(Digging around in the Mines Monday prompt archive ... because doing one within the week that the prompt is posted is absolutely a lost cause with me.)
“Did Dooku beat you up in the Salles again?”
Normally, when Jocasta Nu meditated to settle herself before composing a mission analysis, she very much resented anyone barging in and laying their head in her lap. Especially when she had left her Archives to find the loveliest and most secluded little tea pavilion in the whole of the Temple Gardens to do it in.
But for Sifo-Dyas, she could make an exception.
“He poached Eeth Koth’s mission right out from under his nose.”
“His own boots were barely dry.”
From the mud, and the blood, in that snowy box canyon on Galidraan. Jocasta’s hand strayed to the darkened datapad on the table beside her cup. “You’d think he would have learned something after Artarox.”
Sifo-Dyas made a small, bitter noise. "He says he's going to get to the bottom of who was behind it if it kills him."
Jocasta’s mind was already leaping ahead. “Where’s Komari,” she asked sharply.
“The Halls?!” Dooku’s report had noted that the girl's own hand had slain twenty of the Mandalorians, but had mentioned nothing of her self being injured in the battle.
“She’s not happy about it. But Dooku ordered her to stay, so she’s obeyed.”
Sifo-Dyas sighed, and Jocasta caught from him the echo of the turmoil, the horror, and most of all the delayed terror that Dooku had felt in his Padawan, on the flight back to the Temple.
And the eleven Jedi corpses gathered, and wrapped, and lain, in the ship’s hold.
Jocasta put her hand on Sifo-Dyas’ head, where it lay on her thigh. His long hair was showing stray strands of white in all its darkness. Fine lines showed too, on the lovely skin of his face, where once upon a time he used to laugh.
We are none of us young any more, she thought. But the struggles of power and greed — on worlds, and between worlds, the afflictions they wrought — never seemed to end. We are too few. Too few.
Sifo-Dyas shifted onto his back, staring up from her lap at the glitched Coruscant rain pelting the roof glass far above the tiny pavilion, and the Thousand Fountains that enclosed it. Jocasta wondered what he saw, but held herself back. Instead, she touched the tea pot. Still warm. Yes. Warm enough.
She poured a cup beside her own; watched the waning steam of it curl delicately upward. At each temperature, the tea’s fragrance changed a little. Right now it had become richer, subtler. The flavor would still be bitter, but the scent lay over it like a deep-piled blanket, creating notes of browned honey. She dipped one finger into the cup and brushed the heavy drop against her friend’s lips.
Bitter settles the heart.
She repeated the gesture again, then pressed the third drop between his brows. Leave him alone, she thought. Let him rest.
No one knew where Lene was, or even if she still lived. It was almost five years since she’d left — “For the Unknown Regions,” she had said. Almost a quip.
And now, yet again, Dooku had run away, to battle his demons in the maelstrom of a mission he had no business taking on. Not this one. Not in this moment.
It’s unforgivable, Jocasta thought, deserting everyone like this. Gently, she stroked Sifo-Dyas’ hair, tucking it behind his ear. We are losing him.
Sifo-Dyas caught her hand in his. “Thank you, Jo.” By which he meant, ‘You’re the last one left beside me.’
Surely, it would not come to that. Dooku would return. He always did. And they both would give him the talking-to he so sorely needed.
But she could understand how Sifo-Dyas felt. They were too few. Too few.
Hat tip for the mission to Artarox in @charmwasjess' Sitting in the Dark.
