Face to Face

[Svo'k Lynd]

Sitting alone in a cell at fourteen years of age was not an idea that had ever crossed the young Sith’s mind nor was being on his own at fourteen. Where had the last several months gone? In one moment he was an Apprentice to a Dark Lord of Sith and then the next moment he was gone. Forever. The man who had raised him as his own and helped shape him into the strong young Sith that he was. The same man who had saved him from the evils of the Ji’dai who had murdered his mother so long ago right before his eyes. Then there was Anuk, what an amazing friend and partner she was to him, however short their relationship was it had changed his life, gained him a son and had ended in her murder at the hands of another. He sighed heavily and tears formed in his young eyes as he stared at the three walls that surrounded him. In truth he had no idea why he was actually in here, the Grey had been good to him, but this made little sense, he hadn’t….done anything wrong....for a Sith. Why was he locked up? He knew the answer to that of course, he betrayed Falcor. Another who had cared for him and done his best to help him and yet he had killed him.

He pondered that question for a long moment, the decisions he had made that brought him to this point, the recklessness and the anger. He closed his eyes and there was her face, he could see it clear as day yet he’d never see it again. He doubted he’d ever know love like that again she was his everything and he had lost her, just like he had lost everyone else. His stomach turned at the thought of it. He was the common denominator in all of the equations. His mother’s death, his master’s death, and of course the death of Anuk whom he loved with his entire being. The only one that was still alive was his son, Adrian. He was of course destined to endure the same fate as long as Svo’k was involved, but no. He would never let it happen, not to Adrian, he couldn’t ever allow anyone to ever harm him. No. he’d train him to be strong, stronger than Svo’k ever was so that way nothing could ever hurt him. Adrian could never be made to suffer the same pains that Svo’k had endured. No, Adrian would be spared from as much of it as possible and Svo’k would make sure of that. He’d sooner end his own life if it meant sparing his son those pains, he felt a tight pain in his stomach as he swallowed hard.

He took a deep breath in and tears rolled down his cheeks. Would he even ever see Adrian again? Would the Ji’dai take him away like they did so many other babies in this galaxy and turn them into evil monsters? Svo’k stood up and walked to the corner of his cell and let his back hit the wall and he casually slid down so that he was now sitting on the floor, his elbows on his knees and his head cupped in his hands. He had to get out of here, he had to protect his son and nothing was going to get in the way of him doing that.

[Kaytren Li]

“I appreciate any concern you have, but I have no intention of letting us start a fight. Even if I judge something completely wrong and he manages to start something, I assure you that I’ll be fine. We’re in the detention block... and you have only the one occupant. Lock the whole thing down or use your discretion if it really became a problem. We will be fine.”

The young woman decisively stood her ground in the corridor, assuring the ship's crew's member again that she was capable of handling the situation. The security officer brought up something about the pair of hilts on her belt, as if he expected them to become a contention point, and she simply handed them to him while maintaining polite eye contact until the man handed her the key device he’d been holding. She dipped her head in thanks.

“Thank you.” Kaytren offered the man a small smile. Pocketing the key, she walked past the crew member and into the cell area.

Everything was clean and humane, though the brightness wasn't her favorite. Hard light was better than some Dark-sided idea of grimness; but it wasn’t what she’d call conducive to calm conversations. She supposed that it wasn’t much different from the secure area at the Praxeum, though.

The first two of the four cells was empty. There was a quiet breathing sound, and she found herself doing a double take at the boy in the third… He was sixteen? That couldn’t be right. Her expression was neutral while she mentally ran back through the file notes.

“Hello, Svo’k? My name is Kaytren. I'd like to talk with you please, but we have time. Let me know if you need me to wait.”

The young woman said his name correctly. The reports hadn’t been clear about that either, but she’d double checked it carefully to make sure. Lightsabers or not, it was perfectly clear at a glance that she belonged to the Jedi. She was young and not especially imposing, but likely some time past Knighting. There was no Padawan braid and she didn’t carry herself at all like a student as she bowed her head and shoulders. She carried a compact satchel slung neatly over one shoulder, and that was all.

[Svo'k Lynd]

He of course heard the door open, his head lifted up and he quickly wiped the tears away form his face. Who was coming to visit him? He heard footsteps coming down the hall. What he did not expect was the face of the woman who approached his cell. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and his facial expression changed from grief to a mix of fear and perhaps just a touch of anger all in one brief moment. The teen sat up straighter, he felt his hand wanting to go for his lightsaber but of course it was nowhere to be found, he let his hand fall by his side, maybe she wouldn't have noticed the gesture. What was a Ji'dai doing here? The Gray had betrayed him and they were going to give him over to her to be taken back to wherever their wretched hive of scum and villainy was to be tried and executed. Then what's worse is they would take Adrian and brain wash him into thinking that the the Ji'dai were the good guys and everyone else was evil, or worse, they'd kill him too. He stood up slowly, but didn't take his eyes of her Ji'dai were known for their deceit. He'd hoped to be decisively taller than her but it was close, she was older than him and much more experienced, clearly a Knight, not something he'd ever faced alone before, he and his master sure, but never had he seen one alone.

"Yeah, I'm Sv...O'k."

The fourteen year old's voice cracked ever so slightly and he frustratingly cleared his throat.

"You're a Ji'dai Kaytren do you want to like actually talk to me or do you want to kill me and steal my kid?"

The young teen said coldly, but it was a fair question in his mind if she was there to kill him at least they could get the whole thing over with without all the unnecessary song and dance that went with it. He felt a drop of sweat roll down his back, was he that nervous, he snorted a bit and wiped his face on his sleeve, his nose still a bit runny from the tears moments ago.

[Kaytren Li]

Assuming the boy was fully human, he wasn’t sixteen. Maybe fifteen… Kaytren supposed, but she wasn’t even confident about that. She watched him closely, but non-confrontationally to the best of her ability. He was an angry and crying teenage boy who obviously didn’t trust anything Jedi, and he was on the defensive for clear situational reasons. Kaytren had spent enough time with different shades of Dark, in pain, or Dark and in pain, people for the last two years to know that forcing a staring match or doing anything that put attention on his crying was obviously not going to help anything.

“If it’s up to me, I was hoping for the talking option…. He had me leave my lightsabers out there. They were worried about us dueling or breaking the ship.”

The Sentinel trained young woman moved to look at the cell’s control panel with a mild curiosity for a moment, satisfying herself that she could have done something with it given a little time, and then she shrugged internally and unlocked it. She returned the key to her pocket and sat down inside the cell against the wall opposite him, her posture straight and her hands almost-calm in her lap.

“We could still throw some telekinesis at each other… or get more violent in whatever creative way we can think of. Please don’t start that choking thing. I can usually get out of it fine, but a bruised trachea really hurts… And it wouldn’t help anything anyway. And, it would be much harder for us to start over afterwards. The… who’s in charge here? The Grey? Some of them didn’t know what to do with you. They sent for the Council. The Council sent me… I’ve been spending a lot of time learning how to talk to calmly with Sith who hate me… But I am always happy to have more practice… I am a healer, too, if you need anything. I promise; I am good at it. The report said you were burned, but you don’t look bad now… How old are you?”

[Svo'k Lynd]

He watched her cautiously, he took a step back as she disarmed the cell and watched her go towards the wall opposite of him and sit down. He did not trust anything that was going on at the moment but she was far enough away from him and he could react if he needed to. As much as he wanted to think this was foolish on her part he didn't want to be lulled into a feeling of over confidence. Chances are she was planning this and had more than one trick up her sleeve. Also the door was open, so maybe he could get out and potentially get help if he had to. Not that was dumb, they had given him up to her and wouldn't help him no matter what. He backed up the wall and let his back hit it once more and slid down quickly plopping on the floor.

"I'm not going to hurt you unless you try to hurt me Kaytren, so you want to talk? Ji'dai killed my mom so like I'm sorry if I don't trust a damn thing you are saying."

He scoffed at her and tapped his fingers on his knee with one hand and brushed long dark brown hair out of his face with the other hand. His skin was slightly tanned, not so much so that he could be considered Hapan or anything but human by any standards, but tan enough to indicate that he grew up with a lot of sun, or perhaps multiple suns. He wasn't sure he hated her yet, she seemed nice enough, but Ji'dai...

"I'm fine, lightsaber wound on my stomach. I spent time in a bacta tank." He stopped and thought for a moment. "The grey...yeah."

He paused.

"Old enough..."

That was stupidly rude and wouldn't get him out of this cell anytime soon.

"...I'm fourteen. What do you want to talk about?"

[Kaytren Li]

“That… doesn’t sound right, but I wasn’t there. I’m sorry. My mother was.. executed when I was very young.” As barely a Force-Sensitive, put to death with no weapon in her hand by a Sith or Darksided leader, while she distracted them and kept her daughter hidden behind a bunch of stuffy coats in the closet. But what good would telling the boy do? It wasn’t a contest or an argument. “No one should go through it. I’m sorry you had to.”

He was only fourteen. And they healed him how? Kaytren breathed out through her nose and rubbed the sleeve over her left wrist to give her hands something to do that didn’t startle him.

“A bacta tank is a lazy, half-baked solution to a lightsaber wound. You heal the outside all over nicely enough, but end up with these badly knit inner tissues and hidden sore points. I’ll take a look at it when you’re ready if you let me. You’re not finished growing yet. You don’t need some tight spot in your core that’s going to stiffen up on you the rest of your life when you need it later.”

She sighed and reached up to tuck a bit the hair framing her face to behind her ear instead. Figuring out some path forward so that the rest of his life wouldn’t be cut short or stuck in a cell would be ideal. Preferably not out killing things and causing chaos either.

“Could you please tell me what happened here? The report is gibberish. There were attacks. You… stabbed… Falcor Phoenix? Yourself? You tried to murder someone? I don't understand what happened.”

[Svo'k Lynd]

Svo'k shifted against the wall and his eyes narrowed to slits as as he stared at her. "That doesn't sound right." How dare she argue what he saw with his own eyes. He thrust his elbow against the wall hard. No one cared about him, no one believed him nor would they ever so why did it matter what he said to her? She was a Ji'dai she'd never admit to one of her own doing exactly what Ji'dai do which is murdering people. He crossed his arms in front of him and shook his head and then he heard her talk about her mother being executed. He let out a breath from his nose and his eyes took on a slightly more understanding look.

"Well thanks but yeah, it is definitely right. I saw it with my own eyes. I was five, she was making me lunch. He showed up to steal me I guess and killed her with his blue lightsaber. I blanked out I guess cause my master said when he found me, I was covered in the attacker's blood. He said that the Ji'dai must not have expected me to jump on him, but I wasn't a Sith then...I was just a kid, not like now."

He shrugged and rolled his shoulders back a little bit and let his legs stretch out so he was no longer sitting with his knees against his chest. He shook his head at the healing remark.

"Omas did something to it, but it does still feel weird...I don't know maybe later, I don't trust you yet."

He said that but everything about his body language indicated a bit more of a relaxed, but not quite at ease state of mind. He sighed heavily thinking about the events that transpired.

"Well yeah I tried to kill Falcor, but he kriffing told me to. I don't know he was testing me or something and I guess I failed. My Master had made an alliance with the grey but he told me they were evil so he tried to destroy them and then he died...or I guess he faked his own death for some reason and left me alone with them. I met...."

He paused as he felt tears start to form in his eyes he swallowed hard and tried to push through.

"Anuk, my girlfriend and she got pregnant not long after we met so I decided to do the right thing....I wanted to marry her, but....he kidnapped her...."

He paused again sighing and taking a deep breath trying to burry the tears deep within.

"Right after my Kid...Adrian was born, he took him too....we went to find them....he murdered her right in front of me just like the Ji'dai did with my mom. We fought him and Falcor and I won...took Adrian back....and....somewhere....after that I just.....I guess I just had a total break down. My Sith Master betrayed me, but like...the grey were good to me but trying to change me...and it was so kriffing confusing."

He grabbed his hair with both hands and clenched it tight.

"I...didn't know what to do. Was I Sith? I mean if I kriffing was I was being a little bitch of one, so I had to....I don't know...man up and....I got darker and darker to PROTECT ADRIAN. My kid. I couldn't let him....die like his Mom....my Anuk."

His lips quivered a bit.

"They brought me....here. Like for what? Tricking me into stabbing Falcor?! Then I felt guilty and tried to kill myself....yeah...I had a total breakdown."

He was visibly trembling, his hands at this side slightly shaking, his entire body almost shivering.

"I did stupid stuff. But it's not ALL my fault...the Grey are really stupid....they do things weird."

[Kaytren Li]

The narrowed eyes, resentment, and moment of barely restrained rage in him all seemed real and valid to him. Svo’k had no reason to lie about his mother that Kaytren could think of. But he was coming out of his shell enough to talk to her now, so the young Jedi woman watched the boy’s body language, quietly listening and taking in his story about a kidnapping Jedi murderer who targeted his mother… whom this boy had then killed as a small child… before being found and ‘rescued’ by a Sith…. who then mentored and trained the boy for the next decade… until that same Darksided master then allied with the Grey… to then betray them and perhaps fake his own death, before the same Sith teacher kidnapped the young woman his young student had become attached to…. And their infant child… and then murdering the girl… as means of punishing his hurting student and pushing him back into anger and Darkness…

The story was convoluted and the boy’s telling didn’t feel linear or clear-cut with the mentions of his experiences with the Grey scattered in, or of his injuries… but from beginning to end the whole thing…. It sounded like textbook “Sith,” really.

Kaytren sighed quietly and did her best to not react to how hard he was shaking.

“I know you don’t trust me. That's fine, but I’m going to come sit on your side now.” She told him as a soft-spoken courtesy before shifting forward and simply crawling neatly the eight or so feet across the small cell. The young woman was Jedi—and a rather slim and agile one at that—so there wasn’t anything particularly ungraceful or uncomfortable about the motion. It was just easy, and purposefully non-threatening. If anything, she supposed that he could've kicked or lunged at her or any of a dozen things that she'd technically given him the upper hand on for a moment. But he'd already stated that he wouldn't try to attack her if she didn't. And why would he right then?

She sat on her heels about a foot to the teen's right side, with her body facing him.

“The Grey can do things oddly, you're right. Especially because they're all so individual... it can be hard to predict what they will do. It seemed Falcor was doing his best to care about you. His wife.. Akire does, too. I only spoke with her over holo, but she was taking care of your son. Adrian looked healthy and fine... Akire was worried about you. There are others here who are, too. They wanted to change you because family and Darksided don't blend well in most people's experience. Please let me look at your abdomen now. You can keep your shirt on for now. I doubt I'll really need to see it if it's been more than half fixed already.”

[Svo'k Lynd]

His eyes found the floor as she mentioned moving beside him.

"I guess. Whatever."

He made a half hearted effort to scoot slightly away from her but only managed to move half an inch or so. It didn't matter, he was unarmed and he was reasonably sure by this point that she wasn't going to do anything to him, but nevertheless he felt a knot in his stomach tighten. His hair had fallen down below his eyes again and he raised his right hand and brushed it away casually. He turned his head slightly to look at her, his eyes hiding behind them so much pain, he hid most of it well. His composure was reasonable for his age, despite showing some of his emotions to her, he kept the true depths of his tortured soul locked away in a vault that perhaps he did not even have the combination to.

"Akire is good, but Falcor, he did...I don't know. He shouldn't have tricked me like that. I'm a Sith, it's like don't tell me to kill you if you don't want...me to try to do that? I don't know it was dumb as hell that I fell for it, but like....I don't really get why I am in here. It doesn't make sense, I want to be with Adrian and yeah I know Akire is taking good care of him, she's great. But he's my kid and he should with me, I mean Akire can help, I'm still young but I'm not stupid Kaytren. He needs me...and his Mom but she's..."

He grimaced and forced tears away.

"Dead. So he needs me."

He sighed. He could use a drink or something stronger than a drink right now, but that was a bad idea too. Not that he had any access to anything but he felt himself starting to understand why people drank and did other things.

"I...I'm not afraid to take my shirt off, but like if you don't need to see it, I really don't want to...what are you going to do?"

[Kaytren Li]

Kaytren listened quietly to the boy and kept careful notes in her mind, even if answering Svo’k about his son or the Grey, or anything else just now, wouldn’t have helped. He wasn’t wrong about much, as best as she could tell from the pieces. He was hardly in the right situation to raise a son as things stood right this minute…. The last thing the galaxy needed were more broken Sensitive children… but first things first. The baby was safe and in good hands for the moment, so she could focus on the boy in front of her. He didn’t deserve to be forgotten and fall through the cracks either.

Whether he was halfhearted and defeated about it or not, Svo’k’s answer was all the permission Kaytren needed to become the healer in this situation. The Jedi young woman wasn’t foolish. Whatever hurt he was willing to let show or not, or however successfully he was managing to keep his composure from coming apart, the boy still felt as tense and guarded to her as a wounded animal. But this one was tired; he had no reason to snap at her. To the best of her ability, she had consciously treated him with respect at every turn, and she intended to keep doing so.

“Hopefully not much.” She told him with a quiet smile; purposefully keeping a mild tone and a little lightheartedness in her demeanor. “The last thing you want is a tight burn scar pulling somewhere your abdomen, but… bacta aside, it sounds like they did pretty well with it.”

Closing the last bit of distance between them, she set her right palm against his shirt over the small of the teen’s back. The brief moment it took to adapt to his tension and energy was normal in her experience—they were brand new to each other, he was guarded, the more ‘Dark’ a person’s conscious energy in the Force was, the more it privately set her nerves on edge and gave her the beginnings of a headache. None of it really mattered though. Her touch was neutral and her energy was as unobtrusive as she could easily manage while she stretched her thumb so that her hand spanned a little further onto the side of his torso, her senses falling into sync with the first cellular messages she crossed paths with.

What she hadn’t expected was the stabbing plasma burn exit wound under the base of her fingers on his back. The relaxed pressure of her hand didn’t change, but Kaytren's smile faded as she significantly reframed her understanding of the blade angle and ignition in her mind's eye... She breathed out and resisted the impulse to brush her free hand through her hair.

“Svo’k, take your shirt off please.”

[Svo'k Lynd]

He recoiled slightly at her command.

"Maybe buy me dinner first?"

The young man chuckled a bit as he made a joke that was not at all beyond his age, in fact it seemed like exactly the thing someone his age might say just for shock value. His smile faded as he remembered the gravity of the situation. He sighed, he had of course he heard her, before the concern in his voice startled him a bit.

"Fine."

Svo'k put his hands down and grabbed the base of his shirt and pulled it up over his head, the fabric of the shirt tugged at the amulet hanging around his neck and as his shirt came off the amulet fell back down towards the center of his chest. The worn silver and black chain held cradled at the center of his chest a solid piece of metal at it's center was ancient Sith symbols that occasionally glowed red. The amulet seemed to have it's own aura which was inherently dark in nature without a shred of light sided energy at it's core.

Aside from the amulet, Svo'k's torso had multiple scars on it, most of them seemed superficial in nature but it was clear that the wound in his stomach was far from the first time he had ever been hurt. For his age his build was significantly more athletic than that of a comparable non sensitive, his frame was muscular and it was clear that aside from the wound that he had physically taken care of himself at least for the most part. The scars told perhaps a conflicting story, indicating a childhood of physical and maybe emotional trauma as well.

Svo'k tossed his shirt on the floor and looked Ji'dai woman thinking nothing of his scars or the amulet.

"What's wrong?"

[Kaytren Li]

A quiet pause hung in the air as her fingers and palm settled against his back and side again, this time with no fabric between them. The smallest ghost of a reaction twitched at the corners of her mouth when he joked, but there was nothing that lasted about it. The Jedi young woman had gone still. She might as well have been dealing with pain or fallen into some memory for a moment, though the gentle pressure of Kaytren’s fingers and palm remained steady against the healed-over plasma wound. Svo’k was much tanner than she was.

She scooted the final two inches closer after a moment without really getting up or moving her hand away, closing the last space between them so that she was now an unarmed young Jedi woman sitting on her heels on the sterile gray floor of some brightly lit cell, with her knees just touching the younger Sith boy in front of her. His shirt and her bag were both dropped on the floor to each side of them.

“It was a more extreme burn than I was expecting,” she said simply after a moment and gently touched the entry side. “I see why they needed the bacta. We’ve used it to stabilize stab wounds like this, too, so there’s time for Healing.”

She glanced at the poisoned thing hung on his chest again, and then to the wound, before her calm brown eyes met his red ones.

“…You should know that this is hurting you, though. It’s poisoning the cells and been crimping up the scarring in your torso.”

[Svo'k Lynd]

He twitched slightly as her bare hand came into contact with his skin. He wasn't used to having a Ji'dai this close to him and it was not something that he was comfortable with at all. He tensed up and his muscles flexed, the veins in his arms seemed to pop out a bit further than they were already. His torso tightened a bit as well and his eyes narrowed slightly. Her being as close to him as she was, if she looked she could make out the darkening hair on his upper lip, he'd need to be shaving before too long.

The tanned boy tried to relax as much as he could he couldn't hold off a certain level of snark that pushed past his filter.

"Yeah lightsabers burn. That's sort of what they do like especially when you kriffing stab yourself with one."

He looked down at her and his arm moved and he was about to swat hers away before he stopped himself by clenching his fist. He watched her glance at the Sith amulet around his neck and hanging over his chest. She made her comment about it and instinctually his eyes narrowed and he was about to scoff, but remembered what the amulet did to him the first time he encountered it when he was with...he wasn't going to kriffing think about that right now.

"So you're the doctor, if it's hurting me take it off."

He put more of his weight into leaning against the wall.

"It was my friend's though and I WANT it BACK."

He said a tinge of darkness snuck into his voice in a manner that would likely frighten a non-sensitive, but in this case if there was any doubt as to what he was trained to be, it may very well have removed it and that was a very deliberate decision on his part.

[Kaytren Li]

As far as the amulet was concerned, Kaytren had spent enough practical time dealing with Sith-type Force users that she knew asking him to remove the thing in the first place would have only started a conflict—let alone trying to do it herself without his permission. So she brought it up tactfully, and the pair of them did their obligatory conversational dance. Her nostrils flared a little when the boy scoffed and told her to remove it anyway, but she kept her mild expression despite the teen's threatening mood that showed off how easily Dark he could be if he desired to, or how he could grab the energies around them and force them into doing what he wanted.

Would it have frightened her once? Maybe. At least she might have been intimidated a little. It just.... didn't much anymore. Svo’k was making her head pulse with that aura he was forcing into the room, though. And the amulet was going to be worse. Kaytren sighed in the privacy of her own mind. She considered just telling him to take it off himself, but unfortunately they were on a timetable. She didn’t have days to spend bantering back and forth with him while forming opinions.

“That’s fine.”

She agreed simply, and steeled herself to calmly pick the chain from the base of his neck. Once she’d caught her fingers on the imbued—spike of sensory association that felt like someone had taken another needle of cursed energy and stabbed it through her fingers back into her nervous system to her brainstem and her memory where her left wrist seared through the bone while four or ten evil hands pushed her into battlefield mud and much older, more experienced minds than hers pierced through the crack in her shields to sabotage her mind full of—metal, she didn’t hesitate or give the boy any more room to prolong the situation without making a scene. Kaytren pulled the chain over his head whether he shifted to help much or not, stood up, and set the thing down in the cell corner that was furthest from both them and the door. It was in sight and in no danger of being touched by anyone who didn’t have to walk past both of them first.

There was still a little tightness and paleness in her features when she turned around, but she’d be fine. The tension was more or less gone by the time she’d breathed out and was back to sitting at eye level next to him on the floor. The brunette young woman brushed the end of her braid back behind her shoulder and returned to studying the healed over entry wound on his abdomen. She touched the skin gently, and then tugged her med bag back beside her with a mild pull in the Force. After taking a small case from the bag, she picked the rest of the satchel up and put it on her other side closer to Svo’k, setting it down for him.

“Thank you. It’ll heal better without sabotaging the new fiber and connective tissue now. If you want that, please lay down and keep still without picking a fight or changing your mind halfway through. I’m going to make a couple cuts and deal with the poor scarring. I’m not going to answer testy comments and have to win debates with you for every move. We already decided we’re not here to hurt each other. It’s nothing like what you’ve been through more times than I can count at a glance. If you can deal with the lightsaber, I’m… assuming you’re not bothered by a tiny knife? Let me know if I should start.”

[Svo'k Lynd]

The fourteen year had leaned forward a bit to assist Kaytren in removing the amulet from his neck. He watched her every move as she took it off his necklace and then stood up and set it in the corner of the cell. He looked at her features as she walked back and noticed that she was a bit more pale than she had been before. He wanted to laugh but held his tongue, he had forgotten how much weaker Ji'dai were than Sith, she couldn't even touch his necklace without it harming her yet he wore it on his neck all day every day and aside from his wound healing it never did him any real harm, at least not that he was aware of. There was of course that first day when his first encounter with it had caused him near debilitating pain.

"Are you okay?"

He looked at her and his expression of concern was genuine, he did not mean to physically harm the person who was there to help him. Then the focus shifted. She asked him to lie down and his eyes narrowed a bit at the thought, then she mentioned a knife. Why did she have a knife? She was supposedly unarmed....he opened his mouth to say something before he thought better of it. She was going to take a knife to his stomach and work on the scar tissue? She said she didn't want to argue with him and he didn't sense any hostility from her, she had been pleasant so far, but maybe that was part of her plan. Lean him back in a defenseless state getting him to consent to it and then kill him. He swallowed hard at the thought, maybe he deserved it either way.

"Yeah. We're not going to hurt each other, but forgive me if I am a bit nervous lying down while Ji'dai with a knife cuts into me. Fine though. Just fine. Just promise me one thing. If you decide to kill me, don't make my son a slave to the Ji'dai order. I know you won't kriffing take him to the Sith if I die, so just leave him with the grey, as useless as they are, I know they won't make him a slave."

Svo'k slowly laid down and looked over at her his red eyes locking onto hers.

"Deal?"

[Kaytren Li]

“I’m alright… Thank you for asking.”

Did she want to tell him about more than that? It didn’t feel like much of a secret around too many of the enemies that actually mattered at the moment, unfortunately, but that didn’t mean she should list her sensitivities for this boy, too.

The moment had passed either way. Kaytren set her hands one over the other in her lap and watched the rapid progression of changes in his expression. She glanced politely away when he shifted to lay back, then met his stare. The expression in her eyes was reassuring, but had a spark of brightness and heat to it like candlelight.

“I don’t steal babies.” She said flatly. “But I’m also not going to make promises that I can’t stand by, or for things I don’t control… it’s not fair, it doesn’t mean enough or help any of us, your child included. But I do not steal children from caring parents. I have no wish to make your son an orphan right now. And I would never hurt a patient in the same moments as I’ve just agreed to heal them. I’d also never let anyone else hurt them. I’m worried that you’ll act insulted if I tell you something like ‘You’re safe with me’ right now... but as far as anything to do with this—you are. That's all there is to it unless you start something. I don’t break that.”

Kaytren watched him to see what he’d do, and then took a couple more things from her med kit on second thought, before nudging him to let her slide the cloth shoulder bag under his head. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than the floor. Not that there was [i[that[/i] much wrong with the floor, but in her experience people tended to feel more respected when they weren’t flat… and also less likely to tense or fidget around and make her work harder.

The Jedi young woman pushed her sleeves habitually up toward her elbows, revealing her own scattered traces of a few faded marks and scars, and a thicker reddish line like a crooked bracelet band across her left wrist. She reminded Svo'k to be still and did a basic job of sanitizing her hands and his abdomen with two wipes. ​It wasn’t textbook perfect, but there was nothing emergent about today, and infection wasn’t anywhere on her concern list in these conditions. Breathing in and keeping one hand lightly touching the outer scarring on his side, she habitually settled her work into harmony with his system, nudged a light link into place, and gently redirected a bit of his nervous system. There wasn’t any real Healing or anything overly ‘Light’ just yet; more Small Art and a dozen conscientious other nuances that positioned her to do this appropriately the first time. She didn’t use any numbing agents or disable his senses in any way, but ​by the time she sliced into his scar tissue with the tiny sharp knife and set to work, Svo’k wouldn’t have found that it pained him at all.

“I would love to hear about your son,” the girl told him quietly after a moment without looking away from her work, clearly a little distracted but still listening. “If you want to talk about him.”

[Svo'k Lynd]

“I don’t steal babies.” She said flatly. “But I’m also not going to make promises that I can’t stand by, or for things I don’t control… "

She had a knife, he could take it from her and shove it into her neck. That was an option, but then of course there would be no getting out of here any time soon. He blinked at her but restrained himself and held his anger as she continued speaking, in almost the same breath she mentioned how she doesn't take children from caring parents and with that his harsh expression softened a bit, he was far from good at what he was doing as a father but he was trying and he was learning more every single day. This was never something he planned on happening, he went out with a girl two years older than him, things got intense fast and then nine months later....there was Adrian. He thought about it for a moment as she continued to talk, he was literally the cautionary tale they talked about in health classes in school, not that he'd ever once set foot in a school, but he knew what they were and how they did things.

I’m worried that you’ll act insulted if I tell you something like ‘You’re safe with me’ right now... but as far as anything to do with this—you are. That's all there is to it unless you start something. I don’t break that.”

He was halfway to being insulted as a matter of fact, but then realized what she was saying and just let it go. She was the one who would be safe or unsafe with her not the other way around...but he was lying shirtless on the ground with her about to slice into his abdomen with a knife so he supposed he knew what she meant.

"Yeah well, I guess I'll take that as close to a yes as I'm going to get. I can't protect him if I can't move right and...well that's kind of my main job is protecting him, not being a Sith or whatever. He's my job now...and I don't start something if you don't and you said you won't so..."

She slid the bag under his head and admittedly that did a bit to make him feel calmer. He took a deep breath in as she went to work, he didn't feel anything major yet and in fact when the cold blade touched his skin it was more of a reaction to the cold metal than what it was actually doing, it didn't her per say, not as far as actual pain was concerned. Had he been a little kid he might have protested a bit in pain, but he was not a little kid and he'd been through far worse than the scratch or less of a sensation he was feeling right this moment.

Then she asked about Adrian and for the first time Svo'k's face seemed to light up. A swirl of butterflies circled around in his stomach and there was a noticeable change in his aura, the darkness was still somewhat present, but it was in large replaced by feelings of care, love and overall, paternal pride in his young son.

"Adrian? He's everything to me, he's so small though. I can't believe I was ever as small as him. He and I have the same eyes, well like before mine went red, I can show you actually."

Svo'k took some shallow breaths in through his nose, careful not to let his stomach move around too much, he then closed his eyes and concentrated on the trick that Lord Realm had taught him, the palpable darkness in his aura all but vanished and what was left was an aura of a non-sensitive or barely sensitive typical fourteen year old boy. He opened his eyes and they a calm light blue color, as they had been for most of his life.

"See? That's what his eyes look like, which makes me feel so much..I don't know I can't really explain it. He does this thing sometimes where he wraps his tiny hands around my pointer finger and it's just amazing he....it's like I see him and realize that he is part of me and that I'd do anything for him. I never feel better than when he's in my arms and I'm feeding him or just rocking him to sleep. He's the last piece that I have of my Anuck and I see bits of her in him too. Sometimes he makes these little faces...."

He chuckled a bit but stopped himself because he didn't want to accidentally get stabbed.

"Where I swear he is working things out to understand everything around him. He's so smart, it's just so obvious to me that he's going to grow up being a smarter and better person than I am. I feel like that's what I'm supposed to do, protect him so he can grow up to be so much better than me. Make sure he doesn't make the same stupid mistakes I have, like getting my girlfriend pregnant so young...but then I wouldn't have him if I didn't so maybe it's not a mistake. I don't know. He's going to be good, I can see it in him, it's like I look at his sleeping face in my arms as I sit there just gently rocking him and I feel so happy and so much love for him, I didn't know I could ever love something or someone as much as I love him. He's so awesome Kaytren, so kriffing awesome."

Svo'k laid his head back a bit and smiled looking up at the ceiling, his eyes remained blue for the time being without him even thinking about it, he wished he had a picture to show her the most awesome baby in the universe, then she'd get it.

"Do you have kids?"

[Kaytren Li]

‘Adrian? He's everything to me… so small though.’

By some circumstance so improbable that she had to wonder what the Force had been working at, even the original plasma piercing had missed anything vital and avoided the Sith-raised teenager's spine. There was still something wrong, but it was more of a painstaking repair than an urgent one. Svo'k let his head rest on her med bag and chatted toward the cell ceiling about his child. The detached calm of the Jedi young woman's expression warmed to a careful smile while she cut her way into the side of his abdomen.

‘I can't believe I was ever as small as him.’

Most of the blood on her hands was a healthy and familiar crimson. Her sleeves were already brushed up past her elbows, and she was skilled enough to keep most of the boy’s life neatly contained where it belonged. She was aware that this might seem alarming if someone suddenly joined them at the cell, but there wasn't anything she wasn't prepared to neatly explain if this happened to startle the wrong individual. Kaytren pressed a finger carefully against a tender knot of scarred tissue that seemed centered under a kidney, and her jaw ticked a little at the minor uptick in referred sensations that she’d redirected from his nervous system into her lower calf. There it was.

‘He and I have the same eyes, well like before mine went red… I can show you actually.’

Darksided Force users tended to give her an unpredictable headache, even under the best of these conditions, if she was being honest. Kaytren wouldn’t go quite so far as to say that it wasn’t their fault, but she accepted it at this point that it was what they were. Svo’k… though. He wasn’t currently causing her to experience much of that that at all. He hadn’t felt painful to her since the beginning, not counting that amulet in the corner, but it was almost nonexistent while he looked up at the cell ceiling and chatted lovingly about his child.

‘See? That's what his eyes look like, which makes me feel so much.. I don't know I can't really explain it.’

She was listening enough to understand that it mattered. Kaytren exhaled at the same time as his next breath and dropped her attention from cellular bonds and signs of infection to look curiously at the the blue eyes he wanted to show her.

Kaytren watched the pride in the boy's face and listened for a minute, her left hand holding calm tension throughout the wound she’d sliced back into his body, and her right calf aching a little under the pressure. Her eyes were brown, with a warmth to them that flickered like a small candlelight in the prison cell.

‘….it's like I see him and realize that he is part of me and that I'd do anything for him. I never feel better than when he's in my arms and I'm feeding him or just rocking him to sleep. He's the last piece that I have of my Anuck and I see bits of her in him too. Sometimes he makes these little faces….’

The boy’s blood was threatening to seep past her palm or start causing problems if she continued to leave alone. She breathed in and looked back at her work. Deep under that kidney and tucked away, as best she could tell, from whatever work that the Grey had done, the connective tissues had healed over maliciously from the burns. It was a brittle patch. She could already tell that it wouldn't finish growing with him. Nothing all that bad for a civilian maybe, but a hidden twinge that snapped or constricted at the wrong time wasn't something she was willing to leave alone... even if he had been raised as an enemy.

Kaytren probed the wound with her fingers until she could see the properties in her mind again. The tiny scalpel moved back to her palm, and she sliced the worst of the ruined bit out in a little kernel of warped muscle that wasn’t much bigger then the first digit of any of her fingers. She dropped the purple-black bit of tissue into an empty tube and capped it, sending it rolling over to the corner with the amulet before the young teen had much to get distracted about, or before he could worry about her having any suspicious purpose for it or anything. She resisted glancing down at the scar around her left wrist; her skin was smudged in crimson for now anyway, but the reminder that there were pieces of herself away from her control was an uncomfortable one. It had nothing to do with this boy though. She let go of the thought with a calm sigh and continued working.

‘….he's going to grow up being a smarter and better person than I am. I feel like that's what I'm supposed to do, protect him so he can grow up to be so much better than me. Make sure he doesn't make the same stupid mistakes I have, like getting my girlfriend pregnant so young...but then I wouldn't have him if I didn't so maybe it's not a mistake. I don't know. He's going to be good, I can see it in him, it's like I look at his sleeping face in my arms as I sit there just gently rocking him and I feel so happy and so much love for him….’

Her smile was faint and a little distracted, but didn't fade away as she listened to him and gently coaxed actual Healing throughout the wound for a moment until the tissues reknit whole and healthily. She removed her hand from against his side and glanced it over; the outer skin layers had been healed over twice now between the Grey's work and hers. It was less tanned than the rest of him, but there wasn't any more of a visual scar to speak of than there'd been a few minutes ago.

“Thank you for trusting me. That’s all done. You can test it out with a stretch if you want; I promise it’s better.”

What had he asked her a minute ago? Oh. The slim twenty-two year old reached past the young adolescent for her med bag when he sat up. She glanced down at her hands as she cleaned them up with a wipe, then looked back at him with a sincere expression.

“No; not of my own. I’m not sure that’s in the Force’s plans. We never really know the future though. How are you right now?”