On a planet of dangerous myths, shocking fables and unspoken legends, there is also beauty. Dispersed around the untamed world are flaws: cracks formed through thousands of years of glacial rivers rushing and destroying cliffs, scooping away the soil and digging crevices untouched by all but a handful of explorers from ages long past. Isolated at the southern tip of Ilum, this particular ravine is close to the planet’s core. No-one ever dared to dive directly down into the darkness of the ravine, instead opting for laser drills that bore a tunnel into the nearby glacier. Uncharted and unexplored, this passageway is a place of nightmares for those who venture to its depths. The half-eaten carcasses of explorers who have met an untimely end litter the ravine’s descent—a warning to those who might choose to venture too far. Whether these men and women fell to their deaths, or had been murdered remains lost to the long-forgotten histories of the ravine.

The antechamber of the Crystal Cave is wide and cavernous with a winding walkway carved out of the stone itself and smoothed over with glacial elegance. The pathway ascending upwards to the top of the cave where a resilient sheet of ancient stone weathers against the raging winds from Ilum’s winter skies. At the base of the walkway is a platform of old stone used for meditation in times past.

Leaving the main antechamber leads to other tunnels carved and abandoned by miners and treasure hunters. Glinting like candlelight against the unforgiving darkness of the deep and untrodden cave, translucent clusters of kyber crystals crystals reflect the light. Untouched for decades, this place was once a common destination for Jedi Padawans seeking to build their first lightsabers. The sides of the cavern stretch vertically, terminating in a vaulted arch that was carved with embellishments some time ago. On each side of the walls, various ports and alcoves distinguish in the light. Some are known to be rivers of purified water, as displayed by the translucent sheets of ice glistening along the alcove walls.

"Soooo," drawled a voice, clearly bored. "I heard you were like...WITH your brother. Couldn't get anyone else? Must be nice to have family willing to jump on that grenade."

Satsi Tameike stopped in her tracks, turned around, and said, "One more word about me or him and I will feed you your own scalp."

The Odanite man just threw up his hands and replied, "Sensitive, much?"

"We can talk all about your life instead. Maybe about those scars of yours. Pretty specific, you know."

The hybrid Sephi's expression closed down entirely, his swaggering body gone stiff.

"No," the man growled, folding his arms over his chest defensively.

"Aww, no? But here you've heard so much about me."

"I'm new. Nothing else to say. And you're," he made a smile that wasn't one and visibly drew back some of his devil-could-care, snarky demeanor, "let's say a topic of conversation."

"Sure," snorted the woman. "You tell yourself whatever you want, kid. Just know that all the stuff they say about me being a psychotic, violent bitch that likes to stab somebody because the wind changed?" She made her own smile, a slow spreading of her mouth until all her teeth were exposed. "It's underplayed."

Jael didn't look as impressed with her threat as she'd have liked, which was disappointing, but he did at least shut the hell up for a couple minutes while they resumed moving.

Ilum's caves were frozen, precarious, and dark. Whatever rumored magic they'd once held was long gone. She'd heard Atty talk about these caves before,about how they sang. The crystals, singing, like a big holy chorus. Thrumming with life and all that sithspit.

Satsi didn't hear anything but the the creak of airflow and the knocking of her own teeth. It was a simple job. Go raid Illum and gather kyber crystals for the future apprentices of Arcona and Odan-Urr. She would've happily run the errand alone, but normies like her couldn't find the crystals.

Despite her company, it was good to walk in the freezing dim. For the cold to bludgeon her breathless, to remind her that she had a body and not just an unhappy mind. The static and screaming of her thoughts receded, and her shoulders unclenched.

They proceeded to immediately reclench when Jael goddamn Chi'ra opened his mouth again, whining, "Can't you go any faster? I'm frakking freezing here."

"I'm not the one who's supposed to be finding us some frakking rocks," Satsi growled back over her shoulder. The man had refused to take point, citing it as a good job for her, being more experienced and all. The tone he used around the word made the double meaning obvious.

Stomping on, Satsi lifted her humming blade and squinted as they came to a split. Using a lightsaber to see was obnoxious, but they had no glowrod.

"Which way?" the Human asked, and her assigned partner flapped a hand.

"I don't know, that way?" He pointed at the junction to their right that collapsed down into a slope, leaving a crawl space. "This would be so much easier if my droid was here."

They'd left their machines back on the ship, too concerned about any of circuitry freezing. Especially since Jael had made it clear he didn't intend to do any maintenance unless it would literally kill him otherwise.

"Hope you and Sammy are having a better day than I am, kyodai," she muttered to herself, thinking of her twin.

"Who's what?"

"Sammy and kyodai," she repeated, enunciating. Her head throbbed. She lowered her saber. "My kid and my brother."

"Whoa, someone let you have crotchspawn? Eesh."

"She's not spawn. And yeah, well, you never met Atyiru, but she was pretty stupid."

They took the collapsed path and made it through the tight space by crawling on their stomachs over icy stone that all but sliced them to ribbons. Satsi felt the sharp points through her armor, heard Jael hissing in pain.

The tunnel lead into a cavernous chamber, frosted in glittering white. A few pointy-looking clumps seemed to sparkle extra. The crystals they'd come for?

"Finally," Satsi declared as the Odanite mercenary sat on a rock and panted, poking at the new holes in his shirt and pinkish skin.

A few minutes went by as he reclined. Satsi stood and stretched, afraid of the cold settling into her bones. Jael spoke up.

"So. Your kid. Sammy?"

"What about her?"

"Sammy, like a sandwich?"

"Why the frak would I name my daughter 'Sandwich?'"

"... because she's in-bread?"

He looked proud of himself, expression smug and amused. That expression promptly became acquainted with her fist.

Her bare knuckles made a satisfying crack under her hands, heady and erotic. Jael's crooked nose went completely sideways, flattened and spreading across his cheek in a spray of muscusoal red. His eyes rolled back for the second that he reeled, falling off his perch.

Satsi grabbed him by the collar and hauled him upright so they could see face to face.

"You know I been real nice, 'cause I made a promise 'bout not hurting Turel's people no matter how much they need a good beating, like Ta'var. He's been through a lot recently, just got his ass home from being tortured by the Collective, so I figured I'd try really hard for him this time. Shame." Her voice went so soft some would have mistaken it for gentle. "I'm going to have to break that promise to him along with all your bones."

"Fr...ak...yo…" the man spat with a glob of scarlet saliva. Unexpectedly, he moved his hands swiftly, open-palmed fingertips slamming into the nerve of her wrist and breaking her old. He rolled away quickly, staggering to his feet, shaking his head.

"Oooh, gonna fight? Good." Not killing him was harder than not. But not killing him would make the fight last longer, and she wanted it to last as long as her broken rage, to go on for days. "Bring it, knife-ear."

As the Sephi-Kiffar narrowed his gaze and let out a small growl at the word of knife-ear, he began to work in his mind the calculative movements he would have to make. Working thoughts played with the idea of searching her brain for potential resources as he did not have his droid with him to assist in this conflict. His expression gave off his attempt to plan and it was not long before he became aware he had given himself away as his inner reflection turned outwards to consider the environment.

“Too late,” the choppy fiery red haired woman yelled as she charged forward with the realization her opponent would not attack first. The small statured human pressed her right foot down with her next step as hard as she could when she believed she was close enough and reached out with her hands to grip them around Jael’s head with enough speed that he could hardly react. She allowed the adrenaline of hatred to flow through her body and bent her other leg at the knee with enough strength that the Sephi would feel the impact of bone, metal, and muscle in his own bones as she brought his head down upon the joint.

With the sudden impact and confusing speed of what happened, the Sephi-Kiffar could simply not react let alone utter another smart comment about the Arconan. Jael’s body went upwards and back roughly a foot away, hitting a section of small kyber crystals which quickly found their way into his thick jacket. His eyes rolled backwards in his head, and his body began to feel numb and limp with the double blows to his head already in such a short amount of time

Regardless of how unconcious her opponent was at this time, Satsi could still feel the boiling rage of his comments spreading in her mind like wildfire. She had promised Turel she would not kill him and possibly about not hurting his people either, but her mind was filled with enragement regarding his degrading and antagonistic comments. Sending a mere moment in an internal struggle about how she might have to explain this him if she were to finish off Jael, Satsi allowed the adrenaline to slightly diminished with a deep breath. She could envision Turel’s sorrowful expression if she were to return without him. With a long sigh and a glare in his direction, the Arconan took hard and heavy steps upwards to the Odanite’s limp body as he began to stir with only an audible release of a groan.

“Listen you,” her voice was harsh, weighted, and unshaken as she reached down and yanked up Jael’s upper torso with a pull of his jacket collar, who frowned and groaned without opening his eyes. “If you continue to insult my brother or my child, I will fraking kill you here and now without a second thought. You would not even be able to let Turel sway me from completely ruining your body past recognition.” The Arconan dropped his body back upon the kyber crystals, which he let out another groan when he hit the ground again. She studied him for a few minutes to assure he would not rise again or even speak as he continued to lay where she dropped him.

“Pathetic,” She muttered and placed her attention on a formation of kyber crystals a few feet away. Once close enough, she knelt down into the dirt around the crystals and began to survey the formations around her. While she did this, Satsi thought it best to leave her “companion’s” body upon the slightly larger collection of crystals, giving herself now a moment of quiet reprieve from his incessant talking. However, her ears burned and twitched with the realization the Odanite had lifted his head with his eyes fixated upon her and he began to speak again. Jael was only able to speak softly due to the sheer amounts of pain he experienced, but Satsi could hear the whispering from him.

“What are you saying, knife-ear?” The Arconan spat out as she turned to stare him down.

“I said,” Jael coughed as he moved to sit up in obvious amounts of pain as he placed a hand to his face and spit sanguineous body fluid from the side of his mouth. “You’re little ruz’kianz...” Jael paused as he took to breathing slowly through his nose. His expression became pained as he did this and he opted to breath through his mouth now with only lessened amounts of pain as he spat blood again. As he tried to focus upon the Arconan, the Odanite’s brain momentarily envisioned his previous lover, Kascal, laid out in the pool of his own blood just to the side of him between the only two physical beings in this cave. He did not know if it had been the combination of the nearly jaw shattering straight knee and nose-shattering punch to the face with his own darkened thoughts swirling in a constant fight out of the vacuum of depression and PTSD, but his mind began to play their own tricks as the sudden trigger of hallucinating Kascal’s body next to him sent a sensation of utter panic, terror, and dread. Wide eyes as he stared the vision down and his breathing began to shallow with a slightly increasing rate of breaths. He wanted to scream before the vision became too much to endure if he was even allowed to process the vision that far before Satsi’s punishment continued.

Without hesitation, Satsi inferred he meant to insult Turel and stood from her position, stomped the few feet to the frozen Jael and wrapped her left hand into the collar of his shirt. She lifted him up, swearing repeatedly as she punched his face with very little room for error. With each retraction of her fist, the hitting force of her fist increased as she felt the unbridled rage finally boil over completely.

It was the erotic crunch of a caving-in eye socket that finally reached her through the haze of red anger and black memory.

Frak.

Frak, frak, frak.

Satsi dropped the hybrid who slumped limply to the ice, face half-caved in. Her hand was busted, knuckles popped and a finger broken at least, she could feel it, and yet most of that blood wasn't hers. She could feel that too, tacky on her skin where it had instantly dried from heart-hot to cold. It was sprayed all over her. She was standing in a little pool of it. She was—

Frak.

The Human ducked forward and felt for a pulse, crying out when she did so with her injured hand. Retracting that one tight to her chest, she fumbled with the other at the Sephi's rapidly cooling neck and detected nothing, not a flutter.

FRAK!

No, no, this couldn't happen. She couldn't go back to Turel and look him in the eyes and tell him — again — that his people were dead because of her. Not when this one didn't deserve it and his death hadn't bought or bargained her anything. Not for nothing. She couldn't smile and hold him like that, couldn't play with his daughter like that, couldn't go home to her own daughter like that. Not when it was for no reason, not when she hadn't even meant it.

Something, she had to do something.

Snarling, the Arconan reached for the communicator on Jael's belt and buzzed back to the ship.

"Beep?" chimed a tone after a crackle of static.

"Droids," Satsi barked. "Both of you come to this transmitting location immediately, and bring medical supplies. We need help!"

PB's robotic voice came then, "Yes, Mistress. I shall also send for reinforcements."

"Good boy," she sighed, dropping the device then and turning her attention to her armor. She dug her shaking, numb fingertips into the plates and pried it up, stripping away the bulkiest portion of the suit on her arm, having been augmented. When a small casing was uncovered, she exclaimed in relief, scrabbling to work it free without breaking open the vial nestled inside.

"Please work," she hissed, turning back to the Odanite and jamming the adrenal stim injector into his chest about over his heart.

For a breath, everything was still and silent. Then, Jael's blue eyes jerked open and his chest heaved.

And then she was flying.

---

He was in pain. Everything was bright and all his nerves were on fire and could smell the blood. He was on the ground and his lover was broken beside him and his mother's men were about to kill Kascal—

No, Jael thought. No, not this time, NO!

Terror and pain were all he had, but pain gave way to power, and he seized that power with both hands and pushed.

The looming figures blasted away as if swatted by a god's hand. He heard the crumple of their bodies and knew he'd done it. He'd saved them. He reached for his lover, blinked his eyes—

It was the cave, not his mother's trap. Kascal wasn't there. Just him and Satsi, who he'd tried to tease, reaching out only to find rejection. She hadn't laughed. She'd...she'd hit him. And he...

The thoughts trickled, ice-melt slow, through his throbbing head. He could barely see, think, or sit up straight. Everything was woozy and dark. But as he squinted about, he realized clearly what had happened.

Satsi was across the way from him, spasming and seizing as she tried to climb off of a cropping of kyber crystals that she'd been impaled on with incredible force. Sparks danced from the ruined cybernetics in her back. She stumbled, twitched, fell at an angle that left her foot behind her head, cursing and stuttering all the while.

"G…'elp...hel...me...fra…" she tried, and he thought she bit her tongue through when she started seizing again. Her...spine, it was damaged, and...

He'd done that to her.

Fear flooded him.

Forget rejection, she was going to kill him— she'd been about to kill him, and if he somehow lived then he'd be stuck looking over his shoulder forever, he knew it. She'd hold a grudge. And what if she told Turel what had happened, or Alethia, or anyone else? She was way more established then he was, why wouldn't they take her word and punish him? They'd reject him too. He'd lose everything, again. The fear clogged his throat, turmoil and agony making his stomach clench. His secret was out and she knew and she'd use it, they always used it, they used everything, they used him, they'd hurt him, and he didn't want it, he didn't want it, he didn't want it.

And when he looked at her then, however many minutes later as she tried to sit up, he threw all of his pain, all of his fear, every last scrap and dredge in his battered, shivering body into the Force and directed it at her with the last shred of his will, with the desperate, begging sob,

"FORGET!"

The woman struggling on the stone across from him stilled. Her face twisted in confusion, then went curiously blank as her eyes rolled back and her lashes fluttered.

It wasn't a sleep command or simple trick, but it had to work.

He tried to breathe and waited. It was a second, or forever. Eventually the sound of clanking footsteps reached his swiveling ears, and it seemed to rouse Satsi too. She blinked, tried to move, failed. Her hazy gaze found him.

"Wha...hap-ha—" she mumbled but wasn't able to make her jaw work fully.

"Don't try to move, your spine's frakked. There...was a collapse. But our droids are here." His BB rolled into sight, hers following. "We'll be okay, Satsi."

She blinked again. Then said, "Okay."

Jael hissed in a breath, feeling his panic lift.

And then he didn't feel anything else, allowing himself to pass out.

Punch after punch, Satsi did not stop as she could feel the anger within her rolling and flickering in the fiery pit of her ‘soul’. She had enough of this tool using his mouth to insult those she held highly and one should just put a fork in her because she was beyond well-done. Her muscles tensed and released as she sent her fist into his face repeatedly, using all the strength she could to inflict pain and damage. After each hit, blood began to gush from the man’s nose which spilled down his sinuses into his mouth of which he was not doing much to keep his throat protect. The sounds of gurgling began to pierce through the silence of the cave as he attempted to move his hands up pull Satsi’s clenched left fist away from his shirt.

The Arconan was becoming exhausted, but gave no mind to Jael’s motion of his hand as she stopped only for a moment to watch him lift it and place it upon her wrist. She narrowed her gaze to see if he could or would do anything to get out of this beat down, and subsequently frowned as she watched his hand drop limp.

“Nothing smart to say now?” Satsi muttered as she continued the sudden pause of her barrage.

Jael attempted to speak yet only sounds of choking and gasps for air were made as the blood trapped in his mouth made its way down his throat. His vision was blackening as his consciousness was fading and the damage to his face was impeding his ability to visualize his surroundings. However within his mind, he was still consumed with the vision of his fallen mate, remembering the events unfolding in his delusionary state of thought.

Tears began to whelp within his eyes through the spats of blood and bruising tissue while the Sephi-Kiffar felt his panic turn into anger. His mind was playing a mirage of different ideas as he envisioned Satsi as the man who took his dreams and aspirations away. Avenging the fallen mate’s death was the one truth Jael held now as his anger boiled into hatred and with this new emotion came the desire to kill.

With a sudden growl as his voice bellowed from his throat in a purely rage filled scream, Jael commanded his consciousness alert and pressed his will upon Satsi’s body to drive her away as she reeled back to punch him again. Once the Arconan was far enough away, Jael released his will upon the Force and the Odanite fell back to the floor almost immediately. He groaned in pain as he slowly he rose to his feet, shaken by the beatings and the confusing state of his thoughts. His anger had clouded his judgment with vengeance as he still remained blind to his surroundings.

“I will kill you,” his voice croaked out in a low tone as the Odanite began to make his way towards Satsi who was shaking off the push back and the exhaustion from beating Jael’s face in.

“What’s that? I can’t hear you,” the redhead spat out in disgust.

The Sephi-Kiffar growled and started charging haphazardly with enough disorientation that he nearly stumbled before correcting his footing. Jael released his saber from his side and with the blade ignited, jumped forward to attack the redhead. His attacks were erratic and unorganized as he felt the stinging sensation of pain in his face and the dizzy feeling of his head spinning in disorientation.

“Why did you kill him?!” The man yelled as he attacked more wildly and the Arconan moved around his motions with now a questioning thought as to why this man would ask such a thing.

“Kill who?” She screamed back as she moved away from a thrust of his blade towards her mid-section. Her anger was turning into confusion as she had not realized until now that the Odanite was not entirely with his current environment or situation.

Jael continued to swing his saber wildly up until the moment Satsi punched his side, causing him to drop his saber and recoil in pain. His senses were becoming increasingly vexed as he continued to fight against the Arconan without stopping. All he could think about was the pain of losing Kascal again in his mind and Satsi’s appearance mirrored the one who took his mate away. With another quick set of punches to his face from the woman, Jael missed his step away from Satsi and fell to his backside with a painful thud.

Once he realized he was on the ground, Jael’s face turned a deeper red around his eyes as tears began to break through the slight swelling. He held his screams in until he could not take it anymore, yelling out his mate’s name and pleading with the Force to just let him have one more moment with him. Satsi blinked as she realized Jael was hurting from whatever he saw in the confusion and whatever anger she had left for him subsided to empathy. She let out a sigh as she walked closer to the man still lying upon the ground, who whimpered softly.

“Darlin’…” the Arconan spoke softly as she sat down beside the man. Jael quickly twitched away with the touch of her hand upon his arm, partially scared and confused still.

“What do you want?” The Odanite muttered.

Satsi studied the Odanite as she laid her hand upon his arm. As Jael’s vision cleared of whatever emotional break down he faced before, he realized he had been attacking her instead of the vision. He felt sorry and he was sure now with the bewildered look upon his face that she realized it too. The redhead just softly smiled and tapped her hand upon his arm before moving to stand again.

“Let’s go get the crystals and then we can talk about this later,” she spoke softly as she reflected inwards to her own trauma.