Private When the Dust Settles

[Jem Fossk]

Saan'an was missing.

The temple was in shambles.

She was holding a dead jedi's saber.

Jem had no answers. She was too shocked to feel anything but anger. This was not how it was suppose to be. This was the core. This was her home. They were jedi. Bodies had begun to be laid out. Countless were still trapped or dying, even she could feel their anguish through the force. Jem wasn't the most sensitive when it came to using it, and truth she only excelled when it could be applied to fighting.

All of her training boiled down to one moment and nothing she had done had made a difference.

She couldn't feel her brother in the force. Either the chaos was drowning it out or... she walked the line of bodies, green eyes skimming each face. Her stomach dropped every time, first in relief that it was not her twin ... then anguish that he still wasn't found.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

None of this should've happened.

None of this should've been allowed to happen.

But it did and when the Council next gathered, he would be there.

Now all he could do was swallow the contempt and sorrow, and focus at the present dire situation. The temple - their home - lied half in ruins, half in corpses. Friends who had gladly given their lives to an untimely death to protect those who could not protect themselves. Time for the apprentices to escape had been bought at such a high price but none of those who lied strewn across the scorched halls of marble knew it had been worth every ounce of blood.

Somehow, through all the carnage, his apprentice had survived. Seeing her shuffle through rubble and bodies at first almost drew out a berating reprimand - that she had put her self recklessly and needlessly against foes beyond her strength, hell, beyond his own power. The reprimand never came. It was buried beneath a kindling flame of gratitude to the Force that she was alive.

"Jem." he called out from the other end of the short hall, "Shouldn't you be in the infirmary?" his voice was low, neutral, drained of all emotions. They had been shed away by the catastrophe in which the Jedi had found themselves in.

Jem Fossk

 

[Jem Fossk]

A spark of anger broke the numb haze. She turned towards the familiar voice, her attention ripped away from the task of identification to address a much more pressing insinuation.

"Why? Because I'm a kid? I'm needed here. Nice to see you to by the way." The grumbled words were nearly lost to the clamor of the hall. She turned away from him, attention half settled on another body being laid out.

Her stomach flopped all over again. She stood helpless, unsure exactly where she could apply herself to help. As much as she wanted a position among this crowd, she remained directionless.

Lost.

And she was content to disregard him just like that, her mind still heavy with the corruption that had infiltrated the battle meld. She was done pining for him.

...The apathy only lasted a moment. She turned on a dime.

"Were you even going to come for me?"

 

[Dagon Kaze]

His eyes and mouth opened in a brief surprise at her question, shaking him off from the internal purgatory of his own making.

He slowly approached her, following behind her frantic quest for something like a looming shadow.

"I'm sorry." a sigh escaped the raven-haired Jedi's lips, "My mind's else-- never mind—I should've sought you out earlier."

"I know you want to help, Jem, but they've gotta check you with the others. Fighting the Sith... sometimes it leaves things behind that resurface later on."

Jem Fossk

 

[Jem Fossk]

"Stop that. Stop coddling me. I wanted a master, not a padded room. I am fine, I-" Her breath caught in her throat as a new body was laid out-- young, blonde, familiar... dead.

She had gotten her Master two years prior. Jem had been so jealous. Now that man was laid out too, besides the girl Jem had once called a friend. A lump formed in her throat, so thick she couldn't swallow.

"My brother is missing," she admitted, voice tight. "Senator Fossk called for us to come to him, to help, and Saan'an went without me. I don't even know if he made it out of here. So until I find him... I'm not going to no damn infirmary."

She turned away from the bodies and stormed past, chucking their shoulders as she went. He didn't act like her master, so she wasn't going to obey him like one.

She found a piece of rubble laying over an arm and heaved on it.

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"Fossk?!" he gasped, then his eyes narrowed as his heart paced, "Why?... why did he call you?"

If her brother had gone with Auteme... was Auteme out of her mind bringing a padawan to the Sith'ari?

Dagon didn't know yet who had returned from there alive.

This wasn't just one bad day.

Jem Fossk

 

[Jem Fossk]

It was strange how weak she felt now. That had been her first battle meld and it had brought with it a sense of... capability that made anything feel possible.

The rubble barely rocked, earning a wince from her as she heard it settle back over flesh. She couldn't do this-- she had to do this-- she couldn'--

"Why?... why did he call you?"

Jem frowned. "Padawans can make a difference too you know. He saw that. He was working with my brother, another padawan by the way-..." her voice slipped out. His eyes were a little too wide, and his chest....

Jem left the rock and took a panicked step forward.

"What happened in that senate building? What happened to make the senate lock us in here?"

 

[Dagon Kaze]

The dread and contempt rushing up his face collapsed the wide halls of intricate masonry into a plain, grey walled box.

Back to the familiar questioning room, back to investigating. That... persona washed over him, taking control.

He was asking the questions.

"What did he see in your brother, Jem? Did you meet him, too? What did he say? When was this?"

Jem Fossk

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem realed back, his sudden tone making her forgot she was angry with him. When a elder asked questions, you answered.

“What? No. I turned him down, I didn’t want to be escorted out of the lockdown, I stayed to find you. Saan’an is the one helping him settle things between us…. He has been for a while.” A feat that had clearly failed.

His tone put an edge to her voice, fear hitting her gut.

“What do you know?”

(phone post)

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"Settle things between you??" Dagon blinked, then instinctively leaned closer as if the answer was written somewhere on Jem's face. "What things, Jem? You need to tell me everything now--"

"--cause Senator Fossk is Darth Solipsis ." even uttering his name filled his heart with guilt, sorrow and anger.

Jem Fossk

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem's mouth fell opened and closed in a series of gasps, attempts to speak going unmet as the ability to form words left her.

"Wh-what?" She uttered meekly. The insinuation spiked fear in her heart. Not that Saan'an could be be willing helping a sith lord, because he would never. ... More the fact that when all jedi were attempt to be culled by the sith today, Saan'an stood at the feet of the most dangerous one of all.

And she couldn't feel him at all.

Her knees woobles, her skin shifting out to a sickly, lackluster silver. "No-No. You're lying, cause that would mean-" The senate was compromised. More than compromised. The senate just killed her friends.

That kinda stuff just didn't happen. It couldn't. Because then Saan'an was...

 

[Dagon Kaze]

The rapid change of her skin, the grim revelation on her pale-silver face shook him off 'the mission'. Often it took him down a spiral of tunnel vision where everything else but the inquest, the investigation, faded away. It made him look cold when he was in fact burning.

The features of his face softened and his hand fell down on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Jem-- there's no news of Auteme. Yet. For all we know your brother might've not been there when the Jedi confronted Solipsis." as broken as he was, he had to try and try to kindle the flame of hope. If not in his heart - at least in hers, "Fos-- Solipsis played the Senate and the Order leading us to... this." silence came next. For the first time in a long, long time, he struggled for words.

"Do you have any other means of reaching out to him? Holo, your place-- or do you want to go to the Senate now?"

Jem Fossk