Something in My Eye

[Kaytren Li]

(Messenger things.)

Mid Rim > Naboo > Council of Knowledge > East Courtyard
207 ABY
———

A shout and a ripple of satisfied excitement rang out from the favorite space near the pillars. The evening gatherings were a good thing as far as Kaytren was concerned, but she found herself gravitating a small distance away from the group, with just Svo’k, Erril, and her daughter.

“Erril—” Abruptly shifting her daughter in her arms, Kaytren turned away from the minor flurry of activity across the courtyard and interrupted the part-Sephi with a slightly odd cadence in her tone. After briefly reassuring herself that Ashlin was perfectly fine, the Jedi woman passed her six-month old infant to Svo’k and stopped thinking about them.

“There is something caustic in my eye. Would you… do me a favor and…?”

***

“Oh, certainly.” Erril glanced off at the others in displeasure and motioned his sister closer. “You'll need your depth perception to deal with whichever fools caused that.”

Sitting cross-legged, he summoned a small globule of water with which to scour caustic offenders from the offended eye.

***

Kaytren would have nodded, except that she didn't. “Thank you. It’s appreciated.”

She laid the side of her head against the edge of Erril's knee and breathed through her nose. The awareness of Ashlin’s tugging at the rather darkly dressed adolescent’s ear jewelry drifted through her mind. Kaytren found the whole thing a bit amusing while her vision swam.

***

Svo’k had taken the baby who was just deposited in his lap and looked at both of the Jedi. His red eyes rolled a bit and he was going to object on principle, but he stopped short given the situation. He felt his instincts shift as he adjusted the infant in his arms and scanned the area while Kaytren and Erril were suddenly ignoring him to do Jedi things.

The group further down the courtyard was doing something chaotic, but there didn’t appear to be any actual danger. If he hadn’t been given sudden responsibility for the baby, the eighteen year old might have already been on his feet and confronting the group for being so careless and disrespectful.

He had Ashlin though, so he forced the dark glare off his face and gently pushed her hand away from his ear.

“Mommy just handed her baby straight to a Sith… Why?” he whispered to the baby and tugged her hand away again. “Whatever. Oww, don’t do that.”

***

“Let’s take a look at it.”

Erril allowed the blob of water to drift lazily around his head as he stared down his nose at the other healer. Gentle fingers lifted Kaytren’s upper eyelid and held it still for her while he coaxed a measured bit of water into the opening; just enough to thoroughly scour the caustic matter from her quickly inflaming eye.

That finished, he dismissed the used water over his shoulder where it splashed into nothingness on the ground. The same procedure was gently repeated with the lower eyelid, and Erril used the remaining water to carefully remoisturize Kaytren's irritated eye.

“This may be the pot calling the kettle black, but I feel I find you playing with fire quite often,” he commented privately to her as he worked.

***

The twenty-six year old Jedi woman kept still, gently pushing her left hand into the thick moss to give her mind any small thing to feel in control about. The ripple of reactions from Svo’k and the sounds of the teen whispering gentle complaints at her daughter were a welcome distraction. Kaytren had kept her mouth pressed into a calm line to refrain from offering Erril any unneeded healing commentary. She avoided the impulse to answer his comment too quickly either.

“So much better; thank you.” She squeezed Erril’s wrist in thanks and sat upright when he let go of her and gave her an arm up, carefully wiping water from her face.

“Sometimes it’s a long game.” She answered the brown-haired Sephi after a moment.

Borrowing energy from little jolt of adrenaline in the last few minutes, the Healer switched her mind to a warm mood and a smile. Kaytren scooted over to retrieve her daughter from Svo’k with an appreciative kiss on the temple for the Sith-raised younger man who had weathered through so much in the four years since she’d been sent to visit a boy grieving in a prison cell. Whether he’d brush it away on principle or not didn’t matter to her.

“Svo'k; thank you for holding her, dearheart.”

Settling Ashlin back into her arms, she looked at both her companions at once before she dipped her head and excused herself from the courtyard.