{{ urbania's void - chapter 15
...the twilight beat (day twenty-one / +21)
"Are you sure you're gonna be alright here by yourself?" Gadell sat beside the silent Tenel Ka, who had found yet another blanket to wrap herself in. She was lying on Zekk's bed with Gadell sitting beside her and Zekk standing in front of her with his arms crossed.
"Mmm." She responded with a mumble as she twisted her head sideways, burying it in the numerous amounts of fluffy pillows at the head of Zekk's bed. Deeply inhaling Zekk's scent, she found an odd sense of comfort in it. Even though Zekk had always been a bit sarcastic and always deep in some sort of thought, he had been an incredibly good friend to her and she was reminded of that as she rested her head in the mass of pillows.
Even his smell is brooding, Tenel Ka thought sardonically, sniffling. She then replied, her voice muffled.
"I shall be fine."
She turned her head a bit and Gadell reached down to her and placed his hand on her cheek, running his thumb across her cheekbone. "If you say so. I won't argue." He slid off of the bed and rested his hand on her shoulder. She couldn't feel it through the layers of clothes and blankets she had on, but she still wanted to shrug it off.
Every hand that brushed across her, that worked in a gesture of comfort towards her... she could feel them as Kaidin's hands: rough, scratched, cracked...
Jacen's hands...
Every shift of her own body, she could feel the bruises on her skin... the scratches on her thighs, the throbbing pain in her head and behind her eyes. She drank glasses upon glasses of water, but her throat was always dry.
"I'm gonna go check on Jacen and make sure he's working with that Mindmap." Gadell spoke as he slowly pulled his hand back from Tenel Ka. He knew Zekk needed to talk to her. Zekk and her had known each other for years and Gadell knew that Zekk was probably one of the only people who could get what he was going to say through to her. Zekk nodded and watched him exit the room.
Kneeling beside the bed, his hand fell to the place Gadell's had just vacated and then moved up to her temple as he used his nimble fingers to brush hair out of Tenel Ka's eyes. Zekk felt horrible. He felt like he could've done something to stop the whole Kaidin incident. Looking to Tenel Ka now...
In the whole decade they had known each other, he had never seen her this depressed and detached.
She lost a damn arm and she sprung back up right after that... She lost her mother and she kept going... But this... this...
He knew this was serious. And he wanted to help piece everything back together... for the mission and for his friends.
"Tenel Ka..." He started softly, watching her sharp gray eyes lock on his. "I know this is hard. For all of us, especially you. But I just wanted to let you know that you shouldn't put too much blame on Jacen alone..."
Zekk let his hand run back over her hair. It was beginning to become matted with oil, just like the rest of her body, which was wallowing in dead skin, sweat and tears. She hadn't changed clothes in the past three days... and she seemed to be afraid of the shower.
Zekk couldn't blame her.
"Kaidin is the real culprit, you know. He had... he had some sort of obsession with you. And with Jacen's love and Kaidin's insane lust, it just came to this deadly combination... and... and..."
For once he was at a loss for words.
Pulling her right arm out from under her body, she shakily grabbed his hand from it's place running through her hair and slowly clasped her fingers around his, moving his hand to the left side of her chest. Through the layers of clothes, he could faintly feel a heartbeat.
She spoke quietly, a distant whisper, "That is empty."
His voice became equally gentle, "Give it time. Give Jacen time. This whole mission will be over. There'll be no more Kaidin and he'll be back to good old Jacen again... just give it time. Give him time."
"I have given him years, Zekk." Her eyebrows furrowed. "We finally told each other how we felt. And then he had to leave. And now... this..."
"Years..." Zekk echoed. "It has been that long, hasn't it?"
Tenel Ka responded by burying her head back into the pillows.
"You get some rest. We're gonna go out and look around a little, hopefully we'll run into someone or something good." Adding in a mumble to himself, "Force knows we need it."
With that, Zekk stood up and leaned over Tenel Ka, planting a kiss on her forehead, on the sliver of skin showing out of pile of pillows. "We'll be back soon."
He left the room and a few soundless minutes passed. Tenel Ka shifted around on the bed and stared at the ceiling, before letting her eyes find their way to the huge glass windows. Slowly sitting up, she glanced out over the sprawling urban microcosm. She saw lights of many different colors, neon signs in aurabesh, neon signs in basic... the walkways that they brought Kaidin back on, the blanket of space peeking through the tops of the tallest buildings...
The end of a yell, muffled by the walls could be heard. "----FING SITHSPAWN!"
Her head swiveled back towards the door.
Tenel Ka's curiosity got the best of her as she padded to the door, skidding the last few feet on Zekk's slippery socks. The fingers of her right hand moved swiftly over buttons on the door's control panel as she punched in the override to the door and switched on the manual control. And with the same hand, she grabbed the indentation in the door that acted as a handle and pulled it the tiniest bit, so a sliver of dim light spilled through, landing on her face. The crack was big enough that she could peek through with one eye and leaning forward, that's exactly what she did.
Her body froze as she spotted the men in the living area. Pieces of the conversation floated into her ears.
"We --- test him."
"I agree --- Kai, try to --- It's a Mindmap. Take it off."
It was him. She watched as he brought one of those rough hands up to his face and grabbed the bridge of his nose. She sighed as he faded into that gorgeous boy she fell in love with.
Give him time, Zekk had said.
She wanted to wait. She would've given him all the time in the universe, she loved him so much. But would he be the Jacen Solo she knew after this was all over?
As the two other men chatted and watched the third put his Mindmap back in his eye, she thought the answer would be no. They stood in a crooked triangle, speaking quietly, until Tenel Ka could make out one of Khee's sentences.
"So where to, boys?"
Kaidin Serasai shifted his weight to his right foot as he looped his thumbs into his holster belt. The Mindmaps, as they sunk into the person's eye, would spread its waves throughout the body and mind, letting the presence of the person it was modeled after grow stronger within the user. Kaidin was still sinking into Jacen.
"We can go grab a drink and discuss what we know so far." Motioning the other men towards the door, Kaidin followed a couple steps behind them, with a mischievous bounce in his step. "But I'm kind of sick of the Vina Lidrina. And the Epsil. Let's be daring tonight."
Spinning around, his eyes locked on the inches of space that Tenel Ka was looking through. She gasped and steeled herself.
How did he know I was looking?
"Let's go to the Exa Sendra." The words passed his lips, like he was speaking to her, and with the words he winked and lashed his tongue out at Tenel Ka, running it over his teeth. He knew she was watching. Twisting back around as quickly as possible, Kaidin pushed his way between Khee and Tessick and wrapped his arms around their shoulders. Khee pressed the button to open the front door, and they were gone in an instant. She could hear whooping down the hallway...
"Wooo! The Exa Sendra! I know just what I'm gonna have..."
The voices faded away.
Tenel Ka slowly backed away from the door, her head turning to the nightstand beside Zekk's bed. On it, the Rez Mindmap and the Ta'a Chume Mindmap, along with the Anakin Mindmap she had overheard Zekk and Gadell talking about when they were in the room with her.
The Rez Mindmap.
Rez Nyena.
Khee had taken her out of work at a club when her life was at its lowest point. She had been a dancer... a...
The Exa Sendra.
Tenel Ka let out a shaky sigh. She remembered it from Rez's memories. She worked at the Exa Sendra. And now all three of them were going there.
"Men..." she growled.
Spinning back towards the window she crossed her arms over her chest, the left prosthetic one still feeling out of place and odd. Her eyes narrowed.
She had just heard Jacen claim he had worked with the Mindmap. And as she was lying in bed, closing her own feelings off from everyone, she could feel the intense apologetic waves radiating from Jacen, directed at her. He was sorry. He tried to rape her and he tried to apologize.
And now he was going to a place where women were objects and money was sex.
Her Hapan heritage flared inside of her. For the past three days she had been depressed, moping, hiding from Jacen. And now this? And taking Khee and Tessick with him...? Gadell and Zekk...?
No.
With that thought, she stalked to the refresher.
The place where it all happened. Zekk and Gadell had done a good job of cleaning everything up, but she could still see the blood and the sneers and the fights in her mind's eye. Those images would never go away.
Gadell and Zekk had passed time talking in Zekk's room, keeping her company while Jacen worked with the Kaidin Mindmap. They had told her of the message from Raynar and how Jacen didn't send the distress call. Gadell had told Zekk of their scratchy conversation with Danni Quee and Master Skywalker. Tenel Ka had sat and listened, half tuning everything out.
Her glazed eyes trailed around the room in a daze, her mind locked on Jacen and Kaidin. From Jacen's soft lips and his comforting arms... into Kaidin's sinful grasp...
He needed to be stopped. Tenel Ka knew this. They needed to get Raynar back. She needed to get Jacen back. They needed to get rid of these damn Mindmaps. Listening to Zekk, he claimed that it seemed like Jacen had been taken over by Kaidin. And her closest friends were out there wearing them right now...
Standing in front of the shower, Tenel Ka took a deep breath and began by taking her top layer of clothing off. She took layer upon layer off after that, a layer of hesitation. A layer of doubt. Depression. Anger. Fear. She threw them all to the ground and stepped into the shower, switching the water on. And holding her chin high she began to wash the horrible events of the previous few days away...
Moving to make adjustments to the left arm she wore, she looked down.
She had washed away the dirt, but the bruises and scratches remained.
Nothing would get rid of those.
Leaning back against the wall, she slowly began sliding down it, muttering to herself in a feverish trance.
"I cannot do this alone. No... I cannot..."
Tenel Ka had always been a self sufficient young lady. She had lost an arm and refused a replacement. She had gotten through the death of her mother. A practically forced coronation. The loss of her best friend, the man she loved. Poison had pulsed throughout her system...
Yet here she was, tears streaming down her face, her right arm clutched around her knees and the left dangling uselessly by her side.
She hated to admit it.
But she needed help.
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