{{ urbania's void - chapter 24
...the empty and the helpless (day thirty-one / +31)
Darkness.
Jacen saw it in his dreams. He saw Tenel Ka in his dreams. He saw fire.
She meandered along a beach; barefeet gently padding in the sand as her white nightgown softly swept the ground around her. The seven moons of Hapes hung overhead, casting a calm azure glow over the scene. It turned red in a heartbeat.
The oceans lapping at her feet turned to tendrils of flame that seemed to reach out for her. She turned and ran. She was one of the fastest people Jacen knew, but even she couldn't stay too far ahead of the fire. She dashed back through the Gardens, up into the Palace...
The flames followed, charring every piece of greenery in the Garden. It filtered into the Palace and crawled across the walls, licked at the ceiling and crept over the carpet.
Tenel Ka was out the front door, down the ornate set of steps, her barefeet slapping the duracrete. She headed for the forest. Shoving the branches and brush aside, she bounded through. Jacen watched on blindly. It was his dream, he was just an observer.
The fire trailed behind her, burning the brush, skating across Karina Lake. Some danced ahead of her, surrounding her in a rough circle of heat. And she stopped running. She stopped in the grove.
The dravells... that's where I first told her... and we kissed...
She stood alone in the center of the grove, in front of the pool of water, the fire closing in around her. She stared ahead into the flames and a figure stepped out of them --- Jacen could only make out a silhouette. The fire engulfed the two and Jacen watched the flames for what seemed like eons. And finally it subsided.
Everything was charred, burnt, ruined. Tenel Ka was sprawled on the ground, her right arm floating in the pool at her side. Dravells pierced the blackness and settled over her body, some landing in her hair, which was now black and gray with ash, some landing on her stomach, some on her face...
The mysterious figure was perfectly fine. He seemed to have a shadow over him at all times, but as he turned away from Tenel Ka's body, Jacen caught a glimpse of his eyes.
They were gray.
And that was when Jacen entered the world of the waking.
An uncomfortable whimper escaped pursed lips as he rolled over to face Tenel Ka. His eyes took a few moments to open seeing as how they were practically glued shut. An extremely dim glow floated across the room to the bed, from the neon seeping into the window and Jacen Solo could make out the peaceful, sleeping face of the Queen Mother.
Her right hand was tucked under her cheek and Jacen could feel her steady breath on his neck. He slowly shifted onto his back and stared at the ceiling.
Jacen's body froze.
The lights weren't on, but Jacen could tell even with the minimal buzz of the neons below.
There was no more gray.
There was only black.
Falling out of the bed, Jacen scrambled to his feet, his gaze jumping around the shadowy room. He was about to call out for the lights when his wide eyes finally landed on Tenel Ka.
He choked up.
Her nightgown... there was no white showing on it at all. It was all dark. Jacen couldn't tell if it was black or the crimson color it had been fading to before, but it definitely had no white. Except for one spot...
No... no... that's a hand...
As if the thought triggered something, Jacen saw the gleam off of a pair of eyes, from behind Tenel Ka. The storm clouds of Kamino swam in those eyes as they laid themselves upon Jacen. In the back of his mind, Jacen could've sworn he heard someone turn the lights on; the room was flooded with a dim glow.
Jacen found himself staring down to a face that was grinning wickedly up to him. A face he had only thought he would see in the mirror, the owner had his arms wrapped possessively around Tenel Ka.
"Kaidin..."
Sliding his arms from around the sleeping Queen's waist, he stood from the bed, a snicker on his pale face. "Hey there, good buddy." Sarcasm coated the greeting.
Jacen was about to do something. Wake Tenel Ka up and get her away from Kaidin. Or lunge over the bed, at the snickering bounty hunter, tackling him with all of his strength. He was going to do something... anything. But whatever he was going to do was cut short as he was rushed from behind.
Two hands covered his mouth, attached to strong arms that came around either side of his head. Jacen instantly shot his own hands up, to try to pull the others away from his mouth. His attacker left his right hand up to Jacen's mouth and used his left to attempt to grab both of Jacen's flailing limbs. Solo was about to elbow the person in the stomach until he felt another pair of hands helping the first. The assailants quickly grabbed him, pulling his shirt. He managed to wiggle out of it and almost escape the attackers until they grabbed him once more and stopped him, causing Jacen to flip his head around to try to move strands of hair out of his eyes. Everything was happening so fast. The second pair tied a thick piece of cloth over Jacen's mouth, while the first pair caught both of Jacen's hands and locked them behind his back with a pair of stuncuffs.
His attackers then stepped up on either side of him, the one on the right resting his elbow on Jacen's shoulder and the one on his left wrapping her arm around his waist.
"Hi darling," Nexus Mirdele smiled at him as she ran her fingers around the small of Jacen's back. He could feel her fingers on his skin and looking down at himself, he saw that he had no shirt on. His mind was whirling around so many things at once, he didn't even remember them turning on the lights... he didn't remember them coming in... he didn't remember them taking off his shirt and stuncuffing him. Tenk, to his right, was holding the shirt. His gray...
...no... his black shirt.
Jacen took a few moments to look around the room. The furniture, the ceiling, the floor... ebony. A rich onyx. Jacen hunched forward weakly, his eyes freezing on the Queen Mother of Hapes. She seemed to be sleeping very soundly, her normally tan face and skin appearing very pale against the black sheets.
And that's when it hit Jacen. When he looked at her nightgown. It was all crimson now, the edges black. Charred, singed... like they had been burned. He hurriedly tried calling to Tenel Ka through the Force, but something was blocking him.
Nexus saw him trying to concentrate. "Ah ah ah."
Solo shot her a sideways glance, his heart sinking as he did. There was an exceptionally long ysalamiri draped over her shoulders.
"Kaidin." Tenk called to the man standing on the opposite side of the bed, who was letting his eyes slowly rake over Tenel Ka.
"Hmm?" He absently replied.
"Here." Tenk threw him the shirt, which Jacen also noticed was singed, then Tenk clamped his hands around Jacen's bound wrists. Kaidin pulled the shirt on and Jacen could feel his heart slowing to a stop.
Kaidin was wearing a pair of loose pants, just like the ones he was wearing himself... and now he was wearing the shirt Jacen had just been stripped out of. The General could feel tears searing into his eyes, blurring his vision. He began struggling against Tenk's grasp, but he was too weak to get away from it. He tried screaming, but he could only create quiet gurgling noises.
No! no please wake up Tenel Ka wake up come on---
Tenk Mirdele began dragging Jacen by the wrists towards the door, Nexus falling in step beside her brother. Jacen stumbled backwards behind them, keeping his eyes on the bed and the angelic face of the woman he could do nothing at the moment to save. Like him, she was still weak from their fall and on top of that, her mind still didn't seem to be back to its normal state.
And she was just beginning to forgive him...
Kaidin was shooting him an evil grin, his teeth appearing sharp in the muted light. Just to amplify his intentions to Jacen, he let his right hand fall to Tenel Ka's mass of fiery hair, where he softly ran his fingers through it, while his tongue slid over his lips.
The tears left Jacen's eyes at that point, flying off of his cheeks to the floor from the momentum of his body being violently ripped towards the door. He continued to make noise with his throat: squeaks, whimpers... but nothing was waking her up.
Just as the Mirdeles opened the door to the quarters, they covered his eyes with another piece of cloth and took him away, down the hall, into a turbolift and into a cell, lined with...
Hapan silk?
The blindfold and gag were torn away from him as he was thrown into the chamber. He instantly spun around and slammed his fists into the shut door. He gave up on trying to get out and turned to look at where he was.
A very small room. Five walls. The ceiling, floor and walls were all covered in the soft silk from Tenel Ka's home planet, a crimson shade. A holo-screen sat on one wall and it's bright static was what gave the room light.
Jacen didn't pay any attention to it. He fell to his knees and began rambling.
"Why?! Who in the Corellian Hells are you?! What's going on?! I can't believe this is happening... I can't... Raynar, where are you?! You had better be alive and well... you owe me so much for this... Wake up Tenel Ka wake up wake up please... it's not me in the room with you... it's not me... please wake up... I love you wake up come on..." His voice faded away as the screen flickered to life.
"Tenel Ka...?"
Kaidin was kneeling beside the bed now, the fingers of one hand toying with the burnt bottom hem of her nightgown, the fingers of the other hand, slowly brushing hair from her closed eyes.
"Don't touch her... no... no..."
Jacen stumbled to the screen, only to fall back to his knees in front of it.
"no... wake up love... come on..."
Tenel Ka stirred a bit, but that was all.
The General of the Galactic Alliance began rocking back and forth on his knees, wrapping his arms around himself. There was nothing he could do. The door was locked every which way and he couldn't contact her through the Force... the block was still in his mind. They had to have ysalamiris somewhere close by.
Jacen could feel himself choking up, sobbing loudly, his shoulders racked with coughs.
Kaidin and Tenel Ka.
He thought back to what he had woken up from.
Kaidin was the fire. Kaidin was going to burn Tenel Ka.
And all Jacen could do was sit back and watch.
"No..."
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