It Doesn't Matter

[Svo'k Lynd]

*He took another drink, before passing the bottle of Corellian vodka back to the beautiful Zeltron woman at his side, she giggled as he kissed her neck while she took a drink causing her to spit out some of the beverage on his shoulder and back. He smiled half heartedly, as much of one as he could muster anyway and pulled her close and gave her a kiss on her forehead missing her lips entirely. He swayed a bit, as he backed away and took the bottle back taking another drink. The vodka wasn't the only thing in his system, it had together with the copious amounts of ryll and glitterstim already coursing through his veins, he was enjoying himself, but he wasn't even sure where he was at the time, she was here and....that's all he cared about, he was going to have fun. At least Zeltrons knew how to party and didn't care about literally anything, but who was she again? He wasn't sure, he remembered or even cared.

Beads of sweat were forming on his his head now and he reached into his pocket, pulling out two small brightly colored tubes and offered one of them to his female companion. She immediately stood up and started talking, but he wasn't sure he could understand her, but she seemed to object to him even having them or so he thought. What the kriff was this? Zeltron's like to have fun and this was fun right?! He immediately stood up to try and stop her from walking off, she didn't have to indulge him in that, but they could still spend the night together. As she walked off he took one step after her, but then began to fill dizzy as the blood seemed to drain out of his brain. The corners of his vision began to darken and he quickly took another drink of the vodka before dropping the bottle at his feet. He could steady himself, he could push through this and still have a good evening, screw the Zeltron girl, she didn't know what a real good time was anyway. He took a step back and tripped over the bottle and fell backwards into ground of the courtyard.

He looked up into the night sky, his eyes fluttering before finally closing and shutting entirely until all he could see and feel was darkness envelope him, then there was nothing.....................................*

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Red eyes opened slowly, the light burning as his pupils were slow to respond. He squinted and put his right hand over his eyes, so all he could make out were his tattoos in front of his eyes. The sixteen year old Sith, sat up and saw a tree out of the corner of his eye, he had to go. The young man stood up off the couch and walked over to the tree and faced it. He was about to start when he realized something, he was just on a couch? How did he get on a couch and where the kriff was he?! Realizing that he had already started he immediately stopped and pulled the top of his pants up, his eyes widening, he looked around the room and saw a few couches. He shook his head in disbelief. That hurt. Between the light in this room and everything else he really needed to sit down, he made his way back to the couch that he had been on moments before and sat down. Placing his elbows on his knees he cupped his face and tried to make sense of everything. There was the girl, this wasn't her place...why was his elbow wet? He instantly jerked it away from his leg and brought it to his nose.*

"Oh for Kriff's sake Svo'k, you kriffing idiot."

*It wasn't bad, his leg was just a bit wet, he should have just finished what he was doing instead of stopping, but whatever. He could change when he went home. Assuming he hadn't been abducted, he wasn't on Kashyyyk that was for sure because he was still breathing and not in a cell.

His head really hurt, it was that type of pain that you can feel with every heart beat as the blood pumps through your head reminding you of the decisions of the previous night. Okay, he needed to think. Where was he, someone had brought him here wherever here was. They took his cloak off and set him on his side on the couch and threw a blanket over him. He sighed audibly and patted his pocket, his eyes widened immediately. They were gone, they were gone?! He stuck his hand in his pocket in a panic, all of it was gone! KRIFF! He ran his tongue over his lip ring nervously and leaned back against the couch and sighed again.*

"...Why?!"

[Kaytren Li]

“You lost your spice and death stick privileges last night, so they’re gone now.” The young woman’s tone was more casual than the teen often heard from her in the courtyard talks or the infirmary, but Kaytren’s quiet alto was easy enough to recognize.

She finished tying a vine to a support stake, and stood up from one of the garden beds bordering the two greenhouse-window walls of her apartment’s living area. It was midmorning outside; a bright day with the wind rustling through the plains on the east side of the council buildings. Kaytren was clean and must have bathed within the last hour or two. The bit of garden dirt she’d picked up since then didn’t seem to bother her. Brushing a slight smudge of earth from her palms, she nudged her sleeve back up above her elbow before it had a chance to slip down, and then tucked a stray bit of damp hair back into her braid.

Kaytren joined him, moving to stand beside the couches with a trio of small fruits in hand. She noticed the damp spot on the mossy tile near her oak tree, but didn’t react in any particular way. It wouldn’t hurt anything. She set the peach-like fruits down in a flat wooden bowl on the coffee table, which seemed to be its usual home. Behind her, the recognizable light-tan Jedi robe she usually wore over her tunic was loosely folded on the cushion at one end of the second sofa. The shoulder bag containing her med kit was on the floor just beside the same sofa, the bag closed but not fastened up.

“Good morning, Svo’k… This is my living room here. Welcome in.”

The young woman folded her arms across her torso as she looked the teen over. There were a few marks visible here and there on her skin, but Kaytren’s fingers absently brushed against the only one that attracted much attention; a thin scar that crookedly banded her left wrist like a bracelet. She watched Svo’k with a quiet expression.

“Do you drink coffee?”

[Svo'k Lynd]

*His head spun quickly to the sound of the voice, he coughed and looked at her, his throat was so dry and she was offering coffee? He clicked his jaw and looked at the young Ji'dai woman who was not all that much older than him. What authority did she have to take his stuff?! Force his head hurt. He ran both of his hands through his hair as he tried to process exactly what had happened, he was kissing a girl and then she was gone and then everything was black. He took a deep breath in and rolled his eyes at Kaytren.

"It's kriffing expensive! Why did you bring me here, some stupid ass Ji'dai trick?!"

*He stood up quickly...bad idea. He was still light headed and all the blood rushed to his feet and he promptly sat back down and crossed his arms at her. He had a wonderful night planned and she kriffing ruined it, absolutely one hundred percent kriffing ruined it. He remembered her in a fog, pushing the girl away, it was her who made her run off. Then he was brought to this place which didn't make any sense in the kriffing world, he was doing just fine on his own and would have been completely fine. He looked down and cupped his head in his hands, the kriffing nonsense he had to go through to get that spice was just...he shuddered, he did not really want to think about some of the things he did in order to pay for it and now it was just kriffing gone because she said so. He looked up and spied her medical bag, how much did he take again? It was always hard to keep track when you mixed alcohol into the equation. It was just one of those things that added a layer of fog to the already blurry situation, he needed to remind himself next time to pick one or the other and if he was going to pick alcohol he could enjoy that....and then maybe only one hit....two hits of something else. That would be much better on his system and he wouldn't wake up so confused and in a Ji'dai's kriffing house! The medical bag was out for a reason and she was a doctor of sorts, he did feel pretty gnarly. He took a deep breath in and sighed.*

"Fine good morning, it's nice here. Yeah coffee, do you put anything in it?"

*Some nice brandy would go well in the coffee, that'd perk him up pretty quick and even out the hangover. A wise man somewhere in the outer rim once told him "Son, you can never get a hangover if you never stop drinking." Those were wise words indeed and words he would live by if coming by the stuff at his age was not sometimes difficult. A good portion of the galaxy the drinking age was about 16 but, it varied from world to world. The outer rim was different, anything went out there and that was easy, but some of the more strict worlds wouldn't serve him what he wanted even if he was of age. Kaytren was still here and he had pissed on her tree, that was rude even if she was a Ji'dai, but in fairness he was not sure he was inside when he actually did it. Who has a tree inside anyway?*

"Why did you chase the girl away? She was a Zeltron, it's like krififng shaking hands with them! Also, why am I here exactly?!"

[Kaytren Li]

‘It’s kriffing expensive! Why did you bring me here, some stupid ass Ji'dai trick?! Fine good morning, it's nice here. Yeah coffee, do you put anything in it?’

She hadn’t even reached the middle of her twenties yet, and the young Corellian Jedi woman had already found herself crossing paths with far more Sith than she would have expected; sometimes with a blade in her hand, sometimes a needle. That pattern seemed to be the strange path her life was on for the moment. She felt… used to them now; even the angry, the disbelieving, or the reproachful ones. Still, in the private safety of her own mind, the young woman bit back the handful of retorts that sprung to mind while she listened to this particular teenager.

‘Why did you chase the girl away? She was a Zeltron, it's like krififng shaking hands with them! Also, why am I here exactly?!’

Kaytren kept her hands relaxed, and barely arched her eyebrow. She caught her laugh before it really escaped her; exhaling calmly through her nose so that her nostrils didn’t flare too much.

“Maybe all of your worst impressions are right and I kidnapped you.”

Coffee first. Force knew, she was ready for more... She felt almost tired-silly. Kaytren turned away and simply moved to the kitchenette corner, pulling two earthenware green mugs from their shelf and working with the promised coffee for them both.

“Cream, a little sugar. Tang bark. It’s like a cinnamon. I’ll make yours up, too. It fights infection, it’s an anti-inflammatory, works against neurodegenerative effects… I’d go on, but maybe another time. Just sit. It’s good and it’ll be good for you. The hangover’s not going anywhere, but it'll dull... breathe through the headache for a few minutes. I’ll bring you a glass of water in a moment. Are you still nauseous?”

[Svo'k Lynd]

*He looked at her and snorted at the thought that it might all be a grand scheme to kidnap him, but that was clearly not the case despite her sarcasm. Were Ji'dai even allowed to be sarcastic? Of course they were how could that be a dark sided tendency or whatever they wanted to call it. As near as he could tell there was not a lot of difference between light and dark anyway and she was just whatever. He rubbed his nose feeling rather congested, he was not all that nauseous but he had a disgusting feeling in his stomach as if it was empty but didn't truly want any food either, even if he could go for something. Something carby with a bit of grease would help with the hangover it always had before. On Tattooine his mother would make bantha sausage sometimes in the morning, well before he was ever in a position to be hungover, but that would hit the spot now.

Tang bark? Yortashan had mentioned he like tang bark on crackers with some sort of spread, it was good, he had it like once or twice? Something like that, it didn't kriffing matter. It went in coffee though? Oh that made sense, she went on about it being good for his particular condition as if the drugs really ever did anything to him anyway. He'd survived once, near as he could tell overdosing deaths were a problem of non-force sensitives, not trained Sith. His heart had been stopped before and then he willed it back into it's natural rhythm, he was perfectly fine and he was going to be fine and that thought in and of itself was something that annoyed him subconsciously. It was like a perpetual torture that the universe kept inflicting on him, he could indulge like anyone else, but yet unlike anyone else he couldn't passively kill himself by indulging.*

"Okay so you kidnapped me? I knew it, you're secretly in love with me aren't you?"

*He looked down and for a second and then back into the kitchenette area and saw her working and before the words could really find their mark he took another breath in, his head pounding with each heart beat.*

"I'm kriffing around, sorry. Tang barks sounds good, but brandy kind of works for hangovers too...and no my stomach feels kind of gross but fine."

*His eyes followed her around the kitchen, partly out of a muted subconscious fear, she was a Ji'dai and he was indeed a Sith, that part was clear, but partly out of curiosity. The way she moved, it was just familiar to him, she was somehow familiar to him.*

"My Mother used to make me stuff when I was sick...different kind of sick, I miss her."

[Kaytren Li]

A faintly amused smile tugged at the corner of Kaytren’s mouth while the Darksided youth behind her made another halfheartedly flirtatious joke; apparently just from the habit of it. Two slices of bread finished toasting; a simple sliced loaf that looked to have been picked up or delivered from some shop. She spread butter across them, began browning a second set of toast, and took a sip from her coffee in the meantime — thanking the Force yet again for whoever in the universe's history first thought to brew caf.

It might have been empathic sense, but it could also have been plain instinct and habit, that left her feeling the red-eyed teen's stare and suspicion like a tingling itch against the back of her neck. But even so... she felt the faintest sense of something else, less negative, even before Svo’k had backtracked into a minor apology or trailed off into a memory of his mother. Kaytren looked out through the transparisteel wall of her living space, watching the plains ripple in wind-blown waves. The warmth in her eyes burned with a quiet candle-lit thoughtfulness. She took a second slow sip from her coffee mug.

"No brandy on-hand I'm afraid; but I think that's for the best just now. I still miss my mother too. She passed away many years ago, so it's not too raw anymore... But that was hard. It's nice to remember the good things, like a meal when you're sick."

When the small meal was ready enough, she balanced the plate of toast atop one of the cups and carefully moved everything to the low table on front of the sofa where Svo'k was sitting. Kaytren looked the teen over for a second, then sat down beside him. The second coffee mug and a slice of the buttered toast were clearly for him, but she passed him the promised glass of water to start with.

"You've gotten taller since we met the first time. Do you remember? Last night you were hypoxic and crashing into organ failure. Two of your Kashyyyk..friends.. joked about taking you home with them... but even assuming they kept you alive and undamaged the whole way, I had a very bad feeling about that. So I claimed dibs first. Or kidnapped you, if that's how you want to remember it. Please drink some water. Coffee or bread next if you can hold that down."

[Svo'k Lynd]

"Mine was killed in front of me, just like basically everyone else."

*He rolled his eyes*

"Taller? Yeah I mean, I was a kid and now I'm not, that's kind of how that happens."

*He took the glass of water and pressed it against his lips, the metal lip ring clanging against the glass, he quickly drank down the entire glass of water without even bothering to come up for air. It wasn't especially cold or much of anything really it was just water and it definitely hit the spot even if his stomach did feel rather full all of the sudden. It was fine, he'd been through this before and it wasn't anything different this time. She brought up Kashyyyk and his eyes lifted from the empty water glass and locked onto her. He wondered who it could have been that joked about taking him back there. That place was just true Sith or at least their idea of Sith, there were so many posers there who felt that they were Sith when in reality they were just trying to be edgy doing dark things that were just over the top and one was always trying to out dark the other. He rolled his eyes, they probably would have killed him.*

"Probably a good thing, thanks. Kashyyyk is kind of stupid, it's just one giant pissing contest after another. A bunch of guys and girls think they're true Sith but they wouldn't know a true Sith if it came up and slit their throat. I was brought up to believe that Sith weren't supposed to have places like that, places that anyone could easily find. Now it's like these kriffing lunatics are just trying to show off. It will lead to the destruction of our people and our ideals....you know, you're Ji'.....Jedi."

*He reached out and took a piece of bread and stared at it a moment before taking a small bite. It didn't quite taste right, it was a bit dull, but that's because he was still hungover and nothing tasted quite right when you were hungover.*

"Hypoxic? That's when air isn't...? Yeah. I mean, my heart stopped a couple of weeks ago at a party they were going to leave me but I woke up. I feel like I always wake up. You said organ failure though, like how does that even happen?"

[Kaytren Li]

Kaytren held her hand out for the empty glass when Svo’k had finished chugging down the water. She set his empty cup down on the low table, then picked up her coffee mug again. The young healer shifted around in her seat so that her back was to the corner of the sofa and she was more easily facing the Darksided youth while he ate some toast.

“In everyday conversation, it’s usually simpler and less distracting to leave it at ‘she died.’ It isn’t a contest, but maybe it is more.. real to tell you that my mother was briefly interrogated, then executed without a trial in our living room when I was a little child. She was mildly sensitive, but nothing like you or I are; just a regular woman who was trying to protect others from something unjust and keep her family safe if she could. She had me hide in the wall in the coat closet right before they came. It was almost twenty years ago. The man.. was acting as a Sith or such, too… but I think telling you about him or about the memory makes no difference for you or I now. As far as Kashyyyk, you would know more about them than I do, I should think, but it seems to be one of the newest in a constant line of dark pits and showy backstabbing.”

Kaytren tucked her feet up onto the sofa. She offered Svo'k his mug of coffee if he wanted it, then picked up her own and took a sip.

“The wars are much older than either of us are. I would hate things to never change at all. But yesterday… you were here. You overloaded your system with carsunum and glitterstim. Glitteryll? That and whatever additive you had in the drinks. The Zeltron girl left. Your courtyard friends were wasting time. I heard them again… and that was enough. I suppose I could play back a security tape for you if you’d like. I leave this door open whether I’m here or not, so I keep a recorder on. But you're smart enough to picture it. I don't think you really need the specifics or the science. You stopped processing oxygen. A third of your organs were quitting. It was messy. Not gentle. Not easy for either of us. I don’t know what happened last month, but... this was bad. My.. Svo'k you were not going to just ‘wake up.’”

The young Jedi woman looked down at her coffee for a moment, then she found the teens' red eyes again and reached forward to catch his hand. The contrast between the tattoos and her much plainer skin was a little comical. Kaytren shrugged her shoulders and gripped his palm.

“Your son must be.. close to two now? I saw him the first time we met. It was on Ossus. Do you remember? The citadel asked to keep you with them. It seemed like the kindest thing... It still feels like it was. But I am not sure now if it really helped you or hurt you. I'm sorry if I should have done something differently.”

[Svo'k Lynd]

He licked his lip ring nervously and took the mug of coffee his tattooed hands closing around it as he subtly nodded to her in thanks for the beverage. He listened to what she had sad and his eyelids came down half over his eyes. He looked down into the cup of coffee and stared into the dark void inside the mug, his long hair falling in front of his face, but he did not brush it away. He took a sip, the acidity of the coffee was readily apparent on his tongue, his taste buds still a bit off. He swallowed the bitterly sweet liquid down and licked the remnants from his black lip ring once more. He didn't much move other than that as she spoke, her words were not hollow or empty they were meaningful and of course sad, the tale of how her mother died was not all that dissimilar from his own experience with his mother. The specifics were different of course, but when you're dealing with something as traumatizing as that did specifics actually even matter at all?

He took another sip of the coffee. She spoke of his near death experience again, his organs had began to fail, it could be a trick but he doubted it. He knew how much of everything he had ingested past a certain point he couldn't be sure, but he knew what he started with and he knew that all of that did to him. She wasn't lying, she had no reason to whatsoever. She mentioned Adrian and his eyes moved up away from the mug and peered out through long strands of hair at her. Adrian, he was about two now she was most certainly right and he had been learning many things from his many Sith teachers including the one he called "Uncle" Stormro. They were better at being Sith than he was and they were better at raising a young Sith than he could ever be, Adrian would be strong under their tutelage, not that Svo'k wasn't but given his own status quo, he was not stable enough to train his own son. His tattooed hands tightened around the mug, he wanted to crush it in his hands and let the hot liquid burn his skin while the shards of ceramic wear tore open his flesh and let blood flow freely from them. That beautiful release that he craved, any release was good, whether it was from a concoction of spices, the soft touch of a woman, pain, or a combination of all of them, anything was better than sitting in constant agony trapped inside his mind.

He grit his teeth a bit and refrained from crushing the mug because that would be stupidly rude and she had done something for him that at least in her mind would be considered to be more than nice.

His head fell down again and stared at the mug once more, his grip loosening as darkness could be felt in his palpable aura. It was not the kind of darkness that pierces through you in a red hot flash, but the kind of darkness that slowly envelopes you and threatens to crush you into nothing.

"You should have let me die then."

He said dispassionately and in a half whisper. He then looked up at her coldly and set the mug down on the table in front of him. His red eyes looked fierce at a glance and might fool the casual passer by but they betrayed him to anyone who knew better. They hid behind them a secret, a secret he had lost any desire to continue in the farce of a life and he was worthless to himself and everyone else around him. The pain that was readily apparent within him to anyone who bothered to give him more than a casual look was alarming, he had been suffering for a long time and he had grown increasingly poor at hiding it.

"Fuck the Grey and their Citadel. They don't know who they are or what they want anymore than a cat who thinks it's a damned fish. You couldn't have done anything else for me back in that cell. Those idiotic clowns held me prisoner for no reason, the only thing you could have kriffing done was arrest them for the way they were treating me and taking my son from me."

He took a long drink of the coffee and for the first time brushed the hair away from his eyes with his left hand. He leaned forward and set the mug down.

"Adrian is two and is being trained, I see him constantly but he's being trained to be strong and powerful so when someone tries to do to him what they did to me, he won't hesitate to kill them."

He crossed his arms in front him in a guarded fashion.

"You saved my life and I guess I should be grateful but I just don't damn well care anymore Kaytren. I deserve to die. It was carsunnum, glitterstim, glitterstyl and I added death sticks to the drinks. What did you think I was trying to do? I'm nothing but a mess and Adrian and....they'd all be better with me gone. I'm a chain, he'll have to kill me one day anyway, at least that's what they'll tell him. I'm Sith I know how it kriffing works Kaytren, you're a Jedi. You don't get it."

His eyes narrowed and he leaned back against the couch and rain his hands threw his hair while shaking his leg. He still felt terrible physically, but his emotions were starting to take over again and drown out the physical discomfort and replace it with angst and self hatred.

"So thanks, I appreciate the gesture, but you're just delaying the inevitable."