“Absolutely not!” Anderson’s voice was firm and stern as he glared at the nurse. The three of them were standing by the door, the nurse trying to restrict entrance, even to the family.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Anderson, if you just go into the waiting room, we will page you when she comes to.” The nurse tried to reassure him. Draca glanced up at Anders and noticed his entire body was tensed.
Anders, to those who knew him, visibly considered just pushing her aside and entering the room to be with Evelyn.
Still, even the nurse could easily sense the increasing tension, “Dr. Erinos is on his way to help-”
“I can help her, too,” Draca pointed out. Anders glanced over at Draca as he considered it for a moment.
Melissa gave Draca’s hand a gentle squeeze, meeting his eye subtly as Anderson took a frustrated moment to control himself.
“I could also help, you know…”
Her gaze slipped away just enough to indicate her concern.
“We can let you in,” the nurse pointed at Melissa. She figured the Zabrak male may be a safe bet to ensure the Chiss didn’t lose his temper. Siths were always a bit problematic in the hospitals but Evelyn’s case was unique. She didn’t know how well the Chiss controlled his own emotions, but she wanted to be safe and keep the hospital safe.
“I trust Bril and her. I’ve met Bril. He knows about Nightsisters Magik. Let them do this.”
“I expect a thorough update and report from everyone in that room,” Anders managed not to growl when speaking.
“Of course, sir,” the nurse reassured him as Draca led him away, for now.
In her feverish daze, Evelyn fought to open her eyes and figure out where she was. The sedation they had given her was heavy but she can feel it wearing off. Her head rolled to the side and she saw the mummified vine covered Zabrak in the corner of the room, it’s bony chest cracked opened and there was nothingness.
She winced and rolled her head to the other side. The screams were so loud and the pain was unbearable. Sweat beads formed on her forehead and slipped down. The green veins on her was a slow pulsate as it started to increase it’s speed. She tried to squeeze her hands and let out a small gasp at the pain just for moving her joints.
The nurse entered with Melissa and frowned.
“I.. think the sedation is starting to not work..”
Evelyn suddenly turned to her side and coughed up more green tinted blood.
“That means the dark power that afflicts her is already beyond your ability to treat,” came another voice, one that the Echani present in the room recognized instantly as her found-brother. Their connection in the Force was such that Bril felt her long before he was near the room Evelyn was being kept, before he reached the building, even. Their mental correspondence lacked the usual warm pulse they’d often used to let one another know that they were mindful of and present with one another – clear evidence that Mela was thoroughly distracted. And how could she not be? Evelyn was in a dire situation, one worryingly similar to what he’d experienced on two separate occasions.
When Bril Teg Erinos stepped into the room, his expression lacked the radiance it typically had; his countenance was grimly serious, brows furrowed and nose scrunched as if something in the air offended his senses. Then, he turned to Melissa and placed a gentle hand on her arm while holding her gaze for a moment, an unspoken feeling conveying that he was glad to see her again. If only it were under better circumstances.
Fixing his gaze back onto Evelyn’s writhing form, he sighed. “It’s regretful that my people’s magick has become more popular with our allies and our enemies. The way of Sith and Jedi are well known, familiar. But of the Nightsisters? It’s obscurity is a danger all on its own.”
Bril reached beneath his tunic to remove a necklace from his neck. It sported an obelisk-shaped pendant with a hollow center. Within it, a distinct green substance somewhere between a gas and a liquid danced within it. He took a deep breath.
“Mela, I need you to go outside, okay? Go back to Draca and Anders,” he said without looking at her. He’d remembered the conversations he had with her about her recent brushes with the Dark Side, with her temptation and uncertainty regarding it. This was no place for her to be. Not now. Not with what he was about to do.
“May I stay if I remain uninvolved?” Melissa questioned with a small frown. She shifted from foot to foot, silvery eyes on the back of his head in a mixture of understanding and insecurity. “Anderson and Draca only left because I was here.”
She didn’t feel the need to mention her own concerns for Evelyn. When it seemed everyone was ready to ignore her, Evelyn was one of few who stopped and heard her. Bril was another, the third being her lover who was only a short distance away. Mela wanted to see her well as much as the men waiting impatiently outside.
The hybrid winced. There was echoes of voices around her but she couldn’t pinpoint them. All she could was able to smell that room where her and her team were in. The damp of the cave. The dusty of the mummified corpse. And the victims-
Evelyn’s hands shot up as she covered her ears for a moment. The woman had went through wars. She had heard people being tortured. She had been through so much throughout her childhood. There’s something different about those screams.
Despite that her eyes felt like fire, she tried to open them again and saw a familiar silver haired female. Fair skin. Was it her? She started to wheeze, it was getting hard to breathe. It felt like something was crawling inside of her and has grasped her lungs with flames.
Evelyn’s green-veined hand snatched Melissa’s arm and grasped her.
He stopped for a moment to consider her question. The thought of willingly letting her sit in on a ritual that posed great risk to everyone present went against his strongest instinct to protect his loved ones, but he also knew better than most how capable Melissa was. They had both been thrown into the chaos of the Brotherhood since they were barely beyond their teenage years, and grown in spite of it all. She was no less capable, mentally and otherwise, than he was. Perhaps, it’d be better to show his belief in that fact by letting her stand on her own two feet, rather than coddling her?
“Of course you can,” he said, “just … guard your mind. The spirits will latch onto whatever, or whoever, they can.”
When Evelyn started to wheeze, Bril found his place in a seat closer to her and leaned forward, inspecting her with his Force sense. “Evelyn, can you hear me? It’s Bril.”
<@216702440140046336>
Melissa had jolted slightly, in shock, as Evelyn grasped for her arm. She bent to accomodate it, nodding at Bril’s instructions and focussing inward. On covering Evelyn’s hand with her own, her skin pale against the older woman’s. She gripped, in some way hoping that she could act an anchor.
At the very least, it gave her a task to focus on while Bril spoke to the spirits. Her grasp on the Force was easily disrupted though spirits had yet to ever take advantage of that. Not that the Seer was so arrogant to assume she was better than that. No. Perhaps what was Evelyn’s anchor could also be hers, in the form of their entangled hands.
Evelyn closed her eyes when the woman’s hand was on hers. She wasn’t sure if it was Melissa. If Melissa was here, where is Anders? She reopened them and fought through the blurred sensation to look around for his blue skin and red eyes. She saw shadows. Burnt shadows with green glowing cinders that pulsated each time their ‘heart’ beat.
She turned towards Bril as she followed the echoes. She couldn’t quite grasp to what the figure had said. The brown skin with warm undertones and the black hair had seemed familiar. She used her free hand to try to rub the burning sensation from her eyes but winced as her coughs had became dry.
There was a soft growl as she started to speak in Zabraki with a voice that was not hers.
“||The ritual!||” she snarled, “||It was to grant me immortality. IMMORTAILITY! Not decay! Not decades of pain!||”
Bril’s voice became colder, more stern. “Your time in the world of the living has passed, auntie. You’ve no claim to Evelyn.” One thing Melissa would note was that while she had heard him speak Zabraki numerous times, this sounded … different.
Bril removed a small knife from his belt line and slowly dragged the blade across his palm, just enough to draw blood. Then, he poured the contents of the small pendant into his palm, allowing the ichor to mix with his blood. Not only did it mix, but it seemed to consume every drop of sanguine that dripped from the wound. The air around him grew thick with a foul odor a the wispy, brackish substance belched out from his palm.
Melissa kept her hand over Evelyns, gripping gently. She closed her eyes, wanting to reach out with the Force to calm the woman but holding off. Until the maigicks were complete there was little good it would do.
The Force would guide them well enough. She just had to trust in it.
The voice laughed, “||No, this woman has Magik in her soul and veins and she doesn’t even realize it. A gift!||”
She turned her nose at the foul stench as she hissed, removing her hand from Melissa and sent out a small green bolt mixed with ashes and smell of decay towards Bril.
Bril’s hand drew a horizontal path through the air and left a trail of wispy green smoke in its wake. The bolt struck his palm and disappeared within it, causing the ichor cloud to belch outward again as if it had just finished a meal.
“Predictable,” he said while closing that same hand into a fist, causing the ichor to stretch across the air like smoky tendrils, crawling up his nose and Evelyn’s.
“The entheogenic properties of the brew will allow me to convene with the spirit that’s possessing her,” he said to Melissa, “If things get hairy, I’ll reach out to you.”
That was the last thing he said before his pupils went wide, and his posture straightened like he had a metal rod in his spine.
As the brew did its work, the scene around them started to shift, the sanitized whites and gray of the hospital room peeling away to reveal a landscape he couldn’t recognize, and someone’s home on the horizon.
<@1382824894877794314>
They were on a ship but everything was shut down except the life support system. It was as if the ship was sleeping. It was almost eerie until there was soft haunting melody playing softly through the speakers.
Evelyn was standing before the massive protection glass as she glanced out. The stars and the colors of the galaxy shown through. There was purrgils dancing in the galaxy and singing their song.
Evelyn slightly tilted her head to the right and then fully turned around to see Bril.
There was a moment of silence between them.
“This is not a dream?”
The singing was suddenly cut off as there was soft crackling, sounding like fire as green cinders and ashes started to appear.
-# <@1056685516441006091>
Bril shook his head while looking around. It felt … strange here. Perhaps it was the brew boosting his connection to the Force, but it felt like he was walking through her mind instead of peering into it.
“We are in your mind, yes,” he said, voice low yet sounding as if he was standing right next to her, “But this is not a dream, Evelyn. And it appears we have company.”
Bril’s eyes shifted to the green cinders and ashes that started to creep through the air like cracks spreading across a glass surface.
“We need to move, now!”
Evelyn frowned but then she nodded as they ran towards the door. The door slid open and disappeared behind them.
They were in a cabin with a soft chill in the air. The only few light sources was the fireplace that was roaring in the chimney and different lanterns throughout the room but dimly lit.
The view was most breath taken of them all.
Snow was falling on a gloomy day, blanketing the land and the mountains from afar.
Evelyn immediately realized where they were and she did not like the fact that he was seeing this. This was her personal moments. A female laughter, faded but strong as Evelyn let in a shaky inhale.
“What is going on?”
Bril’s eyes narrowed as he scanned their new surroundings. This was going to be more difficult than he’d anticipated.
“You were on a mission for the Envoy Corps,” he said, “Nightsister magick was involved, and now one of their spirits is occupying your mind, attempting to supplant your soul with its own.
"Marick filled me in on the way, figured I could help.”
Evelyn winced as she remembered. The corpse that was covered in veins and her begging to the group to kill it. To destroy her.
And Evelyn did. Only to be infected with Magick.
“She wanted a release. I did not think she would attach to me. How do we get rid of her?”
“I unfortunately have been possessed by malevolent spirits on two separate occasions. They always prey upon something that makes the mind vulnerable. Strong emotions like fear, anger, guilt. Or memories of traumatic experiences,” he explained while folding his arms in front of his chest. “The safer, but more difficult method would be for us to find where it’s hiding so you can face it, and whatever it’s using to keep a hold on your mind.
"The more expedient, but dangerous route would be for me to offer myself to it instead. I’d rather not deal with a phantom knocking around in my head a third time, but if that ends up being our only option, well ….”
The color drained from her face.
By the stars, she did not want him to know what she did. Or grew up with. No one knew. Even Anders had hints but not the entire story.
Her most traumatic experience-
There was too many to count.
Which one was the worse one?
“I…” Evelyn whispered, her voice almost broke. She did not want him to take on this spirit, a mistake that she alone had made and needed to atone.
“I need a moment,” the Shaevalian-hybrid whispered.
A moment was not what she have. The green lit ashes started to appear. Evelyn let out a soft stuttering gasp as she knew what may be it.
She turned and run to the bedroom door and only to be exactly where she needed to be.
This was her old home on Selen, a home she shared with Aketa. Her parents? Darth Dol? Her traumatic and ruined childhood?
That wasn’t the worse of it all.
What she did to Aketa… she could never forgive herself. Her arms crossed as she rubbed her upper arms with her hands.
There was screaming and crying from a beautiful Chiss. Her silky black hair flowing over her shoulders. Tears streaked down her eyes as she was very animated. Then the Chiss stopped screaming as she looked to her wedding ring, took it off, placed it on the mantle and left. The younger Evelyn chased after her but the Chiss was already gone.
“I… told her I was okay to for us to have a child. For years, I gave her that false hope. Until… the day I told her everything. The next day, we went into war and she died.”
Her voice broke towards the end as she cleared her throat.
“If only I had kept my mouth shut. She would not had died with such…” Evelyn couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.
The emotional tumult churned within Evelyn’s mind like a storm, buffeting the walls of Bril’s consciousness. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem. Bril had mastered his unusually acute Force Sense to such a degree that all but the most poignant emotions failed to disturb him. But here in this shared mental space, with the heightened awareness induced by the entheogenic cocktail they’d ingested, the eddies of fear, apprehension, and guilt had an effect.
He scrunched his face in visible discomfort. His instinct was to help, to try to shoulder some of her burdens as he did with all his people. Their lives intersected in so many ways – through shared connections and experiences – yet he hadn’t taken the time to really know Evelyn like he had many others. And now, as it started to dawn on him how much pain she carried, he felt regret for having never taken the opportunity.
“Of course,” he said upon hearing her request, “Take your time.”
But the spirit had other plans. Before he could think to react, the scenery changed again. He didn’t recognize it, but the design of the house was familiar to him. The unique blend of traditional and modern construction techniques found in Selenian homes were hard to miss.
Another wave of emotion rippled through the Force. A scream forced him to turn his head just in time to see a Chiss woman rushing toward him, and he tried to back away, but he didn’t pull away in time. It didn’t matter, though. Just like the Force echoes he studied, the image of the unfamiliar Chiss and a younger Evelyn passed through him like phantoms.
He turned to stare at them for a moment, watching the scene play out before him in tense silence.
Bril swallowed hard upon hearing Evelyn’s explanation of what occurred. That incongruity of desires in a relationship, especially related to parentage, pulled a string taut somewhere deep within him. Memories of their escapade in the Casparian System came flooding into his mind. The Force Nexus had shown him a vision of a potential future where he and Minnow had a daughter, Jisula. The conversations between himself and his better half regarding that vision, and how it’d felt so real to him, hadn’t been easy.
They had a foundling, now, a daughter of their own, but not a day passed still where JiJi didn’t cross his mind.
He breathed deep.
“Evelyn, I … I’m so sorry for your loss,” he began, tiptoeing around the subject like feet on a floor covered in broken glass. “I know what it’s like to feel like it’s your fault the tragedies that befall those you love. But you have to ask yourself: is seeing you like this something Aketa would have wanted? Or would she rather see you happy? Safe?”
“I am not sure.” Evelyn said coldly. She crossed her arms, her way of attempting to close everything off.
“Her feelings and disconnection she did in an instant. I felt it.” Her eyes continued to stare at the ring on the mantle. She still had it, hidden away in her home. She’s not sure if Anderson had ever found it.
“Her entire future was… all about family. And I kept the lie for so long,” Evelyn heavily sighed, her shoulders tensed.
“It was not until Anderson, Draca, and Melissa that I now understand why she was so hurt. And she will never know that.” There was a soft cackling at the fireplace. She saw it.
“You,” Evelyn snarled, her entire demeanor changed as she reached out and grabbed the spirit by the neck and slammed her to ashes in the firepit.
“This is MY memory. It was not meant for anyone to know.” The spirit screeched as she clawed at Evelyn’s arms, leaving green streaks.
Melissa would notice that new open wounds appeared on Evelyn’s arm.
They tore through reality in jagged streaks.
Melissa watched, the reflection of green glistened in her silver eyes. She remained still, however, refusing her instinct to help. To heal. As soon as they both came to, she’d heal these wounds but whatever fight was occuring had to play out without her. On the sidelines. Always watching.
Her fingers wrapped more tightly around Evelyn’s hand, blinking harshly so that when the two returned her turmoil would be far enough away.
The spirit writhed and thrashed against Evelyn’s hold, but was unable to break free. “No … you’re mine!” It wailed in protest, causing the lights in the room to flicker violently.
Knowing he couldn’t do much because this was Evelyn’s battle to win, Bril placed a hand on the back of her shoulder to help keep her upright and to bolster their connection in the Force. “Keep going,” he shouted, voice barely registering above the spirit’s frightening bellows.
Evelyn winced as the Zabrak spirit continued to claw at her as she reached with another hand and grabbed her wrist. Her emerald eyes seems to glow with the same green as Magick.
Then her hands burst into flame, green and blue mixed together as the spirit howled and screech. The fires in the fireplace roar into life, the white and blue flames licking the char covered brick walls.
“Leave. You are not welcome.” Evelyn said as she release her grip and watched the spirit burn in the fire. Evelyn turned to look at Bril.
“….Thank you.”
Her jaw tighten as she release the Zabrak’s wrist and moved her hand to around their neck. They were fighting fire by fire and Evelyn was evidently winning.
Then Bril would felt himself return back into the room.
The ghastly green orb screeched as it left Evelyn’s body. The lights flickered and the machines cackled in and out, blaring a warning noise. The orb shrunk as it went into Bril’s amulet.
Evelyln winced for a moment and sighed with relief as the green veins were slowly fading away.
Bril sprang forward with a gasp. The lights of the hospital room glowed intensely, and he flung a hand up to his face to shield his eyes. He was back in his own mind. What a relief.
“It’s done,” he said. He rose from his seat on shaky legs, and made it close enough to Evelyn to place his hand atop her own before collapsing at the side of her bed. “She’s safe…,” he groaned.
Melissa stood immediately, holding Evelyn’s hand a little higher and placing her other hand atop it. She closed her eyes, breathing steadily to focus before pushing on the Force within her to mend any wounds upon the other woman.
It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would provide her strength enough.
Evelyn fought against the grogginess as she rolled her head towards Bril. She frowned for a moment but it was coming back to her. This time, there was no embarrassment or anger to what he knows of her now. She just gave him a small nod in appreciation.
Then she started to look around her surroundings and a soft sigh of relief when she saw Melissa, “hello, ||little star||.”
-# <@1056685516441006091>
Once Bril regained his strength enough to stand. “You did it,” he said with a half-smile.
It didn’t take his Force sensitivity to know that the two likely wanted to have a moment in private, Bril briefly placed a hand on Melissa’s shoulder. “I’ll be right outside.”
Then, he excused himself from the room. <@1382824894877794314>
Melissa had begun to reassure him he didn’t have to leave, but as Bril left and the door slid shut behind him there was a sense of comfort to the privacy. She would have to thank him later.
“Hello,” Her cheeks were still pink from the murmured name. That was certainly new, though far from unappreciated. Melissa shifted in her seat, somehow managing to sit cross legged despite the arms of the chair. “I’m glad you’re back. We’ll have to tell the nurses and Anders in a minute. How…. do you feel?”
Evelyn considered it for a moment. She didn’t want to worry Melissa. Or Draca.
Or even Anders which usually resulted in both of them having a staring match until the other caves. Or having an amazing healthy debate.
“I will be okay.”