Ask Coruscant Friendly Neighborhood Justicar

[Zathria]

Zathria listened, but wasn't really getting any more answers. So it was her mother and she could only be found with the Force. What did that even mean? She mentally advised herself to be patient, and watched as Jade averted her gaze as if ashamed of what she were asking.

Why can you only find her with the Force? You're going to have to say more than that, she said, deciding on being direct over dancing around the issue.

The reality was that Jade wasn't asking to learn how to be a Jedi, she was asking to learn how to be something else, and Zathria for a long moment considered the dangers of that. But she also knew that she, herself, was a Jedi, and if there was a way to find the girls mother with the Force, Zathria would at least... consider helping her. But for such a decision to be made, the Knight needed a great deal more information than she was receiving.

@Taygood

 

[Jade Hart]

Jade’s speech sped up. She hissed the words out.

“Because she was taken by the force. It was a hyperspace accident. It changed her. It will change me too. Unless I get better. Get more force.”

The girl realized only now she wanted to talk to Silex, not this prying lady she had just met. Too late. She gripped her neck tighter and forced a hard, dry swallow. Reached out for her empty glass with her other shaking hand. Grabbed the base. Clenched it down. The glass shattered. Shards ricocheted outward in a sharp crack, leaving her hand a bloody mess. She gasped, grabbed her brownie bloody-handed, and shoved it in her mouth. Tried to chew. Tried to spit. Fell out of her chair sideways.

The girl's whole body began convulsing, fingers twitching, limbs flailing. Face-planting into the carpet with a hoarse gasp escaping her throat. Seeing stars. Nothing more than random electrical impulses misinterpreted by her brain. Perhaps it was always that way?

@Phoenix

 

[Zathria]

Zathria kept her eyes fixed on the other woman and for the briefest moment as she started to speak with pressured speech, she was reminded of her patients caught in manic episodes. That... probably wasn't what was going on here.

Well, maybe it was. She was speaking of delusions and things that didn't exist, and Zathria suddenly found herself wondering how this girl had managed to become a Jedi at all.

And then she started... having a seizure? That was really not very expected, and Zathria found herself thankful for her years as a healer before starting the path of the Justicar.

She moved over and caught the girl, holding her head steady as she had her seizure. Stay back, let her seize, she said to the people around her. Call the medics, she added. The best thing to do for a seizing person was to make sure they didn't hit their head and then let it pass.

What Zathria could do, however, was use the Force to mimic sedating medications. She reached out and let it flow through the young woman in front of her, letting it saturate her receptors and still the electrical convulsions until she would - hopefully - stop seizing altogether.

@Taygood

 

[Jade Hart]

As soon as Zathria touched Jade, her neck glowed green, a sick light shining through her scarf. Once Zathria's force entered Jade, she coughed up brownie sludge for 30 seconds. Then she sat up. The convulsions ceased. The girl looked dazed, her eyes glassy and unfocused. A bit of drool was hanging down her lower lip. Her long brown hair was going every way and there was a greasy stain on her cheek. But she was breathing.

“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she said, to no one in particular. The waiter saw it all, stunned, unsure if he should call someone or not.

She stood up. The ground seemed wobbly, so she gripped the top of a chair for balance. Her neck had stopped glowing, but she kept shaking her head like it was a drain stopped up with crap. People at nearby tables were looking up at her from their meals.

She touched her neck and aligned her breathing and blood flow with the force. Focusing on Zathria, she forced a smile. “The force… it’s for my health.”

@Phoenix

 

[Zathria]

Zathria took a deep breath as the other woman began to come out of her seizure, still postictal it seemed, and drooling. Zathria had seen enough seizures to know that it had been real - it caused too much damage not to be - but she also knew a thing or two about patient's manipulating her.

She stood up and reached into her pocket, pulling out some credits and tossing them down to cover their meal.

No, what you need is some antiepileptics, she said. Yes, she'd heard this sell before. People came in to "get" something all the time. It was among her responsibilities to sift through that and find the truth. In fact, now that she thought about it, it wasn't so different from being a Justicar.

Let's go, she said, turning to head back out to the street now that they'd drawn attention to each other. Though, let's be real, no one was going to be looking for a Jedi in this dump of a hole.

As she made it outside, she continued down the street a ways before addressing Jade again. Do you even know what it means to be a Jedi? she asked.

@Taygood

 

[Jade Hart]

Jade stumbled after Zathria to the restaurant doorway. Her face painted in soft pinks, ears beet-red, a pale white noodle plastered to her lower lip. Her scarf had come partially untied, revealing a mark on her neck like a giant butterfly had nested there. She clenched the doorway, hunching over. When Zathria asked what it meant to be a Jedi, she just looked at the Justiciar dumbly. Then she vomited. In a trashcan. All the noodles Jade had eaten that night were thrown up in a hot heaping clump of gastric juices.

@Phoenix

 

[Zathria]

Zathria watched the other woman reliever herself of the contents of her stomach into a trash can.

And she just kind of... stood there.

There wasn't really much else to do, but for a moment, the Knight seriously considered just walking on. She didn't feel like she was making any progress, and her decision was already made.

@Taygood

 

[Jade Hart]

Jade wiped her mouth, a brown-yellow-green slushy staining her shirt. She remembered back, way back, right after she had been exiled by the Order with her previous master, Silex. After being stripped of the force, Jade had had another seizure and vomited all over Silex. Her master didn’t retreat in disgust. She didn’t denounce Jade as sick. Instead, Silex had lifted Jade off the ground and carried the girl onto a bed in her ship. Silex didn’t leave Jade. Nor did she judge. She stayed. Until Jade had fallen asleep. Her guardian angel.

Jade’s eyes met Zathria’s.
“A Jedi is kind.”

@Phoenix

 

[Zathria]

Zathria could sense the shift in the air. The subtle ways that consciousness formed within the other woman and the intentions that lay just below the surface. She didn't leave the other woman as she finished her... business. She wanted to make sure she was thinking clearly at least.

It wasn't until Jade spoke up again that Zathria finally said something. It wasn't just the words, as the words were not... entirely wrong. It was the sensations in the Force, it was the thievery she'd seen from the woman, it was the manipulations and cons that she ahd seen. It led to one inescapable conclusion.

Do not try to manipulate me, she said, her face unflinching as she said it. If she was capable of manipulation, she was clearly capable of thought. She wondered if she'd even had a seizure at all or if Zathria had simply been played.

I hoped to come here and see that you were ready to return to the Order. That you had worked to make amends for the past. That even though you didn't bear the Jedi title, you would have carried on the legacy that you claimed to want to follow like Knight Ahsoka Tano who couldn't stop being a Jedi even when she left the Order, she said. The reality was, Zathria probably should have just delivered her verdict without explanation, but ultimately, that wasn't who she was.

Instead, I found you manipulating people, stealing from people (rich or not), and only interested in returning to serve your own reasons. That's not what the Jedi are, she said. She shook her head and let out a sigh. Despite being a Justicar, the passing of judgment was not actually something she enjoyed.

I see nothing to indicate that you want to be a Jedi, she said, finally.

Whether you believe me or not, Jade, I do wish you all the best, but not in the Order, she said, and with that she turned to leave. The truth was, it cut Zathria to say that. She had come hoping to return someone to the Order. Instead, as she feared would be the end of many of her investigations... she found someone that was nothing like a Jedi. And she grieved.

//Exit @Taygood