I Know Something About Pain You Don't

She had been putting this off long enough, and after the insanity of the past few weeks, the more frequent lapses in her memory, and especially the news she'd gotten from home this morning Tahiri knew there was no way she could justify it any longer. She'd probably be needed, and soon, but more importantly she was sick of being a victim of someone inside her own head. To tell the truth she was annoyed with herself for putting it off this long . . . or maybe Riina was annoyed.

The fact that she couldn't tell only added to the argument that there was really no other choice. She felt bad about the timing -- Jaina, Karla, and Raven had not exactly had an easy time of it the last few days, but Karla and Raven had both been insistent, and Tahiri knew Jaina better than to think a minor injury would stop her. And there wasn't even a question of whether Ben wanted to be involved. (She'd asked anyway.)

Tahiri paused with her hand on the door and glanced back at the others. ( Okay, so . . . here we go. )

[OOC: With much love for the preplay to momslilassassin, glacial_witch, trickster_twin, and trigons_child. Let's call this one NFB, 'kay? Heavily, heavily adapted from the godawful Force Heretic III: Reunion by Sean Williams and Shane Dix, now with 99% less slashiness. OOC okay, and huzzah, dangling plot point dealt with! (Finally. I suck.)]

It was raining syrup outside. Well, that pretty much answered the question of whether Tahiri was going anywhere today . . . or it was a convenient excuse, anyway.

She expected she'd go stir-crazy holed up in her room after a while, but even if she was feeling more stable today, Wednesday night's incident with Raven and Karla in the salle wasn't something she could just brush off. Which could have had something to do with the fact that in between the time she remembered getting agitated by Raven's offers to help her and seeing Raven and Karla recovering from a telekinetic blast that she'd apparently thrown, everything was a blur.

That was new. And not at all welcome.

Yeah. Tahiri wasn't going anywhere today.

[OOC: Which does not mean you can't bother her, so the post is open even if the door is closed and the wee Jedi is not in the best of moods. She'd been in a good mood too long, dammit. I don't think canon allows that. ETA: Aaaaaaaand let's say the details of the conversations with Ben and Karla are NFB, please? Yay crazy head!alien?]

She'd spent the night out on the beach with Ben, but a vague unsettling feeling had drawn Tahiri back to the cabins and the comlink she'd left in her alcove there -- it wasn't that she was in the habit of leaving it behind, but she hadn't wanted the potential interruption. (Not of that. Because there was no that. Just a chance to get some uninterrupted sleep, okay?)

There was, in fact, a message waiting for her when she got there, and as soon as she played it the unsettling feeling coalesced into something very much not vague any more. Jaina -- her Jaina at home -- never sounded like this, and yet she was practically exuberant. And it wasn't that Tahiri could blame her for being happy that her twin brother was alive after all.

She'd half expected it, really, and it saved her the guilt of hoping it wasn't going to happen, but at the same time it brought certain unwanted potential futures a little closer than she'd like for comfort. Having just met someone who looked exactly like Jacen, even if George sounded and acted nothing like him, didn't do much to help either. The timing was what really sucked void, though. Tahiri couldn't have stopped being aware of the time that had passed since Anakin's death if she tried, even if she wanted to, and by her count (including the time that had passed on her mission home in spring) it had been a year since Myrkr.

So it . . . wasn't unfair, exactly; she knew that. It was just the fact that she'd gotten news of one of Jaina's brothers being alive again had come now. When it marked a year since Anakin died, and she had to face up -- again -- to the realization that he wasn't coming back.

After getting the message, Tahiri had wandered away from the campsite into the preserve and now found herself staring at a cluster of grotesque-looking angel statues. She didn't know the story of what they were or how they had gotten there, but she got the sense that they were frozen in time, somehow. Stuck in a moment they couldn't get out of.

She hadn't had that dream again last night, but she'd had it often enough in the past few weeks. Had, to some extent, been stuck in that moment for the past year. Looking at the statues now, she wished she couldn't say she knew the feeling.

[OOC: Yeah, I'm a mean, horrible person. I know. I AM SO SORRY. And I swear she will get over this or I'm going to headdesk myself unconscious. Establishy, but open, why not? ETA: Details of convo with Karla NFB, whee.]

As decidedly less than thrilled Tahiri had been about the fact that someone had been able to pick up on her little mental friend so easily, Karla had offered her help. Riina had been pretty quiet lately -- but Tahiri didn't feel like counting on that to last. Although she wasn't holding out too much hope yet that there was actually a chance the girl she'd only just met a few days ago could do something about this problem, it definitely couldn't hurt to find out.

So with Hurley out for a few hours she'd handwavily given Karla a call, then took a seat on her bed to try and meditate for a little while. Talking about that particular experience was always unnerving, and just thinking about it now already had her on edge. Ergo, meditating. Or trying, anyway.

[OOC: Post is for peoples what know who they are, up whoa early for great SP justice and roomie modded with permission. Note to self, in case you forget because you are a flake, details of convo with Karla NFB like whoa, please. Notice for triggeriness: the thread with Karla will concern not-exactly-vague memories of torture, so consider that a heads-up.]