{{ absolved - chapter 10
-- ESTATE OF THE ABSOLVED – TESSICK’S QUARTERS / DANTOOINE
There was a knock at the door, and when Tenel Ka turned away from where she had been rummaging through her things, she saw Jacen Solo was the one who delivered it. He had a hand balled up into a fist by the door and the other hand shoved into one of the back pockets of his jumpsuit. She tried to force a smile in his direction, and failing, she returned to her bag and picked through her clothing some more.
“You okay?” His voice was quiet as he shifted across the room. She could hear the patter of his boots on the floor, and then passing over one of the rugs before they hit the hard floor again. He was behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders and his left cheek pressed against the back of her head.
Tenel Ka found herself staring at the holoportraits on the nightstand again. She knew Jacen was as well. The way he sighed at the sight of them gave him away. Gently tilting her head to the side, she let it rest on his hand as they stood for a few moments in silence. Normally, a moment like that wouldn’t be overlooked or ignored – a single moment alone together for the two of them came few and far between. Their minds were heavily occupied at this point though, his with the thoughts of their trip there and what he had seen, and hers with their current situation.
For some reason Tenel Ka felt like they were being lulled into having a false sense of security – for some reason. But then again, she was used to that feeling that way a lot, what with her position and all.
She nodded, finally, in response to his question and pulled away from him, seating herself on the bed beside her luggage. Jacen began to peer around the quarters, drinking in all the furniture and the overall feel of it. He began to meander aimlessly around the room for a few moments, his eyes glazing over as they traveled.
“What about you? Are you alright?” She looked up at him from her seat on Tessick’s bed, to where he paced back and forth, slowly and in a crooked path across the carpet.
“I don’t know,” he said. He hesitated before started again, his arms crossed over his chest. “There was something about that ship we saw when we got to Dantooine. I can’t get it out of my head.”
“What about it?”
“Well, it was enormous, to say the least. It filled up most of the viewport and was black, the lights from the ships own viewports looked like stars. If that thing was against space and not the planet I probably wouldn’t have even been able to see the thing.” His hands moved away from their places under his arms and they waved around almost frantically as he described what he had seen. “Once you came in, I turned away from it for only a few seconds.”
“And when you looked back it was gone.”
Jacen nodded.
“I did not see anything out of the ordinary through the viewport when I entered the cockpit.”
Scowling, he stopped his pacing and sat himself down beside her, their legs and arms brushing up against one another. Her skin was warm to the touch and he instantly felt comforted by it.
“What did it feel like?” She asked softly, her head turned towards him and her eyes slightly wider than normal.
He thought back to when his eyes landed on the ship. “I just felt… there was a definite sense of dread from it. It looked like a flagship. A ship of someone very important.”
“Someone very important, but not in a good way, I take it.”
“That’s what it felt like.”
Tenel Ka slightly leaned into him, nudging him with her shoulder and spoke quietly. “Well, maybe it will come to you in the middle of the night or something. We should get some rest. Today has been pretty busy.”
“Yeah.” With a sigh, Jacen pushed himself to his feet and stretched his arms out behind him, wincing as his shoulder cracked with the movement. Glancing around the room once more, he finally looked back to Tenel Ka and forced a smile to her in the dim light. “Good night.” He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek before heading towards the exit.
“Sleep good, Jacen.”
Tossing her a wave, he turned and flashed his lopsided grin. “You too.”
-- ESTATE OF THE ABSOLVED – KAIDIN’S QUARTERS / DANTOOINE
Jacen couldn’t sleep. He was lying with the sheet tangled around his legs and his eyes locked on the canopy that hung over the bed. A black thin sheet, the ceiling barely visible through it; it was enormous, the ends draping over the canopy and reaching the floor on every side of the bed, forming a set of curtains around the massive piece of furniture. The pillows behind him were overly cushy, his head sinking into the stack of them. Turning on his side, he let his eyes wander around the room, his view masked by the black curtains.
With an audible sigh, Jacen bolted to a seating position and shifted, slipping between the curtains and letting his feet land on the carpet. Stretching, he planned to poke around the room for a bit. He figured it would give him something to do to pass the time – until he actually felt tired enough to sleep. He also knew it wouldn’t hurt, since he knew Kaidin wasn’t coming back.
To the left of the entrance was a dresser, which Jacen approached first, his hands seeking out the small glowlamp on top and switching it on. A cool blue light crept along the walls of the room, replacing the moonlight.
As he gently pilfered through the clothes in the drawers, pulling out items here and there, Jacen realized he had matched up the man’s style quite well on their mission to The Urbania. Mesh, buckles, and thick fabric – pretty much everything in some shade of black or silver – and seeing it all just brought back memories of that mission. He replaced the items neatly and slid the drawers shut, trying to push that knot in his stomach away at the thoughts of The Urbania. Deciding to turn his attention elsewhere, he moved to another wall of the room.
Meandering over to the desk that sat alone in a corner near the windows, Jacen ran his hand across the smooth surface. There was no dust on it, just a small holoscreen and some blank flimsiplast, along with a few dead datapads. Jacen pulled the chair out and sat down at the desk, draping his arms across the surface. Moments passed before he leaned back in the chair, dragging his arms off the desk and allowing his hands to drift down to the nondescript drawers along the front. Jacen pulled open the thin one that hung over his lap, his lips pursing and brow furrowing at the sight of what was inside.
Small holos and flimsiplast snippets.
They were all images of women, scribbled on or scratched out.
Jacen let out a shuddering breath as he reached shaky hands into the drawer, pulling out a handful of them and dropping them on the pristine desktop. He sifted through them, jaw still hanging open and eyes threatening to tear up – there were words written over them all.
Achieved. Done. Soon. Rejected. Too easy.
His hands stopped moving once the words and Kaidin’s meanings behind them sunk into his head. He felt his throat close up and his eyes fell out of focus. Inhaling deeply once, twice and a third time, Jacen Solo brought his vision back into focus and let his eyes trail along the morbid collage in front of him once more.
A smattering of blue caught his gaze, stuck under his left hand.
Shifting his fingers slightly, he had to shut his eyes at what he saw hiding under them.
A flimsiplast clipping from an article, the image accompanying it was of a beautiful girl with bright cerulean hair and a gigantic grin. Jacen had seen her face and the words “dancer” and “club” in the article. He had to look away once he saw the words “WILL BE MINE” scrawled over the article.
It was Rez Nyena.
And linking those words with what he knew happened between them later, made his throat retch and his eyes burn. He slid his gaze away from the picture of Rez, hiding it back under his left hand, and once his brandy-brown’s caught something else familiar, he realized the other side of the collection didn’t hold anything better. There was a holo of a recently familiar face staring back at him, the hint of a grin on her lips.
It was Harahjah.
The words, “WILL NOT COOPERATE” were across the image, scrawled in basic, in angry capital letters – and somehow Jacen figured cooperating was never a big factor in Kaidin’s mind. Jacen’s stomach lurched.
Pushing the pile of images back, he lowered his head and blinked slowly, daring to bring his eyes back up to the array. It was a mistake, and he instantly realized that.
There was a stray piece of flimsi sticking out from the front of the mound. It was part of another article. The face on it was set in a stern expression, lips pressed into a thin line and eyes locked on something to her left.
“No…”
He attempted to steady his right hand as he slipped the image out and brought it towards him.
Tenel Ka.
The words. “ANYTHING’S POSSIBLE.”
With a sudden and low growl, Jacen flicked his wrist and let go of the image, shoving himself away from the desk and to his feet, the chair tumbling backwards behind him. Seconds passed before he stumbled, trying to get away from the desk, and collapsed to his knees, one hand scratching at his throat and the other slamming onto the desktop as he fell, to steady himself. His fingers had hit the mess of pictures, sending a few of them out fluttering over the side to rain down on his form, which was now shaking.
He felt violently sick to his stomach and all he could manage to do was squeeze his eyes shut against the pain, hoping it would pass.
How could anyone do such a thing?
Throwing himself into the Force, Jacen gathered strength from the friends and family he could feel, from the plains outside and from anything comforting that wasn’t immediately around him. He slowed his breathing and managed to crawl away from the desk, batting the stray pieces of flimsi that had fallen on him off of his body. He stopped in the middle of the carpet, between the bed, the dresser and the door and fell to his side, sprawling out on his back.
He could still feel his chest rising and falling, the black undershirt he had on suddenly feeling too tight. His legs were laying on the ground in front of him, toes pointed up to the ceiling, and his arms were thrown out on either side of him, palms upwards and fingers curled. Jacen continued to attempt to calm himself by sensing Tenel Ka’s presence in the room next door. She was sleeping peacefully – and reaching out, he realized everyone else in the estate was as well.
Jacen suddenly felt drained, and figured he should drag himself into bed. He would clean up the mess of images by the desk in the morning, not having the mental strength to do it at that point. Pulling himself to his knees, he was about to grab at the edge of the bed and pass through the curtains onto the sheets, but he froze.
Still open to the Force, he felt a presence flare to life in his mind. It seemed to be coming from the corridor beyond the entrance to his room. It was nothing like Jacen had ever felt in his life, it was completely dark, tendrils of malice sliding around it and through it as it shifted down the hallway. He was wide awake at this point, and on his feet by the door. Waiting for it to move further down, away from the room he was staying in, Jacen crept out into the dark hall, the moonlight flooding the other end near the staircase.
He could sense the presence descending the staircase, and starting off at a slow jog, Jacen took off, his legs moving and his barefeet hitting the ground lightly. He came to the where the ceiling sloped into the portrait corridor, the walls closing in around him. He hesitated in the soft golden light beside the images, waiting for the presence to move away from the stairs. Sneering at Kaidin’s portrait on the way by, Jacen padded through the small hallway and out onto the landing. He was above the curving staircase that led down to the main floor now, clasping his hands around the thin durasteel railing, the decorative twists and turns on it feeling cool under his palms.
Jacen tried to feel out more about the presence. It wasn’t anyone from the estate. He could feel Verdot in a deep sleep, in his room; Trexler asleep in his own and Alavia, Harahjah and Aurelio all snoozing in theirs. Tenel Ka was slumbering peacefully in Tessick’s room. Who could that be? He tried to sense Kaidin or Tessick in the dark presence, his heart leaping at the thought that it might be one of them, somehow. But he felt nothing related to them floating around in this being, this thing.
Finally sensing, and hoping, that it was far enough away for him to stay undetected, Jacen crouched down, sneaking down the staircase sideways to keep his eyes locked on the hall below him. It had moved into the Grand Hall and Jacen went after it, on the ground floor now, trying to keep his feet from slapping on the marble of the corridor. He crept up to the double doors, peeking through the open crack that was left in them.
The moonlight that flooded into the windows of the Grand Hall fell across a dark cloak, swishing its way up the center of the room along the blood red carpet, towards the front of the chamber. It moved slowly and as the cloak billowed out behind the being, he could see a pair of dark boots. They paced, one foot in front of the other, a confident stride that unsettled Jacen. He tried to wrap his mind around the being, probing the darkness with the Force. He pulled back instantly, drawing into himself. That wasn’t just a dark Jedi, like Lomi Plo and Welk had been. That was a Sith.
Jumping, Jacen thought he heard a noise behind him and he could suddenly picture a man in a dark cloak reeling up behind him and smashing a lightsaber down across his neck. Twisting his head to look, he saw nothing. And once he settled his eyes back in front of the crack in the door, the cloaked being had vanished. Lingering there a moment, he finally stood up straight, running both of his hands down his face. Once his fingers slid over his lips; that was when it hit him. He had felt that presence before. It was the same one he had felt in the ship over Dantooine. The ship that he had seen for a moment before it disappeared.
What was this estate hiding? What kind of things had been done there in the past?
Jacen asked himself these questions and many more as he crept back up to Kaidin’s room, attempting to settle in bed for the night. He would have to try to pry some information out of the others in the building once the morning came. Of course, they could’ve been hiding many secrets as well and this made Jacen instantly more aware of his surroundings and alert towards the people they were housed with.
While his thoughts drifted to the visions of the Sith and the disturbing array of Kaidin’s holos right across the room, Jacen scowled and pushed them out of his head. Once he focused his mind on Tenel Ka, he found himself falling into a peaceful sleep.
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