Private You Weren't Supposed To Die Yet

[Iris Arani]

She'd known about it for a while. Chaldea's destruction. She'd come to the planet now and then to help where she could, but she never lingered. She hadn't been there when things went to their worst, and she hadn't been there when everything had gone down. Guilt, more or less, kept bringing her back even if she never stayed long. Things had changed though. All this time she'd been running from so much, not wanting to face down her traumas or move on. Just exist. Help where she could, but never bother helping herself.

It was why Iris now stood in Bamarre. The Bamarri. She knew pretty little about them, mostly because Kai never told her much. There was so many things she could've asked him about if she'd ever thought about it. They had their problems, but it never crossed her mind he'd just die before she could bring herself to truly forgive him. It pissed her off. She glared over the field of rainbow colored rocks. His people. Were they awake? Could they even hear her? She wasn't really here to talk to them, but it did make her awfully curious.

Did they even know what happened to their world?

".. At least it's pretty." She muttered. Then, sat down. Brought out her sketch pad to just.. Draw. It was all she could think to do now.

Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

In the aftermath of the destruction of his body, Kai’s spirit had lingered. At first he sought a new vessel to hold him—after all, he was still a young Bamarri, full of life and vigor. The destruction of Chaldea’s civilization had resulted in many corpses that he might consider occupying. But most proved inhospitable, having been burned beyond recognition by the dragon’s fiery breath, and even when he did find a suitable body, it proved too difficult for him to possess it this time around.

With nothing to anchor him to the world of the living, he began to grow accustomed to the idea of being dead. Memories of his talks with Alicio Organa about the pull he felt came back to him. His strange, sorrowful, wandering journey had ended, and it was time to return from whence he came.

So he had wound up in Bamarre, the land of his birth. The desert landscape remained untouched by the flames of destruction. There was nothing here to burn.

He heard a song on the wind, a tune only he could hear, and knew it was his kin calling him home. Kai’s soul found its way to the Marble Forest, where he joined his voice with theirs and began the process of becoming one with the Force again.

There was still a little time left before he finished when Iris came.

Her presence roused him. He returned to a drowsy awareness, like someone who had been well on their way to drifting off to sleep when they were suddenly interrupted.

<Iris.> He communicated with her mind as easily as breath. <Why have you come here?>

Iris Arani​

 

[Iris Arani]

<Iris.>

There were few things that could unsettle her. As of late, there was more of course. Trauma from the war had left it's mark, left her fumbling into a panic attack at the drop of a hat. But they never truly showed on her expression. Too many years of learning how to detach herself from her emotions made it too easy for her to compartmentalize and keep calm. The voice that echoed in her head broke that completely.

Paint scattered as she suddenly stood up. Stared around the empty plain with a mix of confusion and fear. Was this trauma? Was she so mentally scarred that she was no imagining voices of the dead?

<Why have you come here?>

No. Even if her mind lied to her, the colors of the Force didn't. She knew these colors. They were the only ones she could say she knew by heart no matter where she went or what crowd might be blurring them. Emotion rippled through her expression. Anger, relief, anguish, annoyance, fear. Too many emotions for her to keep couped up as she found herself blinking back tears.

"To try and morn you, you nerf herder. I thought you were dead!"

Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

<I am dead.>

That was apparent by his lack of a physical form. He was a disembodied voice in her head, a faint corona of light in the corner of her eye. A familiar presence which even now was slipping away.

<This is where I was born. I came here to become one with the Force again.> Ephemeral as he was, he realized she was weeping and tried to project comfort and reassurance. <Don't cry, Iris. This was going to happen eventually. It's my destiny. I fought it for a long time, but now I'm glad to go.>

Iris Arani​

 

[Iris Arani]

He wasn't there.

As she looked around, tried to find where he'd be standing as he spoke in her head, as he always had before, she couldn't find him. It only made her tears more bitter. Relief turned to anguish, especially as he continued to speak in her head. Now he was trying to comfort her? Because he was glad to die?

"Shut up! That's all you have to say to me? After everything? That you're just fine with being dead and gone?" She wasn't even trying to detach herself from her emotions this time. All of them, the grief and anger, the resentment she'd been building since the end of the war, she felt all of it. "You were my best friend, Kai. You meant everything! I was angry at what you did, but-" She stamped her foot, much like a child throwing a tantrum. The stomp marked the end of it though. Grief of it's purest form came next as her tears flowed freely onto the ground she was glaring at below her.

"I still wanted to be your friend again. Why are you just okay with leaving me behind? Why am I the only one so pissed you died before I could forgive you?"

Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

She told him to shut up, then demanded answers from him. Classic Iris. Maybe in the past Kai would've found it irritating, but now it was endearing to him. He felt a fondness for her which was stronger than it had been even at the height of their friendship, when they were united by love untainted by her desires or his mistakes. The winter that had frozen his heart for so long was thawing.

<I was in Azrael for three years,> he replied. <You never visited. Never called. Never sent a message. I don't blame you for that. Then when I got out, you stayed silent. I got a job, an apartment, made new friends and reconnected with old ones I had thought lost. I built a new life without you, because I thought you had moved on and didn't want anything to do with me anymore. After what I did, I had no reason to believe otherwise.>

Her anger seemed fleeting, and he was glad. He'd rather not spend his final hour arguing with the girl who had once been his best friend, though her grief was hard to bear. The revelation that she still wanted to be his friend and had meant to forgive him was touching, if a little late in reaching him.

<Maybe because you're angry at yourself,> Kai suggested gently. <You wish you had done this earlier, while I was still alive. But it's all right, Iris. It's all right.>

He poured out his warmth and love, letting it melt into her. On the ground at her feet the sand swirled and shifted, spelling out the word "Eternity" in the dust. She wanted to know why he was okay with dying. There was her answer.

<We'll meet again. This is not the end.>

Iris Arani​

 

[Iris Arani]

<Maybe because you're angry at yourself,> Kai suggested gently. <You wish you had done this earlier, while I was still alive. But it's all right, Iris. It's all right.>

"I know that, damnit! I know that."

Iris rubbed at her eyes, gritted her teeth. She knew it deep down, but to hear him just say it out loud. Well, it was certainly a Kai thing to do. It brought out a choked laugh between her sobs. She hated this, that she had taken far too long to reach back out to him. That he was just dead. And yet, he was here.

"You better. You better! When I see you again I'll tell you everything you missed, and you better tell me too! I want to hear everything!"

Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

"You better. You better! When I see you again I'll tell you everything you missed, and you better tell me too! I want to hear everything!"

If spirits could grin, Kai would be beaming. <Of course. We’ll have plenty of time then.>

But now, his time was running short. He felt himself not so much fading as melting back into the Force.

<Goodbye, Iris. For now.>

Iris Arani​

 

[Iris Arani]

<Goodbye, Iris. For now.>

Then his colors were gone. The sea of colors that made up the Force in it's natural state were all that was left, leaving Iris alone to her tears. She stayed were she was, letting herself just feel everything she'd been stuffing away. Until she was just too tired to do anything else but sleep on the stones.