#alauni

There was no reason to believe that Senator Tobas Grell was anything but healthy. His chest moved steadily in time with his breaths. His eyes were open, blinked regularly. His body showed no sign of fever or malaise. And his skin remained a healthy shade of white common for the Sarkhai.

But he was gone, somehow, still, after days away from the hands of that sith Lord Stark. No matter what I tried to do, no manner of medicine or meditation or healing powers of the Force, I couldn’t make him regain his mind. I reached and reached as far as I could, and even farther still to try and retrieve his sense of self, but though I thought I could see it deeper down in the depths of his own mind, it was retreated, and cold. I could not even touch it.

I pulled out of my focus on a seat by the side of my own bed, where Senator Grell laid. He looked the same, no worse yet no better. He remained plump and vivid as ever, due to the drip and the IV strapped to his arm that Tharan had wheeled in from the medical bay. His body wasn’t deteriorating, no - but I could sense him disappearing and fading. A healthy body yet a broken mind, further broken by its own comatose.

“He doesn’t look any better.”

I lifted my gaze to the doorway. Nadia stood there, clutching at her sleeves and biting at her lower lip. I shook my head.

“I’m doing everything I can, Nadia.”

“There has to be more! Anything! Maybe I- if my powers-!” she fisted her hands tighter in her own robes, so much so I worried that they might rip. Ferocious tears bloomed in her eyes; she blotted at them with her sleeves. I raised a hand to try and give her a gentle push, motivation to leave, but I could feel her resist. I could see the look in her eyes turn even angrier.

“You’re trying to push me away, Master Suzuka!”

“There’s nothing you can do right now, Nadia. I need time.”

“We don’t have time! We need my father back! I need my father back!” she stomped her foot, hard enough for the floor to suddenly dent. She glowed with the Force. It was clear she wouldn’t leave of her own volition - so I reached out with my mind, and found Alauni’s.

Nadia is upset. I need you to take her away.

Nadia glared at me, and I gave her an even stare in return. Silence prevailws among the sound of the engine and the general noise of the ship. Yet, I heard footsteps approach, and watch a pale green hand touch Nadia’s shoulder.

“Nadia, we need you in the conference room. There are certain treaties you should overlook.”

Nadia whirled on her heel and spat in Alauni’s face. “I don’t want to go over treaties-!”

“Go with her, Nadia. There’s nothing you can do here.”

“I’m not leaving! I’m not leaving my father’s side while he’s-!” Nadia stopped with her lower lip trembling. I heard heavier footsteps from outside. I watched as scaled arms grabbed Nadia, and Nadia shrieked. “NO! PUT ME DOWN, QYZEN! FATHER!!”

I listened to the footsteps receding, along with the sounds of Nadia’s screams, down the corridor and away. I sighed. Alauni peeked her head in the doorway, and gave me a look.

“She’s still grieving, Barsen’thor.”

“She still hadn’t accepted that she may have to be the Senator now.”

We gave each other an even look. Alauni nodded, and disappeared out the door. The door phased shut behind her. Though for as at-odds as we had been when we first met, I thanked, we’d become better acquainted, enough so that she respected my privacy. For that, I was grateful.

I got up from my chair and paced.

I need a solution. Now.

Though it was clear that Tobas Grell was remaining, in some amount, healthy, it was also abundantly clear that his daughter was not. It was clear in how little she ate, how little she slept, and how often she’d come to my room looking for hours and hours of silence simply staring at his body. Her cheeks were becoming hollow; she was already rail-thin, but I could sense her thinness beginning to reach extremes, body fighting to hold onto slim remnants of fat and muscle. She spoke with nobody. She did nothing but argue. And the duties of Senator for Sarkhai lay in tatters on the conference room’s floor.

It was abundantly obvious that the matter of Tobas Grell had to be settled immediately, not just for his sake, but for his daughter’s. But no matter the manner or method I reached for, it all seemed to fail. Medicine did nothing for his mind. My meditations on his mind did little else but push his consciousness to retreat further. And no manner of shielding would step between the extremity of his trauma and his rational mind.

The carpeted floor cushioned my bare feet. The recycled air smelled of must, weeks away from any planet to pull air from. All lights seemed muted, my own mind in a daze from all my attempts at ease. And my eyes felt heavy with the loss of sleep I, too, had experienced.

What if I left his mind alone, I wondered. Would he return, of his own volition? But no: it would take weeks, nay, months, for him to regain a sense of consciousness again, never mind the full strength of his self-will. And what would be of Nadia then? Nothing but such a long period to continue waiting, to continue fasting, to continue to push her body to impossible limits. She’s falling deep into her grief, I thought to myself. Grief was such a strong motivator. I remembered it well, mourning the deaths of my own parents.

I stopped in front of a mirror, one illicit within the realm of the Jedi. I stared at my own tired eyes, at the rumples of my lounging robes, at the disarray of my hair. I looked no worse than Nadia, for sure. But I looked weak. The truth was, even my own attempts were beginning to wear down my own mind. I could only keep up such presence for so long, and my power was beginning to wane. What more could I do, what more than what I’d already done?

Deep down, I knew.

There remain the rituals to return the dead to the living, Suzuka.

My eyes widened at the mirage behind me. The common mirage I’d seen since I was young; the mirage I’d developed alongside my own sense of the Force. A black shadow, churning with the red of blood, mimicking my own silhouette, outstretching its hand. I felt my body stiffen. I held my breath, for hope of hiding my own fear.

You know there are darker and deeper rituals to bring him to the surface again, and you know you have the strength to perform them.

I close my eyes and take a deep inhale. My mind rifles through all the titles of texts I’d held in my hands, all the forbidden words that my eyes had taken in for my mind to comprehend. Texts that were never to be in Jedi libraries, or Jedi teachings. Texts that were, be it dangerous to say, even sithlike in memory. Yes - yes, I could remember, could remember the words and the ingredients and the incantations to make a mind return. I could remember the bloody sacrifices to bring somebody from the brink. I could remember the warnings, of the Force’s weight, and its desire to consume the user whole.

I remember feeling the Force’s full weight, and feeling strong.

“But what would I do,” I said aloud, “If it failed?” For there were punishments for Jedi who failed, oh, were their punishments. Even greater numbers of Jedi, stronger ones, had come together for such a task and failed. The abominations of the Sith fell upon them, and worse. Horrific contortions and constructions of ugly creatures, bent and bred from the Force’s most deadliest feedings, surviving solely through the sheer will to live, surviving through pain and a distinct heartlessness that came from the suffering no man could ever imagine bestowed. Stronger Jedi than I have fallen, I thought, yet the option remained. Remained, in the hand of the Dark Side that sought to take my own.

I suddenly remembered Balmorra. The president, and his own mind destroyed. Then, there had been no hope of his recovery, nothing but a slow and painful death in which he’d be unable to pass on his position to another. But Zenith and I, we had made it work, had pieced enough of his mind together with the barest of technologies to give him the strength to pass his title on.

And then after, when nobody had seen, I’d . . . laid him to rest.

But we didn’t have that technology upon the ship, I thought to myself. But Grell’s position would be passed on, regardless, to his daughter - that I remembered. If this were Balmorra and the same scenario as before, all would be done. All done, except for . . .

. . . and that would end the suffering. For all of us.

I opened my eyes. They were a solid green in the mirror. The figure of the Dark Side remained, but I turned from the mirror, away from its gaze, and walked past it to the head of my bed.

Senator Grell’s eyes were still open. I reached out with both my hands, shaking, and laid them over his gaze. I tried to pretend that my voice didn’t shake too.

“I’m deeply sorry, my friend. And . . . to you. Nadia.”

***

Screaming. I sat up from my bed in the core of the ship in the dark of the night. I can hear it, loud and clear, as well as the flooding of the Force from the bedroom of my ship.

“FATHER’S GONE! HE’S GONE - NO, ALAUNI, NO! I CAN’T DO THIS! FATHER!”

The sobbing was gross, gross and violent. But I was awake, and everybody would come to me now, I knew it. I shake my head, and push myself out of bed. I gave what I thought to be a quick glimpse to the mirror across from me, and nearly fainted at what I saw.

My eyes were the color of a poisonous purple.

I blinked once, and it cleared back to their normal, healthy green. I stood and stared in shock - maybe in awe. But the noise escalated, the screamings growing worse, and I simply sighed as I finally turn away, and left my room and to the stairs.

This had been my choice, I remembered - the choice to end the suffering, before it caused further chaos.