to mark a trail. Rosa spent the time on and off the comm with various agents before settling upon a mid-level apartment at the cheaper end on Canthar's metropolis and at a lower rate than advertised on the grounds they were moving in today. Rosa would keep it on the books even after they left. It paid to have boltholes anywhere and everywhere you could and no doubt the Underground would find a use for it too.

Mid morning brought another rumble of thunder and the downpour seemed to grow more intense. Rosa loathed the idea of getting soaked again, but the rain would provide much needed cover for their departure. People twitched curtains far less when the whether was droll. Pulling up hoods on travel cloaks they darted out into the rain, Rosa muttering curses under her breath, Seydon's lips twitching at her annoyance.

They hailed a cab once they hit the main street, hauling their almost sodden luggage into the speeders boot and climbing into the back. The epicant in the front seat regarded them curiously before a too long look from Rosa made her snap her attention away and she focused on the path ahead, wipers working frantically to keep the cascades of water from her view.

"D'ya hear what happened?" the driver asked halfway to the shuttle station.

"Hmm?" Rosa snapped her head round from gazing out the window to meet the womans gaze in the rear view mirror.

"...at the Abbey? Did you hear?"

"Enlighten me." Rosa replied curtly, her tone the right level of bored to suggest that such matters did not interest her in the slightest.

"Someone broke in, killed a lot of guards, tortured the headmistress too. Right mess. Didn't take any kids though. Left no traces either, 'cept a pile of bodies." the epicant shuddered dramatically. "Establishment is in outrage, desperate for a thread of information."

"I've no doubt they'll find it." Rosa replied calmly, feeling Seydon tense beside her. "Such disrespect for an establishment as esteemed as the Abbey shouldn't go unpunished." The shuttle station loomed ahead of them. "They've Panatha's best on the case, I take it?" The driver pulled into the station, and twisted in her seat to face Rosa full as Seydon climbed out to retrieve their luggage.

"Rumour has it, the Grand Admiral has taken a personal interest in it." Rosa's eyebrow arched. "Aye," the woman grinned at her reaction. "That's what i thought too." She extended a hand for her pay, and Rosa slipped her the fare, plus a decent tip before sliding out after Seydon.

[member="Seydon Gunn"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

Seydon could not deny Canthar’s vibrancy.

It spoke to it’s characteristic byzantine tradition, with grand constructions borrowing from old Nabooian concepts, like how to rest the great weight of innumerable rose-marble basilica domes upon square bases rooted through the stone by corded steel pillaring. They had broken from conservative restraints, exemplified by typical vaulted ceilings more favoured by Imperial reactionaries, and had adopted a widespread ideology of elegant spire keeps nestled beside great dome polygons. Carved arcade reliefs had been replaced with glass and crucible-fired mosaics laid intricately against wet-lime frescos. Avenue-level decorum was unchanged since the turn of the First Century; labyrinthine streets intersecting on themselves, speeder traffic arranged vertically rather than side-by-side lanes, gated storefronts punctuated by painted glass etchings done to cyrillic script, festooned with coloured awnings, family and clan banner-rolls, and bronze-poured sculptures depicting racial heroes.

Dominating all were lingering traces of the Zambrano regime. City workers were still busied replacing Carnifex’s livery with that of the First Order, the hard white-on-black or red-on-black hexagonal shields. Seydon learned, through incautious word of mouth, that even Kaine had to relent against the Moffs. He and associated kin were relocated to the Stygian Caldera, Carnifex now set up as Dark Lord. In time, he thought, they would make a play to have their ancestral holdings returned. And the First Order would deny the claim, martial forces, blunt their teeth on Zambrano fangs, and Panatha would cook to ash.

The safe house was in Hagia Sonona. An elderly neighborhood not accosted by grandiose structure, favouring only square hab-blocks and neatly incised streets rowed accordingly. Their taxi left them at the foot of a narrow apartment, beneath a cool awning shading an entryway converted into an elegant hatchway. It was left open and bands of iron sutured into place to keep it so. A straw broom and copper pan were left propped nearby. The building was a tall ‘iron-pan’ of traditional brickwork, plaster, and long sheathes of insulating stone. An Epicanthix woman, as rotund as she was tall, ushered them in. Seydon saw her age; her teeth were a dark work of meshed dentures and one eye was a replaced prosthetic.

They only talked sparingly. The Landlady welcomed them in accented Basic before a porter emerged from a back filing room. Seydon and Rosa followed him upstairs, through a grating lift ride. He smelled age, decay must, rank mixtures of sodium and ammonia where crumbling plaster was melting and becoming chemically mixed with the paint. The porter led them round to a relatively isolated flat on the fifth floor, near the east end overlooking the tall back-alley. He handed over their set of entry keys: a pair of machine stamped ‘irons’ taped with wire and a single silicon chip. Seydon waited on the porter, fitting his key in once the hall was empty and helping usher Rosa and their luggage in past the door.

He closed up, set the myriad locks installed on the jamb in place, leaned against a flaking wall. And breathed.

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa stepped deeper into the apartment, tugging her gloves free. It was partially furnished with basic amenities, which was all the needed. Her gloves made a distinct slap as they dropped onto the coffee table and she glanced over her shoulder to see her husband leaning on the wall. Unspoken words of fear passed between them. They were deep in unknown territory with an unknown enemy possibly on their trail, all for the sake of an unknown child. She cut back across the dusty carpet towards him, amethyst gaze drawing in his own amber one before she slipped her arms about his waist and pulled him close, her forehead resting on his shoulder. They stayed in that embrace for long minutes, just breathing and holding each other close. The tension easing slowly from each of their shoulders till Rosa stepped back, placing a soft kiss on his cheek and moving away.

It took most of the day to clean up the apartment. Something that should have been low priority but Rosa insisted they did it all the same, they needed a mindless task to calm their frayed nerves and a clean space to work in. She was delaying, and he knew that but her humoured her all the same, ducking out of the door in the late afternoon to find the local grocers and stock up their meagre food supplies. When he returned, Rosa was in the kitchen, dataslates spread once more across the kitchen table, the holoimage of the child at one end, a holomap of the city rose above the vast area of the table and the images of the laboratory that they had first received were laid flat at her finger tips.

"I've an idea," she said, rising from her chair as he deposited the bags on the kitchen counter and helping him unpack and store them away. "Jorus has the ability to hone in on someone, track them across the galaxies but he needs a 'scent' first. The glimpse of a force signature and he can find anyone. I'm not an astronavigator by any means but i can distinguish between different force signatures, use my empathy to hone in on them. In a city where I can't read half the residents? Well that makes it a whole lot easier because their minds are irrelevant, but it leaves me exposed. I've not stretched myself across so many people since the One Sith used me as a phobis device."

[member="Seydon Gunn"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

“It’d be two-way,” Seydon said from the counter. “You see them, they see you.”

The groceries were in arranged ‘disarray’ across the counter space and Seydon was splitting his time between dinner preparation and helping Rosa pour over their slowly accreting mountain of local data. Canthar was lit up, a hard-light hologram occupying half the table, with notable monuments, locales, and main thoroughfares highlighted in carmine. He paused, ran his fingers through velvet light, trying to discern. There was the immense ziggurat ‘Hasi Sulemi’, once a reserved temple, since then converted and repurposed to serve as administrative command over both Canthar and Panatha whole. Blackstone Keep, the nerve centre of local Imperial forces, where they martialled and barracked. The ornate Temples of the Divines, where worship to the Epicanthan pantheon had been transplanted. The gladiatorial Grand Colosseum, the Starport, and the Imperial drydocks. With a metropolis sprawled in between each cardinal point.

“Could we do it from here? Would you need a vantage point to ‘broadcast’ properly?” Dinner was going to be a comfort. Chicken breast, thigh, and leg had been skinned, deboned, and dashed in spicy batter, awaiting the narrow oven space. He’d sliced through nearly over half a bag of potatoes, piling them in a casserole dish, layered thickly with cut mushroom halves, sweet onion, and copious amounts of cheese. He’d prepared a light ‘summer’ salad and garlic bread, slipping a stemmed wine glass beside Rosa while she contemplated details on flimsiplast printouts and stock-datapads. It’d been like exercise; multi-tasking, motor control and balance, posture, footwork, physical coordination. Hands washed, he settled his thumb and fingers on the ridge of Rosa’s nape and began massaging. “Or is that not how it works?”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

"The exposure of them seeing me is not something I'm overly concerned with, they will feel me, but they won't know where I am." Finger closed about the offered wine glass and she took a sip pondering how best to explain. "I can do it from here, in fact its better that I do it from here. Its familiar, and familiarity will help with my grounding."

She ran a hand through her hair and began pacing the length of the kitchen, chewing her lip in thought. "the exposure that concerns me, is how hard it will be to close up afterwards. I've spent a very long time, both before Layil and after Layil closing my empathy off as best I can. Allowing myself to feel as little external emotion as possible so I can better function. When that barrier is down it like being an exposed nerve. Flashes of anger become like hot pokers, sorrow becomes impossible to deflect, joy is contagious. I will feel everything, only at greater heights. Which is...essentially...what the carsunum did."

She stopped pacing and bit her lower lip. "Seydon, love...if i do this, I could go backwards."

[member="Seydon Gunn"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

“You won’t,” Seydon said, feeling terror lance up through his heart. “I know you, you won’t.”

The oven timer rang and drew him back to the stove. The chicken was slid onto a cooled burner, replaced with the scallop-potatoes and set for a quarter of an hour. He wracked himself for alternatives, leaning over the counter space, still dusty past his wrists with batter, shoulders and spine tight with anxiousness. Speeder engines hummed past their floor and gently rattled the cutlery.

“Rose, you…” Seydon stepped back, watched her pace past him to the oven and stalk away in half a beat. “You don’t have to. There’s… There’s no prerequisite saying you have to walk that tightrope again. We can do things as we have. It’ll take time but you won’t have to go staring into that mirror again. You’ve risked enough…”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

"We don't have time, Seydon." she replied exasperatedly. Moving back to the table and setting the wine glass down, she found another holoprojector, fiddling for a moment with files before flicking it to life. A balding human, with a walrus moustache, small black eyes rose from it. His uniform was pressed within an inch of his life and there was something nasty in the curl of his lip. She slapped it on the counter next to the stove and let him stare at it for a moment.

"Thaddeus Krell. They call him the Nightmare Admiral. His records are impeccable, and he's ruthless by all accounts. A master strategist, a commander and an imperial fanatic to boot. Now, I'm not one put much stock in the loose tongue of a cab driver but why would such a name even come up for an investigation if there wasn't an ounce of truth to it? Why would a high ranking naval officer pay any attention to the demise of a slave house, no matter how prominent?"

She moved back to the table collecting her wine glass and taking a gulp, hoping it would take the edge off her frayed nerves. At the very least it gave her something to do with her hands. "We don't have time." she repeated.

[member="Seydon Gunn"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

None at all, he agreed. An anxiousness had begun since their feet had stepped to Panathan soil, and not due simply to the threat of Kaine’s lingering regime, the First Order’s presence, or even the underbelly of couriers, agents, brokers, and flesh-lords responsible for a thriving blackmarket economy in slaves, loot, and curried favours. Their thoughts were with the child and with the mounting evidence that so much to do with Panatha deserved to be reversed, if not torched. Why the child, why them, why the vision of Guenyvhar, why now? Seydon detested destiny. Were they trapped in its machinations now, he wondered? They were racing to hurry on ahead of the dark, but the shadows were closing. His hands ached for a sword.

“Fine,” He said. “But if there’s any way I can help you, I want in. Never mind any danger. We routed Layil, and we went the distance with Odium. If something happens, I want to be close. You can draw on me and everything I keep in store for you. Maybe it could help anchor things. Or act as a psychopomp if you get lost. Just one thing: not tonight.”

Seydon’s hands caught his wife from pacing. Close as they were, her mixture of subtle spices dashed gently to her skin was overpowering to his senses. His finger paused and tugged an errant hair behind her ear. “Supper’s almost ready and we’ve been travelling all day. We’ll eat, rest, and start at dawn.”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Hands caught her elbow and pulled her close, thumb running along her jawline. The protest at delaying further was there on the tip of her tongue, but it died when she met his gaze. There was a fight she wasn't going to win, they were few and far between but they still existed. Rosa heaved a sigh out of her nose, nails drumming once on the wine glass in her hand before her shoulders relaxed. "Alright," she conceded with a nod. "Tomorrow."

She raised up on tiptoes to kiss him, a heat just behind it as her free hand slid around his neck, arms drew her a little closer, fingers kneading up her spine. Supper. Her murmured somewhere in between, as they paused for breath. She trailed kissed along his jawline and neck. Woman. She grinned drawing away, running a hand through her hair. The smile faltered with her back to him, her eyes upon the data spread across the table. She set down the wine glass and shut the holoimages down, shifting everything into a neat pile at the tables end and setting it up for the two of them.

Locked in Seydon's embrace she could forget about everything. They could be on death's door with him and it wouldn't matter. Like a teenager with a crush she was utterly intoxicated by him. Do you know what you do to me? She thought watching him out of the corner of her eye. Do you know just how much I love you?

[member="Seydon Gunn"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

They dined then, making small excerpts of light chatter, about virtually everything and anything that did not have immediate relevance on the mission. Seydon watched that Rosa ate through her portions, careful not to task her appetite or digestion. Already, with wine and hot chicken and cheesy scalped-potatoes, with the summer salad dressed in goat cheese and a modified oil sauce, her eyes blinked heavy. He saw the warmth bloom up behind the flesh of her nose. Caught her stifle a handful of yawns and briefly glare back. What? What was he looking at? She was fine, perfectly capable! Look somewhere else, bloody Dunaan cur, with your impudent glances and improper winks! Seydon stood, collected their dishes, humming a teasing ditty that possessed his wife with ire instead of digestive exhaustion.

A wet rag rose out of the sink and slapped him. On the third slap, he finally bothered to snatch it from the air. Then came pelting suds and bubbles, plates and bowls spinning out of his hands and ‘air-drying’ out over his head. Uproarious sniggers kept tickling at his ears from behind. Oh, but she was pleased with her mischief. Blessed gods, something else to keep her attention. Never minding there was still the poor babe, that blasted admiral, a full city of great danger just outside their flat windows. Seydon endured until he put the last fork aside and drained the rinsing sink. The atmosphere shifted as he turned round; shirt unbuttoned down his throat, sleeves rolled past the elbow, bangs wet from her sprinkling. He saw his wife swallow thickly, and attempt to retreat from the kitchen.

Seydon simply reached and turned out the kitchen and living room lights. Cats-eyes found her in the sudden gloom, blazing like full-moons above a dangerously set smile. They-They had a great deal to do in the morning, she tried reminding him. He had promised her a full night’s rest. Please, no, they mustn’t kiss, because damn him, his physical artistry played her like chords on a harp. No, she kept saying, with progressively weakening power. She was shunted to the nearby fridge, touched and held in very gladdening ways. His shirt was lost somewhere on the floor. Her feet were off their toes and legs locked about his waist. Seydon whispered just how much he loved her, and she was lost.

-

Their loved carried to a small bedroom and landed on a narrow cot not meant for either Seydon’s frame or their paired bodies. The covers were there, somewhere. Neither felt bothered to reach, too comfortable now, constricted belly to belly, enraptured with especially livid need. Perhaps Seydon was worried. It would explain both the care and demand in his touch, at once soft and claiming, seeing to her express delight and pleasure until that fullness overwhelmed and she begged for a moment to breath. He kissed away tears but never relented. Not when her nails shrieked down his shoulder blades, trembled and broke apart with ecstasy, gathered back to the pillows to shackle her wrists with his hands. ‘Not too long,’ Seydon promised. The fething liar.

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Again and again she trembled beneath him, carried to heights of ecstasy over and over till she could endure no more and he relented, wrapping her in a warm embrace, running kisses along her shoulder that made her shiver with delight. Soft words murmured in her ear. I love you, Seydon. My dunaan, my husband, my everything. Sleep was warm, enticing and impossible to resist and she fell into blindly and went deep.

Daylight crept though a gap in the curtains, to bright to be dawn. Her limbs were like lead, too heavy to move, eyelids sewn shut. But she had to move didn't she? There were things to be done, papers to organise, meetings to have. Hmmnn maybe, maybe she'd stay here for the rest of the morning and let the Temple go on without her. Just a few more hours. She rolled over to find the cot smaller than she remembered, and also that her husband was not in it.

Reality rushed back with the impact of a freight train and the bliss of the night before vanished in a heartbeat, as she opened her eyes. This was not the Silent Temple, nor their spacious living quarters. This was not a day to remain in bed. They were still behind enemy lines and they still had a boy to find. Why had he let her sleep? You know why woman, because he worries, because he knows how close you are to the brink and because he dreads today more than you will ever comprehend. She swung her legs from the bed and sat up slowly, fingers reaching for a shirt tossed over the cots end for her to throw on. She smiled at that, slipping it round her slender frame and rising to pad from the room with a wide yawn, running fingers through tangled black locks to loosen them.

She found him by the stove, a hot cup of caff already waiting for her on the table. She passed it, moving to slip her arms around his waist and bury her face between his shoulder blades and trailing kisses up his spine. "Morning." she murmured.

[member="Seydon Gunn"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

Her lips tickled cat-paws down to his heels. He should have woken her an hour prior; Rosa had shifted in her sleep, hair messed and brushing his arm, murmuring laughter in her dreams, then working her lips to whisper his name tiredly and slipping away. Seydon couldn’t find the heart to rouse her. He extricated free, arranged her against the still-warm blankets, head propped with spare pillows, then left to quietly ready breakfast. That morning was their tried and true ‘starting’ menu: ham, eggs, bacon, toast. Caff, sugar and milk blended, still waited for her on the counterspace. He took one of her hands in his palm, rubbing his thumb back along her knuckles and wrist.

“Morning,” His voice rumbled. “Hmmn… Someone slept very well~ Glad for that. Made some breaky for when you got up. Standard fair. You might’ve scolded me if it were eggs-benny.” Seydon turned in her hold, kissing the part in her hair and drawing up her scent. “Mmnn, something magical about you first thing in the morn.”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

She chuckled softly. "Probably something to do with the fact that I'm too sleepy to tease you. Does kindness smell sweeter? I don't know." She placed a soft kiss on his lips and slipped away to collect her caff, still blinking sleep out of her eyes, easing her mind from the dreamless fog. It would be her last dreamless night for a long time. She found the holoprojector on the table of the babe and settled her self into a chair flicking it on.

Rosa didn't need to look at it, by now with the amount of time she'd spent staring at his face she could bring every tiny detail to her mind, from the tiny crease in his forehead form the frown to the way his toes poked out from the blanket. Yet every time she did turn it on, those big blue eyes snatched at her heart and she longed to hold him, to brush the frown from his face and give him the love he deserved.

"You don't need to do this with me, Seydon. It's not like Layil or Odium, I'm not going to a different plane or a world constructed of thoughts, i'm skimming the surface of the whole cities thoughts, looking for a lead. If the Abbey is anything to go by, i'll be picking up on things that will hurt." She knew she was wasting her breath, but she wanted it said anyway.

[member="Seydon Gunn"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

“What you said worried me is all,” Seydon admitted. ‘Going backwards’ recalled long weeks holed up in private rooms, ferrying his sick wife from world to world, ahead of Sith hounds and Republic headhunters only by a step and a thread of faint, hazy luck. Then the months following helping her rehabilitate; physical regimes, mental exercises, nights woken an hour before dawn by thrashing, screaming, and blank eyes crying as her voice broke sickeningly. Until a point, Seydon had been sickened with fear that she’d attempt suicide under his watch. Layil had nearly destroyed them. Odium brought back old wounds. Her soul wasn’t wholly in his keeping but the idea of her losing even an iota of good health they’d fought and clawed together for raised mortal terror.

He came around with his own glass of chilled morning milk, taking a seat opposite her. The little boy hung suspended between them. His bright eyes haunted. Seydon swore he would never be the echo of his own parents: absent and dead “If you wanna handle it expediently, we’ll do it your way. …If you’d rather have me along to take bite away, then I’ll come with you. …There’s only so much I can keep safe and you, you are one of them. Forgive me a little fear, if I don’t want this place hurting you anymore than it has…”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

"Being an empath is like being a transceiver for emotions. Some transceivers are stronger than others. Its always been my...gift, shall we say, to pick up on the subtlest of changes. I was using it long before i was a Jedi to work a room full of politicians. The more i trained, the more powerful that transceiver became and I had to learn to dial it down, particularly when the wars started. Isolda made it so I couldn't dial it down, I felt everything and had no way to block it out. Those emotions become my own and distinguishing between whats mine and what isn't becomes harder. Its why we had to go as far away from the core as we did, in order for me to relearn how to dial it back."

She took a sip of her caff, setting down on the table and reaching across to take Seydon's hand. "That's what i mean by going backwards. We'd have to go to the edges of the galaxy again for me to find some modicum of calm to settle again. But thats worst case scenario. Best case scenario is i'm going to be hyper sensitive for a few weeks. Either way its not going to be pretty. The best that you can do, is be a calm centre for me to pull back to."

[member="Seydon Gunn"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

“Alright,” He ceded, hating to be useless and understanding he held little alternative.

They finished breakfast, washed and dressed, Seydon keeping his thoughts turned towards the day’s coming trials. His wife required serenity that was eluding him. Again, he knew fear, and cursed himself for believing Rosa contained some hidden, inner fragility. It betrayed her strength, her triumphs, and her confidence in him. What are you scared for, he asked himself? Her, yourself, or the boy? All of us, Seydon decided, tying on his tunic. Because if catastrophe finds her, we’re in trouble. We lose the boy. Even if we can manage a retreat off-world, that’s many weeks of isolation until her over-emphatic powers finally calm and subside. Afterward, even longer years of untreated guilt. She won’t forgive herself if she fails. I know; neither will I.

He concentrated and folded his thoughts inward, exercising Rosa’s tutelage. Thought of laughter and children and the little workshop that housed lifetimes of inherited work, of his wife, her kisses and wry humour, her softness, her strength, that secret vulnerability that only showed when they made love. He remembered the tranquility that followed culmination. Seydon sought out that feeling of completeness, as he dressed in his war-gear, hung his swords over his shoulder and belted on the harnesses. Never minding the bitterness that they were childless on their own. They would save the boy, go home, and argue about baby-names over celebratory feasts. Yes, he thought! And he knew exactly how to apply leverage on his oh so lovely wife to swing the choice his way~

“…What are you giggling about?”

“Thinking about you,” Seydon smirked, pausing before her. “Very inappropriately.”

[member="Rosa Gunn"]

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Rosa watched him dress out of the corner of her eyes heart swelling with love and pride as she felt him fold away his fears and find the calm centre she needed him to be. Look at how far we've come. She thought back to the days of the Republic when he'd been a shy boy in her tutelage, sweet, innocent, with a heart of gold and a desire to do nought but good. She dropped her gaze and smirked herself. He was no longer shy, nor innocent. Colour rushed to her cheeks and Rosa cleared her throat, shaking herself away from that train of thought before the day's tasks were derailed entirely.

She'd dressed in loose slacks and an fitted tank tank that she pulled over her head, padding barefoot across the bedroom carpet to lean over his shoulder and place a kiss on his cheek before slipping out into the living room. She busied herself clearing a space in the centre of the room, the simple task helped her empty her mind, her breathing steady and even.

Lilac eyes swung to her husband and Rosa managed a small smile, brushing raven locks from her face and settling cross legged in the middle of the floor. She waited for him to settle himself, be it with her or on the couch, it didn't matter. The fact that he was there was enough of a reassurance for the empath. Her eyes fluttered closed and she opened herself to the force and let it fill her, spreading warmth though her heart, washing away the taint of the Abbey, flushing out the darkness that lingered at the back of her mind.

She drifted in the ebb and flow of it all, expanding her awareness slowly, feeling her way through her own mind and body, before pushing a little further and finding Seydon in the force. Pure of heart though the Trials had tainted him, he was her world and for a moment she revelled in it. I love you, now and always. A soft sigh, a ripple in the force and Rosa opened herself to the world beyond, stretching to the apartment block.

Fury thundered two floors down, a lovers quarrel. Joy flourished in innocent hearts as siblings played, compassion glowed as friends swapped tales, grief shattered a family who'd lost a love one. The apartment block seemed to swell, emotions of every kind rolled over and, some more painful than others, but all of them she could deflect to the edges. Another breath and Rosa pushed further, across the district and then the city, till her mind was buzzing with noise. There was a tremble in the hands resting in her lap, sweat beading on her forehead. Heart rate crept up a few notches, a flurry of anxiety but she forced calm. The minds of the city were in at her finger tips and Rosa held it all at bay for a moment, long enough to take a breath.

It was like plunging her entire body into icy water, diving through the minds she could touch, breath caught in her throat and she went rigid, but she was unaware of her own bodies reactions. She was flitting through them searching for something, for an image, a memory a fleeting thought of their blue eyed boy. The more she flitted through the darker the minds became, torn and dangerous, viewing the world through a skewed lens she knew all to well. With hatred, venom and a dark joy that made her stomach churn. Instinct wanted to pull away, but determination made her stay the course.

Then she caught it, the fleeting glance, two children one wailing desperate for love, the other glaring up at the world with those vivid eyes. Rosa latched onto the mind, the rest falling away. Memories of a the child were prominent, the laboratory in the mans mind matching those of the images they'd received. But there were missteps, blank spots and hazy moments. Like someone had played there. A block of low rise apartments at the cities edge, gold lettering emblazoned them with the title 'Prazutis Gardens' and a red door, emblazoned with the number '23'.

Rosa withdrew, away from the man, away from the cities edge, back through the district and apartment block and towards the steady beat that was her husband. Lilac eyes fluttered open, exhaustion prevalent as they settled on him. A flash of triumph in her gaze despite the tremble in her bones.

[member="Seydon Gunn"]