There, Where the Darkness Hides...

[Jannik Morlandt]

[A few hours after these events...]​

​

Eyes creaked open, feeling dry as his mouth felt dry, and his faintly conscious gaze shifted to a nearby window. He started, half-lidded, for a handful of minutes until it occurred to him that it must be evening at most. The dual suns of Ossus had presented their challenges at first in determining the approximate time of day, but he had spent some time making observances in the lulls between activity, a task that was far beyond his usual hobbies... but everything about this life had been far beyond.

Especially as of late.

He groaned, his eyes scanning over the room from his reclined vantage point, and moaned, letting out a weak, somewhat embarrassed sob as his memory brought to him the very events that had put him in this bed, and at the similarity this drew to some months prior, before he had been lead to the Jedi. But it was the only sob, his physical expressions of sorrow having all been overspent before his forced unconsciousness. His hand moved slowly up, and across his chest to the upper arm on the opposite side, touching where the needle had went in. His eyes lifted, and on the other side of the bed sat a face whom he did not recognize at first, but had gleaned the identity of in passing, overheard when another had greeted him some days before.

Why... but he squeezed his eyes shut and turned his eyes to the ceiling. He sighed, then began to try and set himself up in a seated position. It was then that a junior healer rushed to his bedside to stop him.

"No. No... please," he halted his progress, and saw the look on her face, and a sympathetic, apologetic smile struggled onto his lips, "Ahm not gon'ta start shouting, an' ah'll not be assailing anyone. Please, let me sit."

She almost looked confused for a moment, then smiled, and was about to go back to her duties, but he remembered the dryness he felt in his mouth.

"Ah... but could ye get me some water?" He asked, and she nodded. Then he went back to lifting himself up to sit, and turned his eyes to look at the man on the other side of the bed, again, then to the nightstand beside it, where a journal sat. "Could ye..."

He settled, finally, into a seated position. His brow knit, and his face steeled, as the memories of today played through his mind. The girl came back, with a glass of water, and he accepted it graciously, turning back to the dark-haired Jedi at his bedside.

"...could ye 'and me tha' journal, Knight Sardun. Ah've seen things, too many things, an' ah've got tae write them down b'fore ah forget." Not that he would. He seemed to be unable to forget anything, no matter how much he wished it. He took a sip, then another thing occurred to him, something he had started to wonder some minutes before. "An' while ah write, might ye tell me why y'are sitting thar?"

Spoiler

[member="Evelynn Zambrano"] | [member="Kira Liadain"] | [member="Michael Sardun"] | [member="Nemene Talith"] | [member="Talon Vosra"]

 

[Talon Vosra]

[member="Jannik Morlandt"] [member="Michael Sardun"] [member="Kira Liadain"] [member="Evelynn Zambrano"] [member="Nemene Talith"]

The blue cloud of hyperspace swirled as the orbalisk transport streaked toward Ossus. In a moment of either weakness or clairity, Talon couldn't say which, he had chosen to pick up Kira's seer padawan on his way to save his friend. The Zelosian Jedi sat in the centre of the cockpit with legs crossed and eyes pressed shut. The stains of dried green blood still not washed from his face. His black hair hung loose about his head as he sat in meditaion. The simple meditaion from which he had always gained so much strength was no longer such a simple thing. The images and impressions of Kira's situatiin were a constant in his mind and it seemed no amount of effort to clear them could stop it. He had allowed the Prophetess to touch him with her dark sorcery and now he was begining to pay for it already. He could only meditate on Kira's situation. That was all the images and his mind could focus on. The Blonde Jedi Master hanging suspended while the two wenches watched a small boy cut her. A thousand tears could not express Talon's feelings accurately nor could any amount of words. He was in a delicate state where the darkside was a thought, a breath, or a heart beat away and the meditation that should have been his saving grace was filled with the visions of Kira's torture.

He stood as the warning klaxon rang out in the silent ship, his ship, from the days when he was a Sith Knight. His darklight armor still hung behind him on the wall and several weapons remained on the weapons rack just as he had left them when he turned himsellf in for trial. The only thing that had been taken was the Holocron and scrolls he had brought to the Jedi. His emerald eyes had yet to return to normal and still looked solid green as he watched the blue cloud turn into a wall of light. Tge bright white mass became streaks and finally the streaks of light rushed to find their places and jumped into possition. Talon leaned forward involuntarily as if hitting the brakes on a speeder as he dropped from hyperspace. He had to land and move quickly there was precious little time and his mood was far darker than it had been in a very long time.

A silent transmission was sent to the academy announcing that it was Talon that approached and the ship was silently assigned a landing bay. Talon had taught and worked here on Ossus almost since it was built and he had grown to know it well. The jungles were not as dangerous when ypu learned more about its inhabitants and the halls of the academy were better known to him than the halls of the broken temple on Coruscant. The ship moved toward the landing pads reserved for Masters and Shadows and Talon quickly moved from his seat. He began the Quey'tek meditation to conceal his presence as almost a reflex now and rushed to the bording ramp. The ship had not been turned off and still sat ready to take off at a moments notice. Automated refueling crews began their work immediately and supplies had begun being loaded as soon as the ship had rested on it's struts. This area was highly efficient as rhe Shadows had to often move hastily lets their missions be forfeit. Talon caught a brief glimps of his face as he moved to exit and stopped in his quarters long enough to was the blood soaked tears from his cheeks, although his eyes threatened to undo the work at a moments notice. His brown and tan robes and dark brown cloak were in need of changing and the cut on his chest and shoulder from fighting the Sith prophetess' protectors had yet to be tended. His wounds could be clearly seen though the holes in his tunic but he cared not and he time dictated he care even less. He rushed on now and left the ship at a run. Many droids looked briefly at the rushing Master as he entered the Academy. He slowled to a fast walk and occasional Jog as he moved through the halls his bare feet slapping the stone floor as he walked. He focused on Kira's padawan and moved toward the infirmary. If the seer had felt or seen anything like Talon had then it was no surprise he had been moved to that area of the temple. Briefly Talon wondered what the Disciples would think of him now if they saw him. He was no longer a 15 year old boy but the thought was consumed by the still running images of how to reach Kira. The black mark beneath his right eye burned still and his head ached slightly when he tried to push the images down. He would find [member="Darth Isolda"] someday when this was done, but there was no time now. Talon projected a thought to Jannik as he moved toward the Man and another presence with him.

<Jannik> Talon said telepathically as he moved, <get ready.>

He turned down the corridor to the left and walked on before turning right and stopping in the doorway to see Knight Sarsun and Padawan Morlandt. They would see from his condition and his body language that the situation was dire and time could not be spared for more than the briefest of preparations. He stood and looked at the two, it was time to go...

 

[Jannik Morlandt]

He felt the voice in his mind, just as he had begun to write, just as it seemed like [member="Michael Sardun"] was beginning to speak. Things were moving still too fast, even outside of his mind, it wasn't time... he wasn't ready, he couldn't be ready. There was an order to things, there was a way, now, and he would not be rushed. This could not be rushed. It could all go wrong, it would be worse. He felt that he knew that, somehow. His eyes rose to where the presence alighted in the doorway, and he blinked, taking in this man he had strangely seen only a few hours prior. The seer was only so new to the cause of the Jedi himself, but he knew what he was seeing. He had felt it. It had made him sick to his stomach, had taken a blade to the tenuous yarn of his sanity, his psyche, and teased it with a cutting.

He felt so much older than his years, today. His eyes slid shut, and he expelled a sigh.

"Y'haste..." oh, how hard these words were to say, for he understood the why more than anyone else in this room, and equally as well as the Zelosian, [member="Talon Vosra"], in the doorway, "...may not 'elp my Master."

He looked back to the journal, control clamped down on his own emotions over the matter, and began to write again, a little faster than a minute prior. It may have sounded like a rebuke, those words, no matter how softly, no matter how calmly they had come.

"Also, Knight Sardun 'ere 'asn't been made privy t'what you an' ah now know. Ah think..." He finished off a sentence in the journal, poking a full-stop at the end. "...t'wouldn't be fair of us t'leave 'im in th'dark. We may need all th'elp we ken get."

His eyes lifted from the journal, and settled on the face of Sardun.

"Ah was there, Master Vosra. Ah saw ye. Ah saw y'face when y'saw m'master. Saw wha' they were doing t'her," he admitted, his brow knitting as the images of her physical state replayed in his mind at the mention of the scene, the corners of his mouth twitching downwards as his eyes threatened tears that might not come, anyway, "Ah felt what it did t'ye, somehow ah felt it, an' ahm worried about what y'might do in her name..."

The sentence trailed off, and he let out a shuddering sigh of a breath, not admitting that he did have the same thoughts with respect to [member="Kira Liadain"] only a few hours before that played so starkly on the face of the plant-man in the present, and offered a weak, if perhaps misplaced smile to the Zelosian, his eyes briefly leaving the face of Sardun to do so.

"...but ahm just a paddy. What d'ah know?" He looked again to the other man, the non-Zelosian. "Now, Knight Sardun, shall we tell ye wha' we know, or..."

He tapped the pen in his hand to his right temple, then gestured to Michael's head with it.

"...may we show ye?"

Spoiler

[member="Nemene Talith"] | [member="Evelynn Zambrano"]
OOC: Guys - The pace of this thread will not be rushed, as discussed. First up: Preparation. After that, let's play with the time in transit a bit, too. Draw it out. Give the lovely ladies time to finish their... despicable deeds before we suddenly arrive.

Ladies - Do what you gotta do. Just don't make us wait too long, eh?

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Jannik Morlandt"] [member="Talon Vosra"]

War was not a trivial thing. Responsibility, survival and most of all.. pain, those were the values instilled into Michael when he fought his war against the Sith Empire with the Army of Light. No stranger he was to captured allies, and fallen family. It was a clear stark reality, which the Knight would never accept easily. Unwavering and staunch he stood in his ideals, and Michael would follow them to his death and beyond.

He had been there, on the battlefield of Coruscant, when Talon was given visions of a sort. Michael was never much in tuned with the esoteric nature of the Force, a soldier and General foremost.. the Force for him was a tool. A ways to an end. No patience was given, and no tries were attempted to penetrate the veil of mystery around the Force.

Instead he used it, as he would all other tools. To enhance himself, and forward his own Quest. As such, it was hard for him to accept the notion, that the Force would be able to give you images and visions of the past, present and the future. Hard, but not impossible, granted.

No man or woman would be left to the clutches of the Sith, this ideal stood firm in his conviction. Such was the situation, when Talon started mumbling about the lost Jedi Master Kira. Michael had heard of her, of course. Details had been vague, but somehow no one knew where she had gone to.

Until Talon and.. Jannik somehow..

When the man asked of him access to his mind, to show him what he had seen. Michael was wary, one does not simply give someone such a privilege. It was dangerous, but in the end he relented. For he knew, that if this mission was to be successful, he would have to know everything there was to know.

Words were good, but images.. would be better.

At least Michael hoped this would be the case.

“Show me.”

Two words, simple and plain. But it held all the meaning of the world.