last_kallig | AU: Not Milliways continuity: The Foundry -Reprise

AU: Not Milliways continuity: The Foundry -Reprise

Ibani is at a corner booth in Milliways, examining a tactical map of the Kurost sector of the Mid-Rim, specifically the Nanth'ri system.

She's half in, half out of armor, a look worn by many commanders in many worlds and many times. A look that suggests that the Commander was either interrupted en route to sleep or has given up on it entirely.

She has a small stack of holopads set out on the table, listing various groups and their locations, most of them are crossed out. The two on top are for a Major Bessiker and the Sith Hiran Bessiker, his son.

She'd hoped she would never need to enter the Foundry again, but events have conspired against her.

Her stomach sinks as she recalls what she's fairly sure will be Major Bessiker's last message to her or to anyone, that a group of fanatical Jedi had taken the Foundry. She's checked again and again, and there is no one she can send, no one she can spare.

If she can't find an answer here, she'll be going alone into what the data tells her MUST be a trap.

(OOC: dialogue in italics is taken from/adapted from Ibani's canon.)

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Ben rolls his shoulders back, his cloak dropping (dramatically) onto the chair behind him before he rubs his hands along the white of his ronbes underneath.

"If you think it will be needed."

His favourite method of protection being to not get hit in the first place, armor always seemed necessary only for the look of the thing.

He sits directly on his cloak and reaches out for Ibani's feet, offering to help with the boot.

Edited 2020-07-25 18:23 (UTC)

Ibani accepts the offered help, and it feels intimate in ways she can't quite explain. She doesn't mind that at all.

"Can be hard to dodge when things get really crowded," Ibani replies. "I'd feel better if you had a bit of extra protection, even if I do have extra life energy that I need to burn thanks to certain complications from dealing with the former Emperor."

It's no more or less than he'd do for any of his friends, but of course he brings his usual level of compassion and intimacy to it, easing off each book carefully and setting them by the bed.

"If it makes you feel better," he says, "who am I to object?"

Ibani hasn't been the recipient of much compassion or intimacy in her life, which might explain why it feels strange to her.

"Thank you," she says, smiling softly. She lies back, fidgeting a little to get comfortable and offers Ben her hand again.

She closes her eyes for a moment, inhales, takes down all of her mental shields, her defenses, surrenders to being present in her body and aware of the aches, pains, fatigue poisons, and other unpleasantness that keeping a human body awake for three days brings.

When she opens her eyes and exhales there is a vulnerability there, a bone deep weariness. "You can stay if you like, after, although I'm afraid I'm not likely to be interesting company," she teases, her voice quiet and gentle.

Ben closes her hand in one of his, and reaches his other across to her face as she settles, brushing her hair from her brow. The Force around them both gently settles, warms, and it becomes possible to sense his presence, faint and reassuring in the Force.

"I won't leave you alone," he says in reply. She can be as vulnerable as she needs to be, because he'll be there.

She closes her eyes as she drinks in the feel of him in the Force and the feeling of his hand on her face. "When I first met you, felt you in the Force, you reminded me of the first time I ever saw sunlight."

She smiles sweetly, eyes still shut. "You still do."

Ben makes a faint 'hmmm' sound of amusement.

"That's less of a compliment if you've lived as long as I have under twin suns," he remarks.

(But he's flattered somewhere under the humour. Flattered, and a bit concerned, because the last thing he needs or desires is to inspire feelings like that from another person after Satine and Asajj.)

He draws back from her head, but only to takee her hand in both of his and to relax into a more meditative pose on the chair, letting his eyes gently close as he invites Ibani's stress to flow into him, or at least away from her.

"I suppose it would be," Ibani replies, her tone warm and humorous. "I spent my childhood cold and mostly in the dark or artificial light, to give you some context on the compliment."

Would it be so bad, to be wanted like that, Ben? That it ended badly twice is no guarantee of future disaster, especially since the contexts have radically changed!

Ibani's stress flows away from her, revealing an undercurrent of pain. As close as he is, as good as he is with living things and with her defenses down, he might notice that not all the pain is proper physical pain. Her system is flush with life energy, flush nearly to bursting and straining to contain it within her flesh.

There's no reply other than a gentle sshhing, like a father putting a child to bed, with a gentle, loving smile.

One of the things Ben has been working on, in his hermitage, in his meditations with the living Force, is to better understand its flow through and in and between living things. And whereas once he might have just taken this stress and incorporated it into his own to be ignored, now he focuses on letting it flow through him, out into the wider Force, as he's had to do with so much of his guilt - or that which he could afford to let go.

It's still a work in progress.

And then, he finds the pain, and this is going to be harder to work with, so he stills further, and lets that come as well.

The pain comes, tied up with the extra life energy. Too much of it, too much for her body to take, but it flows eagerly into him, like water into dry ground. (Warm and sweet and it feels like Ibani in the Force, because it has become HERS.)

He can take the pain away, IF he takes the life energy into himself. (He's spent so much of his life energy over the years that he has 'room' for lack of a better term.)

Edited 2020-07-26 12:39 (UTC)

He does, yes.

Years of being at the front line. Years of pushing himself to the very limits of what his body could do, of healing himself at the front lines just enough to stand when even his fellow Jedi were being pulled back to the basta tanks. Years of healing his men on the fly rather than lose a single man more than necessary. Years borrowed from his future life just so he can survive a few more hours.

There's room, but it's slow. If he opens up too much he'll overdo it, open the metaphorical floodgates, harm himself and Ibani.

So he takes it slow, calmly, a little more with each breath.

Slowly, so slowly it flows into him, life filling up the empty places inside of him. He's going to have to take quite a bit to make the pain stop, replenish a substantial portion of what he's spent over the years

When the pain is gone, Ibani's mind, edging toward sleep, is a muddle of relief and gratitude and affection in the Force.

And then she's asleep. Hopefully until morning.

Ben eventually sits back, her hand still in his, and lets his breathing slow, and deepen.

He doesn't sleep. But he lapses deeper into his meditation for the remainder of the night, existing for those few hours between the Force and his own body, reaching for the serenity he's only managed to glimpse after a decade's work.

But by the time the single Terran sun that shines over Millways is seeping into the room, he looks for all the world like he is asleep.

The sunlight seeping into the room wakes Ibani, and she's startled to feel no pain upon waking for the first time in months. (The last time she woke up with someone in close proximity like this, never mind in physical contact with her, she was a very small child.)

She takes the opportunity to gaze at his seemingly sleeping form, to study her friend without fear of being caught staring.

Eventually - long enough that he may have been asleep rather than just faking it, but also not long enough for that to be beyond doubt - and without anything else changing in his breathing or aspect, Ben opens one eye.

"Getting a good look?"

"Definitely enjoying the view," Ibani quips back, tone slightly teasing.

What, she thinks he's handsome!

She stretches, arches her back. "Any preferences for breakfast?"

She summons something that looks like a datapad over from her bureau with the Force. It's a device for ordering room service in Milliways.

"Thank you, by the way, for last night. I'd been pondering breaking my own bones and then fixing them to deal with that particular problem."

"That's never as fun as you think it's going to be when you get started," Ben remarks, having broken a leg or two in his time.

"As for breakfast," he chuckles, "anything that hasn't been rehydrated from a pack will do me just fine."

"Oh, I definitely believe you on that front," Ibani replies. "I've had most of mine broken at one point or another, particularly while I was in training on Korriban."

"Two Coruscanti Breakfasts, then. I don't think I've ever had anything from there."

She COULD get up and go and get the armor her Jedi Knight friend left in her keeping from the closet, but that would involve letting go of Ben's hand.

She opens the closet door with the Force and the armor comes floating out. It's not terribly dissimilar to what Ben wore during the Clone Wars, though this set is more tan in color than white. "No helmet, alas, we went around and around on that point more than once." Her tone at that last is one of fond exasperation.

"I can never see a thing with a helmet on," Ben says, eventually letting go of Ibani's hand to collect and inspect some of the pieces. It's not a bad set of armor, but he'll still wear someone else's reluctantly. He's been around enough clones to understand the personal nature of something like this.

"And it really messes with my hair."

Ibani laughs at that. "That was more or less exactly what he said," Ibani replies.

She reaches up to gently touch his hair. "I admit my helmet does a number on my hair, but the appearance it grants me is useful. It helps people see the monster they expect, after all."

Milliways room service is ridiculously fast, and she gets up to answer the door while Ben is examining the armor pieces.

"He left that armor with me when the Jedi Order kicked him out," she says, anger in her tone. "Kicked him out for doing the right thing, for working with me to keep the former Emperor from devouring all life in the galaxy." There is guilt there in the Force, at that. "Too many memories to keep and too many memories to throw away, I think. It can be hard to tell with you Jedi, keeping your emotions to yourselves as much as you do." She smiles at him, then places the tray on her bed.

Whatever a Coruscanti Breakfast is, it smells good!

"I would have felt the same way about my armor, I'm sure."

Except he left Coruscant with little more than the robes on his back and the babe in his arms. No time to worry about the sentiment attached to things.

...not that he has any sentiment attached to things.

"Now I haven't eaten this well in ten years," he says, as soon as the tray is set down.

There are eggs.

Ibani nods.

"I need to feed you more often, then," she teases when he says he hasn't eaten this well in ten years.

She eats slowly but methodically, appreciating the food.

Breakfast first, then time to get armored up and go get shot at by droids!

"Do you want a hand with getting the armor on?" Ibani can very nearly get hers on in her sleep, but she's been wearing it for twenty years!

Edited 2020-07-26 23:08 (UTC)

"I think I can manage," Ben says almost on reflex, as reluctant to accept offered help as he is to ask for it. "It's similar enough to what I used to wear."

That wasn't for as long, but it felt like he'd never be free of it.

"All right," Ibani replies, smiling. "I'll go and armor up in the 'fresher."

He might be shy about changing in front of her, after all. Because there's no way those robes are fitting UNDER the armor. Over, yes, under, no.

When Ibani comes out of the fresher with her armor on, her body language has changed. A widening of stance, a change in the position of her shoulders. Temporal and Force power, authority, control, the faintest touch of arrogance. SITH. These are as much a part of the disguise as the armor, as much a mask as the one that hides her face.

That may be the difference between a lone warrior and a general in a thousand-strong army. Ben lost any inclinations towards physical modesty a long time ago. But he shanges while she's changing, his volumnous robes folded and set upon his chair, the armor - what there is of it because Jedi ahve always preferred freedom of movement to actual protection - still affording a few of brown and tan undergarments.

When she emerges, he's looking at himself in the mirror over the dresser, wondering his his beard is too unruly for a serious Jedi Master, but he decides it's fine.

If it hurts to see another friend in the armour of a sith, hiding themselves behind anger and power and dark, he doesn't show it when he turns back and smiles warmly at her.

"I think that makes you look taller."

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