Ask [Paqualis III] Trials and Travails

[Orenth]

"Not sure what therapy has to do with divining the Force but okay." He had seen a world that he had never set eyes on in that moment. It wasn't a matter of being traumatized or having hallucinations. The Knight had felt the Force flow through him in the past and recognized it for what it was.

Byron took a moment to breathe in and out "It's either an omen of a potential outcome...a dark and violent one I might add...or it's telling me to go there." The tug he felt was a magnetic hunger deep at the back of his curiosities and urges. The desire for answers was something ever present within the Jedi. These days he often found himself knowing less the more he learned.

"Maybe..." The bearded man looked towards where his prosthetic leg was supposed to be. "It was the circumstances." Free doctor advice was not about to be thrown out the window by the man. His tone begrudging at the admittance slightly. His eyes drifted to the side has his memory harkened back to when he had crashed on Denon near the capital building and the events that lead up to it. "I let someone down that I care about. Her name was Lyra..." He paused and took in a breath of imagined Felucian air. The damp rain of when he had first met the wild child remembered bittersweet. "...She came to face me on Denon. She's the one that took..." He hesitated for a moment and almost thought of just saying 'that' towards the severed appendage. "...a piece of me...as you can see." A mild sigh of relief followed. Putting thoughts to words helped and even a Knight needed to be reminded of it from time to time. It helped to say it out loud a little even if it was vague. He had not really talked with anyone about Lyra, or Tiamat as she goes by now.

@Killa Ree

 

[Dr Ilana Morata]

Her lips twitched at his comment, her own voice dry in reply. "You'd be surprised what mundane advice does for a mind," she spoke up, leaning back into her seat. "Sometimes, visions are manifestations. Whether mundane or Force-potential, don't dismiss what they can tell you. Like dreams... it's about personal interpretation." Her gaze sharpened a moment at the name. Lyra. A Sith, likely.

He let her down?

She cocked her head to one side, frowning. "It seems more to me like she betrayed your trust," she spoke up simply. Looking at his leg briefly, she cocked a white brow again. "You're used to shouldering responsibility. You've carried their secret because..." She let her voice trail off a moment, and then she turned away.

"She took more than your leg, Byron. That will take a long time to heal."

With that, she returned to the cybernetic, frowning in concentration.

@Darasuum

 

[Orenth]

Byron was relieved to hear her being considerate of his account. The advice he already knew but hearing it from the Doctor was comforting and reassuring. He had definitely felt differently about Lyra before they had faced one another. Trust was lost certainly. It was more than that, different even.

"It just...karkin sucks..." Self-loathing for failure, fear of despair and succumbing to dark wants, all the fears and anxieties were there for Lyra. It wasn't himself he was afraid for, not entirely. "...I don't know what to do next, Doc. Even when I can see the future." Byron was well aware of the feeling. It was grief he was feeling for losing Lyra while she never died. Closing his eyes he tried to acknowledge everything he was feeling. He didn't shy away from his emotions and knew turned to face problems head on. She was right about him needing to be patient.

@Killa Ree

 

[Dr Ilana Morata]

He never was good at hiding his emotions, was he?

Even as she worked on some of the durasteel plating, she could feel the waves of self-loathing, sorrow. Guilt. Grief, even, slow and surely leaking through until even her own throat felt tight and she put down her tools once more, giving him a long, assessing look.

"You don't have to know. The galaxy will walk all over you if you plan for anything." She gestured to his leg, then the room. "We never plan. We move forward. We get hurt, broken. We stumble and grieve, but it isn't the end." Her tone rose from it's usual passivity, amber eyes burning brightly. "We push for what we believe in, regardless of who stands in our way. To stay still is to die, and to me, Knight Ryker, you are not the kind of man with legs to stand on in death." To make her point, she pointed a piece of it at him. "You can't rely on the Force to tell you everything; that's on your shoulders. What you do next is what makes right to you. But if you spend all your life asking what next, you'll drive yourself mad."

She exhaled slowly, rubbing the heel of her hand to her forehead.

"...What do you feel like, Byron?"

@Darasuum

 

[Orenth]

Byron met Ilana's eyes as she spoke. The Doctor's words held an underlying passion to them. Maybe she spoke from personal experience and this was what was called projecting. But on the other hand the Arkanian woman had a point. It was the latest loss in a life worth living.

The Knight had been on the move for a long time. The Dark Side of the Force had been something he had faced before as a Knight and a padawan. The hardships that Denon brought welled up inside him. When the Doctor asked him what he was feeling, he relinquished thought to get the answer.

As a padawan he had struggled to sense things and had to take extra time and effort to compensate for it. When one's masters are Indy Sati and Hans Grayza, he had a reputation to live up to especially when it came to psychometry. Maybe that was it. "Adrift...like I'm waiting to wash up on a island one moment or come upon a typhoon the next." A sigh escaped his mouth but he continued. "...but I think it'll be alright in the end...so, hopeful, I guess as weird as that sounds." He wasn't going to stop or slow down anytime soon. Some might call Byron stubborn, but as long as he still drew breath he would keep fighting for what he believed in.

@Killa Ree

 

[Dr Ilana Morata]

She leaned back in her seat, listening again, and lowering her tool. "Is there a way for you to occupy your time, or are all Jedi so intent to save the galaxy?" She wasn't giving the man sarcasm, but genuinely curious what he thought. It was a strange thing, this want to always 'save the galaxy' and leap into the fire.

@Darasuum

 

[Orenth]

Byron's eyes looked up in thought. The man was not easily offended and knew what the Doctor meant. "I used to shock box in college but I don't have much time for that these days. Plus I get enough punching in on the job." He thought about the U wing he had lost on Denon. That had been his latest ship and it was little more than scrap metal somewhere on the planet. "I like ships. I like building and designing ships. Working on stuff, you get the idea." It was what he used to do before becoming a Jedi Knight. It was how he had also coped with being alone in the Jedi Order at first.

"Until I met Master Sati and Master Grayza, I did not really mix much with the other Jedi. I still don't entirely feel like I belong there, with the Order I guess." his brow furrowed slightly after voicing these thoughts. Surprised by how good it felt to say that. It was the first time he had said these things out loud to anyone. Even if he was aware of it, saying it brought some measure of relief to his shoulders.

"I've sat idle and learned to clear my mind, doing the essence of nothing." His mind returned to Spintir where he had met Lyra for the second time. His own darkness had been unbalanced at the time and through introspection and self discovery, the Knight had improved. But there were some things he knew could not be done alone.

"I've learned to engage and try to change the galaxy..." A sigh followed the sentence and a shrug of his shoulders. "It's just hard sometimes knowing what the right thing to do is." The Knight had failed on a few occasions spectacularly. But even so he never gave up. "Maybe I should try creating something." The last sentence came from the bearded jedi a bit faster than the previous one. It was more of a verbalized internal monologue. Talking to the arkanian Doctor was easier to do than he had thought.

@Killa Ree