Sky Walking
Chapter One
She remembered desperately wanting to stand, desperately wanting to move, but she could not.
Drip.
She tried to open her eyes but they seemed to have betrayed her just as her legs had done.
Drip.
She could hear voices, urgent, demanding, frantic, but she could not respond.
Drip.
I am dying, she thought.
Drip.
That is the sound of my blood.
Drip.
It is the sound of my final victory.
Silence.
"Now you listen to me, you stupid bitch! Like fuck I'm letting you die before I get what I want!"
Vywa Blacksky whimpered as Mirax roughly bound her wound with strips of cloth torn from her pant leg. Leia winced in sympathy despite her distaste for the Senator and began, "Mirax, maybe you shouldn't—"
"Shut up, Leia," Mirax snarled, her checks still hot with tears of frustration. If only she'd gotten there a little earlier, if only Cyan hadn't—"Like she deserve our tender lovin' care. Fuck! Fuck!"
"Mirax, calm down!" Leia admonished, grabbing her wrist when Mirax tugged particularly hard on the bandage, electing a moan from Blacksky. "A med-vac is on its way! Keep this up, and you'll cause more bleeding."
Mirax wrenched her wrist out of Leia's grip but stopped, struggling to control her rising panic. "She can't die. If she dies than Corran dies. She can't die!"
"She won't," Leia said more firmly than she actually believed. "Look, you woke her up. The fact that she's conscious after sustaining those injuries is a good sign. But you've got to calm down. Are you ok to take care of her?"
"Yeah…yeah, I think I'll be ok now," Mirax muttered, continuing her administrations in a decidedly less violent manner.
Leia briefly rubbed her shoulder before walking towards the far edge of the roof top. The ground on the way there was stained with black blood and she avoided the clear puddles that were still sizzling their way through the ferocrete. She was just about to look over the edge to see if there were still any signs of Olive and Cyan when a green paw appeared and gripped the edge just where Leia would have stepped. As Olive clambered over the edge, Leia realized the smaller dragon was carrying an apparently comatose Cyan.
"Olive! Oh, god, is Cyan all right?" Leia asked, helping the green dragon lower Cyan's body to the rooftop. She glanced at Olive and then paused, feeling that there was something different about the dragon. "Are you all right?"
Olive glanced at Leia and then smiled wearily and shrugged, "Cut up, no worse than what I gave. Neither of us will be flying for a while, I think."
"Are you sure?" Leia insisted, hovering between the two dragons and wondering who she should look over first. She finally decided on Cyan but spoke to Olive over her shoulder. "It's just that something seems different about you. Is your voice higher?"
"Eh—huh?" Olive stuttered.
Before Leia could respond the air was filled with the sound of repulsorlift coils supporting the approaching med-vac as it made its way to the roof. Soon there was no time for Leia and Olive to speak at all as they rushed Blacksky and Cyan to the hospital.
Upon arriving at the medical centre, Olive gladly took a moment to collect herself and stood back from all of the activity. She smiled, shaking her head—yes, her head. She wondered how she was going to explain this to everyone else, and how they would take what happened between her and Cyan. That thought removed the smile from her lips. Cyan had lost consciousness shortly after they…Olive's train of thought halted. What did they do? She could precisely say they made love, but it wasn't as crude as a simple mating either. She sighed, suddenly feeling very tired. Whatever it was she guessed she should wait until Cyan woke up before she discussed it with anyone else.
"Olive?" The green dragon turned to the door and brightened when she saw Corran being led in by a nurse. "Are you there?"
"Corn!" Olive cried, taking one hurried leapt towards him and then instantly regretting in. "Ow! Oh, shit, give me a second, I'm coming!"
Corran laughed, stretching out his hand so that Olive could nudge it with her snout. "Don't hurt yourself, I'm not going anywhere. Have you seen my wife?"
"She's hovering near the operation room where they're treating Blacksky. I think she's scaring the staff," Olive said sheepishly, realizing she should have stayed near to give Mirax comfort.
"She's fine for now," Corran said as Olive took the place of the nurse. "Come sit with me."
"Ok," Olive said, leading Corran to some chairs in the waiting room. "Have you seen Leia?"
"Leia went back to court. She wants to convince them to push the case forward since in New Republic law you can't convict someone once their dead. If Blacksky dies before the verdict is delivered it will be up to her husband what happens to her body."
"I never thought of that. I hope Leia succeeds," Olive said thoughtfully.
"I'm not worried, Nawara is as ruthless in the courtroom as he is in an X-Wing. I am, however, worried about you," Corran added, his eyes half lidded as he frowned. "Tell me what happened."
"Oh, I thought you knew. Blacksky ran into this building when I was chasing her—"
"No," Corran held up his hand and shook his head. "I want to know what happened to you and Cyan after you fell off the roof. Leia said your sense in the Force felt very odd."
"Well, I was wounded, Corn! Maybe I just lost a lot of blood and didn't realize how woozy I was—" Olive began, finding it strangely difficult to meet Corran's sightless gaze.
"Olive, you don't have to make excuses. It's ok," Corran said reassuringly.
"It is?" Olive asked, wondering how Corran had figured it out. "I mean, maybe I should have seen it coming—"
"How could you?" Corran asked, patting Olive gingerly on the shoulder. "None of the rest of us realized Cyan was this unwell. Certainly none of us expected him to be out of it enough to try and kill Blacksky. You did what you had to do—"
"IhadsexwithCyanandI'magirl!" Olive suddenly blurted.
"…What?"
"I had sex with Cyan and I'm a girl," Olive repeated more slowly. "I didn't plan this or anything. We were fighting and Cyan had this crazy fever and I could feel it and he was crazy and then we hit the ground and then suddenly—BOOM—we're having sex and it was good but weird 'cause I felt like we were thinking the same and I don't know if he's even going to remember 'cause when we finished he passed out and I feel kinda weird now."
Corran waited a second to absorb Olive's words. "Um…wow, that's … expected. Are you ok?"
"I don't know!" Olive moaned.
"I mean, did he hurt you—do you need a doctor to look?" Corran said gently.
"No," Olive replied, rubbing her stomach. "I just feel kinda wiggly in side, but it doesn't really hurt anymore. I don't think Cyan meant to be rough or anything…I don't think he meant to do this at all. He always seemed to dislike me."
Corran smiled gently. "Like grade-school kids on a playground you two were. Are you all right with this? That it was Cyan?"
"Yeah, I guess. I don't know what he's going to think when he wakes up, though," Olive replied glumly.
"I don't think he'd blame your or anything silly like that," Corran assured her. "If anything, he'll feel guilty. He might need you to comfort him…How out of his mind do you think he was?"
"Um, a lot. Like, murderous rampage a lot. But it's burned out of him now, I think," Olive said thoughtfully. Then she added hesitantly, "I think it was because Luke got worse."
"So, they had the same thing? Something they picked up on Baf?"
"No, it's not the same….just different sides. I don't really understand it myself, but maybe Cyan does now," Olive said.
"I hope so," Corran remarked, "I don't want the Force back at that cost."
"Well, you're getting it whether you want them or not," Leia declared as she and Nawara entered the waiting room. "Blacksky's been convicted."
Nawara glanced around and then brightened as Mirax walked in, her face impassive. "Did you hear? Blacksky's—"
"I heard in the hall," Mirax said. "So, you'd better get that Chisgon doctor here quick to do the switch—Blacksky's in a coma and not expected to last the night."
I n t o t h e N i g h t
Chapter Two
Kam crept slowly through the thick jungle that seemed more than just alive. It whispered words with the wind and tugged urgently on his robes with its branches and brambles. He knew that if he stopped for a second he could make out what the words were but the forest pushed him onward along with the rest of the Jedi that had landed on Baf in search of Luke, Han and Mara. The branches were pulling so urgently that soon the small group found themselves running just to keep up.
Suddenly, they found themselves in a clearing, momentarily bewildered by the absence of foliage. Kam glanced back at the trees but they now hung silent and sullen, as if waiting impatiently for the humans to figure it out. Kam turned around and inspected the clearing, trying not to think about when they would have to return to the jungle.
"Master!" Jenab Roheb exclaimed softly, touching Kam's arm to get his attention. "I can see two people huddled in the grass on the other side. Maybe a droid too."
Kam nodded and motioned the others to follow him as he moved his hand to his lightsaber. "Be cautious, but avoid a fight if at all possible. They may be able to give us information."
They moved slowly through the tall grass, the Jedi, seven in all, barely making a sound against the moist earth. As they approached Kam realized he could hear harsh weeping cutting through the harsh air. Soon they were close enough to make out the colours of the two humans' clothing in the moonlight. Kam straightened and let his hand fall away from his weapon, sighing in resignation. "I think we've lost Luke again."
"It's like when she woke up after having the twins," Cilghal murmured to Han later after they had returned to Bairn of Hope. Mara lay on a hospital bed, curled into a ball as she stared sightlessly out the window. She ignored most attempts at communication, and when she did reply she did so with as few syllables as the Basic tongue would allow. Neither she nor Han had received any serious injuries. The tech crew were quite impressed that Artoo could still move with all of the weeds they'd found jammed in his treads, but beyond that the droid had survived relatively unscathed as well. At first Cilghal was only going to keep Mara for observation to make sure the head trauma hadn't done any lasting damage, and to see if there was a chance that her amnesia could resurface. After a few hours of observation, however, Cilghal found she didn't want Mara anywhere unobserved. "Certainly she is in no condition to retake command of Bairn. What should we do?"
"Go back to Courscant, I guess. Then get our hands on a Cragon doctor who can perform Corrans' surgery," Han replied, his expression unreadable.
"Han—" Cilghal began, frowning.
"I can't help her. No one can, not even Luke or he would have done so by now," Han said quietly and slowly. His brow knitted and Cilghal could sense his deep frustration. "It's the way she is. She'll help herself. If not, then it's not something that can be fixed and she'll find a way around it. Right now we need to focus on what can be done."
Cilghal nodded in understanding. Though she had a good relationship with Mara, she often found it difficult to get close to the hot-tempered human. Still, Mara's independent nature was as much apart of her as her survival skills, or her strong loyalty to those she trusted. Perhaps, Cilghal realized in a brief moment of insight, it was her need for independence that needed to be modified. "I understand. Will you be taking over command, then?"
"I don't know about that. Kam's doing a fine job. I would like to get back to Coruscant, and once we pick up Cyan he can take over. Karrde's men are on Baf looking for Luke and the Cragon seem to be sending more and more ships to patrol this system. There's no telling if Luke is even still on the planet—the Cragon hate it there so he's probably not. We can't stick around without starting a fight with all the extra ships flying around, which we'll eventually have to run from anyway. I'm going to suggest to Kam that we head back to Coruscant, pick up Cyan and Corran and anyone else there who wants to come, and then we start looking for that doctor."
Cyan woke slowly, the heat draining from him as if he had stepped gradually into a cool pool. The result was that he felt a strange equilibrium, the sort of which he had not felt since his final joining with Luke. He smiled dreamily, recognizing this sensation. Luke and Mara have been at it again. Must have been good—wait…they're not…so why do I feel…
"Oh, shavit," Cyan exclaimed, making short work of the rest of the journey to wakefulness. It took him a moment to realize that he was in the hospital, stretched out on a large bed with only a Two-One-Bee droid to keep him company. He stretched out desperately for Luke, remembering vaguely that he seemed to have been in the same level of distress as his dragon. Yet when Cyan tried to contact Luke he was met with nothing but a strange haze that reminded him of a cheesy flashback transition in a holodrama. He couldn't tell anything about Luke's current state or location.
He rumbled in worry, shifting on the bed and then regretting the movement as sharp pains lanced through his body. He gingerly arched his neck so that he could assess his injuries. His wings were a tattered mess; whoever had attended him had applied a regenerator to the cuts, bandaged them, and then immobilized his wings close to his body so that he couldn't tear anything open again. There were deeper wounds on his belly, chest and haunches with bacta-patches in place. He could tell from his brief movement that he had broken a few ribs and a leg.
He turned away from his body; his head drooping until his chin touched the bed as his crest practically flopped to the side. The memory of what had happened came back very vividly—this was the essential difference between what he had and what Luke had, that Cyan's fever was grounded in the present and Luke's someplace else. Unfortunately, this meant that he could remember what happened even better than Olive. He could remember his clear conviction that everyone there that got in the way would die, would not just die but be ripped apart completely, their viscera a monument to his desire. He could remember the acrid smell of blood as he and Olive clashed, writhed together, fell together, and then…
What had happened on the ground between he and Olive was not sex, rather, it was the climax. The sex started on the rooftop, it was just that no one had noticed. His eyelids drooped to match his crest and he became acutely aware of how his weight pressing his body against the bed made it difficult to breathe comfortably. He didn't even bother to move.
"Didn't you always pick on me for walking around with my crest half-lowered like I was ashamed for existing? You said that I should only lower it when I am talking to other people, to show that I am engaged in communicating with them, but to do it by myself meant that I talked to myself and felt bad about it." Cyan looked up and saw Olive standing in the doorway, her mouth open slightly in a dragon smile. "Hello."
"Olive," Cyan said, his voice coming out a little hoarse.
"Well, have you been having a bad conversation with yourself or did you make that up just for the sake of freaking out a young and impressionable dragon?" Olive asked, walking on all fours into the room. Though she tried to hide it, Cyan could still see the hint of a limp in her step—her wings were immobilized as well; still, excepting the acid wound on her side, she did not have as many bacta-patches as he did. "Because if the later is true, that's almost as mean as when you pushed me out of the shuttle, but if the former is true, than you'll have to let me in as to why talking to yourself was such a drag, since I can't see why it would be."
"Olive…" Cyan said again, and then found that that was all he could say.
"That's a funny answer. Maybe you heard a different question? Perhaps I can guess at what you talked to yourself about. It's about Luke, right? Since we don't know where he is and he has been sick, maybe you feel bad about leaving him alone. …hmm, or maybe it's because you are alone, and you don't know what to do? I know that now that I am alone, it's very confusing. But also," Olive added, settling beside Cyan's bed and letting her snout nudge closer to his, "I know that there are many ways to be alone, and just as many to be together."
"Olive!" Cyan exclaimed softly.
"Is that all you can say? Maybe you hit your head harder than I thought when we landed," Olive remarked. "Maybe you remember it differently than I do. I know I remembered it differently before than I do now. Before it was weird, and confusing and surprising and, yeah, it hurt a little. But I thought about it and now I think it's ok. I think I finally felt a little bit of what you feel like when you're with Luke, or what Corn is with Mirax. 'Cause so far as I can tell, that's weird, and confusing, and surprising and, yeah, sometimes I think it hurts a lot too. And I want to thank you because I've never felt that way before."
"Stop it!" Cyan exclaimed, louder this time, looking at Olive in shock. "How can you say that? It was violent, it was horrible! I raped you, Olive. Do you understand? That's bad, it doesn't mater how or why it happened, it's bad. And I did it to you because I lost control. Don't thank me for that! It shouldn't have been like that for your first time—"
"But isn't this your first time too?" Olive asked, looking unperturbed.
Cyan hitched for a second and then shook his head in frustration. "Well…yes, but it's different for me. When Luke's with Mara, I feel it with him, so I know what it's supposed to be like."
"It is it so different?" Olive asked, looking at him with a more familiar innocence. "When Luke and Mara were together, was it always like those stupid romantic scenes in holodramas? Was it always a perfect expression of love? If so, than why do people do it when they're not in love? Why do people do it sometimes even if they hate each other? Why did we do it?"
Cyan started to answer and then stopped abruptly, remembering the last time Luke and Mara had made love. No, he couldn't say that they made love, what had happened that night had confused him but not Luke. Luke seemed to recognize it and accept it as naturally as he had rejected the old rule that Jedi should not merry and have close relationships with friends and family. The answer was simple—all entities are base. "When people have sex because they love each other, it's amazing and it goes right through you. I can't describe it any other way. But on the other hand you're right, sex and making love aren't the same thing. Sometimes it goes through you for different reasons than love. Sometimes it goes through you just because you need something there. Sometimes you need it to go through you so you can confirm you are you because there is someone else connected to you. But then, if it goes through you far enough, you and that someone else aren't different anymore, which is scaring and nice at the same time, even if it's bad. Sometimes you need that reassurance more than anything else in the universe, even if it's fleeting and breaks down if you look at it too hard, 'cause otherwise we wouldn't make it through the day."
"Well," Olive said quietly, nudging her snout against his, "we've never had that before, so now we know that I am me and you are you and we're not different anymore. But, is it really that brief? I don't think I'm going to forget this anytime soon."
"But how long can you put up with me signifying you? I know I can't live with only you to signify me. That's stupid and meaningless," Cyan mumbled.
Olive snorted, "We're not really talking about sex anymore."
Cyan sighed and let his head rest on the bed. "I think they gave me too many pain-killers…or not enough."
"Then let's not figure out the answer to why people do stupid things when they're fucking around, 'cause that sounds like something that college students talk about when they're spiced off their asses during exams," Olive remarked.
Cyan looked up at Olive in astonishment, "I've never heard that language come out of your mouth ever."
"I'm an adult now, I can use naughty, naughty words," Olive declared. "Shit fuck hell bastard bitch damn."
Cyan blinked, completely taken off guard. "I think you're order's a little off."
"Well, I'm still working on it," Olive replied. "Mostly it was meant to make you laugh. I don't think I could get used to talking like that. But I could get used to this."
"Used to what?"
Olive let her mouth drop open again in a half-smile. "Having a real conversation with you. It's our first time for that too."
Cyan looked at her for a long moment before his expression finally softened. "I guess so. But then, this is also the first time I've seen you as an equal, and not just some draco-kit Corn took in. You're being awfully mature about this, Olive, more than I want to be right now."
"You say that like I thought this up on my own," Olive remarked. "To be honest, everyone else was a little afraid to come in here, 'cause we didn't know what state you'd be in when you woke up. As soon as Mirax pointed out that I'd already proven I can take you, I got volunteered."
"So you decided to combine two awkward conversations into one?"
Olive shrugged, "That's about it. Oh, I'm supposed to ask if you know were Luke is right now, and how he's doing."
Cyan shook his head, "I don't know where he is, I only thing I do know is that he's still sick."
"And what about you?" Olive asked. "Are you still sick?"
"My sickness was caused by not being able to name my fever. I can do that now," Cyan said, "but I won't be completely heeled until I can understand it."
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