Through the Long Night

[Caulder Dune]

"How kind of you to recall." Adekos chortled, then added. "Shorter and far less fashionable. I'd like to think I've made progress since then. Well, until recently. One step forward, two steps back..."

Darth Adekos followed her gaze back to the viewport. It was still just space, still just balls of hot gas being orbited by alternately inhabitable and uninhabitable chunks of rock. Nothing particularly mystifying, except maybe the scope of it all. A scope that had shrunk centuries ago when hyperlanes were charted and it became possible to go from one end of the galaxy to the other in the span of mere weeks. Adekos rubbed his chin when she mentioned the Red Nebula.

"Not myself, no." He vaguely recalled mentioning it to someone back when the Techno Union was still a functioning government. Probably to track down some Yuuzhan-Vong 'refugees' that had not been properly disposed of the first time around.

[member="Ivy Lasranae"]

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"There's only one habitable planet within the Red Nebula," Ivy began, fingers tapping along the backrest of the bench, her arm looped and resting back over the top of it behind [member="Darth Adekos"] where he sat next to her, "I had the pleasure of visiting it during the G-"

The Merc realized her near-slip and coughed, "during the Great Expansion of the Moross Crusade. I was helping them, owed one of their Aesir's a big favor, never seen the Red Nebula before then. The habitable planet doesn't have a name, it's just referred to as the Planet of the Red Nebula. They didn't name the sun either. But anyone who's ever seen the Red Nebula for themselves understands that they don't really need names."

"It's like you've stumbled across the heart of the galaxy. All the red nebulae clouds with that sun burning at the middle, pulsing some ethereal energy out into the universe. I've been to countless star systems but that one," a deep breath followed as she recalled her last waking vision of the Red Nebula over the shoulder of her sister-in-law as she forced her into cryostasis. Fitting she should see the heart of the galaxy as her last moments before the endless sleep with a heart torn asunder by a Sith Lord; hemorraghing hopes, faith and dreams.

She'd never felt so deeply during any other point in her life and it all became associated with that damn star.

"... it's a vision I'll never forget. Burned right through my memories."

[member="Darth Adekos"]

 

[Caulder Dune]

Darth Adekos nodded, probably trying to appear sympathetic. Maybe he would have liked to interject his own poetic notions about Umbara, but he had none. Not unless someone considered the gross world product of the planet particularly touching, or his intricate-slash-obsessive knowledge of the most viable industrial and financial regions. Best place for factories? Best tax havens to hide the revenue from those factories? He could have filled a map. But, somehow, that seemed inappropriate when measured up against the 'heart of the galaxy' that was 'pulsing some ethereal energy out into the universe.' He had never been one for such sentimentality.

"I suppose we'll have to visit some time, wont we?" He was dimly aware that he wasn't receiving the full story and that, in all likelihood, it was not a place she'd like to see again. When wasn't he aware? When had he received the full story the first time around when talking to Ivy Lasranae, whose real name had only been dragged out of her when she was dragged out of the bacta tank?

One comes to expect these things.

[member="Ivy Lasranae"]

 

[Hazel Scheler]

The consistent use of the word 'we' was something she found that made her strangely unsettled. Made her breath catch, her heart stiffen. A word she'd come to associate with family, friends, teammates, a lover - now all lost or taken from her. A tripwire down a particularly dark and painful landmine of memories.

Ivy closed her eyes to block out the images she thought she was seeing in the span of reflective glasteel panes before her. Turns out they were all in her head and still there even in the darkness. The merc gently cleared her throat, feeling her first real urge for her bad habits rear up with greater intensity than she was really prepared for. The dull throbbing in her head had suddenly become more prominent with the quickening of her heartbeat. Brow knitted, she swallowed down a growing sour taste at the back of her throat.

A drink. She really needed a drink.

"Wasn't a place I'd ever planned on seeing the first time, let alone a second."

Ivy lifted her right hand in a reflexive move to play with the man's hair only to brush metallic fingers against the backside of his helmet. Course she'd been so distracted with herself she hadn't really noticed the metallic pinging of his voice. Suppose she'd gotten used to the sound by now it was only natural to hear him speak that way. The Merc gave a frowning smirk, her cybernetic hand instead moving to drape over his far shoulder and pat the man on the chestplate.

"But I'd go again if it meant you'd get a little heart out of the experience."

[member="Darth Adekos"]