Resident of Snzblr

Saphina made a small, displeased sound and took stock.

Slight headache — easy to blame on so much stifling at the archives.

Her throat was fine, though.

No pain or swelling under the jaw.

No cough, though there was a little irritation in her throat. Again with the stifles.

She wasn’t chilling, her cognitive abilities were fine, if she could just stop — 

Stop—!

“ikkSHHUu! Nk’kiiIIHH-ihtCH! Kt’kHHEESHUu!” a shallow gasp, eyes squeezed shut and tears of sheer irritation leaking down her cheeks. She sniffled because she couldn’t help it, and aggressively scrubbed at the upturned tip of her nose. Ugh. Force, but it itched. If she didn’t have a faint sense of malaise she might have thought she had uncovered an allergy. But no, it couldn’t be so simple as something to remove from her area.

She had to be getting sick.

She did not have time for this; she had work to do, and was not going to slack just because her immune system was throwing a tantrum.

Saphina was no doctor and to call her a ‘healer’ was also misleading. She could heal, there was a difference. Likewise with the variety of curatives and adrenals she had created.

If she was a healer, she’d have had knowledge of traditional remedies with which to treat herself. If she was a doctor, she could have prescribed something.

However, she was a frustrated Sith in possession of immunity boosters and adrenaline shots with dwindling patience so that was what would have to do.

They weren’t hard to make, not at this point, and she swept off to the room adjacent to her office where she worked on such things. Every irritated sniffle threatened to set off more sneezing, and every sniffle that didn’t added to the brewing irritation. She should have been wary, she would recognize in hindsight, but at that moment she was just aiming to be faster than the irritation swelling in her sinuses.

Keen gold eyes watched the progress of the immunity booster — a set, in case someone came to see her; she was hoping not — then went to check her stock of adrenals. While normally used for combat, just using a fraction of it ought to help keep her sharp. She just…

Saphina’s eyes widened as the brewing irritation promptly boiled over, leaving her sinuses and all the way down her bridge alight with furious, insatiable itching. A staggered inhale was cool against the burn of irritation, and wildly provoking. Her lips parted on a gasp and she fumbled a bit, turning away and leaning against the wall for support. There was no build, no chance to stop herself, just — “k’tSCHHIIH! Iikky’iiSHHU! IIKKSH! Hhti— ikKiiIIHHSHHIU!”

She thought she might get a reprieve, but another breath, deep and shuddery, demanded a different kind of relief and it felt like the search for it lasted no small eternity before she could draw a clear breath, if somewhat thickened.

Sniffing a second time, she managed to locate the handkerchief, dabbing at her sensitive nose cautiously.

Then she remembered her brewing curative.

Frack.

She had seconds out of minutes left to get it out of the pot, and did so cautiously. The chemical scent wafted to her and she ducked her head against her shoulder with an itchy little double but thankfully no more.

This would help.

It had to help.

But it needed to cool and set so she poured it into a heavy mug, covered it, and left it while she went back… no. Her eyes drifted to the adrenal.

Just a little boost wouldn’t hurt, she did know that from experience. A whole adrenal would send her running on a high worthy of a lightsaber duel, and she didn’t need that. This would just be… a sight better than caffa, with fewer side effects.

She wasn’t stupid enough to just try to administer part of it when there were so many ways that could go wrong. Instead, she went back and found the reserves, taking a small amount into a fresh container to administer. She would have at most a fifteen minute boost of energy, during which she had several things she needed to set up and take care of before she could afford to work with what she feared might be a compromised intellect.

‘I shall make sure my schedule remains clear and that I am ready to serve!’ 

The Lieutenant’s words came back to her, cheerful and genuine, and she smiled ruefully. He was kind in a way Imperials simply weren’t. Oh, she’d been teased for walking in the Light now and then, or accused in some cases. She could be gentle. She could be fair. But she had never been accused of being kind.

He was, though. Kind and courteous, almost genteel without the baggage and darkness of nobility. Why he’d chosen to stay by her side past the duration of his mission was a mystery, but she was grateful for it.

She sniffed quietly, and eyed the handkerchief in her hand. She needed to launder that and get it back to him…

‘Your service is exemplary, but I think we can agree that was a bit above and beyond,’ she recalled saying when he’d passed it to her mid-fit.

‘I don’t feel so, no,’ he’d said, sounding as genuine as ever. Then, ‘Are you quite alright?’

She’d said she was fine. She’d wanted to be fine. She’d needed, in that moment, in public, to be fine.

“H’hhh! HnkKTCHIIH!”

… she was not fine.

Saphina sighed heavily and let her eyes close for a moment. Then she took the adrenal before she could think twice about it, feeling the rush immediately as her system kicked its pace into gear. Her mind sharpened and the adrenaline washed away the fatigue that had started to pull at her. She didn’t feel well, but she felt better, and that was the important part.

She set a timer for ten minutes, giving herself a little wiggle room to stop what she was doing before it wore off.

Then she got to work.

She had made two mistakes in this decision.

One, ten minutes was not nearly enough time to make tangible progress on this project.

Two, in pushing herself into a higher level of clarity, she was painfully, potently aware of her symptoms and not even a Hutt’s handful of minutes in did the itching return, both pervasive and intense. 

She had to set her stylus down, pinching just above the tip of her nose with a soft sound of frustration. Her lashes fluttered, lips parting on an irresistible catch of breath. Quiet but desperate, growing rapidly into an omnipresent and unavoidable presence.

“H’hh…” 

Force, it itched. She pressed her tongue hard against the roof of her mouth as if it could be enough to pressure the persistent itching in her bridge. It was not, as it turned out. Her eyes watered, nostrils twitching before she curled her fingers under them once more, applying pressure so firm it almost hurt.

And yet.

“H’ng’ehHSHIU!” a short, shallow breath, “ehn-KSHHIU! ekKTCH-HiiiSHU!”

She gave a little almost-cough and flopped back in her chair with a stuffy sniffle, rubbing the heels of her hands into her stinging, watery eyes.

This was not working.

She needed it to work.

She needed…

A sharp hitch almost led to a sneeze, but instead left her hanging without relief, and she swore softly. One hand was dropped to her lap, the other running back through her unbound hair. This was unbearable, but she didn’t want to leave this undone, nor did she care to pass it on to anyone else in her sphere. Umbral would, if she asked him.

She did not want to ask him. The man had softened of late and she wasn’t sure what to do with that, especially knowing why.

Or who, rather.

No, if she accepted help this would come from closer, and not another Sith, no matter the few she was… fond of.

She smiled ruefully at how that narrowed it down severely.

Someone who knew history.

Who knew Sith culture, and artifacts.

Who had a strong background in linguistics, and read Kittât fluently.

Who had the clearance, and would be discreet — not merely about the project but about her… unfortunate state of being.

Well. The only one who passed all those marks had to know already, though he’d been very gracious about it.

‘I shall await your call and rejoin you then.’

She reached for her datapad to drop Drellik a message, summoning him to the Citadel.

He responded promptly that he would be there in ‘seven to ten’ minutes; he must have been in the Citadel already. It was none of her business why he was there, but it did leave her curious.

…had he followed her there from the archives?

She shook her head as if she could dislodge the thought; they had people in this building who served her sphere, it could have been for one of his own projects, or a colleague. Not everything revolved around her.

He was there in eight minutes, smiling brightly as he stepped in and quietly closed her door. “Hello, my lord.”

She smiled faintly at how genuinely pleased he sounded to see her, leaning back in her chair a little as his gaze almost imperceptibly flicked over her face, taking her in. She was abruptly aware she had no idea if all that sneezing had flushed her skin pink, only that it did feel sensitive enough that it might well have.

Nothing she could do about it now. “Hello, Lieutenant. You said you would be game to assist further?”

“But of course! You do find the most fascinating projects,” he said brightly, and it belatedly occurred to her that that brightness outshone any other emotion he might have been feeling. Say, concern. She wasn’t so far into it to fear ‘disgust’ but whatever else there was, it was deftly hidden.

Clever man, she knew she liked him for a reason.

“Very well, come have a look at this, then. Take the chair,” she said, pointing to one of the two that sat in front of her desk — a rarity, for a Sith in her position; most liked to make their company stand at attention in their presence. Not that she was above that, but she actually used her office to work and sometimes that meant other people.

Drellik took a seat, wheeling it closer with an eager look, briefly tilting his head as if he could read her notes upside down.

…actually after all this time he probably could.

All the same, she rotated the datapad to let him have a proper look at it.

He brushed the corner of it with his fingertips, green eyes flicking back and forth over text before slowing to process the older text past the annotations she’d made. “My goodness… this is quite spectacular, my lord, I understand your persistence completely. What aspect may I assist with? Translation? Dictation? Perhaps something a bit more hands on? I— oh.”

Saphina winced, turning away from the desk entirely, breath catching high in her throat. “Hiii-TSCHIIiu!”

“Bless you, my lord,” Drellik said carefully.

“Save… save yourbreath— t’hhshiiCHU!” She sniffled unevenly, nose twitching delicately before a tiny gasp slipped past her unusually impeccable control, bringing with it a string of stifles she barely contained with aid of an increasingly useless handkerchief. If it wasn’t for the Force illusions she maintained — one of the few useful things Zash taught her — she was quite certain she’d be blushing horribly. Which wasn’t the worst of her problems, considering her nerves were alight with irritation.

Brandt is interesting to me not only because he tries (with some success, even) to shift his sound a little for each of his Others, but also it changes based off of how irritated he is + how much restraint he has left in him, and there's generally a fair bit of hitching either way.

Just starting into a fit / lesser irritation with shorter, harsh sounds, a lot of K's and KS-es (“uhh-kscht!” / “ih-kt! iih….ksggch!”)

A fair bit into a fit / very irritated sounds full of strong starting vowels where you've got sort of an emphasis dip between a strong start, breathy middle, and emphatic ending ("AESSSHHIH! [...] ESSSSHUu!”)

Wolf is a top tier example of this, just comparing him with a cold, where the sneezes come with very little hitching at first and some "uh / hu" sounds at the end (“NkiiiSHU! ekKTCHII! nkiiT-CHHIIUH!”)

Or him having issues with rain, where his breathing staggers and he hitches and hesitates between sneezes with lots of itchy "iiih" sounds (“H’htt-nih… iiiiHH…” [...] Hihschiih! Iishhiich! Ihiii… iKKSHTchiih!)

Umbral is also a good example. When he has a cold and is forced to sneeze freely, it's a loud, unmistakably powerful sound with some variation in the exact sound, but often with minor attempts to restrain himself in N's and irritated H's (“hnngSTCHHIH! NGHSSHIISCHU!”)

But he can't stifle worth a damn, adding in harsher xx and g sounds. (“hnxxgschhu! H’nnXSHIIH!")

And then I've had fun with Saphina, lately, so within the six-nearly-seven chapters with her I've noticed patterns.

When she's trying, indeed somewhat successful moderating her sneezes / suppressing them she ends in a stifly sort of "hiih" sound, lots of shh too (“Hiih—! hikktshhIH! HiiKSHHIH!”)

Compared to just giving in and letting her body have its way, she starts ending in a higher pitched "hiiu" sound ("Ht-niii— IKKSHHIIU! ktshiu!")

Examples taken from where I've written them in snzfics.