#raiyden

One interesting side note - the Port Knowhere market is having a three-year anniversary celebration. While Port Knowhere has been here for longer, the market is relatively recent. Now the settlers here want to celebrate it. And us. I may have to make a speech. This is not something I necessarily want to do but I suppose I’d best get used to it. I should really contact Caer and Raiyden and Tomuraan, see if they’d like to come. With the destruction of the Palace, they could probably use some home comforts. Caer says she likes Yavin IV, and I believe her, but ... I like Port Knowhere too. It's home now. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t take a long time to start considering it home, and to stop mourning the home I made on the Nexus world. Having the people I love around me helped, though, so I’m hoping it will help Caer and Raiyden and maybe even Vaulk too.

For now, though, the galaxy needed even what small help they could provide. And their Port Knowhere no longer stood alone.

APOTHECARY'S PERSONAL LOG BEGIN AUDIO PLAYBACK My time on Nar Shaddaa was ... less fruitful than I would have liked. I think at least some of it was the lab facilities - it wasn't as though there weren't any at the Palace but unfortunately it was far more outfitted for spice production than anything biomedical, and there were only so many modifications I could request to the room I was using. I'll have to keep sharing notes with Xaishen over comms and working from our new residence in the Nexus rift. I haven't had much time to come to terms with the loss of Albrect IV. I mean, I was there when we finally evacuated, and fought to allow the last of the evacuation to take place, but ... there were so many other things on my mind that any consideration of what it meant went by the wayside. Then, of course, I was subsuming it in labwork and cookery and the minutiae of life on Nar Shaddaa. Now I'm here, trying to get used to where everything I can't 'see' is all over again. I suppose now is as good a time as any to take stock. Home never really meant much, in terms of a 'place'. I didn't remember the homestead on Dantooine particularly well. I couldn't consider the lodgings I shared with my master 'home' - I don't recall, but I don't imagine that sort of bonding with my surroundings was particularly encouraged at the time. I don't have a ship to call home the way Ahri and Alti do. The monastery on Albrecht IV was the first place that I was allowed and indeed encouraged to consider home. I resisted that for a very long time, and maybe I should have continued to do so. It being gone wouldn't be such a blow if I didn't think of it as home. Still, I'll get used to the new place. It's not as though it lacks for most of what made the Rest home. Medbay is more or less the same as it was at the Rest. There's been lab space set aside. Aranar tells me that he and Srina'idash and some of the marines arranged for the bistro to be set up on site. Rilus and I have quarters, which he was kind enough to unpack. Muffin is settled well in the menagerie. Most of the circumstances that made the Rest home are there. Perhaps the move just highlights how much things have changed. Aurrin's still missing. So is Mychae - I have a feeling she may have gone after him, but as no direct word has come to anyone about it, I am not about to make that hypothesis a matter of public record. Sedryn is with his family. Sheenah hasn't been seen in quite some time. Caer is sick. Raiyden and Tomuraan are more or less permanently on Nar Shaddaa until she's well. Reiner, Kal-dur, Sylvanne, Yuloru, Katrai, Zai ... so many moved on to other things. Kot is dead. We have new faces and we don't lack for allies, but ... I miss my friends. Even the ones who weren't strictly friendly. It's not ideal, but I suppose the galaxy never is. Change happens, and we adapt to meet its challenges, even - maybe especially - when it's sad. There are other new things. Title - I am no longer 'apothecary', precisely. I am a healer of the Order of the Silver Star now. What I do hasn't changed, but apparently the groupings of the Marran needed to change in response to various shifts in ... I'm not really sure. Either way, by whatever name I'm called, I still work in medbay and the lab. So it's not a change that means a great deal to me. It's just one more illustration of the shift that life has taken. There have been many. I've been with the Marran for such a long time now. Given how much of my memory is gone, it feels like most of my life. The changes this time has wrought ... I never would have foreseen this, I don't think. Friends, family, padawan, foster, lover, home ... life. I wasn't meant to have these things, and yet I do. So while losing the Rest is sad, maybe that's a good thing - not that it's lost, but that I care enough to feel a pang at its loss. That I miss people. I know Caer often says that Jedi are about bottling up their emotions, but that's not quite accurate. We just don't let them rule us. So I won't let the sadness rule me. That's fairly easy; it comes with joys of its own to balance it. I had a home. I will make another in this new place. There will be people with whom I can share it. Now hopefully I can find the bistro and my new lab space without tripping on another staircase. I should summon Muffin. This is why Paetra Greystorm bought Muffin for me, I imagine. Transport is so much easier when one's mode of transport can see in ways one can't.

Nar Shaddaa hadn't changed, but Jallira had since the last time she'd been on the so-called 'smuggler's moon'. Her first encounter with the Marran as a social group, and the days wandering with Sedryn in part to experience life and in part to see if Proteus' hunters could be lured out of hiding ... they seemed like things that happened a lifetime ago. In a very real way, they were. The last place she'd expected to be working, even short-term, was a Nar Shaddaa brothel. But there she was, mostly by virtue of Estherian stubbornness. No one had received any sufficient answers for what was wrong with Caer or what was going on with Daedalus - not from Raiyden, not from Xaishen, certainly not from Caer and not even from Lyrae'a. So she'd asked Aranar'aliit to take her to Nar Shaddaa and serve as her backup while she prodded answers out of someone. It was the first time she had consciously and deliberately 'called in a favour' from anyone, and she'd chosen Aranar largely because the biggest danger to her was the apparent Cookery Cultists, and that was entirely Aranar's fault. He'd started the 'religion'; he could protect her from the brunt of it. Certain things weren't entirely adding up about what she'd found when she'd finally pried coordinates out of a tired Raiyden (and the fact that she'd had to point-blank tell him she was en route to get a specific location just confirmed she had done the right thing). Why put Caer in carbonite freezing when they could have put her in cryostasis, which was generally safer and easier on the system? Well, perhaps Vaulk hadn't had the technology - but Raiyden knew that cryo-freeze technology was available on Kantherion's ship. Or if he didn't, Jallira did, and if he or anyone had just told her... Then there was the crystal in which Caer's consciousness was suspended. She wasn't sure why Caer's awareness had to be separated from her body; that struck her as hugely dangerous when all that was truly required was a maintenance of brain function and an induced coma. People survived in cryofreeze for generations without having to have their very selves jammed into another vessel. Or perhaps they were hoping that if Caer's body died of the poison, they could put Caer's awareness in another form? But whose? And would shunting someone out of their own body so that she could live be something Caer wanted, or could live with, if it came to that? That was not a conversation Jallira planned to have with Vaulk. He was not Jedi, he was not Marran and he was definitely not interested in any morality beyond keeping his business interests running relatively smoothly and having vengeance on those who tortured 'his girls'. Jallira had tried to talk him into accepting Marran aid at least enough to share information with them, but Vaulk was concerned that he would be denied his revenge. The Archon was not going to be pleased about the situation either, particularly the lengths to which she'd had to go to get full disclosure on the matter - Jallira quite clearly felt another, "Hi, my name's Ihlrath and I happen to run this bitch" coming on. As to Vaulk's attitude of 'stay out of my way while I revenge myself on the man who tortures my people because I am going to do horrible things of which your Marran wouldn't approve' ... she'd let the Arbiters to whom she'd delivered that report take the matter to the Archon. Her priority, as per usual, was saving a life - in this case, Caer's. It wasn't precisely a simple task, either. Jallira had known that Xaishen liked discovering and inventing horrific poisons so that he could find the cures for them ... but the problem was that he hadn't found cures for the batches that Daedalus had apparently found. The notes Xaishen gave her involved several poisons, Xaishen wasn't sure which one and she couldn't do further tests to verify the specific poison without taking Caer out of carbonite, which could kill her. Then again, it didn't matter overmuch; she wasn't planning on approaching a cure for a Sith alchemical poison the same way Xaishen would. Her cures for this sort of thing tended to involve what Alasha had once called 'Marran alchemy'; while biochemistry was largely involved, so were the basic properties of the Flames. It was also difficult to work through in a private room in a brothel, however opulent the place was. Her room was not a lab facility by any stretch, she could ask for the equipment she needed but making it fit anywhere was a trial, and she had to expend a great deal of energy keeping her empathy walls up against the constant roil of lust in the immediate vicinity. On some level that was alright, because focus on work was a good way of blocking out the empathic resonance of the place, but it also meant backsliding in terms of reasonable breaks. She tried, but mostly for Xaishen and Raiyden; she couldn't rest in this place, so she focused on the care and feeding of whoever happened to be handy as a further distraction. When she allowed herself to admit it, she missed the Marran already. Her sisters and Rilus of course, but also Nyomi's stoic pragmatism in the face of ridiculous circumstances, Alasha's not-quite-teasing methods of getting her to take her own advice in terms of rest breaks, the well-meaning (if bewildering) teasing of most of the rest of the Marran. Lieutenant Sortek even managed to include reasonable advice in amongst the innuendo. She very much wanted to request that the Archon turn up and have words with Vaulk so maybe they could work together and see to what was truly important about this in the long term - stopping Daedalus before anyone else got hurt. And Oz ... she would not have her padawan here yet, particularly not with the temptations Vaulk might offer, but she missed him as well. There was something calming about teaching, Jallira found. She missed her team. In her own small arena, Jallira could work well enough without them, but in terms of the big picture ... she needed them. She couldn't afford to think about the big picture, though. She was here to save a life - the life of a friend and sister in all but blood, no matter what problems they were having in their friendship, but Jallira couldn't let that affect her judgement. She was here to save a life. Anything else that got thrown her way, she'd deal with as best she could. And she wouldn't use her backup-calling panic button until she was sure it was needed.

After clearing a sufficient space in her lab, Jallira knelt on the floor and went into a meditative state. It did not come as easily as she'd have liked, but Sedryn had trained her well, and it was his first lesson that stuck with her, gave her focus: Just breathe. Focus on nothing else. Just breathing. That had almost been the worst part of the fungal growth in her lungs. She hadn't been able to breathe - certainly not in the deep, slow way that meditation required. It had been weeks without those moments of quiet clarity and focus; even healing trances had been hard-won things, often interrupted by coughing fits and passing blood-streaked phlegm. That was over now, thanks to Xaishen and Raiyden, but she'd fallen out of the habit. Recent events had taught her what a mistake that was. Being snappish was not Jallira's way. The stress, the worry, the guilt ... it was getting to her. Her recent state, not to mention the dreams (which she hadn't, of course; there were too many more tangible things to worry about), none of it was any kind of excuse. Reasons, perhaps, but just because you could explain why something was happening did not mean you could excuse it. Knowing why something was happening, when that something was not a good thing, was just the first step to making sure it didn't happen again. She'd tried to apologise to Caer. She honestly wasn't even sure if she'd been heard; after that first moment of realisation that Caer was just blowing off steam, Caer had been a closed book to Jallira. Caer had plenty of practice at that; she'd done it to Raiyden often enough, and Jallira didn't like to be invasive when she didn't have to be, so she'd respected Caer's privacy. Still, while Jallira had no desire to nail anyone's genitalia to the floor, she had to admit that part of her reaction to Caer's scorn about waiting until the proper time, with the proper plan in place, to strike at Darth Vyennis and save Alti was her own frustration with the situation manifesting. She understood wanting to do something, right now, to get Alti free of the Darth that held her captive. She'd heard Alti's voice, heard the tremor and disorientation in it. That was the result of psychological torture, Jallira knew all too well. The fact that Alti had made her own choices, kept flying on her silly-nerf missions even when she was one of the best targets Vyennis could have asked for ... maybe Jallira was wrong to blame herself, but she did. Anything that happened to Alti should, by rights, have been happening to Jallira instead. That guilt was not going away. Still, snapping at Caer wasn't going to help either. Snapping at anyone was not going to help. While the others could apparently 'blow off steam' without repercussions, she was not permitted to do the same. When she did it, lectures followed. Perhaps it was her age, or just the fact that she hardly ever did it and people wanted to nip the tendency in the bud before it became an issue. Either way, she had to trust that the older and wiser members of the Marran knew what they were talking about. If she was entirely in the wrong for that situation, she would own it. She had a reason, but it wasn't an excuse; just a problem to identify and resolve. In a few short days, she would be in the field. She would be with the Archon, and whatever stealth-capable Marran he chose as backup, if he chose to take that route. She couldn't afford to be compromised. She wanted to do something immediate, of course - she just wouldn't, because plans were there for a reason and she didn't want to take any risks when it came to getting Alti free. That line of thinking led to the guilt flagging up that if she'd just gone, handed herself over to Vyennis, then he might free Alti. Jallira was the one he wanted, after all... But what does he want you for? That was what really upset her, more than anything else. Doing the thing that would nearly guarantee Alti's freedom would likely cause no end of pain for far too many others. If whatever power over which she had apparently inherited control got free, and Vyennis was giving her the orders through whatever form of coersion, the results would be more horrific than could be justified, even to save her sister. Plus the Marran would have to kill Jallira to stop it, probably, and how would Alti feel then, knowing her freedom had come at that cost? No amount of self-sacrifice would make the situation any better. There was nothing she could do but trust in the plans as set up by the others. They always saved the day, after all, and left no one behind. In the face of that, hearing Caer being so derisive of the only hope she could see of saving Alti had been difficult to bear. It brought up her own doubts, her own worries, her own guilt-fuelled desire to do anything to undo this. The Archon and Arbiters would never approve of Jallira giving herself up to save Alti, but when Caer talked about the need for such immediate action, all Jallira could think was that her cowardice was getting her sister tortured. Nyomi always told her that she should never dwell on what could not be changed; that she should focus on what could be changed. Unfortunately, that line of thinking always brought her back to self-sacrificial stupidity, and the fight to stay logical and as unattached as circumstances would allow so as to not potentially doom the galaxy was hard enough without her own need for swift action flagged up so strongly. But it was a reason, not an excuse. And all knowing the reasons did was give a target; something to fix. That was what healers did, after all. They found the source of the problem and they fixed it. So she'd apologised. It was all she could do, from the outside. The next step was to solve the problem at its root. Meditation. Calm. Perspective. Handing herself over would not save Alti; it would just give a Darth what he wanted. Storming a base on minimal information in the hopes that Alti was within would not necessarily save Alti either, but Caer was within her rights to express her opinion, and Jallira was in the wrong when she allowed that to influence her own behaviour. She took that in, accepted it and worked to move past it. "...I won't forgive myself that, but I made it through... I see it as a way to remind myself of how far I had fallen ... so that I never return to that place again." "That doesn't mean you can't forgive. Just that you can't forget. Not forgetting is determination; not forgiving is ... self-flagellation." She had been right when she told Raiyden that last. However, he'd been right too, when he said it was a difficult thing to do. Jallira had found, however, that sometimes the most difficult things to do were the most worthwhile ones in the end. And if she was going to preach finding the balance between learning the lesson you need to and beating yourself up, she would have to practice that as well. So she meditated, quieted her mind and found her calm again; took the lesson at its root instead of beating herself with her failure. The former gave resolve, while the latter only left bruises on the self-confidence one needed to accept that making a mistake did not damn you forever. "The hardest thing about recovering from an addiction is accepting that you're not trapped. Or doomed." The most difficult things to do were the most worthwhile ones in the end.

APOTHECARY'S PERSONAL LOG BEGIN AUDIO PLAYBACK I have no one to blame but myself, really. In my defense, I had no idea that the mission on Leoptor was going to involve that much exposure to Dark Side taint, and it wasn't in me to just ... leave once I'd arrived on site. Not after I heard Sir Rozees get pummeled into the floor like that on that news report. I should, I suppose, have just left once I sensed how bad it was. I should never have opened up my senses to see if the rioting people were being tampered with by the Dark Side. It was a risk. It was a huge risk. ...And I'd do it again. There were no other field medics available, and Sir Rozees went crunch, for nerf's s-- *really unpleasant-sounding coughing fit* ...As it happened, no one else got seriously hurt. I could have left and no one would have suffered needlessly. But I didn't know that. I just knew that we didn't have a field medic on call at the time and I didn't think it would be that bad. I have been taking precautions, after all. Just ... I suppose that was too much Dark Side for too long for my measures to fully deal with. I tried to explain this to Raiyden and Xaishen - I was hardly going to bring up the fact that I was feeling ... not-so-well after that particular mission, but Raiyden saw it and his bond with Xaishen is such that they both knew fairly quickly. I certainly don't blame the Arbiters or Archon. Yes, I'd have left if they had ordered me off site (though ... in all fairness, not without at least a small argument) but it can't always be their responsibility. We take risks, and we pay the price for them sometimes. I appreciate they're worried about me. I do. But they shouldn't have yelled at Arbiter Alasha like that. It wasn't her fault, it wasn't the Archon's fault - it wasn't anyone's fault but mine. I've now been officially ordered off field assignments until my health improves, which is fully understandable and I'd already recused myself from missions where I knew I'd be facing Dark Side. I just ... well, I could go over it forever and it won't change anything. Least of all the consequences. Though to be honest, all it really did was maybe speed things up, just a little. This fungus - this PX-133 - it was already spreading without Dark Side energy to feed on. I suppose it was designed to mutate fairly quickly. I'm told that this will become ... untenable ... in 'a handful of weeks'. They won't specify how many. I assume that means ... really not many. Even attempts to get me to breathe easier haven't been much help, though Raiyden needs to stop blaming himself for what happened when he tried. I did breathe easier after his Force-healing, after all - just ... unfortunately that came about by some of the root structure of the fungus ripping its way out of lung tissue and ... well, it was not pleasant to look at, I imagine. I'm having to stop Xaishen and Raiyden from doing the sort of continuous work binges for which I was infamous not too long ago. The two of them are talking about working without sleep. Raiyden's not eating. They're all worried and I don't have the energy to keep my walls up as well as I normally do and I can feel it. Mae ... Mae's out for blood. I've made Raiyden promise that if the worst happens, he'll try to protect her from the worst of the backlash. I know how bad it is to have someone on the end of a Force-bond die. I won't put her through that if I can help it, even if it does come to the worst. No one wants to even think about what happens if we run out of time. I have to. I have to make sure that the Arbiters and Archon know that Raiyden is ready to be Named. I think ... Tomuraan should have the bistro, if it comes to that. Oz ... someone needs to take him as padawan. I don't know who, but ... they can't keep turning him down. He's shown his commitment. He deserves the change to live up to it. There are just ... things that need doing, even as I work to make sure they're not necessary. I can feel Rilus worrying. That's the worst of it. He's trying not to; trying to keep the brave face that I can't even see, refusing to even voice the possibility that the worst will happen ... but he's smoking more than usual and I can feel the anxiety. It's not just him, either. The Archon was on comms making sure I wasn't overworking myself - though part of that was that he seemed to assume that I was going to be handling those fungal samples the others got on the strike on Drayal's base. ...I know sometimes I am self-sacrificial to a fault, but I'm not that silly. Raiyden doesn't want me being alone anywhere in case I need immediate medical assistance, though I do have E-3 who can go get help if necessary and my Force-bond with Mae means that she will know if I am in medical distress and can relay my location to someone nearby if required. Meanwhile, all I can really do is go over the notes, make suggestions where I can, and carry on at least a little with life as normal while I still can. Research and cooking and so on. I won't just sit down and wait to die, and a little normalcy will help ease some of the anxiety. I hope, anyway.

Without even the chronometer to tell her, Jallira knew that she had slept far, far too long. It was there in the stiffness of her limbs, mostly - though the fact that she was sprawled on the little med-cot at the corner of her lab accounted for some of that. It wasn't the comfiest spot in the world to sleep, particularly not for any period of time. Even rolling over took effort, but she managed and tapped the button on the little desktop chrono she kept beside the med-cot to switch it to audio mode. She couldn't see the display but she wanted to know how long she'd been out. The answer brought on a wince - a little over twenty-six hours. She hadn't had anything specific planned at the bistro, thankfully, but had that been the case, E-3 (technically designated ME-3P by its creator, but Jallira refused to call her helper-droid 'Meep' even if Mychae insisted that 'not enough pets or helpers are named after sound effects' and Alti agreed with her) would have at least woken her up. The situation was getting more than a little untenable. Breathing hurt. The cough was productive of sputum more often than not - and it generally contained at least traces of her own blood. She was tired a great deal of the time. She was a little worried at what her blood tests and scan readings would show at this point. Raiyden and Sergeant Vrodrik insisted that the fungus was, despite all her precautions, slowly spreading. She didn't really want to know what it was using for the energy to grow, however slowly. Even so, she gave some thought to the problem as she sat up and ran her fingers through her hair to comb out the tangles. Given her state of fatigue, the mould had probably changed just enough to allow it to survive on Force-energy that wasn't specifically Dark Side. It wasn't an outlandish theory, as theories went, inconvenient as it was. Life finds a way. The problem was that so much else was already going on. The Archon's dire predictions about a return of the Icelings; Sarrni's halfbreed abominations had been hard enough to deal with. A quick perusal of her in-box showed an all-Marran memorandum from Arbiter Rozees that indicated another problem was rearing its head as regards the four ... individuals they'd found at the Nexus. Xaishen and Raiyden had their own problems concerning Xaishen's brother, Darth Daedalus. Sheenah and Keadan was another matter that required a great deal of attention. With all that to be taken into consideration, her own situation didn't seem remotely as important. The thought of Sheenah brought a quiet sigh, followed by a not-so-quiet cough. Apparently it disconcerted her friend that she could take pain and the prospect of her own death with such calm. Jallira hadn't known what to say to that. What was there to say to anyone who didn't understand or share her views on that; how to get anyone to understand her reasoning? Jallira had no desire to return to the Force; she wasn't interested in hastening that particular journey. But at the end of the day, that was all it was - a journey. Pain was to be endured. Death was not to be feared. Whatever else changed in her, Jallira did not want to lose sight of those things. They had served her well. Besides, she had everyone else to worry on her behalf. Worse yet, they gave reasons; explained why she might constitute a priority. Some of them could be refuted, at least a little - the bit about losing a healer of her skill being a particularly strong blow to the Marran, for example. There was Raiyden for the Force-healing, Xaishen for the biochemistry ... not to mention Corporal Harridin and Sergeant Vrodrik in terms of straightforward non-Force healing. The Marran could do without her if they had to. Arbiter Rozees, on the other hand ... his remark was harder to dismiss. Some of the things she had done with the Flames were unique; the cure for Master Othone's illness, the vaccine for the variant rakghoul plague, the Aegis. Of course, the Sith currently making her life a nerfing misery probably didn't know about all of that, or even most of it, and the Marran had done without those methods before... Still, Jallira was more or less forced to accept that she had made a difference. Possibly enough to be worth saving even by her own stringent criteria for self-judgement. That did not, however, mean that she had to encourage the fuss and worry. Jallira stood up, stretched, rolled her shoulders to work out the sleep-induced stiffness and then left the lab to find a shower. Let her comrades think that she'd been up all night working again. It would explain the remaining fatigue, at least, and her silence on comms the previous night. Of course, she couldn't lie worth nerf, but that didn't mean she couldn't keep silent and let people draw the most likely conclusion regarding her reasons for locking herself in her lab for an extended period. It was what she did. And tonight is Mandalorian Night at the Bistro, she reminded herself. Shower, then prepare for Force-healing my sinuses every ten minutes...

APOTHECARY'S PERSONAL LOG BEGIN AUDIO PLAYBACK *racking, chesty-sounding coughing fit* ...nerf. I try to do that as little as possible in company. It sounds nerfing horrible and ... well, mostly, I don't want anyone to worry. I can feel them worrying, some more than others. Mae ... I generally have to tamp the Force-bond with Mae down a little these days, more so than usual. Just because the worry mixes with the guilt she still carries with her over the incident with the datacron and it ... gets a bit much. Though I have to say that I am ... somewhat glad that she is not medically minded. Too many of those close to me are these days. Xaishen is the biggest surprise in that regard, in point of fact. Not that he is an unfeeling person in any respect; just ... part of it is that I hadn't thought he considered me close enough to merit that sort of concern and part of it is the effort he expends to show only a very specific face to those around him. I imagine that largely comes from a lifetime among the Sith; the former Imperial agent, Srina'idash, is apparently much the same. Different masks worn to protect one's self, same principle. And I am obfuscating again. Xaishen, Raiyden, Rilus ... the others are worried on the general principle of 'biohazards are bad and you don't sound well', but those three know what the scans actually mean. Of course, none of this was helped by an impromptu dunk in a freezing lake the other day, and compounded further by my inability to swim; accidentally inhaling a lungful of ice-cold lake is not exactly beneficial when one's lung capacity is reduced. The Archon was not best pleased when the full extent of my condition was made known to him. It ... I was trying to tell him; just-- *racking, chesty cough* *ahem* I did try to tell him but unfortunately the conversation forcibly turned towards other matters mid-explanation so the fact that I had actually been exposed to this biohazard somehow ... got lost. My own fault, largely - it is not as if I made a particular effort to call attention to the matter. I am trying to get better at that, and at least I did ensure that at least two arbiters were aware of the situation as well as the medical staff. All the same, the Archon was not best pleased, though it was more concern than anything else. I was told that the loss of my medical skills would be a blow to everyone. I ... have examined my reaction to that statement and my conclusion is as follows: I am concerned that people will place their faith in me and I will in some way let them down, and I am still on some level convinced that I am not supposed to be noticed or acknowledged for anything I do. So I work particularly hard to ensure that I do not let anyone down - likely harder than I should in terms of my health - and yet I do not want to be indispensable. Or indeed noticed much at all. At least I am somewhat better at that. I just ... know that while there is no death in the abstract, returning to the Force does not precisely allow me to continue my duties as Apothecary. Besides, people keep insisting that I need a vacation and then tell me that I am so sorely needed and logic dictates that somewhere in there is ... a juxtaposition that I truly need to figure out. *somewhat quieter chesty cough* I am on half-shifts in medbay and we are currently in the process of trying to come up with a method of purging my lungs. The methods I have looked into so far have proved ineffective, though they have led to innovations in the treatment of other ailments, but there are other methods I am looking into. Raiyden and Xaishen are also investigating this, and there is the potential for going to Tython to see what the healers there have to say. Though I doubt it will be that simple. Sith don't tend to send things that can be even moderately easily cured with Force-healing if they want to hurt someone, and if they hadn't wanted to hurt someone, they would not have specifically sent a sample that can get past standard biofilters. Xaishen is concerned that it may spread elsewhere in my body. So far I have seen no evidence of that, but of course I'd much rather not on a first-hand symptomatic level. We are still working out a projective model of how this might spread if allowed to do so, but ... much as I dislike saying it, more samples of that nerfing fungus - not just the spores in my own system, but the actual fungus itself - would be very useful at this point. But even if this Darth was likely to send more, official policy is now that any anonymous gifts are to be spaced prior to delivery. Everyone else, at least, is doing moderately well. Arbiter Alasha is adjusting to her 'soul-bond' to the Archon, though obviously some of the sensory enhancements are taking some getting used to. Also there is a splinter sect of Garhoon who are not best pleased with the decision made - apparently they are prejudiced against humans - and there have been attempts on her life. Xaishen is also having difficulties in that his brother is framing him for crimes against sentients and multiple counts of murder by poisoning and the Council wants to detain him ... though at least Arbiter Nyomi will explain matters to them. Politics in the Nebula are becoming more unstable, with King Priam apparently trying to breed extinct dragons and a very angry individual kidnapping a relative of Queen Menalee's ... hence the unfortunate near-drowning the other day ... and something about the Horsemen-- *coughing fit* I cannot. Afford. To be sick right now.